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Systems & Settings => Rolemaster => RMC/RM2 => Topic started by: Peter R on May 05, 2016, 04:02:07 AM
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Three times a year I pack up all of my campaign world, game notes, character sheets and rules and cart them half way across the country by train to run a long weekend of gaming for my players. We are spread all over the UK and one or two players who live fairly centrally play host. For this reason I am really keen on minimalising everything. As the campaign continues the game notes expand. I don't run a railroaded game so I have to be prepared for the players to go off at a tangent.
The two things I want to minimise are:
a) The rules in play
b) The time lost through rules look ups
These are obviously connected.
Where I am right now is that I have junked 99% of all the companions after Companion 1. I am only using one RM2 profession (Warrior Mage) because one player really wanted to play that profession). I am using the rules of for deity specific clerical spell lists and that is about it from the other companions.
I have replaced Arms Law with the combat companion. That has improved combat speed beyond recognition. I have tried combat minion but didn't get on with the trial version.
I have copied all of the charts I use most frequently into a single PDF which I have on a tablet to give me a single quick reference for RR, BAR, initiative, MM rolls and DB modifiers etc. That is a 12 page PDF and replaces the GM screen.
I have given every spell caster copies of their own spell lists as part of their character sheet so they do not have to reference Spell Law as often.
I am using the cinematic healing as detailed in RMU.
What else can I do in an existing game to minimise time lost over my precious weekends to looking up rules? Are there further simplifications I can slip into the game that the players will not notice but will speed things along?
I know there are loads of things I can do if I rebooted the game but that is not an option now. The PCs are all 3rd level and making good progress towards 4th.
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I am a player in our setting.
To take work load of using books and the GM to be mister know it all, we do this:
I manage all weapons , spell tables nad base attack list for most players, GM handles crits still.
I made spell books for most players so they have their complete lists and description of spells.
That made things happen alot faster.
Our GM made a book for him self with all tables in it instead of swapping between 9 books!
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I use RMX & a one page document of backgrounds options. One of the background options allows you to become a semi-spell user. and develop one skill list as 10 for a fighter and 5 for a thief. The Semi-Spell user can build their own spell list using the Open Spells fro either Essence or Channelling. The rest of the Backgrounds are the standard +5 Primary Skill/+15 Secondary Skill etc found in MERP. Creates just enough diversity without being encumbering.
For the purpose of light gaming RMX/MERP are my games of choice.
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I am a player in our setting.
To take work load of using books and the GM to be mister know it all, we do this:
I manage all weapons , spell tables nad base attack list for most players, GM handles crits still.
I made spell books for most players so they have their complete lists and description of spells.
That made things happen alot faster.
Our GM made a book for him self with all tables in it instead of swapping between 9 books!
Thanks, I agree giving each player all their spell lists made a big change for us. I don't like delegating combat to a player, it can be a bit of a spoiler. I had an illusionist that would make it appear that he was wearing AT20 full plate but it was purely for show. If anyone attacked him he was actually AT1 and that would have been given away immediately if someone else was consulting the combat charts. The same can happen if someone has an unusually high DB.
My custom PDF probably serves the same purpose as your GMs book and probably had the same stuff in it.
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I use RMX & a one page document of backgrounds options. One of the background options allows you to become a semi-spell user. and develop one skill list as 10 for a fighter and 5 for a thief. The Semi-Spell user can build their own spell list using the Open Spells fro either Essence or Channelling. The rest of the Backgrounds are the standard +5 Primary Skill/+15 Secondary Skill etc found in MERP. Creates just enough diversity without being encumbering.
For the purpose of light gaming RMX/MERP are my games of choice.
I have never used RMX and the only two people I know using it are you and Kwickam. If I was going to completely change system I would probably go with HARP now. I bought myself the rules for Christmas so I have the rules already. If my players are not keen on HARP then I would start my house ruled game which is based on everyone being No Profession, fixed DPs and is level-less. I don't want to junk this campaign though as the players are just settling in to their characters.
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Do other GMs here use a player character backgound questionnaire? The sort of thing about the characters motivations, what would they sell their soul for and that sort of thing?
That is something else I have scrapped as it was the accepted norm i our groups to have to fill out one of those for your character. I have with just a first impressions post-it note now.
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The GM can ofc himself use tables if he has surprises!
But it takes a huge load of him that i do the tables normaly!
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Do other GMs here use a player character backgound questionnaire? The sort of thing about the characters motivations, what would they sell their soul for and that sort of thing?
That is something else I have scrapped as it was the accepted norm i our groups to have to fill out one of those for your character. I have with just a first impressions post-it note now.
Normal practice for us is to write up a character history as prose. No structured questionnaire, but same purpose. I think this is because we are mostly LARPers and our LARPs require character histories that way.
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We do a character background story. With goals etc..
And reward it wirh 5000 Xp if its good!
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I think RMX is less of a departure than HARP as it is condensed from RMC. However, it is not sold any moer and has a very limited scope of characters available..... Do you use RMC or RMFRP?
HARP is great and contained in one book; it's definitely worth trying. I just assumed you were looking at RM specifically.
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I introduced a new GM to rolemaster last year so I bought all the new RMC books so he and I would have the same rules. I come from a background of MERP and then RM2 originally.
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I think RMX is less of a departure than HARP as it is condensed from RMC. However, it is not sold any moer and has a very limited scope of characters available..... Do you use RMC or RMFRP?
