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If you cannot stand the heat…

A Lamprey

So far we have sent the characters up the creek without a paddle, half drowned them and made them fight under water against a new and unknown monsterous race. Today, it is apt to make their day go from bad to worse!

The river they have been careering down so far has been randomly generated and designed to make it virtually impossible to swim out of or row out of.  anyone reaching the shallows would be facing swimming rolls at something like -90 and taking krush criticals should they fail.

Now, I suggest giving them a bend in the river that has formed a bit of a calm pool. The river widens here and the rate of flow slows and the characters get a chance to reach the bank.

Finally, staggering to the bank it is time to reintroduce the Orcs that we had start this whole thing off in the first place. These have been tracking the river down stream assuming the characters will be killed in the rapids and their bodies washed up in this pool or another one further down stream. This is easy pickings for the orcs which is why they hand out near here in the first place.

This pool is also the domain of a huge lamprey. Once upon a time the orcs attacked a group of adventuring heroes just like the characters now. That party included an alchemist who was adept at making potions and the group regularly enhanced themselves with these. A perfectly normal lamprey fed off of one such magically enhanced hero and in drinking the hero’s blood also consumed a potion of Enlarge designed and dosed for a human. The same thing happened again with its second victim. The second potion was one of Extension used by the hero’s magician to extend the duration of his defensive spells. The final victim of the lamprey was the monk who had cast Strength III on himself. The combination of all this magic infused blood on the poor fish turned it into a huge monstrosity and trapped it in this pool. It now spends most of its time lurking in the mud at the bottom of the pool waiting for a victim of sufficient size to satisfy its hunger.

So returning to a current party they have just escaped or slain the freshwater merfolk and ended up in this pool where they can finally emerge from the river. As they do so they will be confronted with a band of orcs in front of them who have arrived at the same time. There should be just enough orcs that the party should not be certain of the outcome. I will not be specific as this is largely dependent on how the river run went, that could easily have broken many bones on its own and the fight against the merfolk.

The orcs know full well what lurks in the pool and will not go too close. They would prefer to use slings and spears to hold the characters off. They know full well what is coming next.

A Lamprey
Lampy The Lamprey, victim of mixing too many potions.

Warning: The image at the bottom of this post is really disturbing! It is a real, but dead, lamprey. It is just to give you a sense of how horrifying a lamprey is. That is a real one, we are dealing here with a fantasy 30′ one!

Behind the characters rising out of the water is Lampy the Lamprey. This is a 30′ long, 3′ diameter blood sucking fish.

Level 8
Base Rate 90
Max Pace/MN Bonus Run/0
Speed MS/AQ SL/SL
Size/Crit Huge/LA
Hits 90
AT (DB) 3(0)
Attacks 110 HGr 100/Special ✓ *
Enc 1
Special Attack Lampreys suck blood. If its grapple attack delivers a critical it will suck 3-30 hits of blood per round, starting the round after the critical was delivered. Ripping the lamprey off yourself or off someone else will deliver 4 ‘A’ slash criticals to the victim. Fire or eletricity may (Very Hard maneuver roll) cause the lamprey to release its prey.

So as the characters face off the orcs, out of the water behind them rises the giant lamprey intent on attacking the person most in the water. It will attempt to grapple and latch on to the victim and drag them back into the pool and down to the bottom. As soon as they are dead i.e. drained of blood it will return for the next victim.

If the body is not too laden down with equipment it will just be left to float back up. As the death is probably going to be from loss of hits if enough concussion hits can be restored before the soul departs then the character can be revived without the need for life giving. That does make it rather important to finish off the orcs quickly!

This ‘misadventure’ is a potentially interesting way of weakening a party or even bringing low a very powerful party. It is unrelenting, the river is extremely difficult to fight but can deliver real harm to the characters. The orcs are do not need to be particularly numerous or high level. Many partys will almost discount an encounter with half a dozen orcs but in this case the orcs are just the trigger at the start and by the time they are encountered at the end they may be significantly more dangerous!

