Did you play RM? What kind of setting? How did it go?

Tried to play it three times.  A couple were intended as one-shots just to play it, and the last was intended as a short campaign.  Got characters made, but somehow it fell apart before we played. 

You'd think with that track record it was something against the game by at least some of the players, but in reality it was just bad timing with three different groups.  It was meant as a break between longer campaigns of something else.  Then we'd have something come up that delayed it past the point where we were ready to start the longer campaign, set the RM interlude on the shelf to "try later" and then never get back to it.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 30, 2025, 04:17:28 PMTried to play it three times.  A couple were intended as one-shots just to play it, and the last was intended as a short campaign.  Got characters made, but somehow it fell apart before we played. 

You'd think with that track record it was something against the game by at least some of the players, but in reality it was just bad timing with three different groups.  It was meant as a break between longer campaigns of something else.  Then we'd have something come up that delayed it past the point where we were ready to start the longer campaign, set the RM interlude on the shelf to "try later" and then never get back to it.

My own history with Rolemaster is also interesting (but almost the opposite): in my teens a friend got MERP, and I got Rolemaster. Turned out the friend wasn't able to get into running MERP, so I ran the MERP modules using Rolemaster. I remember all of us scratching our heads over the rules, but made it work and we had fun with it. Second time (moving to a different country) I ran it after we had played Call of Cthulhu, GURPS and a number of other things for a while. I started with an apology like "I know it's rules heavy, lots of tables etc, but let's see if somehow I can make it work again" or some such. A while after, when I asked the group, they actually said that RM was the system they had the most fun with. Thinking back, that might have been the conclusion from the first group as well (though I didn't ask). So, after many years I have a massive nostalgia for Rolemaster.

Never played it and haven't thought about it in many years.   This post though did make me wonder how it hasn't been cancelled by the purple haired weirdos due to the use of the word "master" given how GM and DM have massively fallen out of favor with that particular crowd.

Quote from: RNGm on April 30, 2025, 05:29:17 PMNever played it and haven't thought about it in many years.   This post though did make me wonder how it hasn't been cancelled by the purple haired weirdos due to the use of the word "master" given how GM and DM have massively fallen out of favor with that particular crowd.

I wasn't aware of that, but can't say I'm surprised.

I'll make sure to pronounce "Rolemaster" in a very British imperialist way.

Quote from: Trond on April 30, 2025, 05:54:21 PMI'll make sure to pronounce "Rolemaster" in a very British imperialist way.

Wait... there's a non-imperialist very British way of saying something!?!?!   

For fantasy I mostly brewed my own worlds.  The first was a pile of the corpses of the titans, planetary class elementals, watched over by the mile tall gods of Godsholm.  At one point there was a schism amongst the gods and one of them fell and crushed the city the PCs were in.  In that setting High Elves had strayed from their race's usual gods and turned to worshiping the gods of Godsholm and were struck barren as a result.

The second setting was a world where High Elves filtered down from the stars to fight their eternal enemies the trolls.  Elves were the children of light and orcs were the children of darkness.  Ancient orks were darker than night black creatures with shadow magic.  In a past age the Empire of Man had conquered and enslaved the gods (who absorbed worship energy to live) using a combination of ecunemicalism and genocide and the mother goddess had retaliated by making humanity barren for 30 years. The campaign occurred in the post apocalyptic rebuilding period 100 years later.

I've also run Spacemaster Privateers a couple times.  I don't mind the setting but it's very thin and the racial stats are too extreme for my liking.  The Valesians (velocoraptors) are straight up murder hobos that can't learn to do much of anything else.  I really like the system and the Robotics Manual is the best take on robot player characters I've ever seen.

Quote from: David Johansen on April 30, 2025, 07:30:24 PMFor fantasy I mostly brewed my own worlds.  The first was a pile of the corpses of the titans, planetary class elementals, watched over by the mile tall gods of Godsholm.  At one point there was a schism amongst the gods and one of them fell and crushed the city the PCs were in.  In that setting High Elves had strayed from their race's usual gods and turned to worshiping the gods of Godsholm and were struck barren as a result.

The second setting was a world where High Elves filtered down from the stars to fight their eternal enemies the trolls.  Elves were the children of light and orcs were the children of darkness.  Ancient orks were darker than night black creatures with shadow magic.  In a past age the Empire of Man had conquered and enslaved the gods (who absorbed worship energy to live) using a combination of ecunemicalism and genocide and the mother goddess had retaliated by making humanity barren for 30 years. The campaign occurred in the post apocalyptic rebuilding period 100 years later.

I've also run Spacemaster Privateers a couple times.  I don't mind the setting but it's very thin and the racial stats are too extreme for my liking.  The Valesians (velocoraptors) are straight up murder hobos that can't learn to do much of anything else.  I really like the system and the Robotics Manual is the best take on robot player characters I've ever seen.

