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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5525642" data-attributes="member: 42582">To me, that is suggestive of "fighter as mascot/henchman". That's highly viable mode of play. But obviously it's not the only way that reasonable people might want to play.I'm a little sceptical of the handwave. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a failure of the system - but in a game in which other players might be spending character building resources on Intimidate, Leadership etc giving the player of the fighter free plot coupons seems to me to raise some issues (does the player of the rogue get them too, or does s/he have to spend skill points on Gather Information and the like?).One thing I like about Rolemaster, and which is one of the reasons I prefer it to 3E, is that there are enough character build resources available that players of fighters have more options in terms of building those social or similar skills into their PCs, and so need to rely a bit less on GM handwaving.But as I said, I'm only a little sceptical of the handwave. I'm not fully sceptical. Because RM still has a warrior/wizard balance issue, I've done similar handwaving, although at a slightly more abtract level of resolution - allowing the players of fighter PCs to have a stronger embedding of their PCs into the poltical/social situation than is the case for the wizard PCs (luckily I've rarely had players play priests, so the issue that they are both good casters and plausibly socially well-embedded hasn't normally come up).But I would never suggest that this is a strength of RM. It's a weakness that in the past I've put up with because the system offered other features that were worth the trade off. It's one of the reasons that I would probably now be quite happy never to GM RM again (despite retaining much residual fondness for the system).Turning to the example of the commoner and the fighter - that works for me, but again it is suggestive to me of fighter as mascot, or means-to-an-end, wheras the wizard remains the end-in-itself.I think that the issue is about the mode of contribution. When the fighter contributes by providing the muscle that the wizard needs, or the mopping up after the spells are cast, then there is an issue of tone/story - again, it starts to look like the fighter is a mascot/henchman rather than a protagonist of equal worth. (I think this is also why Ars Magica has been brough up more than once on this thread.)There are various ways to try and compensate for this - and in principle the inner life of the henchman can be just as rich, if not richer, than that of the master, and hence make very satisfying gaming material (My Life With Master is one sort of take on this!). But that's perhaps tending to stray a little away from typical D&D play.I think this is a good point which highlights the sort of elements of a game which can start to put a bit more mechanical flesh on the handwaving of the fighter's social situation and status. And thereby also reduce the sense that the fighter is just a henchman of the wizard. (Of course, it gives rise to other issues - particularly, that party play may become increasingly difficult when the PCs start to be defined in such different mechanical terms, and have a natural inclination to engage the gameworld in such different ways; and also, the whole gameworld-as-focus-for-mechanical-interaction-rather-than-background that was discussed upthread.)</blockquote>

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