Articles and discussion on Roleplaying including Shadow World, Forgotten Realms.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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 (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 (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 (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!
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.
Our play test PC is called Gao Yao and he is an imperial messenger working within the Forbidden City.
This is the first RMU character we have created in a very long time and the first using Jdales new tables. I am greatly impressed with the improvement.
As a snapshot the character has 67 #hits which seems more than reasonable for a starting character.
A Perception Skill of +58 that is useful.
His best OB is +48 with Martial Arts strikes, then +32 with throws and +31 with his melee weapon weapon, a Qi Jian sword for which I will be using the Broadsword table (correct me if I am wrong).
Skills-wise his other highlights are his stalking at +43 and Adrenal Move Speed at +42.
The character has at least a passingly good chance of making some of the basic rolls needed to get by.
The biggest weakness is a DB of just +6, no armour and no shield.
His professional skills are mainly a mix of weapon and medical type skills. His Knacks are in perception and Martial Arts strikes.
To create the character we used the roll three sets of 10 stats and discard the lowest, the middle became the temp and the higher roll the potential. Normally I would go for Point Buy but for speed we used dice and we used the rolls in order. I guess on a different day we could have put a higher stat in Quickness which would have improved his Adrenal Move Speed and his DB. As it is the character has a 91 Potential Quickness so if he lives that long everything could balance out. It took less than an hour to create the character which I though was not too bad for a rolemaster character but there was no magic involved so no comparing spell lists and pouring over spell law when normally takes and age.
Starting equipment I have only given him the clothes he is stood up in, a satchel of Imperial documents and a pouch with his 20 silver pennies known as Bao.
Technically he also owns his sword, the Qu Jian, a short sword, Duandao, and a horse in the Imperial stables but he does not have them on him as the way things are about to go south for Gao he could well end up writing them off!
The starting postion for the game is this.
Arriving at the imperial palace with a message for the Emporer’s eyes only Gao is ushered into the Imperial suite. As he enters the rooms are surprisingly quiet, there are no other servants and none of the usual body guards. As Gao approaches the Emporers study he sees the Emporer lying on the floor clutching at a knife protruding from his chest…
So we are all tooled up and ready to play. The first game session is planned for tomorrow evening. I will report back how it goes.
This is just a short post today as I am still thinking about whether I am going down the right road or not.
Do we actually need a Body Development skill?
Every race has a racial maximum so it is a bit of a development tax, every character has to buy it, on low level characters. Once you have maxed out your #hits you can just forget about it.
It is one of the more complex calculations and I have seen people posting on the forum getting the calculation for total hits wrong when it comes to a negative Con stat bonus.
The more #hits a character has the more leighway a GM has and the greater the staying power of a party. So more #hits is better than less.
So why not just use the characters Con stat + Racial Con bonus as their Total hits? It will still go up over time for most characters as their temp stat improves through stat gain rolls.
So I ask, do we need a body development skill that costs DPs? Can the non #hits elements of body development not be rolled into an Athletics meta skill?
I am building an NPC and this one is a going to have a few unique spells. I am not one that goes looking for work to do so I am more than happy to take an existing spell, change the special effects and see how far that gets me. Now want I wanted was a spell that tearst he world apart and hurls it at the players, so nothing too spectacular.
What is the easiest way to do this?
At first glance this seemed to be an extremely powerful version of the Hurling spell from the Telekinsis/Essence Hand lists. These pick up cobblestone sized lumps of rock and throw them at the target. If I wanted hundreds of bits of rock then this is a big step up.
I then thought about making it area of effect and that then made me think of Stun Cloud on the magicians Wind Law list.
4. Stun Cloud I – Creates a 5’’R cloud of
charged gas particles: delivers a ‘C’ Electricity
critical on first and second rounds, a ‘B’
on rounds 3 and 4, and a ‘A’ on rounds 5
and 6. It drifts with the wind and affects all
in radius. The cloud takes one round to
form, so anyone in the radius when it is cast
may make a maneuver to move out of the
radius without taking a critical; however,
after that anyone within the radius at
anytime in the round takes the critical
indicated (a maximum of one per round).
So if I turn the Electricity criticals into Krush criticals and the cloud is a vortex of flying stones, rocks, earth and debris would that fit the bill? I think it does. It is no more powerful than the Stun Cloud original but because the special effect is so different It is hardly recognisable in play when it is cast.
