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50th Level Adventures. Deconstruction & Design of Chapter 1: Legends of Shadow World.

Peter’s recent blog project, Thought Experiment, is leading RolemasterBlog into deeper discussions on design and balance issues. I thought this new direction creates an opportunity to review the issuesI encountered when playtesting my 50th Level Adventure Series. I just posted up a shortened version of Chapter 1: The Seers of Strok on the RM Forums, but I’ll include it below as well.

First off, the download is not complete and I intentionally left out some material that is either being fine tuned or will be included in the “final” product. Some of that material not included in the download:

  1. All Pregen characters, NPCs and creature stats. I’ll post these up shortly, since they are crucial to the use  of the material.
  2. Expanded encounters for Part II: The Journey.
  3. Detailed description of the Lense of Strok. Some info can be found in Emer boxed set MA addendum, but I’ve added powers and included in my growing Artifacts and Technology doc.
  4. Background on the Guthuruxx, Shadow Monks and overarching plot points–though I did outline the remaining chapters.

I don’t suggest I am a veteran of game design or module balance, but I have been GM’ing for quite a bit of time. Creating a 50th level adventure was a bit of a “blue water” challenge–the parameters of action and ability were broad enough that tight encounters or narratives no longer applied. I remember my first encounter with tourney style adventures; the “A” Slavers Series. In the first module of that series, every object encountered, every spell slot assigned had a singular purpose to problem solving. That doesn’t work in Rolemaster; the broad or creative application of skills or the sheer amount of spells expands the decision tree beyond a predictive narrative path.

Given that, I had to take into consideration: time lapse (a target of 3 hour play time), raw abilities ( can the PC’s win an encounter?), obtuseness of narrative (balance of clues, problem solving and continuation of storyline) and finally resource management (PPs, HPs, spells, herbs and magic items to finish the whole adventure).

My players ran through 3 iterations of the 5 part series. I didn’t change details enough that each run through resulted in new material for the players, but by that point we were more interested in play balance issues themselves.

Chapter 1 had 4 major parts/encounters:

Part I The Journey. The group used the mixed pre-gen party of “famous” personalities and thus, had Malim Pelax’s personal skyship for the travel to the Observatory from Eidolon.

Iteration 1. The players ran through a simple transit using my SW Encounter chart. Nothing of significance happened, it was a bit boring and didn’t create any conflict with the players. In a campaign, the time could have spent in exposition or role playing, but in a tourney adventure this proved to be needless. The choice was to add a relevant event or hand wave the journey away.

Iteration 2. To make the journey relevant, I added an encounter with Krylites. I imagined orbital bombadier bug from “Starship Troopers”: the Krylites fired slow but powerful “electro grenades” into the sky towards the Sky Ship. It added drama, but the players never felt in danger. Ultimately, I think it added some good atmosphere (along with randomly generated Essaence effects and weather ). I though Malim was going to throw some fireballs down but it wasn’t necessary.

Iteration 3. The Krylites added a cool effect, but I wanted to add real danger–but how do you that with a group of 50th lvl PC’s? A red dragon proved to be the solution! In the third run through the dragon approached the Sky Ship, curious and sensing the power of the players. I rolled for reaction and the Dragon was just curious, but his approach was seen as a threat and the players wanted to flaunt their powers assuming they were much more potent than the singular creature. They attacked the Dragon… Not the best idea. The Dragon eventually retreated but did some damage to the skyship (slowing it due to sail damage) and the PC’s lost about 10% PP’s, some small fire damage and 5% loss of magical item charges.

Part II The Approach. Once setting down the PC’s have to traverse 1 mile of extreme terrain: lava, searing melting heat and unbreathable gasses. since running wasn’t really possible (did I have Lava Running in my BASiL Fire Law?..note to check) I assumed 20 minute mile–120 rounds to the Observatory.

Iteration 1. Both Malim and Sundemar had “Elemental Shields” but they also needed “Gas Lungs” to provide total heat protection and breathing to the party of 6. However, the magic failure rate was 40%/Round and players suffered from loss of spell shields and incurred damage. The 40% seemed to high. Party lost 20% of hits, total PP expenditure of 7% of total and the loss of some magical items to melting!

Iteration 2. I reduced the spell fail rate to 10% but introduced the Karax to the environment. The party encountered 5 Karax, and lost spell protection several times. Vertogen died.

