The Rolemaster Blog

Trappings is Zweihänder parlance for equipment. The default non-setting of Zweihänder uses three base coins, each of which reflects a social strata, brass pennies are used by the poorest peasants in society, the low born, including my PC. Silver Schillings are the currency of commerce and the marchant classes and then gold crowns at the top of the economic tree.

This chapter covers four aspects. The first is actually buying stuff and prices. The second is how skills interact with these prices such as haggling for a better price. The third is the game mechanics and how items, particularly weapons interact with the game mechanics. This is a list of ‘qualities’ that equipment may possess and the effect of each quality. Fast is a quality and a weapon with the Fast quality confers a -10% to a foes chance to dodge, Slow is the opposite quality and confers a +10% bonus to dodge and parry. There are dozens of qualities from Adaptable (weapons that can be used one or two handed) to Weak (weapons whose damaged is capped).

Damage from weapons is described as Moderate, Serious or Grievous Injuries.

The final part of this chapter combines the previous parts into detailed textual and mechanical descriptions of all the weapons and equipment.

My character posesses a Mortuary Sword. This is what I now know about it.

MORTUARY SWORD: The most common weapon for explorers, it is useful and evokes little fuss. Not surprisingly, it tends to cleave violently – thus its namesake.

WEAPON: Mortuary sword
LOAD: 0
HANDLING: One-handed
DISTANCE: Engaged
QUALITIES: Vicious
TYPE: Bladed
ENCUMBRANCE: 1
VALUE/PRICE: 10gc

The Vicious quality has this definition:

VICIOUS: Weapons of this Quality grant an additional 1D6 Chaos Die to determine whether you inflict an Injury upon a foe.

We will come back to the Chaos Die.

The overall impression of the trappings chapter is that it is really well designed. It covered a variety of skills such as those for trading but also for repairing damaged equipment. Everything related to gear from superior materials to things that explode to haggling is all covered in one chapter. I cannot help but feel that in RM we would be flipping from chapter to chapter or from Character Law for the prices and then C&T for superior materials and so on.

Chapter 9 Combat

The first thing that stands out in the combat rules is the initiative system. Every character has an Initiative parameter on their character sheet that is derived from their agility and their encumbrance. This is added to a d10 roll and that is their initiative for the entire combat. Nothing exciting there.

Ever character, NPC, foe and event is then added to an Initiative ladder. Events that are not known to the the PCs are marked on the ladder as coded marks. This ladder is open for all to see.

Examples of these unknown events may be when a bomb is due to explode or when a hidden assassin has rolled their initiative.

I am not convinced by this system. It seems to me that the players will have some sort of a priori knowledge if they can see that there will be events that happen before or after their move. So far I have not had an opportunity to run a combat with multiple players to see how they react to this open initiative ladder system.

My other worry about this system is that with my players we do not sit around a table, we are scattered around a living room on sofas. No one is going to see this initiative ladder or it will be a massive disturbance to the flow of play as it gets passed from person to person and inevitably the players worry about a special marks at initiative points 4,5,6 & 7.

So let me put initiative to one side.

When it is your turn you get three Action Points to spend. You may hold APs to later in the same turn (what we call a round Zwei calls a turn and they are 10 seconds long).

There is a pretty good table of available actions and their AP costs. Movement costs AP, walking costs 1, spending a turn running costs all three and a charge costs 2 but that does not include the attack at the end of the charge. Called shots cost 2AP.

Attacks cost 1 AP each except magical attacks that are just listed as VARIES.

There is a menu of special moves like throwing/kicking sand in your opponents eyes to blind them or attempting to stun them. Being stunned robs them of 1AP.

Zwei uses zones of control although it does not use that phrase. Anyone leaving an engagement gives their opponents a chance to perform an opportunity attack against them.

So after the description of Initiative and then the list of AP actions there is a description and example of every available combat action. I found this bit quite interesting:

MULTIPLE ATTACKS?
In ZWEIHÄNDER, combat swings are abstracted to a great degree. Rolling to strike and dealing Damage has been carefully balanced, designed to be swift and merciless. Because of this, multiple attack rolls on the same Turn are not a consideration of the system. However, some Professions and Traits may allow you to take advantage of two weapon fighting in different ways.

