Some of you guys probably already know what I am about to say, but I will say it anyway
.
I started RM in 1984 and after getting RM2, I used it right up until the start of 2006, mainly because I have every RM2 book every published and was not willing to fork out another AU$1000 for a revised edition. I loved the game and its mechanics and was hostile to the idea of change after putting so much effort into RM2.
After changing to RMFRP (I suppose I succumbed ICEs advertising) I, and my players, have never looked back except to reminisce or discuss the differences between the two systems. We love the way the skills are split up, albeit I don't always remember what skill goes with what category, but this is due to inexperience. The change
was a good one and I am glad to have waited until RMFRP was produced. Essentially my gaming experience between RM2 and RMFRP did not differ greatly. Yes, combat phases are different but are way better in RMFRP (IMO) and skill listings are different (again better) but the rest - looking up attack tables, checking the SM tables or the MM table, assigning difficulties or describing the storyline have changed little and these are the bread and butter of playing a game.
My players enjoy the RMFRP version much more than RM2 even though they have only ever played the RM2 version (or D&D, etc. in their other friends' games) and as for character generation, there is no difference in timing. My players scour the books and discuss with me what they want to do. We usually spend 4 to 6 hours doing character creation (1 to 2 gaming sessions) and the players really do own their characters - something that I help reinforce. Since they own the game they don't treat it like a board game where you get a new start every time you play so who cares if my character dies ? my friends really hate nasty things happening to their characters. For them (and me) RPGing is a serious escape-from-reality business.
Lastly, and I haven't said this before, I am very surprised about the amount of reliance on computers/spreadsheets to play RM as presented here. There is nothing hard about running an RM game if you are organised (and in my case, having lots of experience), but saying this I do acknowledge that I use a random treasure generation program that I wrote for Windows (and no, it is not a spreadsheet but a true Windows program written in C#2005 - a masterpiece even if I do say so myself
). I do sometimes look up my PDFs using Acrobat when I can't find what I want in my printed copies, but I have never used a spreadsheet to say, run combat or deal with skill checks, etc - hmm I think another programming idea is coming to mind.
I would be interested to know what people are using the computer for when playing RM - see the thread:
http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=5522.0Cheers,
Griffonbait