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Systems & Settings => Rolemaster => RMC/RM2 => Topic started by: thrud on November 17, 2020, 12:21:10 AM

Title: Development Points revisited?
Post by: thrud on November 17, 2020, 12:21:10 AM
Since RMC is mostly just a reprint of RM2, all the old companions are still floating around out there.
With each companion new skills are introduced. Naturally there is always the standard "a GM should seriously consider which skills to include in his/her game..."
However, it's quite obvious that there is a massive skill bloat. Still nowhere is this handled in a more definitive logical and structured way. There are some notes and suggested options for adding some additional DPs for purchasing secondary skills, but nothing definitive.
Basically, for every companion the characters are getting spread more and more thin with the increasing number of skills. IMHO, it's not really adding diversification, rather the opposite, unless the issue with development points is handled.

It's been discussed before, but I found no real answer to the question, just vague "we've tried it like this..."

So, it's almost 2021 now (years have passed).
1. How many DPs do your RMC/RM2 characters get?
2. Do you keep separate DPs for primary and secondary skills?
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: Spectre771 on November 17, 2020, 05:00:35 AM
TL-DR: As I have a habit of typing a lot of detail to support my statement...  We've never had a problem with "Too Few DP - Too Many Skills" going all the way back to 1989.  We don't give freebie DP, free skills or skills ranks (Unless it's a reward from a Background Option Table.)



I started playing RM2 back in 89.  In all the years (decades), we've never had an issue with too few DP or too many skills to choose from.  The skills are all optional whether you use extra Companions or not.  Even sticking with the core rules and no Companions at all, the skills are optional.  The players can buy as many or as few extra skills as they want to flesh out their character.  I can say without fear of contradiction, no player I've gamed with has taken Hygiene, Midwifery, or even Donning/Doffing Armour and, as I have all of the RM2 books and I allow every skill offered, the list of "Never Purchased Skills" goes on: Astral Projection, Blind Fighting - Smell, Weapon Buguei, Calisthenics, Portaging, Jesting, Melee Scuffle...

If the skills were not optional and every PC had to buy every skill, then yeah, it's absurd.  What I love about RM2 is that there is a skill for this or that and if you don't have it, you can try at a penalty (save for the few skills listed where one cannot make an attempt without having at least one rank in the skill.)  If one of the players buys a skill that seems odd or out of place, I try to create situations where the PC can use that skill.  Some examples are Architecture, Engineering, Animal Husbandry, Singing, Poetic Improvisation, Public Speaking.  I've had players buy those skills, so I found ways to work them into the game.

I can say that I once rolled up the most mediocre, so-average-he-ruined-the-average, PC and I was still able to make a viable PC who is still in use today.  He's an NPC now as I don't get to game as often as I GM.  He is a Professional Profession and I made him a Blacksmith archetype.  The two highest stats were the Prime Reqs which became automatic 90's and all the other skills were in the low 80's and less.  He had 31 DP (7+6+6+6+6) to spend so I focused on the skills that would make him a good blacksmith.  Weapon of choice was a hammer, good CO to have some lasting power in a battle, Stunned Maneuver, Body Dev, Maneuver in Soft Leather, and a host of skills I thought a Blacksmith would/should have, Basic math, Advanced Math, Weapon Eval, Armour Eval. etc.  Even with 31DP, I had DP leftover at each level and I was looking for "filler skills" to buy just to use up the leftover points.



* - I just looked through all of the PCs I have (I hold onto the players' PCs so they don't get lost in between games.  Sadly, it's happened a couple of times).   I have 20+ character sheets.  One players has 44 DP and another has 42 DP.  The lowest is not my Blacksmith, but a PC with only 29 DP.  The rest are in the 35-39 DP range.  35 being a pretty popular number it seems with 5 PCs at 35 DP.  Some have Skills that go onto a second character sheet because they have so many skills. others have about half a page of skills.  Some went focused on their profession, others went all "Be Prepared."
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: Ginger McMurray on November 17, 2020, 08:22:56 AM
No extra DPs. We use the basic skill set with a few tweaks to keep it simple.

