The Rolemaster Blog

When I build anything from towns to taverns I always start with the people. Once I have created the people who provide the essential services to make the location work and then add their families I have a rough working population. That then tells me how large a place it is. In a tavern you need the landlord or barkeep, a chef/cook, a server or two. In a small out of the way place that could be a husband and wife with their own children or they could be staff and unrelated. What makes taverns though is the client base.

My first thought, inspired by the news that they are going to start filming the next series of Poldark this month was to have a couple of smugglers conspiring at one end of the bar. Whether any of the drinks being sold are contraband or not depends on the landlord I suppose but smugglers are a good way of introducing a sub plot.

Taverns are resting stops, the motorway services of their time so you are highly likely to encounter a royal/imperial dispatch rider or messenger or even two going in different directions. These two would have a natural affinity and are likely to be sharing what new and gossip they personally know regarding their missions even if they do not know the contents of the messages they carry. If something were to happen to one or more of these and the message simply had to get through…

Merchants are not that likely to sleep under the stars and depending on the nature of the world are likely to have a few guards or men at arms with them. Now whether they mix well and get on with their men at arms or not is a different matter. It may be that with those men at arms it has been nigh on impossible to rob any of these merchants on the road but now they are sleeping inside while their wagons are secured outside opportunity knocks.

I can also imagine a foolish young man showing off some valuable item for too many people to see. Maybe a jilted lover drowning his sorrows and showing off a betrothal ring to anyone who can answer why she won’t defy her father?

I think all of these are run of the mill and happening in every tavern in every game more or less. So what about some other less obvious adventure hooks?

So all of the above are happening in the tap room most likely but what about some fugitives hiding in the cellar? Why are they hiding? Probably because there is a gang of ruffians holding a dog or cock fight in the centre of the cellar. the ruffians are part of the smugglers crew who are too well know by the local law to drink in the tap room. There is of course also a secret passage from the cellar to either out on the road or down to a cove depending if the tavern is by the coast.

If any weapon is banned in the realm chances are there is a crate full of them down here somewhere. In my world swords carry a 1sp tax for any blade over 12″ long to try and discourage people carrying too many weapons. All it has achieved is to make 11″ daggers popular, made thieves conceal their weapons and created a black market for untaxed blades.

So that is the basement pretty full what about upstairs? The roof is where the homeless would often choose to sleep. They are out of the way of the law who may try and move them on. Heat rises so it is warmer than a doorway.

The attic is a really good place to have a secret meeting, hide bodies, store your deceased mother and her rocking chair and perform ritual magic and summonings. This would means that there is probably a dodge spell caster staying in the tavern. We may have met him or her in the tap room earlier or they could be keeping themselves to themselves in their room.

And so to the private rooms…

The best place to meet a thief or cut throat has to be when they are coming out of *your* room. At least at that point you can be pretty sure they are not just accidentally carrying off your saddlebags.

If the walls are pretty thin and you can hear everything then having someone performing an incantation or ritual all night and keeping the players awake is always interesting. If the party can identify it as some kind of ward against evil it is hard to complain about someone trying to keep you safe!

On the other side of the players room you can have two guys arguing, one plotting to murder a tyrant and the other against violence. This works well if at breakfast the next morning it turns out that the two people from that room are twins. Which one is the potential regicide and which is against it?

There are so many ways of offering your players adventures that this is just a selection of ideas I have had today. Any of these could spin off into a evenings diversion or a major adventure. It is up to them and you.

As you know I just finished rereading The Crystal Shard which is the fourth book in the legend of Drizzt. There are twenty eight books in the entire legend series so you can be fairly certain that if you are reading book four that the main character is not going to die despite how dire his circumstances may get. As GMs as opposed to authors though it seems that without the existential threat of player character death then there is no stick and if you only us the carrot of treasure all the time the game soon become too over powered or rich.

