Official ICE Forums
Systems & Settings => Rolemaster => RMC/RM2 => Topic started by: Bravesteel on March 26, 2017, 11:09:31 AM
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I'm curious to hear where people tend to set their RMC games? I think I will be writing up my own setting while I wait for my RMC books to arrive from DriveThruRPG. If you play a homebrew setting, what type of genre would you say it is, Dark Fantasy, High Fantasy, Pulp etc?
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Shadow World or Middle Earth. We play RM2.
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I made up my own world. It's based on a clash of cultures. One culture is patriarchal and divided in castes in which the elite rule using magic and knowledge. On the other hand we have a matriarchal society very skilled in combat. In the past patriarchal society used to be the dominant culture in my setting, but a very potent mage, that didn't want to be subjected to the power of Gods, made up a potent spell that broke the perfection of the world beginning the procession of equinoxes. thanks to this "original sin" he was able to banish the gods, but at the same time, as side effect, he also made it very difficult the use of magic. So this has led to the collapse of the patriarchal society. So in the present day we are witness to the rise of the matriarchal society and its revenge against the former oppressors.
so it's a very low magic world in which players (all from the patriarchal society) are struggling for their freedom and to bringing back magic.
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I made up my own world. It's based on a clash of cultures. One culture is patriarchal and divided in castes in which the elite rule using magic and knowledge. On the other hand we have a matriarchal society very skilled in combat. In the past patriarchal society used to be the dominant culture in my setting, but a very potent mage, that didn't want to be subjected to the power of Gods, made up a potent spell that broke the perfection of the world beginning the procession of equinoxes. thanks to this "original sin" he was able to banish the gods, but at the same time, as side effect, he also made it very difficult the use of magic. So this has led to the collapse of the patriarchal society. So in the present day we are witness to the rise of the matriarchal society and its revenge against the former oppressors.
so it's a very low magic world in which players (all from the patriarchal society) are struggling for their freedom and to bringing back magic.
That's a really cool setting, juza! :)
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I have always run my campaigns in my own world. Most of it centers in the Jengada Allied Nations, which I published as part of Shadoworld, but I use my own version. It's a low-magic, low-metal nomadic horse culture. Adjacent to it, I have:
* A tropical (human) culture that is obsessed with competition/combat;
* An evil (human) empire run by the church, sacrificing citizens to demon-gods;
* A Wood elf culture ruled by a queen-seer
* A gnome culture (within the tropical region) that is reclusive, the males and females only coming together to mate
* A fanatical church state that's not so much evil as determined to spread their religion.
* etc. etc.
Hundreds of years ago, there was a period called the "Mage's Death" when anyone who had so much as seen a spell book died. Out of fear, all of the books and scrolls on the continent were destroyed. Magic is coming back, but this allows me to limit the power of items and spells available to the players.
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Mine is a world of our long-time creation as well. It's a mix of Arthurian Legend time period, the early portion of the Renaissance of what is our real-life European world, with a healthy sprinkling of Terry Pratchett's Discworld.
- "Magic" has ALMOST been explained away by what passes for science. "Magical potions" were just medicinal herbs. Science is still working to explain away the remaining silly superstitions to fully enlighten the masses. Universities, Colleges, places of study, libraries, are prolific. Anyone who is anyone wants to be "educated."
- No gunpowder yet.
- Elementalism and Alchemy are the "new magics" in the world. The only magic ad magic user classes allowed in the game come from RM2 - Elemental Companion and Alchemy Companion
- "Science" has determined that true elements are derived from the PEM (Proto Elemental Material) and that is the true essence of fire, water, air, etc. and those pure forms can be manipulated. Earth, air, fire, water that we see and use every day are just the residual by-products of their pure elemental forms (PEM).
- "Undead happen." They are like New York City subway rats. They exist, they're big, they're a nuisance. No one really knows where they all come from but there are lots of theories and everyone agrees it's probably impossible to exterminate all of them.
