#rolemaster

[thydungeongal]

I'm hearing from my inside sources at WotC that the Hasbro executives are really worried about the upcoming launch of the 2024 update of D&D: not only have the digital preorder bonuses soured a not inconsiderable portion of the fanbase on the update, word has reached the higher ups that 2024 is the year of Rolemaster. One executive was quoted as saying "It's Rolever."

[oldschoolfrp]

"A noble and mysterious race, Dragons are among the most potent and terrible of all creatures. They are huge yet agile, bright but vain, enchanted but physical, and learned yet savage beasts. Dragons are the embodiment of all natural elemental force, knowledge, motion, strength, and magic, be it for defense or offence." From the Elemental Companion by Mike Carlyle, Roger Raupp illustration, supplement for Rolemaster 2e, ICE, 1989.

[therpgconnoisseur]

@thydungeongal since youre clearly trying to sell people on rolemaster as a game i have a 2 things i can say that deff caught my interest skimming through it

this image is right next to a section on "Group Cohesion" and it fucking owns, they know what the fuck is up, this is the kind of ridiculous synergies dnd players have craved since at least 3rd edition but wotc adamantly refuses to give you

the second is that it features some incredibly cursed furries as playable options but im not gonna post them, go look at them in the book yourself if you wanna find out

[zitasaurusrex]

oh the tales do not lie there are tables in here

[vintagerpg]

This is Arms Law (1980), the very first product published by Iron Crown Enterprises.

It is a percentile based combat system derived from the system the company founders used to replace D&D’s standard combat for their long-running homebrew game at the University of Virgina. It was conceived as the first in a series of rules modules that would constitute a new system called Rolemaster. Subsequent releases were Claw Law, Character Law, Spell Law and Campaign Law.

The low page count of the booklet might imply a simple system, but nope. See, the thing is that the booklet sits on top of a stack of tables printed on cardstock, about a quarter inch thick. People call it Chartmaster for a reason.

To attack, you roll a percentile, add your attack bonus and any modifiers, then subtract the target’s defense. That result is checked against a dedicated chart for the weapon used, and cross-referenced with a chart corresponding to the target’s armor, which will give a damage value that is subtracted from the target’s pool — take enough hits, fall unconscious or die. Rinse, repeat, for every single exchange of combat in the game. It’s a lot. Too much? For me, yea, but I know a lot of folks who swear by RM. Even though I don’t particularly care for the results though, I appreciate the spirit of RM to the core. Rules tinkerers of the world unite!

Oh, also, the infamous critical hit and fumble tables for each type of weapon are in here. These are legendary in their deadliness. I bet I am not alone in using just the crits and fumbles in my D&D game and pitching the rest of the combat system.

[haveyouplayedthisttrpg]

Have you played ROLEMASTER ?

By Coleman Charlton, John Curtis, Pete Fenlon, Steve Marvin, et al

Rolemaster is an extremely complex fantasy role-playing game from the 1980s characterized by its reliance on large lookup tables, extremely granular rules, and a desire for simulation. While supposedly a "realistic" game its myriad tables actually conceal a game with a quirky sense of humor, which albeit gritty has much more in common with a gorey action comedy than any simulation of reality.

[alchemiccarousel]

@thydungeongal talked enough about Rolemaster for me to finally actually take a look and make a character. There's probably still stuff I don't quite get but I'll get there!

Very glad I got to find out about the Herb Mastery spell list and Enhancement True then got to tell people I wanna sell them the 3000% weed.

[rampagingpoet]

I had a wonderful time at the first session of @thydungeongal's Rolemaster open table last Sunday!

My wood elf lay healer, Halamar, got his face savaged by weasels on the way to the dungeon and almost died. Wearing a helmet instead of a tiara might have prevented that, but his magic doesn't work when his head is obstructed.

10/10 will Rolemaster again.

[where-your-eyes-dont-go]

I don't know if its a standard acronym for these types of games or just something that Rolemaster uses. But I can't condone FRP as a label. It sounds like I'm making a rude noise. or like I'm telling you about my new live-service application that's gonna disrupt the frappuccino delivery industry

[unseenphil]

It is definitely @thydungeonguy 's fault that I came to the defense of rolemaster earlier today because someone was talking shit about it and were completely wrong.

They called it roll-under d100 with single digit percent chances!

None of that is how Rolemaster works!

[open-hearth-rpg]

#RPGCovers Week Ten Rolemaster series (1985 on) Angus McBride

In my youth, there was a cohort of players about five years older than me, some of them part of my sister’s crew and others just among the rabble at the game shop. There was a certain kind of “elitism” to what folks played. When Champions came along, Villains & Vigilantes became passe for example. Rolemaster, in its original incarnation of heavy stock parchment booklets and glossy magazine-style supplements, was one of those. It was the fantasy rpg the cool, older kids played. 

