Many years back during the early beta of RMU I built a quick conversion chart from RM2 to RMU for use with Shadow World. Now that RMU is published, with final professions, I’ve spent some time thinking about what changes would need to be made in Shadow World to align it with the new ruleset.
Before I dive into some thoughts on Professions I wanted to offer one change to be used in “Societal” background options. Currently, RMU offers seven societal back ground options which credibly covers most types of societal styles. But it is missing one important background that could be described as “Ascetic”, “Monastic” or “Gnostic”. This background would include the very young that are indoctrinated into a very rigid and specialized group for intense education and training. It’s clear that very specialized skills and knowledges held by religious organizations, secret societies or similar group would need to start training at a very young age. Examples of these would certainly be the Changramai, but could include Navigators and Loremasters as well as some of Terry’s specialized groups given the very specialized nature of their skillset. It’s hard to imagine becoming one of the feared Changramai or master the skills and spells of the Navigators or Loremasters without an early childhood inception.
Of course, specialized skills at early ages would be very appealing to the character build so it has to be taken in context of the setting and perhaps provide some limitations as well.
To return to the topic of professions, one well known rule “handwave” Terry was known to use often was the “dual profession”. That is, he would have NPC’s with a primary profession and then add a new quasi profession to allow for specialized skills or more commonly an entire new set of base lists. From a rule standpoint, this was always awkward, and it also made for some particular powerful NPC’s.
Even now, it sounds like Nicholas is grappling with this issue. Per the most recent Director’s Briefing he notes:
There are also comments indicating areas where RMU mechanics will need to be incorporated. In thinking my way through this and noting areas where we might have to consider further alterations to make things easier for the RMU edition, such as organisations where members are expected to have two professions, it similarly prompts me to note areas where we might utilise HARP rules to better support Shadow World.
The thing is, that none of this should be much of an issue. Instead, with RMU mechanics, it’s easy to build several new specific professions than rely upon a carve out rule for a dual class. Referring back to my earlier paragragh, it’s clear to me that INTENSIVE training, probably from the earliest age, would be needed to become a Loremaster, Changramai, Navigator or even a Warlock of Itanis. In fact, these organizations would prefer to train the young to ensure their loyalty to the group and to direct all aspects of their development.
If a RMU Shadow World handbook were to be developed, it’s a simple thing to build profession templates for these groups. They are mostly NPC’s, but for some GM’s they would also provide a ruleset for unique player characters. In my mind, having these dual classes was always awkward and the solution is simple.
Does it make sense to have this rule carve out? Should it be addressed with character options? Or, should there be no professions created using the RMU mechanics?
One of the common subjects that my friends and I discuss is just how large the player base is for Rolemaster (and to a lesser extent Shadow World). One of the ways we can assess the strength of the community is through membership and participation in the various RM channels. Unfortunately there are only a handful. This has become more relevant to me as I continue to roll out new episodes of “In Search of Andraax”, monitor listener rates and try and grow the audience. But the podcast is just one data point. What other Rolemaster channels might be informative about the user base?
FACEBOOK. Recently I started following the Rolemaster Group on Facebook. For a variety of reasons, I minimize my use of FB, noting that the Shadow World page is basically DOA and the ICE page is generally a echo of the Rolemaster Forums. But the Rolemaster Group seems somewhat active with 2.2k members and typically several posts a week. Many of the names on the FB group are unknown to me; usernames tend to be used across platforms, but perhaps it’s the same users with different monikers. It’s not clear what, if any, crossover there is and if it’s possible that FB Rolemaster Group members are unaware or uncurious about the Forums, RMBlog etc.
DRIVETHRURPG. Perhaps the best way to gauge user activity is their economic activity. RMU Core & Spell Law are both “Platinum” level and the recently released Treasure Law is “Gold” level. I forget the sales #’s to reach those levels, but that does provide a bit of context. In terms of Shadow World, the Players Guide is “Platinum” while the Master Atlas is only “Electrum”. That could be a function of the buyers: the Players Guide is a purchase any player would make, while the Master Atlas is theoretically geared towards GMs?
