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50th Level Adventures. Deconstruction & Design of Chapter 1: Legends of Shadow World.

Peter’s recent blog project, Thought Experiment, is leading RolemasterBlog into deeper discussions on design and balance issues. I thought this new direction creates an opportunity to review the issuesI encountered when playtesting my 50th Level Adventure Series. I just posted up a shortened version of Chapter 1: The Seers of Strok on the RM Forums, but I’ll include it below as well.

First off, the download is not complete and I intentionally left out some material that is either being fine tuned or will be included in the “final” product. Some of that material not included in the download:

  1. All Pregen characters, NPCs and creature stats. I’ll post these up shortly, since they are crucial to the use  of the material.
  2. Expanded encounters for Part II: The Journey.
  3. Detailed description of the Lense of Strok. Some info can be found in Emer boxed set MA addendum, but I’ve added powers and included in my growing Artifacts and Technology doc.
  4. Background on the Guthuruxx, Shadow Monks and overarching plot points–though I did outline the remaining chapters.

I don’t suggest I am a veteran of game design or module balance, but I have been GM’ing for quite a bit of time. Creating a 50th level adventure was a bit of a “blue water” challenge–the parameters of action and ability were broad enough that tight encounters or narratives no longer applied. I remember my first encounter with tourney style adventures; the “A” Slavers Series. In the first module of that series, every object encountered, every spell slot assigned had a singular purpose to problem solving. That doesn’t work in Rolemaster; the broad or creative application of skills or the sheer amount of spells expands the decision tree beyond a predictive narrative path.

Given that, I had to take into consideration: time lapse (a target of 3 hour play time), raw abilities ( can the PC’s win an encounter?), obtuseness of narrative (balance of clues, problem solving and continuation of storyline) and finally resource management (PPs, HPs, spells, herbs and magic items to finish the whole adventure).

My players ran through 3 iterations of the 5 part series. I didn’t change details enough that each run through resulted in new material for the players, but by that point we were more interested in play balance issues themselves.

Chapter 1 had 4 major parts/encounters:

Part I The Journey. The group used the mixed pre-gen party of “famous” personalities and thus, had Malim Pelax’s personal skyship for the travel to the Observatory from Eidolon.

Iteration 1. The players ran through a simple transit using my SW Encounter chart. Nothing of significance happened, it was a bit boring and didn’t create any conflict with the players. In a campaign, the time could have spent in exposition or role playing, but in a tourney adventure this proved to be needless. The choice was to add a relevant event or hand wave the journey away.

Iteration 2. To make the journey relevant, I added an encounter with Krylites. I imagined orbital bombadier bug from “Starship Troopers”: the Krylites fired slow but powerful “electro grenades” into the sky towards the Sky Ship. It added drama, but the players never felt in danger. Ultimately, I think it added some good atmosphere (along with randomly generated Essaence effects and weather ). I though Malim was going to throw some fireballs down but it wasn’t necessary.

Iteration 3. The Krylites added a cool effect, but I wanted to add real danger–but how do you that with a group of 50th lvl PC’s? A red dragon proved to be the solution! In the third run through the dragon approached the Sky Ship, curious and sensing the power of the players. I rolled for reaction and the Dragon was just curious, but his approach was seen as a threat and the players wanted to flaunt their powers assuming they were much more potent than the singular creature. They attacked the Dragon… Not the best idea. The Dragon eventually retreated but did some damage to the skyship (slowing it due to sail damage) and the PC’s lost about 10% PP’s, some small fire damage and 5% loss of magical item charges.

Part II The Approach. Once setting down the PC’s have to traverse 1 mile of extreme terrain: lava, searing melting heat and unbreathable gasses. since running wasn’t really possible (did I have Lava Running in my BASiL Fire Law?..note to check) I assumed 20 minute mile–120 rounds to the Observatory.

Iteration 1. Both Malim and Sundemar had “Elemental Shields” but they also needed “Gas Lungs” to provide total heat protection and breathing to the party of 6. However, the magic failure rate was 40%/Round and players suffered from loss of spell shields and incurred damage. The 40% seemed to high. Party lost 20% of hits, total PP expenditure of 7% of total and the loss of some magical items to melting!

Iteration 2. I reduced the spell fail rate to 10% but introduced the Karax to the environment. The party encountered 5 Karax, and lost spell protection several times. Vertogen died.

Iteration 3. I increased spell failure to 25% but added just one guaranteed Karax encounter for narrative purposes. PPs spent was 5%, HP loss was 10%.

Part III The Monks.

