Official ICE Forums
Systems & Settings => Rolemaster => Topic started by: markc on June 14, 2012, 09:32:48 AM
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Warning, Danger.Crazy Thoughts Ahead.
We were talking about old school game(s) (mainly D&D 1.0) in which there were no skills. IMHO this might work for RM in which you had very little options to pick from when leveling up. To do this you would have some sort of chart that listed the values of skills based on some sort of pick based system that would be much easier than DP, and a lot fewer options.
The pick system would auto raise some skills and let you pick from broad categories to raise other skills. The problem I was having was what to do with spell lists or just how to work that out at all.
Well that is all, just a crazy thought that someone might make use of or do something with.
MDC
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Even way back when.. you did have Secondary Skills. This optional system was a chart in the original DMG, IIRC. Up to DM how these were implemented.
A natural progression of this was the skill system in 2nd ed, where you did have a choice of developing a good handful of skills that had a game related use.
Your auto raise option does sound like the +/lvl bonus in RM ver. before RMSS. As this reminds me too much of THACO, saves, etc, I'm glad it was dropped in later ver. Heck, I don't even use the /lvl "bonus" for spell affects. You have to buy each one after the 1st, w/PP.
With all that said, I think it could work! It's worth a try and I'd like to hear about it. With 2 games that play 1/month, each, I don't have much time for changing rules or hammering out many new ideas. Players don't like change, mid-stream.
There are some ok rules, here and there, about choosing spells 1 at a time. I sort of like the SoHK Research method. This is akin to the old D&D "chance to learn each spell" for low Int/Wis casters. You could pick /spell like skills or give a discount, less picks required, for learning an entire List..
You could do the same for Fighters, Thieves, Rangers, whatever, to give them a chance to excell in their chosen prof. I guess you'd go over what they have in the way of prof bonus (to use an example from RMSS/FRP) and give them a break on picks from those areas.
How about using Adolescence Ranks (or x2) and pick 5-10 skills that you excel in. After choosing a certain skill, the cost might be easier, 2Ranks/1 "pick used", to advance that skill. You're already familiar with the concepts.
This way, you have only a handful of skills that you're good in and even less skills if you want to start the game as a pro in that area.
Just some thoughts.
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The pick system would auto raise some skills and let you pick from broad categories to raise other skills. The problem I was having was what to do with spell lists or just how to work that out at all.
Give spell users less options to chose from to balance things out?
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The pick system would auto raise some skills and let you pick from broad categories to raise other skills. The problem I was having was what to do with spell lists or just how to work that out at all.
Give spell users less options to chose from to balance things out?
I guess it might balance things out but I was just thinking that a lot of people do not like to get that into their PC and trying to make things as simple as possible but still keep the D100 system.
MDC
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Look at the old Recon rules for simple d100.
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Simplifying doesn't have to be a new work. I've been thinking about using the categories from RMFRP/ RMSS as skills. Just use the combined ranks return and presto! Cut DP by half, perhaps down by two-thirds (or so) and don't bother with Awareness.Search/Detect traps: simply use the category for any skills in that category.
I thought it was rather ok for making quick NPCs and allowing for easy PC generation.
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I've been giving this idea a bit of thought. I can't say I have an answer, if there is one, but I think I understand where you are trying to go. My biggest problem is that in the altar of simplicity you would sacrifice flexibility the way I see it, in a straight-line model. I've been going on over different ideas though and some I think could be workable.
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I agree that when you simplify you sacrifice a lot and it may not be worth it.
MDC
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For a recent AD&D 1E game I ran, I did away with skills and just went with an attribute+level/2 bonus for all things not already covered by class abilities like thief skills and a Ranger's tracking. This could be further modified due to situation, of course.
Simplifying doesn't have to be a new work. I've been thinking about using the categories from RMFRP/ RMSS as skills. Just use the combined ranks return and presto! Cut DP by half, perhaps down by two-thirds (or so) and don't bother with Awareness.Search/Detect traps: simply use the category for any skills in that category.
I did this a while back (like 5-6 years ago) and even took one of the chargen programs in the Vault and altered it to fit. But, I also introduced specializations: you take any single skill under the category and you can specialize in it up to 3 times, each specialization grants a +10 and costs double the combined cost (i.e., 2/5 = 14 DP). [Alternatively, you could grant each profession a free skill specialization depending upon how many ranks they possess in the "category"; something like 1 specialization per 10 ranks could work.]
