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A trailer for RMU? Yes please!

Is this the most awesome trailer for a role playing game you have ever seen?

To be honest I had no idea that people even made CGI trailers for rpgs! You can download a free sample of the game giving you character creation and an introduction (41 pages in total) here http://bit.ly/MutantFree.

The publisher must have thought of that too. So not only do they have the 41 page intro book but they also have a 66 page MUTANT: Year Zero – Starter Booklet.

Surely, that creates a funnel to draw people in? Hook them with the movie, give them a range of free material to get them hooked, let them play the game. Only then do they need to actually pay for the game book. At $24.99 it is hardly the most expensive game in the world and you do get a 269 page rule book for your money. So M:YZ is not a light game by any standards.

Since the original release in Oct 2015 there have been 11 releases for M:YZ, so what is that, once every two months? Strip out the freebie intros and you are looking at 1 every 3 months. Oh yeah, there are just two writers and everyone else works freelance.

Here is something else. This is the hook or vignette as BriH blogged about…”She had wandered too far into the Zone. Tula had walked through the dark forest, followed the old rail tracks between crumbling ruins and rusting train wrecks, towards the glimmering silver disks by the horizon. She wanted to reach them so bad.  Become a hero of the Ark. A famous stalker. Now, she would be a dead stalker. If the thirst didn’t kill her, zone ghouls or the rot would. That’s when she saw them. Scattered across the ground like metallic rag dolls. Machine beings. Dead for decades. Tula had heard stories of them. What had happened here? Suddenly she heard a noise. Growls. Voices. Tula drew her scrap pistol and got ready to fight for her life.”

A strong female lead to promote your game? Welcome to the 21st century!

I think ICE etal. could learn a lot from M:YZ. How to entice people into trying the game, about 21st century marketing, about feeding the desires of the fans.

Now for a funny thing. M:YZ was first written in 1984 as a Swedish language game. It was somewhat niche due to the language barrier but it is of the same vintage as RM, has just gone through a reinvention, just like RMU and needs to reach a broader audience, just like RMU.

Are there lessons to be learned?

I personally don’t see the need to put character creation in the free sample or quickstart rules. I fall on the side of give them pregens and get people playing. That is about the only thing I would have done differently.

Finally, this is slightly worrying, the highlighting is mine but look at the feature list.

  • 269 page full colour core RPG rulebook – everything you need!
  • Create a unique mutant player character – including skills, talents, mutations, gear and relationships – in mere minutes.
  • Push your character’s skills to their limits, releasing amazing mutant powers in the process.
  • Fight fast and furious battles, making every bullet count and using a detailed list of gruesome critical injuries.
  • Set your game in one of the Zones provided – The Big Smoke and The Dead Apple – or create your own Zone, based on your home town.
  • Develop the Ark – your settlement in the Zone – by undertaking Projects, building a new society.
  • Explore the Zone using the grid map and the unique sector generation system that populates the Zone with mutants, monsters and phenomena.
  • Experience the five Special Zone Sectors – scenario locations that can be placed in any sector of the Zone.
  • Search for the mysterious Eden bunker in the Path to Eden campaign frame provided, which includes an epic finale.
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Rolemaster Spell Law Deconstruction.

If you follow the Rolemaster threads or the RMU threads you’ll see people  asking for clarification on a certain spell, list or spell mechanic. With so many spells, various realms and lots of companion spell lists, it’s not surprising that the Spell Law edifice is showing a few cracks after 30+ years. For me that started the process of “deconstruction”–tearing down Spell Law and looking at it from a unbiased and objective mindset.

Examining RM from an outside perspective is hard, especially after playing it for almost 35 years. Us older players perceive Rolemaster through “incrementalism”: a slow gradual process of accepting new rules, add-ons, discussions and analysis that occurred over decades. Rolemaster now is the result of layering new rules onto older accepted ones–even if the original rules don’t stand up to new scrutiny or are not needed since RM has transitioned past its role as a D&D bolt on.

