The Rolemaster Blog

In December I wrote an encounter. The gist of it was that the characters come across an angel trying to deliver a message to some shepherds but the angel gets attacked by some big tough demons. The characters get to make the choice to intervene or not, if the angel is defeated it will try to pass on its message for the characters to deliver, and so on.

D&D has celestials as a type of monster, big tough angels. Rolemaster doesn’t have them or if it does I had an absolute failure in my research skill roll when looking for them.

In place of the missing celestial stats I used the stats for an Oriental Dragon and just changed the physical form factor to that of an Angel and tweaked the odd ability here or there. I was pretty pleased with the result.

The oriental dragon version of the angel was not my first choice. I started out by making a Hira’razhir cleric but their default level is only 3rd and that was not the sort of thing I was looking for in this encounter. I could have leveled up the Hira’razhir cleric but that was too much effort (I am extremely lazy).

All through this my thinking is very much RM2/RMC. I am 100% sure that the same effects could be achieved with RMSS/FRP and even more so with RMu with its archetypes and seven million talents. What I wanted could just as easily be botched, jury-rigged or finely crafted. Whether the end results would be any different depending on the route you took is open to debate.

The positive thing is that both options are available. The GMs that like to handcraft every encounter can be satisfied by taking a Hira’razhir and giving it a profession, all the racial stat modifiers are in C&T to roll up your NPC with the full profession and spell lists and everything that goes with it.

Equally, I could tweak a stat here, an ability there and change the physical description and the encounter was good to go.

Could I have done the same thing in D&D? I am not sure both options are available. The botch and make it up is definitely an option. Creating a monster strictly adhering to the monster design rules, I am not sure if they exist. My D&D experience ends with AD&D and Basic/Expert so I am drawing on a distant and outdated set of knowledge.

A few years ago I was involved in editing a version of the 5e SRD and at that time I honestly do not remember seeing monster creation rules in the book. That could just mean that they are not part of the SRD.

So I know I can easily botch, jury-rig and craft a monster in RM. What about competing systems?

RuneQuest

RuneQuest uses the concept that every creature can be a player character and as such, they are all customizable. Creating unique monsters is catered for in the rules. In addition, RuneQuest uses a skill shorthand, such as a single figure to use for all skill tests, Ogres get 20% in all skills except the few that really define their orgrishness. Having these rules of thumb or shorthand techniques makes botching something up quickly a viable option.

Zweihander

Zwei has two approaches. The first is treating all similar creatures as one. A Man Eater could be a lion, tiger, wolf or whatever. The basic stats do not change, just the visual appearance to the characters. You can have half a dozen basic templates and cover the entire natural animal kingdom. The same approach is taken with monstrous things. They are split into broad categories and from them you can dress them up as you like. Zwei also has a full cast of truly unique creatures, the same as any system but the general approach is that the role play trumps the need for unique stats for everything.

The second approach is found in the companion Main Gauche. In this book, you get a blank template and all the rules necessary to make any monster. These are the same rules used to create the stats for the core rules.

Zwei leads with botch it but backs that up with fully customizable monsters using a rules-driven process. A unique monster takes about 20-40 minutes if you have to read as you go.

Chivalry & Sorcery

One of the cornerstones of C&S is that Monsters are people too. What that means in practice is that they are just as customizable as player characters. Think of them as NPCs.

It may just be my lack of experience with the rules but I found this the slowest game to create a unique monster in. It may get quicker over time but or it may just have been me. I fact is that the rules for customization are there.

vsDarkmaster

It is so long since I have read these rules that I could not fairly compare them. I also read an early beta rather than the finalised rules. What I am expecting though is no more trouble than RM presented. They share the same DNA and when I have compared monsters across systems before there was barely any difference, a few points of DB here and a few points of DB there.

Conclusions?

What I was hoping to find was that RM was more flexible than most. RM has always prided itself on its modular design and how everything is tweakable. It turns out that all the d100 systems I looked at offer the same flexibility. Some wanted you to go down the rules driven route while others were happy to promote the botch it and see method. Which is ‘best’ is a personal GMing style question.

Is this a function of the d100 system? If everything is operating on the same general scale does it lend itself to tweaking the figures?

Is it the butterfly effect where some small event begins a chain of events with significantly bigger but unforeseen consequences?