- In Elemental Companion there is a very well written, very detailed time line of the Schools of Elementalism and how they came to be, how they broke off into opposing factions, how each school views the other. Within that framework Elementalism is in the Renaissance stage as well. The complex elements have been discovered, Gravity, Inertia, Vibration, so on but the super complex have not yet been discovered (Nexus, Aether, Plasma...) *
- There are nomadic tribes in the Great Dessert and there is the Silt Ocean where the silt is so fine, it needs to be traversed as if it were water thus opening up the desert tribes to all of the skills such as Sailing, Star Gazing, Navigation, etc.
- I've been slowly introducing the players to the Worshippers of Hrssak (Shadow World: Quellbourne). They are going to become a very difficult group to tend with if they aren't dealt with soon.
- And other fun goodies.
* - I may have the official names mixed up. There are simple, Compound, Complex, and others.
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- "Magic" has ALMOST been explained away by what passes for science. "Magical potions" were just medicinal herbs. Science is still working to explain away the remaining silly superstitions to fully enlighten the masses. Universities, Colleges, places of study, libraries, are prolific. Anyone who is anyone wants to be "educated."
My setting is the opposite! Science (or at least technology) has almost completely been explained away as magic. :) It's a post-technological fantasy setting where all magic is actually the manipulation of systems, structures, and artifacts left behind. Despite that I have aimed to give it as much of a classic fantasy tone as possible. If magic is defined as power of mysterious origin, after all, what's the difference, really?
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For us, it was Shadow World - especially Jaiman/Norek, though I got in on the ground floor, heh.
When ideas ran out, we went with Forgotten Realms adventures and just changed them into SW locales.
As I always say, go find old T$R Magazines called Dungeon Magazine - it had a tonne of written adventure modules and all they needed was 20-30 minutes spent converting NPC and Trap stats into RM ones.
Good times!
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My setting is the opposite! Science (or at least technology) has almost completely been explained away as magic. :) It's a post-technological fantasy setting where all magic is actually the manipulation of systems, structures, and artifacts left behind. Despite that I have aimed to give it as much of a classic fantasy tone as possible. If magic is defined as power of mysterious origin, after all, what's the difference, really?
Very cool and perfectly explained! It's almost like WH40K world where the machine spirits need to be appeased and the Litanies of Weapon Cleaning must be performed lest your equipment fail you when most needed. The ancient weapons and armours are venerable and cannot be duplicated.
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I use the Forgotten Realms, not a perfect mix
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I also use the Forgotten Realms but I find it works really well if you stick with the D&Desque style encounters; what was originally an inconsequential 3d4 kobolds suddenly can become one where the players really need to think strategically because 10 to 12 of anything is never going to be a fight you walk away from unscathed!
I use a mix of D&D creatures converted to RM using the conversion rules in the vault here and monster substitution where I replace the monsters from forgotten realms with RM monsters that fill the same niche.
I take a Module series as the basis for the adventure and then RMify it. I remove magical potions and replace them with best fit herbs. Create the NPCs as RM NPCs and try and best fit spells to spell lists.
I massively thin out the number of species encountered. The typical D&D adventure may have 10 or 12 different species of monster in a single dungeon/complex/location. I reduce that firstly be removing monsters I simply do not like, such as gelatinous cubes, mimics, cloakers and black puddings etc. and then seeing if the remaining monsters hang together well. I also do not like the weird out of nowhere traps and puzzles that 1980s D&D modules used to have so I tend to remove/replace or retheme those to make use of RM skill sets.
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I also do not like the weird out of nowhere traps and puzzles that 1980s D&D modules used to have so I tend to remove/replace or retheme those to make use of RM skill sets.
It seems like having a weird fetish for traps was a prerequisite for being a game designer in the 80s.
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I also do not like the weird out of nowhere traps and puzzles that 1980s D&D modules used to have so I tend to remove/replace or retheme those to make use of RM skill sets.
It seems like having a weird fetish for traps was a prerequisite for being a game designer in the 80s.
It still exists. Have you read Rappan Athak? It's lethal for D&D; I hate to think what it would be like in Rolemaster.
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It still exists. Have you read Rappan Athak? It's lethal for D&D; I hate to think what it would be like in Rolemaster.
I have adapted Rappan Athuk for my current RMSS campaign. Over the course of many months, and several visits, my players have penetrated only as far as level 3a.
I always warn them, there's a potential TPK on every level (including the above ground entrance).
