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Where to Start in Shadow World. How about Gryphon College in Jaiman?

Shadow World is well stocked with interesting groups and organizations: Navigators, Loremasters, the Iron Wind, Cult of Stars, the list goes on and on. But what organization might be accessible to, and make for a good starting foundation for starting players?

Tucked into the module Jaiman, the Land of Twilight is a good candidate: Gryphon College. Gryphon College is a small monastic school that hides a secret: the institution is a façade for an intel gathering and strike team force working against the Unlife. The college hosts around 100 students, but a smaller elite group of 14 make up the Gryphons. It’s assumed that the college draws from the student body to staff this force.

This is a great premise for a starting group. The college becomes the reason for the players to meet and group up (and learn starting skills), and the hidden machinations of the school give the PCs opportunities to go on missions. Perhaps this starts as seemingly innocent errands, but eventually gives the players an opportunity to join the ranks of the Gryphons!

So, what are the Gryphons? They are goddamn Batmans! Each Gryphon is equipped with mechanical wings—jagged bat like apparatus that allow them to fly and they have small wrist mounted dart guns. Give them functional black leather armor and utility belts and you have a squad of Dark Knights. I can imagine a number of other gadgets, magical devices and alchemical tricks that could add to the overall cool factor.

So let’s review, starting the players at Gryphon College:

  1. Bases them in Jaiman which is supported by numerous supplements and key events in the Kulthean timeline.
  2. At a college, allowing players access to learn and train in skills both magical and mundane.
  3. The college fights the Unlife, so allows a great premise to send the group on missions.
  4. The college it tied up into major events in Jaiman, which provides a great gateway into larger campaigns.
  5. The college has the Gryphons, which would be a cool organization for the players to be members.
  6. Gryphons = Batmen

If you are curious about playing in Shadow World, and want to know where to start, pick up a copy of Jaiman. Used copies are always on eBay and Amazon.

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I’m Your Greatest Fan!

I was thinking about NPCs today. In particular about NPCs that join the party. I know some GMs like to throw in an NPC healer just because RM is so bloody dangerous that someone needs to keep the characters alive.

I am not a fan of NPC healers. I like having an NPC to give me a voice in the party. I am not sure that is always a good thing.

So, I am there happily thinking about NPCs and suddenly thought “There is a plot idea!” Imagine an NPC that is so entranced by one of the PCs that not only do they want to be in the band but they want to get rid of the others so they can have the PC to themselves.

So I am thinking along the lines of a cuckoo in the nest sort of plot with the NPC as the cuckoo. This could slowly ferment and bubble away under the skin. You could always have the NPC run short of herbs just when they get to which ever PC is closest (emotionally) to the ‘target PC’, or happen to ‘not hear’ requests for healing if it is a chaotic situation.

How soon before you reach a crisis if the healer withdraws their support?

This is an off the cuff thought this morning but scarily this is the second post I have done where the Healer is the bad guy.

Does that say something about me or should we not go there? 🙂

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In Just Seven Days I can Make You A Man!

Tucked away at the back of different versions of Creatures & Treasures are some interesting little add on chapters. In the first C&T that I owned it has the comversion stats for D&D and Runequest. In the RMC Creatures and Treasures it has guidelines for creating your own monsters.

I am a dab hand at D&D monster conversions as I convert from old FR modules to RM all the time but creating new monsters is not something I have ever done.

There are three immediate uses I can think of for new monsters but I only want to discuss one of them here and now.

If your characters have been around for years (such as the hypothetical 50th level characters in BriH’s adventure plans) then they have probably met and killed everything many times over. So how about something completely new?

Trying to find a monster in the book to challenge a party of high level characters is simply not possible. I have never played at 50th level but a small party of 30th level characters, I know from experience, can eat Balrogs for breakfast and have Nazgul for whipping boys. Been there and done that, if not quite literally. Four us us once fought three Dragons simultaneously on the slopes of Mount Erabor. The monsters in C&T simply do not cut it when it comes to VHL characters.

The easy option and the one I have seen most often is to resort to evil NPCs as the end of level boss. These scale well and are the only thing that can challenge a party. 12 50th level bad guys will be a real challenge for a normal party of 50th level characters. The problem is that I guess the end of level boss is always an evil magician or evil mentalist and at that level everyone has all the spell lists so where is the sense of excitement?

