Topic: Game focus: characters or world simulation?

[dremendond]

I've found that new GM's take the rules as concrete and rarely vary them. The longer you play rpg's the easier it becomes to change any given system a bit so it fits better with their game style and the players wants.

Rolemaster is a great world simulator. When it comes to the focus of characters vs world though, that depends on the GM and the players, not the system. The rules of rolemaster do not distinguish between the Cooking skill or the Hand Axes skill, that comes from the people playing the system.

That being said, there are two types of campaigns I have experienced with Rolemaster. One is a weekly adventure, where there is little roleplaying and much rolling of dice and combat. In that context Rolemaster works great right out of the box. The second campaign type is the story or character based one. The kind where rolepleying and having the cooking skill can be important. In those games a random death can stop or at least hinder a campaign. In the second type of game there were always house rules allowing at least one free re-roll to counter the problem of random death. Unlike many other systems however Rolemaster works right out of the box with the sole exception of that random death. As many others have posted GM fudging is a mainstay in all systems. Any GM here can point to hundreds of times when the dice have ruined an important game element. Rolemaster is no different in that regard.

The original poster was saying that the rolemaster is world based at the expense of character. I am with some of the other posters on this, and disagree. One fun adventure I have run from time to time, generally as a way to test a new game system, and one that works really well with Rolemaster is my 'To Make a Feast' game. The pc's play the cooks, maids, and butlers for a lord. Their job is to get things ready for the feast. There is no combat, maybe a couple of punches here and there, once someone brained another character with a pot, but there is lots of roleplaying. Skills that normally take a back seat to others shine.

There is no game system out there that is perfect for every group right out of the box. That's one of the fun things about tabletop rpg's, house rules. In my mind the only house rule needed for Rolemaster is the free re-roll or fate points.

[GrumpyOldFart]

I agree with you. I don't want the PCs to be super-heroes. I want them to do normal things, to die if they act foolishly in a fight, etc.
But, at the same time, I want them to be the protagonists of the story I'm creating using RM. I want their action to be important.
Not important for the world in which we're playing in, important for us, for the players.
And I think that the system should support us in accomplishing this goal.

Sure. But the designers are, by definition, 1) acting in complete 100% ignorance of the story being created and, 2) aware that at a minimum there will be a number of stories equal to the number of copies of the game system sold and no two will be alike. This suggests to me that there's a sharp limit to what the designer can do. Ultimately it's up to the GM, as always. All the designers are able to do is give him the best and safest tools they can, and then pray he doesn't hack his own thumb off in his ignorance of how to use them well.
Anyone who has GMed even a single session has noticed a glaring discrepancy between characters in a story and characters in a game. The characters in the story do what the guy writing the story wants them to do. The characters in the game miss the half dozen obvious clues you throw to them, decide the way you wanted them to go is too suspicious and turn away from it, and then go challenge the monster you deliberately made "too invincible" to drive them toward the "too suspicious" story line you wanted them to take.
Everybody dies. There goes your story.
But if everyone had lived and whupped up on the "invincible monster", or even had it been a pitched battle and indecisive, so they go back to town and try to figure another way to fight the "invincible monster", still, there goes your story. Why? It's not the fault of the GM, if he had a good story and tried hard to lead the players down the garden path. It's not the fault of the players, if they stayed in character and acted fairly intelligently. It's not the game designers, if they gave GM and players a good system to work within, and players and GM knew the system's ins and outs. I think it's an automatic consequence of the fact that everyone involved is creating a story, and not one of them knows the plot. Stories in RPGs tend to shape themselves randomly, they grow like weeds. The randomness in game mechanics and die rolls are never going to be even a patch on the randomness of player decision making.
But what can you do to "fix" it? Fate points seem like a good tool for this, as effective as anything else I've heard suggested. Not because they necessarily allow a PC to live rather than dying. IIRC, they don't do that as such, they just give you a reroll, nor do they have to be limited to deaths. But they do seem to give players and GMs an opportunity to "prune" the wild random growth of a game story so as to direct it a little in the direction they wish it to grow.

