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1st Is there any cunning plan you can share that you are hoping to spring on your players this year? If you don’t want to spoil it then what was the best cunning plan from the last 12 months?

Brian: My group has been playtesting “Priest-King of Shade” for 2 years now. There are 12 adventures that can be combined into a long adventure path that they are doing and are up to part VI. I went a bit off script and threw a Battle-Priest of Z’taar at them during a particularly tough fight they were having. The Priests are unpredictable—chaos agents really. The Priest attacked their enemies first but then saw one of the players as a “worthy opponent” and switched to attacking that player and the party. Ha! Perhaps not cunning but it was a bit of a shock to the players to deal with a Battle-Priest in full Beserker mode.

Peter: I was really pleased how I lured the party to the deserted, remote, haunted house, despite telling them that it was a remote, deserted, haunted house and then threw tons of undead at them. It was only when the they were actually confronted with the obvious ghost that they stopped trying to work out who was trying to scare them off. According to feedback there was no way that it could be a real haunted house as things are never as the GM says they are. So that could be cunning or it is one of those reverse, reverse, reverse psychology things. Where I told them the truth, so they wouldn’t believe me as I never tell them the truth, so by really telling them the truth I put them off the scent!

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31st Best “cool bit” from a RM product?

Brian: I’ve always liked Terry’s magic items. As a Warrior Monk there were very few magic items that I could use, so I really appreciated those. Two of my favorites are in Cloudlords of Tanara:

Fist of Agonar. A spiked gauntlet that destroys doors.

Jarn’s Shurikens. 2 shurikens that hold small red disks that explode as Firbolts 4x damage. The disk is spent but the shurikens return via Long Door.

Peter: My favourite ‘cool bit’ isn’t a thing, it is a monent. It is when you get a new RM book and it has new critical tables and you get to read though the really dangerous fatal wounds for the first time, normally trying not to laugh or smirk and the gory deaths.

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30th Your Rolemaster favourite spell (from any list)?

Brian: I’ve always liked the Mystic base list “Hiding” and on it are two cool spells: 14th lvl “Merging” which is a great escape/hide spell and 13th lvl “Flattening” which makes a player 2 dimensions. How cool is that?

Peter: Mass Vibrations I, 13th level Essence Hand. Everyone in your field of vision needs to make an RR every round of fumble their weapon. It is absolutely brilliant and far better than any kind of blade turning. The first time I discovered this spell I was playing an invisible illusionist who cast this followed by a summoning spell that gave me a pair of tigers against a dozen guards. It was carnage and I don’t think any of them survived! Even the lower level spells are cool. In RM you rarely meet massed enemy so Vibrations I as a first level spell is a great defence once your caster reaches 4th or 5th level.

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29th The most useful piece of technology (hardware or software) for Rolemaster?

Brian: There are 3 things that are indispensable to my game: iPad which has everything in PDF for reference, tri-fold GM screen and my “noteboard”. www.noteboard.com. I’ve never tried any RM software—I guess I’m too old to learn new tricks.

Peter: I agree with the Tablet PC. I don’t have a GM’s screen but I have created a small PDF with just the few charts that I need for running a game that serves the same purpose. I tend to print the important specific rules that relate to bits of the adventures and insert them into my plot notes at that actual point so I don’t have to access any rulebooks during play.

I have tried Combat Minion for a single session but didn’t like it the added prep time setting up the encounters doesn’t suit my play style as I often have no idea how many foes I am going to throw at my players until part way through the session.

Incidentally here in the UK the BBC is supposed to be non-commercial and impartial and if they ever mention a brand name they have a habit of saying “Other brands of Tablet PC are availaible.” and I had an irresistable urge to add that in after Brian’s mention of the iPad!

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28th Have you ever regretted allowing an optional rule or house rule into the game?

Brian: “Talents”. Can’t stand any rules that are “one-offs” are turn into crutches that underpin the entire character.

Peter: The extended character background options from RoCoI particularly the Skill at Arms and Skill at Magic. These are prime examples of where a single (un)lucky dice roll can complerely change a character. There is no balancing factor and no relationship between the result of the dice roll and the initial character concept.

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27th Best NPC? created or in a module.

Brian: Feldaryn. My favorite NPC was “Feldaryn”, a crazy old man is tattered robes and a long beard. I’m pretty sure it was in a campaign I was running for Matt and his friends (matt, any recollections?). Feldaryn had “found” himself a flying boat (this was pre-SW) and picked up the group. Given his appearance and confident proclamations they all assumed he was a powerful mage or perhaps a god in disguise—the Dragonlance effect. In reality he was crazy, low level and being pursued for stealing the flying boat. The fun was seeing the players agree to almost anything Feldaryn suggested!

Peter: There was a high level Drow Sorcerer who the party caught completely by surprise along with his apprentice. His plans were to decieve the party for long enough to put his grand plan in place to destroy them but the party were having none of it. They chased him from pillar to post without a moments respite until he had to flee in a rather pitiful manner killing his own apprentice so that he could not give away the location of Sorcerer’s final hiding place. One day he will be back and he will have his revenge but unfortuneately he is having issues achieving his full potential.

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26th Your favourite Rolemaster profession (and why)?

Brian: I almost always played a Warrior Monk (Caylis, who is featured in some RMU examples) but occasionally I ran a Rogue. Strangely enough I have never played a spell-caster! I played Monks in D&D as well. I think I like the minimalist and self-reliant nature of the profession: I don’t worry about loot, magic-items, equipment etc. I don’t need weapons to attack or armor for protection. It’s very liberating!