So Zwei is a flurry of blows system.

Parrying

There is no self respecting RM player that doesn’t want to know how to parry. Parry in Zwei takes place after you have been hit but before they roll damage. You make a skill roll and on success you take no damage. Parry is a 1AP action.

The basic combat procedure is Roll your attack, defender defends and then you roll any damage. The defender has a choice of actions such as dodge and parry as you saw above and a few others.

Wounds

I had to read the wounds section twice to make sure I was not imagining things! Right at the top of the combat chapter the rules say that Zwei does not use hit points but in the weapon descriptions there was talk of rolling additional dice of damage, called the fury die. I was curious as to how this was going to be reconciled.

What I just read was basically like someone had lifted the entire character damage section out of 7th Sea. Believe me when I say 7th Sea is about as far away from Zwei as you can get.

So here is the basic mechanic. Your combat bonus (one of every characters basic stats) is the basic damage you do plus you roll 1d6 for the Fury die. That is the additional damage. The fury die ‘explodes’ or is open ended. So if you roll a 6 then you roll again and add the new roll to that six. The fury die can keep on exploding if you keep on rolling 6s. So the total damage is you CB value plus the total rolled from the Fury die/dice.

This total value is then converted into levels of damage by taking into a characters damage threshold which is made up of one of their stats plus armour.

So if the total damage is less than the damage threshold then no damage is taken. If you get over the damage threshold then that is one level, if you get 6 over the threshold then that is two levels, 12 is three levels. Any attack that does 3 levels is an instant kill.

So now we have turned points of damage into levels.

The levels push a character along a damage track. The track goes:

1. Unharmed
2. Lightly Wounded
3. Moderately Wounded
4. Seriously Wounded
5. Grievously Wounded
6. Slain!

So if you take two levels in the first round you are lightly wounded. If you take a further two levels the following round then you would seriously wounded. Another two levels and you would be slain.

At certain points you have to roll from 1d6 to 3d6 and try and avoid getting any 6s. Sixes are bad and equate to actual injuries. One of the effects of injuries is bleeding and it is as bad or worse than the bleeding we have in RM.

So the net effect seems to be that if you are being hit then you will die. I haven’t run a combat yet so I haven’t tried it out but it really looks like parrying is really important to avoid being hurt in the first place and then if you are losing then get out of there!

So that is a brief summary of combat.

We are now on page 256 of 692. That is chapter 8 done. Next time it is hazards & healing and more excitingly we get our first look at magic in the Grimoire.

Due to time constraints I don’t have the luxury to explore new or emerging game engines, systems or settings so I have to count on Peter’s blog posts to find out more about other d100 products. Peter is assessing Zweihander and Gabe just mentioned “Against the Darkmaster” in a blog comment.

I vaguely remember reading about vsDarkmaster but was quite surprised when I checked it out–the cover art, logo style and basic system seems very much like Rolemaster. In fact they frequently use *master to reference RM. Is this a blatant copy of RM but better adapted to a MERP setting?

Since my writing time might be better spent writing adventures for newer, growing game systems I thought I would explore these game systems further…but.. I have no time. Instead I thought I would shout out to the gamer community here on RMBlog. Which d100 games are worth checking out? Do they have a setting or good game modules? How close are they to RM? Any and all information is appreciated!

Ok, I’m going to dip my toe back into rules! Rather than me present my ideas I thought I would call upon the Rolemasterblog.com readers and writers to offer up suggestions on new rules. Today I want to solicit ideas for four rules that have undergone several revisions, companions, house-ruled and now addressed in RMU. I’m looking for simple, elegant ideas that fit into the current engine and make sense. RMU introduces various combat expertises that allow that skill bonus to offset a combat style’s penalty. AT first I loved the idea but now I’m really not a fan. RMU does have some good solutions for other issues…. Anyway, looking for novel approaches–explain why it works but identify any failings as well. Let’s begin:

1. Two Weapon Combo. The mere fact that 2WC allows a player 2 attacks makes it a compelling option. RM offered 2WC as a skill equal to the combined skill cost acquisition, provided for a “off-hand” penalty but there are still many complication. Can a Dual Wield attack 2 different opponents? If so, what is the penalty? How far apart can the targets be? How does parry get allocated? Does the wielder develop one weapon in the main hand, and the other in the off hand, but must use the 2 only in combination? Can the wielder use just a single weapon with the normal bonus? Should weapon and shield fall under the same rules as Dual Wield?
2. Mounted Combat. So RM kept this simple: your riding skill bonus acted as a percentage applied to your weapon skill bonus. That’s not a bad solution really, but doesn’t take into account some weapons relative ineffectiveness when used mounted. Another option is to have the weapon skill specify that it’s specific to mounted combat–but that doesn’t take into account a player taking “mounted combat-weapon” and not taking any riding skill whatsoever.
3. Weapon Kata. I won’t even get into the optional rules in RM1/2. The real question is weapon kata really a thing? Is a martial artist using a spear any different than a fighter using a spear? Should a MA with striking ranks be allowed to do additional damage when wielding a kata weapon that is 2 handed? RMU deals with this by allowing different attacks with different weapons…spear & fist in this example. Not bad but it’s not a martial art weapon kata–more a universal solution for multiple attacks.
4. Shield. Now that Shield is a viable attack option should it be treated as a second weapon? Should it be a stand alone skill that can be combined with any weapon is the other hand or should it be trained specifically with another question. Should you still get the shield bonus if you attack with the shield? Personally, I think RMU mostly nailed this, but I’m still thinking it needs to be tightened up.

As Rolemasterblog.com continues to publish adventures we are going to develop a short-hand lingo for versatile stat blocks and character attributes. Even though game rules are not protected IP, I have my own S.W.A.R.M. ruleset, Peter has developed a great reductionist stat block and all of us are working on a “Universal” language that is easily adapted to d100. I’m interested how our work will connect with Zeihander and other competing works. A simple solution for these would be great when utilizing other d100 rule sets. These aren’t obscure or niche issues: dual wield, mounted combat, shield use and even martial arts weapons are really core abilities in fantasy lexicons.

There may already be a good solution in all the various rules iteration. RMU may already have solved it to your satisfaction. However, if you have a novel idea, or just a glimpse of one that you haven’t worked out yet, please comment.

For some time now I’ve been rambling on about my modern game stuff (to the great annoyance of many, I’m sure…). Well, I thought it might be time to give people a sneak peak at some of its bits. Not much, mind. Part of an attack table, a bit of background, and one Profession with skill costs. They’re working drafts, so the formatting is a bit ‘off’ in spots and they aren’t pretty by any means. But it will give you an idea of where this is going.

Attack!

Below is a link to the AT1 column of the Pistol Attack Table for my system. Note that it’s got two lines of division: overall weapon Mark and specific calibers. Since my system allows you to determine maximum damage based on actual numbers (bullet weight and muzzle energy), some calibers are capped at that point. This does two things: shows why it’s popular to “move up” in caliber and why small caliber weapons do maximum damage more frequently. With a lower max damage, recoil penalties (modifiers to hit) don’t hurt as much.

Attack Table

Knowledge!

The next bit is a sample piece of one of the elements of my character generation system. This bit represents a generic college eduction OR four years of work experience. This is the third part of four in my character generation cycle when it comes to skills. The first two (Culture, Background – which is optional) come before this and the last piece (Entry Training) comes after. The end result is a first level character who’s MUCH more capable than normal for RM. The numbers here are skill ranks, not DPs or anything else.

Education

Jobs!

Or more to the point – how much skills cost. This is the skill cost matrix for one Profession in my espionage genre system (which is the core product). You’ll see the biggest change is assignable skill costs. Any Category that has more than three sub-skills is broken up like Combat Training. Players may assign the lowest cost to whatever skill they wish, then the next cost, and so on. The last cost goes to any remaining skills in the Category. GMs may also set some of these costs, creating an agency that prioritizes (say) Rifle training for their Direct Action operatives. That puts the lowest skill cost in Rifle. It’s a flexible, yet standardized system.

Profession

So?

Why put this out there? I’m doing it to show how the Rolemaster engine can be used in different genres. It’s also helpful to illustrate some of the things I run on about here and on the RM message board, especially when it comes to character generation and skill costs as they relate to Categories. I firmly believe you can retain elements of individual skill costs this way, and it keeps every character from looking more or less the same. Some of the reductions are small, but at lower levels that’s a big deal.