One example is Sense Ambush: no. Use perception. There's no need for some sort of "spider sense." You see/hear something that lets you know there's an ambush in place.

Another example: meditation is not a hundred different skills. It's meditation: sleep. There's no magical "heal or kill yourself by thinking hard" skill. That's what spells, herbs, and poisons are for (and weapons for suicide).

No advanced mathematics. Players buy mathematics if they want to be full-on mathematicians (nobody has yet). Basic every day math is up to the player to figure out.

I also make sure not to include more than a minor scattering of challenges that don't match a common skill. Maybe nobody is well-trained in it but they'll at least get a roll and can seek out someone who can help and/or pick up a rank or two at their next level.
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: markc on November 17, 2020, 02:31:26 PM
This is a question that I think depends on how the GM plays the game, and here is why.
1) I have talked to some GM's who use very strict interpretations of the skills descriptions, thus players take more skills to be effective.
2) Some GM's use more skills in their game play thus the players use more.
3) Some professions need more skills then others to be player or fit a players idea of playable, an example is an alchemist type PC who needs/wants the following skills crafting (armor, weapon, rings/jewelry, bow, wood, blacksmith, gem cutting, herbalism, chemistry/alchemy, engineering (for building enchantment) (i think the player also went into the desire to have the various resource gathering skills/crafts as well), siege weapon design and crafting), various evaluation skills (some GM's include this in the craft skills some do not), spell lists and various skills for adventuring.
4) Culture and Social Standing can play a huge role in what skills a PC should have.


In a very general way, in RMSS I tend to see players have about 70-80 DP per level when they max out their stats, in RM2 depending on the skill requirements imposed by the GM I tend to think 33-40 would be good.


In the past some people have just given the players max DP per level.


Also I think it would help out if a GM did a quick analysis of what they expect a average PC to have skill wise in various classes for their game. Some classes might need only 20-25 DP to cover the basics and some might need more.
if the GM does this it provides them good info as well as provides players an idea on what the GM thinks an average PC should have in their game for various skills.


MDC     
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: markc on November 17, 2020, 02:57:26 PM
One thing I forgot to mention,
In general as you expect semi's tend to be more pressed for DP then pures unless you game is heavily magic then pure arms can also be under DP strain.


MDC
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: PiXeL01 on November 17, 2020, 05:38:19 PM
In my latest game I set everyone at 60 dev pts per lvl for the first time. We play RC2 with all skills available if wanted.
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: Jengada on November 17, 2020, 05:55:50 PM
I've homebrewed XP and DP a lot, so if I don't address part of the question, it's probably because my answer would only apply if you used my homebrew.
With respect to skills, I ended up with a 3-tier system.
1 - Primary skills: the core RM2 skills as a start, but I've moved perhaps 4 or 5 later-published "secondary" skills into that category. For example, Pick Pockets is now a primary skill. It should have been there all along.
2 - Select Secondary skills: these are later-published secondary skills that I consider important enough that I will ask for the bonuses, when relevant. This includes things like Tracking, Meditation, and Poison Use. Not having a skill in this group will result in 0 skill-bonus on your roll.
3 - Other Secondary skills: Other, later-published secondary skills. I will never ask for these bonuses, but if a player feels the skill is important to their character, they can buy ranks and then use that bonus. Not having a skill in this group will result in a 0 skill-bonus on your roll.

Starting characters get their normal Adolescence and Apprenticeship DP to spend on primary skill ranks. They also get one sent of half their normal DP, which they can spend on secondary skills at the start. After that, as they go up levels, they have to buy all skills, in any of the 3 groups above, from their normal DP.
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol on November 18, 2020, 07:29:11 AM
1. Primary skills DPs (PDPs) = the basic sum of stats DPs,
2. Secondary skills DPs =  PDPs x 1.625.
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: Ginger McMurray on November 18, 2020, 07:39:05 AM
1. Primary skills DPs (PDPs) = the basic sum of stats DPs,
2. Secondary skills DPs =  PDPs x 1.625.

