Quote from: Jason Coplen on December 05, 2022, 01:44:36 PM




Just a quick sample of the bad art.

Daaaaammmmmmmmmmmmmnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn...

This motherfucker ain't lyin'!!!

That is just Horrible art. Like, trying to kill any interest in the game whatsoever bad art.

Why would you do this to yourself!?

These are the images you want to invoke when people think of the Rolemaster RPG?

W.T.F.? This is IP killing stuff.

Other than as a point of mockery, I have zero interest in anything Rolemaster now. Here I was going to contribute to the discussion with some more questions about what rolemaster is like system-wise, but now?

Who gives a shit? How can they possibly charge people money for this and hold their head up straight?

Quote from: Jason Coplen on December 05, 2022, 01:44:36 PM




Just a quick sample of the bad art.

Are these female dwarves or effeminate male-somethings? Either way, the style is also soooo cheap and bad taste.

I suspect the larger problem is bad digital coloring of black and white illustrations.  But my bias is well known.

Quote from: Trond on December 05, 2022, 11:00:40 PM

Quote from: Jason Coplen on December 05, 2022, 01:44:36 PM




Just a quick sample of the bad art.

Are these female dwarves or effeminate male-somethings? Either way, the style is also soooo cheap and bad taste.

Must be those famous critical tables:

73: A sickening crunch as your mace hits foe in arm, breaking it in at least two places. He loses 20 health and acquires a creepy adult-child.

I actually don't mind the first one quite as much (of the knight or whatever kneeling at the statue), and I thought I was picky.

I was amused and surprised to see the artist has broken cover on the Rolemaster facebook group. Supportive environment, but even so he has copped some criticism. Not nearly enough, of course.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. Holy shit.

I kinda like the first pic.  The only problem is the bit at the top where it looks like someone's put their hand on top of the statue.  The second one ...  needs some work.

Quote from: David Johansen on December 06, 2022, 12:29:23 AM
I suspect the larger problem is bad digital coloring of black and white illustrations.  But my bias is well known.

That's a pretty good point. These illustrations aren't my preference but would look mostly fine if limited to old school line art. God knows there's plenty of janky line art in older games.
The full color pass just amplifies the drawing's cartoonishness and the additional production value of full color illustration is jarring with an amateurish base. Needed a layout / designer with a better eye for this stuff.

Quote from: Mishihari on December 06, 2022, 01:07:45 PM
I kinda like the first pic.  The only problem is the bit at the top where it looks like someone's put their hand on top of the statue.  The second one ...  needs some work.

I agree, the first one is fine as internal art (there's plenty of bad internal art in old RM books as well), though I don't like the "pixelated" look.

The second one looks like it is very much the work of a SJW, just something about the artistic choices made etc. I could be wrong.....but I don't think so

And of course the cover looks more finished, but still weirdly "plasticky" in my view. Reminds me a bit of Exalted actually.

So, I picked this up thinking it would be a good starting point for RM.  For the RM veterans, since there's no magic or monsters books out now, are any of the legacy products somewhat compatible with this?  Any idea what the differences are between Unified, Classic, and Standard or if a newbie would care?  I was trying to pick up the main stuff on the ICE forums, but there's some legacy knowledge I just don't have there.

Quote from: Almost_Useless on December 06, 2022, 07:15:09 PM
So, I picked this up thinking it would be a good starting point for RM.  For the RM veterans, since there's no magic or monsters books out now, are any of the legacy products somewhat compatible with this?  Any idea what the differences are between Unified, Classic, and Standard or if a newbie would care?  I was trying to pick up the main stuff on the ICE forums, but there's some legacy knowledge I just don't have there.

RM Classic is basically the same as 2nd ed RM (which is fairly similar to 1st ed). My impression is that Unified is yet another tweaked version of these old rules, for better or for worse, although I am not sure about this.