And throughout high school it was what I gravitated towards, giving up on AD&D entirely for the more rarified air of RM (ironically paired with Harn, but that’s another story). Rolemaster at that point was a weird set of printings and editions, a mess which looked incoherent and made it hard to tell folks exactly what they actually needed to buy.

Then in 1985 Iron Crown Enterprises consolidated everything into a set of books with a standard cover design and unified art. These became the standard for years (if you ignore the layout and design of the weird Rolemaster Companions). What really pull them together, beyond the book design, was McBride. 

Angus McBride had already been doing Middle Earth RPG covers for years. They were all great. Before that he’d been an illustrator for various Osprey Men-at-Arms series, bridging that gap between wargaming grognards and role-players. These RM were great because we got to see repeating, iconic characters– kind of a first I think. I don’t know that we’d had other games with recurring figures and an implied story. 

The first three books: Character Law & Campaign Law, Arms Law & Claw Law, and Spell Law used them effectively. Plus you could now buy a box that had all of them bundled together. Ten years later, ICE would reuse these images with a new cover design for their Rolemaster Standard System, with a few new books with new illustrations by McBride that sort of fit in with the existing story and sort of didn’t make any sense (see Creatures & Monsters). But as Rolemaster began to crash and go through multiple editions and changes, they lost control of their cover designs, leading to an absolute chaos that, ironically, felt more like first edition’s mess.

[thydungeongal]

Hey so I just bought the Rolemaster standard rules and what do you mEAN I have to buy 2 more books for fighting and magic???

Rolemaster has a fucked up distribution model yeah, it's even more egregious than D&D in this regard. This is something I try to make clear whenever I recommend the game and why I generally try to steer people towards one of the many ways to check out the game for free before getting into it.

Not sure which edition and which book you bought, but if you bought one of the editions where the standard rules actually contain everything you need (like Rolemaster Fantasy Roleplaying or Rolemaster Standard System), then Arms Law and Spell Law are not strictly necessary but nice to have. If, however, you bought Rolemaster Classic Character Law, then yeah, sorry.

[oldschoolfrp]

“There was a blow on the door that made it quiver; and then it began to grind slowly open, driving back the wedges.”  (Angus McBride cover for Moria, Middle Earth Citadel supplement for MERP, Rolemaster, and the Lord of the Rings Adventure Game, 2nd ed, 1994)

[thehauntedrocket]

Vintage Magazine - Dragon #093 (Jan1985)

[adventuresandshopping]

Rolemaster Unified Core Law on DriveThruRPG (affiliated link)

[transcendingirl]

Rolemaster journal

So I bought Rolemaster recently! By which I mean the RMSS. It's a hefty system and a big book. And because this might be fun and I think I'll need all the help I can get, here are some of my first impressions as I fight my way through this book.

Because context is valuable, I am young adult who's been interested in TTRPGs and wargames since her tweens. I'm familiar with DnD 5e, Lancer, ACE Agents and 10 Candles, though I played less than 10 games total (most as GM, most in DnD 5e). I've also looked a little into Shadowrun 1e and MERP.

So. These are my thoughts so far. I've finished Parts I - III, so I read everything up to performing actions.

A couple pages in and the book announces itself to only be a third of the necessary rules. Which isn't great. But I do appreciate the first five pages being dedicated primarily to explaining the product line and being very clear on which material you need, which material is optional, and which material is still compatible but not necessary for the new edition.

Which one of you was gonna tell me RM is MERP? My dad used to play that all the time.

What the fuck are these dice rolling conventions.

Oh my God these tables.

The stats are cool! And honestly way more useful than the conventions I'm familiar with, for roleplaying purposes. (What the fuck is "wisdom"? What the fuck is "charisma"?). Shoutout to "empathy" as a stat.

I feel like the game throws a lot of things at me without explaining them properly. I think I understand the difference between skill rank and skill category, but I don't understand how they are used differently. Because I don't fully understand how the game is played yet.

Stat gain is really cool! Kind of wacky, but really cool! Characters don't just improve in a linear fashion and their adventures can take a toll on them. I like it a lot.

The amount of personality traits, motivations and particularly alignment traits are downright radical in comparison to what else I know.

I appreciate the character building that takes place through the different stages of character creation (adolescence, apprenticeship, training) and the time that is included in learning these things. It's more restrictive than other systems, but it encourages genuine engagement with character creation and adds a refreshing lack of control to a character's past. However. What the hell is going on? Varak takes Composite Bow skill (4) but only gains 1 rank in it? Why does he spend 3 DP on it? I think I get the broadstrokes of the systems, but the specifics of the tables (and I assume race/class costs/bonuses/etc.) leave me confused.

"this depends upon the amount of effort that the Gamemaster is able and willing to put into it."

At least the currency system makes sense.