The fresh water merfolk and the Lampy are not things the characters are ever likely to have met before and tucked in the middle there was a Naiad. I have given the Naiad an additional power. She can rescue some of the characters by casting waterlungs on the characters. The mechanism for doing this is actually via another of the alchemists potions. The ‘drowned’ characters will not have known this at the time but the naiad had taken a draft of the potion and delivered it using a ‘kiss of life’ type action.

The anatomy of a story metaphor that we started with was put the characters up a tree, throw stones at them and then get them down again. Over the past three posts we have done the up the tree and thrown the stones. The getting them down again is the perfect time to throw the characters an adventure hook. Right now they are God knows where, beaten and bloodied. Now is a good time to kick them into a different direction.

Scroll down for the scary Lamprey photo!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A real lamprey
A real lamprey
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A few thoughts on a sunday afternoon.

  1. I’m really looking forward to the upcoming 50 in 50 project that we’ve been working on. It’s easy to get caught up in optional rules, RMU reviews and game mechanics at the expense of writing or discussing actual gaming content!  Personally, coming up with 25 short adventures or encounters that had an interesting hook was a challenging creative exercise. Peter and I had all of the outlines done in 2 months and are now working on the final edits. I’ve blogged about it before, but RM would be better served if there were more ready to play adventures being published. In related news, I think our next challenge: 5 adventures for 50th level has turned out to be a great exercise!
  2. Speaking of alternate rules…I think fumble ranges need to be INCREASED–dramatically. It’s one thing to pick up a weapon, spin it about and perform some flourishes; it’s another to use any object in combat or fast moving, dynamic situations. We already use # of skill ranks to offset combat maneuvers and RM rules has an optional rule that fumble range can be reduced. For instance, I’m thinking a fumble range of 25 for a flail, with a minimum of 5, reduced by # of skill ranks.
  3. RM Deconstruction. I’ve been wondering if I need to take another look at the actual stats. Do we need 10? I think Self Discipline, Presence, Intuition, Empathy need further thought. On one hand, I can see what they model. Can Self Discipline and Presence be combined into a “Will” stat? Can Intuition and Empathy be merged?

Anyone have any thoughts?

 

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But I am no mermaid

This post follows on from A River Runs Through It. We left the characters in the water in a fast flowing river, going over rapids and generally up the creek without a paddle.

I was once told the general anatomy of a story is ‘Put the hero up a tree, throw stones at him and then get him down again.’ Now it is time to throw some stones metaphorically speaking at the characters.

It is entirely possible that one or more of the characters may have drowned by this point. If you had one character go overboard early on during the river run they could have gone under and drowned long before the last character goes overboard. For now, we will let them believe they have drowned. Think of them as being unconscious rather than dead as that may have implications regarding automatic spells.

So everyone is by now in the water. Some have drowned others are keeping their head above water. We are not just going to wait for them to drown. Those that are still with us will feel something brush their legs under water. They can maybe see some massive sort of fish maybe six to eigth feet long and silver green moving deep below them. More seem to a circling and coming closer.

Let the characters worry for a couple of rounds and then have the first one feel a hand grab an ankle and drag them down. I would have a knot of the forms grab the characters attention in front while the first attack comes from below and behind!

As the character goes under they will get the first real look at what has them and it looks like merfolk! These though are bigger than your usual half man half fish types. That does depend rather on whether your characters have ever met any merfolk before.

What we have here are freshwater merfolk. These are bigger and more deadly cousins of the more common saltwater variety.

Any characters that have previously been ‘drowned’ have actually been rescued by a naiad. This water spirit has cast waterlungs on them once they were unconscious and towed them to a safe underwater cave. The naiad wants the merfolk gone from her river and the characters landing in her lap are the opportunity she has been waiting for. Once the merfold attack she will revive any unconscious ‘drowned’ people and quickly convey to them not to ask questions but go save their friends. The characters should then see the scene of the surviving characters being attacked and circled by the merfolk.

Freshwater Merfolk.

Freshwater Merfolk – Found in treacherous waterways such as rapids and below waterfalls; 6’6″–8’6″ from head to fin.
Crippling Flaw (Must totally immerse once a day in water, –10 to all activities for each missed day (at –80 a coma ensues, at –100 death occurs).