Why 1.625?
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: thrud on November 18, 2020, 10:51:36 AM
@OLF 1.618 would have been obvious, but 1.625?
Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but I get a strong sense that most of the people who have answered my question (much appreciated), share a common trait.
The "other" skills are redundant.
The characters manage perfectly fine without them.
Since players notice they don't need the other skills, they see no point in spending dp on them.
Ergo, there is no shortage of dp...
If GM started actually using the skills in relevant situations, things would very likely change in a hurry.
But as I stated initially, I might be reading this wrong?

Personally I feel the "other" skills are more important than the primary skills for creating a character. They give the character life and depth. They allow you to be creative and go unconventional routes...

So, here's a followup question for those that feel secondary skills are quite redundant. How do you assign profession bonuses? If most secondary skills are redundant and not needed, profession bonuses are just wasted on skills not used, bought, etc.
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: markc on November 18, 2020, 01:40:08 PM
1) A lot of how players spend their DP depend on how the GM runs their game. ie look at the types of games, video game style and or combat, limited, social, etc.
That is why having a GM create a PC for every profession and doing one of each type (basic, mid, everything the GM could want; combos ie fighter types (combat, combat-stealth, combat-missile, etc) goes a long way to giving the GM and thus the players a better idea on how to run the game.


2) I have talked to a few RM2 GM's and had this conversation about hunting and food,
Ways to deal with hunting and food gathering
a)) Need the following skills: hunting(H), H and survival(S) or H, S and Butchery (B) or need H, S, B and cooking(C) or H, C and Animal Lore (AL) or some combination of the above.
You can see in one game you just need 1 skill Hunting to find game and dress the meat and then cook it on the other end you need quite a few skills to do the same thing.
b) Again this was RM2 GM's describing their various game style. I do not remember how each of them did secondary skills(SS) but I would guess that there were different ways to calculate DP's for SS based on their style.
c) Why so different? From memory they(some) were trying to have players be less hyper specialized and more rounded as that was a "thing" they were trying to avoid from other systems.


So in general for your game I would,
1) Define/list what skills average/basic people should have, note not specialized or hyper specialized
2) Do the same for adventures, ie add or subtract skills to list
3) Do the same for each profession, ie add or subtract skills to list
4) Look at the DP values for each above and see what the value or values need to be.
5) Do the same analysis for each profession level bonuses.


Unfortunately there is no simple answer to your question and in fact RM2's less DP can make it harder in some ways then in RMSS/FRP.


MDC


   


 
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: Ginger McMurray on November 18, 2020, 02:05:48 PM

So, here's a followup question for those that feel secondary skills are quite redundant. How do you assign profession bonuses? If most secondary skills are redundant and not needed, profession bonuses are just wasted on skills not used, bought, etc.

RM2 level bonuses are per category. There are no redundant categories, only redundant skills inside them.
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: thrud on November 18, 2020, 02:09:07 PM
No worries, I have actually got a much better idea now, than before this thread.
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: thrud on November 18, 2020, 02:10:43 PM
About level bonuses, I was mainly thinking of professions introduced after rc2.
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: markc on November 18, 2020, 03:15:26 PM
General;
Professions RoCo2+: IIRC these professions were some of the most popular and the most unbalanced in terms of the base game.


Example from about 6-10 years ago:
I think an example from about 6-10 years ago might help, a group posted on the boards that they wanted to be able to buy 1 weapon skill and then pay some DP or something to be able to take all of the ranks in that weapon and put it in another weapon. Why/ Because the PC found a new weapon(s) that was not of the type the could use and the players wanted to be the best in that weapon.
When I suggested that they spend Dp or more then one weapon at the start of the game they said their was not enough DP to do this. IIRC this was not a semi-arms issue it was a pure-arms profession issue and the fact they (in my opinion and is a valid way to play games) were trying to hyper-specialize and or min-max to the extreme.