I cannot even remember the conversation that started it but I ended up emailing back and forth with Ken Wickham, from the ICE forums and trying out his super light ABS12 game system. Ken got me talking about 3Deep, my vanity project d6 system and I sent him a very rough first draft of the rules. Prior to that, it ran entirely from my memory as it was written by me for me.

One thing lead to another and I published 3Deep as PDF and Print on Demand, I then, at Ken’s suggestion, bundled up some blog posts and started selling them. The idea of selling collected blog posts turned into the fanzine and today I have released the 33rd monthly issue.

Enter Brian Hanson and Egcdld on to the scene and we started doing the 50 in 50 adventures. From there I started adventure and supplement writing as a serious hobby. All the while I kept up this blog. Sometimes it settles back to an easy once a week, sometimes it ramps up to a more exciting a blog a day for a special event.

Finding things to write about, week in week out for years is sometimes a challenge. I saw a really nice series of blog posts by Jeremy Friesen called Let’s read “Stars Without Number”. Rather than a book review Jeremy dedicated a blog post per chapter and did a really detailed look at the rulebook. This appealed to me. I don’t like reviewing things I haven’t played as a single blog post. It hardly seems fair to take years of someone’s work and reduce it down to 500 words, spout an opinion on it, having never actually used it in the way it was written to be used, i.e. playing the game. The Let’s Read idea solved that problem. Yes, I may not have played a game but I am not glossing over most of it in just 500 words, here are 6,000 words over two months showing I have really read your work. It also serves the purpose of I know what I am going to write about for the next two months when I take on one of these extended Let’s Read projects.

Let’s Read lead to a read-through of Zweihander. That, in turn, lead to me starting to write supplements and adventures for that system. This was at the beginning of 2019. In the same way that I can be rather prolific on this blog, I can also be rather prolific on Discord and I am an active member on the Zwei (or Grim & Perilous) discord server.

I have always loved collaborating with people, think back to the 50 in 50 adventures, and in the Zwei dicord I put together collaborative projects know as the Grim & Perilous Book of … Where the last word was one of Chases, Murder or Monster. The basic idea was to get people teetering on the brink of becoming publishers to take the first step. Rather than take on an entire project or adventure module on their own, they could submit a single scene, monster or encounter to the collaborative project. It was an easy point of entry to publishing and I paid everyone on a royalty basis managed by DriveThruRPG.

I believe the three books I pushed forward are all silver best sellers or on the cusp of gaining their silver badge. My best selling supplement for Zwei is an Electrum best seller today but not far off of a Gold best-seller medal.

Zwei became my testbed for Rolemaster projects. They have so much in common, gritty d100, skill based and simulationist with an emphasis on actual wounds over hit points of damage. They use an AP based combat round and there are dozens of other points of similarity. This is not unusual. If you want to write a gritty simulationist d100 fantasy RPG you are starting at the same point and using the same tools. At the end of the process, you are never going to be that far from the same destination.

My interest in publishing continues to grow. I have published 3Deep as PDF and Print on Demand (POD), Devil’s Staircase was successfully crowdfunded and published both as PDF and POD. Navigator RPG is in playtest (and looking good) with a new version of the playtest document nearly ready to upload and finally a new game The Things That Grown Ups Cannot See [Things!] is being proofed and edited prior to its playtest release.

Things! is another collaborative project with the writers drawn from the Zweihander creator community.

On Friday the creator of Zweihander and I had a Skype call and he offered me the chance of becoming Art Director of Grim & Perilous Studios, responsible for the POD products for the Grim & Perilous Studios Community Content Program, known as the Grim & Perilous Library.

This puts me in a funny old position. I have always ‘goaded’ ICE with the point that as a private individual I could do X, Y and Z. I wanted to see more access for 3rd party ‘indie’ publishers, ideally a community content program. I have repeatedly tried to purchase an official license to write for RM but with no success. The attempts on the forums to create an adventure path have faltered and appear to have died, but in the fanzine I have written one to the best of my ability. The Guild Companion has faltered and gone the way of the Norwegian Blue, but this blog is still going strong and puts out more free content than the Companion has managed for several years now. The Guild Adventurer managed 4 issues in about 7 years. The fanzine has run to 33 issues so far.