Iteration 3. I increased spell failure to 25% but added just one guaranteed Karax encounter for narrative purposes. PPs spent was 5%, HP loss was 10%.

Part III The Monks.

Iteration 1. In the first draft there were 12 Warrior Monks but were equipped with protective gear, Ceiling Running boots and potent shurikens. The battle took place in the library and caught the group by surpise. Combat was similar to the Matrix “Club Hell” ceiling fight , the Monks were hidden on the walls and ceilings and double teamed each PC. Vertogen was killed and 2 PC’s were badly injured!!! In fact the Monks probably should have won.

Iteration 2. I reduced the Monks to 8 but made them spell casting Monks. However, RM2 Monk spells basically suck and don’t add much to 50th lvl combat. The players won that battle easily.

Iteration 3. I went back to Warrior Monks but reduced the # to 10. The PC’s won, but they also knew what the encounter would be, so the Monks didn’t have the element of surprise. Nonetheless I was happy with this encounter but wonder if it needs to be run through again.

The Major Battle

Iteration 1. The first draft had 8 Guthuruxx Soldiers all with autoguns. The autoguns treated all AT’s as 1 (due to armor penetrating slugs)  and had a bonus to offset the implied DB that occurs with AT1. They strafed the group, killing 2 PCs (not Vertogen) but were killed quickly after. I was running a clock with The Hand having 20 rounds to complete the removal of the lense but the players moved on him quickly and Onyx intervened. Dragon, shmagon. Want a creature that can DESTROY 50th lvl characters? How about a Black Eog Golem.

Iteration 2. I reduced the Guthuruxx to 6 and dropped the time to 10 rounds. However, even with the shortened time, the players were able to bypass and intercept The Hand which disrupted the narrative.

Iteration 3. I reduced the Guthuruxx to 2 just to strafe and delay the players and had The Hand escape (with Onyx) quickly to the Portal. While a bit of a forced narrative, it allowed the PC’s to survive, NOT face Onyx yet and give them time to pursue The Hand through the Portal.

{{Updated}}. I just reviewed my notes and had the protective shield fail fail in Iteration 1&2 of the Major Battle. The building started collapsing, lava encroached and fires raged. It proved to be too much for the PCs, but it was dramatic and think I will add it back in my final revision.

At the end of Part IV, Iteration 3, the party was at 1/2 PPs, 25% HPs and averaged 15% in various injury related penalties. They could continue, but could they survive 3 more chapters?

Some broad conclusions:

  1. Since this was Chapter 1, it was meant as the introduction to the players, establish the narrative thread and become a test drive for the players.
  2. 5-10% resource loss seemed appropriate although that proved almost too much for them to survive later.
  3. Fixed timelines didn’t work for me. For fun and playability the GM needs to artificially force action events to continue gameplay.
  4. At 50th level, and for tourney adventures, subtle traps or clever “bits’ just don’t work, they impede gameplay. These adventures were more brute force events and storylines.

Some thoughts on the pre-gen professions.

  1. The Magicians (Malim and Sumendar) both faired well since by their levels they had virtually all Open, Closed and Base Magician lists. However, I think that’s a problem and in my own house rules total spells/lists are halved from RM2 RAW.
  2. The Navigator added a great mechanism via his compass and related Essaence flow competencies.
  3. Paladins aren’t a core profession but RoCo I was the most reasonable companion and so I allow for it. I gave Kroger the Phaon spell list and a handful of Channeling Open/Closed instead of the RoCo paladin lists. Kroger was the main tank of the group and while got beat up by the Monks, did well against the Demon warriors.
  4. Chomen Drah. With the Iorak base list, Chomen was quite different than the standard “Cleric” (you can see my thoughts on this HERE) The player really liked playing him and a did a great stoic,surly but competent PC.
  5. Jan. What can I say, I love Monks and always wanted to see a High level Changramai in action. While I stuck to RM2 Raw one small tweak I allow is missile parry–even for unarmed combatants. The Monk battle and the shuriken throwing was a fun battle.
  6. Final thought. Healing. Chomen was the only “Cleric” and Iorak followers don’t learn the Closed Healing list spells. I didn’t want to use the mage/fighter/thief/cleric trope so the only healing spells were a basic battle healing the Paladin had (concussion ways) and Jan had a self healing list. The rest of the healing was done via herbs. That also allows the GM to modify difficulty through herb allocation to the players as well.
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Random Musings. Sunday Thoughts on Rolemaster and other topics.

