Don't get me wrong...I loved RoleMaster to death.  Still do, as a matter of fact.  The pre-planning skill advances, however, could be a PITA, especially for players who weren't very proficient with the system.

Add to that the fact that we might have jumped into RoCo2 too eagerly and too early (we were just learning the system) and, well, the game could be tough to deal with at times.  Not enough that it kept us from playing (I never said it was like having extensive oral surgery or anything), but we welcomed BD&D with open arms when we came back to it.

Man I loved Rolemaster (RM2 and RMSS), some of my most fun gaming was done in those systems. Admittedly it was hard to get new people into the game at times, but when you did they were hooked. Still, the character sheet did get uber crazy at times.

HeroQuest has the simplest advancement I've used. Award 3-5 Hero Points per session, and whatever isn't spent as 'karma' is either saved for another session or added on a one-to-one basis to relevant skills (or used to purchase new skills/traits/etc.)

Some things cost a bit more but they never came up when I ran HQ (I didn't use any of the magic systems in the book.)

As far as level-based advancement goes, it's really only as simple as the method of tallying experience points. Experience points should have been regarded as vestigial in games with unified advancement charts (3.x etc); those games really ought to have adopted something along the lines of FtA!'s advancement system (as far as I understand the latter's system--- I don't own the game.)

I never played a game of Rolemaster beyond second level, and I got tired of our master archers being unable to hunt for our dinner without spending more on arrows than they would of on food, and other examples of gross incompetence that you can find at low level game play in a variety of level games.

Maybe the GM was just a dick.  

I find character advancement to be horrifically broken across gamer-dom but unfortunately I don't have a ready solution to the problem.  In the D&D game I currently play in we've gone from third to sixth level in roughly three weeks of 'game time'... we'll be gods before our characters have another birthday at that rate!

Quote from: CavScout;284258A (non-feat) level/class systems are probably easier. You get what it tells you. Eliminate choices and things probably will be simpler. You just end up with cookie-cutter characters by default.

Of course, I wouldn't conflate simpler with better.

I agree that simpler isn't always better, and you can get so simple that it sucks.  But there's a golden medium somewhere out there; its usually found in level-based advancement that offers some multiple-choice options at each level, rather than just opening up to everything.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;284470I agree that simpler isn't always better, and you can get so simple that it sucks.  But there's a golden medium somewhere out there; its usually found in level-based advancement that offers some multiple-choice options at each level, rather than just opening up to everything.

It is certainly possible but I also think, the opposite can be true as well. I believe that the skill advancement system used in Heavy Gear/Jovian Chronicles, for example, even as a "open" advancement system is generally easier than say leveling up in RIFTS, a class/level system.

There are certainly complex system of "open" games out there, but there are certainly "open" games that are relatively straight forward as far as advancement goes.

Quote from: CavScout;284485It is certainly possible but I also think, the opposite can be true as well. I believe that the skill advancement system used in Heavy Gear/Jovian Chronicles, for example, even as a "open" advancement system is generally easier than say leveling up in RIFTS, a class/level system.

There are certainly complex system of "open" games out there, but there are certainly "open" games that are relatively straight forward as far as advancement goes.

Again, I agree that this is possible; IF you have a point-buy system that isn't overburdened with options. If you have relatively few skills and stuff to choose from, then its not so harrowing.
It just so happens that most point-buy systems are also very complex, with shitloads of skills, powers, advantages and disadvantages.

RPGPundit

In Reve de Dragon the advancement system is skill based with a twist due to the setting. One way to improve is done when the character perform a critical... critical success or critical failure, which is nice because a novice could improve without a instructor just by botching and learning from it (at a slow pace though). Another way is by stress : stressful situations bring stress points which during sleep time can be converted into experience point that can be allocated to skills where your archetype is better than your actual incarnation. The archetype being a mechanical representation of the fact your character has been incarnated many many times and he can tap into the memory of his previous incarnations. This advancement system is very tied to the setting and its cosmology so it would be difficult to transpose to another game but it's very satisfying for players who see their character grow during action or while resting.

