Topic: Point-buy systems for stats (principally for RM2/RMC)

[Peter R]

The roll three stats, discard the lowest, middle is temp and highest is pot system is in the RMC Character Law and as a GM I offered it to my players and they hated it. They almost felt cheated by it because you could never get a potential of 101. They felt the old way was 'better' by which they probably meant more chance of them getting bigger stat bonuses.

I really liked it and felt it simplified character creation and got rid of one of the chart look ups. If there are five of you all creating characters at the same time you can get bottlenecks where everyone wants the same book at the same time because potentials happen so early in the process it is the most likely bottleneck, for us at least.

[Aotrs Commander]

I find too much randomness to be very detrimental in any game, especially at an early stage like character development. Skill and equipment don't always level the field when everybody has access to the same skills and equipment (actually, in RM, low stats often means less skills) or worse, they can widen the gap (since the players who roll well and the players who have the most system mastery are not mutually exclusive) as happened in the aforementioned party. This gets especially worse the larger the number of players you deal with (I'm up to a cap of eight for RM, because I a) physically don't have more space in my dining room and b) eight is the absolute limit that I can manage). With a group that large, the very last thing you want is people being ineffective during combat particularly, because they'll be basically doing nothing for a good hour or so¹, like as not and leads to fiddling with phones or whatnot (apparently out of our RPG group there are only one or two of us who still pay 100% attention to the game even when its not our turn anymore...)

(Changing dice doesn't often actually help, as I have sat and watched people roll up characters with my dice in front of me stupidly better than anything I could do, and I have certain characters that will continually miss, when using the exact same dice for other characters how don't.)

RM is already more random than any other system I've played, and while that does lead to some CLASSIC memorable moments... It has also essentially renders it impossible to have big, set-piece boss fights, as you can get with D&D (which is one area where it excels). Because every single time, someone will crit them in the first round (and this has basically happened in every boss fight I've run in Rolemaster since I started paying in 1990s...)

(In fact, I have ended up at the point that I more-or-less just give the PCs some enemies to knock down and minimise the amount of combat when i run RM these days. I'm sort of hoping by viciously curbing the PCs back to a level where they shouldn't be too disparate, I might be able to ramp up again.)

In the end, I don't view the dice as being the game, I view them merely as a mechanism to add variability. I don't believe in rolling dice for the sake of rolling dice, as it were. As DM, I always roll my dice behind the screen. The players don't need to know what I'm rolling, only the results, and if I choose to roll the dice for the pretty sound they make and pick a result - that's for them never to know when I've done it. (Not that I have to do that save only the odd occasion in 25-odd years of gaming.)

(I've been on the recieving end of too many wargames where I have done everything right and still lost, just because of dice rolls and it just isn't fun. I dont' want to lose because of randomness, I want to lose because either I screw up or the other guy out-maneouvers me.)

I believe that character generation is one of the most important parts of a game - especially since I place the emphasis on my game very heavily on a more "TV show" sort of mentality, in which the character mortality rate will be low-to-nonexistant unless Plot or outside factors demand it. So character generation is extremely important, because the players are going to be playing that character for a long time (as stated, previous main RM party is now over two decades old...) I can't remember the last time the group sat down at a table and generated a party with no pre-amble (might be the last RM party maybe ten years ago), since that's not how I plan a campaign nowadays. (We actually couldn't do that with RM anyway, with the number of players, since I only have one copy of SMCoI and RoCoII.) The PCs get integrated into it, even if it's a module or adventure path or something - double-especially if it's a day-quest (all I have time to write personally these days) I'm writing myself.

Thus I personally don't feel a chance of having to "make a character with terrible stats work" to be a particularly desirable phase-space for character generation for my PCs (or as a player, since I am inevitably one of the the ones who gets crappy stats); I'd rather that investment of effort be better spent of "making the character you wanted, how you wanted" bearing in mind that you will be generating your character well in advance of the campaign's start. I just don't play the old AD&D "turn up at game, grab character sheet, roll up and see what you get and then choose what you're going to play" sort of campaign anymore. If I'm going to play around with numbers, I'd rather it be numbers I control.

