The Rolemaster Blog

So far, I’m charmed. With time and the right group, I’d explore the entirety of Chivalry & Sorcery, on its own terms, by playing it as the game it is. But since that’s unlikely to occur—at least not anytime soon, especially since I face a multiplicity of similarly attractive systems—I’m tempted to steal some of C&S’s most exciting features and “hack” them into any version of Rolemaster.

C&S’s determination of a character’s Social Class is full of roleplaying possibilities and seems easy enough to integrate into RM in a variety of ways. I probably would treat Social Class as a Culture, that feature that awards characters with starting Skill Ranks. In the realist medievalist milieu that C&S emulates, Social Class would replace Culture (since there is, broadly speaking, just the one “culture” of Middle Ages Europe). In a fantasy setting in which regional environment contributes to culture, I would use Social Class Ranks in addition to or as a subset of these more usual starting packages. Unless I had a specific campaign experience in mind—an adventuring party comprised entirely of Knights, for example—determination of character Social Class would be random. Social Class moreover, as in C&S, would contribute to a character’s starting equipment, overall Wealth, and reflect the character’s Social Status (also while recognizing that my current game system, Against the Darkmaster, presents “Noble” as a Culture). I have yet to see how Status, in C&S, behaves as a mechanic, so, without that precedent yet in mind, in an RM game Status probably would translate into a special bonus on certain Skills and Maneuvers.

I also like the determination of the Father’s (or Mother’s, for non-patriarchal settings) Vocation and Social Status and the Sibling Rank and Status in One’s Family tables. I’m not sure if I would use the C&S charts in toto or drift them into the RM method for Sibling generation as found in one of the Companions; I’d investigate my options in more detail. Porting in these C&S features again raises the question of how C&S deals with its Status rating system, so keep tuned as I discover this and consider possibilities for translating this feature into RM.

I would browse through all the C&S Special Talents & Abilities, being sure to compare them to RM’s (there appears to be considerable overlap). Since I am running VsD for my home group, I would use both C&S Talents and Abilities and RM Talents and (going back to the Companions) Background Options as inspirations for the slightly different packages VsD offers as Background Options.

Adapting C&S’s character Body Points system for RM probably would be the most radical hack I could make, and I want to do it. The approach essentially would result in making RM hp more or less static after character generation; Body Development would be removed as an RM Skill option (or I could make it prohibitively expensive, just for Fighter-types, perhaps). This would make development of Weapons Skills critical for adventurers (as if it wasn’t already) so that plenty of OB always would be on hand for Parrying. For VsD, I would give PCs starting HPs based on Kin and character bonuses resulting from Fortitude, of course, with yet another bonus that results from C&S’s character Build table. This necessitates that I also port in C&S’s character Size rules.

I would modify and use the Horoscope table. I need not adhere to the Earthly zodiacal calendar. It also need not be contingent on celestial systems. I could see myself designing a Viking game wherein runes are used for these purposes.

Finally, character age is appealing to me as an RM variation. The game group would have to be agreeable to the use of this feature, but, essentially (contingent on random rolls) PCs would begin play at various Levels. This approach might even make up a shortcoming that I have noticed in VsD’s emulation of its inspirations: the fictions informing VsD present PC parties of varying “power levels,” something that VsD, rules as written as yet, does not accommodate.

Step 14: Determine Character Fatigue Points 

Fatigue Points appear to be pretty much how they sound. To determine them, players have the choice between two calculations, whichever is more beneficial for their characters. Mine is a total of Strength and Constitution, so 30.

A PC can extend this resting period up to a maximum of 1 hour and still recover some Fatigue Points. The recovery rate after the first 10 minutes of rest is 1 FP per 10 minutes of additional rest for a PC with CON 15 or less and 2 FP per 10 minutes of additional rest for a PC with CON 16+. If the PC wishes to recover more he needs to sleep. A character can then recover Fatigue Points at the sleeping rate which has no maximum period for sleep.

If a character does not sleep once after every 24 hour period, the character’s “effective” Constitution is “reduced by one level for every hour he goes past 24 hours without sleep.” There isn’t a mention how long a character must sleep. Here’s an open door for you, Power Gamers!

