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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rel" data-source="post: 4823551" data-attributes="member: 99">Our group played Rolemaster almost exclusively for 12 years.  Myself and a friend even became writers for ICE back in that era.  If you've got a copy of The Essence Companion or Castles & Ruins, I had a hand in both of those (especially EssComp,which I co-wrote).  Rolemaster has a special place in my heart and we had a lot of good times with it.That said, I don't plan to go back to it anytime soon.The core mechanic is fairly simple but the fact that it relies upon charts rather than a target number adds an extra step.  The power curve is pretty flat but, as has been mentioned above, the progression for spellcasters is SLOW, especially at early levels.  Having to spend so much time prepping your spells is a bit of a drag in my opinion and you start out not being able to do an awful lot.  I got to a point when it was a rare thing for me to play a "pure" spellcaster.Characters are highly customizable thanks to the intricate skill system.  If you are using RMSS then you get the categories that mean you can specialize in broadswords but also be good at any One Handed Edged weapon you pick up.  However the system suffers from "skill bloat" in my opinion.  The fact that there are separate skills for Herb Knowledge, Find Herb, Prepare Herb and Use Prepared Herb (which is not the same thing as Prepare Poison or Use Prepared Poison) is probably the most egregious.We had long abandoned D&D (1e) because we desired a greater level of detail in our ruleset.  But there came a day, right after 3e was released and we gave it a test run while on a beach trip, that we said, "Our RM games are still fun but the pace with 3e D&D is so much faster and it now has a skill system...Let's do THAT."  And we've never looked back.None of which is to say that you shouldn't try it.  Like I said, we had a lot of fun with it for a lot of years and of course tastes vary.  Give it a shot.  It might be a game you enjoy a lot.</blockquote>

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