Random musings are my best way to cover topics briefly without any deep thoughts on a particular subject. Likewise, I appreciate quick responsive comments from our readers–insight may be elusive, but many throw away comments can create new ideas and inspiration!

  1. This blog article. I argue incessantly against tropes, but societal/historic/racial tropes are the easiest to embrace while creating the “theatre of the mind” necessary for gameplay. Tall, muscular, blond beserkers encapsulates the viking trope; small, fast, lithe with epicanthic folds is the default for asian martial artists and the associated social memes. Adopting historical cultural memes and transplanting them to fantasy is easy–both in terms of design and in terms of enforcing an imaginative world.
  2. On the same subject..part of the challenge as a GM using Shadow World is conveying racial identifiers with the corresponding culture. I think Terry did a great job creating a WIDE array of “races” (human) that mix many of our own worlds physical qualities. Yes, some suffer from the same mixture of stereotyped racial traits (tall, muscular, blond) or (lean, dusky skin, angled eyes), but he throws in enough differentials (black hair w/silver streak, or height etc) to mix it up. But, because of that, I find it harder to transmit these racial traits since they defy our common racial models. What do you think?
  3. New armor. I can’t remember what I was reading, but in the book, the protagonist had cloth armor reinforced with “magicked glass”. Sounds like Laen? I like that, and while Laen is rare, hard to work and expensive, it seems like a great armor type: cloth or leather sewn in with slim laen plates. I will add variations of this to my Shadow World “Special Armor“.
  4. Brian’s Book of the Month. The Thief Who Pulled on Troubles Braids. I’ve been tracing down good urban fantasy thief stories, but this turned out to be a bit different. In fact, it feels very Howard/Conan/Hyborean.
  5. Between this blog, referenced article elsewhere and RM Forums there is a intensive conversation about IP, self publishing, open or limited licensing of ICE and SW IP etc.  While I appreciate “ICE”‘s protection of IP, the reality is that time is not on their side.  I’m 48. The average RM Forums member is in their 40’s to 50’s. I think the owners of the IP are the same age or older than me. Where is this all going? If ICE was my client, and we referenced the “Industry Life Cycle” curve, I would say that we are on the down slope in need or reinvention. Is RMU the reinvention? Perhaps, but the market now requires liquidity for game adoption: easy or pregen character, ready to play adventures, high quality maps and graphics and a steady stream of product output.
  6. Activity. Does anyone note that the activity on the RM Forums is LOW? That’s not good. If you have a thought, idea, download or even an adventure, why not post it up to the Forums? GET INVOLVED.
  7. I’m watching “Halt and Catch Fire”. WOW. I was a startup in the web 1.0 days myself, had a building full of coders, a dream and crazy cashflow drain (that I mostly funded). After hours we played a Clancy game networked on our servers. Weekend nights we ran a live show venue with the hottest bands–our internet launch included String Cheese Incident, 500 people, 20 kegs and several summons for “disturbing the peace”. That was eVibe.com.
  8. Finally. I’m putting up the basic doc of the 1st Chapter of “Legends of Shadow World: The Seers of Strok”. This is the first part of a 5 part adventure for 50th level adventures. I purposefully did not include the stat blocks for the pregen characters, NPC’s or “monsters” due to IP issues, or just holding some stuff back. Mostly I’m doing this to create some activity (see 6 above) and because I keep getting emails and messages that I’m full of shit on the work that I do! (they actually say it much nice than that). I will say that I have sent Priest King of Shade to Peter and a few other people for their review so they can get a sense of the final product AND how close it is to publication. Here is Chapter 1–for GMs ONLY:

50 chapter 1 – The Seers of Strok

My only concern is that I do lay out the subsequent chapters to help GM’s plan ahead, but it’s also a bit of a spoiler. Also, apologize for the “graphics”–I’m doing this myself and it works for my own group.

Anyway, enjoy!

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Made Men. Made Weapons. Do you run a personification campaign?

I recently read “The Kings of the Wylde“.  A bit of tongue in cheek that played on common fantasy tropes but still created a strong image of a certain type of a fantasy setting. It was an irreverent version of Ambercrombies “The First Law” series.