Quote from: boulet;284594In Reve de Dragon the advancement system is skill based with a twist due to the setting. One way to improve is done when the character perform a critical... critical success or critical failure, which is nice because a novice could improve without a instructor just by botching and learning from it (at a slow pace though). Another way is by stress : stressful situations bring stress points which during sleep time can be converted into experience point that can be allocated to skills where your archetype is better than your actual incarnation. The archetype being a mechanical representation of the fact your character has been incarnated many many times and he can tap into the memory of his previous incarnations. This advancement system is very tied to the setting and its cosmology so it would be difficult to transpose to another game but it's very satisfying for players who see their character grow during action or while resting.

That would be an interesting system to use for a re-do of Nephilim - letting the player access skill points from earlier incarnations.  I'm guessing this is a French game?

Yeah, Rolemaster, I'm still adamant that RM2 and RMSS are on par.  There's more data in RMSS but there's fewer discrete mechanisms.  Spells and hitpoints are bought just like skills.  As with GURPS it gets to be a problem of people trying to take everything on the list.

Really Rolemaster's not all that bad, the problem is that with stat gains every level you have to re-figure all your bonuses.  There's no way to say, "okay I'm at rank 12 now so that puts me up by 6%"  You have to go through the whole list and re check everything.

However the individual skills aren't that bad it's just that you've got around 50 of them.

Profession Bonus + Category Rank Bonus + 3 Stat Bonuses + Skill Rank Bonus + Item Bonus + Special Bonus = Total Bonus

Compared to D&D 3e

Racial Ability Bonus + Skill Points + Stat Bonus + Skill Synergy Bonus + Feat Bonus + Item Bonus + Class Ability Bonus = Total Bonus

No not every 3e character has Racial Ability Bonuse or Feat Bonuses or Class or Item bonuses but this is also true of Rolemaster.
It's really not that much worse on the face of it.

Quote from: jcfiala;284619That would be an interesting system to use for a re-do of Nephilim - letting the player access skill points from earlier incarnations.  I'm guessing this is a French game?

Yes it is, the core book has been translated but none of the modules, which is IMO a big obstacle for the game success abroad. The game is playable with just the core book, but it's difficult to get the flavor right without at least a couple of modules to show the way. I think the game mechanics are very interesting from a designer point of view but difficult to extract out of its natural setting, especially the magic system, and quite on the crunchy side. I never had trouble with the crunch because it's not a "one rule many exceptions" type of design. Plus it's got more than 20 years of evolution/play testing.

Quote from: Soylent Green;284255Personally, I am not a fan of the whole advancement thing. Start weak, grow powerful ony works in certain kind of settings, stories and campaigns. For most games advancement would make more sense to me as whacky optional rule, but I am sure this is a minority view.

I agree. Whenever I can, I like to talk my players out of gaining xp and instead let them earn power by gaining in game allies, items, intel, property and so forth. Ars Magica 3rd ED was the game that opened my eyes to it. We had two paralel stories within the same game, one in which the players managed a town and gradualy attracted blacksmiths, masons, veterans, greenthumbs and other useful folk to build a standing army, fortified walls, a cornucopia storehouse and so on. The other game was about some RPG characters that leveled up at an alarming rate and teleported to Hell to find slay worthy foes.
 
In retrospect, it makes me pine for the the games with generic adventurers and custom loot.

I tend to like skill based point buy with constraints, (i.e., a level/class like overlay) or class/level with constrained skill/ability options.  I don't like advancement systems that require planning multiple levels in advance due to multiple levels of prerequisites.

The Fantasy Trip is a favorite in overall approach.

Quote from: Soylent Green;284255Personally, I am not a fan of the whole advancement thing. Start weak, grow powerful ony works in certain kind of settings, stories and campaigns. For most games advancement would make more sense to me as whacky optional rule, but I am sure this is a minority view.

I'm sure it is, but it's an minority view I share.