Toss in something new and all of a sudden the players do not know how to handle it. So my challenge to myself is to create some adventures around completely new monsters. I have one really cool idea already that is now on my to do list.

So who here has actually made their own monsters?

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50th level adventures in Rolemaster. Does it work?

50th lvl…the mythical pinnacle of roleplaying achievement. I vaguely recall 1sted. D&D and I don’t recall 50th lvl (maybe it was 20th in that game system?). I do remember looking through Rolemaster for the very first time and thought the 50th lvl spells were so crazy—and cool! It opened up a world of possibilities. After that, MERP modules continued to introduce VHL (very high level) NPCs that continued pushing this perception of Rolemaster: deadly, complex and high level. After that…Shadow World. Again, the inference was that this was a high fantasy world, only populated by incredibly powerful NPCs and organizations.

So, Peter and I are working on a 50th level adventure series. Mine are based in Shadow World, but I’m going to convert these adventures to a generic format. So guess what? Creating adventures can be hard, but creating an adventure for a group of 50th lvl +- adventurers is even tougher!

Some people would argue that RM system rules break down around 15th lvl. Others would argue that the gradual power progression of RM spells, while potent, is not the same progression as the power progression of spells in AD&D—spells like “Wish” make high level Magic Users or Cleric almost god-like. Many 50th lvl spells in Spell Law are just “Laws”: the ability to cast lower level spells 1/rnd. That’s an efficient resource spell, but perhaps doesn’t lend itself to a transcendent narrative.

My first question when starting this adventure design was: “Under what circumstances would a 50th lvl PC even get involved? Not all world threats should, or can be, handled by a “well balanced group” of 5-15th lvl characters. An adventure should be: challenging, interesting and rewarding. Once a PC reaches the heights of 50th lvl, what is challenging? What adventure could possibly be new, novel or interesting? What could be rewarding for a player group equaling 200-250 levels?

We are going to try and find out with our Rolemasterblog 5of50 later this year. Have you run or played in a VHL adventure or campaign? What worked? What didn’t?

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Rolemaster Adventure Hooks: Head Fake or Trope Embrace?

If you are a regular reader here than you probably know that Rolemasterblog is putting together a challenge of writing 50 Adventures in 50 Days! These are short adventures or “hooks”, and while there is no such thing as a new idea, I think that Peter and I have come up with some twists and turns that add depth to a one dimensional challenge.

For me this is an exercise in both creativity and discipline. I try to outline an idea every day or two and work to add an interesting element to give it some “flair”.  What I have found is that I’m torn between embracing classic RPG tropes and trying to come up with something new and novel. As much as I want to avoid standard adventures ideas, there is something appealing about an old fashion dungeon crawl or fortress layout! But I also enjoy subverting classic tropes and messing with my players assumptions!

Hopefully, people will enjoy the Rolemasterblog creative content–even derivative ideas could spark your own creative process.

 

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By Jove I think I’ve Got It!

<I have a horrible feeling that is a miss-quote from Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady>

I have been thinking a lot about my Rolemaster feeder system rules and I think I can build two systems one for 4yrs to 8yrs and one for 9yrs to 12yrs. It took the example criticals that BriH suggested (“Bam!! Foe hit in face and forced to blink for 1 rnd”, “Kapow!! Foe is disarmed”) and some comments by Edgcltd to give me the inspiration.

I think I can build a game for 4 year olds. I am going to have to examine the National Curriculum in some more detail to see what skills I can expect children to have but that is actually a useful framework to work to.

So down to by game concept.

Imagine rendering skills down to a number of gold stars. You get no stars for having no ranks (-25) and then roughly one star for every +25 or so as we would think of it. So a typical OB would be in a 1 star to 5 or 6 star range. DB would be 1 star for a shield. Magic armour may be 1 star or maybe even 2 star.

You attach roll would normally be in a no star to 4 star range with open ended rolls taking it up to 8 or more stars.

Stat bonuses would typically be no stars or one star.

If any of you have young children or have had them you may be familiar with a number line. It is used for teaching addition and subtraction (check this out if you don’t know what it is https://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/number-line-using.html)

So I am sticking with cards as they remove the need for dice and being able to self print cards makes the game easily expandable.