The commonality between the two is the concept of “Named Men” and “Named Weapons” that is integral to the respective settings. The Kings of the Wylde took this concept one step further, embracing modern trends of fame, wealth and popularity.

While I don’t have the time to embrace other settings or rule systems besides ICE/Shadow World, I find this “extreme personification” setting very appealing!

“Named” people and weapons are not just for super powerful beings or historic figures–it’s the idea that adventurers can make a name for themselves and likewise “name” their reliable weapon. They don’t have to be demi-gods or artifacts to be named. Basically it’s adopting our societal embrace of famous actors, wealthy business personalities and the Kardashians to a fantasy template.

RM doesn’t have a rule framework for “fame” but it could be easily adapted. I just like the idea of my players earning fame (and not just fortune) along with their named weapon. It feels like a superhero game system or one of my favorite movies…Mystery Men.

While Shadow World has a DENSE timeline and history, much of that depth is lost on day to day play. My players can’t recall most of the famous people, alive or dead, that are included in the timeline. I like the idea of making it more immediate and visceral. A world where even the lowliest groups give themselves “rock star” names AND give name to their favored weapons, shields or armor.

It’s a bit over the top, but what a world! If murder-hobo’ing is a reality, why not create a setting that celebrates them!

 

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Deconstructing Magic in Rolemaster. Magical Auras.

Over the past year, I’ve touched upon some new Spell Law concepts:  a different take on “Channeling“, a new way to look at “Summoning”  and the concept of “Links” or “Threads”. When I work on creating new spell lists for Rolemaster and Shadow World, I tend to come at it from a different perspective. I think many new lists featured in RoCos and the Guild Companion were devised from a Profession-centric approach. ie a new profession class is generated and then spells to support the concept are created. I’ve also done that with my Hierax Guard and a few others.

However, my more favored approach is a deconstructive process: what could magic do and how should it work? I’m often inspired by the books I’m reading–especially if it contains a novel or interesting magic system. While I’m reading I try to visualize how the books magic might work in the RM system or write a few spell lists derived from the ideas in the story. Since I read quite a bit, I average one or two lists per month that I sketch out and and drop in a review folder. I have almost 75 lists that I need to finish off, assign a “realm” or discard!!!! Out of those, probably 40 will make it into BASiL in my next iteration, pushing the spell list count to well over 200.

So what are some new mechanics for Spell Law? As an example, let’s use the “Detect” spells, specifically Detect Essence (or the other two realms for that matter). The spell allows a caster to detect the presence of Essence–not the type of spell or power or even the strength of the spell. That’s simple and still useful, right? But the spell works like a telescope–the caster can examine a 5′ radius area per round–as if they are peering through a telescope at a small concentrated area. Why does it work that way? DnD. In DnD, the ability to detect magic was critical–especially in analyzing treasure to see what, if any, objects were magical. So why can’t the spell work differently? Why can’t the caster just “see” the magical auras of objects, people, PP reservoirs, Essence Flows, Foci, active spells etc. Does that unbalance the game? Does it seem too powerful?

In Shadow World, magic is everywhere and RM already introduced the concept of spell casting color manifestations and “power perception” as a trainable skill. This lends to the idea of “auras”–magical emanations that are generated by magical fields. These auras can be seen via spells, scrying (or in the case of “High” Elves, perhaps through normal visual perception)

One of the benefits of having auras is not only can you have spells to see and perceive them, but you can have a whole other set of spells to hide, distort or change them! This creates another level of caster “dueling” where aura detection and aura masking or distortion spells conflict via RR’s, caster skill or spell skill bonuses.

Like other Spell Law list progressions, detecting and viewing magical auras improves through levels. At lower levels, the caster may just perceive the presence of magic, while later spells could perceive power level, realm, type of spell or “links” between another caster and a target they are controlling or concentrating on. This visual interpretation of spell affects provides a more cinematic approach to casting, without the general solution of casting “colors” (which I feel are a bit too “Snidely Whiplash“).

More importantly, the ability to view auras can work differently between realms–further differentiating realm powers and caster ability. One idea would be to have Essence casters access to quantatative aura detection (power, type, strength etc), while Mentalists have an easier ability to see mental connection/control/concentration between two or more people and Channelers can see “channeling auras” indicating what god a caster is associated with.