Every time I sit down and work on spell lists, I discover some new issue, opportunity or conflict that I want to tackle to rebuild my spell system to something newer, better and more consistent. I have 5 rough spell law “issue groups” that I have pinned to my work space for easy reference. These are:

  1. Thematic or mechanical inconsistencies
  2. Exceptions to established rules.
  3. Bonuses for compound actions.
  4. Realm incompatibilities.
  5. Form vs function.

I use these to test spells and lists. What Realm should they be assigned? How does the spell work? Is it structurally consistent? What is the casting mechanism? Does it work using Rolemaster rules or does it require a one-off rule?

What are some examples of “broken” spells? (this is just my opinion!)

Bladeturn. Few spells garner as much discussion as the Bladeturn spells. But rather than contort mechanics to make the spell actually work in the game, how about we examine the spell fundamentals. Here are a few issues:

  1. Do the various Bladeturn spells work with the Shield  or Blur spell on the same list? Clearly Turn/Deflect works as some type of telekinetic process, while Shield is a energy manifestation and Blur is a visual distortion. So while they can be grouped thematically as a “defense list”, I would argue they don’t quite fit together mechanistically.
  2. Spell Law spent a lot of rule making energy establishing  class I-III for casting times and makes a case for a vocal and nonvocal components to casting. Given that, how do you then justify “instantaneous” spells? Essence casting requires 1-3 rounds, vocalization, hand gestures to cast…except a handful of spells littered throughout the Essence lists. That’s consistent. The reason Bladeturn is instantaneous is that it HAS TO BE, for the spell to work as intended.
  3. Even accepting the rule exception of instantaneous Essence spells, RM describes a melee roll as representing a “flurry of blows”. How then does an instant, specific bladeturn work when there is no discrete, single swing or stroke of a weapon that can be identified as “the one that hits” within an abstract combat round?

Solutions. I have come up with my own in BASiL, but a couple of quick ideas: incorporate Bladeturn/Deflect spells into the Essence Hand list where they belong; change its mechanistic underpinning. For instance, call it “Slow Blade” so it works within the context of a “flurry of blows”.

How about Charm, Sleep and the whole Spirit Mastery list? I’ve commented on this before, but if you look through the Essence lists there are few, if any, other lists that work on the “spirit”, “conscious” or “mind” of a target. Does this list even belong in Essence? Of course the answer is that D&D established the principle that Magic-Users were to have Charm and Sleep spell, and so too Rolemaster.

How about Lofty Bridge? Does Leave/Jump/Teleport work on the same principles as Flying, Landing or Leaping? Again, half the spells work as “gating/teleporting”, while the other through telekinetic or motive energy. While they are arguably both types of “transportation” spells,  it seems illogical to have a spell list comprised of spells using very different mechanics.

What about spells that give bonuses to skills or actions? How does this work mechanically? Combat is a compound action–a confluence of skill (ranks), natural ability (stats) and other modifiers. What is this spell affecting? Does the spell guide the hand that holds the sword? Does it make the sword sharper? The swordsmen’s strength higher? Their agility improves? Any one of these could be a good mechanic, but aren’t explained. Why make spells that require so much hand-waving when Rolemaster is a system that rewards realism?

A few other ideas to improve Spell Law:

  1. Consolidate Spell Reins and Spell Enhancement. Spell Reins has 11 open slots, Enhancement only has 12 spells. Both deal with manipulating spell effects.
  2. Combine Physical Enhancement with Living Change but dump the “Merge” Spells.

Peter has blogged about his own spell system–basically it allows players to organically “grow” a list from 1st level using spell research. I’m assuming Peter requires some internal consistency when players develop a list, otherwise why wouldn’t they just build one dream list of: 1. Sleep 2. Shock Bolt 3. Fly 4. Charm. 5. Fireball 6 etc….

 

So interestingly, while I like how Peter approaches spell development, I think it would be difficult to encapsulate into a rules system–it’s too loose. However, Peter’s system is basically how I write new spell lists!

Once you start deconstructing and re-examining Spell Law, areas of improvement are both numerous and fairly obvious. But in the end, few people have the time or energy to fiddle around and make large revisions to Spell Law.

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How Low Can You Go?

I spent the weekend playing a different RPG(!)

We ran a session of d6 Fantasy from West End Games. It was interesting from the point of view of having never played the game before and ignoring the loads of pregen characters provided and diving straight in to character creation we were still up and playing in less than 30 minutes.

