Anatomy of an online game

I have reached the point with my Play By Post game where I am adding the players and starting to upload the information they need to create their characters.

The way that RPOL works is with a collection of discussion threads with restricted permissions. This means that players can only read or add to their own threads but can also see threads set to ‘public’.

Each player will have access to two threads, one is their story where everything is ‘in character’ and a second thread where they can ask my, the GM, questions or for clarifications. The characters story thread then reads like a piece of LitRPG.

So I am adding setting information known to everyone to the public threads as well as the character creation rules.

All the chargen rules will be straight out of the beta Character & Arms Law. I am actually trying to keep house rules to an absolute minimum just to make it a viable play test.

On the topic of play test, I wonder if it is actually even worthwhile now? I get the real impression that Character Law, especially, is pretty much ready to ‘go to print’ and if that is true then any feedback is of limited value. This s probably just an RMU game for the sheer fun of playing Rolemaster!

On the other hand…

PBP games are amazing playtest tools. The reason for this is that absolutely everything is trackable. Every dice roll is recorded (in RPOL this is the case) and the whole narrative there as a permanent record. In no other game format could you replay an entire scene and have everything identical.

So hopefully by tomorrow I will have all the Chargen rules up for the players to start creating their PCs.

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The Hermit of Castle Ruins

This week’s 50 in 50 adventure hook is The Hermit of Castle Ruins.

The Hermit of Castle Ruins is a small, drop-in location. In a ruined building near a port town lives an old hermit, believed to be a monster or even an undead creature by the locals, who have tried to kill it once already. They are still offering a reward for the creature’s destruction. The characters can investigate, and perhaps claim the reward.

Monsters

I am getting better at remembering to update the monster wiki with new monsters as and when I create them. This week I have added Sprites, as a humanoid/fey and the Kraken under Monstrosities. We also have our first ‘normal animal’ being the Aurochs, a great big bison type of cattle. The Aurochs is probably limited in usefulness but better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. There is no Aurochs in C&T so I genuinely needed to create that creature for an adventure.

Please remember that anyone who is logged in should be able to add to or edit the monsters in the wiki. If you want them to have skills or professions or create new variations then feel free and get stuck in!

So that is this weeks round up of publications.

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Reconsidering the Magician

I’ve never really warmed to Rolemaster’s archetypal blaster, the Magician. In the spirit of full disclosure, I should add that I’ve never liked any character that concentrates primarily on ‘blasting’, in any system, unless the blasting is interesting, like firing a swarm of wasps or an ethereal bolt that causes the target to blink in and out of their current dimension.  My problem with the Magician, however, is more specific: at the risk of sounding pompous, I feel that the Magician does violence to the richness and potential of the elements. One of the things I really liked about the Elemental Companion was the wide and fascinating range of elemental effects available to players (although the generic nature of the lists represented, I felt, an opportunity lost).

The thing with the elements is that they provide a window to a whole system of symbolism, psychology and metaphysics. I find myself thinking here of crossovers between the classical elements and astrology, elements and humoral theory, elements and cosmology (as per Thales, for example). If one accepts the idea of elements as metaphysical building blocks of varying complexity, and adds to that the notion that a certain level of mastery of a particular element in its raw form grants access to more ‘metaphysical’ expressions of that elements sphere of influence, then you can move beyond bolts, balls and walls to…anywhere, really.

So, what elements to use? Rolemaster has traditionally concentrated on the classical four elements with Ice and Light thrown in (more bolts and balls!). My own campaign’s take on this is that the classical four plus four others are the starting point and the basis of all further elaboration. The four other key elements form two dichotomies: one represents that between Law and Chaos, Order and Entropy, whilst the others could be represented by Death and Life, Good and Evil, Void and Being or Negative and Positive. There are also several anomalous ‘elements’ or forces that stand somewhat outside of these eight fundamentals. Here are contained such conceptual forces as Time, Mind, Dream and the binding/linking force of the Ether.

All of these elements are sourced from their own plane, a dimensional zone where they reign supreme, and each of these dimensions, whirling in the intricate and infinite geometries of the multiverse ‘rub’ against one another, producing small hybrid dimensions I call ‘niches’. Fire and Water, for example, create the Niche of Steam. The list of potential combinations is fairly large, especially given that each Niche can then contact each other, spawning ever more complex creations. The Niche of Wood is created by the intersection of Life, Earth, Water and Light (itself a product of Fire and Ether). When this Niche is then contacted by that of Decay (Time and Chaos), the Niche of Rot comes into being.