I think there is also an element of, like Spectre771 said, that rolling for stats reduces the ability for optimisation/min/maxing/ whatever you wish to call it. I am exactly the opposite: I EXPECT and encourage my players to optimise, since the monsters certainly will be (though, granted, this is more true for D&D than for RM, but only in degrees) - I haven't used monsters out of the book in any system... Well, actually, pretty much nearly ever when I'm writing my own adventures.



¹Notably, I have revised the casting system several times, because most fights would otherwise be long over before the caster got a spell off if they had to spend two rounds of prep time when everyone else is using firearms that attack two or (before I curbed it back again) even three times per round. Latest revision to to swipe the SCR from the new playtest rules and see how that works.

[Peter R]

(apparently out of our RPG group there are only one or two of us who still pay 100% attention to the game even when its not our turn anymore...)

Our party suffers from this. There is a direct correlation between the engagement in the game and the experience earned for us and that made more of a difference in the relative levels of the characters than the stats ever would. In the last game the party came together when they were about 10th level for a quest and at the end of the quest the two most engaged characters were up near 25th-27th and the lowest (the wake me up when something happens, fighter) was down at about 19th level. The game was heavily combat oriented so there was no lack of opportunity to earn experience.

I am considered to be very lucky with my dice and it is true but I roll no more open-ended rolls than anyone else in the party (proportionally) but I do make more rolls than anyone else. The character when fighting would make perception rolls, moving manouvers, I used iai strike, two weaon combo and adrenal move speed or tumbling attack. It was perfectly normal for me to make something like 18 rolls in two rounds if you take into account criticals. The fighter would probably roll adrenal move strength and a single attack each round making a total of maybe 5 rolls in two rounds. You can see why I rolled nearly three times as many open ended rolls as he did in almost every fight. My character had the worst stats in the group, the least DPs and the least magical items. Out of combat I was just a prolific taking on the role of scout for the party and using a wide range of skills. I was one of the ones that ended up the highest level because of my engagement. You can make you own luck and for me the more rolls I make the more chances of getting those ellusive open ended rolls.

I was just thinking that surely that engagement factor is a much bigger contributor to 'inbalance' than the stat rolls.

[Spectre771]

(Changing dice doesn't often actually help, as I have sat and watched people roll up characters with my dice in front of me stupidly better than anything I could do, and I have certain characters that will continually miss, when using the exact same dice for other characters how don't.)

But you proved my point.  Everyone else is rolling better with those dice than you.  You need new dice or better Attunement with those dice, those dice just don't like you

When in doubt, you always blame the dice.  If you blame the chaos gods, they find a way to get you killed.



OK, on a serious note; you mention a couple of things that seem to contradict.  You stated you don't have time to invest in fleshing out a PC and making them work through eventual skill building, but you state that you have been playing for 20+ years with no PC deaths in the party.  Isn't that a substantial enough time to flesh out a PC with items, skills, team work?

You also mention that RM doesn't support or allow for grand battles.

It has also essentially renders it impossible to have big, set-piece boss fights, as you can get with D&D (which is one area where it excels). Because every single time, someone will crit them in the first round (and this has basically happened in every boss fight I've run in Rolemaster since I started paying in 1990s...)

This is simply not true.  Just as an experiment to kill off a few hours on a Saturday before the real gaming session, I had four players roll up four 'disposable' PCs with the simple task of fighting a Greater Drake.  I told them not to waste points on anything other than skills that will help with killing this drake and to not even bother naming their PC's; this was an experiment and I wanted to see if it could be done.  No General Perception, no Diplomacy, no Sense Ambush Assassin, etc.  Make a simple one-dimensional PC with the sole purpose of fighting a drake.  I gave each a minimum +10 magic weapon at random from C&T 1,2, or 3, one ended up with a +15 Holy Battle Axe which does great things to Super Large Creatures.