I was expecting a really simplistic game with none of the detail of RM but I was pleasantly surprised.

I was playing a thief, I like thieves as initial characters for a game as they can do more than just a fighter but typically you are handy with a sword as well.

So we had 7 stats to play with, six covering mental and physical attributes and one for magic. To all intents and purposes stats are point buy as you have 18 dice and you assign them to each stat. So I ended up with 4 dice each in the strength and dexterity departments, three dice in the intelligence and acumen and only 1 dice for magic.

There was an option to get more dice to spend on skills by taking disadvantages or to spend some of you skill dice on advantages, think talents and flaws and you would not be far wrong. This time I avoided this as I didn’t really want to pick a disadvantage and find out that what I thought I had and what the GM thought I had were two very different things! For a first character I wanted to keep it simple.

Having assigned those dice we then got seven more dice to assign to specific skills. The game offered about 50 skills. You can add no more than two additional dice to specific skills. I those to add one dice to seven skills.

The mechanics are really simple. Mostly you have to roll 10+ to succeed. You roll the number of dice you have in the governing stat plus any additional skill dice. So for example I had 4 dice in Coordination and 1 dice in lock picking so I would roll 4d6 for each coordination skill test except when lock picking I get to roll 5d6.

One dice in each roll is exploding when you roll a 6, so just like an open ended you keep the 6 and roll again adding to the total. Get another 6 and you add and roll again. Maybe in was my inner rolemaster but getting an open ended roll on average every 6th roll felt like bonanza time!

The adventure was an old school dungeon crawl where we fought Hobgoblins in the upper levels but they had disturbed an undead horror when they had set up their camp.

The whole thing was every enjoyable and I don’t often get to play which also made a pleasant change.

So what about combat? Well we were using the wounds system so basically I could sustain 5 levels of being wounded and the better the damage roll the more wounds you sustained. One wound stunned you, three was a severe wound, five was potentially mortal. The exploding dice thing happens with damage rolls as well as skill rolls so if you were lucky you could one punch a beasty with an open ended damage roll.

The damage was described using location and severity. I killed a hobgoblin and the GM said that I struck the hobgoblin in the chest causing a mortal wound. It was no ’66’ on a critical but it was definitely better than doing 8 hit points damage.

So what did I think?

I like my games simple and fast to play. I liked the speed with which we got down to actual play. There were more skills available in this game than I use in my RM campaign. The way that stats play an important part in the game is something I had independently arrived at for my own game.

The combat was no Rolemaster. It was actually slower to resolve than my house ruled RM. In D6 Fantasy you roll to hit, and you roll damage, the defender gets to roll a physique roll and add their armour dice to that. If you did more damage than their total of physique plus armour then you deliver a wound. The ‘units’ digit of your attack roll gives the location and the GM rolls 2d6 for a graphic damage description such as lacerations, gashes and broken bones. How much you exceed the defenders physique+armour tells you how severe the wound is. Just like Rolemaster wounds confer penalties to skill rolls.

That is much more convoluted than roll your attack, add OB deduct DB, roll your crit.

There are some nice elements. They have something called Character Points, you start with five and you can spend them after you have made a roll to add additional d6 to the roll. If you are dodging and you do a terrible dodge roll you could spend a character point to add an additional d6 to your dodge. You can keep spending them until you have no more points or you are happy with the result. If you rolled that terrible dodge and spend a character point and roll another 1 then you may want to spend a second point to add another d6 and so on.

I don’t use Fate points to let players dodge the bullet, so to speak, but the Rolemaster equivalent I suppose would be to give each character a pool of 5 +20 modifiers. If they make a bad roll then they could spend one of their 5 to boost the rolls.

These character points then form part of the experience system where they can be used as described or spent to improve skills.

The game also has Fate points. These are less dramatic than more Rolemaster implementations. They double the number of dice you get to roll for a skill roll for just that one roll. Character points you can declare after you know your final roll, Fate points must be declared before you roll the dice.

During our game session I did use character points, I assume I was going to earn some in experience, but not my Fate point.