Interesting. Were the adventures really high powered (as some of this sounds) or closer to normal with the cosmic stuff more as a background?

I played in a GM's homebrew fantasy campaign in the 90s. I don't remember details of the setting or adventures well at all, but I had a blast. Character creation aside, it was surprisingly fast and smooth in play. Once we were up to speed we all had our attack and critical charts photocopied, the GM had the generic moving and static maneuver charts in front of him at all times, and it went faster than D&D. I recall thinking it was a definite improvement over AD&D 2e, which was the main game on offer at the time.

I've never ran it myself though. For a while, knowing what it was capable of, I had intended to. I got the whole line of Rolemaster 2e books, a used box set of Spacemaster, and the little-known Run Out the Guns! historical pirates box. (The last had an innovation that should have come out earlier, faster character creation by adding together a background and a ship's job to get your total skills.)

But I started buying those when I mainly played, and by the time I mainly GMed I was also into L5R, old school D&D and later Traveller, and I was happy enough to poll my group on what to run. Now, while I still consider it underrated for what it can do, overall interest is even lower.

By the way, I made a character sheet by cutting and pasting a number of images and things together (with a little ode to Angus McBride). I just wanted a decent list of skills that I think might actually be used (1st page) and room for some notes on Background/Hobbies (2nd page) as I have found this to be pretty important when using 2nd edition. There's a little bit of house-ruling here in putting a couple of skills together, but it's pretty close to RM 2nd ed + RM Companion 1&2. I may make a cleaner version later, but this already took longer than expected

I played a lot of RM (RM1/2) back in the day. We started playing quite a bit of MERP, and that led us to eventually adpot RM. All of the RM I played, back then, used Middle Earth as the setting.

I recently dusted of my RM material and started a game, again. This time I'm not using Middle Earth, I'm using the "Loremaster" world (i.e., Shadow World before it became Shadow World). Specifically, I'm using the Vog Mur mini-setting. I did a lot of prep, but we've barely gotten started; it's been difficult to schedule game time, lately.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament on April 30, 2025, 11:10:30 PMI played a lot of RM (RM1/2) back in the day. We started playing quite a bit of MERP, and that led us to eventually adpot RM. All of the RM I played, back then, used Middle Earth as the setting.

I recently dusted of my RM material and started a game, again. This time I'm not using Middle Earth, I'm using the "Loremaster" world (i.e., Shadow World before it became Shadow World). Specifically, I'm using the Vog Mur mini-setting. I did a lot of prep, but we've barely gotten started; it's been difficult to schedule game time, lately.

I've been wondering about that one. Feel free to report on how it goes.

Couldn't get Rolemaster to easily work, but used MERP instead to solitaire a Middle Earth / Robin Hood mashup.

That and I always used those lovely lovely crit tables.

Quote from: Trond on April 30, 2025, 07:45:36 PMInteresting. Were the adventures really high powered (as some of this sounds) or closer to normal with the cosmic stuff more as a background?

The campaigns started at first level and generally only got to around fifth or sixth.  The higher powered stuff was more in the background but there are things like the god's road in the high kingdom, a square, one thousand miles on a side, of complex mosaic soft to the touch and foot, hard to the wheel and hoof cutting straight through hills and mountains, perfectly level.  The kingdom is actually found along the road with the central areas being wilderness.  One of the characters had a sword of god slaying forged from the bone of a dead god in the first dungeon they ran. 

Also, I forgot I ran a pretty good three month or so campaign of Run Out The Guns, sadly, the system therein isn't robust enough for the task.  Also, prices on bales of goods are absent and very important.

Quote from: David Johansen on May 01, 2025, 12:23:22 AM

Quote from: Trond on April 30, 2025, 07:45:36 PMInteresting. Were the adventures really high powered (as some of this sounds) or closer to normal with the cosmic stuff more as a background?

The campaigns started at first level and generally only got to around fifth or sixth.  The higher powered stuff was more in the background but there are things like the god's road in the high kingdom, a square, one thousand miles on a side, of complex mosaic soft to the touch and foot, hard to the wheel and hoof cutting straight through hills and mountains, perfectly level.  The kingdom is actually found along the road with the central areas being wilderness.  One of the characters had a sword of god slaying forged from the bone of a dead god in the first dungeon they ran. 

Also, I forgot I ran a pretty good three month or so campaign of Run Out The Guns, sadly, the system therein isn't robust enough for the task.  Also, prices on bales of goods are absent and very important.

Interesting that you mention that. I just ordered Run Out the Guns, since I found a nice and complete box online for a good price. Still waiting for it in the mail.