HARP is great and contained in one book; it's definitely worth trying. I just assumed you were looking at RM specifically.
The other advantage, to me, to HARP is HARP SF. I have managed to lose all my Spacemaster rules in a house move or such. I bought HARP SF at the same time so I now have a single coherent system in HARP for all of time and space. I imagine the Spacemaster revision of RMU is years away.
Right now though we are playing pretty much RMC rules as written apart from the RMC combat companion combat charts and modified versions of those that I wrote myself.
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I switched back to MERP after years of RMSS (then HARP). We played MERP for about a year. Then switched to RMX because its the same "weight of game" but with the RM skill system. The appeal of RMX was using the good aspects of RM (specifically the skill system) with the MERP modules. RMC, RMX, and MERP are largely interchangeable.
So, is your goal everything you need to play in a single book? Or, having the rules trimmed down a bit (less charts and lists)?
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It is kind of everything.
All my rules are now PDF. Those that I could not buy in PDF format I have scanned and OCRed just the pages I use. These are now on a tablet. I use lots of creatures that are not in Creatures and Treasures so I have them all in PDF format too. All of that is on a Tablet I use at the gaming table.
I have made combat as efficient as I believe I can using the condensed combat system without resorting Combat Minion. The only change I have made to that is that I scanned and imported the combat tables into Word and re-wrote all the descriptive text (the location and damage effects all remain the same) for the criticals for swords, bows and short blades. The only 'flaw' in the condensed combat system is that the same criticals come around too frequently especially when everyone is wielding similar weapons. I swap between my criticals and the published criticals for each session. I ran a combat with 5 PCs, an NPC and 18 Kobalds last session just using two pages which I had facing each other on paper. There was no page flipping at all.
Every character has all their spell lists printed out as part of their character sheet. Spell Law used to be a bottle neck as everyone tried to see what spell they should prepare next. Every one of the PCs and NPC is a spell caster. That removed that bottle neck.
I don't use the uber skills list from RoCoII just the secondary skills from ChL and RMC Companion 1. That cut out a lot of looking up of skills and made levelling up a bit quicker.
I normally level people up before play starts if they are close to or just over the level break point.
I gathered together all the most commonly used charts into a single PDF in place of the GM screen and that cut out most of the page flipping for skill resolution, MMs and RRs.
Are there other parts of RMC that can be simplified to speed up play that I have missed or are there other techniques GMs are using to speed up play.
I was given one suggestion the other day that I am going to try this weekend. For each NPC I have added a post-it note saying what spell they will cast first, then second etc., or what is their primary attack/tactics. The idea being that at a glance I can see what they are about to do without having to start checking spell lists. That should I hope move some of the effort into my prep time and out of the game session.
I also prefill all of those Gamemaster Summary sheets with every creature/NPC that they are likely to meet and a selection of the most common random encounters so I have all those stats to hand.
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I do something very similar- I use a single melee and missile attack chart & use some revised crits based on the MERP/RMX crit tables. I've just added in a few more to spice it up a bit. The use a single column MM table and general SM table. RR TNs are standard based on the spell level.
I do use the MERP combat round though. Mostly because it's easy to keep track of multiple actions and reduces the time for rolling initiative.
If you're suing RMC then you could trim the skills down dramatically- I use a sub skill system where you use the numerical value of either the Medium, Hard or Very Hard Column as a bonus to a similar skill. I found this encourages creativity too. For example: having a +85 in Sword skill gives you +60 Swashbuckling skill (using the medium column).
I also eliminated spell casting rolls, and adrenal defence rolls by applying "prep" peanlties
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I have stripped out all the skills I didn't feel added anything to the game and added in the RMU Vocational Skill. I am happy with the skills as are my players.
I find the Gamemaster Summary Sheet speeds the game up. It gathers together all the combat stats of every PC, NPC and monster into a single reference with precalcuated OB and DBs including parrying.
Are there other sheets in any of the books that I have missed that people find useful?
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I pushed to do pre calculated DB/OB splits too. The players resisted. So, what do you feel slows it down?
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I find the Gamemaster Summary Sheet speeds the game up. It gathers together all the combat stats of every PC, NPC and monster into a single reference with precalcuated OB and DBs including parrying.
Sounds like you play the game with your self ;)
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I find the Gamemaster Summary Sheet speeds the game up. It gathers together all the combat stats of every PC, NPC and monster into a single reference with precalcuated OB and DBs including parrying.
Sounds like you play the game with your self ;)
The strength of those sheets is that many encounters that you are 99.9% will result in combat or similar (such as attempting to evade) you do not need the full creatures stats and descriptions. In this coming weekend the villain has a guard dog that is trained to attack and it is possible we will have a 'Smythers, release the hounds!" moment. I know what a dog looks like, the players know what a big dog looks like so I don't need to reference C&T to get the stats as I have already have them in front of me as a single line of numbers. Another encounter that is likely to happen is 4 skeletal guards. There is no negotiation with them so again it is likely to be into combat but everyone knows what they look like. The delay in finding the correct page in C&T adds nothing to the game. It took about 2hrs to sit there with Excel putting the numbers and notes in for all the new creatures that they could possibly meet. I hide the rows of ones they will not meet so what I am left with is a printable sheet, one row for every creature so I can record hits taken and bleeding etc. I can then print that off before the game session. I am only ever adding new creatures they have not met before or copying rows dow to build new encounters.