This is the general structure, but it has comparatively little bearing on the standard RM organisation of spell lists, which may be considered to operate at a level that does not require much knowledge or application of the underlying metaphysics. It is only when planar travel and specific summoning (“By all that is holy! This situation calls for a Rot Elemental!”) are required does this lore become a necessity, and only a few sages (and my updated version of RoCo IV’s Astral Traveller) are privy to it.

Back to the Magician: if the elements are as complex and fundamental as the above model assumes, then Magicians, as the primary manipulators of basic elemental matter, ought conceivably to have a command of both the aggressive/defensive manifestations of the elements but also the more metaphysical aspects of the elements. This degree and style of learning requires that Magicians have ‘primary’ access to one – and one only – element, in which they can potentially master all the power an element provides.  Thus a magician might specialise in Fire: they gain lists that manipulate the transcendent aspects of Fire (the chosen list here is Fire Law) and the immanent aspects. I used the list Fire Forms from RoCo VII and the list Fire’s Influence from the January 2009 Guild Companion. So that’s three of six Base Lists. I also gave them Elemental Summons (RoCo II), with the proviso that only Fire Elementals could be summoned using the list. Fire Magicians also gain a ‘metaphysical’ list linked to the element: I selected the Paladin list Inspirations (RoCo II) to represent the courage and inspiration that Fire grants. Finally, I gave the list Mage Sign (RoCo VII) to all Magician’s regardless of elemental selection, to reflect a basic training that all Magicians receive.

I did retain the six elements of the original Magician and added ‘Dark’ as a seventh – more because I wanted to draw on the existing material in the Core and Companions rather than spending the rest of my life concocting spell lists for all of the basic elements and the Niches. One of these days, I’d like to give the system my full attention and create a set of lists that appropriately reflects the juiciness of the underlying concept (without following the rather generic path of the Elemental Companion).

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Shadow World Overview: The Messengers of the Iron Wind.

One of the bedrocks of the Shadow World setting are the detailed organizations that Terry has created: Loremasters, Navigators, the 8 Emerian Orders,  and the Dragonlords, just to name a few. These groups drive the plot and can be aids or foils for the players and be used throughout a lengthy Shadow World campaign.

One of the very first of these groups is The Iron Wind detailed in I.C.E.’s first publication. An order of Dark Priests (of High Imla Arna – “The Evil High Priests”), they were the secret tentacles of the Unlife that insinuated themselves into local cultures.  There were Six Orders described in the Iron Wind, along with a order of assassins known as Messengers of Syrkakang. This became the kernel that Terry expanded upon in subsequent books.

Jaiman, Land of Twilight expanded on the material in the Iron Wind with more information on the Priests of Yarthraak. At this point the Messengers were still “of Yarthraak”, but later were changed to “Gorath”. Frustratingly, the Messengers were only hinted at, and the only additional details were found in the adventure “Living Prison” and not the “Legacy of the Sea Drake”.  It wasn’t until Powers of Light and Darkness that Terry fully fleshed out the Six orders of Arnak, both Priests and Messengers.

Terry is fantastic at writing organizations with flavor and cool equipment, and in my opinion, the Messengers are some of the best for the PC’s to encounter. The Messengers can be seen as the militant arm of each of the six Orders of the Priests and have their own style and abilities. In my own campaign I treat the Messengers as semi-spell users; each has their own unique spell list to augment their inherent power and adds atmosphere to the encounters.

Why do the Messengers work so well?

  1. The Messengers are 9th-10th lvl, which is a good power level for most PC’s and that can scale by adding or reducing to the # encountered.
  2. Anonymous, frightening with cool gear and armor, the Messengers lack higher level agency, so they make a great “mindless” foes.
  3. They evoke a number of familiar tropes found in movies and literature. That makes them both familiar and alien if introduced properly.

So let’s review the various Messengers, where they can be found in books or perhaps how to introduce them into your Shadow World campaign.

Messengers of Al-athuul (Lyak)

Description. The Messengers and their birds (both familiars and
mounts) reside in a great roost in the eaves of the Lyak
Tower, ready to serve the Priestess at a thought. The Messengers wear light green quilted cloth armor, blue cloaks of feather fall and wield swords and light crossbows.

My thoughts. As presented, Al-athuul are perhaps the least interesting of the 6 Messenger types, but would make great foes in Tanara and Urulan. Especially as combatants against the players hooking up with the Cloudlords–aerial battles anyone!!!! I added “Raptor Masks” to their kit to bring a more chilling appearance  similar to the other orders.

