Topic: Gate Mastery change RMU

[DerGraumantel]

Hi everyone,
getting back into RM with RMU after like 15+ years.
Making my first Noldor, pardon me, High Elf Magician.
To my suprise, the Gate Mastery spell list has been fundamentaly changed.
Demon summons have been given to Evil Channeling and the Essence user gets Elementals. I dislike that, it takes from the Magician archetype as one involved in eldrich dangerous lore.
Far worse, the control spells are lower on the list than the summon spell and the summon spell will never call smthg you can’t contol. It takes the juice, the tasty, tasty risk out of that list.
My group will use the old one, I guess. More important, why was this done?

[Thot]

Well, the "dangerous eldritch lore" still fits perfectly with the sorceror, who has access to both realms.  *shrug*

[Hurin]

I fought against that change long and hard, as it seemed to me that Demonic summons always worked better for Evil Essence and Undead summons always worked better in Evil Channeling, just as it had been in previous editions. I also pointed out that this would happen: players would object to the change. But I lost the argument.

After that, I resigned myself to housruling the lists back to where they had been in previous editions, which, to be fair, is a pretty easy thing to do.

[Jengada]

I have no horse in this race, as I'm sticking with RM2. But reading this, at a time when I'm reading some great fantasy set in the medieval Middle East, it struck me. Many of the Arabian Nights stories involve magicians summoning djinn, ifrit, marids, and other celestial/infernal spirits. These would be magicians summoning demons, essentially.
I always go the route Hurin went - I would just homebrew it and say that culturally, there are magicians who have focused on demons rather than elementals. Or you can really go general and say elementals, djinn, demons, all of them are just extra-planar beings, and make them interchangeable.
The rules should never obstruct the fun or creativity of the players or GM. They should create a context to guide balance.

[MisterK]

Remove the realm restrictions on lists entirely. After all, if a priest of a god of fire can learn Fire Law, then surely a mage specialised in infernal lore can learn to summon demons.

It all depends on context. My take on it is, as long as the character concept is sound and fits the setting, I allow any list combination, regardless of realm.
Of course, in some cases, "fits the setting" means respecting realm boundaries But that's because of local magical traditions, not because of rules.

[pastaav]

I have "solved" the matter to have the evil lists available to all realms. This fits well with the lure of the dark side. Characters that allow themself to be corrupted can access magic types not normally associated with their normal profession.

As for the Gate Mastery list, I can understand the motive to change. I had more than a few campaign plots that clashed hard with the idea that summoning demons is an ordinary thing. I don't think the old design would have made the cut if RM1 core rules had included paladins and less generic clerics. The old spell law was a bit like the sum of all house rules that designers were playing and some of them happened to run a game where summoning demons was an everyday thing. Making the spell list deal with elementals as a default IMHO makes the RM rules more portable to different settings.

Characters wanting to summon something else can use rituals and fragile arcane objects to hold the demon/djinn/etc controlled. If speaking about the typical fantasy stories, demons only through rituals fit the material much better than a third of the spell users can deal with demons with standard spells.

[DerGraumantel]

I understand, the change from Demon to Elemental can be argued for. What I think is the bigger problem, is that you can control the Elemental guaranteed, since the Control Spell is lower on the list and the Summon spell has no risk of summoning stronger creatures like it does in the OG Gate Mastery.
This risk/reward dynamic was taken out.

Smthg similar happened with the Stat Gain rolls. You can't lose. We use RM2 stat gain rolls with RMU stat gain rules (two rolls a level, 4 DP to buy afterwards). Better think if you want to roll on that 92 in Qu again.

To my mind these changes are not for the best, especially in the current ttrpg environment (hate the term ttrpg, to me they will always be Pen&Paper RPGs, but its what the kids say). The rise of the OSR-movement has established the value of risk for many gamers (kinda like indie games did for video games 10-15 years ago) and RM being seen as an "old fashioned" rpg, it would do well to not sanatize those aspects of the game imho.

This went way too far of topic, haha. Sorry for that:)

[chook]

I understand, the change from Demon to Elemental can be argued for. What I think is the bigger problem, is that you can control the Elemental guaranteed, since the Control Spell is lower on the list and the Summon spell has no risk of summoning stronger creatures like it does in the OG Gate Mastery.
This risk/reward dynamic was taken out.

Smthg similar happened with the Stat Gain rolls. You can't lose. We use RM2 stat gain rolls with RMU stat gain rules (two rolls a level, 4 DP to buy afterwards). Better think if you want to roll on that 92 in Qu again.

To my mind these changes are not for the best, especially in the current ttrpg environment (hate the term ttrpg, to me they will always be Pen&Paper RPGs, but its what the kids say). The rise of the OSR-movement has established the value of risk for many gamers (kinda like indie games did for video games 10-15 years ago) and RM being seen as an "old fashioned" rpg, it would do well to not sanatize those aspects of the game imho.

