I'm a sucker when it comes to old games at bargain prices. Suffice to say, I came across these three books and bought them despite having never played Rolemaster in my life:
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I have played MERP, which I understand is sort of like a Zero-Calorie Rolemaster-Lite in an eyecatchingly different can, but not in a couple of decades. I also understand these three books make up the complete game, as in what I would have acquired in a boxed set, is that right?

I'm always interested in reading old games whether or not I ever get the chance to play them. Browsing the "Character Law & Campaign Law" volume, I am taken by the use of numbered rules ("9.0 The Role of the Character" and "10.3 Generating the Potential Stats") as I find it much easier to read and locate what I need when rules are laid out in that way.  (Of course,  I work with the California Vehicle Code all day, so this is nothing.) Reminds me of FGU and SPI games.

Is this a cool system to use to create your own fantasy world and adventures and characters? Is it a piece of crap and I threw my money away? Did I violate CVC 22350 by buying without checking it out first? (In my defense, I was afraid that if I left it there and came back in a week it would be long gone--I've made that mistake before.)

I got first edition Arms Law when it first came out, as a weird, semi-professional card stock packet with tables that look like they were made on a typewriter. It wasn't 100% clear what you were supposed to do with it, but my understanding was that you could use this as an alternative combat resolution engine for D&D. I think that really was the initial intention, though only the game designer could say for sure. It was certainly useable that way, and it added a cool, fun, creative side to combat. That packet, plus claw law, were really all about the attack and crit tables, and to me they remain the main point of the game. When spell law came out, you could see they had developed some ambition to turn this thing into a self sufficient game that had its own rules, and then they finished the thought maybe 6 months later by putting out the first edition of character law - finally a character generation and skill system that matched the core mechanics of arms law, claw law and spell law. I think at least 1-2 years passed between when I started using this game as a D&D expert hack and turned to really playing role master as a system.

Speak of the devil and the devil he shall appear!

Rolemaster is awesome, over the years D&D has absorbed many things that it does but as a whole package I'll always like any version of Rolemaster better than D&D.  You've got Rolemaster second edition while I prefer Rolemaster Standard System which is a bit more involved but has so many fanastic features that RM2 lacks.

So what's so great about this mess of charts and double digit math?  Well all the charts and double digit math of course!

But let's start with character creation.  First you pick your race and profession and then roll your temporary and potential stats.  In Rolemaster you'll have 90+ in your prime stats for your profession, there's no ten strength fighters here.  Your stats are on an actual percentile scale for your race which gives a bonus from a table, your race gives a modifier to the bonus not the stat score.  The core races are low men, mixed men, high men, dwarves, hobbits, high elves, grey elves, and wood elves as well as common orcs, greater orcs and trolls, yes trolls, ICE had the Middle Earth license at the time and they worked it hard.  In second edition, races and cultures give suggested background purchases, in RMSS they give fixed packages.  You get development points to buy skills based on your stats, in RM2 there's a chart, in RMSS you average them, all told RMSS is a bit more balanced on this front.  Each profession has a different set of costs for every skill in the game.  A 1/2 would mean you could buy one rank for 2 points or two ranks for 3.  A cost of 20 means one rank costs you 20 points.  This is a big feature of RMSS, open character development with niche protection.  Your tenth level wizard can be good with a sword but the tenth level fighter will still be better than them.  In Rolemaster skill ranks have diminishing returns, while most skills start at +5 per rank, after ten ranks that'll drop to three, after another ten it'll drop to two and so on.  RMSS splits skills into categories which have stats and ranks tied to them this speeds up the totalling of bonuses a bit and makes more sense than RM2s relatively arbitrary similar skills rule.  Once you have your ranks you get background options which can give you magic items, special bonuses, or lots and lots of money.  Some races are clearly inferior to others  but they get more background options, also, their souls tend to stick around longer after death which makes them easier to save from terminal injuries.  Those high elves just head off to the halls of waiting the instant they hit the ground.

The great thing about Rolemaster character creation is the sense of depth and grounding in the world.  It's also pretty good at giving you the character you want without losing the random element that makes for interesting characters.

Combat is chart based.  Like all skill checks you roll d100 and add your bonus then check a chart.  In this case it's a chart for your weapon and there's around 50 of them.  The key to fast Rolemaster combat is to have everyone declare their actions and then roll initiative and their attack results if you do these things in sequence they'll bog right down.  Make sure everyone has copies of their weapon charts and things will flow smoothly.  I can't emphasize this enough: Rolemaster is not a game where you can dispense with the action declaration phase.  In particular parrying is done by reducing your bonus to give an equal penalty to your opponent if you know who's going first you can just full parry when you're going second and combat will slow to a crawl.  Fortunately, any roll of 96-00 is open ended so nobody will ever be turning their back on a goblin with a dagger.  Rounds are broken up into percentage activity, this is less complex than it looks and things like moving 50% and fighting 50% are pretty clear in their workings.