ROLEMASTERBLOG.COM. I think the blog is somewhat active, although I would prefer a broader reader engagement. Various TTRPG gaming polls ranks the RMBlog in the top 50, so that’s encouraging. We are one of the few non-D&D or OSR blogs that are typically ranked.
ICE FORUMS. The Forums has gotten a shot in the arm since RMU was released with new users that engage with questions. There is a also a noticeable increase in online users (unregistered) , but many of them could be bots.
DISCORD SERVERS. Despite my old world curmudgeonly attitude against short form conversation, apparently it’s popular. The Discords are the most active of the various RM/SW channels with a lot more back and forth, discussion, ideas and conversation. That’s fantastic, since that engagement keeps our game alive and relevant.
DOWNLOADS. I’ve uploaded around 280 files to the RM Forums and posted several of them at the RMBlog as well. The most popular files have been downloaded 150-200 times over the last 10 years. So that’s not spectacular but it’s something. Our d100 adventures on RPG have reached Copper, Silver and even a few Electrum which is kind of cool!
PODCASTS. Besides my podcast, there are 2-3 channels of actual RM/SW gameplay that are posted regularly and have around 275 subscribers.
Beyond that, there are the occasional RM reviews, look backs and remembrances among the various RPG blogs and gaming forums. But not much more.
So what can we make of all this? I don’t have the time or energy to play other systems, so I’m siloed in my RM and Shadow World ecosystem. Every game has it’s own vernacular and experiences and I really enjoy reading and hearing about other peoples Rolemaster games, rules and ideas. Do I want the system to grow? Of course. But ultimately if there are only a handful of dedicated players and GM’s that’s good enough for me. I’ve been able to meet a bunch through my podcast and I look forward to meeting more.
To end with a few questions:
Which sites do you visit regularly? Are there channels mentioned above you didn’t know about or just don’t visit? Why?
Do you leave comments?
Have you thought about writing a blog post or participating in a podcast?
Where do you find the most interesting OR engaging environment for RM or SW?
Beside just “more”, is there something ICE, RM or SW should have to engage players that is common in other game systems?
Derrick was the GM of an epic 10+ year Shadow World campaign that took his players from start to mid 20th level. Derrick was able to incorporate much of Terry’s Shadow World material in his game and is a great example of the breadth and scope of the setting. Derrick’s players kept an adventure log and notes with 428 individual sessions that can be found here. https://web.mit.edu/mjperson/WWW/Kulthea/.
I’ve finished up my first draft of a game aid I’ve been picking away at for a few years. This is a visual guide and expanded description of the 120+ Shadow World herbs/substances that is found in the Master Atlas.
In my campaign, players learn a new Herb for each skill rank of Herb Lore (they can do additional research of course) and I can just print out the appropriate page so they can add to their own “Lore folder”. There are some rule mechanics and modifiers in some of the text, but I wanted to make it more of a reference book that ideally could be used in RMU or any other setting without a lot of work.
This does not include poisons, but I’ve got notes for an expanded version of poisons, antidotes and nefarious substances from my Alchemy rules that I’ll put in a short primer: Book of Dark Arts. A few of the plants don’t have pictures, and I need to make some changes to those-too many “green leafy” herbs.
Now that I’ve finished this, I want to go back and really expand my “Book of Pales” to include a variety of summoning and protection circles, more creature and Demon pictures and powerful artifacts or cool devices found in the Pales.
There is so much SW material that can be expanded upon–it’s endless! You can download the Book of Herbs over at the Rolemaster Forums, but you need an account to see and access it here:
There has been a lot of discussion around the future of Shadow World since Terry passed away, generally around 2 basic topics:
Finishing up Terry’s projects that were in the works: Emer IV, Loremaster Legacy 2, Wurilis etc.
Creating new SW material. What would that look like and who would do it?