Step 15: Determine Character Lifting & Carrying Capacity 

In this section appears another one of C&S’s delightful observations:

Not only in modern times but also throughout history, infantry carried a burden of 50 to 100 lbs of armaments, ammunition and equipment. In good condition and with the weight properly distributed by a decent backpack, etc., infantry can march for many miles under that load over all manner of terrain! To reflect this, Carrying Capacity is calculated as 1/2 x LCAP (rounding up).

A casual search doesn’t reveal the thread to me, but the foregoing strongly reminds me of some comments on Encumbrance I received on the Rolemaster boards over a year ago.

If a character exceeds his carrying capacity, he suffers a penalty of –1 Fatigue Point for every 20% of the character’s CCAP that he exceeds it, for every hour or part of an hour he carries it.

Uh-oh. This is the first calculation that has struck me as “fiddly.” Weight calculations are annoying enough, though in this game they are mitigated by C&S’s lenient approach to character penalties. Yet here that generosity seems to be “walking back.”

Note: Naturally I’ve been thinking about the play experience that these rules might accommodate at the gaming table, and it might be that “fiddliness” would be a boon rather than a curse. The types of characters likely to be generated (at least through the random method) encourage careful roleplaying rather than fast-paced action anyway. With the right group, I can see time-intensive considerations of weights and microscopic maneuver calculations as a pleasurable and essential component of the C&S experience. As I’ve been reading, I’ve been thinking that what this game emulates is not something that I would have enjoyed in my youth. It is something I would enjoy as an adult. On the other hand, some of the crunchiness is not something I’m particularly attracted to now, whereas, in my youth, my group would have been just fine spending an hour on something as mundane as totaling the weights of our packs.

Step 16: Define Character’s Jumping Ability 

More fiddliness. It’s Strength + Agility x .25. Then I add 2 for a Human. I get 9.

The rules for Running and Standing Jumping are interesting but a little too much to delve into here.

Step 17: Determine Character’s Movement 

There are two ways of determining Base Action Points. It’s based either on Agility and Constitution or on Agility and Intellect. The selected values are added and divided by 2.

My character is better off using Constitution. 10+12/2=11.

This is the first notice of an action economy system. It is going to be very interesting to contrast this structure with Rolemaster’s.

Step 18: Determine Character’s Horoscope

The designers say that this is optional but highly recommended. It’s another percentile roll. I roll 79, Capricorn. For this, my “Favoured Skills & Benefits” are Charisma and Materia Magica [sic?]. I’ll have to note this for later, when I deal with Skills, because, with this astrological reading, I get to choose two Skills from one category or one Skill from both categories.

It appears that the governing birth sign also awards XP bonuses whenever the character uses Skills affected by this portent. This further is skewed up or down dependent on the character’s Aspect. Finally, bonuses resulting from the use of Magick Skills are parsed away from the others.

My character gets +10% XP from the use of Charisma Skills and +10% XP from the use of Magick Skills.

This causes me to consider if every single action the character performs (such as in early Rolemaster) is going to be tracked in game for the purposes of calculating Experience.

Step 19: Character Age

Also optional. I roll 97. I’m 25 years old and therefore much more “experienced” than characters of the default age of 18. At this time, I’m not sure precisely what this might mean in game terms. It appears I have a lot of starting experience points. Are these to be spent on Skills? I wonder.

The implications of this alternate rule are exciting. I’m imagining, now, of starting PC parties of varying “power levels.” Their compositions would be something akin to Tolkien’s Fellowship which, at times, was comprised of a Maiar Wizard, an ageless Elf, a resourceful High Man and a smattering of others, including four “Level 1” Hobbits. As long as players aren’t concerned with “fairness,” this feature can be inspiring and rich with narrative possibilities.

Step 20: Determine Character’s Personalising Traits

Also (strangely) optional for such a detailed game. This section contains a table of possible physical traits, but it’s not designed to be rolled upon. There might be something like it in the GM book, or there are sources published by other parties that might be of use. This goes, as well, for something likewise surprisingly absent: a table of names, or at the very least a list of some that would be most appropriate for C&S’s default milieu of Europe in the Middle Ages. The player also is encouraged to imagine the Personal Foibles of his or her character.