RM Standard was a bit different, but from mostly the same people who made the 1st and 2nd ed; Standard has more background options from the get go, different bonus calculations, weapon breakage was a bit different etc. But it was still very recognizable as RM.

All in all, though what really sets RM apart is the use of D100+bonus => look up result in tables, which can be surprisingly fun as long as you have some sort of system to find your tables (my group also always needed a calculator).

When we played MERP back in the 90s we laminated all the hit & critical tables and just had them ready for use.  Made things much faster as we had multiple copies.  Last year I was briefly intrigued by the idea of RMU and thinking about picking it up to run MERP.  But seeing that art, I just can't.

Ideally, each player has the tables they need and everyone can work out their attack results at the same time instead of sequentially.  This is why the action declaration phase is so important.  It's also important to declare attack and parry before rolling initiative so player can't alter their tactics to reflect initiative order.

Quote from: Jason Coplen on December 05, 2022, 09:59:32 AM

Quote from: Brad on December 05, 2022, 09:36:35 AM
So is this just Classic repackaged? At one time I had about four different versions of Rolemaster and got rid of all of them except my old boxed set, the one compatible with Spacemaster. What is a compelling reason to purchase this? I didn't like what they did with Classic, honestly; would have preferred a simple reprint of the 1985 boxed set.

Damned you! I read that in Thomas Sowell's voice! 

Hahaha, that´s awesome! 

Quote from: Trond on December 06, 2022, 08:20:29 PM

Quote from: Almost_Useless on December 06, 2022, 07:15:09 PM
So, I picked this up thinking it would be a good starting point for RM.  For the RM veterans, since there's no magic or monsters books out now, are any of the legacy products somewhat compatible with this?  Any idea what the differences are between Unified, Classic, and Standard or if a newbie would care?  I was trying to pick up the main stuff on the ICE forums, but there's some legacy knowledge I just don't have there.

RM Classic is basically the same as 2nd ed RM (which is fairly similar to 1st ed). My impression is that Unified is yet another tweaked version of these old rules, for better or for worse, although I am not sure about this.

RM Standard was a bit different, but from mostly the same people who made the 1st and 2nd ed; Standard has more background options from the get go, different bonus calculations, weapon breakage was a bit different etc. But it was still very recognizable as RM.

All in all, though what really sets RM apart is the use of D100+bonus => look up result in tables, which can be surprisingly fun as long as you have some sort of system to find your tables (my group also always needed a calculator).

This is actually useful info, thanks. I´v toyed with the idea of getting back to Rolemaster after the 90´s and was wondering which one to choose. Obviously the new upcoming one isn´t the one....

The main appeal for Rolemaster (and merp before it) was for me the Critical tables. Hilariously gore splattered criticals made for much more fun than 'you score 6 hit points of damage. The Orc is badly injured.' MERP/RM would have the Orc flailing about with -25 to activity losing several hits per round before collapsing and coughing up whilst drowning in its own blood.

For my teenage group (this would be for MERP and RM1 or whatever the hell its called now) it was a breath of fresh air. Downside was hand writing out a character sheet and character creation process that took an age. Not a problem now but then we were lucky if one of us had a dot matrix printer or someones' parent had access to a photocopier.

I can imagine some kind of character creation app that has you filling in the background story while churning out an instant character ready to go (including equipment, skills, spell lists and so on) would be a godsend. Also to be able to call up pinned charts for combat would be good on a screen or as others mention self print the various tables/charts required.

Old me though... I'm not really sure I can be arsed to be honest. It's easy enough to play with 1D100 and open ended rolls to watch out for but has RMs time passed? Against the Darkmaster has taken up the baton of Rolemaster Lite (a sorta Merp clone) and got a head start. If it took this long to churn out something so poor on the eye what are the other books going to look like if they ever appear?

The pages look like they are missing a parchment like background and it all looks a bit... 2007 Microsoft Word.

The Game? I'm sure it'll play ok but old me doesn't have the patience and enthusiasm of 12-13 year old me who soaked up every new game like a sponge.