The Rolemaster Blog

As you’re here, I know you’re familiar with Rolemaster, and I’m here to tell you about HARP.  HARP stands for High Adventure Role Playing, and while it shares many things with RM it is its own game.

Currently, HARP has six books available: Fantasy, SF, SF Xtreme,  College of Magics, Martial Law, and Folkways. You can run fantasy games with just the core book if you want to, but for science fiction you really need both SF and  SF Xtreme.

HARP Similarities to RM

• d100/percentile dice based with open ending
• Modular: the mentioned expansion books for fantasy
• Brutal and amusing critical hits and fumbles

HARP Differences from RM

• Eight stats instead of ten.
• Your attack roll is your critical roll, reducing dice rolling.
• Critical tables are by damage type rather than by weapon, reducing the amount of time it takes to look up a critical result. They also top out at rolls of 120, instant death criticals, so it is much easier to top the charts.
• Rather than learning a spell list associated with their profession, casters can alter their spells during casting.  This comes with an increased casting time, power point cost, and an increasing casting penalty the more  scaling options the caster wants to use. Each spell is learned as a skill that the caster must have enough ranks for number of power points used in the spell for all scaling options. Characters will have to take casting penalties into account to scale their spells to cast while wearing armor.
• To create a mixed race/species or genetically adapted character, the player must purchase the Genetic Adaptation talent once or twice, one Greater Blood Talent, or exactly two Lesser Blood Talents.
• Choosing a character’s culture gives adolescent skills and is a great starting point for character backgrounds.

Encouragement

If you’re a fan of RM and sometimes want something lighter, give HARP a spin. Or if you’re interested in RM but it seems too daunting, give HARP a go.

For those taking note, my blog volume has decreased substantially over the last month or two. Luckily, we have new bloggers that can help fill the gaps as well as bring different perspectives to all things Rolemaster and RPG’s. Unfortunately, my schedule doesn’t free up for another month or two and I’m going to limit myself to shorter posts that are geared towards generating discussion rather than me presenting my own solutions.

Let’s talk about dividing loot. I was meandering through some old D&D material and realized that they actually developed some rules on how players should divide up treasure. I had never given it much thought and in all the years of playing, dividing treasure always seemed fairly simple and intuitive.

Here is the original text from the Players Handbook.

APPENDIX V
SUGGESTED AGREEMENTS FOR DIVISION OF TREASURE

Agreements:
1. Equal shares (share and share alike) is a simple division by the total
number of characters involved.
2. Shares by level is a division whereby all* character levels of
experience are added and the total treasure divided by this sum.
One share of treasure is given for each experience level.
3. Equal shares plus bonus is a method to reward excellence and
leadership. Treasure is divided by the sum of all characters, plus
two or three. The outstanding character or characters, as
determined by vote, each gain one extra share.
*For multi-classed characters add one-half of the lesser class(es)
levels to the greater class levels to determine total experience
levels for the division of treasure. Characters with two classes
receive shares for the class levels they are permitted to employ (cf.
THE CHARACTER WITH TWO CLASSES).

Modifiers:
1. Non-player characters who are henchmen of a player character
count as one-half character or for one half of their levels and
cannot gain bonus shares.
2. A character incapacitated or killed (but subsequently brought back
to life) is eligible to share only in treasure gained prior to such
incapacity or death.
3. Characters who are uncooperative, who obstruct the party, attack
party members, or are the proximate cause of the incapacitation or
death of a party member shall forfeit from one-quarter to all of
their share(s) as penalty for their actions.

Magical Treasure:
While it is a simple matter to total coins and precious items which can be
sold for an established amount of money, the division of magic items is far
more difficult. It is therefore necessary for party members to determine
how magic will be divided. As the number of items which will be gained is
unknown, selection of a system of division is not possible until after the
adventure is concluded.
1. If but one or two items of magic are gained these can be grouped
singly or paired to equal  share of treasure. If one is of relatively
small worth, it can be grouped with money to equal one share.
2. Three or more magic items:
a) best item
b) next best item
c) third + fourth items
d) “x” amount of money as compensation for not getting any
magic items
3. Three or more magic items, alternate method:
a) best item
b) second item + “x” amount of money
c) fourth item + “3x” amount of money

Magic items thus parceled are then diced for, the character with the
highest roll selecting first, and then the second highest scoring character
choosing next, etc. It is suggested that each character be given a number
of rolls equal to his or her level of experience, the highest of these rolls
being the one retained. Non-player character henchmen are typically
allowed but a single roll.
Variations on the above systems are, of course, possible. Systems should
always be established prior to the inception of the adventure whenever
possible.

