Troll Lord Games

Well, I may have talked the group into trying a couple One Shot Game Nights, where we suspend ongoing campaigns and just give other game systems some love for an evening. That gives me opportunity to do RMC and DA as well. For Rolemaster, I am using mainly the RMX, but critical hit tables from RMC. The to hit charts from RMC Arms Law is insane, really, but the condensed MERP style tables are much better.

A few of these guys have been gaming with me since high school, and being that I am 39, we have gamed together a lot of years. They haven't wanted to touch RM since the early 90's man. Cries of "I lost my arm" and "now I have to have a peg leg" or "boo hoo, I was instantly slaughtered" and such nonsense. I don't know what their problem is. lol.

As a player though, I enjoyed the true fear of combat that RM has. No matter your level and hit points, one lucky shot was all it would take to kill you or handicap your character for life. And the excitement that no matter how tought the bad guy was....you had a chance....a small one but a chance no less....of killing him outright. It made for some epic failures, but also for epic success stories as well.
_________________
When in doubt as to who is in charge on the battlefield, listen to the man with the bloodiest sword.

Yeah, Hackmaster Basic has been similarly brutal, but without crit charts, just simple slaughter. Its amazing how often d4's "penetrate" and a dead PC results. The advanced book is going to have crit and fumble charts. With how deadly HMb has been I doubt I will be implementing the charts. 11 PC kills in a little over 3 months of weekly play.

HMb definitely is not for panzy players. Apparently Rolemaster wasn't either.

Then again we have a one armed fighter in our Friday C&C game due to the crit charts used.
_________________
The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

Next Con I am attending: http://www.neoncon.com/

My House Rules: http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... llordgames

I never understood why people kept saying that RoleMaster was hard to run or rules heavy. It isn't. It's just full of charts and tables. With a minimum of organization on the GM's part, it's not that hard to run, in fact (bear in mind, I'm talking about *the* RM system of the 80s/90s, not the current offshoots).
_________________
Building: The Tower of St. Makhab - The Medival Eurth

Rolemaster Express and HARP are pretty danged easy to run and play. I print the charts out on card stock making it dead simple.

For straight up RMC, I have thought of a few time savers. I am thinking of printing the arms law weapon charts for players. Characters would be in a clear report cover, along with the appropriate arms law weapon chart for each weapon in their possession. This would make it much easier, as everyone can quick look at the chart themselves to see if they hit or not.

I thought of making a GM weapon chart for RMC, taking the arms law pdf. The idea would be to have it bound at kinkos on an A frame. You know, where it opens up portrait style like an easel, with a folding mechanism to create a base to stand it on. You have it up and out of the way, yet can flip through it quickly, and it stays put.

I have a four panel customizable screen also, but four panels is definitely not enough for a full RMC screen (minimum of 16 panels probably. lol)

In the end, RMX or Harp are just a million times more GM friendly.
_________________
When in doubt as to who is in charge on the battlefield, listen to the man with the bloodiest sword.

Played MERP back in the day, but didn't really remember it. It was done as a side to our regular AD&D games. Last year I stumbled onto ICE nad ended up getting RMX, HARP and RMC.

I've read through RMX a couple of times now and actually played a game. It brought back the great memories of the critical hits that I remember from the MERP games.

On the flipside, it wasn't easy to understand at first. I get it now, with percentages of action, Offensive Bonus, Defensive Bonus, Parrying, etc. The rules just weren't that clear at all for someone coming from your standard d20 type game system (even with familiarity with d100 systems).

Having the RMC books helped to understand terms, etc. Now the RMC books are awesome, great editing, glossary, appendixs, indexs, etc. This, for some strange reason, is not the case with RMX. Better editing and explanation, probably expanding the page count by five (ten at the most) would have made this game so much better though. Since RMX is supposed to be (IMHO) the entry level game starting at $5.00, I don't see it as a complete game unless you have some one expereinced or willing to take the time to mull through this game.

I was determined and plowed through - and glad I did, but I can see how this would be a turn off to folks looking at the game.

On another note, the RMX Game screen is pretty good, standard game book size (not the fashionable landscape print) made of cardstock and has four panels. The four on the GM side have tables and two on the player side with a piece of art on the other two. So just a grand total of six frames used. Most of the Tables on the Player side are also on the GM side. Of course the GM screen comes with a small reference book - 20 pages O'Stuff with all the charts, encounters, critical hit tables, etc. I guess it's a 'quick' reference adding in some RMC stuff to show you how easy it is to include new stuff into your RMX game. Overall though, quite well done.

The Rolemaster Classic GM screen is similar in terms of the 2/6 split on the screen and the quick reference book. Haven't tried out the HARP screen yet though. Probably a future purchase.

It would be nice to see ICE try out the old Hackmaster/Kingdoms of Kalamar approach with the GM screen flip charts. This would actually be fairly useful imho - even if it clocked in at 16 pages - HM and KOK's was 32!
_________________
R is among the most menacing of sounds. Thats why they call it murder, not muckduck. DWIGHT SHRUTE, The Office

What I liked about RMX was the various PDF 'Additions' they put out to support it. Inexpensive PDFs which expanded the game and whose additions brought it a few steps closer to being complete in itself. I never got into RMC and probably never will but I'm glad I have my RMX and a couple of the old MERP books.

M
_________________
"You face Death itself in the form of... 1d4 Tarrasques!"

Partner to Brave Halfling Publishing
http://www.arcanacreations.com

I have been comparing my old MERP with RMX, and while both are very similar, I like MERP for having fewer stats. RMX, while a stand alone game, is still meant to be an intro to RMC. It could be lighter still. The cool thing about Rolemaster stuff is it's insanely modular, so you can mix and match what you like with minimal need for homebrew alterations. I like RMC, but not the madness of Arms Law. For those who don't know what that it is, it is a literal book of "To Hit" charts, one for every weapon in the universe, including seperate ones for falchion, longsword, etc. In MERP/RMX, the to hit charts are reduced to a sane number, dividing weapons by type, like one handed edged or missle or two handed, etc. For magic, I really dig what they did in HARP. I am curious about their new Combat Companion for RMC, as it handles armor by the piece and deals with hit locations and so on.
_________________
When in doubt as to who is in charge on the battlefield, listen to the man with the bloodiest sword.

moriarty777 wrote:
What I liked about RMX was the various PDF 'Additions' they put out to support it. Inexpensive PDFs which expanded the game and whose additions brought it a few steps closer to being complete in itself. I never got into RMC and probably never will but I'm glad I have my RMX and a couple of the old MERP books.

M

The approach that ICE took for the RMX Additions really works for me.

Eisenmann wrote:
The approach that ICE took for the RMX Additions really works for me.

This is what I hope RM's futur is like. A digestable set of rules (a la RMX) with added stuff akin to what Express Additions provides. I hope ICE stays the course with this one.

The whole darn system is completely modular though, so you can take what you like from any version. What cracks me up is that on their boards, people compare and contrast the versions on which is better or which is worse. No one is stopping you from, say, using the expanded critical charts of Rolemaster Classic with RMX, and using the magic system from Harp. It is just cool. RMX is pretty sweet, but I wish it wasn't an intro to RMC, meaning that I wish they did away with a few stats to simplify it. Merp only had 6 or 7 stats, and I still like Merp over RMX in this area of the game. I agree though, they are going in a positive direction and would like to see it continue.
_________________
When in doubt as to who is in charge on the battlefield, listen to the man with the bloodiest sword.