Another Discord discussion caught my attention and I wanted to provide a few additional thoughts on high level Rolemaster. I’ve blogged about this a few times and the following posts might be worth reviewing:
I’ve now run my “Legends of Shadow World” roughly 11 times. That’s the average of all 5 chapters but I’ve run Chapter 1 twice that and the last chapter only half a dozen times. (although that’s my favorite).
MY overall impression is that Rolemaster holds up VERY well at high levels and its FUN! At the risk of repeating a few notes from previous blogs I’d offer the following:
- Melee. Offense v Defense Player Mindset. 1st Edition Rolemaster explicitly built in the OB/DB mechanism as a core mechanic that modelled a combatants defensive posture and added some tactical complexity to simple “roll for results” of D&D. However, my experience is that few players want to dedicate much, if any, OB to parrying and that does lead to a disconnect in the remaining game mechanics: criticals, damage types etc. Simply put, players are looking to maximize their changes of hitting and getting a critical. Every swing is an attempt at a home run. But RM’s famed lethality is meant to temper player aggression and utilize the parrying mechanic. Unlike lower leves with low OB’s, every attack roll result is random with unknown results. However, when using high level characters with OB of 150 to 200, you basically need to roll over the defendants DB to automatically hit and max out the attack table and critical result. The first attack becomes essential to disable, stun or incapacitate the foe. My experience is that players behaviors don’t change, and they still rarely use significant OB allocation to parrying even though at higher levels it’s even more essential to parry to avoid a killing blow directed at them.
- Magic. Spell Types. A quick perusal of spells show a considerable bias towards attack and damage spells. I did a deep analysis for BASiL year ago, but I think it was a 6 to 1 ratio of attack vs defense/protection spells. From a player engagement attack spells were more varied, more fun and more engaging than the handful of protection spells. Furthermore, while attack spells allowed for significant damage (tactical importance to gameplay) while defensive spells were generally weak, 1 dimensional, boring or to specific to use effectively in gameplay.
It’s my belief that the weighting of attack importance to defense contributes to problems encountered or perceived in high level play. While player behaviors towards OB/DB split can be trained into players, ell Law has structural issues that can’t be addressed through player choice. That was one of the mandates of BASiL–nuance and complexity in spell use and choice. That’s not to say that I solved all problems, or my solutions are better than anyone else; I constantly tinker with BASiL based on player feedback, game results and playtesting. But I stongly believe that Spell Law design should be weighted towards defensive/protection spells and not the other way around. It might be a subtle difference, but it would impact gameplay and could avoid the Fireball/Fly/Invisible Mage that outperforms Fighters fairly early on the level curve.