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Shadow World 4th Era Project: Initial Books

As many of you already suspect, I’m further along on this project than just concepts. I’ve fleshed out the first 3-5 supplements that could be brought to market as a cohesive RMU 4th Era launch. Arguably having several books ready to go creates more momentum and incentives player buy-in of the setting. Of course, any new users for SW would likely want the older material from Terry as well giving the entire product line a great boost.

I’m not getting into too much detail, but here is my working list.

  1. SW: 4th Era Addendum. I’m not sure it should be called a Master Atlas since it doesn’t need to rise to that level of detail and/or it would include some redundancy. Nonetheless, this is the essential primer for the new setting that would include a “history” (I’m starting this on year 20 after TBotNE) that establishes the current state of affairs, politics and power and high level topics. 150 pages. Plus Map Gazatteer.
  2. A Grand Adventure: “Rise of the Loremasters”. I’m envisioning this as a fusion of the Druid narrative from Sword of Shanara, and Star Wars sequels. The Loremasters, decimated by the final battles, are absent from the affairs of Shadow World. Worse still, Karilon has been quarantined by powerful magic and inaccessible. Starting with the “Search for Randae Terisonen” this multi-part campaign has the group seeking out surviving Loremasters and eventually helping restore the order. 60 pages.
  3. A Dungeon Crawl. RM and SW has never had a tradition of dungeon adventures, but several expansive facilities were abandoned at the end of the 3rd Era. Are they still occupied? What evil resides in these remote places. The players are tasked with gathering intel, recovering or destroying a powerful talisman or artifact. 50 pages.
  4. A Wilderness Adventure. Without the aid of Navigators, the group must traverse a land ravaged by a last battle. Now overrun by XXX, the players are tasked with connecting to a remote enclave in a traditional hex or wilderness crawl. 35 pages.
  5. A City Supplement. With Eidolon destroyed and Norek drowned in a cataclysmic tidal wave, a new city has arisen as the center of commerce in Emer. 120 pages.

I see most of the focus still on Emer and Jaiman but with clear development guidelines, third party authors could start utilizing and/or developing other parts of the hemisphere.

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Shadow World 4th Era Project: “Shuffling the Deck”

As I continue to fill in the foundation of my 4th Age of Shadow World, I’m debating a balance between retaining core elements of Shadow World or “upsetting the apple cart” and making some broader changes to the setting. As a long term SW user I’m of two minds but ultimately shaking things up seems the proper choice; otherwise, why not just continue to play in the established 3rd Era?

Coastlines & Topography. I’m going to push Matt for some feedback on this, but I’m going to assume a modest 50′ rise in oceans level due to ice melt from the “Battle of the Northern Eye”. Obviously that will impact some major cities, but leave several key locations untouched: Haalkitaine and Ardania specifically come to mind..

Pantheons. My thoughts on this will become more apparent when I upload by Shadow World: Book of Essaence, but I see some disruptions to the established Gods. A few Gods of Charon might rejoin their brethren on Orhan, while a few others may be banished or flee to live on Kulthea; powerful still but greatly reduced. The Masters of Emer may re-assert themselves. Whether Nynaku escaped or was re-imprisoned (Legends of the Shadow World adventure), the energy pulse at the northern pole cracked his prison shells. He flees into hiding, but is a force now on the planet.

Rise of the Earthwardens. There is a great storyline here. Assuming the Loremasters have been culled a bit, the return of a few Earthwardens could be a great hook. Plus the return of Arcane/Primal Essaence magic…

Eidolon. I’m with Hurin and I think the floating city needs to come down! It’s a high profile target and a major disruption to the Essaence Flows could capsize it with a secondary attack of opportunity by the Silver Dragon. The ruined city could have been plundered but lying mostly intact a few miles from Sel-kai.

Rule of the Dragonlords. The 4th Era could start with the dominance of the Dragonlords. Ulya reasserts herself in the West and directly confronts the Alliance. The Silver Dragon takes control of Northern Emer (he has invaded before), the Red Dragon pushes down into Tanara and north Rhakaan.