Iteration 1. In the first draft there were 12 Warrior Monks but were equipped with protective gear, Ceiling Running boots and potent shurikens. The battle took place in the library and caught the group by surpise. Combat was similar to the Matrix “Club Hell” ceiling fight , the Monks were hidden on the walls and ceilings and double teamed each PC. Vertogen was killed and 2 PC’s were badly injured!!! In fact the Monks probably should have won.

Iteration 2. I reduced the Monks to 8 but made them spell casting Monks. However, RM2 Monk spells basically suck and don’t add much to 50th lvl combat. The players won that battle easily.

Iteration 3. I went back to Warrior Monks but reduced the # to 10. The PC’s won, but they also knew what the encounter would be, so the Monks didn’t have the element of surprise. Nonetheless I was happy with this encounter but wonder if it needs to be run through again.

The Major Battle

Iteration 1. The first draft had 8 Guthuruxx Soldiers all with autoguns. The autoguns treated all AT’s as 1 (due to armor penetrating slugs)  and had a bonus to offset the implied DB that occurs with AT1. They strafed the group, killing 2 PCs (not Vertogen) but were killed quickly after. I was running a clock with The Hand having 20 rounds to complete the removal of the lense but the players moved on him quickly and Onyx intervened. Dragon, shmagon. Want a creature that can DESTROY 50th lvl characters? How about a Black Eog Golem.

Iteration 2. I reduced the Guthuruxx to 6 and dropped the time to 10 rounds. However, even with the shortened time, the players were able to bypass and intercept The Hand which disrupted the narrative.

Iteration 3. I reduced the Guthuruxx to 2 just to strafe and delay the players and had The Hand escape (with Onyx) quickly to the Portal. While a bit of a forced narrative, it allowed the PC’s to survive, NOT face Onyx yet and give them time to pursue The Hand through the Portal.

{{Updated}}. I just reviewed my notes and had the protective shield fail fail in Iteration 1&2 of the Major Battle. The building started collapsing, lava encroached and fires raged. It proved to be too much for the PCs, but it was dramatic and think I will add it back in my final revision.

At the end of Part IV, Iteration 3, the party was at 1/2 PPs, 25% HPs and averaged 15% in various injury related penalties. They could continue, but could they survive 3 more chapters?

Some broad conclusions:

  1. Since this was Chapter 1, it was meant as the introduction to the players, establish the narrative thread and become a test drive for the players.
  2. 5-10% resource loss seemed appropriate although that proved almost too much for them to survive later.
  3. Fixed timelines didn’t work for me. For fun and playability the GM needs to artificially force action events to continue gameplay.
  4. At 50th level, and for tourney adventures, subtle traps or clever “bits’ just don’t work, they impede gameplay. These adventures were more brute force events and storylines.

Some thoughts on the pre-gen professions.

  1. The Magicians (Malim and Sumendar) both faired well since by their levels they had virtually all Open, Closed and Base Magician lists. However, I think that’s a problem and in my own house rules total spells/lists are halved from RM2 RAW.
  2. The Navigator added a great mechanism via his compass and related Essaence flow competencies.
  3. Paladins aren’t a core profession but RoCo I was the most reasonable companion and so I allow for it. I gave Kroger the Phaon spell list and a handful of Channeling Open/Closed instead of the RoCo paladin lists. Kroger was the main tank of the group and while got beat up by the Monks, did well against the Demon warriors.
  4. Chomen Drah. With the Iorak base list, Chomen was quite different than the standard “Cleric” (you can see my thoughts on this HERE) The player really liked playing him and a did a great stoic,surly but competent PC.
  5. Jan. What can I say, I love Monks and always wanted to see a High level Changramai in action. While I stuck to RM2 Raw one small tweak I allow is missile parry–even for unarmed combatants. The Monk battle and the shuriken throwing was a fun battle.
  6. Final thought. Healing. Chomen was the only “Cleric” and Iorak followers don’t learn the Closed Healing list spells. I didn’t want to use the mage/fighter/thief/cleric trope so the only healing spells were a basic battle healing the Paladin had (concussion ways) and Jan had a self healing list. The rest of the healing was done via herbs. That also allows the GM to modify difficulty through herb allocation to the players as well.
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Thought Experiment Update

I huge thank you to everyone that sent me character sheets!

The brief was intentionally vague to give everyone creative freedom. Most people produced a non spell using rogue or thief which is what I has sort of expected. My Xan is exactly in that vein.

Things that really stood out were that I got three RMU characters. Seeing as RMU is still in play test and the experiment was for people who had house ruled character creation I had only expected one RMU character and that was Hurin’s who uses individual skill costs.

An interesting aside here but RMU is not yet published and the developers are pretty determined to stick with category skill costs. On the other hand there is already one ‘officially sanctioned’ optional rule in the form of Hurin’s individual skill costs published in the Guild Companion completely undoing the developers work. Only in Rolemaster eh?