Now, if you want to take that and do away with picking and choosing of ones skills*, then all you have to do is determine which skills were primary, secondary, and tertiary for any given class. Like armor, combat maneuvers and weapons would be prime for fighters, but tertiary for mages.
All skills start out at 0 (zero) and are modified by the appropriate attributes, and professional modifiers (fighters get a +20 to all weapons and armor skills and things like that) and as follows:
Primary: +5/level
Secondary: +3/level
Tertiary: +1/level
I would let this just go without lessening the level bonus after so many levels, but if you do, I would suggest not dropping it until you get to level/rank 20; afterwards the skill can be classified as the next lower grade (primary start being like a secondary skill and getting only +3/level) for the next 10 or 20 levels. For tertiary skills, you go down to the dreaded +1 per 2 levels (only added on the 2nd level, no +.5s), which is a far as I would drop it.
With this method, you can really just glance at an NPC or PC and have a good idea of what they are capable of - excluding item mods, talents and such.
Personally, I think it defeats the purpose of playing RM in the first place, but each to their own.
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With this method, you can really just glance at an NPC or PC and have a good idea of what they are capable of - excluding item mods, talents and such.
Personally, I think it defeats the purpose of playing RM in the first place, but each to their own.
Exactly. Back in the day, when people asked me why I played RM rather than AD&D, I had a standard answer:
"Take 10 D&D Fighters. Erase their names, their gender, their race and their treasure. Now shuffle the stack and pick yours out of the pile. You can't, can you? That's because they're all the same. You can shuffle my RM Fighter in with a hundred others and I'll still be able to pick him out. Why? Because he has the skills I thought were important for this Fighter, and nothing I thought was unimportant. He's not quite as individual as a fingerprint, but he's a lot closer than you'll get from D&D."
One of the things I always liked best about ICE's approach is the idea that just knowing he's a Fighter does not give you much insight into his capabilities. If you don't have that, NPC enemy fighters can't surprise you.
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For old school RM, you want about 13 core skills, no more (with spell list and weapon skills being exceptions).
Grab an old Character Law and look at the development table. I think it was 13 skills. However, RM has ALWAYS had DP. That IS old school RM.
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GOF: When I was explaining to people why I like RM over games like D&D, it was that my character (no matter the profession) felt three-dimensional, an actual part of the world. Not some cardboard cut-out.
But, can empathize with the desire for more simplicity in a game; having tons of skills and numbers to crunch can get burdensome. Though, to be fair, I have almost always been too lazy to build an NPC from scratch and not just throw some numbers down that I felt were appropriate. Some crunch is fine, but when it can literally take over 2-hours to build a single NPC it is getting to be too much.
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I can understand and sympathize with the desire for simplicity... but if you're trying to build a person, how simple can you expect it to get and still get a person?
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Well, keeping with the original posters wish, here is my version of a simplistic RM.
Create Catagories that cover all skill checks. How about:
Athletic
Magical
Lore
Outdoor
Combat
Subterfuge
Influence
Self Control
Now at each level, give five ranks. No more than three may be applied to a single catagory in a level of advancement.
Every cat has a stat mod and each rank provides a linear +5 bonus. Talents and prof may mod catagories. Each prof recieves +30 in mods to apply to the catagories, split however the player desires.
Skill checks are handled normally using the bonuses from the appropriate catagory.
Every rank in Athletic provides a hit die of the races type for RM2 games, or 7 for RMSS games.
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I can understand and sympathize with the desire for simplicity... but if you're trying to build a person, how simple can you expect it to get and still get a person?
I think many peoples response would be: you don't need to have complicated rules to make a complicated character. You can play a rules-lite system and still have a character that is plenty complicated.
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I can understand and sympathize with the desire for simplicity... but if you're trying to build a person, how simple can you expect it to get and still get a person?
I think many peoples response would be: you don't need to have complicated rules to make a complicated character. You can play a rules-lite system and still have a character that is plenty complicated.
It's just a question of whether the rules encourage it or discourage it.