Character Generation is finished—yes, I know there still is much to be done, but this closes the book’s first section. 

Postscript: The very next section details Special Abilities & Defects. In it I find a description for my character’s Low Metabolic Rate:

The character has a highly efficient metabolism. He requires half the normal amount of food per day to sustain his health and energy levels. His Fatigue Points are restored by 1/3 D10 FP (rounded down) above normal levels per hour sleeping or +1 FP per 10 minutes resting.

Step 6: Determine Sibling Rank

I’m going with a Knight. Perhaps, out of a sense of obligation to his Father’s wishes and desires, my character has chosen this path to enlarge his family’s estate. I expect my character frequently will regret this decision and feel the force of a priestly “Call” whenever he encounters Men of the Cloth. He probably abjures violence but is mercifully good at it whenever required to be.

I get to roll again. I roll 59. I’m the third child in my family; three siblings are younger than I am.

Step 7: Status in One’s Family

I roll again. 82. I am a Credit to the Family (the most likely result, 16-85%). 01-15% results in a Black Sheep and a resultant +5 PC points for the point-buy method. With this Status, however, the character is penalized in status points and starting funds. 86-100% results in Good Son/Daughter, and, though penalized with -5 PC points, the character is rewarded with double starting funds.

As a Credit to the Family, I enjoy regular starting funds and the full outfit of a knight.

At this point I start wondering about gender. Recognizing the patriarchal quality of the C&S milieu, I had—largely by default—been thinking of my character as male. But it would seem that players might choose to play a female—even while recognizing her lack of power historically. I haven’t noticed a table for randomly determining gender, though of course it would be easy to do with a 50/50 (as a GM, I frequently determine NPC gender in this way).

Step 8: The “Curse”

Since my character is Neutrally Aspected, I don’t need to roll on this table and I choose not to. The option is open to me, however, if, as the rules suggest, I want “to make things ‘interesting’.”

I can see the appeal of “spicing up” roleplaying (another way that the rules puts the attraction to Curses) in this way. Looking at the d100 table now, I see compelling effects such as “flames glowing blue in one’s presence” or “plants withering at one’s touch.” But I’m resolved to keep my character inviolate—at least for now.

Step 9: Special Talents and Abilities 

It could be that these are as cool as Curses are. Let’s see if I get one or more.

I roll a 12. That means I roll for one (this result is the next likeliest eventuality next to none). Less likely rolls allow me to roll twice or thrice or (on a roll of 100) select “any special Ability I desire for the character.” I don’t see the rules stating any numerical limit to this last possibility.

I roll 47 for my Special Ability. I have a Low Metabolic Rate. (I’m not sure what this means in game terms—even in “real” terms—but there is an upcoming chapter that might provide more details and the Internet for the latter.)

Any character with a Special Ability must also roll for a Flaw.

Step 10: Character Flaws, Deficiencies & Defects 

Since my character has a Special Ability, there is a 40% chance that he also has a Flaw. I roll 80. Nope, I’m Flawless.

Step 11: Personal Fears

One isn’t mandatory. I can elect to have a Phobia for my character either by rolling or choosing. I decide to do neither.

Step 12: Determine Character Size

For a Height of a Historic Human Male (sizes are based on genders and “power ratings”) I roll 2d10+57. I get 67 total (the average is 58). For Build I roll 1d10+1. I get 4 (average Build is 6). If I had had significantly higher Agility or Constitution scores, this number would have been modified negatively or positively, respectively.

My character’s Weight is determined by adding 5 pounds for every inch over 40 to a base starting weight of 10. That gives me 145. I’m a lightweight! No, wait, it’s worse than that. My Build of 4 is characterized as an Average Build on the low end, so I reduce my total Weight by 5%. So now (rounding up the fraction, per the rules) my total Weight is 137. A part of me, knowing that average human builds have increased since the Middle Ages, wonders if this is intentionally “historical.”