Innate Spell Caster, has the following mentalism lists to their own level. Speed (closed mentalism), Self Healing (open mentalism), Attack Avoidance (open mentalism). They gain 3PP/level.
The fair skin of a merman’s torso blends at the waist into the silver and green shimmering scales of their fish’s tail. Freshwater Merfold are very uncomfortable above water but can breath air if they must.  They are fond of sunlight and like to bask in shallow streams.

Unlike their sea born cousins they do not build manors and palaces. They are much more ‘barbaric’ by comparison. Freshwater merfold wear strings of animal skulls, bones, precious stones, or gems as raiment. Average lifespan is 30 years.

Level 6C
Base Mv 90
Max Pace Dash/+25
Speed MF/MD
Size/Crit M/-
Hits 80D
AT(DB) 1(35s)
Attacks 95 Melee/60 MCl 30
Enc 1-10
Bonus EP E
Outlook IQ Aggressive

For weapons they prefer daggers, knives, short swords and short spears. Things that do not compromise their manoeuvrability in the water or weigh them down.

Next time we will put the characters in even more trouble.

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Deconstruction of Character Creation and Game Modeling of Skill Systems in RM.

 

Peter’s recent blog, RMU – to infinity and beyond, created a firestorm of comment activity. 64 comments to date! Much of the back and forth touched up on professions, attributes, knacks and character creation. Certainly, the thrust of the debate was centered around the Professions vs No Professions commentary that Peter and I have continued on the RolemasterBlog and previously on the Rm Forums.

Rather than add more comments to Peters blog post, I thought I would take this topical opportunity to discuss the base modeling of the RM skill system (and other game systems too). As I did with BASiL, my own rewrite of Character Law (I named it SWARM) started with a complete deconstruction of the RM rule set. It’s an ongoing process and even now I’m tinkering and rethinking things based on comments here by Peter, Hurin and ITD. I’m going to discuss my own solutions, but the point here is to examine the underlying principles of the skill system, not argue for my own resolutions.

There are 5 basic rule mechanisms that are used in the RM skill system: Stats, Development Points, Skill Costs, Skill Rank Bonus and Profession Skill Bonus.

  1. A standard RPG/game trope, Stats quantify a PC’s various physical and mental traits—the basis of the character make-up. In RM stats are then used to determine “Stat Bonuses” which are added to the appropriate skills. While there is disagreement about the need for actual stats, everyone agrees with and understands the nature of stat bonuses—it is a measure of a characters “Natural Aptitudes and Abilities”.
  2. Development Points. DP’s are “coinage”—used to purchase skills by rank. In RM, DP’s are variable and based on a select group of Stats, while in RMU characters are given a fixed amount. Either way, Development Points are modelling the “Capacity to Learn”.
  3. Skill Costs. In both RM and RMU skill costs are driven by a PC’s profession. Some argue that Professional Skill Costs are a product of formative learning channels, aptitudes or learning paths. This is an argument for WHY there are Profession Skill Costs—but this is not an argument on what Skill Costs ARE. Skill Costs are a measurement of “Profession Aptitudes” & “Time & Effort” to learn a skill.
  4. Skill Rank Bonus. The Skill Rank Bonus progression basically remains unchanged from RM to RMU; for each rank, there is a subsequent, cumulative bonus that is added to your total. Skill Rank Bonus models a “Learning Curve”.
  5. Profession Skill Bonus. Finally, each Profession is given pre-assigned Skill Bonuses based on the characters Profession. In RM it was a level bonus and in RMU it’s a per rank bonus. The is modeling “Profession Aptitudes”.

The first and foremost problem I see here is that Profession Skill Costs is modelling two separate distinct factors: professional aptitudes AND time and effort. The second is that Profession Skill Bonuses are then duplicative; they are both modelling Profession Aptitudes. Personally, I think that’s sloppy game mechanics—it would simpler to just adjust Profession Skill Costs and eliminate the Profession Skill Bonus. Reducing the cost of a skill is the same as giving a profession skill rank bonus.

Ultimately, the simplest measure to test is: Total Skill Bonus/DP’s spent. Adding layers of complexity to model the same effect (Profession Aptitudes) is pointless.