We meet infrequently but play for many hours (the game will start about 5pm today and go on until Sunday afternoon), we will get about 25hrs play in in the next three days. The long months between sessions means that political/investigation types games do not work well for us as we cannot retain the clues or make the connections in what has been minutes or hours for the PCs but 4 months for us. This means that the games are more character play and combat oriented. I, as a GM, model my combats on James Bond/Hollywood movies. Meaning that if you think of the typical JB finale the hero will likely escape his cell killing his guard, meet two more guards in a corridor, another on the stairs, one foe comes from each side on a gantry before being cornered by four guards which he takes out by blowing up a gas cylinder and so on. So in total there were five encounters and 10 opponents interspersed with skill checks to open doors, perception rolls to avoid guards, stalking, MMs to leap from one place to another, and so on.
My adventures are demanding on PPs because rather than one epic battle where the players can just unload all their big gun type spells in a barrage they really need to pace themselves so they still have something in the tank when they do finally face down the bad guy.
So in such a combat centric game I need combat to be slick, which I think I have achieved. It is a magic heavy game in a high magic world. Every one of my players is playing a pure (1), Hybrid (2) or Semi (2) spell user. I think I have made that as slick as I can by giving the players all their spell lists straight from SLaw and moving the BAR tables to my GMs PDF. I use a limited list of broad skills to reduce the number of looking up to check skill descriptions in the rules and pouring over character sheets to see if they have the right skill(s). I use the RMC alternative static action table for skill resolution, again from my GMs PDF. I have familiarised myself with my NPCs strengths and tactics and have a post-it quick reference on each sheet so I can get into character.
I think the question is, is there anything else I could do?
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It was mostly a joke though.. It was because you wrote you had all the PCs stats so they dint need to do anything them self :)
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It was mostly a joke though.. It was because you wrote you had all the PCs stats so they dint need to do anything them self :)
There are two reasons for that. Firstly if an assassin misses with a blow dart, I may ask the PCs for a perception roll but I don't want to ask them for their DB and armour type.
The second reason is that one of my players has a convenient habit of forgetting how many power points and wounds he has picked up and would cast spells all day given the chance.
If the players are all in a very bad way I have been known to tone down an encounter. I am happy to kill a character if bad things happen but I will actively avoid a total party wipe out.
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Cheaters could also summon the wrath of Klysus! ( trident +200 attack to face)
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I also keep track of the PCs AT(DB) etc. for the same reasons.
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Thats really wierd that people would cheat tbh!!
Makes no sense to me!
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With that player I think it is a case of not being heroic being perceived as failure. So he wants to always be in the fight, always throw the last spell and so on.
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Everybody plays for a different reason.
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I also keep track of the PCs AT(DB) etc. for the same reasons.
At the start of each session I get my players to give me 10 d100 rolls. I use these for perception rolls and the like that the players are not aware of. For times when I don't want to alert the players that there was something to be detected.
That helps if say they are just walking through a hall and the eyes in a portrait are following them for example. If I know they don't notice it then we can just keep the game moving.
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I also roll randomly when there is no reason to. LOL
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I also roll randomly when there is no reason to. LOL
I thought I was the only one that was that evil. One time I roll and passed a not to a night guard and told the player that the character saw a "large shadow moving on the ground". Turns out it was just a cloud moving across the moon.
-BP
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The game Paranoia specifically instructs the GM to roll at random intervals and look at players and cackle.
Our GM has been known to hand out notes that say, "hi, did not want you to feel left out."
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The game Paranoia specifically instructs the GM to roll at random intervals and look at players and cackle.
Our GM has been known to hand out notes that say, "hi, did not want you to feel left out."
OMG! I love it. And yes, I did play Paranoia at one time.
-BP
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The game Paranoia specifically instructs the GM to roll at random intervals and look at players and cackle.
Our GM has been known to hand out notes that say, "hi, did not want you to feel left out."
I've done the very same things too. The GM needs to keep the players interested. With cell phones, texting, FB so easily accessible, the GM needs some little hook to get the player thinking "OMG, what did I miss? I wasn't paying attention. Why am I rolling???"
I've also sent notes that read "This is a blank note. Just tell me a random number out loud for all to hear" to get other players in the party curious about what's happening, particularly if the party is in separate parts of a building or dungeon.
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It was mostly a joke though.. It was because you wrote you had all the PCs stats so they dint need to do anything them self :)
It was a funny joke. ;)
However, I take maybe a half measure of what Peter does. In an attempt to speed up combat a bit, I take down all of the PC's AT and DB and Magical-only-DB (+5, +10, whatever) and weapon. When I do my attacks, I'm not asking for those stats over and over and I can pull out the weapon tables for the weapons. It beats flipping between pages. I have the attack tables and crit tables photocopied and in protective sheets so I can pull those sheets from the 3-ring binder and just glance down to see what I need.
I would limit the type of weapons available, but I wouldn't go to the extreme of using the Dagger Attack table for all 1-H Slashing. However, you could eliminate Falchion, Scimitar, Main Gauche, Rapier, and say those weapons use broadsword table. Eliminate the non-standard weapons from the later companions; Steel Whip, Tebuje, Estock, etc.... those weapons that not only have their own attack tables, but also their own crit tables. (Alas, without the Tebujue... no disemboweling of PC's :'( )
Definitely have the players write out their spell lists or photocopy the spell lists for the players so the GM doesn't have to pause to read the rule, the GM doesn't have to give up the books to let a player read the rules, and if there is a question, the player already has a print out and can hand it off to the GM (or tell him the page number to look at). No need to reference any other books.