The fact that RMU character creation is being house ruled while still in play test make one wonder about what is being tested? My personal intermittent play test is still RAW but with JDales new tables applied.

Back to Xan

I have distilled the character down to just a few really basic numbers. If you were reading a module or adventure and she was an incidental NPC then you may just get a one liner.

The ‘average’ Xan taking every sheet I received looked something like this.

#Hits 64, OB (shortsword) +59, DB +14, Perception +28
She typically has 18 additional skill including primary and secondary skills.

If you compare that to the off the peg NPCs in Character Law (RMC version) you get

#Hits 20, OB (shortsword) +30, DB +0, Perception +15.

The house ruled characters are far more functional than the off the peg NPC. In addition nearly every Xan has a secondary attack and either multiple attack or two weapon combo and many have given her a thrown dagger as well.

Interestingly, one came back with a single spell list.

I do want to look at the characters in more detail later but I thought I should really do something immediately as you all took the time to send them to me.

So the immediate take away is that all these Xans are more functional than RAW characters. I make my starting characters more functional as it is more fun to be capable than not. There is more fun in being able to survive more than one hit with a sword, all baring the critical, than not. These heroes are more heroic than RAW player characters.

The impression I have got so far is that house rules in general are making RM more survivable for starting characters than the rules a written.

More to follow…

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Random Musings. Sunday Thoughts on Rolemaster and other topics.

Random musings are my best way to cover topics briefly without any deep thoughts on a particular subject. Likewise, I appreciate quick responsive comments from our readers–insight may be elusive, but many throw away comments can create new ideas and inspiration!

  1. This blog article. I argue incessantly against tropes, but societal/historic/racial tropes are the easiest to embrace while creating the “theatre of the mind” necessary for gameplay. Tall, muscular, blond beserkers encapsulates the viking trope; small, fast, lithe with epicanthic folds is the default for asian martial artists and the associated social memes. Adopting historical cultural memes and transplanting them to fantasy is easy–both in terms of design and in terms of enforcing an imaginative world.
  2. On the same subject..part of the challenge as a GM using Shadow World is conveying racial identifiers with the corresponding culture. I think Terry did a great job creating a WIDE array of “races” (human) that mix many of our own worlds physical qualities. Yes, some suffer from the same mixture of stereotyped racial traits (tall, muscular, blond) or (lean, dusky skin, angled eyes), but he throws in enough differentials (black hair w/silver streak, or height etc) to mix it up. But, because of that, I find it harder to transmit these racial traits since they defy our common racial models. What do you think?
  3. New armor. I can’t remember what I was reading, but in the book, the protagonist had cloth armor reinforced with “magicked glass”. Sounds like Laen? I like that, and while Laen is rare, hard to work and expensive, it seems like a great armor type: cloth or leather sewn in with slim laen plates. I will add variations of this to my Shadow World “Special Armor“.
  4. Brian’s Book of the Month. The Thief Who Pulled on Troubles Braids. I’ve been tracing down good urban fantasy thief stories, but this turned out to be a bit different. In fact, it feels very Howard/Conan/Hyborean.
  5. Between this blog, referenced article elsewhere and RM Forums there is a intensive conversation about IP, self publishing, open or limited licensing of ICE and SW IP etc.  While I appreciate “ICE”‘s protection of IP, the reality is that time is not on their side.  I’m 48. The average RM Forums member is in their 40’s to 50’s. I think the owners of the IP are the same age or older than me. Where is this all going? If ICE was my client, and we referenced the “Industry Life Cycle” curve, I would say that we are on the down slope in need or reinvention. Is RMU the reinvention? Perhaps, but the market now requires liquidity for game adoption: easy or pregen character, ready to play adventures, high quality maps and graphics and a steady stream of product output.
  6. Activity. Does anyone note that the activity on the RM Forums is LOW? That’s not good. If you have a thought, idea, download or even an adventure, why not post it up to the Forums? GET INVOLVED.
  7. I’m watching “Halt and Catch Fire”. WOW. I was a startup in the web 1.0 days myself, had a building full of coders, a dream and crazy cashflow drain (that I mostly funded). After hours we played a Clancy game networked on our servers. Weekend nights we ran a live show venue with the hottest bands–our internet launch included String Cheese Incident, 500 people, 20 kegs and several summons for “disturbing the peace”. That was eVibe.com.
  8. Finally. I’m putting up the basic doc of the 1st Chapter of “Legends of Shadow World: The Seers of Strok”. This is the first part of a 5 part adventure for 50th level adventures. I purposefully did not include the stat blocks for the pregen characters, NPC’s or “monsters” due to IP issues, or just holding some stuff back. Mostly I’m doing this to create some activity (see 6 above) and because I keep getting emails and messages that I’m full of shit on the work that I do! (they actually say it much nice than that). I will say that I have sent Priest King of Shade to Peter and a few other people for their review so they can get a sense of the final product AND how close it is to publication. Here is Chapter 1–for GMs ONLY:

50 chapter 1 – The Seers of Strok

My only concern is that I do lay out the subsequent chapters to help GM’s plan ahead, but it’s also a bit of a spoiler. Also, apologize for the “graphics”–I’m doing this myself and it works for my own group.

