Topic: Soooo. . . just bought the RMSS value pack. What else do I need?

[jdrakeh]

Well, my online friend David Johansen's praise of RMSS finally convinced me that it was time to lay down some cash, so I picked up the hardcover value pack a few minutes ago (and the Player  Guide). Assuming that I want to run a full-blown RMSS dungeon fantasy campaign for people who have never played RMSS before, do I need any other books? Also, assuming that I have some interest in using RMSS as a multi-genre system, what other books should I look at snagging in the future?

[Erik Sharma]

Well as far as I know you are good to get going. Although I would recommend picking up the RMFRP Gamemaster Law (it's essentialy the same as the old RMSS Gamemaster Law so you can use it without any modifications).

Well for other genres I don't know of any other resources than the old books available as through the online store and ofccourse Spacemaster for you regular Sci-Fi dose.

As far as I know of these books can help ya:
Black Ops (Modern Military/Spy)
Pulp Adventures (Pulp Genre and Probably usable with other settings too, can see it being used with Nightmares of Mine for a more old-school Pulp Horror Setting)
Nightmares of Mine (Horror Genre)

Other than that I don't know what to recommend since I don't know what genres you are interested in except you might wanna check out some genre books from GURPS (http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/), usually light on the rules and loads of good ideas for running games using GURPS or another ruleset in that particular Genre.

[markc]

jdrakeh,
 Welcome to the forums.

 To mirror what Chorpa said above if you are going to be running a Sci-Fi game or mixed game you should pick up the Space Master Privateers Main [SM:P] book so you can see how it will fit in to your game world. IMO you can get buy with the SM:P main book for modern stuff but you will defiantly want to pick up Arms Law: Firearms.

 After you have had some time to digest the material there are a couple of other things you can decide on below:

 1) From the main RMSS or RMFRP book you can decide if you like expanded combat tables or condensed combat tables and can pick up what you need after that.
 2)Also IMO a key book is either trying to find a copy of RMSS: Martial Arts Companion [MAC] on EBay for big $ or pickup RoleMaster Classic: Combat Companion. After I sat down an designed my game worlds combat styles both unarmed and armed my game really took off.

MDC

[jdrakeh]

Well, I snagged MIS hardcopies of Pulp Adventures, Black Ops, and Weapon Law: Firearms from a used bookstore, and will probably order Gamemaster Law from ICE provided that the RMSS order goes smoothly. Incidentally, is GM Law just an expanded version of the old Campaign Law book?

Nightmares of Mine is great, though it's all advice that I internalized after reading it (and buying several copies of it for Christmas gifting) years ago I may look into SpaceMaster in the near future, though that would probably be the one genre I won't be using RMSS with (I have a honking huge Traveller collection).

Oh, I also grabbed the old pre-Shadow World branding setting supplements a while back (VogMur, et al). Are there any good Rolemaster adventures that I might look into, or will it be fairly easy to convert old D&D/AD&D modules into RMSS?

Any other suggestions?

[yammahoper]

One Space Master book any game can use is Blaster Law.  The expanded crits can be used for old or new spells, magic powers for monsters, etc.  An old mentalism spell SUN BEAM would have perfect use for laser crits.

The attack tables can also be used for things like arbelest or demon weapons (Type V anyone?), or even dragon breath weapons.

[markc]

 One thing I use SM:P for is psionics in my fatasy game. The mehcanics of SM:P psionics are different from how spells are dealt with in RMSS and IMO they merg well with RMSS.

 Also the old SW stuff uses RM2 stats so you should have not much difficulty adapting it to RMSS/FRP.

 I have not looked at the GM Law in a while but if someone else does not answer your question I will get back to you on that.

MDC

[Erik Sharma]

I may look into SpaceMaster in the near future, though that would probably be the one genre I won't be using RMSS with (I have a honking huge Traveller collection).

Well I haven't tried this but it has been on the idea board for a long time, but with the Tech Law books for Spacemaster you could probably recreate most of the tech exisisting in Traveller so that might be something you want to check out.
I don't see any problems (except for some extra work) with using Spacemaster-rules as a base for a Traveller campaign.
And ofcourse as yamma already suggested Blaster Law can be useful in addition.

[markc]

 On the Traveller front another person is in the process of converting his Traveller game to using the SM:P rule set. I used quite a bit of Traveller material when I was running a mixed Sci-Fi/Fantasy game. The material worked very well for the game and in general I just winged it on most of the NPC's stats but I did work up a few.
 I also had a loose time in to Warhammer 40K in that there was starting to have incursions from the other planes and I kept the W40K feeling of the gov. could not fully administrate the worlds they held. So basically they had broken the Economic Law of Diminishing Returns and any government growth just made it more inefficient. But as always the Gov had to have more materials to sustain its rebuilding effort thus the semi careful expansion of the Gov.
Any way the person has posted some questions and comments if you want to check it out and drop him a PM or an e-mail to find out what he has done on the conversion front.
MDC

[David Johansen]

Hi J!  Glad to see you.

One small tip, first level characters don't fare well in dungeon crawls.  I'd make them at least fifth level to start with.  Remember never ever total the bonuses for each level when building a character.  You only have to do it when they're up to the desired level.

[Temujin]

Just to clarify, which value pack did you order?  In other words, which books will you end up having with it    There's a number of value packs on, some with 3 books, some with 7, and as much as I want to help, I'm not sure which books you'll have.

[Erik Sharma]

Just to clarify, which value pack did you order?  In other words, which books will you end up having with it    There's a number of value packs on, some with 3 books, some with 7, and as much as I want to help, I'm not sure which books you'll have.

Well to help answer your question, last time I checked there is only one value pack for RMSS. 
So it kind of rules out any other non existing possibilities you had in mind, you are probably thinking of all the RMFRP value packs but those are not RMSS.

The link for it is: http://shop.ironcrown.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=128_30_56&products_id=404

[jdrakeh]

Hi J!  Glad to see you.

One small tip, first level characters don't fare well in dungeon crawls.  I'd make them at least fifth level to start with.  Remember never ever total the bonuses for each level when building a character.  You only have to do it when they're up to the desired level.

Hi, David! Thanks for the tip! I actually plan to start off with some HarnWorld adventures (A Field of Daisies, 100 Bushels of Rye) leading into the dungeon crawling, so hopefully that won't be an issue.

[jdrakeh]

Just to clarify, which value pack did you order?  In other words, which books will you end up having with it    There's a number of value packs on, some with 3 books, some with 7, and as much as I want to help, I'm not sure which books you'll have.

Well to help answer your question, last time I checked there is only one value pack for RMSS. 
So it kind of rules out any other non existing possibilities you had in mind, you are probably thinking of all the RMFRP value packs but those are not RMSS.

The link for it is: http://shop.ironcrown.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=128_30_56&products_id=404

Yep, that's the one

[jdrakeh]

Well, the supplements from Noble Knight arrived today, so I'm itching to go (Pulp Adventures looks excellent, BTW). As soon as my value pack shows up, I plan on converting several HarnWorld mods to RMSS, while dropping VogMur and The Iron Wind onto Lythia someplace.

[Mordenkainen]

Welcome to the RM fold jdrakeh! Look forward to hearing how your campaign goes!