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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.
Eventually many supplements were made for Rolemaster (30 or more I think), and a setting was made as well (Shadow World) and Rolemaster itself was updated throughout the years.