The Unlife. I’m torn here again. I could see the Lords of Orhan, out of fear and desperation throttling the dimensional rift even further to block the Unlife from entering this reality. That could also weaken the Essaence, the flows, magical recharge rates, weaken magical effects etc. Perhaps the 4th Era is not the story of the Unlife, but an age of less magic to mirror the “Age of Men” in ME?

The Secrets. With the Secret Circle undone, these would be amazing “mega dungeons” for the players. Now vacant, or mostly so, filled with traps, knowledge and artifacts. More akin to the “Haunt of the Necromancer”, perhaps they are still occupied by one of the lesser circle or an Adherant?

Nexus & the Navigators. Imagine the Flows are completely disrupted or rerouted. Mapped jump points, Obelisks and safe routes are now all in question. Nexus itself is no longer a convergence point with major Flows now terminated. Travel is still incredibly risky, but the Navigators are also less effective. That’s also interesting to me.

The Loremasters. The Third Era ended with great sacrifice. Many of the elder Loremasters were killed to stabilize the Northern Eye or in direct confrontation with Shrek, the Shadowstone etc. Karilon was infiltrated and heavily damaged, and it’s protective magics stripped away.

The Ash Lairs. Like the Wars of Dominion, the denizens of the underearth swarmed up and invaded the surface at the darkest moment. Perhaps they were fleeing for safety themselves (major earthquakes and gate volatility). Either way, there were major battles and engagements on most continents.

Spacemaster Angle. The wild card could be the Dia Khovaria. Already position with agents on Kulthea, a weakened Essaence field could allow easier access to Kulthea and better technological reliabillity.

Anyway, just a few thoughts as a I build a concept framework for a 4th Era book. I still think this is a great path forward for ICE and Shadow World. It protects Terry’s work, but it creates a newish setting for RMU using the strong foundation of Shadow World material.

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Shadow World and the 4th Era

There has been some discussion about resetting the Shadow World setting with the start of the “4th Era”. The purpose is two fold: first, to respect the canon work that Terry has built and second to create a starting point for new Shadow World material with a clean slate (more or less).

There is no dispute that Terry’s work in the Master Atlas’s, Emer books, Loremaster Legacy, Grand Campaign and other supporting material was building towards a finale. The converging narratives were built around the loss of the Northern Eye, growing influence of the Unlife, and world spanning cults. Similar to the end of the 1st Era, and to a lesser extent, the Wars of Dominion at the end of the 2nd Era, the current 3rd Era was going to end, and likely messily!

Clashes of great powers, meddling of Gods both noble and malign, key and notable NPC’s and the players themselves could result in seismic events. Perhaps this grand battle would not result in world-wide destruction, but it could certainly lead to triggers that would then unleash secondary destruction. Floods, tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions could be as destructive or more so than cataclysmic releases of the Essaence.

I see 4 major categories of change:

  1. Geographic impacts. This could be destruction of coastal areas, loss of land mass due to a rise in sea levels, subsidence of continental shelves, massive volcanic activity.
  2. Changes in the Essaence. Would major Essaence flows change in scope or power? Would flows reroute or diverge from current paths? Would the ambient level of Essaence change, become more or less volatile?
  3. Political. If major population centers and/or empires were dramatically impacted would new powers emerge? Which major powers, NPC’s or historical figures survive?
  4. Gods. IF the gods were involved with the end of the 3rd Era, what is the end result? A shift of the current pantheon? A change in the hierarchy of the gods? Do the Gods of Charon benefit or lose from these events?

I think this is an exciting pivot point for Shadow World! Terry’s setting up to this point, becomes history– a time of legend and mystery! Functionally, this reset could coincide with the new RMU ruleset and some of the changes built into the 4th Era could better engage with Rolemaster rules.

As I work on this I’ll post some updates, but curious if anyone else has some thoughts?

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Shadow World: Retconning the Dyari.

There was a recent discussion on the forums about Dyari. I’ve written about Elves before here, but the recent conversation brought me around again.