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I just saw this post. So how did it go if it was this past weekend. I was going to mention maybe something to speed up leveling adjustments if you don't have something. I hate it when the game slows down to adjust stats and level.
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I just saw this post. So how did it go if it was this past weekend. I was going to mention maybe something to speed up leveling adjustments if you don't have something. I hate it when the game slows down to adjust stats and level.
The actual adventuring was pretty fast and slick. I don't actually think I can speed up that element of the game any further.
Leveling up on the Sunday morning took a chunk of time but I am not too worried about that as in my next campaign I will be playing a level-less game so that will not happen.
I am working on things that can improve my prep time now. The amount of time I have available is fairly fixed but if I can work that time better, smarter or more efficiently then the resulting game session will or at least should be better. For me this at present involves using spreadsheets to preform regular calculations or game conversions and creating digital copies of paper forms so I can edit and save rather than rewrite sheets.
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One trick for levelling is to have them pre-spend X amount of DPs & reduce the amount of stat gains you get. Stats are what take up the bulk of time in my experience. So, I do 1 Mental & 1 Physical stat per level. If you use fixed DPs then you can have the platers pre spend 50% of them for the next level before they come to play. This can help simulate acquiring new skills too....
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Leveling up on the Sunday morning took a chunk of time but I am not too worried about that as in my next campaign I will be playing a level-less game so that will not happen.
I am working on things that can improve my prep time now.
For me, the PC creation process is the most time consuming. I would try to get the players created prior to game day.
Leveling up wasn't so bad but I made the players do some housekeeping at time of creation. The players tended to know what skills they wanted to purchase as they play through the sessions. I made character sheets with a space to put the skill cost so they wouldn't have to flip through books and there were blank lines to add skills and costs that they want for next level. At time of creation they would be prepping for level 2.
1/4 Spear ****000000 ST/ST/AG
1/5 Riding **00000000 AG/ST
2/4 Iaijitsu 0000000000 AG/QU
* - I'm just pulling stats out of the air for examples
When this PC hits level 2, he knows the costs per rank, and the stats associated with it. If the stats changed on the stat gain roll, then he knows to recalculate those skills. That takes a lot of burden off the GM at level up and the player knows ahead of time that Iaijitsu is a skill he wants and the costs and stats needed. No need to flip through books to find the info.
Also, when players leveled up, we tended to break for lunch/dinner. During the break in gaming, the players would tend to their PCs to not take time away from actual play time. Some would play as they were leveling up because they didn't want to stop game flow.
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I generally have the PC's "level up" with skills they wish to purchase for the next level. That way it is already done and they just have to put in the numbers. If they decide to add new skills that they think is important then they just modify by subtracting from the skills already purchased or if they had extra points left over then use them or combine both options. This made for easier leveling. This also included stat gains so that everything was already waiting for the leveling.
I even toyed with having them chart a level up for the next 5 levels with stat gains. This would be flexible to add new skills or change the way the character is going but is good for PC's to see a flow of their character concept going up the levels to see if this was playable and what was needed. A little more work on the front end saves a lot of work when leveling up.
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Yes, I agree creation is the most time consuming single task. Leveling up is probably the second most time consuming.
Our character sheets have a page with the skill name, cost and stat for the reasons you suggest. Bearing in mind that I used a somewhat reduced skill set (pretty much all the skills from Character Law and RoCoI but none from RoCoII-VII or other companions plus I have introduced Vocational from RMU. Some of my players have adopted a character sheet that includes Every skill with its cost and stat listed. This means they can, and do, make unskilled checks and already know how bad the skill bonus will be. There is no thief in the party so watching them attempt to pick a lock was amusing. they had no idea that the lock was so sophisticated that it was sheer folly to attempt to pick. One player was really confident when he made an open ended attempt and still failed!
I am not too worried about leveling up in the long run as this will hopefully be the last game I run under these rules. All future games will either be RMU, HARP or my house ruled varient.
The character creation we did a lot of be using email correspondence prior to the game, particularly the character background where I could give the players blocks of setting based lore that their character would know and to try and ground the characters in the setting. That worked well as the backgrounds were very well developed and the players had a few months to get to know their characters prior to playing (we only meet to play about 3 times a year).
Things I have done to improve my prep are:
- I have a spreadsheet that does AD&D to RM monster conversions using the rules from the vault.
- I have a spreadsheet that recreates the Gamemaster Summary sheet with an increasing number of rows as they meet a wider range of creatures. I just need to hide the rows that are not relevant to the coming game session and then print.
- I use the RCU software (freeware) that I have edited to remove the races, professions, skills, spell lists and background options that I do not use. If you are a RM2/RMC GM then you can easily create a 10th level NPC in 30 minutes with this with all their skills and spells
- I have post-it based potted summaries of NPCs' personalities and combat tactics for first round, second round and if they are goin to flee. These are quick and easy to produce and keep my NPCs consistent from session to session.
- I print copies of the adventure so I can highlight key points such as magic items/special items and likely combat points. This is so I don't end up describing a location in wonderful detail and fail to mention the dragon sat in the middle of it because it was at the top of the next page and I haven't turned the page.
