Topic: What is wrong with Rolemaster?

[rdanhenry]

It's also worth noting that the UM 100 isn't just a 1% automatic success. It is a 1% chance of an extraordinary success. It can result in a higher chance of extraordinary success than normal success. It is one of the few things that RMSS really did do wrong.

[Cory Magel]

I think a lot of this discussion about percentage chances is taking a 'game' far too seriously.  The UM 100 is the "jackpot" of die rolling.  It's a fun factor and, unless it was grossly unbalancing (which would be a hard idea to sell), it doesn't need to obey the results detailed statistical analysis.

Sometimes people need to remember they are playing a game... to have fun.  As one of my tag-lines says elsewhere (what I call the RPG Designers Mantra)...

Fun. Balance. Realism.
In. That. Order.

[pastaav]

For me, OE rolls improve the player experience. And as a GM, for that reason alone they will stay in regardless of what any rule revision says. There are a lot of games now with exploding dice - it seems silly that the game that has had exploding dice for longest, would no longer have them.

I totally agree about the OE rolls...exploding dice are fun. That is also why I don't like the UM rules that change the simplicity of OE dice mechanics.

Keeping the core simple is good and having 100 as target number and only OE rolls is clean and works in all game styles. Some game styles benefit from UM rules added on top of them, but this fitting only in some styles of gaming and thus this should be an optional rule IMHO.

[RandalThor]

I think a lot of this discussion about percentage chances is taking a 'game' far too seriously.  The UM 100 is the "jackpot" of die rolling.  It's a fun factor and, unless it was grossly unbalancing (which would be a hard idea to sell), it doesn't need to obey the results detailed statistical analysis.

Sometimes people need to remember they are playing a game... to have fun.  As one of my tag-lines says elsewhere (what I call the RPG Designers Mantra)...

Fun. Balance. Realism.
In. That. Order.

This, definitely, this.

[Old Man]

This has probably been discussed in years past but I figured I ask anyway -- does it bother anyone (or make any difference) that you can't roll an 05 (because the downroll makes it 04 or lower) or a 96 (because the uproll makes it a 97 or high)?

[intothatdarkness]

This has probably been discussed in years past but I figured I ask anyway -- does it bother anyone (or make any difference) that you can't roll an 05 (because the downroll makes it 04 or lower) or a 96 (because the uproll makes it a 97 or high)?

It doesn't really bother me. Although there are some rolls that are stated to be non-open ended.

[markc]

This has probably been discussed in years past but I figured I ask anyway -- does it bother anyone (or make any difference) that you can't roll an 05 (because the downroll makes it 04 or lower) or a 96 (because the uproll makes it a 97 or high)?

 Your die roll can not be that for OE rolls but with mods you can get that result.
MDC

[Kristen Mork]

This has probably been discussed in years past but I figured I ask anyway -- does it bother anyone (or make any difference) that you can't roll an 05 (because the downroll makes it 04 or lower) or a 96 (because the uproll makes it a 97 or high)?

Not me, because I treat 96+ as a continuation and 05- as a reversal.  So, 01, 05, 09 would (in my game, not RAW) be 01-05+09 = 05.  Possible, but not likely!

[Old Man]

This has probably been discussed in years past but I figured I ask anyway -- does it bother anyone (or make any difference) that you can't roll an 05 (because the downroll makes it 04 or lower) or a 96 (because the uproll makes it a 97 or high)?

Your die roll can not be that for OE rolls but with mods you can get that result.
MDC

Well of course - I just meant from a probability standpoint. the 1d100 is now 1d98 plus up/down results....

[markc]

This has probably been discussed in years past but I figured I ask anyway -- does it bother anyone (or make any difference) that you can't roll an 05 (because the downroll makes it 04 or lower) or a 96 (because the uproll makes it a 97 or high)?

Not me, because I treat 96+ as a continuation and 05- as a reversal.  So, 01, 05, 09 would (in my game, not RAW) be 01-05+09 = 05.  Possible, but not likely!

