Official ICE Forums
Systems & Settings => Rolemaster => Topic started by: markc on November 10, 2007, 08:18:24 PM
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After reading quite a few threads this question poped into my mind. Just how often do people create new chartacters in your RM game? How long does your game generally last, ie days, months, years?
MDC
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Depending on People's luck and Divine Intervention months and years
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Our RM campaigns each lasted about three years (maybe a bit longer each). They mostly resulted in character being above level 20, always a perfect time to end the campaign and start a new one.
Our recent HARP campaigns has also been running for two years now - though not with such regular playing as with RM (which was about eight hoursonce a week).
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Usually our campaigns lasts for several months (current one has begun one year ago).
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I have had PC's last for years and reach very high levels, yet I have had PC's die on thier first encounter. In RM, even a zombie can kill you with a nice A crit, roll a 100.
I have run long term games were a mission or quest will be started but is finished by an entirely new cast of PC's. Some campaigns are deadlier than others, yet the game world stays the same.
lynn
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Well, urm, my campaign is nearing 20 years (Jan 08 it started). The current PBEM is going on since April '04. The last new character added over a year ago. However, within the campaign context there have been at least a dozen different game settings with groups of PCs. The longest running group - roughly from 88 to 01 or so, got the highest PCs to 14th (none were there in 88 though). Some of those PCs are still active, at a Meta level, in their 20s in the current PBEM (which has a war as the backdrop).
Ciao,
Old Man
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Funny thing though is that I remember the times when we played MERP and later our first campaign of RM2 with everyone spending a good deal of their free time with developing characters. So, everyone played only one character but had about six of them in their stacks on the desk. Just for the fun of it.
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I in the same boat as all of you, I prefer longruning campains to short campains. I knnow creating a char takes a while in RM but IMO you get attached to it and you are putting in an investment.
I am playing in another game with another agme system and a player made a comment this week as we are converting char from game X to game Y. "Boy that did not take long as X" he said. To which I thought yes it was faster but is that necessarly a good thing? IMO sometimes the easy road is good but sometimes the long road it better.
MDC
BTW: Thanks all
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In the 20 years of GMing, I eliminated only 1 player from future gaming due to stupidity. Once characters are created I like to give the players a chance to say if they like them or not (most players not familiar with RM). Fate Points are a wonderful tool to allow for the vagaries of dice and, if your lucky enough in my game, allow the PC to benefit from fate points outside of combtat.
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my 3 RM campaigns have been 1.5yr+, 1yr+, and on-going-since-April. In the middle game was the only time I've had players make new characters, and that was from a TPK, so about 5 new characters all at once.
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A year or more. I usually like (and Plan) long running campaigns :)
The last campaign ran for about 1? year and it only stopped because I moved to another part of the country.
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It generally depends usually in how much the players can survive in a reasonable group. If they achieve to end the campaign, can be 2 years now, but a few years ago, the games were easier and less long-termed.
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My RM2 games run for an average of 2-3 years, the longest ran for 10 years, but all of these have been set in the same campaign world which as a consequence has been developing on and off since the mid 80s
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I guess maybe a side question is how often do you level up? I ask because people always talk about how hard it is to level up or what a pain it is. I use my own system to level up that in the end works out the same but I rarely had people complain anout it.
Thanks
MDC
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Hmm after having a debate about xp in this forum, I've stopped pretending that I think a lot about xp, so now the players just level up, when I say so. :)
Every two month or something close to that.. which means every 6th gaming session. However it depends a lot on the way they have played..
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I guess maybe a side question is how often do you level up?
At low levels about once every 1-2 sessions (of ~7 hrs), at later levels perhaps once every 2-4 sessions.
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I guess maybe a side question is how often do you level up?
Now my PCs are all between 10th and 13th level and they level up every 5-6 sessions. When they were below level 10 it usually took 4-5 session to gain a level.
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I guess maybe a side question is how often do you level up?
I also now give lvls when I feel like it. After their first adventure, I gave the their 2nd lvl. It might have been big enough to warrent more than 1 lvl, so they may lvl fairly soon again. That first adventure took 6 game sessions(@4hr each).
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I give out levels also as I feel likt it but I also give out 1/3 of a level DP's so in fact they spend points more often then if I used XP. But I also start char at 3rd to 5th level depending on what profession they play.
So like most of you I had out 1/3 of a level every 20+ gaming hours or after a big event such as a war ect.
Thanks
MDC
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First level characters should not be let out without a keeper. They know just enough to be dangerous - to themselves.
I usualy let players advance a level after about 8 sessions with an occassional extra level increase at the end of significant events, for example "taking care" of the big bad guy can result in a level increase.
Basically the first thing disgarded from the rules was the XP awards table.
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My campaign has been running since 1999. The players have just hit level 9 and I have 2 new players to bring in at level 1 (RM is one of the few systems where this works). With good player interaction and a, some would say failed, attempt at creating a real epic story the lack of levels has never really affected us.
My original plan was that the main story arc would kick off when the players were around level 20 but I will probably have retired by then so I may need to hurry it along somewhat :)
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The shorted campaign we've played was in the 8 month range. Longest... I'm not really sure, but I think it was around three years.
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That's around the shortest I've run, but I've played a few 1 session combustions.
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The shortest RM campaign we ever played lasted for two or three full-day sessions (RM2). It ended because our characters died. We moved on. Our longest campaign has lasted for at least 7 years now and is still officially on-going (RMSS). Of course, our last session was sometime in 2005, and since we may never continue the campaign, I'm not sure if the last few years count. Our other major RM campaign, which is actually parallel to the previous one, started around 2001 and is also on-going (RMSS). And, yeah, the last session was over two years ago as well. In the first, I've played the same character throughout, a mage (currently L14). In the second, I've had two characters, a Fighter/Warrior Monk who died (L11), followed by a Warrior Monk/Zen Monk (L19).
Generally, we've tended to go for the long campaigns with more or less the same character line-up from start to finish. We've never passed beyond the 20th level, though, in any level-based system. In fact, we've rarely even actually finished a campaign. Usually we kinda just stop playing.
It's been over two years since I've last done any role-playing. Which sucks. How do you people, especially the ones with jobs and families, make the time? How do you play when you're all grown-up and nobody seems to have the time? I am so envious of you guys. I wanna play! I've been playing for 15 to 20 years, and I don't want to stop now!
- Timo -