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I generally have the PC's "level up" with skills they wish to purchase for the next level. That way it is already done and they just have to put in the numbers. If they decide to add new skills that they think is important then they just modify by subtracting from the skills already purchased or if they had extra points left over then use them or combine both options. This made for easier leveling. This also included stat gains so that everything was already waiting for the leveling.
I even toyed with having them chart a level up for the next 5 levels with stat gains. This would be flexible to add new skills or change the way the character is going but is good for PC's to see a flow of their character concept going up the levels to see if this was playable and what was needed. A little more work on the front end saves a lot of work when leveling up.
I have a dislike for stat gains. They create a huge amount of work, especially for skills heavy characters and I have seen a player roll badly repeatedly on the same stat to the point where the magician had no powerpoints at all for three levels. I think the points based systems where if you want stat increases you have to pay for them is a better option. If you have a stat gain you wanted and paid for then you are going to be happy to recalculate all your skills.
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I have a dislike for stat gains. They create a huge amount of work, especially for skills heavy characters and I have seen a player roll badly repeatedly on the same stat to the point where the magician had no powerpoints at all for three levels. I think the points based systems where if you want stat increases you have to pay for them is a better option. If you have a stat gain you wanted and paid for then you are going to be happy to recalculate all your skills.
We ran into the same issues and while it was funny at first, it quickly became almost painful to see it happen. Then add the high mortality rate for 1st level PC's and having to go through the process repeatedly, we opted to make the PCs start at level 5. "Usually" by level 5, all the stats are maxed at their potentials, or very close to it, so we gave the PCs their potentials. And to help balance the huge number of skills with limited DP to spend (a hot topic in several other threads), we let the PCs have their maxed out DPs from level 0 through Level 5. i.e.: 6 levels of development with max DP. This method obviously tacks on a lot of creation time, but eliminates rapid leveling up and downtime to actually level up as the PCs need 20k XP to reach level 6. From that point on, leveling up was very manageable and much quicker.
*-note: Later on in my GM-ing career, I made level 0 be the Temp stats and DPs, then for level 1+ I gave the players the stats at full potential and the DPs that go with them. Level 1-5 was at full potentials and Level 0 was just the Temp Stat level. I treated it as the adolescent level and they simply weren't fully developed yet. The players liked that and it's stuck for quite a while.
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Later on in my GM-ing career, I made level 0 be the Temp stats and DPs, then for level 1+ I gave the players the stats at full potential and the DPs that go with them. Level 1-5 was at full potentials and Level 0 was just the Temp Stat level. I treated it as the adolescent level and they simply weren't fully developed yet. The players liked that and it's stuck for quite a while.
I am very much in favour of the fixed DPs per level and breaking the link between stats and DPs (as is done in HARP and RMU). What you have done amounts to pretty much the same thing. One of the players in my PBP game has truely amazing temp and potential stats and has loads more DPs than any other character in the campaign. I can just imagine that character massively out stripping all the other characters within the first few levels.
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I love the level progression and stat gains rolls and the increasing DP. As you get older, you learn more, get better, pick up skills more easily. It essentially boils down to level 0 is the Adolescent years. Levels 1-5 are the "teens/high school through college years". Level 6+ your young adult life and getting the career going, matured, so on. But there are also plenty of instances where that method can be frustrating, particularly to a new player who already has a tainted view of RM.
Sadly, there were the occasions you mentioned, The magician with no PP. Or the Temp stats being so low there simply weren't enough DP to develop a PC, or the Potential Stats were just so abysmal, he just couldn't get out of his own way. (I rolled a PC one time who's highest Potential Stats were the two free 90's I had to take as the Prime Req's.)
Given the 'deadliness' of RM and the chance for a crit-kill, PCs sometimes drop like flies and there's just so much time required to make a new PC. The argument can very easily be made for the automatic "max DP" (generated by the Potential Stats) per level.
I would be happy play testing a RM2 game with PCs getting DP/PP based on the Potential Stat starting at Level 1, but using the Temporary Stat to calculate the stat bonus for skills. Each level, make the stat gain roll, recalculate the stat bonuses, but the DP/PP per level don't change... unless there is an event that specifically states "Lose/Gain ## to Potential Stat."
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I use RMX as my core RM rules. It uses a stat array of 90, 80, 75, 75, 70 x2. I have you spend DPs to raise stats 1:1 up to 90 2:1 up to 95 etc. That way it's part of the DP process. As mentioned before I limit the stat gains to 1 Mental & 1 Physical per level too.
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I love the level progression and stat gains rolls and the increasing DP. As you get older, you learn more, get better, pick up skills more easily.
I am old and I don't learn skills more easily!
Sadly, there were the occasions you mentioned, The magician with no PP. Or the Temp stats being so low there simply weren't enough DP to develop a PC, or the Potential Stats were just so abysmal, he just couldn't get out of his own way. (I rolled a PC one time who's highest Potential Stats were the two free 90's I had to take as the Prime Req's.)
In some games these are termed 'farmers', characters that should have stayed on the farm.
If you break the connection between stats and DPs then you open the way for someone to have a forgetful mage or a sickly fighter (Elric?) without the character being penalised every level because they put a low number in a DP generating stat. That is one reason why I like the idea. It also levels the playing field so that all characters have an equal budget.