Musings on High Elves in Shadow World
Elves, Elves, Everywhere! Elves in Shadow World and fiction.

I’ve put together a more detailed history of the Elves and posted it on the forums a decade ago. In the subsequent years I’ve fine tuned and expanded upon it as part of our definitive Master Atlas and now in the SW: Book of Essaence I’m working on. I feel that most of my material is well within Canon, but there is one significant change I made: I demoted the Dyari to a cultural group.

The Dyari are a more philosophical issue for me. First and foremost, I have no interest in strict racially dictated moral and cultural traits: i.e. Orcs are “evil”, Gnomes are good with tech or devices, Dwarves like to work with stone and metal. These monolithic ideas that beings were born into specific abilities, attitudes and predilections were simple and appealing 40 years ago. IIt allowed us to easily drop races into convenient trait and identity buckets for game play. And, it gave free reign for player groups to attack and kill any person or being inherently “evil”. Per the MA:

The Dark Elves instead gained their name because
of an earned reputation for associating with
the powers of darkness. It is true that many of their
kind have been seduced by the lure of the Unlife
(many of the Priests Arnak are Dyar, for instance),
but most Dyari are merely what one might call
“mercenary.” They embody the worst traits of the
Loari but to the extreme: they are vain and arrogant,
considering all other races (including other
Elves) to be inferior. They have a lust for power:
political, magical, physical, and spiritual.

    I am uncomfortable with an entire race, male, female and children being painted in such broad strokes, I feel that the origins of the Elves lends themselves to worship or alliance with the Lords of Orhan, but ultimately there should be a role of self-determination. For me, the solution was to have Elves that withdrew from the Lords of Orhan, become inherently “outcasts” from the collective Elven community. That is not to say that they would become evil, or automatically follow the Charonic pantheon. This solution allows for a variety of motivations: moral independence, agnosticism, allegiance to a local god, atheism etc. This of course introduces aspects of religious indoctrination, complicated cultural forces, and player choice.

    It’s important to note that SW Dyari are not DnD Drow with black skin and white hair. That is a powerful image used throughout fantasy pop culture and VERY popular with players. Instead Terry wrote this:

    The Dyari (Iy: “Delvers”) are, despite their nickname
    of “Dark Elves,” no darker in skin pigmentation
    than their brethren; in fact they are very
    fair-skinned.     While most have raven hair, a few
    are born with pure white locks. Their ears frequently
    have more pronounced points than the
    other Elves; their eyes are grey, black, or sometimes
    amber. Often, however, they are so similar to their
    Loar cousins that it is difficult—at least for mortals—
    to tell the difference.

    For me and my campaign, that was the opening to retcon Dyari and provide a more nuanced approach to “fallen” Elves. Notably, during gameplay, I’ve framed Ilyar to be more intolerable, insufferable and judgmental in their approach to mortals and other lesser beings, while Dyari tend towards libertarianism. Certainly some contemporary parallels!

    A final point, and one that I’ve also written about extensively. I don’t see the Charonic gods to be inherently evil or part of the Unlife. Certainly some of the gods of Charon embrace less celebrated behaviors and personality traits, but these aspects are all inherent to the human condition. I’ll have more on this in the upcoming SW: Book of Essaence!

    For many, or even most GM’s, this is probably too much of a retcon, but I’m happy to hear everyone’s thoughts!

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    Shadow World: Works in Progress

    While I’m working on the Shadow World: Book of Essaence, I dropped a quick Shadow World Combat companion book of alternate combat notes from my S.W.A.R.M. ruleset. For those that read this blog regularly, a lot of the material was posting on this blog over a decade ago and has been consistently used in my Shadow World campaign.

    Optional Initiative was one of my earlier posts back in 2016!

    Optional Encumbrance and Armor Rules

    Individual Weapon Modifiers

    Shadow World Armor

    Matt’s Shadow World Combat Styles

    I updated some items, added my own Combat Styles and put it together in a more comprehensive package for my group to use. Like the Book of Channeling, this is a slow but steady process of consolidation of my Shadow World material. Much of it is in our “red book”, a monster Master Atlas that’s now at 476 pages!

