Rolemaster Ruleset In action

[incarn]

I have/had no expectation for the support of optional rules.

That would make for an almost infinite combination of them.


The No Parry = stun no parry, that makes sense.

But dropping a stun no parry result on the tracker definitely increments the stun rounds as well as the No Parry.

What I thought I saw occurring was the lesser 'no parry' effect wearing off first, when in actality, it was the more severe stun/no parry wearing off first as it should.

Thanks for the clarification. While it never occurred to even think about it, I am now aware there is no such beast as a No Parry result without stun.
I love rolemaster, I have been playing it.. well sitting next to me I have a first edition shadow world set that I bought new.
The depth and complexity is great, but damn I would imagine learning the rules from scratch would make a lawyer twitch nervously.

Btw, in my initial comment of it being unstable, both the computers I was using it on were Vista (a desktop and a notebook), now having loaded win XP onto my desktop I am seeing no crashing at all.
Again no idea if it is an FG thing or a RMC ruleset, but I was able to repeatedly replicate (is that redundant?) the crash by opening and closeing combat and fumble tables. Generally it would crash on the 3rd to 10th time. rarely on the same table.

[Stuart]

I suspect the RMC ruleset pushes older machines on XP to the limit, certainly my old desktop had a number of stability issues but at 9 years old it was a veritable OAP. The ruleset is stable on my Vista laptop but I have not tried connecting or rather, I have been unable to connect ... Vista is a pain to work with.

[Vroomfogle]

I'll talk with Foen and we'll figure out the best way to handle the problem with the Stunned/Unable to Parry. Glad to hear you've resolved the crashing issue.

If you're playing in Shadow World you might find some of the new books useful, as well as a more recent Atlas (I'd suggest 3rd edition). Check out The Guild Companion for the latest SW publication. I'm also working on SW Player Guides. The first one will be a more general world guide, followed by continent guides (Jaiman first, then Emer) with cultures and regional info suitable for players as reference. It will also have new set of maps I've been creating in CC3.

Also, if you've got the 1st edition Atlas you can register at my Nomikos website:
https://nomikos.vroomfogle.com
Which has an updated timeline from all the books - substantially larger now then what was in the 1st edition.

[GMBazUK]

(Not wishing to hijack this thread)...
Hi Stuart. I dont lurk here as much as I used to, but its good see some of the hardcore FG "voices of moderation and reason" aren't far away.

Your correct, ten may seem a little young for Rolemaster, or perhaps even roleplaying, but to hell with that, the deal was, there has to be something in it for me to!!

Something I learnt from a previous failed introduction attempt is knowing/understanding the rules is not that important, with two children who have been brought up on a diet of instantly gratifying console games.
I found the best strategy was to "cut to the chase" i.e. get their characters into a perilous situation where they might feel they have a mental or physical advantage.

For them, it was enough to understand that a high role was best, and (more specifically with Rolemaster) a crit roll would result in a graphic description, sometimes leading to a surprising outcome.

If they remain hooked (and I see no reason why they shouldnt, with me at the tiller, ha ha he he! ) I hope to introduce something of the missing 99% but for now Im afraid its Rolemaster with juicy bits, but from concentrate.

Baz.

[Veldehar]

A mild change of topic, as I just wanted to step in and say I am loving the customizable Rm ruleset! I haven't GM'd Rm in errrrr, gads... the early 90's I'd say. One thing I'd hoped for was to be able to jump into the code and wrangle it around, which is high hopes for someone who's only real programming experience was in high school, in BASIC, on Apple II's... But it has been fun! I've already eliminated the Illusionist, replaced that with the Shadow Mage, and totally messed with those spell lists, and have it functional in game with no hiccups! So much tinkering left to do, but so far, so good! OK, sure, no real coding there, but I'm impressed I could figure out what the heck to do so easily.

My helm is off to those who coded RM and FG2 in general! Looking forward to cold winter with RM and friends scattered around the country.

Veldehar Snow-Elven

[Grendal1971]

Truely enjoying the RMC ruleset for FG2.
I have discovered a chart with missing data though and can't find any "bug" posting threads here on FG2 for it so I will put it here.

The Activity % chart in Arms Law seems to be missing most of its activities, looks like the % were pasted in but the associated action were not.

The player's notepad could also use a scroll up/down method for entries that go past page 1 as well.

Thank you for bringing my favorite p&p ruleset to Fg2!