Anyway, enjoy!

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Why kill a PC out right?

What advantage does killing a PC actually bring to a game?

Does it add to the drama? Probably not. Does it add to the story? Again, probably not.

Imagine that a PC party is fighting a gang of orcs and the main fighter is knocked out cold and the fight goes badly. In the end the magician grabs the cleric and using long door they escape.

So what happen next?

The GM has two options. The fighter is dead and the game session pretty much ends for that player has they have to create a new character*. The rest of the party head back to town and try and recruit a new muscle man for the adventure to continue. The other option is that the character is a captive of the orcs and the remaining PCs now need to mount a rescue. The fighter is master of his own destiny to some extent and can try and engineer their own escape.

I am not suggesting for a minute that the PCs should never die. Without that threat it robs the game of some of the sense of danger. A one hit death on the other hand adds nothing. An unconscious character is maybe capable of being revived if the party have the right healing. An unconscious character is still an active part of the story. Even if they cannot talk then are a burden that needs to be carried, slowing the party and changing their tactical choices.

Sure, the orcs can kill the character, maybe even eat them, but does a random roll of 66 on the critical table need to be so fatal?

There will be times when the characters death is inevitable or even desirable and a heroic death can top off a campaign perfectly.

This is an off the peg critical:

Neck strike shatters bone and severs an artery. Foe cannot breath and is inactive for 12 rnds. The poor fool then expires.

What are the chances that the foe will live for 12 rounds? I am guessing that if it is an orc then the PCs will finish it off just to make sure of the exp. If it is a PC that has taken the critical then either some kind of Fate point will be spent which reduces the fatal result to unconscious or causes a complete re-roll or the party healer averts the death or the GM fudges the result to keep the PC alive or the PC dies.

The Fate point option just reinforces what I am thinking, that the death doesn’t add anything to the game so additional optional rules are required to fix the broken rule.

The Healer healing the wound is the perfect outcome, even more so if the healer is another PC and not a rent a medic NPC. The rent a medic is really just a walking, talking GM fudge.

If the GM fudges the result then it is just pointing to the death being ‘not fun’ and so why is it in a game?

If the critical read Neck strike shatters bone and severs an artery. Foe cannot breath and is inactive for 12 rnds the passes out. The victim will die eventually unless help arrives.

The effect during the combat is identical but the death is no longer certain. It is down to the narrator to decide what is best for the heroes story.

What I think I would love to see is a critical that reads:

Crush foe’s skull. +30 hits. Opponent dies immediately or if they are a PC then they are unconscious. Add +20 to your next swing. You have a half rnd left to act.

Yes, an entire two-tier system with the odds inevitably stacked in the heroes’ favour. Surely, we are sat around the table to tell the heroes’ story and have fun doing it?

 

*not all new characters are 1st level so creating an 8th level character, for example, can take a damn sight longer than just a 1st level one to re-join the party with.

 

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Made Men. Made Weapons. Do you run a personification campaign?

I recently read “The Kings of the Wylde“.  A bit of tongue in cheek that played on common fantasy tropes but still created a strong image of a certain type of a fantasy setting. It was an irreverent version of Ambercrombies “The First Law” series.

The commonality between the two is the concept of “Named Men” and “Named Weapons” that is integral to the respective settings. The Kings of the Wylde took this concept one step further, embracing modern trends of fame, wealth and popularity.

While I don’t have the time to embrace other settings or rule systems besides ICE/Shadow World, I find this “extreme personification” setting very appealing!

“Named” people and weapons are not just for super powerful beings or historic figures–it’s the idea that adventurers can make a name for themselves and likewise “name” their reliable weapon. They don’t have to be demi-gods or artifacts to be named. Basically it’s adopting our societal embrace of famous actors, wealthy business personalities and the Kardashians to a fantasy template.

RM doesn’t have a rule framework for “fame” but it could be easily adapted. I just like the idea of my players earning fame (and not just fortune) along with their named weapon. It feels like a superhero game system or one of my favorite movies…Mystery Men.