With RM2 and to some extent RMSS+, I have found it takes different amount of DP to be effective PC depending on game style and some professions fall behind the balance curve quickly in some play styles.


MDC 
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: Spectre771 on November 19, 2020, 07:21:24 AM

Example from about 6-10 years ago:
I think an example from about 6-10 years ago might help, a group posted on the boards that they wanted to be able to buy 1 weapon skill and then pay some DP or something to be able to take all of the ranks in that weapon and put it in another weapon. Why/ Because the PC found a new weapon(s) that was not of the type the could use and the players wanted to be the best in that weapon.

A later Companion introduced Weapon Categories that we adopted.  1H Slashing, 2H Slashing, 1H Crush, 2H Crush, etc.  This allowed the PCs to use a fancy new scimitar they found on the adventure instead of being stuck with their broadsword until they leveled up and bought ranks in Scimitar.  That definitely helped with the DP issue once the campaign was underway. 
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: thrud on November 19, 2020, 07:53:07 AM
Similar skill as a concept was already floating around in CHL as an option. It was fleshed out inrc2 I think. It makes weapon categories somewhat redundant.
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: Ginger McMurray on November 19, 2020, 09:03:18 AM
We never had problems with RM2 fighters using multiple weapons. Their costs were cheap enough that you could typically afford to have one primary weapon which always got 2 ranks and several backup weapons with one or more ranks per level. The most common build involved a one-handed weapon, off-hand shield bash, thrown with your main hand weapon, and a long range weapon for when thrown just won't cut it.

We used similar weapon skills as well but it didn't come into play that often. If a weapon was found that didn't match something people used it was either sold (and a new item crafted) or someone started putting points and half-levels into it. It doesn't take a pure fighter long to get 10 ranks in a weapon if they focus heavily on it for a couple of levels and this would typically only happen if you find a really beefy weapon (i.e. holy, slaying, etc.) and those tend to have higher bonuses to mitigate lower skill.

You suffer a little in other skill categories but if you want to be more generalized then you play a rogue or thief instead.
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol on November 19, 2020, 09:53:22 AM
Why 1.625?
Rounding, there are about 1.625 more (later) skills than how many primary skills there were in Ch&CL, taking into account all companions (RoCo. II, of course, but there are many in the AC as well, and some in the RoCo. IV and V, etc.)

Personally I feel the "other" skills are more important than the primary skills for creating a character. They give the character life and depth.
It's the main reason why I give my NPCs secondary skills and push my players to do the same. People don't only learn things because they'll need them to survive: one may just learn singing because one enjoys singing, or cooking because one likes cooking. What secondary skill a character soever knows defines the kind of person he is. I have hundreds of NPCs; though they all have a detailed background story and I recall most of them for what they are, reading what skills they have other than the mandatory "adventuring" ones allows me to remember what kind of person they are. A fighter whose secondary skills are athletic games, pole vaulting and sprinting is not the same as another who has instead horticulture, painting and tactical games!
It's similar to RL, really. If you go to an office and talk to three different clerks, the skills they have that are not necessary for their job is what teaches the most about them as persons: you'd learn more about their personality when knowing that one knows carpentry, the other is an expert at fishing whilst the last knows computer programming!
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: markc on November 19, 2020, 01:53:44 PM
I agree that PC's should spend DP on more then one weapon and IIRC I provided this idea at the time but it seemed the group wanted to hyper specialize and be able to switch one weapon (maybe a trial balloon for doing it with other skills) for another for a simple cost of some sort.
Maybe they were trolling also or looking to build their own game (PnP, ComAid or Comp).


Weapon categories, I also mentioned this but it cost more DP to buy a category then a single weapon.


Note on Level Bonuses:
I played a little MERP and RM back in the mid 80s but most of the people I knew who played RM in the 95-00 age used assigned level bonuses (I may have the name wrong).
That is were a player has a set amount of plusses to assign per level to areas and a max amount they can assign to an area. 