Can Rolemaster Learn from WEG D6?

The number of template or pregen PCs featured in the core rules was a definite plus. I didn’t use one but I did look at one and learn what I should be aiming for.

The other striking thing was that WEG (West End Games) D6 was very much aimed at welcoming new role players. The text said it assumed that everyone knew what an RPG was but that was all that was assumed. This was a stark contrast to RM that likes to think of itself as an ‘advanced’ system. I suppose if you call yourself ‘advanced’ or for ‘experienced’ players then you have an excuse for excessive complexity. If players or GMs don’t like then they can go play something else. I am not sure that is a positive attitude, but it fits with much of the discussion on the boards.

I personally would love it if ICE sat down with some late teen/early 20s, inexperienced role players and hand guided them through RMU and then revised the text accordingly. I am not saying make it childish. What I would like them to do is make it accessible and welcoming to new players. That is the lesson that RM can learn from WEG.

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Sunday IS Funday! Rolemaster Spell Lists, Shadow World Adventures and Random Thoughts.

First off, let’s discuss the picture above. If you follow archaeology you might recognize this artwork: it’s actually an etching, a detailed picture carved on a 1.6″ agate gemstone found in a Minoan tomb. Here is an enlarged drawing showing details, some of them only 1/2 a millimeter:

Pretty incredible and is right up there with the Antikytherea device and the Lycergus Cup.

What else do we have for Sunday..how about some spell lists and a revised version of The Seers of Strok. I posted these over at RM Forums, but again, that site requires a user account to not only download but to even SEE a file that could be downloaded. I’ve had a few people tell me they had no idea how many SW files were on the THREAD until they created an account. So I also put them up here on the blog which doesn’t require a user account.

First, we have 4 new spell lists.

“Simple Embedding”. This utility list is meant to create 1 use magic items like candles, powders, salves, unguents, charms, potions etc. These are items that are activated by consuming, breaking or applying and are destroyed. We use a set of alchemy rules for actually making the underlying object, liquid, powder (we call them substrates), but isn’t necessary to use this spell list. It’s a great list to punch up the party’s abilities w/o permanent magic items and the cost of creating the substrates keeps it from being abused.

Simple Embedding

“Talisman”. I always liked the idea of casters having a personal magic item that they “invest” and it grows in power as they do. RM introduced this with the Druid Staff and I think there is a Mage Staff list floating around as well. This was an example of a need to consolidate the idea–just make one list that can be used by casters. The flavor and type of powers invested into the object would naturally differentiate the mage from the druid or warlock. I require the caster invests Co. points into the object, but some people have told me that seems to harsh. If you don’t like it, change it!

Talisman

“Weapon Runes”. Weapon Runes was a great concept in RoCo 1 but some of the functionality was poor and the list needed some work (in my opinion anyway).  Weapon Runes are one-time magical inscriptions that can be put on a weapon or object that activate when a certain condition is met–like a hit or critical result. Like the “Simple Embed” items above, it’s a good way to add offensive ability to the group without getting overpowered. The Runes can be seen if you look closely–they manifest as a faint glimmer–and can be deciphered using Rune skill. I’ve played around with various durations they can stay latent, and right now I use 24 hours. I originally had them last until they were used, but found players layering Weapon Runes on items between adventures when PP’s didn’t matter. I use a “Item Roll” to see if the object/weapon will accept the Rune. Basically, it’s the object item strength vs the combined levels of Runes–both the one being cast and any Runes already on the object. If it fails by more than 50 all the existing Runes are lost as well. Objects with high strengths: laen, eog, etc can accept and hold a ton of Weapon Runes, while fragile or inferior items aren’t going to accept them well.

Weapon Runes

“Protection Runes”. Like Weapon Runes but for armor, shields or any appropriate object. In fact could be tied into a simple object like a necklace that will activate when a trigger is encountered.

Protection Runes

Lastly, we have the newest version of the Seers of Strok, the 1st Chapter of 5 in my 50th level adventure.

50 chapter 1 – The Seers of Strok

And..the pre-gen stats for an all Cleric group to run through Legends

Chapter 1 NPCs – Priests

Go Patriots!!

 

 

 

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Hot off the Presses!