Why should be the GM charged with this responsability? It didn't worked very well untill now, as there are a lot of people that complain that there are too many skills, that some are useless or that their characters die in meaningless fights...

I'm not sure any two people agree on which skills are necessary, which are fun but no big deal, and which are ballast. So far as I can tell, ALL skills are ballast beyond the level of depth each individual GM wants in his game. If a skill is useless, it's because having it be useful isn't something the GM put any thought into. If a fight is meaningless, it's because the GM didn't put any thought into giving it any meaning. I honestly don't see any way the designers can address this, regardless of whether or not they should.

[Arioch]

I'll start by replying to this, there've been many answers but this seems to summerize one of the most common:

As many others have posted GM fudging is a mainstay in all systems. Any GM here can point to hundreds of times when the dice have ruined an important game element. Rolemaster is no different in that regard.

No, it's not true.
There are a lot of rpg systems where cheating isn't necessary to have fun, or where die cannot ruin important moments of a game.
Cheating and fudging rolls to me is not a solution, is just pretending that the problem is not there!

I think it's an automatic consequence of the fact that everyone involved is creating a story, and not one of them knows the plot.

Sure, I don't want to play in a game where the story have already been written... I've got novels and movies for that 

What I would like is a game where I (the player) can decide what elements of the story I'm telling are important to me, where I can tell: "Hey, GM, this encounter doesn't really means anything and doesn't contribute in any way to his growth, so I don't want to die in it" or "This cooking contest is really really important for my character, should he fail his story will be heavily influenced by that!".

But what can you do to "fix" it? Fate points seem like a good tool for this, as effective as anything else I've heard suggested. Not because they necessarily allow a PC to live rather than dying. IIRC, they don't do that as such, they just give you a reroll, nor do they have to be limited to deaths. But they do seem to give players and GMs an opportunity to "prune" the wild random growth of a game story so as to direct it a little in the direction they wish it to grow.

Yes, Fate Points are a good "patch" to the problem, a good starting point. But imho they shold be revised, made an integral part of the system and made into a tool to basically do what I've said above.

If a skill is useless, it's because having it be useful isn't something the GM put any thought into. If a fight is meaningless, it's because the GM didn't put any thought into giving it any meaning. I honestly don't see any way the designers can address this, regardless of whether or not they should.

They can by giving to the players the power to choose (to a limited degree probably) on which aspects of their characters should the game focus.

[GrumpyOldFart]

Hmmm...

What I would like is a game where I (the player) can decide what elements of the story I'm telling are important to me, where I can tell: "Hey, GM, this encounter doesn't really means anything and doesn't contribute in any way to his growth, so I don't want to die in it" or "This cooking contest is really really important for my character, should he fail his story will be heavily influenced by that!".

Anything that has the power to promote or protect likewise has the power to tyrannize. So far as I can tell, you can do what you're wanting now, it's just between you and the GM to make it work. The more power you give players to say, "I don't like how that worked, I'm gonna redo it", the more story control you give to the players at the expense of the GM. It doesn't take much before the players aren't in the GM's game anymore, they're basically just dragging him around to referee as they play in his setting. Story? What story? And as a GM, if I'm gonna put in the hours of setting/story creation and not get any control, what's in it for me?
I can understand as a player wanting more say in the story. I'm just not certain how you could get it without likewise taking away a GM's means to keep power mongers from wrecking his game.

[Arioch]

What story? And as a GM, if I'm gonna put in the hours of setting/story creation and not get any control, what's in it for me?

The story you're going to tell along with you friends, the people you're playing with. What do the GM get in exchange for a bit of his power?
Fun and freedom. The fun of enjoying the story with his friends and the freedom given by that fact that he doesn't need to be in control of everything anymore... 

I'm just not certain how you could get it without likewise taking away a GM's means to keep power mongers from wrecking his game.

Well, I think it's wrong for a GM to think that what's playing is his game... secondly I'm not saying that we should strip the GM of all his powers! 