I have produced two adventures, The Jungle Collection is a standalone adventure module, and Plague, Famine & War is a four-part mini-campaign. If ICE had a Community Content Program they would have earned money of every single sale.

I cannot help but think, if this is one person, what could two, three or ten people do?

Now, I will be helping people to achieve everything I have always wanted to achieve but for a game system that could be the death knell for Rolemaster as a viable game system.

None of us are ever going to stop playing it. I am not suggesting that. I mean we are all getting older, players will inevitably drift away, groups break up, old GMs and players die off. There must be countless players who would want to play RM but the only game in town is 5e. Without new blood where do new customers come from? Without customers, where is the community? Who is going to drive RM forward into the 2020s and 2030s?

Zweihander has that community, it has that following. As more games go to PDF and POD only, Zwei has gone the other way and you can buy it in bookstores all over the place. Every month that goes by does not put RMu in a stronger position. It is odd to be enjoying the success and dynamism of Zwei but deep down knowing that this is what RM should be doing.

I hope 2020 pans out to be a good year for everyone.

I have to say that I am a little disappointed that we didn’t see RMu released in 2019. I am not that surprised but I am disappointed. If the game was close to release I would have expected to see a ramping up of marketing and promotion activities. There are so many places to get exposure these days. I am basically a nobody in the gaming world and even I get multiple offers to be interviewed or join discussion panels for podcasts and discord live chats every month. Prior to the release of RMu, I would expect to see Nicholas everywhere!

I also expect to see a review copy as or before RMu hits the (virtual) shelves. It would be ironic if it ends up that I have done 10 part read through reviews of HARP (which is old) and Zweihander (which is a direct competitor as a gritty d100 setting neutral RPG) but don’t get to review RMu which is the lifeblood of the blog going forward from 2020 onwards.

If you have been reading the blog fanzine in 2019 you will know I have been writing an RMu adventure path. That went from the first encounter to a climactic finale in 2019. In 2020 I am building that outwards, adding side quests and more setting information. The intention is to make it less railroady and give GMs more options. The January issue looks at Halfling culture in my south Asian setting and adds in halfling related side quests.

2020 also looks like it is being targetted by a resurgent RuneQuest. They are pushing their creator resources and kickstarting (figuratively) their Community Content Programme. Chaosium has also run discounts on Call of Cthulhu core rules. If there is a resurgence in interest in the 1980s brands, this could be a good thing for Rolemaster. The difficulty is that it could also mean that between Zwei and RuneQuest, how many d100 systems does a gamer need and if RQ is first to market will that have scratched the retro itch before RMu gets a chance?

It also calls into question the multi-core book model. RuneQuest is offered as a single volume complete system for under $30 and Zwei does the same for under $40. The RQ free quickstart has even won and ENNIE award for the best free product. I do worry that the price of entry into the RM world could be too high. I look forward to seeing Nicholas’s plans for the launch of RMu.

It feels like my Rolemaster life is all on hold waiting for RMu. My game and my playing aren’t scheduled until February, and January can seem like a long, dark month. I think we should all send positive thoughts to Nicholas’s way and hope that the editing passes all go smoothly. I don’t want to be writing a whistful post about the imminent arrival of RMu this time next year.

That is one of the lyrics from the Band Aid/Live Aid song “Do they Know Its Christmas?”

Even first level characters wield more power than your typical villager and the party even more so. The typical party is an independent group with a broad skillset and more often than not magical support.

There are a whole class of adventures that start with the characters trying to assist with some kind of humanitarian disaster, fire, flood, disease, and so on.

Frequently, the adventure then progresses to the party finding the root cause, normally a villains nefarious plan, and defeating it. Adventure solved.

Some of these adventures can dispense with the dastardly villain. If you have an evolving or degenerating situation, a town or city wide fire is a great example, the disaster itself can up the drama and risks and challenges.

As a GM, we can plot a timeline of probable events. If the disaster was a fire you could plot in the start of an organised bucket chain as the towns folk try to fight the fire, a stampede down narrow streets from animals that had spooked and are fleeing the fire. The collapse of the main temple roof sending burning debris high into the air and starting food fires all over town. The burning and collapse of a bridge cutting off the escape of half the town. You can have set plays you can apply anywhere or any time to action flags, a child cut off in an upstairs room, an person pinned down by a burning roof beam, nuns or priestesses trapped in a burning church.