First, I did set a goal to not delve too deep into rule making for RMU or RM in the coming year. However, I do read the RM Forums and there is a ongoing discussion about additional Talents (and Flaws, though “surprisingly” those are obviously less discussed). And yes, for the purpose of this post “background options” are an interchangeable term with “talents/flaws”–to be referred as “T/F”.

There is something very proprietary about T/F–it’s a cumbersome bolt on to what I consider a pre-companion streamlined rule set. Many are one-off rules that reek of AD&D Class Abilities while others are just bonuses to reinforce a VERY specific idea of a profession/class. So what is the point of T/F’s? A few ideas:

1. T/F’s add unique abilities to characters without the GM having to muster up the energy to do it themselves.
2. T/F’s are meant to reinforce Professional Tropes.
3. T/F’s are meant to power up Level 1 characters a bit.
4. T/F’s are a bypass to increase ability outside of the normal skill acquisition/skill bonus/stat bonus/profession bonus system already established.
5. T/F’s are used to bypass skill cost restrictions to give players abilities they could not otherwise afford in skill buy.
6. T/F’s are used to min/max characters by bypassing Professional skill cost and balance issues.

Happy for anyone to add to that list, but as it stands it’s not pretty. Basically Talents are “cheat codes” pretending to be balanced with Flaws to give everyone the illusion of proper game design.

Am I too old school? Perhaps my origins in the original RM has biased me, but I’m reading forum posts and it sounds like many suggestions for Talents are just special Profession abilities similar to AD&D. Can someone adequately explain the need or justification for Talents using the same validations you use for other rule arguments?

*For purposes of disclosure, this blog is a side affect of Weller Special Reserve Bourbon.

This is obviously another Zweihänder post. I am trying to rattle through them a bit faster than I did the HARP read through for two reasons. Firstly, if you enjoy them then making you wait is not a good thing. If you don’t enjoy them then keeping them coming back for months is equally not a good thing. Personally I like to get projects over and done with, so I am keen to crack on as well.

I am going to split this post into two. The first part is the read through of chapters 5 & 6 as advertised.

The second part is more about ‘that which is Zweihänder , rather than Zweihänder itself’. By that I mean there are so many points of potential similarity between the Zwei that exists and the RMU I/we wish for that I believe that lessons can be learned. I have a cousin who is very wealthy and his money is entirely sel made (in an enterprising way not home printing sort of way, if you understand what I mean). He once said to me “If you want to earn a million pounds, don’t ask the unemployed bloke in the pub how to do it.” So learning from the example of the fastest selling game of the past three years now (if you include 2019) is probably a good analogy.

So Skills…

Below is a sample of the core skills in Zwei…

So in Zwei we have a base of 36 skills. Each of these have a number of focuses, which I thought would be Foci but I am often wrong. In RM2 many of the focuses would be individual skills in their own right. I am happy with the Zwei way as you all know that I simply do not use all those optional skills from RoCo2. Above I am looking at Athletics and I can see Climb, Row and Swim which were all definitely individual skills in our world.

If each character is getting 10 skills then you do need a party to cover most of these bases.

Where the Zwei system has less detail than the RM world is in levels of ability. A Zwei total skill bonus is made up of the governing stat or attribute on a scale of 28-55 plus your rank bonus. For a starting character that is +10 in your ten professional skills. So typically +52 in our parlance. A +10 is the Apprentice level. At journeyman level you get a further +10 and as a master you a final +10 for a total skill bonus of +30 on top of your attribute.

We are used to big skill bonuses added to small stat bonuses, this is the flip of that methodology.

The focuses can be bought as individual specialisms in addition to the base skill. If you have the particular focus you are using then you can ignore additional penalties when using the skill for that specific use.

So even if you had two characters with the same skills they can still differentiate themselves within their profession. Shockingly Focuses are not rolled randomly and assigned to you, to do get to choose them.

This is the skill listing for Perception. I have pulled this one out for the simple reason that we all know what a perception roll looks like. Just remember that a typical character has a roll under 52 (42 average Attribute and+10 for one rank in the skill) to succeed.