[rdanhenry]

What I'm trying to say here is that I think that RM rules system has a flaw in its internal logic: it's basically trying to do two things, each of them being the opposite of the other.
It tries to simulate a fantasy world, to be a set of "physical" rules of that world, to which all characters must obey at the same manner. A world where what the characters (and, more importantly, their players) want doesn't mean anything, as they're just like all others inhabitants of the world.
And, at the same time it tries to have you use your characters to tell a story where they are the protagonists, the most important people in the world (again, by important I don't mean powerful! You can be a simple farmer doing ordinary things all day, but if you're the protagonist of a story, you're the most important person in it!).

I disagree that these are mutually exclusive. You've just described real life. "Everyone is the protagonist of his own story." Real heroes succeeded in just the situation you described. Only unreal, fictional heroes succeed in a different type of environment (and even then, you are looking at them story-externally -- in the vast majority of cases, the story-internal logic is that their stories are worth telling because they succeeded, or at least came significantly close in the attempt, rather than that they succeeded because a story is being told about them.)

OTOH if you want to make your characters the protagonists the system should make sure that all of your character skills are equally important. If you spend ranks in cooking it's probably because it's an aspect of your character that you think is important and you'd like to explore. So the rules should give you a way to do that, to make stories about your character cooking. 

I don't need rules to do that beyond the existing rules for rolling for skill success. I need setting details and a basic competence as a GM. Also, not all skills need to be equally useful. Indeed, the costing system assumes they are not.

If instead you're trying to make your character the protagonist of a story... well, then such randomness is a problem! I'm not saying that your character shouldn't die at all, but just that he shouldn't die doing things that you think are meaningless (like, you know, fighting that kobold just before the Big Bad Boss  ).

If fighting the kobolds is meaningless, then the correct response is to remove the fight. This can be done by removing the kobolds, or by glossing over the fight by saying, "You tear through a band of kobold lackeys like a tornado through the wheatlands of the Branded Tribelands. These pathetic underlings are no match for your heroic prowess." And then get on with the significant parts of the game. In any game I ran using Rolemaster, the fight with the kobolds would be significant, because it would be a life and death struggle.

[GrumpyOldFart]

What story? And as a GM, if I'm gonna put in the hours of setting/story creation and not get any control, what's in it for me?

The story you're going to tell along with you friends, the people you're playing with. What do the GM get in exchange for a bit of his power?
Fun and freedom. The fun of enjoying the story with his friends and the freedom given by that fact that he doesn't need to be in control of everything anymore... 

And again I ask, What story? Because a story actually goes somewhere and accomplishes something. So in order to get that from a gaming group, you either have to 1) get a consensus on where the story should be going, unanimously, from all players and the GM, or 2) delegate the authority to decide where the story goes to one member, usually the GM. Getting unanimity of opinion is easy enough with a GM and one or two players, but past four or so it turns into an argument rather than a game. The story doesn't move because the players all pull in different directions. Not to mention that if where the story goes is dependent on player unanimity, that means any power gamer can bring the game to a halt at any time, just by refusing to agree with everyone else.
So, either a) you give everyone game-ending power with no real brakes, and hope no one will use it badly, or b) you delegate story authority to the GM, basically changing nothing from where it is now, or c) it's not a story, it's just random ramblings with no actual point. No?

I'm just not certain how you could get it without likewise taking away a GM's means to keep power mongers from wrecking his game.

Well, I think it's wrong for a GM to think that what's playing is his game... secondly I'm not saying that we should strip the GM of all his powers! 

See above. It's not the GM's game in the sense of "It's mine, I'm gonna do what I want." It's the GM's game in the sense that he's the one everybody in the game agreed to delegate story authority to, and he was fool enough to fall for it.
And please understand, I'm not saying stripping the GM of his power is your intent... I'm saying I don't see how to accomplish what you want that doesn't lead to that.

[Arioch]

And again I ask, What story? Because a story actually goes somewhere and accomplishes something.

The problem is, as it is, RM gives you no means of building a story like that, without recurring to heavy railroading (which is a bad thing imho) and without cheating/fudging rolls.
What I would like to do is removing this factor.

[giulio.trimarco]

MMM,

Arioch I could understand know your point of view.
You feel the some problems that made me quit RM.

