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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 3748147" data-attributes="member: 20741">As for equipment loss, I think that move in the 3rd edition to protecting equipment from destruction far more vigorously than it had in first and second edition is probably the biggest "make it fun" rule change in the system. I think it's cheesey as hell, actually.I'm not a fan of characters dying either. It's not that I'm out to kill them.  It's that I'm out to make the possibility of that seem real, and the consequences permanent. Without it, death is a game state of no consequence in the AoW campaign I ran.With Rolemaster and its extremeley detailed crtical system, the threat level goes up - and it goes up a lot if you've never played it, believe me.But that does not meant I'm out to kill the characters. In fact,  I've gone too far in the past to ensure they are not dying, fudging madly behind a screen when the dice dictate death. And sometimes fudging to assist them when they are fighting, too. You see, in the past, I rolled all the criticals in the game behind a screen. For players and monsters alike.  This gave me a huge element of control to the story. But in hindsight, I think I took it too far.I tried not to be too obvious about it - but we played one RM campaign I ran for long enough that every player at the table knew I was doing it after a while. And that knowlege takes the edge off the threat in the game.  Worse, after a while it takes on a GM vs the Players feel when I DON'T fudge in their favor.So I think I'll do it differently this time.  I'm going to let all players roll their own criticals. And I'm going to roll criticals for the bad guys in the open.To counteract the very significant new threat this mode of play presents to the players in a system like Rolemaster, I'm going to modify a Rolemaster house rule of ours a little bit.The main house rule we used for Rolemaster in the past was a house rule called the "tactical cheat".  It works like this:Tactical CheatTwo times per gaming session, non-cumulative and non-transferrable, a player can roll the dice, look at the result, declare "cheat" and re-roll. He or she can only do this twice per session. If not used during the session, that Tac cheat is gone.In the past, I have not allowed the player to declare a cheat on my rolls. Only their own personal roll.The reality was that I was cheating myself on my own rolls in the players' favor from time to time. So I'll increase the cheats to the players to three per session - and allow them to also be able to declare a cheat on my rolls if the roll effects them - and only them - directly.That should provide a little bit of a comfort zone to the players in a no-raise dead campaign while still leaving things exciting, gritty and dangerous in battle.  After all, it's only a re-roll - it's not like the same result (or worse) can't be rolled again. It also means as the session wears on, that the threat level increases significantly in the game. You might be able to heal up - and rest to recover power points, but you don't ever recover your tac cheats until the next session begins.</blockquote>

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