 I do also and it has added a lot of fun and excitement to the game. The players "generally" love that they have a chance to change the OE-Low roll to an OE-High roll with some slight chance.
MDC

[JimiSue]

And somethijng else I wanted to add now it's no longer 5.45 am and I was actually late for work Regarding the sio-called gods of chance.

I have played in games where the GMs wanted to keep the games 'pure' by rolling every dice in front of the players, for good and for bad. And for the most part, those games SUCK. These games are ... shockingly, games. We play them for fun. And having a favourite character get his head blown off because the GM happened to roll well on a minor critical, adds nothing but anger and frustration. I don't treat my players with kid gloves, but if the player has no way to recover from or compensate for something random and bad, chances are I will fudge the roll.#

Unless the player has been very stupid. In which case it's his own darn fault

My point there is that the dice should not be used in every circumstance "Because, like, fate, like, totally rules life, man. So, like, random dice are, like, the best way to it being ya know, more real. Yeah man." They are there to add an element of chance, nothing more, not make every result entirely random. Any GM worthy of the name should not be slaves to his or her dice. If my GM rolls dice for everything and injects no human, then I may as well go play a computer roleplaying game instead - RPGs are about the interaction between players and GM.

[GrumpyOldFart]

And having a favourite character get his head blown off because the GM happened to roll well on a minor critical, adds nothing but anger and frustration. I don't treat my players with kid gloves, but if the player has no way to recover from or compensate for something random and bad, chances are I will fudge the roll.#

Yes, but often there's "fudging the roll" and then there's "fudging the result" instead of the roll itself. I tend to be one of those GMs who rolls the dice in sight of the players. The situation that comes to mind is a player who badly, badly fumbled a maneuver a few feet away from the top of a 130' shaft in a mine, they'd just reached the top (there was a ladder) not long before and were engaged with some giants. The character got slapped down, badly failed the maneuver roll to stay out of the shaft, and got a "fall, break leg" result. Moreover, he knew it because he's the one who rolled way deep into negative numbers.

I'm painted into a corner by the dice, right? But it won't be any fun to just have him fall to his death. Okay, not a problem. He's slapped down, falls in the hole.... now he's at the top of the ladder... upside down, hanging by a broken leg.

See? I didn't fudge the dice roll, and everybody knew up front that something catastrophically bad had happened. But that's okay, as long as I get to keep torturing him we can still keep having fun. And something catastrophically bad did happen, so it's not as if I really fudged the roll. Fall, break leg. That's exactly what happened.

It was fun afterwards trying to get him off the ladder without dropping him, too. 

[yammahoper]

So off topic...

Some players handle random death better than others.  It can be argued you must be stupid to end up in a gun fight because a gun CAN blow your head off, be it a gun fight in a bar between drunks or on a death star to save the republic.  I have had players keep folders of ready to go PC's. get a limb blown off, no problem, insert new PC.  It is a game after all, there is no reason to be to attached to that junk of numbers is a mindset that helps.  Most are not quite that cavalier .

What really helps avoid a sudden unwanted death is experience at implementing the crit creatively, just as GoF described.  I had a player end up with a gut shot PC, knocked out and bleeding heavily.  It looked grim.  So I tell him only fate can save him now, to roll d100, on a 51 or higher, fate goes his way.  He rolled high enough, so I declare all the stray rounds break open canisters holding epoxy, which pour over his PC, burn him slightly, and seal the wound.  The PC spent a few weeks in the hospital, but I saw no reason to HAVE to kill him over a 98 B crit.  OTOH, I felt the player should suffer some.

We are telling stories that resemble movies more than anything.  being larger than life is OK.  And, this creates moments.  Not that I haven't fudged of course.  Same PC (Trip Adams was his name I think) steps out from cover with the drop on two mercs only to have his gun jam.  One merc opens fire on Trip and his gun jams, but i cheat the fumble roll and have the gun blow up in his face, allowing Trip to melee one merc instead of two.  It made for a better story than gunning him down, but none knew my cheat either.