What's awesome about Rolemaster combat?  Well, the critical hits mainly but also something about the flow of it.  Things generally die of critical hits rather than hit point loss and while it's certainly crunchy and chart happy, most rounds produce significant results that move things along, the whiff factor is actually fairly low so combat feels effective in play.  Don't be scared by the lethal critical results, I generally don't even cheat when they come up, I just put an NPC nearby who can fix things.  Healing in RM is slower than in D&D and magical healing for serious wounds is high level magic.  It doesn't hurt to have PCs owing powerful npcs favours.

Magic in Rolemaster is divided into three realms, Essence (D&D wizard), Channelling (D&D cleric), and Mentalism (D&D sorcerer).  Each realm has two pure users (eg. Cleric, Mage, Mentalist), two hybrid users that bridge two realms (eg Sorcerer, Mystic, Healer) and two semi-users (eg Ranger, Paladin, Dabbler).  There are open spell lists which are easily learned by all, closed lists which are harder for semi and hybrid users, and profession specific base lists.  The base lists make each profession unique and interesting with rangers being to run at full pace along tree branches and paladins being able to self immolate with the devastating 50th level Holy Martyr spell.  Some of the spells repetitive like Sleep III or Dark Channels II being higher powered versions of lower level spells so the thousands of spells thing is a bit disingenuous.  One nice thing is that various professions get different spells at different levels.  If you just want to blow things up play a Mage, unless you've got the Arcane Companion (which adds a fourth realm) then play an Arcanist.

What's awesome about Rolemaster magic?  Really characterful magic using characters, rational and structured spell lists, power point cost equaling spell level.  Mentalists not being able to wear helmets, and all kinds of little tweaks.

A final note, I love Rolemaster's experience system, it awards experience based on what you actually did, right down to one experience point per mile travelled.  Others feel it's too much work but with a simple GM control sheet it's very easy to track who did what.  I total up the points between sessions and hand them out at the start of the next session.

Thanks and tell me more! What do you enjoy about it? What did it aside from the combat tables? What did it do for you that D&D didn't?

These books are copyrighted 1981, 1984 except Character  Law & Campaign Law is copyrighted 1982, 1985. Are they 2nd edition Rolemaster?

Edit: Oops, that was to Lardangsly before David posted. Thanks,  David!

I love RM with all the nostalgia of a forty something remembering his teenage playing days. so I have a couple of the original blue box sets which contain those books plus the old Loremaster setting books: Vog Mur, Cloudlords of Tanara and Iron Wind which are works of art IMHO.  It is one of the few games that I collect for collecting's sake.

After having played RM with the whole mess that was the Companions, my advice would be keep it simple. Don't add many, if any, extra rules until you have played the rules as is.

I would also say that you should impress upon your players that combat is LETHAL. Tell them to imagine they really have a two foot blade of sharpened steel in their hand and so does the other guy. Like knives you carve turkey with but bigger. And then tell them that d6 damage does not really say "short sword".

A few other things:  I find it gives me great long term campaigns.  People really get attached to their characters and I suspect the work involved is part of that.  People treat combat differently once they see the criticals in play.  I had a group spend two sessions not picking fights after my wife's character took an arrow through the femoral artery.  (A friendly passing necromancer healed her.)  Magic is relatively weak compared to D&D (especially fifth edition) but it is ubiquitous, lots of people's dad had a +10 sword, it's even assumed in the master character table. A low level spell caster can do a number of little things repeatedly rather than one moderately effective thing once (bearing in mind that 5e has turned wizards into magic missile spewing fountains of death)  On the other hand I've seen the first level Mentalist spell Jolts bring down very powerful foes.  Being stunned is very close to being dead.  Being stunned on a ledge or a log over a chasm is even worse.  As I said before, you don't turn your back on a goblin with a knife at any level in Rolemaster, between a big bonus to hit (+40 IRRC) and the risk of an open ended roll and a critical, you could have that knife between your ribs or across your jugular real easily.  Actually, once you've read the tiny creature critical you won't even turn your back on a squirrel

The urge to run it again is becoming overwhelming.

I got introduced to all this weird stuff with a mistaken birthday present, through Cyberspace.  This led me to Second Edition (I think.. big brown books) Rolemaster, which I did enjoy as game books, but sadly no longer have, though a few odd supplements crop up in boxes now and then.