Another benefit is that it creates a unified structure for detection and analytics for all types of magic. Right now, Spell Law is a hodge podge of mechanisms that often require GM arbitration. For me this is the key to Spell Law deconstruction/reconstruction. Viewing RM magic through an unbiased lense, questioning built in DnD tropes and then rethinking accepted spell mechanics can lead to clearer, more flexible and interesting Spell Law.

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Ascendancy. The pathway to Godhood in Rolemaster.

Earlier this year, I blogged about the concept of players channeling power and or spells to “followers”. To me, this was a natural progression of the original Channeling Skill & Spells found in the earliest versions of Rolemaster. I was always intrigued by the channeling concept in RM, but we never, ever used it in any of our games. It’s a powerful concept, especially for game system in the early days of RPG’s, but the game mechanics were clunky and the upside benefit during gameplay was never really clear.

A workable Channeling mechanism is the first step towards a character gaining “followers” and having the ability to send power or spells to these acolytes. Isn’t that flirting with some concepts of deification?

This topic has now come full circle for me and I wanted to think it out via this blog. I’m working on multiple projects, but most actively on my 50th lvl adventure series and re-examining high level spells in my Spell Law re-write. These adventures forced me to think about high level challenges, the power curve of skills and spells, and the general ecosystem of 50th level characters.

Rolemaster is not “epic” in the sense that characters are granted special abilities upon reaching certain levels. So while most players might think that attaining 50th lvl would somehow bestow a special capacity upon a character it’s not the case. For spell users, 50th lvl spells might be cool, but I don’t think particularly revelatory–and in many cases, not that powerful. Obviously arms users don’ t have access to any transformative abilities at 50th level.

Some game systems have introduced game mechanics that allow powerful characters to receive special abilities at high levels. (did the Expert Immortal set do this first?). My favorite example in fiction is in the Books of the Malazan. In this setting, which is based on the authors own RPG campaign, Erickson clearly establishes the concept of “Ascendancy”. Since he doesn’t spoon feed exposition to the reader, it wasn’t clear what the mechanism is exactly; or even what special abilities are imparted upon such. Now we have much more info on the setting, and per the Malazan wiki we have:

Ascendants were individuals who had transcended death. They formerly had been called First Heroes.[1] Ascendants could become gods if they gained sufficient following among mortals but they were not gods by default. They were more or less immortal, but could be killed. They had access to magic, even if they were not mages prior to their ascension.

So it appears the benefits are: immortality, one step closer to Godhood, access to magic. That’s interesting and certainly reasonable to incorporate into most fantasy settings. Immortality is an easy one–it’s not like players are going to game out a 1000 years of life and longevity doesn’t really impact gameplay. But does immortality include self-healing or regeneration? That’s unclear. Access  to spells/magic seems reasonable as well. Rolemaster is flexible enough that it would be simple to create special Closed lists for Ascendants. So it seems to me, dependent on the setting (it’s always about the setting!), including Ascendancy is relatively easy to do in Rolemaster!

So why would a GM want to add this functionality into their RM game? Becoming a God (via an Evil Ritual)  is a common plot meme for evil foes. Once you establish something is possible than it needs to be allowed for all characters, right? Is it unbalancing to have a long term goal of a player becoming MORE? Perhaps not a God, but a Demi-God or Ascendant or Hero? Isn’t that the basis for fantasy RPGs?

Since this is also dependent on the meta-physical underpinnings of the setting, does this work for Shadow World? The Gods of Orhan/Charon aren’t “Gods” in the strictest sense, just powerful beings from an alternate realms. Kulthea has “local gods”, demi-gods and other powerful beings. So while there might not be a strict classification of Ascendants, it seems there are some. I introduced Ascendancy in relationship to the Dragonlords in my own campaign. (See HERE at the end of the post). I was trying to tie up loose ends and wanted an explanation for the origins of the Dragonlords. The Earthwardens, via a ritual, Ascended to a higher state, beings of raw, elemental Essaence.

So, how else could Ascendancy work in Shadow World? The setting has many local gods, spirits and avatars…could a player become one of those? My own version of the Channeling Spell list discussed in the other blog is the stepping stone to Ascendancy. Players gain followers and create a feedback loop of power and spells. The more followers the more power the character has. But is this enough to establish “godhood” or some derivative of it? What other mechanisms could be put into place?