[Grendal1971]

The table mentioned above is 03-03 (Activity Percentages) in Arms Law.

[Foen]

I've tracked this down and we'll fix it in the next release - good spot, Chrisinfinger.

[Grendal1971]

I have finished putting RMC4FG2 through its paces and finally feel ready to comment on something besides missing table data.

The gaming group I GMed for years ago loved all things RM (me included). I have all the books for the various rules (including the War Law and MERP boxed sets). We dabbled in Warhammer Fantasy, D&D, Twilight 2000, and Star Wars 2E but always found ourselves back in RM campaigns. No other system can snatch victory from sure defeat or defeat from sure victory like RM can.

In my time as GM running RM I have seen a level 12 fighter fall dead with a goblin's short sword in his brain (one of 2 left after he waded through 14 like a knife through butter). I have also seen a level 1 dwarf crit and kill a troll that I had created to scare him into returning to the rest of the group that he left sleeping while he went hunting. I honestly tried to kill him after he insanely charged my "tree sized club wielding" troll. The gods of RM caused my troll to fumble its attack and then blessed the player with an opened ended miracle roll followed by a 90s crit roll. He still gloats over that kill over a decade later!

There are very few systems that will allow a level 12 player to fall to goblins, or a troll to a single dwarf, but this keeps the entire experience exciting. It also helps to avoid the normal progression seen in other systems where a character no longer even rolls (except fumble checks) against lower level enemies because his insta-kills them based on the system mechanics.

Praise of RM covered, I will move on to RMC4FG2. I will admit that I had initial difficulty relearning the character creation process. I started at the top and began reading down the list, forgetting that in RM books the explanations, charts, and step-by-steps are never in an exactly logical order. Once I discovered the walk through though it changed all that. That step-by-step gem is a definite time saver. I have to agree with a previous poster though about the tables being indexed at the start of the guide to speed up return character creation. I love the fact that automation in character creation is left to a minimum. I am a heavy house rule user and mainly due to my exposure to MERP (and the later RM revisions) like to streamline many things in RMC. For example; I do not use potential stats because I like the MERP way of allowing characters to "buy" stat gain during skill leveling (it gives them something to do with all those left over points once they run out of skills to make up).

The combat (and skill tests) automation is superb, and ability to share most of the information with the players to keep them involved in the process is phenomenal! The worst part of RM from a GM perspective has always been keeping the players occupied while you dig through charts. By allowing them to see some of what is going on behind the scene and (in my case) letting them roll all the rolls for table results (even crits directed at them, I am so cruel) even the most attention deficient players can be kept on task.

As a test of our proficiency, me and one of my old gamers (the troll slayer) rolled up two lvl 1 characters and pitted them one at a time against a regular ork. The ork killed him in 6 rounds by shattered his chest with its flail. On my turn I killed the ork in round 1 by, severing its leg, with a 97 damage roll following a c-slash crit (after he fumbled his go). ALL of this took under an hour using RM! If you don't think that is HUGE, you haven't played much p&p RM.

caveat: I will warn you old RMers who always disregarded the negatives to OB and skill tests, due to loss of hit points, because they were just that much more to track in basic RM.. Now that it is automated you will miss those "free" 10-30 points you always enjoyed, monsters everywhere are rejoicing.

I will end by saying WELL DONE and THANK YOU!!! I can't wait to see what cool stuff you guys do with this now that its out and in use!

[ok bug report time]

If you drag and drop fumble results that indicate loss of action or damage to self it doesn't seem to do anything. If you drop this result in the "affects" area text line (in glowy guy area) it will put in a description of effect only and then gives a code violation pop up.

Edit: Fixed grammar and spellings mostly

[Stuart]

As a test of our proficiency, me and one of my old gamers (the troll slayer) rolled up two lvl 1 characters and pitted them one at a time against a regular ork. The ork killed him in 6 rounds by shattered his chest with its flail. On my turn I killed the ork in round 1 by, severing its leg, with a 97 damage roll following a c-slash crit (after he fumbled his go). ALL of this took under an hour using RM! If you don't think that is HUGE, you haven't played much p&p RM.

Good to hear :-)

In play tests (I have not had time to start a campaign yet) I was impressed even in the early versions with the sheer speed of resolution compared to my old RM games; I hope this takes some of the pregnant pauses out of RM games and gets more people chortling over a "97" and a "66" ;-)