This is one of those weeks were many things all come together.

Last week we published the first of the 50 in 50 mini supplements. The first was BriH’s Spires Reach. Last Saturday we published Far From the Baying Crowd and tomorrow another mini-supplement goes out. You can keep up to date by following Azukail Games on RPGnow.

Spire’s Reach is an adventure hook based around an enigmatic structure of the same name. This structure is a black box, a puzzle for players to discover and try to solve. The building can be used as an important element in an adventure, but one which players will need to attempt to solve in order to gain entry.

 

Far From A Baying Crowd is a short, two page adventure idea where the characters are in a village which has had problems with a werewolf. The characters should encounter the werewolf in human form and in a manner which makes the lycanthrope look like the victim, rather than the problem, and certainly much of what they say is actually true, if a bit misleading.

In addition The PDF and Kindle versions of Fanzine #7 went out this week. The print edition will be on Amazon early next week as the print on demand takes a little longer.

The monsters in this issue are: Bugbear, Ettin, the Giants,
Goblin, Gnoll,  Hobgoblin, Kobold, Ogre, Orc, Owlbear and Troll. Most of them come in variations for higher levels such as sergeants, captains and leaders.

I am thinking of doing the monsters in themetic blocks so there will be a block of undead, demons, dragons and so on. Releasing them piecemeal like this reduces the workload for me and means that you don’t have to wait a year or so for me to get around to do them all.

All the monsters will be listed eventually online in a one page, one monster format so people can freely access them. The plan is to try and get people to use them to produce indie adventure supplements for all flavours of RM!

So for me it is back to the grindstone to get more projects finished off! I will leave you with this 🙂

Archery Competition

Archery on horseback…. yay or neigh? 🐎

Posted by BBC Gloucestershire on Monday, 6 November 2017

 

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RMU and Kickstarter

Rolemaster Logo
Rolemaster Logo
Copyright; 2002-2014 by Aurigas Aldbaron LLC. All rights reserved. No reproductions without permission.

I’ve mentioned Kickstarter, and Patreon, a few times in the past. For those who aren’t that familiar with them, what both of those, and others like Indiegogo, do is reduce the risk for making products. Essentially, you are getting a guaranteed income rather than a potential one. The guaranteed income may be lower – but if a product doesn’t work out it will actually be higher. So, lower risk.

Now, I don’t actually think that it would be a good idea running a Kickstarter to complete RMU. The process is simply taking too long, and depends too much on freelancers with variable time, that running a Kickstarter would have a very high risk of simply annoying the backers due to how long it takes. There’s a great article on running regular Kickstarters by a very successful one man band in The Sandbox #1.

OneBookShelf and Print on Demand

What I do think Kickstarter could help with is getting RMU out there. Sure, OneBookShelf is a great network for electronic and print on demand books, but it doesn’t really work for getting the books in bricks and mortar shops. OBS does offer a discount for bulk purchases, up to 20% for 250+, but that’s a lot of books, a lot of investment and the margins aren’t really that great. 50-99 books only gives a 5% discount and 100-249 10%. The smaller amounts will work for conventions and similar, but not really for distributing to shops.

Making Money

In such a case you need a margin that’s high enough that both retailer and publisher makes money. Supposedly TSR was losing money on its boxes in the 90s; no matter what you think, if every product loses you money, you cannot make it back on volume. All that does is simply cost more money.

To really get into bricks and mortar means dealing with traditional printing and distributors, and that has problems itself – especially as, for books, the U.S. has an appalling concept whereby retailers can get back everything they paid for books even though they haven’t returned the product but destroyed it. I can’t think of anywhere else where you would be given a full refund for a product you’d chucked away. RPGs might not be classed as books, but as games, but it’s still a potential problem. Again, with TSR and, I think, the old ICE, both wound up with problems due to traditional distribution.

KickstarterHow Kickstarter Could Help

So, you want to get into bricks and mortar shops but you can’t afford the risk – which could easily destroy the company – of paying for up front printing and distribution of books, which may never make the money back. That’s where I think that Kickstarter could help. If a successful campaign was run that could pay for this, the risk would be greatly reduced. It would also be possible to reduce the risk for retailers, by offering books on sale or return – they may well not want to risk money on inventory that they have no definite interest in.