To me, these rules are a curiosity- a remnant of D&D’s wargaming roots. I wonder if any game since has actually created or quantified a similar system of loot division? A few thoughts I had:

1. It seems impersonal in a game generally played by a group of friends in a cooperative group. For a convention game or playing in a group of strangers it might make sense?
2. While it may seem impartial rules would reduce group conflict, shares by level or equal shares with a bonus are begging for player disagreement. The modifiers seem a bit qualitative as well.
3. I like the fact that it’s mentioned that henchmen get a share as well. That reinforces the importance of henchmen and retainers in D&D that isn’t really found in Rolemaster.
4. The “shares” reminds me of loot and spoil agreements used by pirates, freebooters and privateers.

I suppose in a game system that quantifies everything and uses 1gp = 1xp, having hard rules about dividing treasure makes sense. Is this a legacy of a simpler time in RPG’s or a needless complexity that has been ignored by most other game systems since? Did you ever use official loot splitting rules for your group? Do these rules foster teamwork and collaboration or create problems? In a game that is based on group problem solving, is it strange to lay out these rules? Maybe it’s just quaint but unnecessary now–like wearing hats in the old timey days.

What other original D&D rules are “outliers” or seem obsolete now?

I was going to blog about something completely different today but as we seem to still be in dissecting rolemaster mode and Brian has the hood off of Spell Law I thought I would stick my oar in as well.

So as you all know I have been reading the 7th Sea rules. Looking at 7c2e magic at first glance you could so easily turn it into a spell list based system.

7c2e has different types of magic.

Porté allows the sorcerer to mark items, people and places with their own blood and then by creating a portal to either draw the item to them or travel to the person or place. As your skill in Porté increases you can maintain a bond with more items, people and places and take more people with you when traveling via these portals. So you could have a series of spells for Mark I, Mark II and so on that build up the number of marked items, Mark Person, Mark Place and so on that go up in stages and Create Portal spells. Between those you could easily build a list.

Sanderis is a form of magic where the character has a contract with a demon (to all intents and purposes). The spells on a Sanderis list would be in the form of ‘deals’ where the demon could be coerced into performing actions. Low level spells would do minor deals in exchange for minor gains and high level spells would force the demon to significant errands for the character.

Hexenwerk is a cross between alchemy and necromancy to create unguents.  Unguents are thick pastes or salves and come in minor and major variations. Here is an example, Ghost Eyes. Eyes carved from the recent dead, mixed with holy water and mandrake, and then smeared across the eyelids. Ghost Eyes allows you to see—for a single Scene—spirits, ghosts, and other such Monsters that would typically be invisible. One could easily build a list of unguent creation spells going from minor to major effects.

Those are just three of the six types of magic in 7c2e. Each is woven into the culture of the land where it originated and each has very distinct usage, effects and mechanics.

So, I could easily convert all of these to Rolemaster spell lists but in doing so something would be lost. With Sanderis the ‘caster’ can do any deal with their personal demon if they are prepared to pay the price. You do not need to be a particular skill level to get a particular effect. With Hexenwerk you can build a recipe book of different unguents as you learn the recipes. You do not need to work through them in a linear way.

So why do we need Channeling, Essence and Mentalism to work in exactly the same way? If a priest is getting his or her power directly from their deity why are they limited in what they can prey for? Rangers and Clerics are both channelers but their power source (nature vs gods directly?) are potentially very different yet treated as being one and the same.

Potentially you could easily abandon the realms model completely and built truly distinctive spell casters that are closely tied into their setting and characters culture as they are into their magical tradition. The only thing that makes one pure spell caster different from the next are their base lists. If a style of magic does not fit into a linear list style structure why not abandon the list and create a structure that does work?

Of all the 50 in 50 adventure hooks I wrote my two favourites were Mating Season and Call That A Knife.

This week’s offering is Call That A Knife.

Call That a Knife? sees a strange woman pulled out of the sea at a port. The woman is wearing tight-fitting armour and has unusual weapons, which she immediately attacks her rescuers with, killing several. The characters hear about this attack and may pursue the woman, who is travelling across the town’s roofs, as she tries to escape. The woman speaks no known language; it isn’t known who or what she is or why she is attacking everyone who approaches her.

Believe me when I say it is much better than it sounds. This is Ninjas meets Bourne Identity meets Kill Bill.

If you only buy one of my hooks then this is the one to buy. If you want to buy two of mine then get Mating Season as well!