Each card will have the attack/skill roll as a number of stars in a top corner. The body of the card will have a number of criticals on a vertical number line. The player when they want to make an attack draws a battle card, sees how many stars on the card and then counts on to add their OB, and counts back to take off the defenders DB and then reads across for the result. That is where the “Thwack! Foe is knocked down and out!” comes in.

Healing would be cinematic and fights last until everyone is either knocked out or runs away. At which point the surviving characters help their friends to the their feet and the adventure continues or the character wakes up in a cell held by the villain.

I think I need three professions; knight, archer and magician.

I think I need 4 stats. Players will be given 9 stars to share between the four stats.

Strength will combine Strength and Con.

Agility will combine Agility and Quickness

Sympathy will combine Empathy and Intuition

Cool will combine Memory and Reasoning (yes, being a geek is cool!)

Presence and Self Discipline are not needed in this simplified version.

The nine into eight means that everyone gets at least one stand out stat.

There will be at least three races Human, Elf and Dwarf. This is not yest fixed in my mind. I think I would like more but not sure which.

There will be battle cards, skill cards, movement cards and spell cards. The battle cards will work as I described above. Skill and moving maneuver cards will work in a similar way but the content of the table will resolve the static action or moving maneuvers. Spell cards will a pack per spell list with half being utility spells such as Light and the other attack spells like Lightning Bolt. So there will be many Lightning Bolt cards each with its own attack roll and unique critical table. The utility spell cards will have the roll for BAR or SCR built into them.

So that is a whirlwind tour of Rolemaster for 4 year olds.

I am thinking of calling it Gamemaster Kids as I have not had any response from ICE when I emailed them and that would mean I am no longer using any of their IP. The version for lightly older players could then be Gamemaster Heroes. That would be the true feeder system into RMU.

 

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An Opportunity Creating Rolemaster Adventures

I don’t know if you have all seen this thread but if you have wanted an opportunity to create something ‘Official’ for Rolemaster then now is a real chance.

Colin has given a single paragraph hook for their three samples on the ICE Blog http://ironcrown.com/blog/2016/02/19/roleplaying-adventure-hooks/

Now, I know we have been teasing people with the hidden project called 50 in 50 but I can let on that you will be getting more than a single paragraph from each of our adventure hooks. I have been flicking through them and each runs to a typical 1000 words with environmental considerations, battle tactics and nicely developed pen portraits of key NPCs so you could play them off the page if you are competent seat of the pants GM.

I really struggle with the whole idea of ready to run adventures for Rolemaster. What I know about RMSS/RMFRP could be written on the back of a gnats testicle and still leave room for house rules. Even my beloved RMC is different from its grandpa RM2. Just take for instance a basic skill roll. Imagine you have a fairly good skill of +57 as a 2nd level character (two ranks for the 3 levels, two lots of level bonus and a +13 stat bonus for example) and you make a middling roll of exactly 50. The skill was an absolute pass or fail test.

Total roll of +106. Did you pass or fail?

RM2 = Pass.

RMC = Fail.

To the best of my knowledge RM2 and RMC are the two most closely related RM versions there are so if RMC NPCs and characters need skills to be a typical 10 points higher than the same character in RM2 how do you balance a prepared adventure?

How about HARP? Does anyone know all the systems well enough to cross stat?

What about setting? I think the setting should be interweaved into each and every adventure. Whether it is maybe different cultures of NPCs sat around in the inns and taverns, languages heard in the market places. When I write adventures I like to explicitly write in these cultural references so I do not forget to mention them to the players. I am picturing one thing in my mind’s eye but they may not be seeing the same thing.  If the fields are filled with Aurochs grazing open common land they would look different than Bos Indicus.

Are there Shadow World races and cultures or do you not mention them?

It sounds like a real nightmare to me. In my recent post An Explosive Situation the actual setting I had in mind was an Arabian desert town with a dusty market place and white plastered buildings, the taverna with hookah pipes on the tables and curtains in the the doorways. None of that is in the text but if I had written it for myself then that would have all be there to project that across to my players.

This all sounds more negative than I had intended but going back to the beginning. Colin has make an opportunity or three available for anyone who want to have a crack at it.