Setting up such a campaign would need some careful planning to make sure the numbers work, and might not get a huge amount of support to begin with, but, if done successfully, it could get RMU out there in front of a wider audience – and, by having physical books for sale in shops, make the system look like it’s here to stay.

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Sleeping with the enemy!

This week my challenge is to read up on OpenD6. The reason for this is that they have have a very simple approach to descriptive critical wounds, they have hit locations based upon the attack roll and features like ‘stunned’ and bleeding. At first glance their combat system seems a lot less fluid or more cumbersome than Rolemaster but on the other other hand the rule set is a lot more flexible in that it copes with spells, shotguns and superpowers all in the core rules.

Mini Six is a bare bones system based upon the Open D6 core system.

One of my intentions is to scavenge any interesting spell effects for my magic system. I, like BriH, intend to create a stand alone magic system. I would like mine to be compatible with all flavours of RM, from HARP to RMU. It has a working title right now of SPaM (Spells, Powers and Magic).

What I can scavenge from OpenD6 will be added to spells I have scavenged from the 5e SRD spells. This continues the circular journey. RM was originally a set of house rules for D&D and now I am house ruling RM to add in the best of 5e.

The finished product eventually will be released under a badge of Open100 and be free for anyone to modify and extend. Take a look at this… In the ‘star’ box out (upper left) you can see how Might Six has taken and extended Mini Six…

Getting back to Magic…

SPaM will sit alongside my open monster companion. These two alone will be sufficient for any independent adventure writer to create standalone adventures for Rolemaster.

One of the points that BriH mentioned in his post http://www.rolemasterblog.com/spell-law-reconstruction-many-spells-many-powers-generic/ is that my ideas may be too freeform for a completely new GM and player group to have to construct entire spell lists right from day one.

The solution to that is also a solution to another problem. Many of the monsters need spell lists and innate spell abilities. One criticism of the monster rules in RMU was that you almost had to roll up every orc before you could play any combat. I don’t want to do that to my potential users. So the solution would be to create exemplar spell lists from my freeform pools of spells and the exemplars would be all the spell lists required by all the monsters in monster compendium.

So now you will get the flexibility of pools of spells and unique lists sat alongside exemplar lists.

I think that should address that weakness. Is it enough?

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Spell Law Deconstruction: Too Many Spells. Too Many Powers. Too Generic?

[[Updated. While I was writing this Peter posted his Friday blog on the same general topic!]]

I’m fairly close to publishing a complete version of my BASiL spell system. At this point, I’m making it generic for use with any d100 system and will make it available on RPGNow.com. The project was always meant to be flexible and used with any system (much like the original RM!). I had already discarded the specific attributes of ‘Realms’, and replaced it by classification by casting mechanics.

Everytime I review or revise BASiL, I’m struck by the very same conclusions–and now after writing 50th level adventures I feel my instincts are dead on.

  1. Rolemaster Spell Casters have access to too many spells. Sure, at low level it doesn’t feel that way, but the number of spells scales up quickly. Part of this is the spell acquisition system in RM, but as a character progresses and gains A picks, they automatically gain spells without further effort. Individual spell acquisition addresses that issue/problem, but on the whole, higher level characters just have too many spells. By 10th level, most spellcasters will have 100 spells and by 20th they’ll have 300!!! What do you think happens at 50th level? Here is an example from the Atlas on a 34th lvl Navigator: Sulfean knows all Base Mentalist lists to 30th, Navigator lists to 50th, Open and Closed Mentalist to 20th. I think that’s over 400 spells!
  2. Rolemaster Professions are too similar. The causality of having too many spells is that as characters progress they become more similar and generic, and thus, Professions within a certain realm become less important. hmm. Personally, the idea that a high level pure spellcaster of any realm basically has access to EVERY relevant spell list is both boring and
  3. Basic Rolemaster Spell powers are too similar. I’ve discussed the need to better differentiate the realms powers and scope. Right now each realm gets the obligatory spell defense list, light list, movement list plus many of the same spells are imbedded in various lists in all the realms. Obviously I believe that creating a clear delineation between realms makes casters more unique and a more interesting choice when choosing professions or realms.