RM is an old system, without a revamping of the rules in a long time. The various editions are variants (not editions).
Could you make an example of game system that you feel right?
 

[naphta23]

Character highlighting and world simulation are - in my opinion - not opposing each other.

In my campaign, I use some serious randomness: random encounters, random weather, random event. Heck, I do not know what happens if the PCs decide to travel from one city to another village - I roll for weather, I roll for possible encounters. Are the encounters friendly to the PCs or are they hostile? Let's ask the dice.
Then I take a few seconds and think about the encounter - why is that city patrol there, why are they hostile, friendly or neutral? What is the story behind the encounter, what do the NPCs want, why do they want that and how do they plan to achieve that?
My players know that there are no adjusted random encounters: when the dice call for a lvl-15 mountain troll, then there shows one up. The lvl-2 PCs can either run, hide, talk or attack. It is their choice. It is also their choice if they want to know where the creature comes from and why it is here. If they decide to slaughter the troll and continue their voyage - be my guests. Should they run, good luck, have fun, live for another day.
What, if they encounter an uber-evil necromancer about 10 levels mightier than they are, one PC casts a Water Bolt and instantly kills that boss, which they did? Hey, great, all the players, who were afraid to lose their characters, laughed, cheered and high-fived each other. A story they chose to investigate, a place they were not meant to go, with a big bunch of luck the world is dramatically changed and the PCs are heroes. They could have died there and they knew the risk, they took the risk. They survived, they won - why should I spoil that moment? Why should I feel bad about that?
In six years I offered less than 10 "adventures," most of the time, they learn about things happening in the world and either they try to become a part of it, or they leave it be. It is their decision.
This seems to be a pure simulation, doesn't it?

The players are not very interested in combat, they pursue different goals, most of them personally motivated. The PCs are protagonists, and the story is all about them. Yes, the world is big, it does not wait for them. But they are a part of it - there are many stories happening in that world anytime, but this is their story, right now. They decide, which way that story takes, what the goals are, what they care about.
After all, even if I try to simulate a fantasy world as realistic as I can, I know no other campaign with more character depth and emotional participation.
In no other campaign I know, the players have the goal to build a house, to marry, to retire in a pleasant world. There is no world-saving per se involved, still they are heroes, they are human and they are a very active part of the world and it is their story of their life.

I love Rolemaster. I. Love. Rolemaster.
A few years (2 or 3, if I am not mistaken) ago, a new player joined our campaign; he was used to Shadowrun, to The Dark Eye and to D&D. Whenever there was a combat, he stood in the first row and led the slaughter. He was, as you can possibly imagine, very into combat.
When he joined, he made a barbarian, highly specialized in melee, and in Concussion Hits. It was a real one-man-army, a two-legged-genocide. He was eager to thin out the creature population on that continent.
It needed only one simple combat and the player was shocked and called out "combat s**ks!"
He still plays that barbarian, he still enjoys combats but if given the choice, he aboids combat by all means and tries to talk and find a solution.

I GM Rolemaster, because it offers me the possibility to simulate a world as realistic as possible and still gives me the option to enjoy deep character depth and no PC background story needed. 

[pastaav]

The problem is, as it is, RM gives you no means of building a story like that, without recurring to heavy railroading (which is a bad thing imho) and without cheating/fudging rolls.
What I would like to do is removing this factor.

Sorry, but I can't make that statement fit with the facts at all.
Case is that RM does very well give you all the needed means for building a story. In many settings the fact that every fight is a matter of life and death is essential. A very important aspect here is that many of the other game systems out there totally fail in this aspect. These games are the ones that really need heavy railroading because every encounter except the final one is boring as hell, just kill the cannon fodder so we can get on with the story. Alternatively if the heroes make a wrong turn they run into an encounter that is close to impossible for them to win. Deadly combat is very much a feature of RM and not any serious fault.

In other settings it is essential that some battles are not mortal danger but can give penalties that affect the outcome of the final battle. The RM rules set provide fate points for these types of games and I very much contest the idea that fudging and cheating is needed if you use fate points. GMs might still want to do fudging for other purposes but that is their choice and nothing needed to make the story work from a game mechanics viewpoint.