They ALMOST won.  The drake was down under 50 HP when I dropped the last PC and if they survived a few more rounds, the amount of bleeding damage to the drake would have dropped it.  Epic battles are most certainly possible in RM and I will argue that they are far better than any D&D/PF "epic" battle I've been in.

Ironically, you mention that your boss gets killed in one blow because someone rolled a heavy crit and kills it.  In college, we spent two full semesters on an epic campaign, 2-3 game nights per week, two full semesters.  We get to the final battle.  My Cavalier charges at the drake, mounted lance, back attack... 1st round.  Well, since it was a back attack, my follow through lance-charge put my in front of the drake, with my back to him.  He rolls his 1st attack of the night.... 99E Cold crit.  I spent the rest of the night watching everyone else play.  1st round, 1st die roll, I was dead from a crit. 

That "1 roll/1 kill" dynamic cuts both ways.

that rolling for stats reduces the ability for optimisation/min/maxing/ whatever you wish to call it. I am exactly the opposite: I EXPECT and encourage my players to optimise, since the monsters certainly will be (though, granted, this is more true for D&D than for RM, but only in degrees)

I've been indirectly accused of "min/maxing" my PCs here, but that's the point isn't it?  Make the most you can of what you've been given.  I don't fault players for doing that.  Take advantage of what the gods have dealt you.  That min/max is what gave the PC that special boon to go out to adventure in the first place.

[Peter R]

I've just had another thought. Have you considered going diceless?

I use this normally in conjunction with the Anticipations spells where I suddenly need to know what is going to happen in the future. You can get or easily make a table of random numbers which you use in place of the dice. You just use each number only once and move along sequentially.

Here is a chart as an example


I allow players to reroll anything under 25 once. If they get a second bad roll then they just have to live with it. Using those rules with the table above these would be the stats for three characters

#1: 80, 94, 25, 82, 47, 47, 74, 33, 36, 18
#2: 97, 34, 35, 63, 98, 82, 90, 45, 26, 27
#3: 51, 26, 27, 95, 30, 63, 31, 37, 53, 96

You could give each player three sets of stats like those above and let them choose which of the three suited their character vision. The luck of the draw plays no part.

Just and idea.

[Spectre771]

My apologies for my last post, particularly to  Aotrs Commander.  I was called out to a meeting while I was still typing, so I wasn't able to go back to polish it off and take off the rough edges.  I hope it didn't come across as too abrasive.

[HawksNut]

For what it is worth. We are playing RMSS and I gave each player 675 points to spend. This generally makes for an above average player but only a few stats will be 90+ the rest usually are more pedestrian. We did have one incredibly lucky player with his potential stat rolls so he has about 5 of the 10 at 90+.

[Aotrs Commander]

My apologies for my last post, particularly to  Aotrs Commander.  I was called out to a meeting while I was still typing, so I wasn't able to go back to polish it off and take off the rough edges.  I hope it didn't come across as too abrasive.

No worries: I didn't think it was, in any case.



I think the fundemental issue here is I have come to personally not believe that "making a character effective despite bad stats/necessity is the mother of invention" is a worthwhile goal in character generation - I'd rather the players (or myself, if I'm playing) spend that effort in making an effective character more effective (or if effectiveness is at the cap, expand into other areas). I just don't see having some characters (for the sake of having some numbers being less homogenised) having to work to overcome disadvantages¹ compared to other characters granting enough advantages over the alternative of being able to control character capabilities² at the expense of less random number spread.


¹Assuming the player has the system mastery to do that in the first place.

²Both at a "keeping the power gap between the players more even" level and a "player over their character's stats" level.