This went way too far of topic, haha. Sorry for that:)

I agree with you.  RMU does nothing for me.  I understand from information on the forums that it is an attempt by ICE to deal with their failure to run a business in previous times where individuals retained the copyright to works.  The general issue that I find is it is straying too far from Tolkien and attempting to take on the cancer that 5E has inflicted on the RPG industry.

I would suggest that you look at getting the RMFRP or RM2 books if you want to play the game the way you used to play it.  that doesn't mean that any of it is right or wrong just that you can paly the game you want without having to be modernised.

[DerGraumantel]

Don't want to go that far, I think there are lots of good things in RMU as well, like all attack tables facing the same direction on the page (making it possible to print a handy "Attack Law" for the gaming table) and the different sizes of the attacks. The optional rule for rapid skill development I took over immediately. The lowering of the success threshold to 100 I also use. I think the higher Stat bonuses are generally a good idea as well, since I want to strengthen their role in play (see my other topic).

But, yes the system should have kept the harshness, which it has not.

I have all the SS and RM2 books I need (even Pulp Adventures and Black Ops), haha. Just reading through the 89 RM2 Edition of Character & Campaign Law and gain some understanding for why things were as they were:)

[Cory Magel]

I agree with you.  RMU does nothing for me.  I understand from information on the forums that it is an attempt by ICE to deal with their failure to run a business in previous times where individuals retained the copyright to works.  The general issue that I find is it is straying too far from Tolkien and attempting to take on the cancer that 5E has inflicted on the RPG industry.

That's not entirely fair to the current incarnation of ICE.  The first 'ICE' was dealing with challenges on various fronts and Tolkien Enterprises pretty much intentionally put the nail in the coffin by being heavy handed with royalty commitments on ICE's part.  I suspect ICE and Tolkien Enterprises could have both handled things more professionally, but water under the bridge.  The second 'ICE' never really worked in good faith with freelancers and it was eventually their undoing.  The third and current ICE is mostly made up by those freelancers and some additional experienced individuals doing it as a side job.  Authors didn't retain rights to their work when it was being actively published by the 1st and 2nd incarnations of ICE, it's that those right reverted back to them when the 1st and 2nd ICE went under.  The how any why of RMU is they really had to start fresh due to various IP related issues that go beyond even that however.  I don't really think the current version of RM is trying to take on 5E (if it was it would have needed to be dumbed down quite a bit).

[Hurin]

For the record, I like the removal of demons and substitution of Elementals for Gate Mastery.

My only beef is the change that shifts demons from Evil Essence to Evil Channeling, and switches undead from Evil Channeling to Evil Essence.

[Cory Magel]

I'd likely just create a generic spell list and essentially state that specific level spells relate to specific power level creatures.  Fill in your species, spirit, or whatever, from there.  The way RMU creatures are put together this should work (on paper at least).

[Thot]

Many spells are available in different realms. Why not just add an Evil list in Essence that allows for demon summoning and control, though at a higher level?

Regarding control making it "certain" that a given demon is controlled... they still do have a resistance roll, so it's NOT "certain".

[DerGraumantel]

Still not as cool as summoning a demon two classes too high, imho. Especially later (rank 12) when you might accidentally summon a class V Demon:)
Read through the new Demon Summoning list today and it is also nice, actually.

[jdale]

It seems quite appropriate to me to shift which evil lists are available in which realm based on what kind of evil source of power the character is working with. The rules have to make some kind of arbitrary decision there since they are not setting-specific.

Personally, I do like when summoning lists have the chance of getting you in trouble (e.g., summon things you can't control).

[rdanhenry]

Elementals are much safer to work with than demons. Which is why they are generally preferred by the professional spellcaster, leaving messing about with demons to either weird cultists or Clerics backed by the authority of heavenly might. Sound magical practice also follows the rule of not calling up anything you cannot put back down. Note that while the risks are substantially less than working with demons, there is some risk involved in handling elementals. Demons, however, are a much more diverse bunch, capable of a wider variety of tasks.

[Cory Magel]

Still not as cool as summoning a demon two classes too high, imho. Especially later (rank 12) when you might accidentally summon a class V Demon:)
Read through the new Demon Summoning list today and it is also nice, actually.

We've done this.  Encounter with a enemy 'adventuring' group.  We finally face up to each other in a tavern, the Sorcerer casts a spell and says... 'Uh oh'... and we all flee through the nearest exit as it's materializing.  Side door, through the kitchen and out the back, through a window because it happened to be closer.  GM had a fun time role-playing the confusion, then sudden horror, of the enemy group.  A few days later while traveling someone asks us if we know about the town that was leveled by a Storm Demon.  'Um, no, we hadn't heard about that...'.  Great plot hooks.

[DerGraumantel]

   A few days later while traveling someone asks us if we know about the town that was leveled by a Storm Demon.  'Um, no, we hadn't heard about that...'.  Great plot hooks.

That is exactly what I'm talking about. The rule system should support these sort of events. Makes the game way more alive.