Topic: When Does RM Break Down?

[Justin]

And then you play EVERY day, with marathon sessions that last 16 hours to three days, straight gaming, with breaks for pizza, and when it is done, we went to Denny's, cause back then it was the only 24hr place to hangout and eat in town.

I'm serious.  Play every day.

We play every 3 wks, sometimes 4.   

[mocking bird]

My highest was 28th level and he started at 10th.  A marathon 12 hour session every other week for about a year.  The next highest is 13th and he started at 3rd.

But it seems the consensus is that the players get bored with higher level characters more often than actually having problems with the game.  That and it puts a lot more pressure on the GM to come up with challenges as the PC's become 'global players' rather than simple caravan guards or quests for minor nobles.

[Marc R]

Same here, the post college, pre children period allowed for play every weekend, one day usually for 8-12 or more hours. . . .

over that period I started 3rd level Harold Miller, through:
Agent Miller
Sub Altern Miller
Altern Miller
Sir Miller
Lord Miller
Champion Miller, the Celedor
Warlord Celedor

And then the game kind of combusted, I beleive I was 33rd level and awaiting a large chunk of experience from killing a Moloch. Even then it took 3+ years.

Even there, the game didn't blow up on breakdowns in RM or the GM/Gameworld concept, it blew up because the "party idea" died. . . the conflicting goals and activities of a handful of 20+ level characters left the GM facing essentially a series of high end parallell solo games, the friction of that situation (Try maintaining timeline continuity with characters powerful enough to send serious ripples in the pond, and able to move around a lot, none of whom want to spend more time in the same frame with each other than it takes to have a conversation.) blew the game up.

alas. . .

[yammahoper]

I too have experienced that high level split via conflicting interest. 

The answer is common ground, be it a common goal, common enemy, etc.  The hard part is keeping a goal out of reach but tantalizingly close to such high level monsters PC's.

lynn

[Cory Magel]

The only trouble we've ever had is coming up with believable, challenging foes for the party once they hit a certain power level. At some point you have to admit that your characters have become a 'major force' in the world and aren't just a band of adventurers. So long as the GM and players are both happy with the effective 'arms race' then you're good.

We've leveled up to close to 20th in more then one campaign. Of course, those campaigns lasted 2+ years in some cases. I, personally, would like to continue until around level 30 some time, but our GM's like to bring things to a close when we get near 20th level because at that point some of us are hitting our 'peak performance' as a profession and feel we would have to start relying on increasingly powerful items for any real feel of 'progression'.

[yammahoper]

As the GM, I LOVE a well developed high level party.  I can throw whatever I want at them without worrying about it.  If they die, as experienced as they are, the players KNOW they deserved it.

Stress and guilt free since 1983.

lynn

[Marc R]

I find the scope tends to grow, moving to politics and nations.

Even if you're 30th level, there's only so much you can do to "force" nations. (RM certainly works out where 50 3rd level archers can put a crimp in your day.)

Also, the whole "Problems in two places at once."

If a major demon is approaching city 1, an army is attacking city 2 five hundred miles away, while a growing menace in the north is just getting stronger and stronger. . . .PCs often need to prioritize and not deal with certain things, they can't be everywhere at the same time.

This often is the cause of party combustion. . . .the ranger from the north, the fighter from city two, and the paladin of the church based in city 1 will often just split up due to their difference in priorities.

[dutch206]

I think the worst mistake I ever made as a GM in Rolemaster was allowing the use of the high character stats from Mythic Greece.  Even at low levels, the power level of that campaign was absurd.

I also find that finding suitable enemies for characters above 20th level is a challenge.  Oh, these encounters are around, but the appearance of such a creature usually turns into a realm-shaking event.

Also, if you plan on running a high-level campaign in RM, you absolutely MUST have one rule in place:  Maximum PC level is 50 + ME stat bonus.  This stops the "My character is a 10,000 year old elf" munchkins.

[RandalThor]

But it seems the consensus is that the players get bored with higher level characters more often than actually having problems with the game.  That and it puts a lot more pressure on the GM to come up with challenges as the PC's become 'global players' rather than simple caravan guards or quests for minor nobles.

Personally I have never been able to play an RM game at such levels and the only time I levelled up a character from first to any decent level was a dwarf fighter in the-game-that-shall-not-be-named and went al the way to 10th level before being forced fed poisonous food by a robot in a chrashed spaceship (you all know the adventure I speak of....)