IMHO, the place level bonus idea is superior then fixed and in same cases I can see a GM assigning them or some of them to prevent strangeness. That would be spending a whole level in a library doing puzzles and thought stuff and getting level bonuses in combat areas.


MDC
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: markc on November 19, 2020, 04:53:06 PM
Example of how adding skills can change DP.
One discussion I remember of how adding skills can change a game as well as DP expenditures was a group that was playing RM2 in Middle Earth and they wanted to add in skills such as Stunned Maneuvering (I do not remember if it was new to them, if it was a new skill or if they decided not to use it at the beginning) as well as some skills from War Law and other martial skills (home rules) as well as magic skills (RM2 EC skills, Spell Mastery (from what ever book it came out in or maybe they decided not to use it from the beginning and then decided to add it in) and some house rules spell skills).
The new skills required players to remake their PC's as the skills had a huge impact on game play and PC's who did not were behind the cure so to speak.


Ranger:
IIRC the Ranger profession's skill costs were changed in different printings and in different books. In the mid 90's a person in the group I was playing in was making a spread sheet DP/skill tracker and I was using info from my original RM2 core book and he was using a version from a RoCo.
I think after some searching they found 4+ different DP skill cost versions with some having a bigger impact on DP expenditures then others.
This is one huge advantage I see today with easy access to games official rule changes published on the web. In the case of the Ranger above a company could say test out these skill cost changes and report back and publish updated material.   


RMSS Example Combat Styles:
Another good example is Combat Styles had a huge impact on my RMSS game and thus a redesign of PC's and NPC's, how to use them in combat as well as other things.
It is good that the idea should be included in core rules.


MDC
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: brole on November 20, 2020, 03:20:33 AM
So, it's almost 2021 now (years have passed).
1. How many DPs do your RMC/RM2 characters get?
2. Do you keep separate DPs for primary and secondary skills?

1.
The sheet I use has 14 stats, each stat contributes half DP's as normal. This means approx. 40% more DP's than default RM2.
(Extra stats,
LUCK (RM2 III),
ELOQUENCE (RM2 III. Additional stat not ME replacement),
APPEARANCE (not sure what book its out of),
DEXTERITY (extra house rule stat).)
I find the game can handle this extra stuff when using computer aids.

2. No. I mostly ignore primary / secondary classification. They are just all skills.
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: Green Manalishi on March 01, 2022, 01:26:55 AM
If secondary skills are expected than a good GM will provide additional DPs or ways to get those ranks.
RM was designed with the DP going to primary skills, which were the only skills.
Then the additin of dozens to hundreds more skills.

I had a GM not give any extra DPs nor used similar skill but used every skill.

If my character wanted to cross the dirt road, I would need Road-Crossing skill, and when I said I had the skill, the GM would say "is it Road-Crossing Dirt or Road-Crossing Stone?"
I'd say "dirt!"
His response would be "well is that Road-Crossing Dirt skill urban or rural?"
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: Hurin on March 01, 2022, 08:51:06 AM
Lol, yes, that was the issue we call 'skill bloat'.

RMU has fixed it by significantly reducing the total number of skills (thus giving many skills a much wider application), as well as increasing the DP allotment to 60 dp.
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: Tywyll on March 04, 2022, 11:15:28 AM
If I were to run a RM game again, I would probably give characters a flat DP amount, like around 60, so they could use the secondary skills. But I would also cut back on a bunch of them because man oh man was there skill bloat in the companions!
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: MisterK on March 04, 2022, 01:17:22 PM
If I were to run a RM game again, I would probably give characters a flat DP amount, like around 60, so they could use the secondary skills. But I would also cut back on a bunch of them because man oh man was there skill bloat in the companions!
Skill bloat can have various causes, and I think all of them were combined in RM at one point of another
- over-detail in the name of "realism" (herb lore, gathering herbs, prepare herbs, use prepared herbs...)
- having a cool new effect or capability idea and coming up with a new skill to cover it instead of using an existing one with a manoeuver modifier
- adding skills for balance purposes, in order to have players spread their DPs around (thus being less effective at any one thing) or missing interesting options in their capabilities
- insisting on having skills to cover *absolutely every capability*, even when using those skills will never lead to interesting situations