[jdale]

I think the fundemental issue here is I have come to personally not believe that "making a character effective despite bad stats/necessity is the mother of invention" is a worthwhile goal in character generation

I agree here. Making a character is always a struggle of too few resources (especially DP), you have to make choices and sacrifices, and you will have shortcomings and limitations for which you will need to look to the other PCs. That's great. But I don't think there is a need to draw straws to pick the one guy whose character is especially ineffectual who will have to struggle twice as hard as the rest. Nor are things improved by randomly selecting the one guy who won't need to struggle at all.

This is doubly true if you do individual experience (rather than group experience). Then the disadvantaged one struggles for story share, consequently getting less of it which means less experience, compounding the problem.

[Aotrs Commander]

I don't even do experience anymore for day quests, whether I do RM or D&D, I just level the characters up when I feel like it.

For our weekly games, where I do track it, I gave up on individual XP long ago, and now it's all group XP. (If I feel a player does something above and beyond, I might give them some sort of intangible reward, like Fate Points or something.)

Because in both cases, a) tracking it was a just a nuisence and b) increasing the spread of levels compounded all the other problems, especially in RM, where the top-end of the party were accelerating away from the bottom end.

[Cory Magel]

I don't even do experience anymore for day quests, whether I do RM or D&D, I just level the characters up when I feel like it.

I've decided to just plain old to this all the time... I'm going to ask the players if they'd prefer to use the next method (which other GM's in our group do).

For our weekly games, where I do track it, I gave up on individual XP long ago, and now it's all group XP. (If I feel a player does something above and beyond, I might give them some sort of intangible reward, like Fate Points or something.)

I think, if you're going to use RM, this method is a must compared to the old ways.  Playing certain profession types simply didn't bring the exp in like others.  Exp is mainly obtained via Combat, Spell Casting, Skill Use, and then random stuff like Travel and individual GM rewards. Now, it might be an issue more specific to us (although I'm not convinced) since we are fairly combat oriented, but supporting characters were falling behind to make a long story short. We also had an issue with a player here and there that would "steal" kills. Basically a ranged attacker would switch targets to a foe that has been brought down to near death in order to try and get the "Kill Exp". Personally I just won't have players that blatantly do that in my games, but it had been a problem in other GM's games. Switching to group exp not only evened the field out overall, it did it in a manner that encouraged more realistic cooperation among the group.

[Spectre771]

I think, if you're going to use RM, this method is a must compared to the old ways.  Playing certain profession types simply didn't bring the exp in like others.  Exp is mainly obtained via Combat, Spell Casting, Skill Use, and then random stuff like Travel and individual GM rewards. Now, it might be an issue more specific to us (although I'm not convinced) since we are fairly combat oriented, but supporting characters were falling behind to make a long story short. We also had an issue with a player here and there that would "steal" kills. Basically a ranged attacker would switch targets to a foe that has been brought down to near death in order to try and get the "Kill Exp". Personally I just won't have players that blatantly do that in my games, but it had been a problem in other GM's games. Switching to group exp not only evened the field out overall, it did it in a manner that encouraged more realistic cooperation among the group.

This hasn't been an issue for us and I use the formula laid out in ChL&CaL (?) as my template which has the XP reward chart and I add a couple of GM gifts for good role play, non-meta-gaming, fate points, etc.  The power creep isn't as bad as I see people making it out to be.

Example:
- The higher PC's need higher NPC's to battle - The lower PC now gets bonus XP for battling a foe of higher level.
- Stealing kills is easily addressed by giving XP for "Amount of damage delivered" and for "Killing blow."  No more stealing kills as it was a combined effort.
- The GM can award a higher bonus for the Buff/Debuffer PCs who assist.  To me, and with the other GMs, assisting in battle and making it possible for the mostly naked barbarian to kill the beasty is more important.  If the Buff Caster didn't assist the barbarian, they would both be a smear on the cave wall.  "Keep the tank alive or we are all goo!!!"

