Topic: Director's Briefing - 4th July 2012

[markc]

There probably needs to be a distinction made between "optional but playtested" and "interesting idea that hasn't been checked yet."

Having met some of the numbered Companion authors, I think many of the rules were playtested, but only by the authors.  Their games and my games don't look very similar so rules that made perfect sense to them would break my games.  Thus, we need a more rigorous: "optional, but playtested by multiple independent groups."

+1
MDC

[GrumpyOldFart]

Well, yeah. Sorry, I assumed "playtested" included "across a variety of styles." You can't get a broad enough data set for a serious test otherwise. Which means any notes you give concerning "using option X affects game balance in Y fashion" may or may not actually be true.

We've been down that road, and none of us liked the neighborhood it went through. See earlier comments about proceeding with extreme caution when presenting optional rule subsets.

[gandalf970]

I guess my question to the powers that be is, how long has the UNIFIED ROLEMASTER rules been in the works?  Has this been a long term plan or something that came up in the last say six months? 

Not that it really matters, I am just glad to have the chance to test this and make our Rolemaster world the best it can be.

[Cory Magel]

Having met some of the numbered Companion authors, I think many of the rules were playtested, but only by the authors.  Their games and my games don't look very similar so rules that made perfect sense to them would break my games.  Thus, we need a more rigorous: "optional, but playtested by multiple independent groups."

This is an area of some concern to me.  In writing the Channeling Companion there were a lot of things that came form our own groups game-play, house rules, etc... however we are VERY aware that our play style can be very different than others, so we tried to be especially careful about molding our ideas to more along the mainstream style of RM.  There are things our group does that I would not in a million years assume to try to include as even an optional rule in an official RM book.  One individuals opinion, outlook, game theory, etc can be very... well... individual.  It takes someone that understands their ideas may not be the best to design around to a good job.

[markc]

Having met some of the numbered Companion authors, I think many of the rules were playtested, but only by the authors.  Their games and my games don't look very similar so rules that made perfect sense to them would break my games.  Thus, we need a more rigorous: "optional, but playtested by multiple independent groups."

This is an area of some concern to me.  In writing the Channeling Companion there were a lot of things that came form our own groups game-play, house rules, etc... however we are VERY aware that our play style can be very different than others, so we tried to be especially careful about molding our ideas to more along the mainstream style of RM.  There are things our group does that I would not in a million years assume to try to include as even an optional rule in an official RM book.  One individuals opinion, outlook, game theory, etc can be very... well... individual.  It takes someone that understands their ideas may not be the best to design around to a good job.

 That is why you are a god.
MDC

[Inez Hull]

Isnt "core +optional modules" how we got into the whole RM2 power creep issue?

A new unified version should be complete, as is.

Yeah, but whose version of complete? If the new edition hopes to appeal to both RM2/RMC and RMSS/RMFRP fans then it needs to have options to allow gaming groups to use the same rulebooks but tweak for their preferred playstyle.  Options to dial up or down complexity, particularly in the skill system, would allow new players to add diffiulty as they got used to the system. Options such as chose either A) or B) are very different to add A) or not dependant on your preference. As it is any power creep in RM2 was more a result of adding options carte blanche, nothing in the companions forced individual gaming groups to use everything just because it was printed.

[gandalf970]

Nothing in the briefing says they are limiting our creativity.  After all it is our choice to try the UNIFIED ROLEMASTER and see.  Power creep was a choice made by those individual groups.  No one can be blamed except the group. 

With all the material available for Rolemaster I expect we will all smile at the cleaned up version and go right into modding for our own groups taste. 

[Jinor]

There is one amazingly simple, yet profoundly useful thing that could be done to enhance the unification experience - measurements. I have nothing against the imperial system for distances, weights and volumes, I have learned them by playing RM, but there is absolutely nothing medieval about using fahrenheit to measure temperature. There are hardcore players in metric Europe who would consider it a minor stroke of genius to put the celsius value in parenthesis after the fahrenheit. Unification! 