You can build an entire dramatic adventure around this sort of scene. There are many challenges, opportunities for skill checks and magic use but no need for combat, you still get to inflict burn criticals and fall crush attacks (with secondary burn criticals if you want to be mean) so you can have an existential threat to your characters but no need to have an actual fight.

We could now set this entire disaster in a town during a winter religious festival, which is why so many people are crammed into the town, no room at the inn…

You can end the adventure with the characters being praised as being real heroes, assuming they deserve it. You can top it off with the surviving townsfolk giving the characters gifts as a thank you for their efforts. Maybe Tiny Tim, the child rescued from the burning house, has carved a little wooden action figure of his benefactor and wants to give it to him or her as a thank you.

Who would have thought you could make the medieval version of Towering Inferno into a nice little ‘feel good’ Christmas adventure session?

This post may be a bit jumbled, I was reading, writing and the calaculations all at the same time, bouncing between HARP, Spell Law, College of Magics and my own notes.

HARP College of Magics.

This is a little bit of a weird book for HARP. It absolutely must have been intended to be part of the core rules. In the core book magicians have an upper limit for the number of spells they can learn that is greater than the number of spells in the core rules. Either it was intended that this book be compulsory or it just didn’t make the release deadline.

What is contains that excites me is a formal set of rules for spell creation and in HARP parlance, scaling.

I am not going to reproduce the rules in detail as they are clearly ICE intellectual property. I am going to work through a few examples of spell creation.

First up is Light. In Rolemaster this would be a set of spells Light I, Light II and so on.

Using Channeling as my base we get this progression.

2^nd Light I
4^th Light II
8^th Light III
9^th Utterlight I
13^th Light V
15^th Light X
17^th Utterlight V
18^th Mass Light
50^th Mass Utterlight

2. Light I – Lights a 10’R area about the point touched; if the point is on a mobile object or being, it will move with the object/being. If this spell is cast onto a target, they get a RR. If the RR succeeds, the light is centered on the point where they are standing, but will not move with them. If the target fails the RR the light remains centered on the target and will follow with them until it is dispelled, or the duration ends.

Under HARP rules these are one spell with different scaling options. Here is the Light spell.

Light

PP Cost: 6
Range: Touch
Duration: 10 rounds/rank
Spell Type: Utility
RR: — Spheres: Universal
Description: Creates a small globe of light centered upon the point touched. This globe will be as bright as a torch and illuminate up to a 20’ radius area. If the point touched is mobile then the spell will move when the point is moved. The caster may vary the illumination from the maximum size down to a small point with a round of concentration.
Scaling Options:
Increase Duration (1 minute/rank) +5 PP
Increase Duration (10 minutes/rank) +6 PP
Increase Radius (up to 50’) +3 PP
Increase Radius (up to 100’) +8 PP
Utterlight (no magical darkness may exist in radius) +6 PP
Artificial Daylight (works on certain undead as sunlight) +6 PP

The most obvious difference at first glance is that:

HARP Light costs 6PP and RM Light is 2PP,

HARP Utterlight I is 18PP while RM Utterlight is 9PP

At first glance I cannot see a direct correlation between HARP PP costs and RM levels.

If we were a Magician the levels would have been slightly different.

3^rd Light I
7^th Light V
17^th Utterlight

In this case Light I would cost 6PP and light V would be 9PP and Utterlight 18PP.

One thing to remember is that in HARP you can learn up to 3 ranks per level including 0^th level. So a 6PP spell is capable of being cast at 1^st level if you put 6DPs into it per level.

I had a further look at all the available spells and everything that you would consider a 1^st level spell in RM cost 3PP or 4PP in HARP, with 4 being by far the more common. I think there is a built-in assumption that pure casters will be buying two ranks per level in their core spells. If we half the cost of the HARP spells (to reflect 2 ranks per level) Light becomes 2^nd level (6/2 = 3 being 0^th, 1^st, 2^nd). Utterlight would then be 18PP /2 = 9 or 8^th level. This is much more in line with the Channeling list.