Love em or hate em, you cannot escape charts in Rolemaster. This feature, more than any other, distinguishes it from other surviving game systems. I cannot have a conversation about modifying or even understanding the game system without talking about charts and their impact.

Specifically, I am going to talk about complexity and efficiency, the cost of algorithms. Nothing about this conversation is about the goodness or badness of Rolemaster, only about its expense. Charts are the elephant in the hallowed halls of Rolemaster. This post is all about weighing the elephant.

If you are familiar with algorithms, you probably already know how this post will develop and I hope you do not mind my attempts to simplify a subject that can get, um, rather complex. Much of what follows might be obvious to you even if you are not, especially if you have been living with the complexity of RM for decades, but perhaps because I am about to explain this too awesomely. Perhaps. Or, you can just wiki computational complexity and algorithmic efficiency, and know everything! More likely, I will not have explained things well enough. Otherwise…

Complexity is basically how much stuff it takes to support an operation. The usual ‘stuff’ considered is time: If I run an algorithm on an input of size N, how long will it run? But we can also consider operations: How many operations does it take? This is pretty useful to measure the agility of a game system during play: How many things do I have to do to reach a conclusion? Finally, we can consider space: How many physical resources does it consume? We will be talking a lot about this last.

Suppose I have N talents that cost the same and work the same for everyone: No special cases. How much space do I need to represent them? Well, it’s the average length of a talent write-up, which we can consider reasonably constant, multiplied by N, or k*N. We ignore the constant and call this O(N), because as N gets really huge the constant doesn’t matter very much. If I have 1000 talents in RM, the space I need is 1000 entries. If I have 4 talents, I need 4 entries. If I add a brand new talent, whether I have 1000 talents or 4, I do not have to modify any other talent and I need exactly one more entry. We call this linear.

So far so good? Well ok: The same thing happens if I decide to add a new skill to RM, right? Nope. Let’s walk through this. First, I have a chapter all about skills. I add another skill, and that’s just another entry, as for talents. But I also have different skill costs for every class. So if I have S skills and C classes, I need S*C entries, or O(S*C). Hey, that starts to look like a table, or a chart: It’s no longer linear, but quadratic. It’s representation no longer looks like a list of stuff, but a quadrangle. If I have 300 skills and 50 classes, I have 15000 entries. To add a new skill requires C=50 new entries; a new class requires S=300 new entries. Ouch.

Of course, if I add a new class, I also have to calculate and then create entries for the cost of every Lifestyle and Vocational Package too. If I have P packages, that’s O(P*C), which is also quadratic. Having to do two (or any constant number of) quadratic things is still quadratic.

If you’re wondering why so many rules tinkerers go with a single Non-Profession class, or if you are one of these tinkerers and think you are doing it for some other reason, you are really doing it to reap the benefits of greater algothmic efficiency. These quadratic algorithms become linear because you have set C=1. When balancing skill costs, you have S costs to think about rather than S*C, so you are more likely to get the balance right. When representing skills, you have S entries. That’s linear. The same reasoning holds for packages, and maybe some other charts I don’t want to think about now.

Of course, we can use skill categories to tame this problem, which has already happened :). This reduces the size of S, which is nice. Instead of S=300 we have, say, S=20. But the algorithm still consumes quadratic space, because it hasn’t changed: 20*50=1000 entries. That’s better than 15000! And if we limit ourselves to only 20 classes, we have even fewer entries: 20*20=400. But if we had a linear algorithm, O(S), we’d have 20 entries, or we could ignore skill categories and have 300 entries.

This is what a game designer I know calls “the n squared problem.” When designing a game, he never wants rules that require him to make a big table (he simplified the rectangle to a square, which is reasonable) because he then has to fill in every entry and be sure they are all correct before going to print, and then players who want to really understand what is happening have to look at N*N cases rather than N.

So, RM has “the n squared problem,” right? Nope. We should be so lucky. RM has Armor Type rather than mere Armor Class. Where lesser games are content to represent each weapon as some die roll for damage with maybe a damage type and maybe a special rule, every RM attack is unique. And where other games settle for a mathematical formula for deciding what a die roll means, RM has something like 50 entries for the range of 0 to 150+.

That’s A (number of ATs) * W (number of weapons or attacks) * D (dice roll bands on table). That’s O(A*W*D). My game designer guy would call this “the n cubed problem.” We in the biz call it cubic. It’s like a stack of tables. Let’s weigh the elephant:

If I have 20 ATs, because that sounds like a good number :), 40 different weapons and attacks and 50 dice bands, thats 20*40*50=40000 entries. (I won’t even bother with the crit charts here, but that’s also cubic.)