I think it’s a cleaner solution to make each mechanism discrete unto itself, rather than have several game devices that only serve to reinforce professional tropes. Here would by my suggestion for RMU using Professions:

  1. Stats – Natural Aptitudes.
  2. Development Points. Either stat variable or fixed. (I can see both arguments)
  3. Skill Costs. Time & Effort only. The same skill costs for all professions—this is modelling how hard it is to learn a particular skill or lore. Skill costs can vary by skill but NOT by profession.
  4. Skill Rank Bonus. Learning Curve.
  5. Profession Skill Bonus. Profession Aptitudes.

This solution provides distinct functions of each rule component—no duplication. Plus, Profession Skill Bonuses allow for easier to understand Profession distinctions and an easier process for creating new Professions. You no longer have to assign skill costs by Professions— and you can be more aggressive on the total Bonuses per Profession. Giving a Fighter +4 bonus/rank for 1 Hand Edge is a real differentiator and results in the same outcome as giving them a low skill cost. Plus, this solution eliminates huge charts of professional based skill costs as well.

If, like me, you are using NO PROFESSION you might want to try my solution which is slightly different.

  1. Stats – Natural Aptitudes.
  2. Development Points. Either stat variable or fixed. (I can see both arguments)
  3. Skill Costs. Time & Effort only. Skills all cost 5* with +1 cost per extra rank per level with unlimited advancement. (the +1 resets each level—this measures the law of diminishing returns).
  4. Skill Rank Bonus. Bell Curve. I use a 1,2,3…9,8,7,6….1,1,1 progression. This keeps low level characters from maxing out the cost/bonus curve of important skills.
  5. Variable Skill Bonus. Rather than Skill Bonuses assigned by Profession I give players +6 in bonuses to assign as they see fit. This option models “talents” or “knacks” and gives players more flexibility and customization of their characters outside the profession paradigm.

In the final argument, having Profession Skill Costs and Profession Skill Bonuses is redundant and unnecessary.

For summary:

Mechanism/System RM RMU Suggested Solution (when using Professions)
Stats Natural Aptitudes & Abilities. Natural Aptitudes & Abilities. Natural Aptitudes & Abilities.
Development Points Variable Learning Capacity Fixed Capacity to learn Optional – Variable or Fixed
Skill Costs Professional Aptitude & Time and Effort Professional Aptitude & Time and Effort Time and Effort (same costs for all Professions)
Skill Rank Bonus Learning Curve – Decreasing Learning Curve – Decreasing Learning Curve – Decreasing
Skill Bonus Professional Aptitude Professional Aptitude Professional Aptitudes – Enchanced
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A River Runs Through It

I want you to bear with me with this post. It is a first of a mini series that should be greater than the sum of its parts.

I hope I am not the only person who does this or it will sound really naff but I have often used river journeys for the players to hand wave large sections of cross country travel through relatively safe territory. As a player we did this in Shadow World and as a GM I let my players load their horses and kit on to a barge and it took days off an otherwise uneventful journey.

Now imagine that you give you players an option of taking a boat down stream, a two day journey, or walking which takes about 10 days as the terrain is quite difficult. Where they are is a small settlement and the river rafts are the main form of employment. The costs of downstream travel are cheap as the raftsmen earn their money poling heavy cargo up stream.

So that is the setting and motivation to get your players on the raft. You then carry on with some description of the start of the journey, silently drifting along with the current, the wildlife that use the river to come down to drink, otters swimming alongside, majestic birds seeming to defy the current and hold their position on the water as the raft floats by. The banks rising as the river enters a channel showing the bands of rock strata and how the raftsman deftly steers the craft with just a single oar and the lightest of touches to drift the raft into the smoothest water.

The channel starts to narrow and the flow of the river starts to increase. The raftsman tells any character interested how the edges of the river are dangerously turbulent and filled with submerged rocks that can cut a man to pieces. He says how beautiful the river is here but just wait as it is like a demon up ahead.

He then tells the characters that the only real danger are from the… At that point a spear takes him in the chest and he is whipped over the side and into the water complete with the only oar!

