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September 6th, 2023, 04:55 #21
Rolemaster was originally created as an extension to the Original D&D (1E) by a group of friends that were playing a campaign using those rules, they eventually started a company Iron Crown Enterprises (ICE) (the Iron Crown was modeled after Morgoth's Iron Crown from The Silmarillion as their campaign was in Middle-earth).
They encountered various shortcomings in 1E, the main one is quoted here from the ICE discord a few years ago (I've added a few comments in parentheses to make things a bit clearer):
The very start of the Rolemaster combat system resulted from a D&D game in which the founders of ICE we're trying to escape a huge bear (as told to Wolfhound (ICE Forums) by Coleman Carlton (ICE Founder) at GenCon in either 2017 or 2018, at the ICE booth). Coleman said they came to a 100' cliff and that Pete Fenlon's (ICE Founder) character had 63HP, so jumped off the cliff, since in the D&D rules, his character was guaranteed to survive. While none of the other characters could. Coleman said that after the game was over Pete said, "I should not have been able to do that. There has got to be a better way for combat to work in a more believable way." Coleman said that he and Pete started trying to come up with a better combat mechanic, which they released as Arms Law in 1980. Then followed that with a better alternative to the magic system with Spell Law in 1981. Then from there, came Rolemaster in 1982 (this was the original three books, Arms Law, Spell Law, and Character Law). Then Middle-earth Roleplaying (MERP) came out as a simplification if RM for use with Tolkien's setting in 1984.
The 1980s saw Rolemaster 1 and 2 and a revised 2nd Edition.
The 1990s saw Rolemaster Standard System (basically 3E) (RMSS), while the late 90s saw Rolemaster Fantasy Roleplaying (FRP) which was a refinement of RMSS.
The early 2000s saw Rolemaster Classic which is a refined version of 1/2.
The current ICE (the original went bankrupt around 2000) is working on Rolemaster Unified (Core Law (Character Law and Arms Law) and Spell Law, upcoming is Creatures and Treasures as I recall).Last edited by Sulimo; September 6th, 2023 at 04:59.
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September 6th, 2023, 19:17 #22
That post was pure gold Sulimo. While 90% of it I was familiar with, the one part of building the encounter to the map and THEN adding that to the story is the piece I was missing. Thank you for doing that TED talk.
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September 9th, 2023, 03:08 #23
- Join Date
- Apr 2021
- Posts
- 26
Removed as I discovered you have worked it out.
Last edited by CaMac Al Stac; September 9th, 2023 at 03:12. Reason: missed some prior answers
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