Step 13: Determine Character Body Points 

This foregoing isn’t just “fluff.” A character’s Build helps calculate the character’s Body Points. My 5% reduction results in a column just below another whose range begins with a Weight of 145. I start with 18 Body. I add this to my Constitution (12) and half (rounded down) of my Strength (9) for a total of 39. At this point in my exploration of this game, I have no idea if this is “good” or not.

A table shows me how many Body Points my character may recover per day (dependent on rest) as well as his ability to Resist Disease. The rules advise to make this calculation once and to record it on one’s character sheet.

When a character’s Body is reduced to negative values, he is not necessarily dead. One can sustain negative damage up to his CON and still remain alive, although deeply unconscious. When Body Points fall below a negative level equal to or lower than CON then death occurs.

I find the C&S relationship between Build and Body Points neat, intuitive and workable. Because of the lens with which (due to the nature of this blog) I am approaching this system, I inevitably compare it to the latest version of Rolemaster, which doesn’t appear to do much with its own concept of “build” outside of calculating Encumbrance thresholds and character Stride. I ask the community here to correct and/or clarify this or any other observations I’m about to make.

I’m beginning to suspect that C&S characters develop, incrementally, by discretely improving character Skills. It may be (as in systems such as Champions) that Attributes might likewise be available for advancement. In this latter case my forthcoming observations about realism and simulationism might be minimized.

A (more or less) static hit points score is the first hallmark of realism in a fantasy roleplaying game. Yes, a character should be able to develop her or his ability to absorb or resist pain and damage, but this aptitude should not be open-ended nor constant.

The D20 systems and their derivatives such as Rolemaster, for some time now, have explained that hit points are “abstract” values, representing a character’s ability to avoid and receive damage. Presumably, then, D20 and Rolemaster characters progressively improve at avoiding damage, but, say, 6 points of Bleeding damage always is going to be literal damage.

Mind you, at this point I’m not saying that C&S is a “better” game or more fun to play than Rolemaster nor its progenitor. What I am saying, though, is that C&S, so far, appears to be more “realistic,” and I admire the elegance displayed by making Build relevant to a character’s ability to take damage.

Step 1: Decide PC Race

My best understanding of C&S is that the system prefers a human-centric milieu, with the option of “outsider” PC “Races.” Because of the mention of Elves and Dwarves, it appears that these outsider Races are what can be expected.

Notes such as these suggest the sorts of fictive qualities that this game might emulate: fairly realistic medievalist societies wherein folk belief is validated but actual experience largely consigned to the fringes of human interaction. I would describe such a genre as historicized versions of the Matter of Britain and “low-magic” fantasies such as A Game of Thrones (at least as it is presented early in the book series).

I prefer human-centric games anyway. I elect to be a Human.

Step 2: Select a Character Creation Method

From my first read-through, it appears that, whenever relevant in C&S, gamers have the option of randomly generating a character aspect. Personally, as a player, I would choose this every time. I’m always excited about giving up control of these choices, being handed some features—just as the real world does to the real us—and making the most of them. This “Wheel of Fortune” worldview contributes particularly well to the feudal society setting implicit in a C&S game.

But, as awesome as this is, I see this presenting the most difficult obstacle for—of all people—the GM, because this is an emulation of a feudal society. The game makes great pains to clarify that the Middle Ages is not a democracy, that serfs were little more than slaves, that they had no rights, that it was fully expected of them to obey, without question, the whims and will of their superiors. So… you can “do the math.” What kind of a player dynamic will it be in a campaign wherein all the players have randomly generated characters from the lower classes? Though the random class table (soon to be seen) is weighted towards a preference for Rural Freemen, it’s possible that you’ll get a spectrum of classes. Some PCs will have to be subservient and deferential to others. To me, this sounds cool, rich with roleplaying possibilities, but all the players will have to be on board. Such a game will be an experiment in exploring a unique, collective narrative, not escapist heroism (at least not for some).