I'm firmly in the "less is more" camp nowadays. I try to play with a limited number of active skills that cover as many conflict situations as possible, and leave the non-conflict situations to vaguely quantified traits that will never be rolled. Spell Lists aside, I try to limit the skill list to at most 30, and favour multi-usage skills (for instance, stealth/shadowing is an opposed skill since it also covers the ability to *notice* such activities if one is looking for them. The opposition does not need to be at the time of action, either). Knowledge is covered by quantified traits that are not rolled nor developed (I'm pondering whether to use them in a way similar to what the Gumshoe system proposes), most combat features such as feints, special attacks and the like are covered by modifiers on the basic combat skills (and those modifiers depend on the combat style the character is using), armor skills are removed entirely (armor proficiency comes from combat style training), and so on.
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: jdale on March 04, 2022, 01:54:28 PM
Yeah, RMU goes in for fewer skills, and specialization where appropriate. The Character Companion will add optional specializations in case you really want to specialize in, say, midwifery as a specialty of Medicine rather than being a separate skill, but even then you would still be able to use Medicine for all its normal functions. I think that's good for playability while allowing as much character definition as you want.

And I would strongly discourage adding any more skills. New specializations where needed, but the bar to add entirely new skills is very high. The only place I see it happening is if you raise the tech level towards steampunk, and even then there shouldn't be much.
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol on March 04, 2022, 03:55:05 PM
I voiced my opinion about skill bloat in several threads already but, really, in my opinion a new skill or a skill specialisation should only exist when it brings something to a game, in most cases. I mean, sure, there are probably some cases when midwifery, pole vaulting or stilt walking are useful (…I guess… yeah, probably it's possible to make them relevant to a game…  :D) but how much would that bring to most regular games compared to applying a skill modifier to a medicine or athletic games skill? Similarly, breaking knowledge expertise and survival of a given kind of "zone" (region/climate combination) into Region Lore (a Survival category skill that gives you knowledge in a given region…), Hostile Environment (…because knowledge of a region doesn't give you the skills to survive in it, despite it being a Survival skill and not an Academic skill…), Foraging (…because the Hostile Environment survival skills don't apparently include finding food and water…), not even mentioning both the Fauna and Flora lore (…because knowing a zone, being able to survive in its hostile environment, and being able to find food and water don't give you any knowledge of its fauna and flora…) may have some kind of balance or realistic logic but… are all of them meaningful, not to mention breaking them in as many combination of region/climate there are? I mean, it's like saying that, sure, realistically, one should break the gambling skill into poker, blackjack, tarot, belote and any gambling games, or break a computer programming skill into every and each programming language because expertise in one doesn't imply expertise in any other, but does it serve any purpose? Why do you think that, about the latter, any movie about a developer expert would gloss over it and merely have the protagonists look for an expert developer and hacker without worrying about the exact language, OS, network protocol and all? Because it doesn't bring anything to the plot!

In addition to that, skills in RM2 also suffer from not working the same way at all: some need a roll where one adds to it the skill rank bonus, the stat bonus, the profession bonus and any additional bonus, whereas others would only add the skill rank bonus, others only the number of skill ranks, others would force a RR vs. the number of skill ranks, others would force an opposing roll vs. a skill roll, and others would have the skill rank bonus offset a penalty… and I'm probably forgetting some special cases!
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: Cory Magel on March 04, 2022, 08:21:10 PM
I would tend to be generous and give 700 point to distribute across the ten stats in most cases (because in most campaigns they would eventually become heroes of some sort - and our groups tend to play to high levels).
Title: Re: Development Points revisited?
Post by: EltonJ on March 07, 2022, 04:48:01 PM
I would like to run a Rolemaster game first before I take a look at development points again.  So far, I've been running Shadowrun.