  1. Special access to Essaence Foci or Flows. One commonality of local gods is that they are centered on special locations, geographic features or an Essaence Focus. Perhaps a bonding or imprinting between the character and Foci could be step?
  2. Access to “Arcane” spell list(s). RoCo I established some of the baseline of this topic: Focuses, high level spells to become Dragons etc are in the DNA of Shadow World.
  3. “Granting”. Perhaps the Lords of Orhan can give a character lesser access to the Essaence “aether”. This might be raw power, special spell abilities or some aspects of immortality. Sort of like accessing a wifi signal on a local hub.

For a game system that is pure skill based, the “high fantasy” aspects of Ascendancy mechanics are intriguing to me. What do you think?

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Yahoo!!!!! Weekend Roundup: October 8th 2017.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a “Weekend Roundup” of interesting articles and news that might be RPG related, a good Shadow World hook or inspire a GM or player. Lots of good stuff since my last one…Shall we begin?

Banished to the Void? Does anyone know what’s going on?

How do the peoples of Kulthea see the Flows of Essaence?

Here in my home state of Maine! 50 skill ranks in boatbuilding?

Is feeding an army even an issue with “Create Food”?

I blogged about a pathway to Godhood (sort of). The Egyptians wrote a Book on the topic!

Would someone please do this for Kulthea–or at least Eidolon! How cool would that be?

What happens when summoned Demons get loose into an ecosystem? (part of Priest-King of Shades plotline btw)

The future is here! Althan technology in the hands of children.

Animal armor! Here is my version of special armor for Shadow World and previous blog on this topic HERE. (RM forum membership required)

Earthwarden complex?

Non coinage currency. Do you use any in your game world?

This is important. Though I’m not sure I grok completely.

The multi-class Egyptian.

The real Ship Graveyard! (another element in Priest-King of Shade)

The Syrkakar!

Energy to Matter conversion! And it mentions D&D! (I blogged on this this HERE.

Skill ranks in Memory?

Roman Tomb Raiders?

Adventures needed…

Hammer of the Gods.

Last, but not least. My 2nd annual Halloween Spell List: Undead Hunter.

Undead Hunter

 

 

 

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RMU: Mission Accomplished?

I’ve been reluctant to comment directly on RMU; the rules are still in Beta and I’ve already decided what pieces to adopt in my own game. I think there is a lot of fantastic stuff in RMU–some of it inspired me to modify my own house rules or change the way I think of an RM mechanic. That’s a positive sign for any new rules in a system played predominantly by older games who are fairly set in their ways. Early versions of RMU inspired me to make wholesale changes to my game. In all honesty,  despite the time I’ve spend re-writing Character Law and Spell Law, I was never going to tackle Arms Law. I just didn’t have the interest or patience in re-writing the attack tables–but they did need work. So thanks for that guys!

My last blog, I talked about the need for RMU to fully integrate a game setting. But let’s talk about the most over-arching criticisms of Rolemaster, deserved or not: character generation (chargen) and “chartmaster”. Do a google search: “rolemaster chargen“, “rolemaster chartmaster“, “rolemaster system” etc. Scan through the results. Read other RPG blogs that discuss Rolemaster. Putting aside comments about grittiness, granularity, verisimilitude and deadliness, the most common comments about Rolemaster are the length of time of character generation and the profusion of charts. This isn’t my opinion–it’s intertwined with the Rolemaster brand.

Here are a few examples:

“Character creation and advancement became a bear.

However, character creation and, even more so, levelling up, is where the system’s crunchiness really shows. I think its even accurate to say that the massive crunch of the system is very front-loaded. Making a new character is a session-long endeavour, I used to dread going up in level, because it meant another 15 – 20 minutes of calculations

Now, next question….

Does RMU address or solve these 2 most common criticisms?

I’ve already blogged about a variety of ways that RM(U) can reduce or eliminate charts. I’ve also blogged about character gen in 15 minutes. Both discuss my own solutions for these two cited issues. Those are just my solutions, and per the comments, there are many people who don’t agree. So let’s just tackle the base question.

Unifying the various rules systems and updating the ruleset are great goals. But if the two most frequent criticisms of Rolemaster are left unaddressed, how does the system move forward with a new player base?

 

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Can Rolemaster survive as a generic game system anymore?

While originally designed as a bolt on system to DnD, the Rolemaster “Laws” were always unwieldy to adapt to a d20 system. That didn’t matter for long, as the full suite of rules were published in fairly short order: Rolemaster was a standalone system.