Adding fate points to the core rules and make them mandatory is a possible option for the next edition of the game. My personal thought is that having fate points in Channeling Companion is rather logical, the only thing missing is really that the core books make a reference to these rules when the deadliness of the combat system is discussed.

If we turn to experience rules it is true that old school style rules here can have a negative impact on the story...but RMC does as far as I know have goal based experience rules. It is clear that RMSS should have done the same, but 1995 is far back and it is not that surprising that the RM designers missed the issue back then.

Let me also return to the deadliness of the criticals. Like it or not but an A critical is not a critical wound, but instead a chance to make a critical injury. An E critical is also not a critical injury but give better chances for getting the critical injury. Evey fantasy movie out there with armored fighters include scenes when a attacker make a very impressive sets of attacks but fail to deliver any critical injury at all. What is the problem really with a E critical that failed to deliver extra damage except in the mindset of the people that complain?

On the other hand reduced deadliness for weak attacks (A and B criticals) is something that would have a very bad effect on heroic battles against superior opponents. It is given that rules that enable the players a fair fight against the master fighter also mean that the goblin rabble has a fair fight against the players.

Fate points give a way to easily customize the death probabilities to fit the desired gaming style. If you can't get it to work with these tools then there are many other gaming systems out there, but please spare us talk about RM being wrong just because it does not out of the box fit your desired playstyle.

[RandalThor]

OTOH if you want to make your characters the protagonists the system should make sure that all of your character skills are equally important. If you spend ranks in cooking it's probably because it's an aspect of your character that you think is important and you'd like to explore. So the rules should give you a way to do that, to make stories about your character cooking. 

No, not ALL of your skills are equally important, in an overall sense and, most assuredly, not in many of the situations a PC will find themselves in the middle of. Sorry, that is just the way it is, some skills are more important than others.

No, the rules do not need to be what gives you a way to tell stories - PEOPLE DO THAT. Please remember that you have the greatest resource sitting right across from you, and next to you, and down a little further, too. Instead of consulting a book, turn to the others at the table (or where ever you play) and ask them. Also, if you want a skill to be important, (and we might as well as continue on with the cooking we seem to be really enjoying it  ) then YOU make it so. You do this by coming up with ideas in how to use the skill in place of another skill. Hey, the next time you need that special doodaad from the dragon's hoard, instead of going up there and "slaying the foul beast" why don't you offer it the meal of it's choice in trade? I am sure it would, at the very least, be both surprised and intrigued by the offer. And if you pull it off, won't that be a more interesting story than the same-old-same-old slaying the dragon?

I have always believed that these games have been about CREATIVITY. That they are more ART than SCIENCE, and have always enjoyed the imaginative, social inteaction they engender among the players, (Well, that and all the butt-kickin action! HEY! I am a guy!) and that no game is perfect so I should try to rely upon my own mind/imagination, and the minds/imaginations of those I play with, to deal with the problems that WILL come up. [But, hey, if you need to read it out of book to go by then, by all means: write it in there and read it back to yourself.]

PS: Arioch, it sounds suspiciously like you want a more "cooperative storytelling" game. Doesn't that sound familiar?

The best game system, with the worst GM is the WORST GAME SYSTEM!!!

Whole heartedly agree!!!

[thrud]

And again I ask, What story? Because a story actually goes somewhere and accomplishes something.

The problem is, as it is, RM gives you no means of building a story like that, without recurring to heavy railroading (which is a bad thing imho) and without cheating/fudging rolls.
What I would like to do is removing this factor.

I have tried to see your point of view, I really have but I can't?
All my experience with RM is the exact opposite of what you're saying. Maybe I made some statements before that were to radical?
- No, you don't have to cheat.
- No, you don't have to fudge die rolls.
- No, you don't have to railrad the players/adventure.
- No, the combat isn't too deadly.
- No, the randomness is a good thing.

I have played in games where there was absolutely no fudging of the dice and we rarely made it any higher than lv 10. It was still fun and we still completed a lot of really cool adventures.