Add another weapon or attack type? That’s A*D new entries, or a page. Want to add a new AT, say, to support the plant people and plant armors I really want to add to my game? That’s W*D new entries, and I have to edit all the pages. You get the idea. (Here is where a purist might point out that I should represent D as a really big constant. But I’m simplifying, and I think you know why I’m not.)

I hope we are getting something for all this algorithmic inefficiency: Other rpgs usually represent weapons and armors in linear space. Remember: If I have one list of armor that doesn’t depend on weapons, and another list of weapons that don’t depend on armor, that’s two lists, both of which are linear. That’s O(N), and I have a number of entries precisely equal to A+W.

We can reduce entries too: RMU cuts the number of ATs in half, for a substantial savings. But I still cannot easily add new armors, as I can in other systems. The relative algorithmic inefficiency is forcing some hard choices! We’ll be talking about choice in another post. But could we instead change how things are done? Change the algorithm? Should we?

Maybe you don’t care about space complexity, but only about time complexity. After all, once you have a character, you can copy the few charts that character needs, and it doesn’t matter because everything is so easy for a guy who can GM this game in his sleep. We’ll talk about time complexity in a moment.

But first… it does matter. You pay for the space complexity when you buy a book and much of it is table entries like 22AK, 24AK… when it could have other kinds of content. You pay again when it takes forever to get a new book out because all of the entries have to be correct. You pay again when you find that things aren’t balanced right even after that forever: Human beings really don’t do a good job balancing 10000 table entries, and trying to reduce the problem with categories creates other problems, which have been discussed in other RM fora, though not from this perspective. You pay again when a new something or other is added, and all the charts have to be updated. You pay again when you are the one who wants to add or change something, because that’s expensive in RM. There are some other subtle prices to be paid, and RM veterans who start to look at the game through this kind of lens are more likely to find the most insidious these than I.

There’s a time penalty too, because looking things up on a matrix is often more difficult than rolling some dice and comparing to something simple. But this is not so terrible.

All rpgs have to deal with time complexity, and few do a great job of it. Time complexity here is all about the cost of each operation. Do I have to figure out how many dice to roll? If so, given the capabilities of human brainpower, what is that cost, compared to a mechanic that always has me roll the same dice? That’s the best, by the way: constant complexity, or O(1). RM can brag here. But calculating all the modifiers is a different kind of expense, and RM has that in abundance. Then there’s tracking actions, percent action, initiative… What are the real costs? Each kind of operation is just plain different. Having to open a book and reference a table has a different cost compared with finding the right dice to roll, especially if some other player borrowed one, compared to calculating a formula, even a simple addition or subtraction. And then there’s the cost of human error.

So, in the simplest sense, most rpgs seem to have linear time complexity: Add up each relevant modifier, find the necessary dice, roll them, figure out what it means. But if any of these operations requires greater than constant time, the overall time is worse than linear. I am very confident that looking anything up on a table is worse than constant for a human being. I suspect it is worse than O(logN) and would be shocked if it were better. Alas, that awaits a real study or a good Google search.

As an aside, the advantage/disadvantage mechanic of D&D5 oversimplifies, perhaps, but it has powerful, um, advantages: Although running through the possible sources of advantage and disadvantage is linear, you get to stop much earlier, because only one of each matters. Also, the math is dead simple, since there is no math, so we can be sure the operation really is constant. (I’m not sure that adding modifiers is really constant.) It is also far more reliable: If you accidentally use the same modifier twice, you still get the same result. Combined with no table lookup, this really is a safe O(N).

So, here we are. I haven’t gone through everything, some of which will come up later, like spell lists, but RM has some rather inefficient features.

I do not mean to say they are the wrong features! If the features provide you with something you don’t otherwise get and still really want, well, you paid the price for what you want. That’s the big question, isn’t it: If you’re willing to collapse classes to reap the rewards of efficiency at no loss of playability and perhaps even a gain, what else might you do?

This week we have a two goodies for you. The May edition of the fanzine, issue 13 or Year 2 issue 1 depending on how you want to think of it. We also have our latest 50in50, The Red Stone Circle.

The Red Stone Circle

The Red Stone Circle is an unusual location, a stone circle formed of concentric rings of monoliths with a dolmen at the very centre. The circle acts as a magical dampener, suppressing the magic of anything that goes into the rings; the further in, the greater the effect.