---

AWARENESS (Perception)
Awareness represents the ability to visually notice minute details and sounds, scents within the air, watch for ambushes, find hidden objects and spot contrivances designed to trap or kill. You’ll use Awareness not only to visually see, also to sense using smell, taste and touch. You may also use Awareness to estimate numbers and distances.

This Skill doesn’t allow you to see through lies, sense motives or innuendo – refer to the Scrutinize Skill in those cases. If you wish to listen in on a conversation or distinctly make something out you heard, refer to the Eavesdrop Skill instead.

SAMPLE DIFFICULTY RATINGS

• (Trivial +30%): Listen for sounds through a thin door
• (Easy +20%): Smell a distinct spice in a dish
• (Routine +10%): Spot an obvious snare
• (Standard +/-0%): Standing watch at a campfire on a clear night
• (Challenging -10%): Find someone obscured by mist or darkness
• (Hard -20%): Count a mound of treasure in under a minute
• (Arduous -30%): Spot a trap melded almost perfectly into the flagstones

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Every skill is laid out the same, description and then clear examples of what falls into each difficulty rating. What I do like is that not one of the skills has a hidden game mechanic built into the skill description. They are all uniform in format and implementation.

Talents

The core book provides 72 talents. Each talent seems to produce one effect and those effects fall into two categories. The first is to give a +20 bonus to a specific skill used in a specific situation and the other is to allow the character to ignore a specific penalty in a specific situation. So ambidextrous means you ignore penalties for using the off hand, Eagle Eyes means you do not suffer range penalties at medium and long range. Housebreaker in the other hand gives a +20 to lockpicking.

Every profession comes with 3 talents and the rules imply that you can buy more but I have yet to read the section where the rules for that are presented. I guess they will be in the Reward Points rules later in the book, or I misinterpreted the part where it implied you could by more talents of course.

There isn’t much more to say about the talents, there are some that relate to magic that at this point are quite intriguing. This one I particularly like…

BLOOD MAGICK
With great practice, you have learned to bend the powers of disorder to your whim. However, every dark gift requires a sacrifice in return.

Effect: After you have made the appropriate sacrifice of an innocent creature (a beloved animal like a kitten or puppy for Petty Magick, a farm animal such as a cow or sheep for Lesser Magick or a living person like an Elf or Dwarf for Greater Magick), you can cause any one foe to automatically fail to Resist one cast Magick spell within the next 24 hours. You can only make a sacrifice like this once per day.

I knew there was a good reason for having elves in the party!

Part II

What inspired this two part blog post idea was an announcement on Zwei’s discord server this evening, and I quote:

Daniel D. Fox – Lead Designer Today at 20:15

Hey gang,

You’re probably noticing a lot of changes on our Facebook and YouTube, formerly named Zweihänder Grim & Perilous RPG. This is being done on purpose across social media, YouTube, Discord and other channels.

For 2019, we are consolidating our brands, while changing ZWEIHÄNDER-only assets to reflect a shift in the company. With MAIN GAUCHE on the horizon, development of TETSŪBO, Queen of Embers and a few other unannounced products, we’re moving towards our new company line:

Grim & Perilous Studios, makers of tabletop games “Powered By ZWEIHÄNDER”.

So what does this mean for you? You’re going to see a D100 ‘free’ engine released later this year, taking the place of the SRD. You’re also going to get a look at some of the new products coming down the line for 2019 and 2020. You’re going to see our books up on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Simon & Schuster, IndieBound, in your local brick-and-mortar and a whole lot more. We aren’t leaving DriveThruRPG, but our ‘big books’ will be as we reach commercial scale for true distribution across the US, CA and Europe. Plus, we’ll be announcing some new video content initiatives in the coming weeks (as an example, did you know Encounter Roleplay is running ZWEIHÄNDER every Friday on Twitch for the next 18 weeks).

Finally, we’ll be introducing you to some new people from our team. We’re growing, and can’t wait for you to meet all the fine folx who help make Grim & Perilous Studios successful.

So, join us for the ride in 2019 for a truly #GrimAndPerilous year for #ZweihanderRPG!

All the best,

Daniel D. Fox

So what has got me so stirred up?

