Missing my Dose of Rolemaster

Right about now, I should be knee deep in the preparation for my gaming weekend. We would get together for a long weekend of Rolemaster. Me running my game in the Forgotten Realms, and I get to play my Lay Healer in a home brew world or exceptionally high magic.

My players are going head to head with a Dark Stalker, which has been pumped up in level. They know it is coming and think they have laid a trap for it. This is a cliffhanger moment that was not supposed to take a year or more to resolve.

It is also becoming increasingly difficult to keep the blog going. RMu discussions are pointless, the beta is closed, the rules locked down. There is nothing to talk about there.

I am not playing or even doing much prepping, so that is not throwing up many interesting situations or questions.

The RM community is moving over towards Discord, and that answers questions in minutes, where a blog is a long answer format.

I could move over to Fantasy Grounds or Roll20 but I have never enjoyed those VTT platforms. Is bad rolemaster better than no rolemaster? At the moment, not for me.

That could be that I have never had a great VTT GM. I know that many people love VTT games. It is just not my thing. It is not helped in that my broadband is satellite, I get a ping time often up to a second, which gives me massive lag with any kind of streaming or live feed.

I could write about the 50in50 adventures, but too much of that, too often, and it starts to feel a bit spammy. The blog does not exist to flog stuff to the readers. The adventures are written to support the readers. The first time we released one a week, but you couldn’t play them that fast, and that was when people had regular weekly games.

This time we are going a bit slower. Less 50in50, more 50 in whenever…

I most definitely have that ‘enough covid, I want to move on now…’ feeling.

9 Replies to “Missing my Dose of Rolemaster”

  1. Agreed. I’m really struggling to write blog posts. Between COVID, the economy and the election it’s hard to focus on RPGs! I also feel like RM is poised at this point of transition and most of the conversation is around RMu. Personally, I’m just going to keep going with RM2 and Shadow World.

    On the plus side, 50in50 2 has been easier to write. My only issue is I keep adjusting and adding to my hooks!

    Finally, I’ve always been frustrated with the lack of participation here on the blog. Is it the format? Do people feel like they can’t contribute in a meaningful way or are hesitant to write a post themselves? Based on the Discord, there seems to be a core group that are interested in writing content and have opinions.

    You’ve done a great job and I’m just going to plod along adding to my own body of work and making an effort to continually improve my writing and ideas.

  2. I’m guilty of posting very little of late; it has just been a difficult semester. In addition to the challenge of moving teaching online, I have a heavier than normal course load. Plus, I’m starting to prep for a new RMu campaign in Shadow World, and I might have to run that online too (which adds to the prep).

    I’ve been desperately trying to finish the spell lists for my RMu version of the Armsmaster and Warlord for the last three months or so, and just haven’t found the time. I am liking the way these spells are going, but the Armsmaster is only half done and the Warlord is still in the planning stages.

  3. I find one problem with VTT games is often the time they are played. Unless you have UK or European players, you need to be willing to be up in the middle of the night. And that’s just not fun.

  4. My group have moved to online gaming, Roll20 and Teams. It is not ideal by any stretch of the imagination, but we realised that by keeping the weekly game going we would keep the group momentum. The fear we have is allowing the group to break until we can get face to face again would lead to apathy.

    Perhaps you could partake in some non RM games over a VTT? Then use the findings from these other systems to introduce new concepts to RM, or simply contrast the differences between the systems.

    No matter what, I just want to say I really enjoy the blog. The difference between the blog and Discord is the permanence of the blog. Keep going! 🙂

    1. It is not a problem with Rolemaster and VTT, it is the combination of technology, satellite broadband and live streaming just doesn’t go, and I seem to struggle with the ‘people talking over each other’ that happens when playing. I just don’t think I cam cut out for it.

      1. Ah, I see, yep that is a tough situation to be in. Hopefully things will get under control where you are, so you can get back to face to face gaming sooner than later.

