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Author Topic: New Rolemaster Unified is out  (Read 6912 times)

David Johansen

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Re: New Rolemaster Unified is out
« Reply #30 on: December 07, 2022, 09:27:44 AM »
ICE 3.0 has been pretty good about putting out ERA datasets for Rolemaster so character generation is easier.  This will come for the new edition as well.  Personally, you should always do a couple characters by hand before going to an app because you want to understand how it works and where it's coming to.

Fair confession, it takes me an hour to churn out an RMSS character by hand but I've done dozens of them.  Walking a new player through it takes three to five hours so I mostly do pregens.

The system creates character with layers of depth and is pretty immersive in that sense.  it really starts to shine when players have leveled up a couple times and start to think about where they want to go with things.  The spell lists are nice and clear compared to any talent tree system I've ever seen.

Another thing about Rolemaster is things tend to work in a uniform way.  This makes it a lot easier to handle spell effects and skill usage than many supposedly simpler games.  And monsters have a reasonably short stat line instead of a quarter page or more stat block so it's much easier for the GM well at least until somebody wants to arm wrestle a dragon.
« Last Edit: December 07, 2022, 09:31:29 AM by David Johansen »
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Trond

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Re: New Rolemaster Unified is out
« Reply #31 on: December 07, 2022, 09:31:58 AM »
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.

Wut? I must have missed Against the Darkmaster. What's it like?

APN

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Re: New Rolemaster Unified is out
« Reply #32 on: December 07, 2022, 11:54:28 AM »
vs Darkmaster is a Merp alike (and thus RM alike) game/clone with the Tolkien stripped out and a few things cleaned up.

Website: HERE

It was out of stock for quite a while in dead tree so I got it in pdf and print/bound it in hardback myself. I also took the opportunity to split it into several books (as others have done when they took it to a print shop) to make it easier to handle. I also use the opportunity to put my own stamp on things so made my own covers and so on. Been doing this for a while now.



From the brief skim through I've had (too many games not enough time, usual story) I'd have thought if you ever played MERP or Rolemaster you should be able to pick this up pretty well. D100, open ended, look on charts, aim for 100+ on Move Maneuvers and all that.

Because all the Tolkien stuff is stripped out there's also rules for cooking up a big bad evil guy, the 'Darkmaster' in the title. The PDF is about £13.80 at the moment on sale (or about $15 or whatever) which is pretty good as the page count is high, art is pretty good and it's a 'one book' game. Or rather it was - there's a few bits out for it I think.

Quickstart is pay what you want (i.e. nothing) on Drive thru so might be worth a look. Here you GO.

Marchand

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Re: New Rolemaster Unified is out
« Reply #33 on: December 07, 2022, 01:16:26 PM »
Fair confession, it takes me an hour to churn out an RMSS character by hand but I've done dozens of them.  Walking a new player through it takes three to five hours so I mostly do pregens.

One problem with this, apart from sheer time cost, is how do you square keeping a degree of risk/lethality in play against the time invested in chargen?

Somebody who has put 2-3 hours into rolling up their guy is probably going to be pretty miffed if that character goes down in the first melee.
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David Johansen

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Re: New Rolemaster Unified is out
« Reply #34 on: December 07, 2022, 01:50:46 PM »
The lethality is over sold, I've only, ever killed one character and he was a really broken dwarf berserker with a double headed flail which really killed stuff but also made him really vulnerable and I didn't feel bad about it.  Like running early low level D&D you need to put some access to healing into things.  At one point there was a paladin who tried to use a warhammer to hunt a moose and lost the initiative after declaring a full attack no parry.  He wound up with broken ribs and punctured lungs.  "Luckily," a local druid showed up and healed him.  Another time my wife's character caught an arrow to her femoral artery and bled out.  The other players almost demanded that I fudge the roll, and I just smiled, a friendly travelling necromancer showed up and brought her back from the brink of death.  I see it as an opportunity to introduce npcs and quests.

Most of the time the stat differential between the PCs and their foes should be enough to spare them the worst of it.  But the lethality is random and things happen.  And yeah, making new characters is a bitch for some and an opportunity to others.
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Thorn Drumheller

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Re: New Rolemaster Unified is out
« Reply #35 on: December 07, 2022, 01:56:18 PM »
vs Darkmaster is a Merp alike (and thus RM alike) game/clone with the Tolkien stripped out and a few things cleaned up.
...

Yeah, I love this book. I'm slowly making my way through it. The book is a beast....but now I may print the pdf out through lulu in smaller books. That's a great idea.
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DocJones

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Re: New Rolemaster Unified is out
« Reply #36 on: December 07, 2022, 04:54:09 PM »
As much as I may have tried to deny it when I was a teenager, the art was always important to me. I don't like this cover much (it actually seems to pander to teenagers more than the 80s versions), and if the internal art is bad too, and there's not much improvement to the rules, then I think I'll definitely pass on this. Interesting that RM is still around though.
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Jaeger

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Re: New Rolemaster Unified is out
« Reply #37 on: December 07, 2022, 06:02:05 PM »


One problem with this, apart from sheer time cost, is how do you square keeping a degree of risk/lethality in play against the time invested in chargen?

Somebody who has put 2-3 hours into rolling up their guy is probably going to be pretty miffed if that character goes down in the first melee.

Exactly, this is the kind of thing that leads to fudging die rolls, and making obviously contrived situations to save PC's...



Fair confession, it takes me an hour to churn out an RMSS character by hand but I've done dozens of them.  Walking a new player through it takes three to five hours so I mostly do pregens.