Putting aside #1, I think much of the hesitancy around bringing in new authors is concerns around the quality and consistency of new material. But I also think there is a secondary reason: Shadow World is not just a static setting for roleplaying, it’s an ongoing story that is left partially untold. That story arc is ostensibly the “Grand Campaign” but includes earlier campaigns like the “Legacy of the Seakdrake” found in Jaiman, various adventures in Emer books and the meta plot around the Secret Circle. It felt like this was slowly unfolding in each successive SW book, but the Loremaster Legacy novel basically packaged it up in fiction rather than gaming material. This was Terry’s story to tell and it basically drives a large part of the Kulthean timeline and major events in the Second and Third Era.
It feels like a lot of loose threads, even if we know where the story might eventual go–the destruction of the Shadow Stone and/or the return of the Northern Eye. How can a new writer come in and wrap this all up? It’s hard to imagine–a bit of Brandon Sanderson finishing up the Wheel of Time. At the same time, we know where and how it ends, so does it really need to be mapped out?
But I have an idea to “reset” the Shadow World setting: start the Fourth Era. For those that listened to my podcast with Max, he mentioned that his campaign ventured into the Fourth Era and I’ve spoken to a couple other GMs that also took the group into the future Era. I originally thought that the Fourth Era boundary would be the loss of the Northern Eye, but in hindsight, it now seems obvious that the Fourth Era should start with the return of the Northern Eye.
What would Kulthea look like in the Fourth Era? Several people I’ve talked to have gamed out their version of the Grand Campaign and given me some ideas. For the gaming group, this would be an epic quest, but would also involve notable NPCs, some major battles and probably some type of geographic damage caused by severe Essaence fluctuations and tertiary events (tidal waves, earthquakes etc). Key people would be killed! As a thought experiment, the possibilities are endless:
Tarania emerges again from the sea due to shifts in the planets crust. The island, long submerged, reveals it’s secrets…
Arriving in the nick of time to confront XXX, Andraax helps win the day but is killed or is missing.
With the defeat of the Secret Circle, the Dragonlords being a campaign of conquest over various lands.
Eidolon is destroyed and crashes to the earth. It’s ruins are guarded by the Prince of Sel-Kai, but adventurers sneak in anyway!
Essaence flows are permanently shifted into new locations and pathways. The Navigators obelisk network is disrupted and needs to be recalibrated. In the meantime, Navigator Jump services are unreliable.
The massive Essaence surges that preceded the Eye’s return, opened large portals to the Pales and hordes of Demons poured into Kulthea.
Earthquakes, tidal waves and severe storms destroy coastal cities.
The balance of power shifts and the Alliance grows in influence throughout Kulthea.
I’ve discussed previously about adventuring in Kulthea during the Interregnum but remaking Kulthea and starting the Fourth Era is a clean slate that closes out the plot(s) that Terry established and builds for the a new future. It would be logical to map out massive changes to Kulthea that would occur on a near global cataclysm and give Kulthea a “refresher”. Perhaps one that better incorporates the RMU ruleset.
RMU: Shadow World. Adventures in the 4th Era. “The Age of Woe”.
Kulthea is saved! The return of the Northern Eye rebalanced the erratic Flows of Essaence but at what cost? Gods battled Gods, Heroes fell and catastrophic storms left scars across the planet. New powers are emerging from the ashes of the Great Battle and vying for dominance in the Shadow World. The Unlife is unchecked and Demons run amok among the lands. Will the new world order be for good or evil?
This feels like a clean break from the unfinished past and a start with the new RMU ruleset. What do you think?
I know I am terribly remiss in blogging these days. I have two blogs and I post to this one more often than the other, so that shows how bad I am at keeping things updated!
Long time readers of this blog will know of Navigator RPG. This was written back in September 2019. Nicholas had kind of threatened to pull the plug on RMU if it wasn’t finished by the end of the year. He exact words were that RMU would be done, one way or another by the end of the year. That was five years ago and we are still waiting for the game to reach a playable state (if you want monsters that is).