While Shadow World has a DENSE timeline and history, much of that depth is lost on day to day play. My players can’t recall most of the famous people, alive or dead, that are included in the timeline. I like the idea of making it more immediate and visceral. A world where even the lowliest groups give themselves “rock star” names AND give name to their favored weapons, shields or armor.

It’s a bit over the top, but what a world! If murder-hobo’ing is a reality, why not create a setting that celebrates them!

 

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The orcs are coming!

Before I get on with the main point of today’s post I want to digress somewhat…

I use Google Drive and in there is a folder of ideas. In the ideas folder there are a great many other folders. Every time I have an idea I create a folder for it and then stick a simple text document in the folder to describe what I was thinking. If it was inspired by an article or an image or whatever then I may stick all these things into the folder.

As a general rule I create more folders like this each week than I complete. Some of the ideas I will never touch again. Maybe I have a deeper look and realise that it was not a good idea. Sometimes I turn them into full on commercial products either RPGs or supplements. I have published one game (3Deep), one is about to go to public play test (Devil’s Staircase Wild West Role Playing) and one has been completed once but upon reflection needs revising. One game (Rolemaster Kids) is still in its infancy as I have not completely finalised the core mechanics let alone all the supporting material.

My supplements vary from simple 10 page adventure outlines to 60+ page more substantial supplements. I think I have published 30 or more or the smaller supplements like that.

There are the things that do not really fit in any neat category. These bounce around. Sometimes I work on them and they start to develop and then I look back and strike down a lot of what I had already written when looking at it again after a break.

This month is unusual as I have actually completed more of the mini projects in my ideas folder than I have created new ones. In addition I have learned some new skills that have solved a problem that was holding many of the other projects back.

One of these ‘bed blocker’ ( a terrible phrase used to dehumanise elderly patients being kept in hospitals because the UK has inadequate social care for the elderly ) projects was to convert the D&D 5e monsters from the SRD (Standard Reference Document) into Rolemaster compatible monsters.

The sorts of monsters I am talking about are orcs, goblins, giants and amusingly a Balor which is a D&D attempt to sidestep the Intellectual Property rights around the Balrog in role playing games. So D&D stole the Balrog to make the Balor possibly from RM 1st Edition and I am now converting the Balor from 5e back into RM. What goes around comes around. As all these monsters are part of the SRD we are free to use them as long as due credit is given.

So what is the point?

The point is that we spent the summer writing adventures that we really wanted to use to promote Rolemaster but we were hobbled at every turn because we cannot publish any of the monster stats as they are ICE IP. We cannot talk about what spells and lists the NPCs may have because they are covered by ICE IP and so on.

So I have had this project on the back burner since I first started this blog. I published a few monsters converting denizens of the underdark as new Rolemaster monsters. The intention was to encourage more D&D players to try Rolemaster. The more of the Forgotten Realms monsters that were available in RM means that players can reuse all their FR books but with RM PCs.

So last week I made an Orc. This is just the basic grunt of an orc and I used my own rules to create them. Bearing in mine that this is a D&D 5e Orc what do you think?

The stat bonuses include racial modifiers and there is still some work to do. I want to get rid of the (MS/AG) SL/MD crap and use real words that anyone can understand without having to use a look up table.

Orc

Orc Grunt

Level 3
Base Rate 55’
Max Pace/MM Bonus Fast Sprint/+10
Speed (MS/AG) SL/MD
Size/Critical M
Hits 58

ST AG/QL CO RE/EM IN/ME PR/SD
80 60 80 35 55 50
+15 +5 +15 -10 +0 +0

AT 3 (20) Leather Hide or by Armour type
Attacks OB 38 Weapon Spear or Javelin
Environment: Temperate hills

Organization: Gang (2-4), squad (11-20 plus 2 5th level sergeants and 1 leader of 9th level), or band (30-100 plus 150% non-combatants plus 1 5th level sergeant per 10 adults, 5 8th level lieutenants, and 3 11th level captains)

An orc’s hair usually is black. It has lupine ears and reddish eyes. Orcs prefer wearing vivid colours that many humans would consider unpleasant, such as blood red, mustard yellow, yellow-green, and deep purple. Their equipment is dirty and unkempt. An adult male orc is a little over 6 feet tall and weighs about 210 pounds.

Females are slightly smaller.

The language an orc speaks varies slightly from tribe to tribe, but any orc is understandable by someone else who speaks Orc. Some orcs know Goblin or Giant as well.

Most orcs encountered away from their homes are warriors; the information in the statistics block is for one of 1st level.

Combat

Orcs are proficient with all simple weapons, preferring those that cause the most damage in the least time. Many orcs who take up the warrior or fighter class also gain proficiency with the

falchion or the great axe as a martial weapon. They enjoy attacking from concealment and setting ambushes, and they obey the rules of war (such as honouring a truce) only as long as it is convenient for them.

