The problem is that there's only one person who judge whaich choices are good and which are bad... I don't want my players friends to comply to my ideas of what is right for their character just because I'm the GM.
No, the GM doesn't decides that, are the actions and the situation itself what determines it. The GM only applies rules and give the situation.
This is rolemaster, PCs die. Players can reduce this chance by being very cautious - but even if they are, they can still end up dieing.
I reapeat, the game offers ways for that, how about using lifekeeping/preservation spells/herbs and then heal the body?, have you ever bought a resurrection herb?.
It is so easy to become a hero?, it seems that yes, the only requirement is to create a character in a sheet, as all in the world is at my side to survive. Why not everyone goes to adventures then?. I see correct give players some advantage, but not make them so immune.
- We are in a dungeon, search for traps in any corridor and door. Look for magical traps too, use "lores" to see if that symbol is a trap.
- We are in the thieves lair, there are 20 of them, "let's slash them all", "wait, we need a plan", "who cares, we have many ways to evade death".
- "I want that flaming sword", "wait, we are with no stock of resurrection herbs", "bah!, who needs them?, we can survive by many other ways, let's buy the sword to hack foes".
These are only example situtations, danger must be real to have real stressful situations, I (and my group) don't like a game where a magical fire ball trap has not the relevant respect.
Give some advantages to players, examples:
- Don't use total destruction results against players, modify them for die but with recover possibility.
- Insert NPCs to help, like high level lay healers or clerics, but they will want something as reward, can be money or a mission.
- For dangerous adventures, insert events like "30% discount month in healing herbs", this includes preservation and resurrection ones, then players can use money from treasures to supply.
- Modify some rules to evade situations like fumbles, for weapons we have swashbuckling, for spells we can use spell bonus to substract from spell fumble roll, so you can develop magical languages or talents to increase spell bonus.
- As summary, allow players to decrease death probability, and opportunity to recover from t, but working on it, not for free.
Immunization is typical when begin to play, but after some time playing what you want is to have a realistic game, with real dangerous situations, are the foes against us, who will survive?, that is a real battle, and that is RM in its core, and that is a real role play game.
A real game is much more satisfactory than "I have born as a hero, touched by gods", work on it, try, and see if it is true that you are really hero facing the real danger.
Experience is not only a number after killing many monster, and more ranks in the sheet, experienced players are noticeable when facing situations as they have better planification and improvisations against situations of any type. But players learns really if they have the need.
Rules like fatepoints and other "gods touch" rules, are to convert RM more in a D&D like game, with charcaters that are destined to achieve glory directly.
Of course, play RM as you want, but I like RM as it is itself, for that we play it, as it is one of the few games that offers real role playing.