Step 3: Divine the Birth Omens

Now I get to make my first roll. Looks like I’m Neutrally Aspected, the most likely result (a d100 roll of 16-85). If I were Well or Poorly Aspected, I would be supported by either Good or Evil supernatural forces that would affect my Magickal (yep, I “spelled” that right) affinities. Depending on either Aspect, my character would lose or gain 10 PC (Player Character) points, respectively.

Looking ahead, though, and having elected the random generation method, I see that PC points will not be tracked during character creation. All PC point values are for point-buy generation exclusively. Also, in case it wasn’t clear earlier, once Random selection is decided upon, all possible rolls will be random.  The other options are point-buy and default selections.

Step 4: Determine Personal Attributes 

This gets interesting. For Attributes I roll 2d10 eleven times and record the results, discarding the lowest two values. Then I assign them, by choice, to my nine Attributes. If I were doing the point-buy system, for the Human character I have selected there are Minimum and Maximum scores of 02 and 20 (for Historical campaigns), 22 (for Heroic campaigns) and 25 (for Super-heroic campaigns) respectively.

In the explanation of Attributes we get a first glimpse of C&S’s core mechanic. Each of these Attributes can be translated into a percentage roll. It’s a “roll under” system, so to test an Attribute I would roll 3d10 under its percentage score. Two of these tens determine the percentile. The third is the Critical Die, with a 1 denoting a Critical Failure (if the percentile test failed) and a 10 being a Crirical Success (if the percentile test succeeded). Precisely what these Critical results might mean will be detailed later in the rules.

Here are my rolls: 18, 16, 14, 10, 9, 8, 12, 12, 11, 17, 9.

Regardless of the choices to come, I’m beginning to imagine a Knight with a strong leaning towards the priestly crafts. As with most games, Appearance appears to be an attractive dump stat. We shall see if ever I learn to rue this choice.

Note: The nine Attributes are interesting to me. For almost a year I ran Le 7eme Cercle’s/Cubicle 7’s Northern culture game Yggdrasill, which organized Attributes into nine designations under the three macro-stats Mind, Body and Soul. Outside of the consonance with Old Norse numerological symbolism, I still find this a neat formulation of a sentient, physical being. RM”s ten stats make sense to me because of its consonance with the decimal system, but I think they’re more than is needed for game utility.

It’s interesting that Attribute values are to be assigned before Social Class is resolved, another deterministic aspect of the game, I suppose.

Step 5a: Determine PC’s Social Class

I get to roll again!

As you can see, the point-buy method necessitates that the higher classes be purchased with PC points, whereas choosing the lowest classes award PC points. A random roll most likely will result in a Rural Freeman.

I roll an 81. I have landed a Landed Knight. Sweet!

Whether or not the historical accuracy of this game is in question, it is features like this result that make C&S simply a joy to read. Turning to the section on the Gentry, I learn that “[c]ontrary to modern popular opinion, not every manorial lord was a knight. Some English manorial lords even tried to avoid knighthood because they did not want the extra governmental responsibilities or the hazardous obligations of personal military service.”

As a Gentle, my character enjoys +3 Action Points and -1 DF to the Skills Courtly Love and Renown. Right now I’m not certain what these terms might mean, but I’m sure that they’ll be explained anon.

Also:

Basic Chivalric Training includes Riding, Riding a Warhorse, Mounted Combat, Cavalry Lance, 2 other Combat skills, Wearing Armour, plus Courtly Manners. He might also have Reading if the INT requirement is met (this is usually due to instruction by a Priest who notices the character’s promise or at the orders of the Lord).

Step 5b: Determine Father’s Vocation and Social Status

It appears that, no matter what method of character creation is being used, the Father’s Vocation and Social Status always is rolled randomly. There is an individual table for each of the distinct Social Classes. This is in keeping with the rigid, hereditary caste system of feudal society.

I roll a 03. It appears, then, that my Father was a very minor Knight, with a feudal holding of 4 square miles. My Father’s status grants me, the PC, the Basic Chivalric Training package already described above, one more Combat Skill and a Social Status of 25 (undoubtedly to be better understood later).

Before I leave behind Part the First of C&S’s Character Creation, it appears that I have one more intriguing option as the offspring of a Landed Knight.

I shall have to mull over this.