Comparing Orcs

So this is just the basic orc. How do they compare?

  • A rolemaster orc is 2nd level and mine is 3rd level.
  • A Rolemaster orc has a base move of 50′ and mine 55′
  • The default #hits is 50 and mine has 58.
  • The AT and DB was 8(30s) and mine is 3(20) but without a shield or wearing armour.
  • OB-wise the default orc has an OB of 40 for both melee and missile. Mine has 38 for both.

The first impression is that of swings and roundabouts. A few extra hits here and a couple of points less OB there. C&T offers us two orcs a lesser and greater. The D&D 5e monster comes in 5 flavours from Grunt 3rd level to Captain at 11th level.

All my experience is with RM2 and RMC and I was trying to fit the 5e Orc into the RM2 Orc’s shoes.

All my playtesting of RMU has been human vs human as the normalised monsters in Beta 2 filled me with horror. How would this Orc stack up against an RMU PC?

Rolemaster Monster Manual

I am not offering a Rolmaster Monster Manual, or at least not soon. What I am offering is to build a reference of monsters that will be free to all and free from IP restrictions. This means that we can finally properly stat our adventures.

This is work in progress but I will make two commitments. Firstly, I will not sit on this until it is all complete. I will be releasing each creature as I do it. I have not thought about formats yet but I think many GMs would like a physical book they can flip though and stick book marks in. So if that proves to be true then I will publish this, but that is a discussion for another day. The other commitment is two fold really. I will commit to doing this as fast as I can, not a monster a week as that would take years. One the other had I cannot say I will spend tens of hours on this each week; there has to be a compromise. That compromise will be that Rather than starting from A in the monster manual I will do things on a request and demand basis. If you are looking at publishing an adventure but want a monster then let me know and I will create the monster for you. That is the request element, if there is a request for a monster then I will supply it.  I work on many adventures, these days mostly for the Fanzine. If I need a monster then I will create it and then add it the public list. If there is a demand for a monster then I will meet that demand and then share it.

I will have a think about the logistics of all this this week.

 

 

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Deconstructing Magic in Rolemaster. Magical Auras.

Over the past year, I’ve touched upon some new Spell Law concepts:  a different take on “Channeling“, a new way to look at “Summoning”  and the concept of “Links” or “Threads”. When I work on creating new spell lists for Rolemaster and Shadow World, I tend to come at it from a different perspective. I think many new lists featured in RoCos and the Guild Companion were devised from a Profession-centric approach. ie a new profession class is generated and then spells to support the concept are created. I’ve also done that with my Hierax Guard and a few others.

However, my more favored approach is a deconstructive process: what could magic do and how should it work? I’m often inspired by the books I’m reading–especially if it contains a novel or interesting magic system. While I’m reading I try to visualize how the books magic might work in the RM system or write a few spell lists derived from the ideas in the story. Since I read quite a bit, I average one or two lists per month that I sketch out and and drop in a review folder. I have almost 75 lists that I need to finish off, assign a “realm” or discard!!!! Out of those, probably 40 will make it into BASiL in my next iteration, pushing the spell list count to well over 200.

So what are some new mechanics for Spell Law? As an example, let’s use the “Detect” spells, specifically Detect Essence (or the other two realms for that matter). The spell allows a caster to detect the presence of Essence–not the type of spell or power or even the strength of the spell. That’s simple and still useful, right? But the spell works like a telescope–the caster can examine a 5′ radius area per round–as if they are peering through a telescope at a small concentrated area. Why does it work that way? DnD. In DnD, the ability to detect magic was critical–especially in analyzing treasure to see what, if any, objects were magical. So why can’t the spell work differently? Why can’t the caster just “see” the magical auras of objects, people, PP reservoirs, Essence Flows, Foci, active spells etc. Does that unbalance the game? Does it seem too powerful?

In Shadow World, magic is everywhere and RM already introduced the concept of spell casting color manifestations and “power perception” as a trainable skill. This lends to the idea of “auras”–magical emanations that are generated by magical fields. These auras can be seen via spells, scrying (or in the case of “High” Elves, perhaps through normal visual perception)

One of the benefits of having auras is not only can you have spells to see and perceive them, but you can have a whole other set of spells to hide, distort or change them! This creates another level of caster “dueling” where aura detection and aura masking or distortion spells conflict via RR’s, caster skill or spell skill bonuses.

Like other Spell Law list progressions, detecting and viewing magical auras improves through levels. At lower levels, the caster may just perceive the presence of magic, while later spells could perceive power level, realm, type of spell or “links” between another caster and a target they are controlling or concentrating on. This visual interpretation of spell affects provides a more cinematic approach to casting, without the general solution of casting “colors” (which I feel are a bit too “Snidely Whiplash“).