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I have gone full bore on a set amount of DP for that a few reasons.
- easy to calculate how many DP's per level if starting at a higher level
- ensure everyone has enough DP's to be productive and diverse
- leave stats for the purpose of character build and not dependent on DP development as this was always slanted in favor of stats that generate DP rather than character concept
- allows GM's control of skill levels of NPC's and PC's on a level playing field or higher/lower as GM sees fit
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I don't think I will ever go back to stat based DPs.
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Me either. DPs are the easiest way to control the relative power level of a game. Less DPs generally means less diverse characters- more DPs means more diverse characters. You can also create "Archetypes" by pre-spending DPs and just create a bonus matrix like D&D. That seems to be comforting to new converts....lol
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So you are using them a bit like HARP style training packages then, a single cost buys a complete set of skills. The players then get to spend the left over DPs on their choice of skills.
Here is a question for you. Which of the mental stats (em, pr, in etc) would you all say are the most obvious to an outside observer if they met the character?
This is going back to GMing and prepping.
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Good Question. I don't consider Pr, EM, In to be mental stats. In my opinion they are more closely related to the characters psyche. But, for the core RM point of view I would say Pr, Em, SD, In in that order.
As for the HARP observation- no not really. I have thrown together levels 1-3 templates for fighter, thief, mage, etc. for week-ending and the pre spent the DPs for each level then I. So, a first level fighter would have +20 in a primary weapon skill, +10 in a secondary weapon, and +5 in a tertiary weapon, +10 body development, +30 armour- basically ignore the ranks and express it as the actual bonus.
Then, advancing to 2nd level you could add +10 to a weapon, and +5 to another, +10 to body development etc. Really, I guess it's closer to Hobby Ranks from RMFRP- but, keep in mind I am doing this because I am running pre-determined storyline that I have a good idea what skills the PCs will need. We are sacrificing a lot of customizability to maximize the time we get to actually play.
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In some games these are termed 'farmers', characters that should have stayed on the farm.
... and in RM2 they are called "Profession" and "Non-Profession." ;D
Sometimes they happen to be farmers, and in one instance, a Blacksmith. He ended up being really handy in the game.
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Or the actual Farmer from one of the companions....lol
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Good Question. I don't consider Pr, EM, In to be mental stats. In my opinion they are more closely related to the characters psyche. But, for the core RM point of view I would say Pr, Em, SD, In in that order.
As for the HARP observation- no not really. I have thrown together levels 1-3 templates for fighter, thief, mage, etc. for week-ending and the pre spent the DPs for each level then I. So, a first level fighter would have +20 in a primary weapon skill, +10 in a secondary weapon, and +5 in a tertiary weapon, +10 body development, +30 armour- basically ignore the ranks and express it as the actual bonus.
Then, advancing to 2nd level you could add +10 to a weapon, and +5 to another, +10 to body development etc. Really, I guess it's closer to Hobby Ranks from RMFRP- but, keep in mind I am doing this because I am running pre-determined storyline that I have a good idea what skills the PCs will need. We are sacrificing a lot of customizability to maximize the time we get to actually play.
Those first three stats, PR EM SD, are the same three I was thinking. I don't want to roll stats for every NPC the players will ever meet but just recording any stat bonuses for named NPCs for those three stats I am thinking would help flesh them out somewhat without having to think too much about them. An NPC Gate Guard with a higher SD would probably have a smarter uniform, turn up on time and stick to his patrol schedule more strictly. One with a higher presence may resist being brow beaten by the players quite so easily.
I am thinking it take but a moment when plotting out an adventure to just roll three stats and jot them against each named individual. I feel that the mental stats probably tell us more about how to play an NPC than anything else after maybe their race.
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I agree- but I very rarely stat NPCs anyway. There are no interaction rules in RM as far as I know- well, I guess the Influence/Interaction column of the old SM table. But, that is reliant on skill....which seems silly
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I agree- but I very rarely stat NPCs anyway. There are no interaction rules in RM as far as I know- well, I guess the Influence/Interaction column of the old SM table. But, that is reliant on skill....which seems silly
I don't normally stat sundry NPCs either but I an thinking that just 3 stats may improve my NPCs with minimal effort. I would like to move away from generic gate guards called Bob who are instantly forgetable. I would like a stronger feel of consistency between sessions and that if there are three guards mannng a gate and a player asks "Do any of them look concerned over how wounded we are?" at a glance I tell that the guards really don't give a toss.
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I've just posted a blog entry with my own take on how to make Rolemaster as rules light as possible. http://deathanddismemberment.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/old-schoolifying-rolemaster.html?m=1 (http://deathanddismemberment.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/old-schoolifying-rolemaster.html?m=1) it's possibly worth reading the preceding post to put it into context. The audience is more for OSR folks who have played Rolemaster in the past but I reckon it's worth a read for RM folks interested in a lighter ruleset.
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I agree- but I very rarely stat NPCs anyway. There are no interaction rules in RM as far as I know- well, I guess the Influence/Interaction column of the old SM table. But, that is reliant on skill....which seems silly
I'll give bare essential stats for factors I think they'll need. QU (and a stat bonus), DB, OB for the weapons. Then if he's a specialist like a horseman, I'll throw some Riding stats and maybe some animal related skills. The "guard" type NPC's will get stats for Sense Ambush Assassin, General Perception, Hearing Perception, and such, but I won't roll up all 10 stats, all stat gains, spend all the DP's, etc. (We do have a GM who does do all of that and gets to the microscopic level, but that's what he loves to do.)