I have played in games where the railroading was down to zero and it was some of the best gaming ever. We had total control of what we wanted to do and we used that power frequently.

In our current game there's already been some interresting events. We're at lv 5 and have already managed to surprice the GM in both positive and negative ways. We've been on the brink of death a couple of times and it was creative thinking that saved the day, not brute strength. We've been seriously injured and the injuries themselves became an important part of the story. The story is never static it's always organic and it changes with every move you make.

[Arioch]

PS: Arioch, it sounds suspiciously like you want a more "cooperative storytelling" game. Doesn't that sound familiar?

  Lol! Well yes, quite familiar... and that's because this discussion is inspired by a series of other threads that came up in these boards, in which we talked about various different problems (the one in GM's section being one of them).
It seemed to me that these problems could all possibly the same share the source. So I'm trying to understand if we could solve all of them at once by adjusting the scope of RM as a game system a little...

So, come on with criticism, I need to hear what you think are the weak spots in my logic to see if it could work!

[giulio.trimarco]

Arioch,

all the problem you pose, to me, aren't necessary system fault.
Cooperative roleplay seems more appropriate for an indie system than a traditional roleplay.

In addition this isn't necessary a good thing.

[Arioch]

Thank you for all the answers guys, just a comment:

@ thrud (sorry, I missed you post before!):

All my experience with RM is the exact opposite of what you're saying. Maybe I made some statements before that were to radical?
- No, you don't have to cheat.
- No, you don't have to fudge die rolls.
- No, you don't have to railrad the players/adventure.
- No, the combat isn't too deadly.
- No, the randomness is a good thing.

I had a lot of fun playing RM by the rules, without cheating etc, too... but it seems to me that there are a lot of us that don't like this style of play very much. They prefer to make the game less random, to have a little more control on the story flow, either by fudging some die roll or by applying some additional mechanic like fate points (which, as I said, are not a bad mechanic, but imho need some improvement).
In other words they like to play their game a little more focused on their characters.
Wouldn't it be better if the system supported these players, instead of leaving the GM on his own?

So, I'll think about your answers for a while, in the meanwhile if you have more comments... you're welcome 

[giulio.trimarco]

RM has a mechanic problem:

1d100+Bonuses, open-ended.

In addition the "target" of scoring a 110+, for a succes, doesn't scale well.
In the early levels it's too difficult.
In the late levels it's too simple.
The open-ended mechanic can give much "outbalanced" results. While fun it's not under control, from GM (that in case must cheat) and player, that could fail (or achieve) outrageous results.

Combat is designed to be "believable", not realistic.
In addition RM is born as a "response" to the D&D (AD&D) game and, as such, has many fault of this legacy.

In essence RM is trying to be an high fanasy system that leaves to the player the feel of being mortal.
Were D&D gots rigid classes, RM gives dynamic professions.
Were D&D gets an AC, RM gets DB.
Were D&D gets hits, RM gets cuncussion.
Were D&D gets "immortal", RM gets crits.
Etc.

BUT.

But RM stop here. RM doesn't gives controls to the players. The gaming community has grown more mature from the players of 20 years ago.
While 15 years ago I was satisfied of swing a sword and see if I will bypass DB (or AC), now I want more control

Take combat, for example.
RM give only one outcome: death.
Even if you use the whip to punish a prisoner you will probably end with a dead one  ... 
Even if you try to grapple an enemy you will mime it ... if not killing it.
And you have no control on it.

Some for skills. You roll and ... puff, a 66. Damn, I've a 120 in climbing!
Fun at the start... but after a while it gives a sense of randomness...
Or the opposite.
You face a impassable lock. A lucky player will roll. 100. Puff, you unlocked the lock.
I have experiences in witch a player complained about his "excessive" luck.

Whatever you do in RM is a 1d100 roll. Random.
RMSS, the eternal dilemma of the double spell casting roll, with ESF.
You roll to cast a fireball. OK! Passed it!
Now you roll to cast a fireball!

02! Fumble! Ohhhhh god, how much roll I must pass to cast a simple fireball!!

