The Gaming Den

for a long time I've liked the idea of RoleMaster, although when I first got the books some years ago I found them nearly unreadable.

does anyone here have any strong feelings regarding it? or any glareing mechanical oddities, bug, or expliots they'd like to share?

They nicknamed it ChartMaster for a reason. If you love flipping through charts to resolve every action, you'll love RoleMaster.

Meh. Some people enjoy having a character-creation-to-character-game-time ratio of 50:1... I can't say I'm one of them but, you know, whatever floats your boat.

Anyway, I'm being a bit dismissive without adequate justification; my encounters with RoleMaster were a good 15 years ago so it may have improved out of all proportion. That said, most roleplaying games with a fanbase tend to stay true to their underlying principles in terms of how they "do stuff", so the chances are that it hasn't got much less clunky!

Its clunky, absurdly lethal, and not for stupid people.
So it has something going for it.

Its major problem though is that it has all the problems of a classed and leveled RPG and all the problems of a classless, skill-based RPG. Its easy to fall behind in your abilities, but its also very easy for that never to matter as a passing orc can get a high severity crit and vital parts of your character will just fall off and/or explode.

I think you lose something when it makes sense to make 1 character and 6 back-up characters for when they inevitably start dying.

True. Crits are fun when you do them but not so much when the enemy does it to you.

the reason I started this topic was that I just stumbled across my old RoleMaster corebook which I hadn't seen since highschool, or possibly middle-school. back then my gaming buddies made one charactor before we gaveup on the idea of a rolemaster game

They nicknamed it ChartMaster for a reason. If you love flipping through charts to resolve every action, you'll love RoleMaster

very true. admittedly I am the kind of person who enjoys charts and complication, in theory. In practice the novelty wears thin pretty fast.

Meh. Some people enjoy having a character-creation-to-character-game-time ratio of 50:1...

I sincerely wish that was an exageration.
I principly because we had so much trouble keeping straight in charactor creation what were bonuses (boni?) to skills and what were bonus skill ranks

my encounters with RoleMaster were a good 15 years ago so it may have improved out of all proportion.

yeah... they haven't.

That said, most roleplaying games with a fanbase tend to stay true to their underlying principles in terms of how they "do stuff", so the chances are that it hasn't got much less clunky!

Bingo

Its major problem though is that it has all the problems of a classed and leveled RPG and all the problems of a classless, skill-based RPG

I had noticed that, yes. I would put forward some of the 'classed and leveled' problems are mitigated, but still...


I'm somewhat suprised that no one mentioned what I found to the most glaring issue.

the... umm... let's say "unique" charactor system has no way to create a fully legal charactor above first level other then making a first level charctor and them applying one level at a time. a problem not suffered by anyother system I'm aquinted with.

Does anyone have anything to say that might make me doubt that the book was a waste of money

I was planning on running a RM game once. It got to the character generation stage before it feel apart. On the upside, it did frustrate people to the point of tears.

Does that help you doubt?

I'm begining to question whether this was the right board to come to for unconditional reassurance and psychological validation

Wow. You didn't read this board much before posting, did you?

norms29 wrote:I'm begining to question whether this was the right board to come to for unconditional reassurance and psychological validation

We only do that on Opposite Day.

But we are really sarcastic about it... so....mmm....maybe not.

well, thanks for confirming my assessment.

would I get a more... delusionally optimistic response if I posted on Enworld, or is it only d20 products that they fellate indiscriminatly?

norms29 wrote:well, thanks for confirming my assessment.

would I get a more... delusionally optimistic response if I posted on Enworld, or is it only d20 products that they fellate indiscriminatly?

Possibly, but I'd bet that most of the people there have never heard of Rolemaster, let alone played it. But those that have an opinion on it would be a coinflip I guess, though I don't think I've ever heard anyone say good things about Rolemaster.

I don't see flipping through charts as fun.

But is this just a first impression, or is it a genuine problem with the game?

When I first heard of Final Fantasy IX and LoZ: Wind Waker, I was put off by their cartoonish styles, but I eventually found them to be very fun games.

the *fliping* is not so much an issue during play, as the core books have a high degree of redunancy in this regard. The *Charts* on the other hand... well like I said, I've owned the book for years and never actually played the game because charactor creation is redicules

as an example of what I mean by redundancy I'll tell you how the attack mechanic works.

Step 0. calculate offensive bonus. Calculating that doesn't seem noticably more fiddly then the equivalent in DND.
1. attack roll: d100+OB - enemy's defensive bonus
2. here come the charts: there is a chart specific to the weapon or spell you're useing (how specific depends on how many source books you bought 'Katana' has a very infinitesimal differance from 'Generic 2handed sword') on which you cross reference the result of the attack roll against the enemy's armor type to find howmuch damage you inflicted.
2a. here comes the redundency: If the weapon table indicates a Crit, you roll 1D100 and check the crit chart, conviently reproduced on the page opposite the weapon chart (that's right, the majority of 'Arms Law', the main combat book, is the fullpage attackroll chart for each weapon, opposite a fullpage copy of one critical chart, of the 5 or so in the game, that the weapon uses)
3.apply damge.

not too complicated, but you check two differant charts each time you attack (the differance between hitting and critting is fairly small, they actually sell the combat rules on the tag line "it's not the bruises that kill you" a referance to the fact that beating someone from full health to death without a single crit is statistically on par with winning the lottery, and takes FOREVER)

the one complaint I'd take issue with is that it's too deadly, what it really is, is too random.
WARNING: LONG-ASS BORING CRAP TO FOLLOW
even if a player is seriously dedicated to the idea, he can't make a fighter with fewwer then 26 HP, a more serious assessment is high 30s-low 40s, fullly investing in it can push you into the low 80s BEFORE stat mods are counted. any way, damage other then crits maxes out a 5 per round. something level appropriete wont do more then 2, MAYBE 3 on the rounds they don't miss altogether. if this is sounding like padded sumo, I agree. instead of rebalencing the HP/damage pardigm EVER, they tacked on a Rocket-tag crit system, which NEVER, even when one is deliberatly attempting to NOT kill the enemy has less chance to insta-gib them then a 3 or 4 out of 100.

EDIT: reread the HP equation, seems they giveout even more then I thought