    The Shadow World: Book of Essaence is putting together a ton of my material that can found on this blog and the the Rolemaster Forums: history and development of magic, Ka’ta’viir, Earthwardens, Dragonlords, Gods, Primal Magic, Arcane Magic, Elven Magic, Dark Magic, Magic development by the Eras, new spell lists, magical languages and spell list assignments by language and a few key artifacts. It’s turning out to be a much bigger project than I anticipated! I had hoped to have it up by now, but life keeps interrupting and these smaller projects like Book of Channeling and Combat Companion was needed for my gaming group.

    Thanks for reading!

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    Shadow World: Book of Essaence

    “Master, I still do not understand. How can a language do anything? Words describe things. They do not ignite lamps, mend bone, or open gates.”

    My old teacher smiled faintly. “Common words do not. Magical language is not ordinary speech.”

    I collected my thoughts. “Then what is it?”

    “A control architecture,” said the teacher. “A formal symbolic system that binds intention to the Essaence. Consider ordinary language. If I say fire, I have not created flame. I have only caused your mind to retrieve a concept or image. Heat, light, danger, color, memory. Yes?”

    “Yes.”

    “But when a trained caster speaks the correct arcane lexeme for fire, with the proper tonal contour, breath pressure, mental image, and energetic will, he is not merely invoking a concept. He is selecting and activating a pattern already latent within the Essaence.”

    I studied the pages in front of me, a sheet of vellum covered in angular glyphs, breath-marks, and tonal notations. “And these symbols?”

    The teacher tapped the spiral glyph.

    “This establishes the transformation domain — thermal excitation.”

    He tapped the hooked mark.

    “This limits the area of effect.”

    Another mark.

    “This binds the effect to the designated target rather than the surrounding air.”

    Another.

    “This determines duration.”

    “Then a spell is a sentence?”

    “Similar, but no. In ordinary language, grammar clarifies meaning. In magical language, grammar clarifies causality. A spell is what happens when intention is encoded into valid symbolic form, supplied with energy, and resolved by the field into a realized effect.”

    I was silent for a moment. “Then why can two mages speak the same words and produce different results?”

    “A good question. Because the utterance alone is not the whole spell.” The teacher tapped his own temple. “Intent conditions execution. The spoken form provides explicit structure, but the mind provides hidden parameters; target image, desired intensity, exclusions, emotional coherence, even metaphysical alignment.”

    I looked again at the glyphs. “Then magical languages were specifically designed for this?”

    “Some were designed. Some were discovered. Some are remnants of older, denser systems. But yes, they are not optimized for ordinary conversation. They are optimized for semantic precision, low ambiguity, and resonant correspondence with the Essaence.”

    “So common speech describes reality,” I said slowly, thinking it through, “but magical speech instructs it.”

    The teacher’s expression sharpened with approval. “Exactly.”

    “Why did the Earthwardens labor to devise spell languages for mortal use?”

    “Because raw Arcane speech was too dense, too exact, too perilous for lesser minds.”

    “And so?”

    “And so they made structured paths: formulae, runic bindings, later lists and notations all to let mortals shape the Essaence without being consumed by it.”

    “And the greatest spell-language?” he asked softly. “The oldest one…Iruaric?”

    The teacher was silent for a long pause, as if considering what to reveal to the young student. “Iruaric does not merely refer to the structure of reality,” he said. “It was formulized close enough to first principles that speaking it correctly is less like making a request and more like issuing a lawful revision.”

    Loremaster Remembrances. Vol I

    Randae Terisonen

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    Shadow World Channelers Guide v2.0

    I recently posted up an updated version of my “Channelers Guide” over at the RM Forums and thoughts I’d make a few comments.