Unfortunately from there, Rolemaster became ‘bipolar’: it contained quite a bit of DnD DNA but tried to establish an RM specific setting with the Loremaster line of products. (Iron Wind, Cloudlords, Vog Mur). Rolemaster was torn between the path forward in the gritty world of the Iron Wind or the well established cartoonish tropes of DnD. And soon after that, ICE rolled out the Middle Earth setting, although there is general agreement that the first few ME books (Court of Ardor & Umbar specifically) had more the feel of the Loremaster world than Middle Earth.

In balancing out these various constituencies, ICE decided to spin off a simplified version of RM for the Middle Earth products (MERP) to better fit the system with the setting, but Rolemaster continued to be torn between its roots in DnD and its flavor and style represented by Loremaster. When Shadow World was introduced in the late 80’s it established it’s own DNA, but still drew from the standards found in Creatures & Treasures to maintain product line conformity. Third party Shadow World products were more generic, diluting the world flavor–since then most have been stamped as “non-canon” by Terry.

Now 35 years later, MERP is gone and Rolemaster has been redesigned and soon to be published. Unfortunately, the redesign only united the previous versions of RM (RM2, RMC, RMSS) and NOT united the game system with a game world. That was a mistake.

I’ve blogged quite a bit about the “gap” between the RM rules and Shadow World, and deconstructed different rule mechanics and how they are in conflict with that world setting. Rolemaster has one foot in and one foot out of the established game setting (Shadow World) leaving RM as an orphan: a generic fantasy game system in a market place that doesn’t need one with mechanical bits that are remnants of early 80’s 1st Edition AD&D.

ICE has little chance in reliving their heydays of the 80’s. There is more competition, more niche products, more OGL’s and more self published material than ever. Shadow World may not be for everyone, but it has a following, is a good setting and Terry continues to write new material and improve existing material. Shadow World needs to embrace it’s uniqueness and Rolemaster needed to fully adapt the rules to fit the setting.  A comprehensive and unique eco-system can bring in new players and/or unify exiting ones.

The new rules, the creatures and the spells in RMU should have been fully united with Shadow World. That would require, among many other things, Pantheon specific spell lists, rational rules for death and resurrection, elimination of some earth/cultural weapons for clarity, expansion of unique SW creatures, Professions for Loremaster, Navigators and other SW specific organizations, clarity in Essence manipulation/perception with Essence Flows and Focuses etc etc. The rules should reinforce the setting and the setting should reinforce the rules.

There has been a lot of discussion about who the target market is for RMU. There is skepticism that the existing user base will adopt RMU entirely after decades of playing and modifying earlier versions. It’s been pointed out that many RM players are older, in their 40’s and 50’s.  These are important questions and discussions–how can ICE generate a all new base of younger roleplayers?

Putting aside OSR self-published products, it seems to me that new game systems are packaged with the setting. In fact, the setting itself becomes the draw while the rule set supports the setting. This was even true in the 80’s.  Gamers didn’t play Ringworld or Twilight 2000 because the rule set was excellent–they played for the setting. Numenera didn’t market it’s rule set–it marketed the unique setting (which I think Monte borrowed heavily from Loremaster/SW).

It’s not too late. RMU doesn’t seem that close to publishing that an intensive effort to adapt SW to the new system couldn’t be done. It’s not like SW would require much work to adapt to RMU–most of the work would be tweaks to RMU to conform with SW. But the roll-out needs to be a combined effort of rules and setting. If that could be executed, ICE and SW would be a multi-platform property: rule expansions, modules, fiction, graphic novels and maybe a small allowance for open license materials. This isn’t revolutionary–ICE has done some or all of that but via a fragmented strategy. RM was used for online MMORPG for a bit, Terry has started his SW novelization, fans have written comics, SW art etc.

This doesn’t mean that RMU can’t be used as a rule set for other settings. But another iteration of a generic Rolemaster isn’t going to differentiate  it from other new products on the market and may not appeal to much of the established player base that have years invested in one of the past editions.

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80’s redux. An embarrassment of fantasy riches.