So what about magicians? I would have said that if you are developing spells as individual spells then a magician is much more likely to put more ranks into Lightning bolt than into Light. A progression of 1 rank per level would mean that Utterlight for a magician would come in at 17^th level which is exactly what you find in RM.

Fire Bolt

I have to ask myself if I have massaged the numbers to make them fit or have I identified the underlying philosophy.

This time I am going to build an RM fire bolt using HARP rules and assume that the magician is going to spend 2 ranks per level on it. It is much more important than something like Light but not as important as Fireball or Lightning bolt.

Spells are defined by an aspect, in this case Element (Fire); a type, in this case Attack; and Attributes such as casting time, range and duration. Fire Bolt has a range of 100’. Each of these has a cost which you add up and then divide in a rather simple formula. The basic spell comes out at a cost of just 3PP but it is tiny in size. There is now an option to scale up the critical size. Fire bolts are a regular E critical type spell so I need to scale the damage up. Once I have taken all of these factors into account you end up at a 13PP spell. Using my 2 ranks per level we have a 6^th level Fire Bolt. In RM it is also 6^th level.

Fire Bolt III is the same as Fire Bolt I but with a 300’ range and is 11^th level.

Let me scale up the HARP fire bolt and see what happens. Each additional 50’ of range adds 1PP to the spell (or half a level by my reckoning). A 300’ Fire Bolt would be 2 levels higher, or 8^th level.

I think I can see the logic and the connections now.

If you had to pour 4DP into Fire Bolt to get a working spell for seven levels I think that is a major investment. On the other hand, would you continue to do the same once you have the working spell? If we assume 1 rank per level after you have a functioning spell then the levels fall back into line. In this case 10^th for HARP and 11^th for the RM version.

So my outline rules appear to be. Calculate level by 2DP per level for core functionality spells and one DP per level for scaled up versions of the same spell.

What that gives us is spells that will fall within a level of their RM equivalents.

What you also get is more options that you ever had before. Sure there are plenty of versions of spells there is fire bolt with a range of 100’, 300’ 500’, there is triad of flame and corner fires but the HARP rules allow you to mix and match every effect from every possible spell. What you end up with a base cost that you can then extrapolate into a level.

The rules seem pretty simple to use and easy to read.

What would be perfect is if ICE were to create a RMu version of these rules. It may be possible as they are already talking about creating a HARP to RM handbook. It would be amazing if these rules ended up in that handbook.

Over the gaming weekend I got to play as well as GM. Due to a complete miscommunication, I ended up rushing into the fray with a Wyvern when everyone else, ie. the guys with the big swords, didn’t.

On the plus side, it made me look really heroic in front of the innocent wagon drivers. On the downside the same wagon drivers failed their fear checks and one died on the spot and the other one was eaten before I got into melee range.

Technically, the fight didn’t go so well. The first critical I took ripped my shield away reducing it to so much kindling. My counter attack did little. The second critical from its stinger layed open my thigh, thankfully I resisted vs the poison. I was stunned for five rounds, no parry and bleeding so we will gloss over the next few rounds.

If I was a fighter type my battle would probably be over but as it happens I am a lay healer. So I could clotting III the bleeding and Unstun myself and on the 3rd round after taking the big critical I was back up and running. Not many hits left but not out by any means.

The next critical it did to me was grab my weapon arm. There was a sort of “For F$%& sake!” feeling going on at this point. Partly because I was running out of limbs, partly because the heavy hitters had decided that as I had its attention they were trying to outflank it. At this point, I had one hand in its mouth, no weapon, no shield, and limited options. So I punched it. Off hand, no skill and at that point I rolled a double open-ended attack but the damage cap for rank 1 martial arts meant that I couldn’t do a critical anyway. What it did do was give me mega kudos. It would have been nice to have dropped it from lack of #hits but sadly it still had plenty of those.

Eventually, the party put the beast down. We are in the 3rd/4th/5th level range but superior numbers plus the flank and rear OB bonuses were sufficient to put the odds in our favour.

I was the only PC hurt and I could patch myself up.

I am the highest level PC, at 5th, My OB is +48 from 6 ranks in Spear, +8 from stats and +10 from a superior quality weapon we found in an earlier adventure.