    1. Book title. I’m still not sure what to call this! I use “Guide”, “Handbook”, “Religions” interchangeably at different points. Is this work about Channeling, religions, Priests?
    2. Analog approach. Despite efforts to improve my work efficiency, I’m still using an old school approach to updates. I’ll jot down an idea, write a quick note or send myself an email and then put those scraps in a folder. Then when it accumulates I’ll add it to the master doc, add copy and then edit/page setup.
    3. Now that I have a group again the new material is piling up! I have 2 channelers in the group and I wanted to flesh out a few more religion details as part of their character backgrounds. I’m already thinking about v3.0 but want to finish up the Book of Essaence first.
    4. As Micael pointed out on the RM Forums, I left out 6 spell lists for some of the Gods of Charon. Most of those had some treatment already in Powers so I didn’t focus on either adding too, or creating a new religious organization. For now. I’ll be adding those in the next version.
    5. Other adds for v3.0. Summary of any significant religions in the various books. Artifacts, maybe some common temple floorplans or designs. With the spell lists and new material it’s going to push to 100-120 page count.
    6. Editing. I have no skills as an editor or in page layout. I wish I could put out a more professional product, but the last 10% just takes too much time.

    Here are the links to the spell lists not included in the guide.

    Andaras: https://ironcrown.co.uk/ICEforums/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=3787
    Scalu: https://ironcrown.co.uk/ICEforums/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=3799
    Nynaku: https://ironcrown.co.uk/ICEforums/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=3804
    Kesh’ta’kai: https://ironcrown.co.uk/ICEforums/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=3782
    Moralis: https://ironcrown.co.uk/ICEforums/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=3802
    Klysus: https://ironcrown.co.uk/ICEforums/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=3803

    Book of Essaence (BoE). This project has been a lingering goal of mine for quite some time. In fact I should have written this first, before BASiL, to help guide the design of spell lists. There are pieces of the BoE throughout this blog: powers and spells of the Earthwardens, Dragonlords, Xiosians, Essaence flows, magical languages. BoE is tying all of these pieces together into a cohesive whole, with a history starting in the 1st Era and following the origins of spells through to “present day”. The outline is currently at a dozen or so pages, but spell lists will inflate that for the final product. With the baseline finished I’ve come to the conclusion that early magic had to have 2 stages: Proto-Magic and then Arcane magic. That solved a lot of issues I kept encountering.

    So why do the BoE? Much of it is academic and would have little if any impact on gameplay. Perhaps it’s my nature, but Terry left many gaps in the Shadow World setting, particularly in the underpinnings of the magic system. We have the “results” (Spell Law) but we never had a clear idea how it got there. Kulthea is not in a fantasy universe of magic; it’s in our “real” universe with a special circumstance that allows for magic. For me, this needed better road rules!

    Anyway, I’m moving along quite nicely with my writing goals for 2026. Will I hit all of my benchmarks? Probably not, especially as my RL gets hectic again in a few months. Either way, I’m no longer waiting for any real opportunity from ICE to expand the Shadow World product line. If I have ideas in my head that need writing down I’ll keep on going.

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    Essaence Barriers in Shadow World

    I’ve written a few blogs referencing Essaence Flows and Barriers over the years, but my current writing has me circling back to the subject. I’m not sure what our readership is here now, but I thought I would throw it out.

    The issue. Excluding the inception of the Great Barrier, when did Essaence Flows begin to manifest into physical barriers on Kulthea?

    While I still suspect that many SW groups don’t use Essaence Flow barriers as originally devised and envisioned by Terry, they are part of the setting and would necessarily direct societal interaction, commerce and trade. So when did they become “a thing”?