"Old-school" games allowed cookie-cutter characters and encouraged play that was about simply killing things and taking their stuff. You could create well-thought out characters and play role-play heavy games, but nothing in the system encouraged you to do so. It was later systems that began to give you more control of character development, in more detail, and rewarded conduct more complicated than killing things and getting treasure. Personally I don't miss "old-school" although I do have friends who do.
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I raised this idea (of simplifying) with my gaming group recently, and they shot it down straight away without giving me a chance to sell it to them. To them, a rules lite game would take away their characters' personality (along with their many skills and categories). The skills reflect what the path they have taken and give them some tangible as evidence.
I don't necessarily agree with them but I understand where they are coming from. I just wish they'd realise that they don't need their skills to roleplay their extremely interesting (and complicated) characters
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That's interesting. My players have a few skills that they always take and some they never look at.
I believe the reticence stems from their past GM's not willing to put in the time needed to work out how the skill interacts with the world.
I often have NPC's using skills that the players don't develop and they look at me slack jawed asking "How the heck did he do that?"
I don't have to tell them that their rear attack was partially thwarted by the defender's Reverse Stroke skill. I just smile and tell them the DB.
(But they don't always understand and waste game time looking for the obviously invisible magic trinket that gave him such great rear protection.) ::)
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Coming from a RM2 perspective, the first thing you'd need to do would be to consolidate the number of skills. If you add the core books and all the companions, including the arms companion which itself comes with a good 30 or so skills, there's somewhere around 200 or so skills (wild estimate). Whereas I've always loved options, some skills are redundant to the point of confusing though.
Back on topic about a simpler system, specially in regards to character generation, using the core books already brings the number of skills down significantly. From there on, you could have a simple pick method. Mostly any will do. You could go a strong-typed system where you could pick one rank/pick per level bonus, thus a warrior would have 3 picks in Combat for instance. Or you could attempt something allowing for more freedom, but almost surely more math-y. Or you could have the player's actions determine which picks they get. Or ...
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Or you could have the player's actions determine which picks they get. Or ...
I really like the idea of player's actions determining their skill in something and developing their character's as they go. It would be an entirely different way of rewarding a player for their character's actions (eliminating the need for XP or DPs). The downside would be players would fail a lot more when trying to develop a skill. The upside, though, is they wouldn't have redundant skills (as providence13 inferred) as only skills they use would be developed.
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Or you could have the player's actions determine which picks they get. Or ...
I really like the idea of player's actions determining their skill in something and developing their character's as they go. It would be an entirely different way of rewarding a player for their character's actions (eliminating the need for XP or DPs). The downside would be players would fail a lot more when trying to develop a skill. The upside, though, is they wouldn't have redundant skills (as providence13 inferred) as only skills they use would be developed.
With a little bit of inflation you could make things easier for players to develop as they go, the way they play. A potential solution could, for example be: Instead of rolling at -25 for not knowing a skill, baseline could be 0 plus their respective category stat bonus. Category stat bonus would replace skill stat bonus in an effort to simplify matters a wee bit. All lores would be RE/ME, all combat ST/ST/AG, all Magical In/Em ... That way when a player wants to attempt something completely new he instantly knows his "baseline" without having to consult the books. It's ZERO+BONUS (no level bonus since he's developed no ranks). A system such as this would however create zero ranks skill-bonus inflation, so to counter this I'd raise the 101 bar to something slightly higher.
Or something like that. This is just a Monday-morning idea. But I do like category stat bonuses replacing skill stat bonuses. Hmmmm, I'm going to give this a real look and see if I should go with this idea in my own games.
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Or you could have the player's actions determine which picks they get. Or ...
I really like the idea of player's actions determining their skill in something and developing their character's as they go. It would be an entirely different way of rewarding a player for their character's actions (eliminating the need for XP or DPs). The downside would be players would fail a lot more when trying to develop a skill. The upside, though, is they wouldn't have redundant skills (as providence13 inferred) as only skills they use would be developed.
We still use DP, but the characters gain skills as they go. For more details check out the recent Guild Companion editorial (http://www.guildcompanion.com/scrolls/2012/jun/wordsfromthewise160.html). For the early levels, when a character uses a skill for the first time, I assume he has 1 rank in the skill and category (to be paid for next level).