More importantly, the ability to view auras can work differently between realms–further differentiating realm powers and caster ability. One idea would be to have Essence casters access to quantatative aura detection (power, type, strength etc), while Mentalists have an easier ability to see mental connection/control/concentration between two or more people and Channelers can see “channeling auras” indicating what god a caster is associated with.

Another benefit is that it creates a unified structure for detection and analytics for all types of magic. Right now, Spell Law is a hodge podge of mechanisms that often require GM arbitration. For me this is the key to Spell Law deconstruction/reconstruction. Viewing RM magic through an unbiased lense, questioning built in DnD tropes and then rethinking accepted spell mechanics can lead to clearer, more flexible and interesting Spell Law.

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What Merriment One Can Have With a Broadsword and a Drunken Elf!

Somewhere in our deep dark roleplaying history someone made a mistake. They had misread the racial description for Elves and rather than making them immune to normal diseases had made them immune to normal poisons. This had a consequence of making it impossible to get an elf drunk.

When my last campaign started I wanted to correct this error and pointed out the rules where it shows the immunity and resistance roll mods to show the players that we had been doing it wrong all this time. I was amazed at the players reactions (if those that wanted to play elves.) The ability to drink anyone under the table was really important to them despite the fact that is was a blatant mistake on our part.

They were adamant that elves cannot get drunk. I tried to argue that if Alcohol doesn’t effect them then how do all the healing herbs work? The answer was that herbs were magical and alcohol is natural. There is no helping some people so in my game now when ever an elf takes a healing herb I make them make a resistance roll and if they make the roll then the herb has half the usual effectiveness. Believe it or not the players are happy with that.

That little story has nothing to do with today’s post. I just wanted to share it as I was creating an Elven NPC and I just saw the immunity to disease on the character sheet!

So What Is It All About?

The last fanzine I published was the Halloween special and it is proving quite popular. The Shadow World issue was the best selling version to date. Don’t get me wrong, these sell in tiny quantities but I am hoping to build the readership over time and I hope it will grow significantly once RMU is released.

I would like to create a Christmas Special and pack it with cool playable material. Adventures, magic items, maybe a Grinch monster, some Icelandic Christmas Trolls and some festive spell lists. Really what I am asking is for anyone who like to contribute anything to a Christmas Special then please do.

I am trying to make the Fanzine a GM’s resource. By putting monsters and adventures in a ‘paid for’ publication then there is less chance that one of their players may have already have read the plot and know the twist or the villain. The Halloween Special includes three adventures and ‘new’ monsters, as these are my own creations I am free to publish them. All a GM would have to do to play them is create a couple of NPCs.

So try putting your creative hats on and send your submissions to weareareallawesome AT rolemasterblog DOT com!

 

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Ascendancy. The pathway to Godhood in Rolemaster.

Earlier this year, I blogged about the concept of players channeling power and or spells to “followers”. To me, this was a natural progression of the original Channeling Skill & Spells found in the earliest versions of Rolemaster. I was always intrigued by the channeling concept in RM, but we never, ever used it in any of our games. It’s a powerful concept, especially for game system in the early days of RPG’s, but the game mechanics were clunky and the upside benefit during gameplay was never really clear.

A workable Channeling mechanism is the first step towards a character gaining “followers” and having the ability to send power or spells to these acolytes. Isn’t that flirting with some concepts of deification?

This topic has now come full circle for me and I wanted to think it out via this blog. I’m working on multiple projects, but most actively on my 50th lvl adventure series and re-examining high level spells in my Spell Law re-write. These adventures forced me to think about high level challenges, the power curve of skills and spells, and the general ecosystem of 50th level characters.

Rolemaster is not “epic” in the sense that characters are granted special abilities upon reaching certain levels. So while most players might think that attaining 50th lvl would somehow bestow a special capacity upon a character it’s not the case. For spell users, 50th lvl spells might be cool, but I don’t think particularly revelatory–and in many cases, not that powerful. Obviously arms users don’ t have access to any transformative abilities at 50th level.

Some game systems have introduced game mechanics that allow powerful characters to receive special abilities at high levels. (did the Expert Immortal set do this first?). My favorite example in fiction is in the Books of the Malazan. In this setting, which is based on the authors own RPG campaign, Erickson clearly establishes the concept of “Ascendancy”. Since he doesn’t spoon feed exposition to the reader, it wasn’t clear what the mechanism is exactly; or even what special abilities are imparted upon such. Now we have much more info on the setting, and per the Malazan wiki we have:

Ascendants were individuals who had transcended death. They formerly had been called First Heroes.[1] Ascendants could become gods if they gained sufficient following among mortals but they were not gods by default. They were more or less immortal, but could be killed. They had access to magic, even if they were not mages prior to their ascension.