    Essaence was detected on Kulthea during the 1st Era and was present during the technological evolution of the Althans and the rise of the Essaence Users, the Ka’ta’viir. So while the Essaence permeated Kulthea, it couldn’t have to the extent that it does in the current Era. We know the Essaence interferes with standard tech and the presence of invisible energy walls and even Flow Storms would have had an impact on the Althans. There is no indication of Essaence working like that in the 1st Era. That leaves us with a few basic conclusions:

    1. Essaence energy became more ubiquitous and powerful after the end of the 1st Era.
    2. While this coincides with the placement of the Northern and Southern Eyes, it could also be the result of time. The Interregnum lasted 100,000 years, so perhaps the Essaence was always growing and expanding on Kulthea.
    3. Alternatively, something about the installation of the Eyes and the creation of the Great Barrier created offshoots: smaller, less powerful, and perhaps temporary versions of the Great Barrier that ebb and flow around the hemisphere.
    4. Counter intuitively, weren’t the Eyes meant to stabilize the Essaence? You would think that Essaence would be more consistent and less volatile with the Eyes, but for a many reasons that seems the opposite.
    5. Another theory might be that the wars and cataclysms at the end of the 1st Era, damaged the Essaence permeation into the universe. The Essaence was out of control and the Eyes calmed it down, but not to the degree of pre-interregnum. So all of these could be partially true.

    Is this academic? Perhaps not. While I’m working out the ontology of magic using, it’s equally important to define the what/how of the Essaence over time. Simply put, if the Essaence ebbs and flows, so to perhaps the power and scope of spells. That would dictate spell design for early primal magic, arcane magic and the contemporary magic realms.

    Anyone have any thoughts?

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    Winter Thoughts, Random Musings and Updates

    First off, Happy New Year to all! Last year was fairly active for ICE and the finalization of the RMU product line. This blog has been fairly slow the last few years as the conversations have shifted to new platforms like Discord, but I still prefer the more deliberative blog format to memorialize work or organize my thoughts.

    In that spirit I thought I would post up some random musings!

    1. Where have I been? With all he noise around RMU I decided to step back and let that process run it’s course. Instead I focused on writing AND I’ve been able to reconstitute a playing group to start testing new ideas, adventures and Shadow World in general. Having a semi-regular game creates a fantastic feedback loop that also drives my writing and new content. My players know and understand that their might be significant changes to the game rules, spells and even the adventure path from session to session so I can “move fast and break things” for faster game testing.
    2. Nomikos Library. A longstanding goal was to get Matt’s “Nomikos Library” back up and running. Not only has Matt got it back up and running, it’s now AI enabled to add functionality with more features forthcoming. I think this is a fantastic tool for the setting.
    3. Terms of Art. I’ve written about this before, but I’m constantly thinking about our word usage in Rolemaster. Specifically, whether it makes sense to mechanistically define words for the ruleset or to use them interchangeably. An example would be “illusions”, “glamours” “mirage”, “visions” “phantasm” or “summoning” vs “calling”. FRPG’s will often use these terms loosely, or as just spell name differentiators among casters. To some extent this has been done, and perhaps it’s moved further along with RMU, but it’s not quite there. By defining these terms we also create established guidelines around their use that fits into the setting, the ruleset or as coherent short hand for communicating ideas. This topic requires a lengthier treatment, but it’s been on my mind, especially in terms of written magic: runes, glyphs, sigils, marks, symbols etc.
    4. Re-writing. From a review of my work product so far, everything needs a re-write! I’ve always relied on the 80% rule, with the understanding that no work is every finished and/or that the final polishing could be done if ICE decided to move ahead with an official publication. But final edits are time-consuming and I’d rather push out 100 new pages than final edit an existing work with 10% new material for the same amount of time.
    5. 2026 Goals. My goals for this year are…ambitious. Of course I’m cheating a bit since some of my 2026 product is the result of work I did last year. My goal is 600 pages of material.
      • Chronicles Chapter 1: Kuor. I put out the first section of this a few years back but now I’ve been able to expand upon it with the new gaming group. For me, the Gods are the entry point into Shadow World. Religions create impetus, reasons and conflicts for adventure. That is not to say that I would lean on religions and gods if I were to create my own setting, but I use Shadow World and that’s that! I have a few other Chapters outlined so there is lots of material to plumb!
      • Shadow World: Book of Things. Tech, magic items, materials, trade goods, alchemical stuff, drugs, equipment etc.
      • Nontataku. I’ve been picking away at this for years. Barring maps, it’s almost there.
      • Empire of the Black Dragon. This has always been 80% complete and was expected to go into editing for official publication. Since that’s unlikely to occur it’s time to put it out there to finish off the Agyra Series.
      • Shadow World: Book of Essence. This has been my primary project for the last year. History and chronology of Shadow World magic: arcane, realms, languages, sources and history of lists, and re-writes of the BASiL lists for Shadow World (my version of it anyway). Lots of side info including expanded info on Ka’ta’viir families and merchant houses, Dragon lineages, Orhan/Charon cycles and influences etc.
      • Book of Channeling Addendum. I’ve added some inferred powers to the various Priests based on their aspects. I’ve shied away from level based powers–very D&D but I’ve warmed to it as my views have changed on Channeling.