It's been quite a lot of fun.
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It still exists. Have you read Rappan Athak? It's lethal for D&D; I hate to think what it would be like in Rolemaster.
I haven't read that one. But together with the impossible ecosystems (black puddings living happily next to Minotaurs living happily next to goblins living happily next to demons etc.), the excessive number of traps is one of the things that made me modify modules in the past. If you take a look at the Cloudlord citadel in Tanara for example, you wonder how the Cloudlords ever actually lived in those places. The minute a kid misbehaved and ran into his dad's study, he'd be vaporized by a sunray or impaled on a spike trap.
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I have adapted Rappan Athuk for my current RMSS campaign. Over the course of many months, and several visits, my players have penetrated only as far as level 3a.
I always warn them, there's a potential TPK on every level (including the above ground entrance).
It's been quite a lot of fun.
We ran H1-4 back in the 80s. Having read through, I don't think the party that confronted and defeated Orcus on his home plane could survive this dungeon, even without the added lethality of Rolemaster.
I haven't read that one. But together with the impossible ecosystems (black puddings living happily next to Minotaurs living happily next to goblins living happily next to demons etc.), the excessive number of traps is one of the things that made me modify modules in the past. If you take a look at the Cloudlord citadel in Tanara for example, you wonder how the Cloudlords ever actually lived in those places. The minute a kid misbehaved and ran into his dad's study, he'd be vaporized by a sunray or impaled on a spike trap.
Funnily enough, you can find all the monsters you listed, or variants, in Rappan Athuk. However, creatures tend to be on their own levels, nearly everything intelligent worships Orcus and the demons largely turn up when summoned. It's actually one of the most logically put together megadungeons I've seen.
Regarding traps, I think there would be a lot more notes lying around with how to deactivate them. If you have half a dozen people and half a dozen traps, there's no way everyone is going to remember what to do with the traps and at least some of them would write down a list of tips.
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Middle Earth or Shadow World. I could imagine using other worlds, but they both have great material so unless I went back to my homebrew (some of which is lost :( alas) then I think I'd stick with those.
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Shadow World. Started off in Middle Earth, but the player's power level got too high and I switched.
- David.
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I'll be running a fused FR & Greyhawk setting for my RM2 games. I am working on my own setting but I am waiting for the official RMU rules to decide whether or not I'll use it or another rule set (be it HARP or RM2/C). The Greyhawk stuff is almost strictly canon (except for a few changes to a few lesser deities); while FR is taken back to Grey Box core then augmented by post GB 1st ed - 3.5 FR stuff I like. I am renaming the FR deities that are based on real world deities (Tyr, Meilikki, Oghma & Sylvanus)
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Having started with MERP back in the day, our group still plays on Middle-Earth as described in the old MERP sourcebooks and adventures by ICE, with the caveat that we've toned down magic stuff all around.
In a secondary campaign, we used the ICE descriptions of Umbar and southern Middle-Earth as a basis for a more arabian-nights setting. This is more high-magic, and was started specifically with the goal of using the Rolemaster magic rules more.
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The thing with traps is that the "inhabitants" of the complex have got to be able to get past them without much fuss. They also have to have a valid reason to be there.
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We play a PbP campaign in Middle-earth in the mood of the 1st Ed modules, and have also added some AD&D modules. The background is 14th century Europe. (By the way I'm recruiting in the thread below.)
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My Forgotten Realms-Greyhawk campaign died before it began. I'll be revising my 'World of Skârn' setting, I am getting rid of the more "anime/manga" & "dungeon-punk" influenced elements going to a more high fantasy feel. I am also getting rid of the large number of 'alien' fantasy races that were inspired by Talislanta.
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I'm running a "Streets of Sel-Kai" game on Fantasy Grounds. It's pretty much straight out of the book when it comes to magic power and bad guys.
My party is just about to hit level 2, at least most of them, and one is about to really fall afoul of the law unless she does some quick thinking (which as a half-orc barbarian isn't really her strong suit!). This is a campaign I've been running off and on since I first bought the Eidolon book back in 92 or 93 I think. Great locations and NPCs like Andarak of Andarak's Blades always making an appearance.
The adventurers change, but Sel-Kai stays the same.