very cool characters and backgrounds. I'll counter with my current batch of players/characters...
Wow, that sounds like a game I would love! Cool characters and I've always loved playing rogues and thieves.
Is that the Thieve's World setting? I haven't read those books since high school, but I quite liked them.
Cheers. Yes it is Thieves World, based in the city of Sanctuary. Its honestly a fantastic setting. The Maze is a region of the city infamous for the desperate criminals that inhabit it. Its a place the city guard will not go unless they are in large numbers. The Hellhounds/elite guards are a group of professional soldiers who do their best to stamp out crime where they can. They are famous for the ruthless efficiency with which they carry out their work. There are some colourful and memorable characters (NPC's) that really bring the setting to life, Hanse Shadowspawn, Prince Govenor 'Kittycat' Kidakithis, Jubal the crimelord and his sell-sword hawkmasks, Enas Yorl the hazard class enchanter/shape-shifter, Lythande the Blue Star Adept, Zalbar the Captain of the Hellhounds and Tempus the Hellhound - part demi-god part ruthless killer.
Ive used the setting a fair bit. It has never really lost its interest for me. 3 years ago, after a 20+ year break from roelmaster I decided to re-energize my campaign and injected some new NPC's villains and factions (The Beggar King, The Big Fish Gang/Thieves Guild, The Order of the Black Lotus (assassins guild), The League of Shadows (rival assassins guild), The Bloody Hand Cult - who already existed in the setting, I just fleshed them out a bit and created a vampire plot around the Black Lotus and Blood Cult. The setting was far from dead, it just needed some new fuel in the tank
The coolest thing of all is the campaign has reunited a group of us that used to roleplay 25yrs ago.
I guess to keep things interesting for me and to keep the players guessing I blew up my existing small scale campaign and created a very big and epic story arc where the player characters are central to the plot... especially the Burglar, he has a very complex background and its still evolving with the whole vampire curse but also the volatility of his split personality disorder which has not played a major part yet but it will in future sessions and its put him right in the middle of things as a spy for the Black Lotus.
My campaign has grown from 2 to 4 players in two years. seemingly modest numbers but we play exclusively online, which is not for the faint of heart as rolemaster has a somewhat clunky combat system when you are GMing a battle involving 12-16 combatants (as quite often happens in my games!). Iv upskilled quite a bit using roll20 which is amazing as a gaming platform but it tales some time to master it and when I say time, im talking 100hrs+ to get to grips with all of its features (im almost there, but its taken ages as i only play for 6wks of the year and its an intensive 6wks).
Im a rules tinkerer by nature, which probably frustrates my players but they have to take the good with the bad
. I am always looking for ways to streamline things and take away so mush dice-rolling and table referencing with the goal of leaving more time for the fun part - roleplaying. Dice rolling has its part, its unavoidable but i try my best to keep things moving when we play (which is usually for 3hr sessions online) so its less than ideal to spend that whole time on a single combat unless its the major battle at the end of the story arc, you know the climatic battle that everything hinges on and has been building up to.