On the bank a small band of orcs or goblins jump up from behind some bushes and wave weapons threateningly. They start to follow down the bank as best they can.

So now the characters are in a drifting raft without a paddle.

We can generate the river randomly as it continues down the channel. Just roll an couple of D100 OE, once for the left and the other for the right. Round the numbers off unless any of the characters are exceptionally good at estimation. Now take the rounded figure and subtract it from 100. So a a roll of 75 would also give a result of 25. This is the difficulty factor for any rowing or swimming rolls on that side of the raft. So if you rolled a 34 and 82 the raft is about 30 feet from the left bank and 80 feet from the other but any skill checks to go left are at -70 because of the turbulence and submerged rocks and rolls to go right are at -20 as the water is calmer on that side.

So now we have a river that is full of eddies and whirlpools near the banks but is calmer in the middle unless you make two low rolls in which case you basically have rapids.

When you get a failed rowing rolls you can check to see if anyone falls overboard! This can bring in various skills from adrenal moves balance to acrobatics. I would use the characters whole Agility stat and apply a difficult factor depending on the failure of the rowing or piloting skill roll.

I am not a fan of rolling these sorts of rolls on the fly as it can lead the players to realise everything is random. I tend to use random number tables so I am just looking up and crossing off a result rather than randomly rolling. It also looks like I am checking off points in the plot.

Eventually, one or more characters are going to end up overboard. Using the same difficulty modifiers for swimming you can introduce A unbalancing  or krush criticals which could give you stunned characters in the water.

This gives you a whole new challenge for the player characters, to rescue their comrades.

There are plenty of other things you can do to make this situation worse. The orcs that originally threw the spear could easy continue to track the raft hurling stones at the characters or give them slings, there are plenty of stones around after all.

This is a very physical challenge in which the players need to work together to survive. It is also just part o e of an unfolding mini adventure.

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33, 66, 77

One of the things I really like about RMU is the new 33/77 rule for breakage. The sheer simplicity of the mechanic really appeals to me. The actual check dice roll, d100 OE, fits in with the natural Rolemaster way of doing things, when to trigger the roll is obvious and can add some excitement to combats. The resolution is simple enough, an absolute failure breaks the item, a failure gives a -10, partial success a -5, 101+ no damage. I don’t even need a table for that.

I think having the strength values for weapons on the Arms Law pages for each weapon would be a bonus but that is easily fixed with a pencil notation so no worries there.

I am a massive fan of simplicity and ‘stillness’.

Stillness is achieved when the GM is coping with an unexpected situation without flicking though pages and swapping books trying to find the right rule, chart or loose piece of paper.

If that means having an extra column of numbers or small subsidiary table on the combat chart then I am all in favour.

There is not really much more to say about breakage really, I just thought I would praise where praise was due. It is very easy to criticise things that we don’t like.

Here is a thought for the weekend.

Take your RMU beta Creature Law and read the description of the Doppelganger (PDF page 200). Now isn’t that an entire campaign in its own right!

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RMU – to infinity and beyond!

There was a comment to my last post that read:

The challenge I see with RMU as opposed to RM2 is the apparent lack of willingness to look beyond fantasy (and even then it’s their definition of fantasy). RM has always suffered (IMO) from the lack of a solid, accessible setting, and RMU just seems to accelerate that trend. They also took steps (especially in the combat system) to render it almost useless for non-magic settings if you leave it RAW. The flexibility that came with RM2 (and even RMSS in its own way) seems to be disappearing.

In addition in a recent comment Hurin had noted the amount of HARP that seems to have found its way into RMU. There is nothing wrong with HARP but HARP is not Rolemaster and definitely not RM2!

That got me thinking. Last year I bought HARP Fantasy and HARP SF. I bought them because I want to run a SF game soon and as I have said many times before I have lost my Spacemaster books.

So HARP is certainly not locked into a fantasy setting and not into one single fantasy setting. Shadow World is statted out for HARP and HARP has its own core setting of Cyradon. HARP SF plays out in Tintamar but by default it also shares the same setting as Kulthea and Spacemaster because of the Shadow World connection.