 

This month brings 25 new Channeling Spell lists from Dark Woundings to Herb Mastery, here is the first part of the BASiL Channeling book by Brian Hanson. You can get the PDF from RPGnow or the print and kindle versions on Amazon.

I love the covers by Craig John, this time Sel Kai!

Welcome to the fourth part of my Spell Law Series.  In Pt. 1 I discussed Spell Law and BASiL in overview. In Pt. 2 I delved into the mechanics of the Essence realms, Pt. 3 into Channeling and now is Pt. 4 I wanted to discuss “Notational” Magic, or written/inscribed magic. Rather than offer my own solutions, I want to open the conversation up from a deconstructive standpoint.

So what is Notational Magic? It’s any magic that requires pictograms, symbols, drawing or writing as part of it’s mechanic; in short, “written or inscribed magic”. In Rolemaster that could include Runes, Glyphs, Sigils, Heiroglyphs, Circles, Magical Tattoos, Blade Runes, Marks, Signatures, Signs and Wards. Over time with various optional rules, settings and companions, many of these words have been used interchangeably and muddied the rule mechanics. For instance, typical “Runes” are written on special paper, can be used to learn a spell or can be cast which then depletes the Rune. Battle or Weapon Runes (RMCI) are temporary spell charges that are cast on weapons and armor. Obviously these are two different mechanics with differing functions, but both are called “Runes”. However, these Runes and the other types listed above share a single trait: all imply a functionality  based on a written/drawn parameter. This similarity is be enough to group these types of magic under a cohesive mechanic, rather than shoehorn it into Essence, Channeling or even Mentalism.

Rolemaster Companion II officially tackled part of the issue with rules around Summoning Circles. While the spells themselves followed standard casting mechanics (SCR, Class I-III etc), there was an acknowledgement that drawing a 10′ diameter circle of arcane symbols might take longer than the 30 seconds it might take to cast a Class III spell. But don’t Runes, Glyphs, Symbols or Sigils need to be “drawn” as well? Or do you feel that the spellcasting itself creates the resulting shapes or symbols?

But stepping back a bit further, we should ask what is actually being drawn or written? A written language? Forms that hold/create power? Power symbols? Is it a written magical short-hand? Something else? Is the shape or form of “scroll runes” different than Glyphs or Symbols? How can a channeling spell be imbedded into an object or rune paper if the spell requires the basic consent of a God? Doesn’t that amount to a work around? If each is it’s own language do casters need to learn different written forms similar to magical languages?

For me, the number and type of the above questions indicates that there is already a massive gap in the rule constructs for written magic. Essence we can subscribe to chanting and waving hands, Channeling to prayer and Mentalism to mental focus and concentration but the similarities AND the established differences in these varying types of magic require quite a bit more organization work.

Finally, if a rune or symbol spell requires writing or drawing, shouldn’t the spellcasting roll be based on the casters skill in writing or drawing? As previously argued regarding magical languages, you can’t use magicial languages to cast high level spells if you have a 1st grade ability in a magical language. Shouldn’t the same be true for written magic? If you can’t draw, write cursive, do calligraphy or draft how can you effectively draw a working summoning circle?

What are other possible issues around notational magic?

1. Surfaces. What can notational magic be used on? Runes require a special paper. Glyphs can be written on a flux: fluid or air? Symbols require a large heavy stone, blade runes require a weapon but depends on size. Basically it’s all over the place.
2. Mediums. Is there a medium needed to inscribe the spell? Ink? Paint? Oil? Blood? What about acid etching, chiseling, carving or tattoos? How does the strength or permanency of different mediums interact with the spell, spell casting for general duration? Should it matter?
3. Analysis. If notational magic has structure should a skill like Runes or Rune Language allow someone to interpret the rune or similar symbol? Should they be able to decipher the rune, it’s power, effect or level?
4. Visibility. Which types of notational magic or visible to the naked eye? Do they glow, do they fade until triggered?
5. Casting Time. How long should it take to write and cast notational magic? It should probably depend on the type of writing, the surface and the medium, right? That means a varied system of casting times that break out of the standard Spell Law mechanic. In some respects this is closer to the rules around ritual magic.

Compared to other realms, notational magic has some real disadvantages: needed materials, complexity, casting time etc. This should be offset by some advantages: duration, power or flexibility. That will need some thought.

Finally, last thought. This is really setting dependent but there are opportunities to create some really unique magic styles that could differentiate your campaign. So what are your thoughts? If you could start from scratch (deconstruction) would Runes and similar types of magic work differently than the 3 realms? What other types of notational magic can you think of?