Is it a lot of bookkeeping?  Heck yes, but I fixed that.  I made the players responsible for tracking their feats and accomplishments, Crits given/taken, etc. during the session.  Throughout the night I make it very clear that "...there are 6,7,8 of you, I can't keep track of all your actions, so write them down."  This addresses another post, maybe in a different thread, of players in large groups taking out their cell phones to text or check e-mail when the action slows down for them.  I found that the players were more involved because at the end of the night, they were catching John not taking credit for this or that and therefore missing out on XP.  Now the party was more involved because they wanted ALL the players to get the max XP from the GM so they assisted John in remembering what he did that night.  Where my original group from years ago had the "complaint" of one GM who just gave out flat XP to the entire group, it was justified.  "You picked the lock, you killed 15 orcs and killed the dragon in 1 stroke, and you cast a fireball spell... ummmm everyone gets 3000XP."  What?  Picking a lock is the same value as killing 15 orcs and a dragon or casting 1 spell?

In the D&D/PF series we played for quite a while, the GM just arbitrarily announced "OK, you went up a level."  Sometimes that was after 7-8 nights of gaming, sometimes it was after 2 nights of gaming.  After that, I stopped caring if I leveled up or not since it was all to the GM's mood, not the player accomplishments.  In that campaign, I had an extremely powerful barbarian with insane STR, heavy damage, feats that let me do double damage, etc.  I was getting two kills per round with Power Attack, Cleave, Improved Cleave, really nice 2H weapon.  I was clearing out rooms before others were getting off a second shot.  "Ummm... OK, everyone goes up a level."  What???   I stopped caring about the game and the PC so I would just walk into rooms, set off traps, attack the biggest enemy and wait to get knocked unconscious so the other players could take part and do things such as "heal the stupid barbarian", sneak attack, Power Shot, cast spells, etc.

[Peter R]

I have adopted the exp system from RMU/HARP into my game and I have found that works well. I still give the multiples for first time etc but with the emphasis on story points helps balance the gains. The kill rate is certainly not the biggest factor in experience any more, player engagement pays off far more now.

[tbigness]

I used to give individual experience points out all the time which worked out well as everyone found a niche to use their abilities to gain it. Then one campaign I had 2 players hogging all the game time to pilfer the whole city and sell the assets to the black market (Dabbler and Mentalist) and another who would create performances that played out through the game session with cut pursing and opportunist marketing with the above events (Bard with Mentalist and Dabbler). The other players were stopped dead as to do anything and grew board. I then introduced the story experience with bonus experience for inventive use of skills, spells, maneuver that enhanced the story, rather than just willy nilly use of skills and this gave the group better focus. It also allowed separate XP for creativeness and exceptional results for rolls. The XP variety kept most of the players within 500 points per session and did not provide a gap of levels between players as some were complaining happened.

[Aotrs Commander]

I have actually gotten started on generating the characters now, to see how well it has all panned out. Me and my guinea pig were at first a little unsure about only having 50 points of bonus to be spread around. But by the time we'd added points from his background options (either rolled or traded in) and racial (plus lich racial), he ended with a very respectable set of stats (lowest being +5s) - which I'm okay with, since unlike the previous party, as the highest was a +25, we weren't getting into silly levels of ability modifiers and innate stat ability ranges. Background points - especially the ability to trade away an undesired option for a +5 bonus to assign where desired, gave a considerable boost and I was happy that this was about the right mix.

On the flip side, I came to do an Elf PC... And realised with the new bonus => stat system, it meant elves would now have a racial base SD stat of 2. Not, that's not a type, actually 02 - because of the -20 bonus. Now, in the old system, the stat penalty didn't matter quite as much when you had the actual stat bonus behind it... (And DPs were derived from the stat, not the bonus.) But it would now mean that stat-damaging effects would be INFEASIBLY effective against Elves (e.g. RM2 Mind Erosion (though the RMC version is vrs bonus), Mental or Time criticals) - or Orcs for that matter, so much so that it would be daft in-universe to not abuse it. (It, as you can imagine, also crippled their DP something rotten, which also unacceptable.)