My players are so experienced that when we were playing in Shadow World the Mage’s player could identify spells and deduce professions and levels pretty quickly. They find it harder in my game for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, I only describe the special effects and not the give the spell name. They were the target of a Shock Bolt recently and I described the caster touching the floor and white energy arcing along the cracks between the flagstones as it raced towards the character being targetted. As it happens the player said they made sure they were not standing on any cracks on the pavement and as it happens the shock bolt missed and now they think they would only be effected if you stand on the cracks. This was not a new spell, it was just a different description of a shock bolt.
Secondly nearly ever caster has at least one spell they have researched themselves in my game. I mostly do low level spells as if this is part of the casters passage from apprentice to journeyman. If there are genuinely new spells out there then the it is hard to try and second guess the level and profession of the caster.
So coming back to my Cloud of Debris spell. It would make a useful addition to Earth Law, a list that lacks much in the way of offence anyway. It is low level at 4th and I see no reason why this variant is any more or less powerful than the Wind Law version and it gives the the leighway to create either a larger radius version or a Death Cloud version if I need it.
In my game most magicians tend to only have one or two of their base lists, it is just too hard to learn spell lists to concentrate on just your base lists and ignore all the open and closed lists. A 10th level magician would probably only have 8 lists in total. At that point they also have to choose between learning more at 1-10th or learning some at 11-20th.
Given those conditions then Essence Hand + Earth Law plus at my new spell and you have an effective villain. A Death Cloud (Cloud of Stones?) version would weigh in at 11th level and deliver a couple of rounds of E krush criticals and 10 criticals in total if anyone was stupid enough to stay in the radius.
I like this idea, I think it fits the bill and it wasn’t too much work either!
Last week I visited a church built shortly before the plague of the 17th century hit Switzerland. This got me thinking about rolemaster diseases. What I have below is a house rule I have not yet had the chance to play or test. It has just been rolling around in my head for the best part of a week,
I apologise for having missed my last two posts , Friday and Monday, but as you can now guess I have been traveling. I spend most of my time in Switzerland but also went into the black forest region of Germany for my ‘Grimm Sword‘ project. But enough excuses, here is my idea about disease.
The current rules base the severity on the level of resistance roll failure. Fail by 01-25 and you get a mild form of the disease, 26-50 is moderate, 51-100 is serious and 101+ is extreme and normally terminal.
Recently I had a cold or similar virus, it seemed to rush though a day of headaches, a day of sore throat, a day of aching joints and then weeks of a running nose. There were days when I felt almost well again but then at least a week were I was too ill to go running. The point is that my health was not linear. I had ups and downs.
It doesn’t add much complexity, and none to the players side, to modify diseases slightly so they get three additional parameters.
The minimum severity would specify that if the resistance roll is failed then rather than possibly just being mild (fail by 01-25) the minimum effect can be controlled. The idea is that it would stop someone just having a touch of Rabies but they will be fine tomorrow.
The maximum severity just specifies the maximum starting severity. I put this in place because of the nature of open ended rolls. The school I went to as a teen ager had 1200 pupils. Baring in mind that 1 in 20 rolls are open ended down and one in 400 are double open ended downwards you don’t want the common cold killing 3 students on average every time a virus went around the school. Put simply not every disease is fatal.
The final parameter is Time period. So a 24hr virus would have a time period of 1 day. Every day you get to roll a new resistance roll. If you make it you get one severity less ill and if you fail you get one severity worse.
Other diseases may have much longer time periods so you are saving every two or three days. This means that people can recover, have relapses, worsen and die and so on.
It makes sense that if the sufferer has lots of rest and food then they will get a plus to their resistance roll. Those that are physically active get a penalty. Characters may well choose to battle on though a minor illness. If they start to get worse and the penalties and symptoms are getting worse then they may think again.
Every GM at some point has a players quest where they have to find some ingredient for a cure. Now the longer that quest takes to complete the worse the consequences are going to be.
What I think the real benefit is when the characters have the disease and the potential for them to get worse over time. I am going to apply the penalties they suffer from the condition, as specified in Character Law, to the future resistance rolls. So without help all but the strongest characters are more likely to slowly get worse, not better. All I need now is a magical disease that will infect those smug elves!
The only elves in my games right now are an elf and a half elf in my face to face game. I will not be able to test this is play until the spring. There is a definite plot in here somewhere!