One of the things I like about HARP is that the last release was to truly unify the fantasy and sf rules and make them interchangeable. I only needed the fantasy rules as monsters make great aliens.

There is a massive gulf between RM2 and HARP and I agree there is a lot of HARP in RMU. The skill system is the same, character creation is very similar. The move in RMU to less combat tables is almost a single step towards the HARP way of thinking and that I think is the problem with RMU. The only weakness as I see it with HARP, looking from a RM background point of view, is the combat system and the criticals in particular. The same old critical comes around again and again way too often and even in the same fight. The rest of the combat system works really nicely as far as I can tell.

Another interesting thing is that the HARP forums are far busier than the RM forums if you exclude the BETA test forums. If you include them then you also need to include the HARP development forums as well. I see a far greater variety of voices in the HARP debates than in the RM ones these days. There is an active HARP community around the game and new HARP books are eagerly awaited,even if most of them are just re-releases to bring them in line with the unified Fantasy/SF rules.

Whether HARP’s firearms are as good as intothatdarkness’s firearms is a completely different question but the fact remains that HARP does have viable settings and it does have modern day and SF elements that make it go well beyond the fantasy genre.

I think RMU is trying to learn from HARP but is struggling to take the old guard with it to some extent. Which is a pity as we are the old guard.

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Is Rolemaster Worth Saving?

This is a bit of a gloomy post but if you don’t like it skim down to the ‘…and finally’ which hopefully is a bit more fun!

Over the decades I have bought a great many role playing games. Many of them, or most of them, got played once and are now just on top of a wardrobe. The death blow for all of these games was either I didn’t enjoy running it or my players didn’t want to play it.

It doesn’t matter which side doesn’t want to play, if either withdraws their support the game is dead.

My first RMU play test ended when my players didn’t want to play it anymore. These are all players that have played RM2 and RMC since the early 1980s.

My second play test is going a bit better especially since I have adopted JDales new tables.

Now what happens if the RPG community treats RMU as so many of us have treated other games, that it is condemned to the top of the wardrobe? What if the existing RM community condemn RMU to the wardrobe of oblivion?

The first reaction is to say “stick to RM2/RMC/RMSS/RMFRP (delete as applicable)” but that is not going to work. If ICE is committed to RMU then there will be no more legacy publications. All the new Shadow World material will be HARP or RMU compatible. There will be no more companions and no more guild companion articles. I guestimate that 95% of all the forum discussion is about RMU in the beta boards. If you are not playing RMU then the ICE community will wither away for you.

The second option is to house rule just about everything you don’t like in RMU so you get a working system that your players will play. That fixes it for you but not for the RPG community.

This is a rather gloomy look into the future but it is a real possibility. The RM community is not big. RMSS did not convert all the RM2 players. RMFRP did not convert all the RMSS players. RMC is the most recent version of RM that you can buy and none of the RMSS and RMFRP players will have converted. Very few RM2 players have converted to RMC. It was recently revealed that the core books have only just achieved Silver status on RPGnow. What that means is that 250 copies of the core rules have been sold up until 2 weeks ago. 250 copies in 4 years is not a lot of sales!

Given the really negative impression touted online about chartmaster, rulesmaster and rollmaster any new version of RM has to overcome these prejudices and misconceptions and go on to enthuse a new generation of players. That is not going to be easy in this world of thousands of free or almost free games and in a time when OSR and simplified games are rising in popularity.

I suspect that ICE have a massive marketing challenge ahead if RMU is to be a success. Given the effort so far in getting RMU as far as beta two and the current ‘behind closed doors’ changes, I think that the greatest effort is yet to start for the RMU team.

…and finally

My adventures regardless of whether I write them for my own game or for publication always have a title. I frequently take a film title or a song title or lyric. I was on a long journey recently and one song stuck stuck in my mind. The song was Here Goes Norman by The Undertones.

My gut reaction was when hearing the song was a sort of Bates Motel style of adventure but then I thought what if Norman was the victim in the story? Think along the lines of The Hunchback of Notre Dame with the outsider vilified by the public. So with the title of There Goes Norman what adventure hook does that inspire with you?

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