[Fenrhyl Wulfson]

RMSS and RMFRP had companions too and there wasn’t any power creep issues. Maybe some imbalances there and then but nothing a good GM couldn’t deal with.
Their goal was clearly to expand the game, not give more power to the players.

I think they did a good job with new classes, training packages, and spell lists. I would hope that skills are kept to a minimum because here is a place that complexity can creep up on you if you aren't paying attention, especially for arms-race type skills (e.g. mental assault and mental defense).

The martial arts companion in particular made some fairly deep changes, which I thought were good for the most part but I would like to see some of those become core. (E.g. very different handling of adrenal defense and martial arts ranks.)

Whereas, say, the Channeling Companion was full of good ideas but there is nothing in it that makes you feel like you need to go back and rework existing characters.

To be honest, I believe RM should have less skills, combined together to attain the desired goal.

Pick locks ? Lock lore + manuel deftness
Build lock ? Lock lore + related craft skills
Jam lock ? Lock lore + required tool or material

Detect trap ? Observation/awareness + trap lore
Disarm trap ? trap lore + manual deftness
Build trap ? trap lore + related crafting skills
Jam trap ? trap lore + required tool or material

Silent kill ? Wrestling to prevent the quarry from yelling and the body to slam loudly on the floor.
Ambush ? If foe is surprised and you succesfully stalked him, use weapon or anatomy skill rank to modify crit roll

And so on…

You usually manage for greater variety in action and possibilities when you set a limited number of mechanics that can interact together rather than setting a lot of mechanics that can’t. And setting a lot of mechanics that can interact prevents you from keeping track of the action and results in redundant mechanics. The later is RM’s problem.

[Fenrhyl Wulfson]

There is one amazingly simple, yet profoundly useful thing that could be done to enhance the unification experience - measurements. I have nothing against the imperial system for distances, weights and volumes, I have learned them by playing RM, but there is absolutely nothing medieval about using fahrenheit to measure temperature. There are hardcore players in metric Europe who would consider it a minor stroke of genius to put the celsius value in parenthesis after the fahrenheit. Unification! 

Well if you go that way, Celsius is not that medieval either. They went with freezing cold, cold, mildly cold, mild, temperate, mildly hot, hot, really hot, “I’ll tell you everything, have pity!” hot and “I AM NOT A WITCH! I CURSE YOU ALL! YOU IGNORANT BIGGOTS!” hot.

[Usdrothek]

I know most of a game's sales base is in the US, thus the need to use antiquated measurements and scales in game books, but for the rest of the world Celsius and metric additions would be beneficial.

[Jinor]

There is one amazingly simple, yet profoundly useful thing that could be done to enhance the unification experience - measurements. I have nothing against the imperial system for distances, weights and volumes, I have learned them by playing RM, but there is absolutely nothing medieval about using fahrenheit to measure temperature. There are hardcore players in metric Europe who would consider it a minor stroke of genius to put the celsius value in parenthesis after the fahrenheit. Unification! 

Well if you go that way, Celsius is not that medieval either. They went with freezing cold, cold, mildly cold, mild, temperate, mildly hot, hot, really hot, “I’ll tell you everything, have pity!” hot and “I AM NOT A WITCH! I CURSE YOU ALL! YOU IGNORANT BIGGOTS!” hot.

You are right, but from a unification standpoint using both systems side by side would help in gauging what is cold and what isn't. I wouldn't change inches, feet and miles as they are medieval and give flavour to the game. When I see 32 as a temperature value I instantly think hot, but it is actually freezing. Putting celsius in parenthesis would be a big help.

[markc]

Maybe we should use Kelvin? 
MDC

[Jinor]

Maybe we should use Kelvin? 
MDC

 

[Fenrhyl Wulfson]

Or any unit of measurement in the books could be parsed and processed with a conversion script.

[rdanhenry]

Well inserting degrees Celsius is pretty easy and all, but dual-listing all measurements would be a lot more work and space-consuming. And as pointed out, feet/inches/miles type measures do give an archaic feel (outside the backwardness of the USA), whereas any temperature scale is fairly modern.

