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Systems & Settings => Rolemaster => RMC/RM2 => Topic started by: AlHazred on March 28, 2014, 12:41:50 PM
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Long time lurker, first time poster. Hi, everybody!
Back when I was in college in the prehistoric era, we played a lot of RoleMaster (this was the classic RM) and MERP. We had about a four-year Middle Earth campaign that was epic. Anyway, there's some material from there I wanted to run for some new players.
I was looking it over, and realized that we did a lot of conversions back in the day. TSR came out with a book, we converted a monster or magic item to RM. White Wolf had vampire and werewolf, we came up with vampire and werewolf options for RM (acted like spell lists, worked like a charm).
But some of this material was never converted, and there's been a lot published between 1987 and now. Specifically what daunted me was one of the magic items. The adventure is a conversion of an older D&D module, and there is a key encounter with a Deck of Many Things. If you're not familiar with the term, it's a(n in)famous D&D magic item that frequently broke campaigns if GMs didn't take care with it. You drew a card from the deck and it could be a good thing (gain a magic item, a retainer, or a castle) or a very bad thing (be imprisoned on another plane, gain a secret enemy, fight a Minor Death or be destroyed). Flavorful and interesting if used properly.
I have in my notes that it needed to be converted, but I'd prefer to use something someone else has already done, and the Googles are doing nothing for me right now. Was there ever a similar item (a magical deck of cards you'd draw from for beneficial or woeful effects) done up in RoleMaster terms? I diug out my old Rolemaster Companion I and reread the bit at the end about the Qabbals, which my notes mentioned, but there don't seem to be established magical effects for the cards.
Really, any advice would be appreciated.
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There's a similar Tarot deck in the companion with the Tarot Mage. One of the numbered companions, though don't recall which off the top of my head. IIRC, it was a bit less game-breaking than the DoMT.
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That was exactly the kind of thing I was looking for! Rolemaster Companion VII, the Tarot of Many Teachings -- I'll have to check it out and see if it does the trick. Thank you so very much!
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Deck of Many Things...damn that brings back some memories. I agree it could be a deal breaker, but it could also handle Rules Lawyers very well, (insert evil laugh).
But the point of my post is that Dragon Magazine print a set on decent cardboard stock and when laminated, it could withstand a good shuffling and stacking.
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The Deck of Many Things
http://www.kirith.com/deck/ (http://www.kirith.com/deck/)
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Deck of Chaos in Creatures and Treasures I.
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There are also 2 charts you can access from an early RMC (RMC1 I think). Chaos Gifts and Geas. That's a D-100 chart and you could easily pull boons and bricks from the chart and make your own physical deck or just use a chart and dice rolls. There is also a set of Chaos Dice (One of the C&T's) that were really scary to use. I could never bring any of my characters to roll thm, but quite a few of them did pray to the Chaos gods.
+96 acid spit 1x/day
Slaying crits on humans
11% chance of cannibalism after a kill
42% chance extreme cowardace
Over sensitivty to heat
Needs 12 hours minimum sleep per day or funcion at -% for the day
Ahhhh what a fun character that was to play!
And of course the tarot cards from RMC, but those don't seem to be what you are looking for in regards to the D&D version.
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There is also a set of Chaos Dice (One of the C&T's) that were really scary to use.
If you wonder, Spectre771 talks about the "Dice of Chaos", in C&T, p77, that have 10 different effects.
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There is also a set of Chaos Dice (One of the C&T's) that were really scary to use.
If you wonder, Spectre771 talks about the "Dice of Chaos", in C&T, p77, that have 10 different effects.
That sounds right. I didn't have the exact name of the item, but the Risk/Reward was too far to the "Risk" side of things, so no one ever used them. Praying to the Chaos gods was always more fun. :-)