So it appears the benefits are: immortality, one step closer to Godhood, access to magic. That’s interesting and certainly reasonable to incorporate into most fantasy settings. Immortality is an easy one–it’s not like players are going to game out a 1000 years of life and longevity doesn’t really impact gameplay. But does immortality include self-healing or regeneration? That’s unclear. Access  to spells/magic seems reasonable as well. Rolemaster is flexible enough that it would be simple to create special Closed lists for Ascendants. So it seems to me, dependent on the setting (it’s always about the setting!), including Ascendancy is relatively easy to do in Rolemaster!

So why would a GM want to add this functionality into their RM game? Becoming a God (via an Evil Ritual)  is a common plot meme for evil foes. Once you establish something is possible than it needs to be allowed for all characters, right? Is it unbalancing to have a long term goal of a player becoming MORE? Perhaps not a God, but a Demi-God or Ascendant or Hero? Isn’t that the basis for fantasy RPGs?

Since this is also dependent on the meta-physical underpinnings of the setting, does this work for Shadow World? The Gods of Orhan/Charon aren’t “Gods” in the strictest sense, just powerful beings from an alternate realms. Kulthea has “local gods”, demi-gods and other powerful beings. So while there might not be a strict classification of Ascendants, it seems there are some. I introduced Ascendancy in relationship to the Dragonlords in my own campaign. (See HERE at the end of the post). I was trying to tie up loose ends and wanted an explanation for the origins of the Dragonlords. The Earthwardens, via a ritual, Ascended to a higher state, beings of raw, elemental Essaence.

So, how else could Ascendancy work in Shadow World? The setting has many local gods, spirits and avatars…could a player become one of those? My own version of the Channeling Spell list discussed in the other blog is the stepping stone to Ascendancy. Players gain followers and create a feedback loop of power and spells. The more followers the more power the character has. But is this enough to establish “godhood” or some derivative of it? What other mechanisms could be put into place?

  1. Special access to Essaence Foci or Flows. One commonality of local gods is that they are centered on special locations, geographic features or an Essaence Focus. Perhaps a bonding or imprinting between the character and Foci could be step?
  2. Access to “Arcane” spell list(s). RoCo I established some of the baseline of this topic: Focuses, high level spells to become Dragons etc are in the DNA of Shadow World.
  3. “Granting”. Perhaps the Lords of Orhan can give a character lesser access to the Essaence “aether”. This might be raw power, special spell abilities or some aspects of immortality. Sort of like accessing a wifi signal on a local hub.

For a game system that is pure skill based, the “high fantasy” aspects of Ascendancy mechanics are intriguing to me. What do you think?

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Thought Experiment part one of two

 

I would like to do an experiment.

What I would like is for everyone who has house ruled character creation to look at the pen portrait of an NPC, or PC, below and create the character using your own house rules.

What I would like is a starting character, not necessarily 1st level as I know full well that an RMU level 1 is a whole different thing to a RM2 or RMSS level 1.

Once you have created the character could you email a PDF of the character sheet to weareallawesome AT rolemasterblog DOT com.

If the character has spell lists please only give the name of the list, no actual spells. This is just because of ICE’s IP rights.

I will not use your email address for anything. I only want you to email the pdfs so I do not have to open the server up to anonymous uploads, god knows that we would get if all the spam bots thought they could upload files to our site!

If you don’t mind I would also like your permission to share these characters. I will not need your name, and I wouldn’t publish your name if you give it to me.

I don’t need to know what your house rules were, unless you are really proud of them and want to share them!

So here is the pen portrait.

Xan

Xan was born on the streets down in dockside. She never knew either parent but her reflection tells her that there is some oriental blood in her. The first few years of her life she was someones prop to get a few more coppers when begging. Once she was too big to be cute she was left to fend for herself amongst the street kids. By the time she was twelve she was leading the guard a merry dance and was more than capable of looking after herself through petty crime, stealing food when she was penniless, which was more often than not.

Where she learned to fight or got her swords is not known but now she commands her fair share of respect on the streets. If anyone makes the mistake of treating her as a street walker it is not a mistake they will make twice. She is fast and uses a pair of slim short swords, almost as oriental looking as her own eyes. More than one inebriated sailor has felt one of those pressed against his neck and the other pressed against his groin for making the wrong kind of suggestion! These days she does not beg but earns a passable living as an enforcer for anyone with coin and a need to get a message across.

The second half of this experiment I will post on Friday. I hope you can find the time to create an NPC between now and then!

Your help will be greatly appreciated!

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