Ok, you heated his sword, foe takes a E heat critical! Wow, his sword must be really hot!!!
Roll... 01! Nothing at all! And the foe strikes the mage PC...

[dremendond]

What I am getting out this discussion is that the RM system is not perfect for every group or for every game that people want to run.

That to me is expected. Unless I write my own game system there will be no perfect system for my games. That's why everyone uses house rules. Each person who looks at a system will find something they do not like about it. If the group they game with feels the same then it gets changed with a house rule. Why use a house rule? Because it is easier and quicker than rewriting an entire system.

For me the story is more important than the system, however RM is a great system, with only a few tweaks I and my group can get the results we want. Fate points are one option to get around the randomness inherent in any game that uses dice for conflict resolution.

This discussion has been great so far, it is interesting to read what other people see as problems in a system. The problems that have been brought up, to me at least, seem perfectly resolved with some house rules. I say this only because my group has resolved some of the problems with house rules.

Here are some of the house rules we use when playing RM. This is from about 5 years ago, and they apply to RM2.
We got rid of the 66 as an instant death, and made it crippling.
Every player gets 1 free re-roll per game.
We reduced fumbles to 01-02, after you get passed 8th level, at 15th they drop to 01.
We started characters at level 4.

We never talked about getting rid of the open ended rolls, but that could work.
Taking out the death strikes from A and B crits is something that could be argued to me.

One thing we liked about RM was the fact that your 20th level Paladin couldn't walk up to a castle and take it with little or no risk. My last group came from D&D and the fact that a random strike from a kobold chef could kill a 20th level character was very refreshing.

A good GM will create opportunities for players to use their cooking skill if it is important to them. I've found that the best way to get both the GM and the players on the same page is talk about things individually between games. That way the GM knows what his players are looking for and the players know that the GM is aware of what they want. This last may not really be a problem for anyone, but a couple other posts talked about this and I just wanted to give my half cents worth. 

[GrumpyOldFart]

Arioch, I'm all for cooperative storytelling as part of the game. And yes I agree, RM (among many other systems) does little to address the "how to" of cooperative storytelling. But the current rule system, or indeed any rule system, has really nothing to do with that.

A set of RPG mechanics does what, exactly?
1) Define how the setting is presented. x method of describing the setting relies on x mechanic, y method on y mechanic, etc. In other words, if I want I can stop at telling my players, "It's cold. It's REALLY cold" without needing a game mechanic at all, but if I want to address frostbite, snow blindness etc, the mechanic guides me in presenting the specifics.
2) Define how the players interact with the setting. Taking ___ hits of frostbite damage doesn't mean anything without a hit total to compare it to. Being at -50 to Perception skills for snow blindness doesn't mean anything if you have no means to perceive the setting in the first place. CharGen and skill resolution provide a method to translate, "I want to play someone who ________", "My character is gonna try to _________" and "Ha! You poor fool, you've made a fatal mistake and Evil Dr. Berserk will now _______ your _____" into terms compatible with the method being used to describe the setting, allowing GM and players to be more specific in the choices they make.
3) Most of them allow a random element in those interactions, so everyone gets a chance to be surprised. Otherwise at best playing an RPG would be like rereading a book.
So far as I can tell, that's all RPG rules do, and all they were designed to do. The stagehands can build the best set in the universe, but they can't make you a good actor or a good scriptwriter. I think most RPG companies consider acting lessons or writing lessons, even basic ones, to be outside their scope.

Now, should someone write up guidelines on how to put more cooperative storytelling into your game? Yeah, I think they should. But I see that as an entirely separate question with little relationship to specific game mechanics. I think the most the specific mechanics can do is change the focus of XP awards toward moving the story, and I have to admit I have no idea how to do that without giving players acting lessons.

[giulio.trimarco]

Grampy,

 think that RM is a bit too number chruncy, and the results aren't always "rational".
I'm sure that GM and players play a large part in the story, but the system must be supportive.

Sure is that RM isn't the worst system out there but, perhaps, someone could feeling it not right.

In addition cooperative RP is a game style of the latest times and a genre all by itself, with dedicated RPG systems.

Moreover, what do you mean "cooperative" RP?