    Final thoughts. I’ve toyed with putting out my SWARM ruleset (Shadow World Alternate RoleMaster). I pullled a 30 page summary together for my players so they could make characters–and yes, they did character creation in 15-20 minutes! But after monitoring the endless rule debates online I’m going to stay away from it. Matt and I want to focus on narrative and setting, regardless of rules. Shadow World needs a d20 version!

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    High Level Rolemaster

    Another Discord discussion caught my attention and I wanted to provide a few additional thoughts on high level Rolemaster. I’ve blogged about this a few times and the following posts might be worth reviewing:

    Rolemaster High Level Play. Pt 1.
    50th Level Adventures. Deconstruction & Design of Chapter 1: Legends of Shadow World.

    I’ve now run my “Legends of Shadow World” roughly 11 times. That’s the average of all 5 chapters but I’ve run Chapter 1 twice that and the last chapter only half a dozen times. (although that’s my favorite).

    MY overall impression is that Rolemaster holds up VERY well at high levels and its FUN! At the risk of repeating a few notes from previous blogs I’d offer the following:

    1. Melee. Offense v Defense Player Mindset. 1st Edition Rolemaster explicitly built in the OB/DB mechanism as a core mechanic that modelled a combatants defensive posture and added some tactical complexity to simple “roll for results” of D&D. However, my experience is that few players want to dedicate much, if any, OB to parrying and that does lead to a disconnect in the remaining game mechanics: criticals, damage types etc. Simply put, players are looking to maximize their changes of hitting and getting a critical. Every swing is an attempt at a home run. But RM’s famed lethality is meant to temper player aggression and utilize the parrying mechanic. Unlike lower leves with low OB’s, every attack roll result is random with unknown results. However, when using high level characters with OB of 150 to 200, you basically need to roll over the defendants DB to automatically hit and max out the attack table and critical result. The first attack becomes essential to disable, stun or incapacitate the foe. My experience is that players behaviors don’t change, and they still rarely use significant OB allocation to parrying even though at higher levels it’s even more essential to parry to avoid a killing blow directed at them.
    2. Magic. Spell Types. A quick perusal of spells show a considerable bias towards attack and damage spells. I did a deep analysis for BASiL year ago, but I think it was a 6 to 1 ratio of attack vs defense/protection spells. From a player engagement attack spells were more varied, more fun and more engaging than the handful of protection spells. Furthermore, while attack spells allowed for significant damage (tactical importance to gameplay) while defensive spells were generally weak, 1 dimensional, boring or to specific to use effectively in gameplay.

    It’s my belief that the weighting of attack importance to defense contributes to problems encountered or perceived in high level play. While player behaviors towards OB/DB split can be trained into players, ell Law has structural issues that can’t be addressed through player choice. That was one of the mandates of BASiL–nuance and complexity in spell use and choice. That’s not to say that I solved all problems, or my solutions are better than anyone else; I constantly tinker with BASiL based on player feedback, game results and playtesting. But I stongly believe that Spell Law design should be weighted towards defensive/protection spells and not the other way around. It might be a subtle difference, but it would impact gameplay and could avoid the Fireball/Fly/Invisible Mage that outperforms Fighters fairly early on the level curve.