Where to find them. Messengers of Al-athuul can be found in the revised edition of Cloudlords of Tanara. They appear in the timeline in a few descriptions and as a possible encounter for medium level (6-10th) players. Messengers of Al-athuul would be great for a “cat and mouse” pursuit with the players on foot and the Messengers flying high overhead. This could create a fantastic tension as the group tries to escape or evade the Messengers with an occasional divebomb attack. Like the Stukas @ Dunkirk!

Spell List. My BASiL list for Lyak (the Priests get the list as well) was predicated on the concept of a “hunting bird” with spells that added more innate dread to the players (they are prey!). The combination of spells “Hunting Cry”, “Keen Eye” and “Dive Attack” allow the Messengers to circle high above on their mounts searching for targets. Then, when they find the players, they can cast their “Hunting Cry” and leap from their bird for an attack!

Lyak

Messengers of Gorath (Yarthraak)

The Messengers of Gorath are outfitted with weapons
designed of materials that do not rust or warp if
wet, as they are often charged with errands that require
them to operate on or in the sea. Their clothing is of a
seal-hide that repels water and keeps them warm on
land or under sea. Their helms are fashioned like great
nautilus shells and allow them to breathe water as well
as air, and the armor of the Messengers is a lightweight
scale-mail made up of thousands of shimmering scales
of black mother-of pearl. Their gloves are covered with
shark’s teeth spikes. On land the messengers ride grey stallions, while at sea their mounts are killer whales they control with
special whistles. Each has a black seagull as a familiar.

My thoughts.  Their nautilus helm, possible water environments and the shimmering scale armor gives them a great presence. It reminds me of an old 70’s movie that had warriors from Atlantis emerging from the Sea.

Where to find them. The prominence of the Jaiman source book makes Yarthraak one of the better known Arnak orders. In addition they are featured in short adventure the “Watchtowers of U-Lyshak“. With so many adventure opportunities in South and Southwest Jaiman, the use of these Messengers is very flexible. If you have the players travelling by boat, an encounter with the Messengers would be pretty cool.

Spell List. My BASiL list for Yarthraak focused more on underwater environments where spells would be needed for the Messenger to act.

Yarthraak

Messengers of Syrkakang (Gaath)

Description. The messengers’ helms are in the shape of a dragon’s
head and allow them to become invisible 3x per day.
Their white leather and steel gauntlets allow them to
strike with their fists as hammers, and their armor is of
white Wyvern hide.

My thoughts.  Who doesn’t love “Dragon Warriors” wearing white leather and having armored fists!

Where to find them. These Messengers should be featured in any adventuring in the Mur-Fostisyr. They are found in The Iron Wind and Xa’ar books.

Spell List. I wanted this list to be pure “Dragon Man” style magic.

Gaath

Messengers of Kulag (Athimurl)

Description. Masters of snow and ice, the Messengers of Kulag
are at home in the worst arctic storms. They come upon
the unwary to fulfill the directives of the cruel priesthood.
Each is armed with a baw and wears armor made
from the hide of white Wyverns. They have reversible
white/brown cloaks, and gauntlets with retractable
claws—useful in combat and for climbing ice-walls.
Their boots are also equipped with cleats that allow
them to run on ice and packed snow with the same
ease as dry land. The Messengers ride great white Snow-
Cats and their familiar is a Snowy Owl.

My thoughts.  Kulag shares much of the same Northern Jaiman territory as Syrkakang so it’s important to differentiate the two. In Powers, Terry explains that Athimurl is more subtle and secretive, but that may be a bit lost on the players. While Gaath is also “snow aspected” I play up the Dragonman aspect of Gaath and allow Kulag to be the real “Snow Warriors”.

Where to find them. These Messengers should be featured in any adventuring in the Mur-Fostisyr, northern Jaiman and should be included in the upcoming Wuliris supplement Terry has been working on. They are also included in the Xa’ar sourcebook.

Spell List. I used this list to emphasize the Messengers ability to travel fast over snow and ice terrain. Powerwise, it might be one of the weaker lists for offensive spells, but Kulag have Snow Cats as mounts and should be formidable fighters.

Athimurl

Messengers of Ulkaya (Dansart)

Description. Often accompanied by several large hyena-like dogs,
the Messengers go muffled against the dusty air of the
wastes. They have clawed gauntlets that allow them to
strike with the power of a great cat. Their helms are
fashioned to resemble dog-heads, with lenses in the eyes
to not only protect against dust but also allow the wearer
to see at night as if it were full day. Their armor is reinforced
leather, and each carries the deadly bola-like
weapon know as the gé.

My thoughts.  I love this faction. Wastelands, ruined cities, deserts, scavengers. It all has a very post-apocalyptic, Mad Max, feel to it that works great in Shadow World.