My response was to go back to square one. The origin of Rolemaster was as a set of house rules for D&D. The story goes that a D&D fighter was trapped against a cliff edge and terrible foe. They asked the DM how high the cliff was and was told it was 60′. D&D used 1d6 damage per 10′ fallen, and the fighter had more than 60 hit points, so they jumped, knowing that they could not die from the fall.
Those house rules became Arms Law and Claw Law, and then Spell Law replaced the D&D spells, and then Character & Campaign Law plus Creatures & Treasures turned the game in to a coherent whole.
So I went back to D&D, andthese days we have the OGL meaning that I could take open game content as my base, and rolemasterify it.
I didn’t just clone Rolemaster. I know that Rolemaster is often referred to Chartmaster and Rulesmaster. I think it is a hard sell to ask people to buy four $30 books before they can play a game. So I stripped out many charts, smoothed bonuses for stats so you don’t need to look up the stat to find your bonuses, and used fixed DPs. I stripped back the skill system, knowing that GMs will add in skills as they see fit.
I didn’t go for two hundred different professions, knowing that if anyone played the game they would build professions that fitted their setting.
What I did do was give the rules for creating your own Talents & Flaws, Cultures, Ancestries, Skills, and Professions, and the rules for converting D&D/OGL monsters to the game.
Rolemaster has always be a toolbox, so I built tools.
I also kept the numbered paragraph format, to make it easy to drop in house rules and supplement material.
Navigator RPG was the first of this line.
Navigator RPG
When I created Navigator RPG what I wanted to do was to make something that was backwardly compatible with Spacemaster. We had been told that there would be no Spacemaster Unified. HARP SF also seemed to be in the doldrums, so if I wanted to play Spacemaster I would have to make my own. I had lost my Spacemaster rulebooks in a house move many years ago.
Not only was Navigator RPG going to be backwardly compatible, but I wanted to ensure that Rolemaster never died, even if Nicholas gave up. So I made it Open Game Content, and the book was Pay What You Want on DriveThruRPG. If you buy the physical book you needed to play printing and shipping, but beyond that, anything else was purely donation. the PDF was PWYW, and you can download it for free.
So far, there have been 2,156 downloads, of which 221 have been bought.
When I released Navigator RPG, I promised to create Pilot RPG, Nav’s Fantasy sibling. Then things went kind of sideways. Rather than getting on with Pilot, I was distracted by trying to turn the core game system into a generic toolkit. The name of the toolkit was Bare Metal Edition, and the idea was to put all of the rules for creating the rules on to github so anyone could fork the project to create their own games. Open Source Roleplaying in its purest sense. I had help with this, but I am a bit autistic and don’t play well with others much of the time.
Roll the clock forward to May 2023, and I finally get around to converting the rules to fantasy and Pilot RPG is born.
The names Navigator and Pilot come from that quote by Sir Walter Scott on the front cover.
Pilot was released 14 months ago and has had 835 downloads and 48 purchases. Just like Navigator RPG it is PWYW, and you can download it for free.
Guide RPG
Another goal with Bare Metal Edition, was to push Rolemaster into genres that it hadn’t explored before. On the ICE forums, when we had a working Character Law/Arms Law, I had suggested doing some historical genre games, such as Robin Hood, as an example. We didn’t need magic or monsters for real world settings. That idea obviously didn’t fly.
I managed to find the time to convert Eldritch Tales, an OSR Call of Cthulhu clone, to Bare Metal Edition and Guide RPG, Cosmic Horror Open Ended Roleplaying, was put out. This was January 2024, only 4 months after Pilot RPG. That was 10 months ago, and we have seen 669 downloads, 21 sales.
The name Guide relates to spirit guides and fits into the Navigator, Pilot, Guide series.
This game came out on May 28, 2024, so about 5 weeks ago. It is Pay What You Want, 144 downloads, and 12 sales. What makes it special is that it is the first variant that is set in the real world. Mark RPG is based on The Curse of Capistrano, or as it is better known The Mark of Zorro!