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I just wanted to echo some of the earlier posters. I like RM because it is complex and has realism. I dislike the whole idea of lumping skills together - for example in the real world an Olympic track cyclist won't make a good pole vaulter - because in the real world, skills are developed at a much more granular level than just a generic "athletics" skill. A weapon designer is unlikely to be a great structural designer (engineering), a concert french horn player couldn't pick up an electric guitar and play like Jimi Hendrix (perform)... and so on.
I would say that rather than try and force RM into doing something it was never designed to do, use a simpler system that's designed from the ground up to be simple. I recommend Savage Worlds - it works pretty well.
It will be interested to see what WotC do with 5th edition D&D, having managed to entirely alienate almost everyone who liked 3rd by taking the roleplaying element out of the game.. not that I'm suggesting that 3rd edition was ever not about combat, I think it works OK was a combat machine buyt falls down a bit outside of combat - which is why in my opinion 2nd was the best version of D&D yet written.
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Coming from a RM2 perspective, the first thing you'd need to do would be to consolidate the number of skills. If you add the core books and all the companions, including the arms companion which itself comes with a good 30 or so skills, there's somewhere around 200 or so skills (wild estimate). Whereas I've always loved options, some skills are redundant to the point of confusing though.
I have a spreed sheet with a list of skills for both RM2 and RMSS/FRP, and believe it or not both have about the same number of skills. The total number can vary wildly as there are a lot of Crafts skills that can be listed.
MDC
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Coming from a RM2 perspective, the first thing you'd need to do would be to consolidate the number of skills. If you add the core books and all the companions, including the arms companion which itself comes with a good 30 or so skills, there's somewhere around 200 or so skills (wild estimate). Whereas I've always loved options, some skills are redundant to the point of confusing though.
I have a spreed sheet with a list of skills for both RM2 and RMSS/FRP, and believe it or not both have about the same number of skills. The total number can vary wildly as there are a lot of Crafts skills that can be listed.
MDC
I'm not really familiar with RMSS to be honest, and I love the RM2 variety, but Flora Lore and Herbalism, for instance, could be consolidated into one single skill. /derail
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And i think Herbalism and Flora Lore make sense. One is a knowledge of healing plants, the ther of plants in an area, growing, harvesting, collecting seeds, etc. IMO, Use4 and Prepare Herbs is redundant, since Herbalism should cover it.
yet in someones game, they may have people who work preparing herbs but have no real idea how to find them or what they even do, sort of like an assembly job at a factory. Insert tab Z into slot Q. This is a very industrialized aproach, which makes sense, but rather turns me off.
Is it really so difficult to pick and ignore skills? I prefer a large list of skills and toss out what I dont like. Stun Removal is gone from my game, but Stun Mnv'ing remains(negates mnv penalty by 1 per rank in skill, no stat mods). I think it's cool we can have this discussion over what skills are most vital, what are redundant or useless, etc. Flexibility is the hall mark of RM. The choices built should make creating the game you want easier.
At our game table there is a long running joke about the most efficacious skill: it's BATTLE AXE. When faced with a situation that needs resolving, someone will typically blurt out "use your battle axe skill." or just "battle axe." The more absurd the use of violence would be ina stiuation, the funnier the moment. Kinda like ending every sentence..."in bed."
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Whereas I've always loved options, some skills are redundant to the point of confusing though.
Sure. Since an RPG's actual mechanics are, when all is said and done, nothing but a complex math problem, I tend to put it in math terms: I don't need simple, but I want elegant. "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
As an example, if someone skilled with poisons wants to find something toxic growing wild in his local area, what skill covers that? When you can cover it off of Foraging/Survival, Herbalism, Poison Lore, Flora Lore, Region Lore (Local)... well obviously you don't need a specific "Find Poison" skill, you already have plenty of options. Often the lack is not whether there is a skill covering that, but a proper description of the relationship between skills. Rather than add a specific skill for Smelting Ore, say, describe the relationship between Mining and Metalworking well enough that the GM knows how much each applies to the task at hand.
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Or you could have the player's actions determine which picks they get. Or ...
I really like the idea of player's actions determining their skill in something and developing their character's as they go. It would be an entirely different way of rewarding a player for their character's actions (eliminating the need for XP or DPs). The downside would be players would fail a lot more when trying to develop a skill. The upside, though, is they wouldn't have redundant skills (as providence13 inferred) as only skills they use would be developed.