In my own campaign, “pure spell casters” (no matter what the realm) are resource limited to a core group of specific powers and perhaps a handful of open or closed spells using individual spell acquisition. On average, they are able to buy 3-4 spells/lvl which costs them about 1/2 their available DPs! Depending on the ‘realm’, they’ll still need to acquire magical language, prayer, mental focus, runes or similar complementary skill to properly cast spells. On top of that they need to develop PP’s as well!

  1. As Peter discussed in his last post, our pure casters are also very much defined by their core spell casting ability and are not the generalists they are in RAW RM. An Elemental Mage might have 1 or 2 elements but not ALL of them. Or a Mage may focus on defensive spells. Priests are defined by their core list that is dictated by their choice of diety. Mentalism is divided into 7-8 disciplines, with most casters developing a handful of them.
  2. My latest iteration of BASiL goes further in creating distinct abilities, limits and parameters between the realms.
  3. I like Peter’s focus on spell research and horizontal development of spells, but my players need a bit more structure and many GM’s just want to pick up play with existing rules. That said, both spell research and magic ritual provide a great opportunity for ‘free form’ or creative paths of magic.
  4. Scaling. I’ve always liked the optional spell scaling rules. In my game I allow scaling (via PPs) for range, AoE and damage multipliers but not duration.

Of the three issues I discussed above, I have addressed them thusly:

  1. Too many spells. My casters have fewer but more defined spell powers.
  2. Professions become more generic as they gain higher levels. I don’t use professions (though the process creates character archetypes that could easily be labeled).
  3. Realm spell powers are similar or redundant. I created more differentiation between the realms.
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How many Spells is enough?

BriH touched on this with his high level adventures but a very high level spell caster is highly likely to have every open and closed list and every base list to the max. Obviously the rules in play can affect that. I am playing my lay healer in a game where almost everyone in the world has at least some kind of magic and every family has a spell caster.

In that game 10 ranks in learning a spell list is enough for automatic success and you can learn lists in parallel. You can learn one list for every powerpoint/level you gain. The GM also allows you to add your stat bonus to the spell gain roll if the chance is not automatic.

To put that in perspective due to background options I have 4 power points per level and a total stat bonus in PR of +50. At 1st level I had 7 spell lists and I am learning 4 more for next level.

If that sets the tone for the character going forward then by the time I am 6th level I could have every open, closed and base lists to 10th level. By the time I am 12th level I will have all lists to 20th. By 21st level I would have my 10 base lists to 50th level.

My character is exceptional. I pushed my PR to 100 with a background option and then rolled the skill at magic and got a further +25 bonus. Even without those extreme odds any pure caster should have nearly all the lists to 10th level long before they get to that level themselves.

In the game I run I am stricter on spell list acquisitions. You get +5 per rank and there are no bonuses to the roll. That is the RAW with no options in play. The intention was that a 10th level caster should have in the region of 8 lists. I wanted magicians to have fire law OR light law OR wind law not everything right across the board.

The problem with too many lists is that it gives you too many spells. Just from a playing perspective if you have 400 spells to choose from and many of them are stackable to create new effects then very few players or GMs will know all the options. I have always loved low level spells. Many of them have the effect based upon RR failure, like sudden light. So even though it may be a low level spell it can be devastating in the hands of a higher level caster.

Another objective of limiting the number of lists being learned is that a party with two magicians now do not necessarily have two of everything. The casters have very different lists and what lists you buy is an important strategic choice.

In my game it also promotes spell research as adding spells to your existing lists does not cost DPs in the RAW game.

I am finally zeroing in on the house rules I would like to fomalise for an alternative for Spell Law. I have touched on this many times in the past.

I am most definitely getting rid of all three realms. There is now simply just ‘magic’.

My lists are no longer linear progressions. Lists are now more like three dimensional cubes. In one dimension they still go from 1st to 50th. But I am bringing in HARP scalability so each spell can have a depth. I also allow multiple spells at the same level so lists can have a thickness to them.

A first level character starts with a couple of sentences to describe the list of their own devising.