As I said back on the ICE forums, it should be possible to create a game without monsters, and magic, and base them in the real world, I said I could do it, and this game did it.
I freely admit that I pillaged Wikipedia for much of the setting information, and used Guide RPG (set in the real world but with the cosmic horror elements) and stripped out everything that did not apply. That gave me my core system. There may possibly be a few monsters left in, just for a bit of weird west fun, but for the most part, that section of the book is mostly snakes, bears, and bandits.
Sure, the number of downloads is smaller, but we are getting into niche genres.
Survivor RPG
This game isn’t written yet, but I have pencilled it in for a November/December release, and will be post nuclear holocaust, mutants and tech. Think Gamma World, Mutant Future, and Mutant Year Zero and you will get the gist.
This is another genre that Rolemaster or Spacemaster never touched, and will expand the range of the Bare Metal Edition stable.
All these games are cross compatible and build on what has gone before.
Further Forward…
I know when I want to create Survivor, but I also want to convert more OGL/OSR games and bring them under the BME banner.
I have plans for a World War II version based on Operation Whitebox and a Zombie Apocalypse version based on Survive This!! Zombies.
If I can find some good vehicle rules to convert, or if not, write them myself, I would quite like to create a Death Race 2000/Car Wars/Mad Max iteration as well.
Then there are sci-fi Mech warfare and superheroes, and why not prohibition-era gangsters?
These future games are not about creating an entire game from the ground up, they are about building just the rule variations needed to reflect the genre and the playable options. Then the fun of critical tables and some villains to fight.
If there are genres you want to see turned into a game, let me know, and I will do the research and build it.
Just a quick note. I’m having great conversations with Rolemaster and Shadow World participants and creators via the Rolemaster Podcast: “In Search of Andraax”.
Do you have a long running Shadow World campaign? Do you have significant house material for Kulthea? Do you have some thoughts on Terry’s setting?
Let’s talk! I really enjoy to hear YOUR experiences, thoughts and directions on this amazing game setting!
I’ve been busy with work and with recording and editing new podcast episodes, and have lost a bit of momentum with the Rolemasterblog that I had been building! That’s frustrating, but there is only so many hours in the day. I had a few thoughts in my previous blog, but now that I’m immersed in a regular process I wanted to put a few thoughts and observations down.
Including the first episode, I now have 3 programs recorded with 3 more scheduled. I have a rough outline for 10-12 total episodes so I’m halfway there!
I’m on a learning curve with editing these recordings but still feeling frustrated at times with my skill set. I know this is probably very easy for someone that does this regularly! I’ll get there and hopefully not be judged too critically on sound widows, abrupt segues and transitions and audio artifacts.
I’m pleased with the overall traffic and feel that there is a base to build on. My goal is to hook new Rolemaster users that have been drawn to the RMU release as well as long term players. I see this as a form of archiving a bit of gaming history that might have been lost or overlooked. Despite the market share that ICE once had, there is relatively little material on the the company or product development. It continually saddens me that I didn’t think to get Terry on a audio interview, perhaps a series of them!
I prefer long form channels: blogs and now this podcast rather than short form/commentary/discord. Even when my writing is rushed, the process of writing in detail helps download and organize my thoughts and ideas. Many of my blog posts are really for me, and not structured for an audience. However, I wonder how I balance the requirements of both the blog and the podcast. As of now, the podcast is purely interviews with me acting as an unbiased narrator where the podcast is really my own thoughts and agenda. We’ll see how that turns out.
I’ve reviewed a number of TTRPG podcasts. Many of them are short! 25-30 minutes. I guess if I was pumping out an episode every week I’d eventually get down to that short format. For now, I’m shooting for 1 to 1.5 hour shows. Is that too long? I guess it will be dictated by the discussion!!
As I mentioned, I have content scheduled for a dozen or so episodes. I don’t want to dive into banality so this could be a limited series; but if anyone has a subject that they want to discuss in depth, a topic that should be explored or a person I should interview feel free to contact me!