I have been pushing for an open standard for D100 for a couple of years now including my own open100 and I am also happy to support vsDarkmaster’s OPEN00. I am not necessarily a fan of competing open standards but hey, too much freedom of expression is less of a problem than too little.

I have been trying to push for the “Powered by…” concept for RMu, in fact Intothatdarkness’s post this very week was all about the RMu game engine vs the game itself. That is a spin off of my push for the Powered by tag from that “So…” forum thread.

The other thing I find exciting is the bit about the hardcopy publications. I have been dabbling with this myself. I was using Createspace and Amazon’s KDP before they merged. DTRPG is the ‘safe place’ that is where everyone is and that is where all the experienced GMs buy their games. It is not the rest of the world though. If you want to reach completely new people than you need to be out in the real world. I called Zweihänder a cannibal last time. I take that back. They really are trying to build the industry.

This is something I have also been trying to do, I just haven’t talked about it on this blog but Egdcltd has read about my efforts. By comparison I have been pissing around with small fry but the principle is the same. I don’t really think that my ideas would work nearly so well with Zwei as they would with my wild west game. Different genre, different style, different target audience.

The more I hang around the Zwei world the more stark are the differences between the openness and dynamic nature of G&P Studios and the sullen silence of ICE.

And finally…

This is one of the examples from the beginning of the rules.

Nick’s Character Grover Caldwell has an Order Alignment of Mystery and the Chaos Alignment of Exclusion. During the game session, the GM reveals a dangerous bit of information to Nick in secret. Grover now has the choice to reveal an important plot point to the other PCs or hold onto it. Unfortunately, knowledge of this information could prove potentially
dangerous, putting Grover in a place of mistrust with his comrades. He decides it may be best to hold onto this information, alienating himself from the others while shutting them out from the mysteries that only
he understands. As the story led to this moment, not revealing the information taps into his Chaos Alignment of Exclusion – placing his closest friends’ life in danger. The GM, while satisfied that Nick was doing the right thing for his Character, bestows 1 Corruption.

Is it just me or is seeing Nick and Caldwell in such close proximity in a competitors RPG rules just too much of a coincidence?

Now that we are winding down the 50 Adventures in 50 Weeks challenge and heading into 2019 it’s time to start the new adventure production. So we are proud to announce the next iteration: The Serial Adventure.

These OSR inspired adventures will feature pre-generated PCs and 25 individual chapters that can be played in sequence. Each chapter will have updated character sheets so the players won’t need to level up, update skills or handle bookkeeping between game sessions. The players will start at 1st level and ultimately attain 10-15th level at the end of the series.

Every few weeks we will publish a new chapter of the series which can be played in a single 4-6 hour session. Stats will be d100 style and can easily be adapted to a variety of systems and Magic-User and Cleric spells will utilize the BASiL spell lists.

The goal is to create truly “turn-key” adventure sessions that are connected by a singular plot line, but can be played individually if desired. Plots, creatures and other design elements will draw from popular fantasy tropes and should be usable in most any fantasy settings–these won’t be Shadow World specific.

A recent discussion on the RM boards regarding splitting up Creature Law got me thinking about something that could be the elephant in the room: are we talking about RMU the engine or RMU the fantasy game/setting? By engine I mean RMU’s basic mechanics (character creation, skill system, and combat mechanics/format: basically ChL&AL without the races and professions) and by game I mean the fantasy RMU we’re looking at now (spells, races, fantastic monsters, and even professions). The engine is something that can be used in any setting or genre, while the game is tied to fantasy and a particular setting.

From a game engine perspective, it might be nice or advisable to have a number of fairly generic monster supplements out there. Things GMs could take and plug into their own settings confident they’d work with the RMU engine. But from a fantasy setting perspective, RMU the fantasy game needs a self-contained book of creatures designed for the official setting. Nothing else needs to be included if it doesn’t fit into the setting.

So What?

This discussion matters because RMU is really two things at once: the engine and the game. Things that make sense for the engine might not work for the game, and the reverse is also true. Clear thinking is needed when it comes to the initial game release. It should have everything required for the GAME to work in the official setting, but not necessarily those bits the ENGINE requires to be flexible and adaptable. It’s those engine bits that can (and possibly should) appear as supplements or add-ons: core GAME materials should not.