Oddly I've only ever played one session, and that was basically a hybrid MERP game that died on the vine, in part due to GM shennanigans.  I think most of the party lost all interest in the game when, after hours of failing to do anything interesting (see again: GM Shennanigans) we realized the game wasn't for us after the elven master archer discovered he could only shoot a pigeon out of the air if he managed to roll a crit. At this point we all realized that if the min-max munchkin archer couldn't do that simple( er... ish?) task, we were right proper fucked if the GM ever let us get close to a fight.

I think there is a lesson in there about not sticking players in at 1st level an expecting them to be even half a competent as a first level D&D character, but then again this was twenty years ago so I might be misremembering the moral of the story.

I still got that Cyberspace book though... along with the europe supplement (STURMJESUITEN!!!!) and... I think... the Death Valley Prison module/adventure/thing.  Its on the bookshelf next to me, but I'm too lazy to turn on the light and look.



Huh. I just realized I have played more Pheonix Command than I have Rolemaster. Thats... weird.

I also find it charming how they call each book of rules "_____ Law." LAW![/B]

@ spike.  I cant decide if the pigeon is a crushing flaw in the game or an accurate assement of hitting a bird on the wing.  Pigens are small and fast.  

Has anyone here ever shot a bird out of the air with a rifle?  Or bow or crossbow?

I have some great memories Rolemaster (1st, 2nd, RMSS). That and Space master too.

I loved the rich and detailed character creation, the huge list of skills and how they interplayed with each other.. The various skill resolution tables that supported partial successes and and the fun descriptions of successes and failures.
But of course the strong point of RM is the combat charts and crit tables, which made combat hilariously funny and deadly.

I'm not sure I'd ever run or play RM again, as it does take up a lot of prep , energy and preferably all players and GM being pretty familiar with the rules.
Things are made easier if all players have all their personal combat charts (each weapon and spell type has it's own combat chart), crit tables etc printed out and ready for use.  

I don't know anyone locally who would want to play RM of any incarnation at this stage anyway.
Still, if I were presented with an opportunity to get those books cheap, I'd buy them anyway for old times sake.

Like I said, when I see an old game at a bargain I find it hard to resist.

I don't see the GM prep issue, the stat line for monsters is basically: Level, Movement Rate, Initiative, Armor Type, Defensive Bonus, Hits, Attack offensive bonus and Type.  That's on par with D&D.  I never bother rolling up npcs, I just use the master character table or 10 x level + 15 for profession skills or 5 x level + 5 for non-profession skills.  I spend more time computing experience awards.  The Shadow World modules are ready to play.  The only real chore is making characters, which I usually do for my players after inquiring as to their preferences.  Then I help them level up and after a couple levels they don't need much help and can make their own characters.

I've thought of a new slogan: Rolemaster: It's really not that bad!

That reminds me of
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The versions I'm talking about were published between 1980 and 1982. They actually look like something from the 1977-8 period of RPG publishing - ICE was definitely a bit player for a couple of years, before their stuff started to catch on. Although, I actually like the first edition books best - all the essentials are there, all the fun parts are there, but there is none of the cruft that accumulated when it got repackaged and published as more professional looking books.

Quote from: Dumarest;1003141Thanks and tell me more! What do you enjoy about it? What did it aside from the combat tables? What did it do for you that D&D didn't?

These books are copyrighted 1981, 1984 except Character  Law & Campaign Law is copyrighted 1982, 1985. Are they 2nd edition Rolemaster?

Edit: Oops, that was to Lardangsly before David posted. Thanks,  David!

Quote from: David Johansen;1003339I don't see the GM prep issue, the stat line for monsters is basically: Level, Movement Rate, Initiative, Armor Type, Defensive Bonus, Hits, Attack offensive bonus and Type.  That's on par with D&D.  I never bother rolling up npcs, I just use the master character table or 10 x level + 15 for profession skills or 5 x level + 5 for non-profession skills.  I spend more time computing experience awards.  The Shadow World modules are ready to play.  The only real chore is making characters, which I usually do for my players after inquiring as to their preferences.  Then I help them level up and after a couple levels they don't need much help and can make their own characters.
I've thought of a new slogan: Rolemaster: It's really not that bad!

Sure the stats are easy to read, but it's the mechanics that are complicated and HUGE amounts of various modifiers and % actions, Static maneuvers, movement maneuvers and that's not to mention the various Companion books that made the game FAR more complex.

I ran Shadow world for the most part as well. Running it for several years.  It was a lot of fun and very sandboxy, which was a big departure from DnD "Modules" that were very linear.

Don't get me wrong, I actually liked and still like RM. But it's a lot of work and I don't know if I have the energy to run it again.  At least not without all the players making an effort to learn the rules as well and keep their characters prepped properly.