If you give great wealth away but then take it back by robbery, trickery or other nefarious means then the players will soon stop being motivated by money as they know they will not be able to spend it. There is also the problem of can the players even carry it all or if they have a base to operate from why bother adventuring if you are as rich as Croesus? Using items of great wealth has similar issues or even worse if you start giving away items that can be used in adventuring such as magical kit. Non adventuing kit is often not really valued by the players because it doesn’t really add to their enjoyment of the game right here and now.

So carrots on their own are not very good motivators for player characters. You need the stick some times.

If you are never going to kill the player characters then the players will start to throw their characters around knowing they are invulnerable. I saw this happening in the last game I played in. Once the players got seriously wounded the GM was obviously fudging the dice rolls to keep the players alive.

Killing player characters does seem at first glance to be a bit drastic but player character death does not have to be final and irreversable.

In my current face to face game the party is sponsored by a priest from a local church. This means that as long as the party can get a dead character back to the church then there is a chance of being raised. At least while the party remain in and around Shadowdale. Once they move away then things will get more difficult for them. The party is between first and third level so the chances of a character death is probably higher now than it will be later*. I do have the option of packing the party off with a rune of life giving if I want to make a player character death a setback not a disaster.

In the game I mentioned earlier the party had a potion of life giving which they had been carrying around for quite a while. If I was the GM I would have been very tempted to kill a player to make they aware they are mortal just because I knew the party could bring them back. As it was I think the GM forgot the party had the potion so was not inclined to kill anyone.

I don’t think players should be dying left right and centre, if they are then probably the encounters are over powered for them. I think though that knowing that the GM will not save you make the party more risk averse and consequently heroic actions more heroic. Stupid actions though will cost the party and have consequences.

There is of course the player that just deserves to be killed but that is another story…

So do you kill players or not? Do you think that the risk of death adds anything to the game or does it detract?

*At low levels the spell casters are so limited that a fight that takes down the principle fighters leaves the spell casters exposed. Higher level spell casters on the other hand can fly, go invisible or teleport to get themselves out of deadly situations making a total party wipeout less likely.

Most professions in Rolemaster can only afford to develop one class or weapon. It just gets too expensive and too slow to learn more than one unless you are a pure fighter type.  Over the years I have come down to three favourite weapons that I seem to go back to again and again.

In order of preference I think they must be…

1. Spear
   There are two really cool things about spears. The sheer number of ‘similar weapons’ that you can apply the skill to and its versatiity in its own right. You can use it one handed with shield, two handed and if needed you can throw it. It is similar to staves, polearms, javalins, pilums and the ultimately cool weapon the mounted lance. You can poke suspicious objects with it from a distance and even polevault with it.

   

2.  Hand Axe
   This is another ‘swiss army knife’ of a weapon. Not only is it a useful tool, you can climb with it, throw it, fight with one in each hand and it is similar to the shortsword. The hand axe is also relatively easy to conceal within a backpack unlike a broadsword by comparison.

   

3. Shortsword
   What did the romans ever do for us? It appears the answer is quite a long list but shortsword and shield is a classic combination that worked well enough for the roman empire. This is another in hand or thrown weapon, concealable and comes in a variety of sizes? Why is that important? Because some are no bigger than a lot of daggers so you can use it at full skill in that roll. A lot of town guard object to people hauling swords around town on a night out but a dagger for personal protection is accepted. With your trusty shortsword you get to have both AND you get to do that Crocodile Dundee scene “That’s not a knife, now that’s a knife”.

   

I can imagine a lot of Rolemaster old hands will say that none of these weapons do a huge about of damage. That is true but in RM it is rarely the ‘hits’ that take you down. It is the criticals that kill you and give or take 5-10 points on your attack roll most weapons are pretty similar in that respect. For those characters that want to get into hand to hand then their OB (offensive bonus) massively outstrip most people DB (defensive bonus) and maxing out the attack tables is a common thing by the time you reach 5th level or so.

So those are my top three. What is your favourite weapon(s)?