Merry RMU Christmas

You will be glad to know that I am not actually here on Christmas morning writing a blog post. For me it is Christmas eve and family are all dozing on the sofa after lunch.

I am spending any boring moments reading up on RMU as I have not used it much. I have decided on a few rule choices and house rules.

  1. First up it is definitely a No Profession game.
  2. No Passive bonuses from skills such as footwork, running and Shields
  3. Stats will be point buy.
  4. Skill Costs, the 9/12 (Combat Skill #4 and Closed lists) will be 7/10.

Behind the scenes I have the combat tables spreadsheets from Merkir and Thrud from the forums. I will be using the 7 sizes on a single table, see this thread for an idea.  I need to make these tables but I will be trying to create unique tables for every weapon in use in the game. Related to the tables I will be doubling the basic #hits damage done by each attack.

That is all I have for now.

Merry Christmas to everyone! Have a great day!

What Merriment One Can Have With a Broadsword and a Drunken Elf!

Somewhere in our deep dark roleplaying history someone made a mistake. They had misread the racial description for Elves and rather than making them immune to normal diseases had made them immune to normal poisons. This had a consequence of making it impossible to get an elf drunk.

When my last campaign started I wanted to correct this error and pointed out the rules where it shows the immunity and resistance roll mods to show the players that we had been doing it wrong all this time. I was amazed at the players reactions (if those that wanted to play elves.) The ability to drink anyone under the table was really important to them despite the fact that is was a blatant mistake on our part.

They were adamant that elves cannot get drunk. I tried to argue that if Alcohol doesn’t effect them then how do all the healing herbs work? The answer was that herbs were magical and alcohol is natural. There is no helping some people so in my game now when ever an elf takes a healing herb I make them make a resistance roll and if they make the roll then the herb has half the usual effectiveness. Believe it or not the players are happy with that.

That little story has nothing to do with today’s post. I just wanted to share it as I was creating an Elven NPC and I just saw the immunity to disease on the character sheet!

So What Is It All About?

The last fanzine I published was the Halloween special and it is proving quite popular. The Shadow World issue was the best selling version to date. Don’t get me wrong, these sell in tiny quantities but I am hoping to build the readership over time and I hope it will grow significantly once RMU is released.

I would like to create a Christmas Special and pack it with cool playable material. Adventures, magic items, maybe a Grinch monster, some Icelandic Christmas Trolls and some festive spell lists. Really what I am asking is for anyone who like to contribute anything to a Christmas Special then please do.

I am trying to make the Fanzine a GM’s resource. By putting monsters and adventures in a ‘paid for’ publication then there is less chance that one of their players may have already have read the plot and know the twist or the villain. The Halloween Special includes three adventures and ‘new’ monsters, as these are my own creations I am free to publish them. All a GM would have to do to play them is create a couple of NPCs.

So try putting your creative hats on and send your submissions to weareareallawesome AT rolemasterblog DOT com!

 

Rolemaster the Christmas Movie?

I was obviously really busy when I was looking at a list of the most frequently shown films over Christmas on the BBC. I was very surprised to see how many Rolemaster movies make it onto our TVs each year!

White Christmas

The list is topped by White Christmas (18 showing since 1964). Despite the all the Christmas dressing this is obviously really all about the impact of both successful and fumbled social/influence skill rolls and how they can influence the best thought out GMs plotting.

Santa Claus: The Movie

Santa Claus: The Movie (10 airing since 1985) is a film about the use of the Rolemaster Companion II skill Gimickry, the Alchemy skill and the overly complicated rules for combining the skills and skill ranks known as Complimentary Skills and Intra-Skill Areas (RoCoII pages 16 and 17). Anything that involves rolling one skill to see if you can get a +15 on a different skill or on the other hand could have you adding half the ranks from skill No. 2 to those of skill No.1 could easily end up with your character producing exploding candy canes!

The Wizard of Oz

The Wizard of Oz (9 showings). Now this is your classic RMU Beta 2 Creature Law play test. Everything from a Lion, Scarecrow and a golem are described using the same development points as the more traditional races, human and halfling (munchkins), and professions such as dabbler (Oz) and Sorcerer (Elphaba or the WWotW).

The Santa Clause

The Santa Clause (8 showings). This is the seminal work on the correct use of the Sorcerer Base list Soul Destruction up to level 20 (list portions B, D). Scott Calvin, played by Tim Allen, is subjected to the many of the spells in order including Neurosis (3rd), Guilt (4th), Paranoia (5th), Panic (7th) and finally Demonic Possession IV (13th) at which point Calvin is fully possessed by the Santa which is all know is an anagram!

Casper

Finally in the movie round up is Casper. This necromancy movie has been shown seven times since 1995 during which four Class V undead attempt to protect their earthly focus. Without magical weapons the only way to kill a Rolemaster Ghost is the destroy or disperse its focus.