We still use DP, but the characters gain skills as they go. For more details check out the recent Guild Companion editorial (http://www.guildcompanion.com/scrolls/2012/jun/wordsfromthewise160.html). For the early levels, when a character uses a skill for the first time, I assume he has 1 rank in the skill and category (to be paid for next level).
I was thinking about this all day in work and this is what I came up with. Characters apply any experience gained towards that particular skill. Any experience gained would also be totaled for levelling purpose. When the XP put towards a skill reaches a certain threshold, the skill is learned and a rank is gained. The threshold (for a particular skill) is:
T = (difference in XP between levels) x (skill cost) ÷ (DP per level)
E.g. If a character is level 6, has 80 DP per level and is using a skill costing 2DP
T = 20000 x 2 ÷ 80 = 500 XP
This would be recorded as the XP cost on the character sheet and after enough XP is applyed to the skill, a rank is gained.
It requires an extra sheet for recording current skills being learnt and doesn't go back to basics (apologies original poster) but makes for an interesting way of levelling and learning skills (if a little more demanding and dangerous)
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or hand out dp instead of exp and the players place a check by skills used in play, allowing dp to spent there without training. Any other skill not used in play would require training to advance.
Base training time is 8hrs ranks one and two require 8hrs. ranks three and four require 16 hours. ranks five and six require 24 hours. Again, normally only three hours in a day may be spent in training. They may anly have time for two hours (such as when travelling and making camp), four hours if they have other responsibilities, etc. It can take a week to get in eight hours training, or one day. For higher ranks, it can take some time indeed. Down time becomes imperative.
BTW, base traing time can be increased for truly dificult skills to master (learning a lost language) or decreased for simple skills/taught by a master/etc (cooking, Bruce Lee teaching martial arts).
RMSS rule book has the training table and additional info.
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At our game table there is a long running joke about the most efficacious skill: it's BATTLE AXE. When faced with a situation that needs resolving, someone will typically blurt out "use your battle axe skill." or just "battle axe." The more absurd the use of violence would be ina stiuation, the funnier the moment. Kinda like ending every sentence..."in bed."
We use "Build a catapult" for all such situations or sometimes "Dig a tunnel". The tunnel one started when one player stated that his plan to get from the mainland to a 90kms away island was to dig a tunnel. When we pointed out that it was ninety-kilometers-away he simply replied that better get started soon then, no time to waste.
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or hand out dp instead of exp and the players place a check by skills used in play, allowing dp to spent there without training. Any other skill not used in play would require training to advance.
Although I think the original idea was to get away from using DP, it is a good idea. So I suppose you would hand out DPs as follows:
1DP = 10000 × { (current level + 1) ÷ 5 RND UP} ÷ (Max DP) XP
EG, 3rd level character with 80DP gets a DP every:
10000 × { (4) ÷ 5 RND} ÷ 80 = 10000 × 1 ÷ 80 = 125 XP
EG 2, 10th level character with 75DP gets a DP every:
10000 × {11÷5 RND} ÷ 75 = 10000 × 3 ÷ 75 = 400 XP
I like the idea of training , but I think players are tempted to abuse it. I tried it before and my group all agreed to stop for a few days to train. I had to use outside forces to move them along, something which they weren't happy about. I think one DP per level. earned training is more than generous.
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Awesome derail ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
I digress on the need to make Rolemaster more math-y though. Sure, I don't find the system complicated, it is complex but that's a good thing, but, More complexity? If it really adds to my games, I'm all over it. Myself, I wouldn't put something as you are describing, bennis1980, in place.
On top of not really bringing anything new to the table IMO, some players already drag their feet when they have to update their character sheet once every 4-5 sessions. I don't cherish the prospect of players updating their character sheets on the fly during a gaming session.
And then there's of course the fact that skill costs vary depending on how many ranks you allot per level. Writing down WHEN you added that first rank in, say, Herbalism, would be important for calculating the DP cost for another rank if you were to keep with x/y costs.
/end derail
Back on topic, as has been stated, simplifying level advancement and skills is at odds with character personalization and diversity. A potential solution for players not keen on developing their PCs and more intent on faster character generation could be the use of templates. You'd end up with way less diverse PCs though.