For me, the sudden death of seceral favorite PC's remain great and fun memories, as does low level PC's deating foes they never should have.  It goes both ways.

[markc]

yammahopper,
 I love the story about the fudging the roll on the fumble a bit as I as a GM tend to roll very high or very low. So I have had quite a few bad guys throw their weapons, fall badly and break their necks, fall off cliffs, etc do to my rolling. But a the same time I have also a tendency to roll very high quite often so I use Fate Points as well as fudging the rolls for the players at times.


 Now if I can just even the rolls out as a player I seem to roll poorly almost all the time.
MDC

[Arioch]

I think we already had this argument, but anyway... if the GM fudged the rolls, the result, or gave me "save rolls" out of nowhere I wouldn't be very happy. If the GM keeps doing it, I'd suggest to change system (or I'd leave the game).
When I play Rolemaster, I want random deaths and dismemberment. You fumbled your MM near the cliff edge? Too bad. A house cat just rolled a 00 on its Tiny crit againts you paladin? Time to roll up a new character. You rolled open ended thrice on your spell fumble? Hilarious.
Of course, there's another side to it: NPCs can fumble, too, and sometimes a single 1st level PC can oneshot a 20°+ lvl NPC with a series of lucky rolls.

If you want to limit random deaths and fumbles, use Fate Points, or something similar. If you don't want them, don't play Rolemaster!
At least, that's my view about the matter, YMMV.

[GrumpyOldFart]

You rolled open ended thrice on your spell fumble? Hilarious.

Exactly. The point is not whether he lives or dies, it's whether or not he's entertaining, preferably even to himself as well as those around him. Playing Paranoia taught me that.

The reason I fudged the fall down the mineshaft was not to save his life, it was to save the entertainment value of the scene. Had the rest of the party (missing one of their better fighters, who is the guy hanging upside down) not succeeded against the giants, he'd have been no better off, and possibly worse, than falling down a 130' hole headfirst onto a stone floor. But we had a shot at milking all the entertainment value out of it first.

To me, those OE rolls, whether high or low, shouldn't be done away with. No, no. Those are signals that "here's something very much out of the ordinary occurring in your game." Usually, being RM, there's a fumble result, or a crit result, or a maneuver result, or whatever, that goes along with the roll. But as far as I'm concerned, that's just a suggestion, a guideline, a rough indicator of just how unusual the result is. If someone trips over a turtle in a place where there are no turtles on the same continent as him, that doesn't require me as GM to either import some turtles, remake my world, or ignore the result. That just gives me the opportunity to do something within my setting/scenario that's as off the wall as tripping over the turtle. And even that's not a requirement, it's an opportunity.

Just as the dice aren't my boss, neither is the flavor text. The scenario the players and I are creating, that's the boss. But at the same time, random input gives me reasons to depart from what we all thought the story was going to be, which keeps things fresh, surprising, and thereby fun.

Gamers all grumble about games "on rails". But games that wander aimlessly can be just as much of a source of frustration, just as much of a buzzkill, as games on rails. The idea is to have a blend, so everybody has some input, but even everyone put together (including the GM) doesn't have actual control, there are still surprises in store. Without the surprises, there's no point.

[Lord Garth]

I think we already had this argument, but anyway... if the GM fudged the rolls, the result, or gave me "save rolls" out of nowhere I wouldn't be very happy. If the GM keeps doing it, I'd suggest to change system (or I'd leave the game).
When I play Rolemaster, I want random deaths and dismemberment. You fumbled your MM near the cliff edge? Too bad. A house cat just rolled a 00 on its Tiny crit againts you paladin? Time to roll up a new character. You rolled open ended thrice on your spell fumble? Hilarious.
Of course, there's another side to it: NPCs can fumble, too, and sometimes a single 1st level PC can oneshot a 20°+ lvl NPC with a series of lucky rolls.