That is why I am constantly trying to get people to play/run high-level games as I have never really been able to. And I have been playing for 30 years. Sort of sucks, don't it?!?

It is also why I agreed to join in on a game-that-shall-not-be-named because it was an epic-level campaign and I was playing a 26th level char. I had to drop out because, well the timing sucked: I worked from midnight to 9am, mon thru fri and they wanted to play every thurs from 10-11 am to 9-10 pm. For me to play (and I did for 3 weeks) I would have to not sleep after work on weds/thurs-morning until I got home from work thurs-night/fri-morning. No sleep for over 41 hours! As I am no spring-chicken anymore (as if I ever was), it was too much. And they wouldn't move the game to friday or saturday as they all worked in the service industry (read: restaurant/bar) and those nights were money nights.

I would love to play in an RM/SM game that was in the 20s or 30s for levels. It is practically a dream of mine to do before I die. 

[Balhirath]

The biggest problem in High-Level adventures as a GM is to present problems that cannot be solved with brute force or spells, since the players at that level can kill just about anything if they put their minds and skills to it.

[yammahoper]

Oh, high level adventures are just the same as lower level adventures, but rather than saving the city form certain doom or stopping a demonic invasion or sending what demon army did make it through the gate before the PC's shut it down BACK to the voidal planes that spawned them, settings like PlaneScape came out, providing the ultimate "but now the entire MEGAVERSE in in danger" adventures for even the ultimate munchkins and power games to find a challenge, and suitable rewards, in.  A setting where the players are Gandalf and Aragorn and Gimli and Legolas and Boromir, and not the stinking sidekicks.

It can be great fun with wild things. 

lynn

[Marc R]

Rand, the best advice I can offer is to go over to RPGRM.Com, and run into the recruiting thread, and openly beg someone to run an epic level game. You'd be surprised how often you can inspire a game by asking someone else to run it. . .I'm currently begging someone to run a zombie-survival-horror game of any system/genre. . . been a few nibbles already.

I don't currently have the time to GM it, but you might find a taker.

I suspect you need to keep epic level in mind from the start to make it work as the GM. . .you need a world suited to it, be prepared for it, and have a party concept tight enough to both keep the party together, and maintain at high end. Likely some form of "Agent" would work. (Like, all PCs must be clergy or lay fellows of one church, or something like that.)

[Chaman]

During my first game of RM(2) the Gm meant for a 1st level cleric to get beat down by an 8th level fighter. unfortunately, he built the cleric a little too well and the cleric beat down the fighter with a quarterstaff. Unfortunately the GM left the Navy and the group only got up to around 8th level or so. A group I ran had an adventure shortened for the same reason, again the characters didn't get past level 10. And my present group is a little fearful of RM, though I got two to set up characters and now I'm off to the sandbox  ; Ah a year to hone a series of adventures, hope they like them  .

Oh, and when I was in the Navy we'd game for about 6 hours a day everyday that we were out to sea  . I didn't get introduced to RM until near the end of my first tour

Haven't had a chance to try this, but, hows this for a high-level game, kind of...
the PCs end up with issues that are too petty or politically charged for them to deal with directly so they hire a band of low-levels to deal with it (the PCs again).

this gives the high-levels more control in the world, you can slowly open the scope for them while the low-levels do the grunt work. Could lead to some interesting role playing: will the baron send the fighter out on a suicide mission, even though he's playing both characters? Will the apprentice mage tell her master everything she found out? This is easier if players shift roles & become associated under another player; well, the group won't appear to have multiple-personality disorders (or develop them  ).

And when you need the high-levels to deal with the problem, the GM has had more time to craft a better encounter for the high-levels; well, as they can set it up slowly through the low-levels.

Anybody try this already? How did it work out?

[RandalThor]

LordMiller, I will probably try that some time in the future (near-far, don't know yet) though to me role-playing is a social event so I just prefer to be in the same room with those that I play with so we could do all the other interactions that go along with socializing. But, I haven't tried the play-by-post gaming yet, so I don't know how it works out.

Back on topic, the highest level RM character that I have ever played was 7th level. And we did not play long enough to get him to 8th.

Chaman, a group of mine did that sort of thing, but I cannot remember which game it was in....... I am thinking Star Wars (of all games), where I both played a Kid and a Mercenary guy - who always bickered with each other.