Topic: New Campaign

[Newbie]

Hi Rolemaster Board

I started GMing January last year and was running a game using the HARP system.
It went fairly well running from 2nd level through to 9th level over approx 50 gaming sessions.
Sadly with the assistance of my young children a vast amount of information from my computer has been deleted over the weekend just passed and this has firmly put a bullet into the campaign I was running.

I am now starting to rebuild my computer and am starting to turn my attention back to table top gaming - I am wanting to run another campaign and I am strongly considering using Rolemaster instead of HARP, as both myself and my players are quite familiar with it however there is a slight problem with our familialrity with - I am not entirely sure what version of Rolemaster I am used to.

What I am hoping is if I put enough info into this post I can be pointed in the correct direction.....

I no longer have ready access to any books at this stage but have no quams in purchasing books online - the group I have used to play with a GM that none of us are no longer in contact with due to bad gaming experiences, this said GM was the owner of all the Rolemaster books that were used in our gaming hence I no longer have access to them.
He had up to companion IV all in red soft cover and I do know that they were fairly old perhaps from the 80s???

He did have companion V, VI & VII but they were in coloured soft cover.

Apologies if this is not much to go on, if need be I could try to give more infomation

[RandalThor]

Sounds like you are familiar with Rolemaster 2nd Edition (RM 2), which has been reorganized and "cleaned-up" with the coming of Rolemaster Classic (RMC). So, you can get the RM 2 stuff and/or the RMC. I would suggest the RMC stuff as it is likely much less expensive and has much of the companion material integrated (at least the stuff they decided to keep). I find Noble Knight Games an excellent purveyor of older gaming material and with their regular 2-5 day shipping I almost always get it in 2 days and their book condition descriptions are right in line with mine: I am a book nerd and like my books as unblemished as I can get them, anything VG, VG+ or higher will be excellent. (Check their scale on the site.)

Good gaming.

[markc]

 I agree with RandalThor, it sounds like you have played RM2 in the past. As he said RMC is the cheapest way to go if you want to buy the books in PDF form and or physical copies.
 RMC is a cleaned up version on RM2 and has a lot of homes rules provided in boxes to add to your game play.


MDC

[VladD]

OR

you might sign in on the RMU forum threads to acquire the free beta 1 test files of RMU There's no stack of ancient books to go with it, but it is trying to be the successor to RMC and RMFRP.

[Lord Garth]

I personally find the Companions the high point of the RM series. Yes, I know there's a mad power creep. And yes, they do get awfully complicated at times, but if you have time, eBay is your friend. Go out there and get Companions I-VII along with Character/Arms/Spell Law. It's mad, and there's too much at times, but I love me some good old RM2 with hundreds of professions, including ones which, really, don't make any sense.

If you're sane, yeah, go with the prior posters. Me I'm sticking with RM2, the full set, until RMU comes along, which GREATLY improves the system IMO.

[Spectre771]

I personally find the Companions the high point of the RM series. Yes, I know there's a mad power creep. And yes, they do get awfully complicated at times, but if you have time, eBay is your friend. Go out there and get Companions I-VII along with Character/Arms/Spell Law. It's mad, and there's too much at times, but I love me some good old RM2 with hundreds of professions, including ones which, really, don't make any sense.

If you're sane, yeah, go with the prior posters. Me I'm sticking with RM2, the full set, until RMU comes along, which GREATLY improves the system IMO.

Here Here!  I also love the Companions.  Each one had a different feel to it and lots of options to consider.  I have to see a lot more of the RMU system before I can have any educated opinions on it.  I've seen RMSS and it seemed pretty good at first but I couldn't justify the cost vs. the amount I had already invested in RM2.  I have all of the RM2 books and some ShadowWorld supplements, which are a fantastic addition IMO.

One member of our group has some RMC stuff that he really likes, but I don't have enough experience with it yet.  So far, I'm really leaning towards RM2 still.  I haven't seen anything in RMU or RMC that would make me invest in a different set of books.

Definitely get RMC-I and RMC-II.  To me at least... RMC-I was just a continuation of the core books (could be considered the 4th core book IMO) because there was just too much info to fit inside the core books so they made an "addendum" to the core books.  RMC-II is like the bible for PC creation.  It has the master DP cost charts for all of the "base" professions, all of the definitions of the skills, and great charts to have for a GM.  Any Profession you use from any other Companions that you use will show Profession specific costs for skills then instruct you to refer to the DP Cost for one of the base professions...... which are all listed in RMC-II.

[egdcltd]

Don't forget the other Companions like Alchemy, Arms, Elemental and Spell User's if you want to go into complete information overload!

[Spectre771]

Don't forget the other Companions like Alchemy, Arms, Elemental and Spell User's if you want to go into complete information overload!

Elemental Companion is easily my favorite and we have an entirely (or solely) elemental magic world that we started back in college that I still use now in my campaigns.  I do love Arms Companion but don't tell EC.

For the sake of saving money while OP chooses which system he wants to run, plenty of fun can still be had without a lot of companions.  I have all of the books/companions for RM2, so anything new from ICE would have to be mind-blowing to get me to reinvest in an entirely new set of RM books.

[Peter R]

On a completely different note if you used a cloud service such as Dropbox and all the gaming material had been saved in the dropbox folder then it would have been retrievable.

All my gaming notes, the adventures, the pdf copies of the rulebooks are all saving in dropbox and I can access them on any computer as well as my phone if I had to.

It is a bit late now but for future reference maybe...

[RandalThor]

On a completely different note if you used a cloud service such as Dropbox and all the gaming material had been saved in the dropbox folder then it would have been retrievable.

All my gaming notes, the adventures, the pdf copies of the rulebooks are all saving in dropbox and I can access them on any computer as well as my phone if I had to.

It is a bit late now but for future reference maybe...

I am just now starting to use this; I really like how I can share certain files that are too big to email (I like to create information packets that have lots of art in them).

[Peter R]

That is one very useful feature, the recipient doesn't need to be using dropbox either, they just get an email and can download the file.

I use it for both collaboration and as off site back up.

I have shared gaming material and invited all the players to share the folder. That is quite a good way of making sure everyone has the same supporting material such as house rules or character creation guidelines.

[markc]

  BTW, I sent a PM to the powers that be that they might want to take a look at providing the maps of SW as independent pieces of art for sale on DTRPG. If you are interested in this you may want to start a thread to show how many of you are interested in buying art/maps/dungeon layouts piece by piece.
MDC

[RandalThor]

As nice as they are, for that I would need you guys to see if Anna Meyer would redo them. Her maps of the World of Greyhawk are fantastic! I would pay good money to get a good-sized poster of the Flanaess she did - and certainly one of hers she did of Kulthea, Emer, & Jamain (individually).

[Spectre771]

As nice as they are, for that I would need you guys to see if Anna Meyer would redo them. Her maps of the World of Greyhawk are fantastic! I would pay good money to get a good-sized poster of the Flanaess she did - and certainly one of hers she did of Kulthea, Emer, & Jamain (individually).

I would definitely buy a good sized wall map of the SW realms.  Something about the size of larger poster, with some nice details, maybe some enlarged insets of important areas would be great.  We like to use dry-erase markers a lot when we are gaming.  If we had something laminated we could draw some important things on the map, then wipe it away for another campaign.

If there's ever a waiting list for the maps, sign me up.