I don’t think my OB is too bad, on top of that I am pretty good at Adrenal Speed and Strength. I have the option of going for +10 and x2 damage or two attacks. I am also wearing AT17. I am not fully trained but I don’t maneuver much at the best of times. In my, no unbiased, opinion I think for a pure caster I have a reasonable and well-rounded combat ability.

Our party mage is in a slightly different position. AT1, but wielding a sword that is both +30 and shows up as cursed when we did our best at working out what it did. It comes with a ring, that cannot be taken off that is intelligent but keeping quiet so far. The ring gives an additional +10 OB just with this sword.

Our mage as an OB of +50, two ranks, no stat and +40 for magic.

In the game I am running the Sorceror has an OB of +15. Two ranks and +5 for stat. The same is repeated with the other pure and hybrids. They bought a rank or two in weapons at character creation and then binned the skill in favour of magic ASAP.

I hadn’t really noticed this until this session when I was throwing challenge after challenge at them and they had burned so many power points in the first encounter that they were coming up empty pretty soon. Their priority was where could the go to meditate, the elven sorcerer and half elf warrior mage were the worst culprits of this 5 minute work day assumption.

Yes, weapons are expensive skills for pure casters but the difference in learning a weapon for a Magician and a Lay Healer is a single DP. (8 vs 7). Subduing is not particularly expensive as an alternative nor is Disarm Foe.

The session I ran should have, but probably didn’t, highlight the weakness of being 90% dependent on your magic. Maybe it is my fault. I did tell everyone that this was a low magic game and there have been rumblings that they are 7th and 8th level and no one has a spell multiplier or adder yet. I think that the fact that they have limited power points should have been a warning light to them not to be so dependent or as I see it, to be more rounded.

The difference a GM and the optional rules they choose can make is really striking in this case. My Lay Healer has 70 power points at 5th level and typically been burning about 5-7pp per battle. I think it is kind of ironic that I have a huge number of power points but conserve them just in case. My players have about half as many, at higher level, but burn them like they are unlimited, which they clearly are not.

I think there is a mismatch in expectations somewhere along the lines.

Since I posted last time I have moved house, away from the coast and into a proper crofter’s cottage. Downsizing from a 5 bedroom house to a 2 bedroom cottage means that we are inevitably swamped with boxes of stuff we don’t know where to put.

In the world of Rolemaster, since my last post, I have released the third part of Plague, Famine & War and I am writing the November issue of the Fanzine. This will be a bit late due to the house move.

So this year I have been writing the RMu adventure path which could end up as 10 to 12 parts. Plague, Famine & War is already three parts and is likely to be four full adventures. What has got me exciting to do next is some one-page adventures.

A one-page adventure would have a hook at the top, a plot, a location with a great looking map, a series of encounters, a conclusion, and a reward. Everything would fit on two sides of a single sheet.

What this brings to the party (haha) is variety. As a one-page adventure would be much faster to write than a full module or even a mini-module I could play around a bit. I am thinking of finding a monster that is underused and making it the star of the show. Once you know the monster that will tell you where it is most likely to be found, so you have your location. I buy about 100 commercial maps each year, it will just be a case of picking the best map for the adventure. That gives us the primary monster, terrain/biome, and actual location. The biome gives us random encounters and environmental hazards.

All my adventures this year were for, or started with, starting out PCs. These one-page adventures could be for any level, that would really be dictated by the star of the show monster. As a single page and only a couple of days work these would be real pocket money price adventures. The advantage to the Rolemaster community and the whole system, in general, will be that the Rolemaster name will continue to feature on the front page of DriveThruRPG on a near-weekly basis. New players of the game will have, and almost as importantly, see new products released on a regular basis. This creates the impression of a lively community around a game and makes it more attractive to potential buyers. It could also attract more people into adventure writing. This is one of the things that Rolemaster needs.

There is no community license or open content, which does hobble adventure writers somewhat, but it is still possible to write for a closed system. The trade-off is that ICE do not support their community but they also earn nothing from that community’s efforts. The other alternative would be that ICE do support the community and then take a royalty from all the content produced. Swings and roundabouts of course. Only ICE can say what they are thinking.

Hopefully, next week I will be back to regular writing. My gaming weekend is looming and I am looking forward to all the things that it throws up that I can write about, both as GM and as a player.