I think this is the longest I have ever gone without posting on the blog, excepting when I was plugged into hospital machines but I try to forget that bit. Every time I have thought about writing a post, there has been some new article from either Hurin or Brian.
I am also in a period where I haven’t played so much Rolemaster since I left home in 1985. After years of resisting online play my group has gone Fantasy Grounds crazy with two games a week now, Tuesdays and Fridays.
I used to have months to prep sessions, and that is cut down to days, and FG combats are so fast to adjudicate that where I would allot an hour for a battle previously, they now take twenty minutes at most. A fight last week ran to twelve rounds, three characters against a sea serpent. The beast was hard to kill because it was ignoring many criticals and effects. Twelve rounds with four combatants, including area of effect attacks was done and dusted in twenty minutes.
New Project #1 Sabre Lake
I saw a map recently by Dyson Logos.
It appeared so rich in adventure locations that I wanted to detail it all and run exploring the region for my players. They are on route there at the moment, but as they are first level, and only on their second adventure, they will have a few side quests along the way.
What I am doing is chopping this map into smaller blocks, the first is a rectangle that covers The Fool’s Rush Inn to Hebrek’s Tower. I am then detailing the adventure locations, both for my own players, but also in the fanzine.
I detailed both the inn and the tower, this month (Issue #45) but left some areas undetailed to give other GMs places to put their own ideas.
In February I will detail the Violet Obelisk and the Dench Estate.
Over the rest of the year I am going to try and cover the entire river valley.
All the adventures will only use the monsters from Creatures & Treasures I and Creatures & Monsters. This means that they adventures will be playable in all versions of RM, including RMu.
Project #2 Pilot RPG
I did start this in December, but then stalled. It is my definite intention to get this written and published as a public beta in the first half of 2021.
I am also tempted to try my hand at a Kickstarter. So I will write the first draft, then use KS funds to add a level of professional polish to the finished game.
As with Navigator RPG the game will be in print and as PDF. Putting the two together will give the community a community content/OGL rulebase for both Sci-Fi and fantasy that is broadly RM compatible.
I will then talk to OneBookShelf/DriveThruRPG about setting up a Community Content Programme.
This project will in all likelihood take up most of 2021, but it will also be a really interesting learning experience.
One further benefit of online play is that you can put fog of war on the map, set the lighting settings to 10′ or 20′ on a party token, and let them explore the map as they go. They will gradually uncover it. If you put the hidden map features in the GM layer (this is Roll20; I assume Fantasy Grounds has something similar), which is invisible to players, you can then reveal those features when they players get near to them.
I’m sure you know all this but for those unfamiliar with online play, this can make exploration a lot of fun!
Fantasy Grounds doesn’t have the dynamic lighting that Roll20 does, at least not yet. There are twice weekly automatic updates, so lots of stuff that didn’t make it into the initial release is getting added. It does line of sight, and it is quite nice with the way that it handles doors, secret doors, terrain and that sort of stuff. You can definitely explore/reveal a map as you go.
Now if we can just get an RMU character sheet for Roll20! There was considerable talk of one on the boards, and some from the developers, but it seems like Fantasy Grounds has always gotten better Rolemaster support than Roll20.