Peter: What I like most are characters that are as comfortable out of combat as they are in a fight. I don’t like the idea that I ever have to take a back seat. The professions I favour in fantasy settings tend to be thieves because they are pretty good all rounders, mentalists and illusionists. I don’t feel the need to be the big firebolt caster much prefering subtler magics. In Space Master I really like the criminologist profession as a basis for building just about any character concept.

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12 Days of Rolemaster

Just for fun Brian and I have come up with the 12 days of Rolemaster. Twelve questions about our Rolemaster experiences and we will post our answers to each question on the 12 days of Christmas, starting on the 25th.

If you want to join in then the 12 questions are:

25th    What was your first experience of Rolemaster?

26th    Your favourite Rolemaster profession (and why)?

27th    Best NPC? created or in a module.

28th    Have you ever regretted allowing an optional rule or house rule into the game?

29th     The most useful piece of technology (hardware or software) for Rolemaster?

30th     Your Rolemaster favourite spell (from any list)?

31st     Best “cool bit” from a RM product.?

1st        Is there any cunning plan you can share that you are hoping to spring on your players this year? If you don’t want to spoil it then what was the best cunning plan from the last 12 months?

2nd      Best layout/structure in a RM product?

3rd       Of all the companions and ‘laws’ which book could you not be without?

4th       In my opinion the best bit of RMU is…?

5th       Excepting Perception, Stalk & Hide and Body Development, of all the skills in all the books which one would you say is the single most important for a player to take?

If you want to join in the you can post your answers in the comments each day or take the twelve questions and create your own post.

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My Take on Adventure Design

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I was going to post the second instalment of my RMU playtest but I will try and post it later in the week. Instead, inspired by Brian’s post I thought I would share how I like to go about trying to create new and hopefully original adventures.

The basic premise is ‘take to its extreme limit’ by which I mean I like to take an idea or inspiration and then try and see how far I can take that idea.

When I say idea it is often not so much an idea but rather an inspiration. It could be a profession that I want to make the bad guy, it could be a particular spell on a specific list. In the past it has been a tactic that the players have used and I wanted to use against them.

Once I have this inspriation point I then see just using that core idea how much could you achieve with just that one thing. In a recent post I outlined an evil illusionist and his plans. Once I know what is happening I can then see where would this encroach on the characters lives. How would they first become aware of what is going on and how? Often this first possible contact is completely ignored by the characters. It could be just a mention in the Waterdeep broadsheets or a rumour in the market place. Once I have placed the events in the world though I try and advance the villains plans and see where and when the characters could next become aware of them. They may or may not take the bait that time but it doesn’t matter. In theory at least as the villain’s plans proceed he should be getting more powerful and the longer the characters ignore them they should be advancing in level as well so both are in step.

I think every spell list has the potential to be the inspiration for an adventure. If you only had Sleep V as a spell and nothing else what crimes could you commit?

Not every adventure needs a spell caster behind it. How about a single intelligent creature, an enterprising goblin for example? What could a goblin achieve if he really thought through his plans? Once he starts to make some alliances he suddenly gets a lot more threatening. If he plans a few raids and they are successful then others are more likely to follow a winning leader that beings in loot and freah meat. Put his lair or hold on an easily defending island or in a marsh, inhabited by something equally threatening from lizardmen to the undead to noxious marsh gas and the Goblin chief now has natural defences as well as his band of goblins and their allies.

Each and every adventure can be embedded in the game world and existed before the characters came along and continues to grow in scope until the characters deal with it.

Occaisonally if the characters are either staying in an area or revisit an area then I have had these embedded adventures actually come into conflict with each other. If you have two villains both of which have designs on taking the same town or goblins trying to raid traffic on a particular road and someone else using it to smuggle goods then there is going to be a conflict. Put the characters in the middle of that and you have potentially complicated situation for the characters to sort out.

I think to put it in a nut shell I think I am saying, take something simple and take it to its extreme.

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Rolemaster the Christmas Movie?

I was obviously really busy when I was looking at a list of the most frequently shown films over Christmas on the BBC. I was very surprised to see how many Rolemaster movies make it onto our TVs each year!

White Christmas

The list is topped by White Christmas (18 showing since 1964). Despite the all the Christmas dressing this is obviously really all about the impact of both successful and fumbled social/influence skill rolls and how they can influence the best thought out GMs plotting.

Santa Claus: The Movie

Santa Claus: The Movie (10 airing since 1985) is a film about the use of the Rolemaster Companion II skill Gimickry, the Alchemy skill and the overly complicated rules for combining the skills and skill ranks known as Complimentary Skills and Intra-Skill Areas (RoCoII pages 16 and 17). Anything that involves rolling one skill to see if you can get a +15 on a different skill or on the other hand could have you adding half the ranks from skill No. 2 to those of skill No.1 could easily end up with your character producing exploding candy canes!

The Wizard of Oz

The Wizard of Oz (9 showings). Now this is your classic RMU Beta 2 Creature Law play test. Everything from a Lion, Scarecrow and a golem are described using the same development points as the more traditional races, human and halfling (munchkins), and professions such as dabbler (Oz) and Sorcerer (Elphaba or the WWotW).

The Santa Clause

The Santa Clause (8 showings). This is the seminal work on the correct use of the Sorcerer Base list Soul Destruction up to level 20 (list portions B, D). Scott Calvin, played by Tim Allen, is subjected to the many of the spells in order including Neurosis (3rd), Guilt (4th), Paranoia (5th), Panic (7th) and finally Demonic Possession IV (13th) at which point Calvin is fully possessed by the Santa which is all know is an anagram!

Casper

Finally in the movie round up is Casper. This necromancy movie has been shown seven times since 1995 during which four Class V undead attempt to protect their earthly focus. Without magical weapons the only way to kill a Rolemaster Ghost is the destroy or disperse its focus.