The next step is that the player chooses a first level spell from a pool of all the first level spell to fill the first slot. Every slot may hold a spell of that level or lower. So in theory if there were two first level spells you wanted but no second level spell then you can take one as your first level spell and one as your second. Spells do not have names anymore, just effects. When the player adds a spell to their list they create a name for that spell. The names and the spells must fit the description at the top of the list. The GM can veto any spell on any list.

The point is to avoid a single list with fly, invisibility, fireball, lightning bolt and regenerate on it. Essentially characters could recreate fire law as a list or lofty bridge but slot in a few of the other related spells such as Sunfires into Fire Law or some of the channeling movement spells. More interesting though is mixing some of the barrier law spells with the other ‘wall’ spells from base lists all over Spell Law.

All the lists created by a single character should have a single theme of concept to them. So if you are “Pyromancer” then any fly spell would have you carried on fiery wings, teleport would have you leave in a column of flame and so on.

So far this is all untested at the game table. I hope I have given enough detail of how this would work.

My question is… If you really could pick all the spells on every list, now many lists do you think you would want as a spell caster?

P.S. My warhorse and I are travelling today and competing all weekend so you may have to wait for replies to comments as I could be a bit busy.

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Mid-Week Musings on Rolemaster, Self Publishing and RMU.

I have a number of more comprehensive blogs I’m working on, but Halloween, work and other items put those off. On the plus side, I have a number of smaller items I thought I would collate into a mid-week blog post.

  1. Too Harsh? While it was generally ignored, was I too harsh on Hurin’s post on “shield use” in RMU? Of course, if you don’t have a RM Forum membership this might seem obscure since you CAN’T SEE THE FORUM W/O A FORUM LOGIN. If you have one, a whole new world of RMU discussion is available–it’s like a secret forum, but yet available to anyone that can hurdle the insurmountable barrier of yet another USERNAME/PASSWORD.  Anyway, my response was less substantive than emotional: I balk from complicated rules and more so as the RMU process unfolds. Bringing in new users is not about complexity (verisimilitude) but the NEAR APPEARANCE of reality and EASE OF USE. Later rule adds can complexity and options but despite my harshness (Hurin, sorry just having fun) I still get a laugh at my rules for shields: Here is my idea.“After the proposed attack, defender are able to expend variable AP’s to engage and counter, subject to a pro rate percentage of action based on the residual action available subject to situational awareness modified by the skills and offset by combat expertise. From this result consult the “Random Awareness Chart” for a “compliance factor” to be offset by the perceived  success roll on the perception static action awareness table.”                                                                                                               If those rules sound good, I literally made them up as I WROTE THEM. It’s crap. Worse than crap–its meaningless bureaucratic speak. the problem with the rule discussions is that it’s closer to my above “Word Salad” than rules bringing RM into the new market realities.
  2. New Rule: Wield Strength. While I haven’t posted up my own RM optional rule set–SWARM–I have posted up many sections of the rule set on the RM Forums. One item I left out, because it was so simple, was the MIN wield strength. Each weapon is given a min strength for use: any St under that applies a -1/1% to use AND the same penalty applies to fatigue checks. For example, a short sword has a wield of 75 so a user with a 60str would be at -15.
  3. 50 in 50. So we’ve started publishing our 50 adventure hooks. Most of these are meant to be hooks–but have also evolved into much more comprehensive adventures. I started with small “hooks” that were meant to be available via here at the RM blogs. IP issues, formatting and publishing expertise required a more complex process. The first, Spire’s Reach, is available now on RPGNow. Later submissions got more complex.
  4. I’ve put up almost 200 pages of RM/Shadow World material for free download on the RM Forums that I will start porting over to this site so it doesnt require a forum account to access.  If you haven’t checked it out, look at my Rolemaster 50th level adventure series: Legends of Shadow World, the products Peter writes and Azukial Games.
  5. Members. Peter doesn’t require a username to access this site–we believe is free access and information to better reach the RPG community. At the same time, we don’t and can’t really track users, users online or even downloads (unless they are set up as such). We have much less user info than a Forum system. With that, we appreciate every member or new member that takes the time to comment or add to this blog site. Thanks!