When I'm really in a pinch I grab Heroes and Rogues and that book is loaded with tons of awesomeness.
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Yes- one of the better aspects of RM is the NPC table that gives you stock NPCs at levels 1/2/5/7/10 etc. I have actually reformatted these into "characters" for one offs. Pretty handy.
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I've just posted a blog entry with my own take on how to make Rolemaster as rules light as possible. http://deathanddismemberment.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/old-schoolifying-rolemaster.html?m=1 (http://deathanddismemberment.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/old-schoolifying-rolemaster.html?m=1) it's possibly worth reading the preceding post to put it into context. The audience is more for OSR folks who have played Rolemaster in the past but I reckon it's worth a read for RM folks interested in a lighter ruleset.
I read your post and what really struck me was how easy it is to try and tackle the same objective by such radically different approaches.
Your Section 1 I don't really feel is necessary. There are basically two parts to it. The descriptive solution to skill resolution comes down to different play styles and that in itself is covered by "The GM is the final judge as to what is a maneuver and requires a roll, and what is normal activity and does not require a roll" from the RAW. Some players enjoy the describing the actions of their characters and others sometimes don't, other players may use knowledge they have that their characters may not such as significant understanding of physics or engineering to solve problems.
I am a fan of fewer, more broadly defined skills. I only use the skills from character law and RoCo1 and I have even removed some of those. The only additional skill in my game is the Vocational skill taken from RMU. That basically does what you are suggesting as making professions into skills.
For my taste your hack goes too far down the road that ends in the resulting game not being RM. I am working up a houseruled game that is based on no profession and also level-less but that is not what I am looking to achieve here.
Finally your take on the way that spells are bought in RMU (spells as skills) is something that I will never, ever allow into my game again as it produces kind of genericaly boring spell casters and that is something I don't like.
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Yes- one of the better aspects of RM is the NPC table that gives you stock NPCs at levels 1/2/5/7/10 etc. I have actually reformatted these into "characters" for one offs. Pretty handy.
Yes, that is in my GMs reference PDF as one of the most useful tables in all the rule books.
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Preaching to the choir here. I use RMX and a custom cross over of skills based on the MM table. Want to make an appraisal roll for a sword you founf- Roll Lore General and add a bonus based on your Sword skill (using the Very Hard column: ie +21-40 gives a +5). Want to use TWC same approach different column....
Oh and totally agree to reducing the rolls used- although I am a big proponent of using skills other than combat and spell casting skills to encourage well rounded game play.
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I agree- but I very rarely stat NPCs anyway. There are no interaction rules in RM as far as I know- well, I guess the Influence/Interaction column of the old SM table. But, that is reliant on skill....which seems silly
I'll give bare essential stats for factors I think they'll need. QU (and a stat bonus), DB, OB for the weapons. Then if he's a specialist like a horseman, I'll throw some Riding stats and maybe some animal related skills. The "guard" type NPC's will get stats for Sense Ambush Assassin, General Perception, Hearing Perception, and such, but I won't roll up all 10 stats, all stat gains, spend all the DP's, etc. (We do have a GM who does do all of that and gets to the microscopic level, but that's what he loves to do.)
When I'm really in a pinch I grab Heroes and Rogues and that book is loaded with tons of awesomeness.
I am not suggesting rolling up everyone in the world. I want nothing more than a single Post-it note for any or all NPCs I am not expecting the players to try and kill (I know that doesn't always narrow down the list that much). Funnily enough it was the mental stats that I felt were more important as these can colour the interactions with the players and even the choice as to which NPC the players choose to interact with.
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Preaching to the choir here. I use RMX and a custom cross over of skills based on the MM table. Want to make an appraisal roll for a sword you founf- Roll Lore General and add a bonus based on your Sword skill (using the Very Hard column: ie +21-40 gives a +5). Want to use TWC same approach different column....
I like the "skills as lore" ruling. If you want to appraise as sword you can roll your sword skill if you have it. I assume that a trained swordsman would recognise a decent sword when they saw one.
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I interpret lore general as general knowledge and worldliness- so it really encourages players to develop it too. Then use it as the basis fo the cross over roll more often then not. When I first started playing RMX that was part of the challenge- reverting to 28 skills and keeping the game within those. In fact I use armour as a single skill and only 2 weapon costs (1 for melee weapons, and 1 for missile weapons) too, so really I use about 20 skills. I also like interpreting knowledge based on character type ( a combination of race & profession) So a Wood Elf Fighter might have an easier time making knowledge rolls based on Weapons & Armour and Flora/Fauna Lore for example. If you make your players write a background of some sort you can pull these directly from it.
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I have one player who writes his character background as if he has never seen hs charactersheet or the other way around. His current character is 4th level as has only spent DPs on weapons, spells, Body Dev and perception plus two skills I insisted he bought. He character background has him as a "deep thinking" and problem solver!
I keep putting him in situations where his lack of general knowledge keeps putting him in a bit of a hole.
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heh- typical
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The descriptive solution to skill resolution comes down to different play styles and that in itself is covered by "The GM is the final judge as to what is a maneuver and requires a roll, and what is normal activity and does not require a roll" from the RAW.
