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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 7852443" data-attributes="member: 87792">No = AW gives the DM more power and more flexible tools in many ways, and twists a whole lot less.If I may use MERP as a proxy for Rolemaster (on the grounds it's what I have to hand and it's Rolemaster Lite) there are seven degrees of success on any of the given skills MERP has seven degrees of success to Apocalypse World's three (Blunder/Absolute Failure/Failure/Partial Success/Near Success/Success/Absolute Success vs Hard Move/Partial Success or Success with Consequences/Success) - and in this regard they are similar although MERP has more options..But there are two serious differences between the tables. The first is that the rolls are all meaningful on a partial success (or near success or success with consequences) and you never get a result like "Partial success. You have figured out part of the lock/trap and have an intuitive feel for the rest. Do something else for 10 minutes and you can try again." What does that ten minutes mean in context? It could be a complete failure or it could be meaningless and it's possible to get endless chains of rolling (the Dungeon World partial success result for lockpicking and trap disarming is "On a 7–9, you still do it, but the GM will offer you two options between suspicion, danger, or cost").Possibly more important are the failure rules; the Apocalypse World non-combat ones all basically say "6- : Something bad happens as a result (GM's choice - have fun)" with suggestions of about the right magnitude. Rolemaster is much much more tightly constrained with a pick broken in the locks, and a 50% chance of setting off traps being on the table. As opposed to literally anything that the GM thinks is appropriate. The OSR talks about GM empowerment but they've barely made it past the starting line. It's down a path Rolemaster was pointing to with graduated success but way further.</blockquote>

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