        In the meantime, maybe this is a chance to look at related games and do a deep dive into them, seeing how they compare with RM (and if there is anything that would be useful to RM players). I really enjoyed the readthrough of HARP articles, and would be interested to see your take on some of the other books such as CoM and ML (especially as HARP Subterfuge and Bestiary are edging closer to release)…. or even VsD now that the PDF is out.

  5. Since I’ve pretty much written off RMU for my modern stuff, I don’t feel like I have much to contribute here. Between that and the fact that most of my house rules (including profession changes) don’t seem to fit especially well with RMU concepts writ large, it’s hard to come up with something that would be meaningful to most people here. I don’t plan on shifting to RMU based in the final Beta stuff, and I don’t use Shadow World. So that limits anything I could contribute.

  6. We struggle to achieve that flow on VTT (actually it is video/audio thing rather than the interface). Like Ylissa we play because the alternative is nothing and we can play more frequently (no travelling).

    Blog for personal thoughts and a considered concept. Forum for recording and thrashing out views. Discord for Q&A. Although like you I’m just finding the activity repetitive. Then there is the version spats ☹️

  7. I haven’t played RM for years really want to get back into it, but also choosing the right VTTs to play with. I know there is a lot going for fantasy grounds with the fact that it’s just about ready to play rolemaster. I know it’s possible but getting the other VTTs to carry out the open ended roll is a mission, or at least from what I’ve seen. I would be interested to know how people use the VTTs running their games, are they using maps, and handouts, or are they using it to run battles.

    Used to play RM, I did have a long running campaign, but also moved on to RMSS when it came out, just one off games or maybe a two or three sessions. Life just got in the way, I know from this forum, discord and the ice forum, that this is the way of the world for just about everyone.

    I did have have forgotten realms campaign that I found a long time back, at the time I knew I could run it so it’s been sitting on my hard disc, waiting for me to get organized.
    I wanted to convert it to rolemaster, did start doing a bit then as I didn’t have a group to play with it sort of got forgotten, other things became more important, I guess it would also need a bit of updating now too.

    Now I have the problem of wanting to run it still but not really sure if wanting to use RMC which I think everyone uses mainly, or to wait and then use RMu when it comes out, or do I run it using the beta version, and then make any changes when the final version comes out. Which ever system I use I need to familiarise myself with rules as it’s been so long. I have read through most of the beta version of RMu, and did make a character or two, but wasn’t too sure as to how much change there was going to be with the final release, so sort of left it.

    Still have a lot going on, it’s changed from child care to parent care or at least in part. Also I have a new puppy, who is coming around but she’s 7 months old now, and still needs time spent with her. Lost my older dog in March, with lock down just need a dog around, glad we got her.

    I have looked at some of the VTTs I like the idea, but I’ve working from home now due the COVID, but even before that due to personal circumstances and have been using first Skype and now moving on to teams for work, which got me thinking about looking at playing or maybe even running a game.

    Not sure if my wife would be that impressed with me then running or playing in a game of an evening or an afternoon. One the fact that I’m talking, possibly loudly and two not with her. And that’s part of what I do all day, talking loudly. There are doors I can shut, but again that’s separation issue, one the puppy but also from my wife’s point of view.

    The time zone thing also sort of sucks, I’m in the UK, so not sure how easy I would be to find a group of players, I’m sure they are out there. I know that it is possible to have players from around the world it just need some thinking and consideration from all, although trying convince my wife of this might not be so easy.

    I would love to write articles, but have never really thought about it, don’t really know where to start, is there an article there waiting to be written?

    I have been playing catch up on your forum, as well as ICE, and discord, and have looked in a couple of online conventions, which was good to speak to Nicholas and Colin.

    I do Keep an eye out for your posts, it’s good to know your thoughts on things, every time I go and have a look at your forum I find something that I haven’t read so it all refreshing, and I am very interested in your forgotten realms conversion stuff. Brian’s Shadow World stuff is good too it was Shadow World where my long running campaign took place all the years ago, if only I could get back into that place again.

    Keep up the good work.

    Keith

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