I agree with this as an ideal, however my own experience has suggested that games with highly detailed skill systems tends result in over reliance on dice. The previous post on my blog discusses some of my experiences and thoughts on that. Also my intent was to present Rolemaster in a format appealing to OSR gamers who tend to be suspicious of games favouring character ability over player skill and too much rules detail. It's the kind of advice only aimed at folks who have only played "roll for everything".
For my taste your hack goes too far down the road that ends in the resulting game not being RM. I am working up a houseruled game that is based on no profession and also level-less but that is not what I am looking to achieve here.
You've had some great stuff at TheRolemasterBlog lately, look forward to seeing what else you put up. It's funny, I never considered going level-less, for me that would be going to far from Rolemaster!
Finally your take on the way that spells are bought in RMU (spells as skills) is something that I will never, ever allow into my game again as it produces kind of genericaly boring spell casters and that is something I don't like.
I agree with your sentiment that individual spells can lead to the same spells getting cherry picked, however I'm also leary of enforcing diversity in character design.
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I actively encourage spell research in my game and the use of spell mastery as a skill.
Additionally I use 'special effects' to differentiate spells. I mean things that have no impact on the game mechanics but make a great deal of difference to how the magic is perceived. As an example two characters cast Fly and one would have translucent wings grow from his back whilst the other steps upon a cloud that forms by their feet. The special effects are worked out between the player and I to reflect how they see their character'sheets magic.
My level-less game, so far in testing, plays just like RM with a slightly restricted skill set. The only time the level-less nature comes up is when we are at the point where you would normally dish out experience.
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I love a level-less game. I have a draft based on RMX that I have never play tested.
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I am using the same basic method as runequest and call of cuthuhu uses, roll d100 and if you roll more that your current skill you gain a rank. You get to roll for every skill you have used during the adventure.
The old level bonuses are now applied to ranks not levels.
Spell Law uses rank not level and spell lists are learned one spell at a time as you gain ranks in the list.
PowerPoints use the skill for progression.
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That would work well.
I used a XP=DP break down based on so every 500XP = 1DP and adjusted the stat bonuses to make the game more stat driven (70-79=+5, 80-89=+10, etc). Skills costs are cumulative and based on the 1st number in the classic RM cost so 1/5 = 1DP for rank 1, 2DP for rank two, 3DP for rank 3 etc.. a skill of 2/7 would be 2/4/6/8 etc...Level bonuses were flat 5*+/level so, +3/level would be +15. I'm sure there would eb all kinds of hiccups with it; but, hey you never know until you try.....
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I love a level-less game.
+1
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I ran a very long campaign doing 1/2 levels; where you could spend 50% of your DPs at a half level and develop 1 rank in a skill. We liked the flow, but the constant character updates were a pain
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Half levels seem like a lot of work unless you are playing a very high level game where leveling up happens very infrequently.
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That would work well.
I used a XP=DP break down based on so every 500XP = 1DP and adjusted the stat bonuses to make the game more stat driven (70-79=+5, 80-89=+10, etc). Skills costs are cumulative and based on the 1st number in the classic RM cost so 1/5 = 1DP for rank 1, 2DP for rank two, 3DP for rank 3 etc.. a skill of 2/7 would be 2/4/6/8 etc...Level bonuses were flat 5*+/level so, +3/level would be +15. I'm sure there would eb all kinds of hiccups with it; but, hey you never know until you try.....
I am quite tempted to use an RMU style stat bonuses where the bonuses are smaller but added together rather than averaged. I would combine that with a smoothed stat bonus table so the bonuses start sooner. If I go that way I may consider a point buy stat system with maybe 700 points for the 10 stats and an additional 100 points to spend on potentials.
Stat gains would work the same way as skills in that at the end of each adventure, roll d100 if you roll over your current stat it goes up by one.
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It would be interesting to differentiate between the rate of skill development by having to have multiple successes to increase them.
So, for example: a "warrior" might need to have 3 successes in Runes or Staves/Wands before you can increase the skill by 1%. Eache skill could have 3 boxes next to it to track the cumulative successes...
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It would be interesting to differentiate between the rate of skill development by having to have multiple successes to increase them.
So, for example: a "warrior" might need to have 3 successes in Runes or Staves/Wands before you can increase the skill by 1%. Eache skill could have 3 boxes next to it to track the cumulative successes...
Yes you could do that. I am looking at a 'No Profession' game so there would be no Warrior to differentiate in that way. If you use a skill and succeed then you can tick it and then roll to improve it. If you roll greater than your currency skill you gain a rank.
The starting character will be built with 50DP for apprenticeship and 50DP for 1st level. That will enable the player to set the toneof the character. If you want to play a mage type then you buy Runes, Staves/Wands and Magical Lore which means that when you attempt these skills you have a greater chance of success and they will continue to improve. Your fighter type can also attempt to read a rune but chances are he/she will need an open ended roll to succeed but then they have a very good chance of getting that first rank in the skill.
Increasing skills a rank at a time maintains the RM way of skill progression and using Rank as Level for RRs and Spell effects, durations etc.
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Interesting. How do you handle partial successes from MM & SM for example- the single biggest difference between RM and other systems is the partial success mechanics
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Interesting. How do you handle partial successes from MM & SM for example- the single biggest difference between RM and other systems is the partial success mechanics
If you mean would a partial success earn you a chance at improving a skill then yes I would count that as a successful use.
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That is exactly what I meant.