Where to find them. Messengers of Ulkaya are mentioned in Haalkitaine, but are featured prominently in The Grand Campaign. In fact, the Zorian Wastes (Part VII of the Grand Campaign) can (and should!) be inserted into any ongoing Shadow World campaign.

Spell List. My goal was to expand upon the feral feel that Terry has established. I was inspired by the feral dog/hyena aspect.

Dansart

Messengers of Shaynar (Thargonaak)

Description. Like the other Messengers, they ride through the
night on missions to bring fear to the indigenous peoples.
Their familiar is a huge black Bat and their steed is a
black stallion. More stealthy than most, they have voluminous
black cloaks like batwings, belts which allow
them to become Invisible, and helms fashioned like
frightening bat-heads which render them undetectable
by magic. In some regions these terrifying warriors are
called the Messengers of Kynagaax.

My thoughts. There is some confusion about the name of these Messengers. In Powers, they are known by Shaynar or Kynagaax. In Xa’ar they are named Kynagaax in the text, but labelled Chyna’ak in the Index. Certainly, they may go by different names by different cultures. Either way–these guys are evil batmans!!! I could add a ton of cool gear to their utility belts.

Where to find them. Messengers of Shaynar are mentioned in Haalkitaine, but haven’t really been highlighted in any works so far. The leader of Thargonaak is the Pale Man so Terry may have more in the upcoming Jaiman sourcebook. In my campaign, I have introduced these Messengers as enemies of Priests of Reann. They make a great nighttime encounter for the group.

Spell List. Ok, I was inspired by the Dark Knight for this list!

Thargondaak

If you haven’t used Messengers in your Shadow World campaign, give it a try! And, if you want to punch up their powers add the spell lists above for more interesting powers. Have fun!

 

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Artists wanted.

We’ve discussed the difficulty in finding good artwork or artists for our projects. In that vein, if there are any artists, mappers or layout professionals that read this, I have work for you. Among the various projects:

1. A banner graphic for Rolemasterblog.com

2.  Finalized art, layouts and maps for Priest-king of Shade.

3. City map for Non-ta-taku.

4. Layout and item graphics for BASiL.

5. Layouts for Legends of Shadow World.

6.  Layout for Book of Pales.

7.  Art, layouts and maps for Empire of the Black Dragon.

if you have ability, talent or interest let me know,

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The Sun Always Shines On TV

Last year there was a flurry of excitement around Stranger Things, the Netflix series, mostly in part as the opening and closing scenes were of ourselves back in the 80s playing Dungeons and Dragons.

On several of the blogs I read there was an almost yearning for a Stranger Things RPG and in fact Fria Ligan basically produced exactly that with http://bit.ly/LoopTalesTales from the Loop. Watch the trailer if you do not know this game!

There was a similar desire for a Sense8 RPG as well and the Game of Thrones RPG, A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying, taps into this same TV hook up phenomena.

I saw a post on Facebook this week about how BBC America bought the rights to  Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and produced a card game. The week the game was released the show was axed. Not exactly what you want when you buy into a franchise!

So this is all about settings and genres. These TV shows were highly stylised and all about the setting. Sense8 was the master of this with the scene changing to contrasting  locations literally sentence by sentence during the dialogue.

Last week I touched on Cthulhu Rolemaster and Hurin reminded me about the Darkspace source book, it looks like that is a book that is our of print. If I remember correctly it was quite Sci-Fi but I will not have  a chance to borrow the book until April.

There are some settings that I just cannot see Rolemaster inhabiting, Supers is one for a start, but is it really that unlikely? Are super powers just talents and flaws magnified in impact? I cannot remember off the top of my head any RM mechanics for ‘always on’ powers or unlimited use powers. Even melee was limited by endurance/fatigue. Magic is limited by power points as were Psions in Spacemaster. I cannot see Spiderman’s spider sense requiring a SCR or The Hulk shrivelling back to Bruce Banner just because he ran out of power points. The only comic book series that RM could really do well would be Watchmen which was intentionally brutal and down to earth.

The beauty of these setting/genre source books is that you can release an unlimited number of them and none of them lead to the system bloat that lead to so much criticism of RM2. The absolute master of this has to be GURPS. There are over 120 GURPS supplements, for every genre under the sun from GURPS: Action Heros to GURPS: Zombies, there is a literal A to Z.

The key missing part is firearms. If Arms Law is pretty much ready to go to print I would implore ICE to start work on or buy in a firearms supplement. If we have guns then we have have pirates, private eyes, spies, the war of independence and the wild west.