So, after totting up the Elf racials, and deciding that, actually, even without a -20 SD, the lack of background options was still making the choice pretty fair, I drastically reduced the penalties on the races (Elf, (by extension half-elf) orc and greater orc) in question. The Elf SD penalty was always rather controversial (I don't think anyone in my group ever saw it without going "what? Seriously?!", so I don't feel reducing it to -5 was actually going to do much harm.

(I suppose the alternative would have been to scale the bonus to stat system more, so that 1 was not -25 (you could make an argument for making 1 insect level intelligence, 2-3 animal intelligence maybe... But on the other hand, RoCoVI does model that via race bonuses anyway, and the existing system does allow for variation amongst individuals, so I think this is probably the better solution of the two.)

After that adjustment, the Elf PC came out pretty much on target.

(I think in general, I am starting to think that some of RM2's "you can but the cost is insane" may as well have read "no, you can't" since when you only have 30-40 DPs to play with, no-one is ever going to spend 20 points to (attempt to, if using the standard rules) learn a 1st level spell as a fighter, so I've been modifying a few of the higher DP costs back to 6 or 8.)

I also discovered the surprising amount of skills in RoCoII/SpMcoI that had DP costs but no write up, write-ups but no DP cost and that Genetics/Genetic Engineer and Cybernetics/Cybernetic engineering, despite being ostensibly the same skill (with only one write-up) was listed as two in two different places...! So I got out my pencil and added DP costs (or skills to DP costs) and made some judgement calls on the skills without descriptions (see below).

(A task made easier by some gentleman whose work I found google search who had been attempting to convert them to RMSS or something.)


Airborne Assault: Renamed Airborne Combat (Arms Companion p69).
Armour Working: No description. Use unknown nor readily identifyable as General skill.
Fluid systems: Bonus for the understanding of fluid mechanics.
Cybernetics/Cybernetic Engineering: Due to proofing errors, Cybernetics should have been Cybernetic Engineering and listed in the engineering skills category with the cost of Cybernetics. Skill costs have been corrected (listed in bot places, lowest of either assigned cost): skill description is under Cybernetic Engineering.
Genetics/Genetic Engineering: Due to proofing errors, Genetics should have been Genetic Engineering and listed in the engineering skills category with the cost of Genetics. Skill costs have been corrected (listed in bot places, lowest of either assigned cost): skill description is under Genetics.
Mechanical Diagnosis: Bonus for assessing the working condition of mechanical systems and diagnosing problems. This skill does not include the use of tech or multiscanners, but does include the use of diagnostic procedures which may include the use of information obtained from a scanner.
Tax Law: Bonus for understanding and application of laws pertaining to taxes. (This skill only applies for the use and understanding of legal methods, see Tax Evasion). This skill must be developed separately for each culture, though similar skills may apply.
Toxin Identification: Renamed Poison Lore; see Poison Lore description, RoCoII


Depressingly, I can see myself ending up finally cracking and writing a master skill table across both RM/SM on a spreadsheet for all professions - something I begun once in my youth, in the days when I was still doing it all by hand and gave up)...! A monumental task, but perhaps with the inability to replace RoCoII, one I perhaps ought to do. (Among other things, I suppose it would make it a little easier to be able to have more than one copy of the DP costs floating around...!) But by frag, that will be a job and a half.

[Majyk]

I liked the RMSS Potential formula they introduced for rolling Pots.
100-Temp Stat(rounded up/down) expressed as #D10s to add to the Temp.
So a 62 was 60+4D10, 77 was 80+2D10.
90s+ were tricky IIRC, but again, GM has the book or printed copies of that page.
[emoji57]

The roll three stats, discard the lowest, middle is temp and highest is pot system is in the RMC Character Law and as a GM I offered it to my players and they hated it.

I really liked it and felt it simplified character creation and got rid of one of the chart look ups. If there are five of you all creating characters at the same time you can get bottlenecks where everyone wants the same book at the same time because potentials happen...

"We do not stop playing because we get older.
We get old because we've stopped playing!"
-Bernard Shaw