This week I’ll be turning 48! If you are following this POST on the RM forum, my age seems fairly typical of other Rolemaster players. We grew up in the 80’s, played RPG’s, and waited hopelessly for movies (and TV) to embrace our passion for fantasy roleplaying. Yes, there was Excalibur, Ladyhawke, Conan, Willow, and the Beastmaster; but most weren’t great and were considered “B” movies. There was a long gestating D&D movie that never happened (until the Jeremy Irons fiasco in the 2000’s), but otherwise fantasy fans were really left wanting. A lot has changed since then.

Let’s give credit where it’s due. The Lord of the Rings trilogy not only mainstreamed fantasy for the masses, it paved the way for HBO’s Game of Thrones and opened the door for a host of new fantasy and scifi movies and shows. This on top of a dozens of comic book shows and movies and a steady diet of great SciFi movies. We are living in the golden age of fantasy and science fiction!!!

Many writers, actors and directors in tv and movies are or were roleplayers. There childhood and background not only influences their style, but directs the types of projects greenlit for production. Right now, nerds rule the world–and we are better for it!

So not only do I have a birthday, but a few days later, I’m going to see a movie that I’ve waited 35 years for: Bladerunner 2049. This December we have a new Star Wars movies coming out!! On TV we have The Expanse, The Handmaidens Tale, The Man in the High Castle and Game of Thrones. What other shows or movies do we have to look forward to in the near future? Here are just a few:

  1. A new season of Stranger Things in October. I blogged about the first season last year and anticipating this new season of a show that celebrates 80’s pop culture.
  2. The Name of the Wind. Movie, TV show…sign me up!
  3. Ringworld. I never received my high school diploma because of overdue library books (yes, I still graduated, just never got the piece of paper). The two I didn’t return: The Dirty Dozen and Ringworld.
  4. Snowcrash. One of the seminal cyberpunk books
  5. Ready Player One. Much like Stranger Things, the book was an ode to all things 80’s.

It might have taken 35 years, but what a time it is. How about a Shadow World movie! What fantasy or Sci-fi are you looking forward to in the coming years?

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The writing and work process. Embrace the 80% rule.

If you are reading this, you probably play RPG’s and, at some point at least dabbled in writing adventure material. Peter and I have solicited for new contributors to this blog–both articles and adventures but without a lot of response. I know writers are out there…so where are they?

Writing ready to publish material is tough and takes a lot more work than jotting down some adventure notes that might be suitable for a GM running an adventure. But we aren’t asking for print ready material and at this point, a steady stream of adventure or support material can only help the game.

I encourage readers that have written material, adventure ideas, or want to try their hand at putting out there work to embrace a simple trick. What am I talking about: the “80% rule”, which is also known as the “Pareto Principle“.

The Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule, the law of the vital few, or the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. … 

Similarly, you can get 80% of the work done with 20% of the effort. Don’t worry about page setting, sentence structure, spelling or graphics. Get the bulk of the idea down, the rough narrative finished or the new spell list outlined out. Don’t sacrifice the perfect for the good! When you hit a writers block or run the idea or creative process out, either take a break or work on something different. This 80% rule isn’t hard and fast, it’s a guideline.

I’m a big believer in the 80% rule in many aspects of my life. This makes me a prolific writer but an imperfect self-publisher. Most of my material is pretty raw, but the trick to my writing is the 80% rule–get the bulk of the idea, concept, narrative or story down in writing and move on. The rest of it–finalizing, small details, proofing, editing, layout is the more arduous work that takes time, perhaps expertise and PATIENCE. I would rather be prolific than perfect. Now I’ve started to go back through my various projects: BASiL, SWARM, Legends of SW, Book of Pales, Empire of the Black Dragon, and Priest-King of Shade and finalizing it. I had hoped to have editorial support for some of these works, but now I’m just pushing ahead on my own. So now I’m dealing with the other side: the last 20% takes 80% of the time!

What does all this mean? Writing is EASY! However, writing good, finished ready-to-print material is HARD. Peter and I pumped out 50 adventure seeds of varying length in just a few weeks. Sure, much of our work could use competent editing and feedback, but it was down on paper. 80% was easily done. After that, the adventure hooks need layouts, formatting and finishing up.

 

the take away is this. Don’t be intimidated by the lack of professionalism or polish in your material. And if you have an adventure, world setting, or just an idea send it to RolemasterBlog. It doesn’t have to be “published ready”–follow the 80% rule and just get it out there. Maybe we can help polish it up. Maybe it really is ready for a free download. Or maybe an experienced GM can fit it to their game or campaign.