I wish I was posting a blog with more content, but I just thought I would check in and see how everyone is doing. Speaking of “dog days of summer” I found my last similar post way back in 2018. Wow, 5 years ago. A lot of changes: RMU is finally release and Terry passed away, but other than that it seems more of the same.
Of course I’m following the forums and discord. It feels like there is activity from new users or players that have found their way back to the Rolemaster fold? Certainly a lot of the usual rule adjudication.
Anyway, I hope all is well with the RM community. My hope is to get back to blogging regularly this fall when things settle down for me. In the meantime, happy to hear your comments:
- Are you playing regularly? In person or still online?
- Have you switched to RMU?
- What are you looking forward to? Treasure Law? Something else?
- If you are playing in Shadow World, where is your group now? Any good stories?
Not much to say but I’ve checked the blog now and then to confirm that I’m not missing any new post.
1. Are you playing regularly? In person or still online?
Ever since the group got back in person we couldn’t convince ourselves to go back to the pandemic online session. We play every 1 or 2 months, 3-5 hours long sessions.
2. Have you switched to RMU?
No, we did a sample campaign some years back and they wanted all their companion materials, didn’t like combat that much. I try to drop a rule from RMU every now and then, but with sessions so spread, I try to focus on moving the story forward.
3. What are you looking forward to? Treasure Law? Something else?
We used Treasure Law beta in the old RMU campaign and it was a nice touch. But my only chance of getting the group to use RMU might be the Character Companion once it comes out, with its promise of bringing back Training Packages and more character creation rules.
4. If you are playing in Shadow World, where is your group now? Any good stories?
I’ve said it before, but just in case: Folenn.
I’ve read the old book which explains the cultures there, and I’m slowly trying to use info and adjust it to make sense to the rest of Shadow World, instead of a factions involved in skirmishes for a wargame.
I have some ideas I’d like to explore, but with the sessions so far between one and the next, I can’t know if anyone will really make it to the campaign.
As a good story, the last adventure was the most entertaining in a while. The party is made up of 3 characters lvl 16, with a ton of loot from completing a campaign in SE Emer. It’s hard to give them a challenge. They reached a town, heard that there were some people hurting from a battle and decided to go to the hospital to help if they could (one of the players is a Healer). I rolled randomly for the affections of the injured, knowing a bladestorm had been involved. Turned out one of the injured people had a pressing pain in their back, it seemed to be an external influence, like something got stuck. I think they realized it might be aggressive, so they opened the back with a small cut, and the demon lurking there started spitting acid towards them. The party had to do some inventive stuff, like sedating the man quickly with golden slumbers and use Force spells instead of physical attacks. The demon got a really high roll and damaged one of the characters, a spell failure knocked one of the characters out. Eventually a holy critical did massive damage to the demon, which also ended up causing the ribs of the injured person to perforate the lungs, and the healer had to make some smart castings to get everything in order.
Well, I have & read RMU Core Law now. It’s better than I expected, there’s things I don’t love in it but it’s nice to have a not-40-year-old edition to try to get players for.
I’m waiting for print Spell Law to arrive, and I can probably get by with classic C&T and try to run it again. I don’t know how well that’s going to go, online players don’t really have the stamina for it, and local area’s too small.
Don’t know what I’ll run, my old start to any campaign was Vog Mur, but maybe I should change up a bit? Are there less archaic modules that won’t be repeated TPKs?
Have you tried “Tales of the Green Gryphon Inn” yet? It’s a great starter for a campaign.
Are you playing regularly? In person or still online?
Still can’t get that time to do more than once every three or four months, at least it is in person.
Have you switched to RMU?
Nope, not interested. I am more than comfortable with the house ruled RMSS I run.
What are you looking forward to? Treasure Law? Something else?
Still waiting for HARP Something Wicked…
(Hey, it could happen! Columbia Games eventually improved their release schedule, so it could happen anywhere!)
If you are playing in Shadow World, where is your group now? Any good stories?
1) Busy developing rules, so I haven’t been playing all that much. Hope to start a playtest in the next couple of months, though. It’s all modern setting stuff, so my mind is about as far away from fantasy as you can get.
2) Not planning on switching to RMU. It just doesn’t offer anything my customized RM2 does, and if anything would be worse for my campaign setting. I feel like they had a chance to reinvigorate the system and just missed the mark, but that’s just me.
3) Not really looking forward to anything RMU. I am interested in the revised Harn rules in the works at Kelestia, though.
4) Shadow World never really caught on with me or my various groups.
Hello! I just signed up for this blog site and perhaps can get involved now that I’m joining a new RM2 campaign for the first time in decades. I’m super excited. Last time I played was in college and now that I’ve had a long career as an engineer I find I’m approaching things with a very different view (i.e. less power fantasy and more making sure rules and rule options make sense). Adding a bunch of homebrew stuff as well to create balance. Have done a couple sessions with the GM (old high school friend) using FGU VTT. It’s fantastic! We can mod it easily and the combat goes so fast you can just focus on the role playing part!
(1) We’re hoping to play as often as possible. Mostly online but a few of us “locals” may meet in person. I’ve re-read all the books I have (RM2 core + all 7 companions) and am seeking out as much additional material as possible to integrate in over time. Been trying to buy hard copies via ebay but it has not gone well. Grabbing PDFs where I can (ex: scribd).
(2) I see there are some other “simpler” systems since RM2. Have not tried them yet as we all knew RM2 from way back when. We might try some newer systems if they make sense but the complexity never bothered us. And now with FGU, there really is no reason to care about “death by tables”.
(3) What is Treasure Law? There are so many things I need to catch up on. Willing to play test just about anything.
(4) Yes we’re playing Shadow World (starting with Green Gryphon module) but doing a lot of homebrew as well. We always played “sandbox” campaigns, entirely driven by the group. I’m trying to find as much SW material as I can but it is pretty confusing. I’d love to read some fiction novels on the setting or whatever, so my character can have a bit more awareness (I have NO idea where to start). Right now my character is from Itanis and I barely know anything about that area of the world. I have a pretty epic backstory so far, but I need to keep building on that.
I freaking love RM and am happy to be back playing it!
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