Black Powder was invented in the 9th Century and the Fire Lance in the 10th century, according to Wikipedia, So they [firearms] basically predate medieval plate mail; that is a staple of every fantasy RPG of all time.

I don’t think they should be in the core system because I don’t want RMU delayed any longer than it has been already but firearms would open the door to so many possibilities that the deserve a book of their own and as fast as possible.

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Rolemaster Deconstruction: Daily X Magic Items.

Back from vacation and thought I would dip my toe back into blogging with a short deconstruction article! Today I wanted to address “Daily X” items and the mechanics around it.

When I first started with RM, the Daily X magic items were great: they softened the power of traditional permanent items found in D&D and they worked well with the Imbedding spell lists. These items were also a great way to augment player shortcomings or add spell capability to non-magic users.

My only real issue is the “Daily X” part itself–that the spell abilities “recover” at the start of the next day. Sort of an instant charge that occurs at 12:01. I’ve had players abuse this before; they scheduled attacks right before midnight hoping to use their Daily X items right before, and then again, right after midnight. Certainly that’s an annoying exploit and a sensible GM may arbitrarily stop that…but that’s not how the rule reads.

To avoid this type of rule abuse, I changed “Daily X” definition to a per/hour calculation. So a Daily V item could be used up to once per 5 hours or a Daily I every 24 hours. This certainly nerfs the Daily X items, but I also have Battle Runes, permanent imbeds and other options in the BASiL lists to fill in those gaps.

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Hot Off The Presses!

In this week’s round up of new publications we have two new releases.

First up is our 50 in 50 adventure Star Mangled Manor written by me, and damn fine it is too! To quote the blurb “Star Mangled Manor is a short, dangerous encounter for high level characters with a powerful demon. After an attempt at demon summoning goes disastrously wrong, the characters are the only survivors in the vicinity, apart from the demon. Leaving them as the first creatures it sees.” I think you can probably guess how that is going to go down.

Next up is Issue 9 of the Rolemaster Fanzine is now live as a PDF on rpgnow/drivethru. This issue brings Brian’s Shadow World Encounter Tables in Print form. There is going to be a regular Shadow World section every month from now on so this is just the start.

This issue also has two new monsters and the first new animal. These will all be going in the wiki later this week. You also get three adventures!

That is it for this week.

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Tomes of Cthulhu by another route

Egdcltd (Azukail Games) has kindly sent me a copy of Tomes of Cthulhu. This supplement details 40 books, journals or tomes to add colour and detail to a Cthulhu based game.

Like nearly all of Azukail Games supplements this is system neutral so if you were running a Rolemaster based Cthulhu game you could use this just as easily as alongside one of the official Cthulhu games.

Each book is steeped in details about how it was written, the author, where and how it was lost or found and they are all suggestive of adventure hooks. Not all Cthulhu is based in the 1920s so the book descriptions consider the influence of time between writing and the game setting. It looks like a lot of thought and work has gone into this supplement.

This got me thinking about Rolemaster and Cthulhu. My Cthulhu experience was all with the Chaosium game which was very much based on the RuneQuest game mechanics with a bit of insanity thrown in.

So we already have insanity, if sorts, with the Fear rules. Parapsychology was an essential skill in those games and there is no difficulty in adding a skill to rolemaster for that purpose.

Making magic unavailable to the players is not something that requires a rules change, it is simply a GM/world building choice. It was my experience that magic was slowly revealed to the characters as the story developed.

The magic itself as far as I can remember was more of the summoning and control style so putting together customised spell lists would be easy enough. Anyone who was a keeper of the secrets  (GM) would have a better understanding of the spells needed.

There is nothing here that RM cannot cope with except one thing.

The go to weapons of the 1920s and 30s were firearms. I have always felt that guns in RM and Spacemaster for that matter were disappointing. I had always used Spacemaster until I discovered 10 Million Ways to Die. Even with the add on book guns are not really any better, 20 or 30 hits plus a critical just do not make guns scary. Spacemaster 1st edition was by far the worst with a 11mm Automatic doing a maximum damage of about 15 to 20 hits against unarmed targets.

I know this is intothatdarkness’s speciality but it had never occurred to me that this is the only thing stopping people from running a perfectly capable Cthulhu game using Rolemaster rules.

I know this is a little premature but this is something that RMU (for muskets and the like) and SMU (should it ever happen) needs to address.

So I have wandered off topic a little but if you were looking to run something a little different then consider this take a copy of Don’t Let Them Take You Alive (PWYW) for the setting, Tomes of Cthulhu ($2.99) for a bit of flavour and your favourite RM/SM version with guns and have a fun night of horror and insanity.

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