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Mentalism and Water Memory

This is just an idea I have. In our world there is the idea of Water Memory and is popular with some supporters of homeopathy. the principle is that you can dilute a solution of a healing herb extract so much that there is in probability not a single molecule of the herb extract in any one sample of the water but the water retains a memory or imprint of the herb being there and retains the healing properties of the herb.

Now mentalism allows one to both manipulate water (Liquid Manipulation) and memory (Mind Mastery).

Could a mentalist develop a spell list that allowed them to create single dose potions by imprinting spells into vials of water? Essence allows casters to create runes from 3rd level and channelling allows stones to be enchanted using symbols (Symbolic Ways) from 4th level.

Could a mentalist be able to create 1st level spells as potions from 5th level?

I can see that this would make the realm of mentalism much more powerful. The potions are portable in a way that standing stones are not and can be drunk by anyone without skill unlike runes that require a level of education investment.

An alchemist can create a 1st level potion at third level so it would take something away from the alchemists profession if other people could also make potions.

I am a great supporter of players researching their own lists and spells and think it should be encouraged. So we are talking about a fairly big investment in development points as well as time. A 5th level spell takes something like 5 weeks of meditation to research. Higher level spells to create 2nd and 3rd level potions would take at least 3 months if not years.

Would you consider allowing a player to create such a list?

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Encumbrance

This is a topic I have touched on once or twice in the past but it must be a year or more since last time. It was also something that Intothatdarkness mentioned in a comment yesterday.

I do not use the Encumbrance rules as written. Initially I just junked them and left it at that. Then when I was reading the players character sheets in preparation for a gaming weekend I realised that a couple of the characters would barely be able to walk and the both the warrior mage and the sorcerer probably could not cast a single spell with the amount of metal they were hauling around.

I needed a way of reining it in but without slapping the players with the full encumbrance rules out of nowhere.

I did this in three stages. Firstly I got the players to note the location of each piece of equipment on their equipment lists. When they got to the third sword they started to see the problem. Suddenly their horses were carrying a lot of spare equipment.

Secondly, I tallied up the amount of metal I thought the spell casters were carrying and just started to mention that they had a penalty on their BAR rolls. I did it casually once or twice as if I had always applied this.

What had actually prompted this in the first place as a habit one of my players has. He detests the book keeping element of RPGs and seeing as he is Dyslexic I completely understand his not wanting to write much. When it comes to the party loot his aversion to bookkeeping had him suggest that the party just keep a common list of what the party had found rather than constantly updating their character sheets with things that they were going to sell or dump as soon as they had had time to appraise them. The other players all thought this was a good idea so I had no objections at that time.

Two or three sessions on I had a thief NPC who wanted to steal a particular item from the party. This item was on the common treasure list as no one had claimed it as their own. Not all the party were together when the item was stolen so I just randomly rolled which character had the item and my roll said it was with the characters that were being targeted. Well the theft went unnoticed at the time and the item taken. Immediately afterwards when they were all together again and they got to someone who could appraise the item they couldn’t find it. I described that they found a pouch that had been obviously cut open on a seam and the item was gone. At that point the players all protested and claimed that the item was always safely with the character who had remained behind and could not have been stolen.

I just said that if it was with a specific person then they should have it on their equipment list.

That made me question the common loot list and a glance told me that there was a further 200lbs of kit that was unaccounted for on that sheet. I made a simple sheet up that was divided into sections for each character and that now serves as the common loot list. It saves them constantly having to change their personal equipment lists. Whenever there is a short break in play I look at the loot list if it has changed and jot down a quick guestimate of the weight of each persons share.

Now this hodge podge solution works for us but I freely admit it is not ideal and would never suggest it as an alternative for other GMs. My group only gets together a couple of times a year and as such there is a lot of pressure to spend as little time as possible on character maintenance and book keeping as possible.

The only encumbrance rules I apply are those from table 10.4 Static Actions and the encumbrance penalties there. I don’t do all the body weight calculations. That of course is just what works for my game and group.

So does encumbrance play a big part in your games?

PROJECT BASIL: CHANNELING

I’m starting the process of consolidating all of my uploaded files on the RM Forums over here to the Rolemasterblog.com. I’ve uploaded over 200 docs scattered throughout the Rolemaster and Shadow World threads, but to see them or download them requires a user account.

These are just the lists and not the associated notes that accompany each. For info on our Channeling mechanics, I blogged about it HERE and for Essence mechanics HERE.