If you want to limit random deaths and fumbles, use Fate Points, or something similar. If you don't want them, don't play Rolemaster!
At least, that's my view about the matter, YMMV.

Fully agree with you. I never, ever fudge rolls as a GM and the one time I had a GM who did I left the group after one session. It sucks when a player takes an A crit and then is sent into a month-long coma within the first 30 mins of a game session, but that's RM, unexpected things can and do happen.

[GrumpyOldFart]

Ultimately it's a matter of what works for your group, there is no right or wrong here. For myself, my standard is that I want those random chances, and the result you get will be as off the wall and as lethal as the result you read on the table. Note that in my example above, my actual results from the tables were that he fell and broke his leg, and failed his maneuver to stay out of the hole. Nowhere did I have a die roll result that required the character to fall to his death, even though that's the obvious, expected result from falling down a 130' shaft onto stone.

Okay, fine and good, but as GM I don't have to do the obvious thing, and I already gave myself a way out by putting the ladder there for story purposes, not for the purpose of being able to save someone with it. More to the point, it's on the same side of the hole as the battle, so unless he's skated into that hole at some speed, he's actually more likely than not to encounter it.

So now he's in a worse situation (but just as lethal) than what was given him by the tables, a much better (but much less lethal) situation than the obvious result everyone expected, and it has a nice personal extra suckage to it, like a cherry on top.

Am I ashamed of "fudging" that result? On the contrary, as you can see I'm more than a little proud of it.

[Apeman]

ThIngs I would like to see:
1. Character generation better described in a coherent method with charts on the correct pages.  The RMC re-do used a poor layout approach.
2. Support for open game license design like D&D 3. I tried to work with previous ICE but the licensing was poorly conceived.
3.  Allow people to create electronic character design tools and distribute them.  This has been a sore spot with all iterations of ICE ownership. Foster this to Llow your game to spread to the masses. I want a handheld crit generator.
4. A streamlined initiative system.  So far D&D 3 seems to be the best I've played with.
5. Fix armor issues but keep lethal crits and weapon charts.  Armor type nine and five are death armors that should be more effective than robes.
6. Merge the skill system but reduce silly skills and try to avoid clunky categories.
7. spell lists should have one spell per slot like the companions.
8. Some spells need re-balancing.  Lightning bolts come to mind as too powerful while fireballs tend to be less effective.
9. Two handed weapons could use a little more damage to make up for the lost shield DB and to allow for more grievous criticals.
10. Incorporating miniatures rules would greatly help to display battles.  Pre painted plastic minis are so common they are the norm for a modern RPG.  You could make this optional but part of the core book to have a common rules.

I highly doubt I would buy the product if:
A. It takes over an hour to generate a 5th level NPC
B. it has a convoluted initiative system.
C. Does not have a character design tool or forbids us from collaborating to make our own.
D. Is not thoroughly play tested by a wide range of players.
E. Turns into another smorgasbord of unmanageable options and customizations.  We already have that.  Let's get one system that works.
F. Moves away from a d100 to a 2d10 system I once saw on here.  Stick with d100.

[jdale]

ThIngs I would like to see:
....
3.  Allow people to create electronic character design tools and distribute them.  This has been a sore spot with all iterations of ICE ownership. Foster this to Llow your game to spread to the masses. I want a handheld crit generator.

I was going to say this is possible already but then I looked up the policy. It is stricter than I remember. http://www.ironcrown.com/?page_id=78  In fact I am in violation for my sheet, which is available on my website, because I have not obtained a license for it. Although there's kind of implied approval because it's in the Vault.

I don't know whether anyone has actually approached ICE about a combat management program since the management changes. I know I would have to rewrite mine to encrypt the crit charts. It's pretty out of date anyway. I've never thought it would be worth the effort to rework it, just so I could ask whether it could be distributed for free.