Since RM started life as a series of game engine plug-ins for AD&D, this may be something of a shift for people conditioned to think of RM as an almost-endless series of supplements and additions. But if the engine in its new form is going to have a chance the game (for once) needs to come first. What does that mean in practice? Tie the game officially to a setting. Ensure the core has the races, spells, treasures, and creatures to function with that setting and don’t worry about anything else. It’s the game (engine-setting-tools) that matters now.

It’s all about the Game

Once the game takes off, it’s possible to look at a series of “powered by RM” products focusing on the engine itself. But that comes AFTER the game is out. If a race being contemplated doesn’t fit into the setting, don’t develop it now. Spells that don’t fit? Hold them for something else. Same for creatures and monsters. Everything in the core is based on the engine, but HAS to support the game (engine plus setting). If it doesn’t support the game, leave it out. The CORE GAME should have everything a GM needs to start running adventures in the setting NOW, rather than wait for another book or two.

Right now it seems to be split between a discussion of the game and the engine, often without an awareness of the difference between the two. My sense is the engine is more or less done, at least in core terms (character creation, combat, skills) as I define engine. Maybe the time has come to draw a line around what’s considered the game (setting, professions, races) and just finish that. Monsters and races not part of the core setting can wait for future supplements. If the engine’s solid it can drive any number of game types. But it needs a game to get out of the garage and on the road.

Welcome to 2019! Peter and I usually do a look-back and a look-forward at year’s end so I thought I would start the process. First off, I spent some time looking over the past year; due to my work on opening a new business, my blog output dropped off considerably; I think I only posted about 50 times or 1x week on average.

It’s interesting to read back through the last year. While 12 months seems like a short time, I barely remembered what i blogged! Between work related writing, game material and blogging I’m sitting at a computer quite a bit. It blurs together. I definitely have a “fire & forget” process when it comes to blogging; I write quickly when something comes to the forefront or I’m stimulated by someone else’s post or thought and then it’s out of my mind.

3 Blog post(s) that I wrote that I wanted to revisit:

1. The Messengers of the Iron Wind. I had fun with this and it forced me to finalize the specific spells lists for the six orders. I had most of them up to 10th lvl and used them for the Priests, but my overview made me rethink and now have the Messengers themselves with the order specific list. These are some of my favorite villains in Jaiman.
2. Early ICE advertising in Dragon Magazines. This brought back a lot of old memories! I had a long running subscription to Dragon starting at around issue 75 and this gave me the chance to read the older Dragons from Issue #1 to #60 cover to cover. It was a D&D and Rolemaster flashback.
3. Reviews of the Loremaster Series. (Iron Wind, Vog Mur, Cloudlords & Shade). Similar to the advertising review, I spend time really reading these modules again cover to cover; every word and try to reconcile them with my understanding of early I.C.E. and the evolution into Shadow World.

Rolemasterblog Adventures. 2018 wasn’t just blogging. Peter & Adrian really stepped up their game and published our 50 Adventures in 50 Weeks Challenge. We did it!…well mostly….I still have 3 left of my 25 still to be published. However, it was fantastic to go from concept to execution, see supplements reach metal status, generate hundreds of dollars and realize proof of concept in small publishing. To revisit the genesis of the project go HERE.

New faces and new ideas. 2018 brought us new writers and contributors to the blog. First in January, Brad posted a great article about the Magician; Spectre discussed “Absolute Success” thresholds in March and equipment combos in July, a tribute blog in August and an opinion piece on RMU this past December; Adrian (EGDCLTD) found time outside of publishing RMBlog adventures to write about RPG’s and complexity; starting in March we had a burst of great activity and new perspectives from Ovarwa who posted HERE, HERE, and an article on the “cost of charts” that generated a good bit of comments. Ovarwa, where did you go? In May we had another new poster, Bjorn, who started diving into HARP., returned in October to analyze falling in HARP.

Rolemasterblog hits puberty? To me, 2018 displayed a lot of maturing for the blog. A weekly adventure publication, monthly fanzine, new bloggers, new topics and coverage of other games. We are steadily approaching an inflection point where we will publish material with agnostic d100 stats compatible with Rolemaster and other systems. While the wait for RMU continues along, I wonder what RMBlog will bring to 2019?

What are your thoughts on 2018?