[Fenrhyl Wulfson]

I am not talking about it just for the joy of writing stuff.

I already did it on another project. All it takes are nice brackets, a conversion script and… nothing else :p

Write your stuff, bracket what you want converted, run the script, done. I did this with money and distances. It really saves a lot of time.
Now, I’m thinking about it again, I guess I could learn a bit of Python and create a LaTeX fonction for this. When I’ll have some time. 3 years in the future :p

[Nortti]

RM2 (with our own modifications, of course) has been my game of choice as a GM. Its really interesting to see what makers of "unified RM" will come up with. Thing is that we have very much made the game to our liking already. I make my own changes for different campaigns to enhance the current flavor. Lets see, I hope I will be pleasantly surprised by the outcome.

Exactly. Probably a big chunk of the reason that 90% still plays RM, HARP or both is because they're pretty much designed to be modified. "Tweakable" is baked in. If that doesn't remain the same in new products, those new products will have a different kind of customer base. You may add some people, but you'll lose some, too.

From a business point of view I guess it is more important for ICE to get more new players in. Thats where they have a chance to expand fanbase and get more turnover. I guess we are more or less hooked already. By serving just for us they will get nowhere.

On that subject, visuality is so important these days that their effort will probably succeed or fall with that. If they have good visuals for commercials and inside the book they will hook new players and give them a strong feel of the game. Feel of what RM is like. You might have the worlds best ruleset inside the book but if you cannot catch peoples imagination with visuals and use those images to plant ROLEMASTER to their minds then you have failed in your business.

There is one amazingly simple, yet profoundly useful thing that could be done to enhance the unification experience - measurements. I have nothing against the imperial system for distances, weights and volumes, I have learned them by playing RM, but there is absolutely nothing medieval about using fahrenheit to measure temperature. There are hardcore players in metric Europe who would consider it a minor stroke of genius to put the celsius value in parenthesis after the fahrenheit. Unification! 

Well if you go that way, Celsius is not that medieval either. They went with freezing cold, cold, mildly cold, mild, temperate, mildly hot, hot, really hot, “I’ll tell you everything, have pity!” hot and “I AM NOT A WITCH! I CURSE YOU ALL! YOU IGNORANT BIGGOTS!” hot.

I feel that Jinor has a point here. Seeing those imperial measurements when you go through a book in the bookstore makes some europeans put the book back to the shelf. I had to convince my players that we can live with these measurements. Actually fahrenheits tell me nothing. I have no idea if its hot or cold when its 50f. Pounds we just handle as 0,5kg. I know it is actually about 0,454kg but I dont want to use calculator for checking the exact weight when we should be concentrating on a fantasy RPG. I know centimeters and celsius are for us freaks and weirdos here but if you want to serve customers outside foot/pound territory then you use both measurements in your books. For some potential customers it can really be a deal-breaker from the start. Not having both measurements effectively tells users of metric system that you dont care about them as customers.

[Cory Magel]

RM2 (with our own modifications, of course) has been my game of choice as a GM. Its really interesting to see what makers of "unified RM" will come up with. Thing is that we have very much made the game to our liking already. I make my own changes for different campaigns to enhance the current flavor. Lets see, I hope I will be pleasantly surprised by the outcome.

This is my concern for the new RM.  Even if ICE can create a system that both RM2(etc) and RMSS(etc) camps could agree on, how many of them actually need a new version of RM?  I suspect many of us on this board are similar to you... we have the RM we want/need.  The only new books I would personally buy (aside from simply supporting ICE as a company) would need to have material that does not exist or that I have not converted from another version of RM for my version of the game.  You have veterans playing a game that they've molded for years.  You're going to have to REALLY impress them to get their buy-in.

But, are we on these forums representative of the typical RM user?

[jdale]

But, are we on these forums representative of the typical RM user?

And are there enough "typical RM users" left to sustain the line? Or does it need to appeal to a larger base?