The lethality is over sold, I've only, ever killed one character and he was a really broken dwarf berserker with a double headed flail which really killed stuff but also made him really vulnerable and I didn't feel bad about it.  Like running early low level D&D you need to put some access to healing into things.  At one point there was a paladin who tried to use a warhammer to hunt a moose and lost the initiative after declaring a full attack no parry.  He wound up with broken ribs and punctured lungs.  "Luckily," a local druid showed up and healed him.  Another time my wife's character caught an arrow to her femoral artery and bled out.  The other players almost demanded that I fudge the roll, and I just smiled, a friendly travelling necromancer showed up and brought her back from the brink of death. I see it as an opportunity to introduce npcs and quests.

Most of the time the stat differential between the PCs and their foes should be enough to spare them the worst of it.  But the lethality is random and things happen.  And yeah, making new characters is a bitch for some and an opportunity to others.

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Brad

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Re: New Rolemaster Unified is out
« Reply #38 on: December 07, 2022, 08:25:58 PM »
So....is Against the Dark Master worth getting or should I just use MERP and use all my sourcebooks? What's the compelling reason to use it?

Serious questions here. I was going to start a new ME game using Castles and Crusades (already wrote up the conversion notes and stuff), but thought about just doing MERP again. On the fence here.
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David Johansen

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Re: New Rolemaster Unified is out
« Reply #39 on: December 07, 2022, 11:31:43 PM »
If you have MERP and all its sourcebooks you don't need Against The Dark Master.  MERP is amazinly tight.  Personally using Arms Law would be good because the MERP critical tables get a bit dull after a session or two.
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Marchand

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Re: New Rolemaster Unified is out
« Reply #40 on: December 08, 2022, 12:04:21 AM »


One problem with this, apart from sheer time cost, is how do you square keeping a degree of risk/lethality in play against the time invested in chargen?

Somebody who has put 2-3 hours into rolling up their guy is probably going to be pretty miffed if that character goes down in the first melee.

Exactly, this is the kind of thing that leads to fudging die rolls, and making obviously contrived situations to save PC's...



Fair confession, it takes me an hour to churn out an RMSS character by hand but I've done dozens of them.  Walking a new player through it takes three to five hours so I mostly do pregens.

The lethality is over sold, I've only, ever killed one character and he was a really broken dwarf berserker with a double headed flail which really killed stuff but also made him really vulnerable and I didn't feel bad about it.  Like running early low level D&D you need to put some access to healing into things.  At one point there was a paladin who tried to use a warhammer to hunt a moose and lost the initiative after declaring a full attack no parry.  He wound up with broken ribs and punctured lungs.  "Luckily," a local druid showed up and healed him.  Another time my wife's character caught an arrow to her femoral artery and bled out.  The other players almost demanded that I fudge the roll, and I just smiled, a friendly travelling necromancer showed up and brought her back from the brink of death. I see it as an opportunity to introduce npcs and quests.

Most of the time the stat differential between the PCs and their foes should be enough to spare them the worst of it.  But the lethality is random and things happen.  And yeah, making new characters is a bitch for some and an opportunity to others.

Q.E.D.

Yeah that was my thought too. I don't really want a game where PCs aren't at meaningful risk of death.

If a game designer sits down and says now I will write the best chargen chapter I can, you might well end up with loads of bells and whistles, options, background baked in etc. etc., and chargen taking 5 hours.

It needs someone to take the overall view of how chargen fits in as part of the overall desired gameplay. 
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Angry Goblin

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Re: New Rolemaster Unified is out
« Reply #41 on: December 08, 2022, 08:27:46 AM »
vs Darkmaster is a Merp alike (and thus RM alike) game/clone with the Tolkien stripped out and a few things cleaned up.

Website: HERE

It was out of stock for quite a while in dead tree so I got it in pdf and print/bound it in hardback myself. I also took the opportunity to split it into several books (as others have done when they took it to a print shop) to make it easier to handle. I also use the opportunity to put my own stamp on things so made my own covers and so on. Been doing this for a while now.



From the brief skim through I've had (too many games not enough time, usual story) I'd have thought if you ever played MERP or Rolemaster you should be able to pick this up pretty well. D100, open ended, look on charts, aim for 100+ on Move Maneuvers and all that.

Because all the Tolkien stuff is stripped out there's also rules for cooking up a big bad evil guy, the 'Darkmaster' in the title. The PDF is about £13.80 at the moment on sale (or about $15 or whatever) which is pretty good as the page count is high, art is pretty good and it's a 'one book' game. Or rather it was - there's a few bits out for it I think.

Quickstart is pay what you want (i.e. nothing) on Drive thru so might be worth a look. Here you GO.

For someone who isn´t familiar with Darkmaster, would it work well as a replacement for the WHRP rules? I like the world but the career system does it for me...
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David Johansen

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Re: New Rolemaster Unified is out
« Reply #42 on: December 08, 2022, 10:42:17 AM »

Exactly, this is the kind of thing that leads to fudging die rolls, and making obviously contrived situations to save PC's...

Q.E.D.

Those three incidents were from three different campaigns over about decade.  Mostly, player characters need to play smarter.  I remember an encounter where the mid level party backed off and slunk away from ten orcs in heavy armour with large shields marching in formation.  Most first level D&D parties wouldn't think twice about attacking those guys.

One other thing, numbers tell in Rolemaster.  You really, really don't want to get outnumbered.  Large monsters aren't nearly as scary as large groups of man-sized enemies.
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Brad

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Re: New Rolemaster Unified is out
« Reply #43 on: December 08, 2022, 11:06:48 AM »
If you have MERP and all its sourcebooks you don't need Against The Dark Master.  MERP is amazinly tight.  Personally using Arms Law would be good because the MERP critical tables get a bit dull after a session or two.

After posting this I opened up my crusty old MERP boxed set and lo and behold, the 1st edition Arms Law cardstock weapon charts and crit tables were in there...I had forgotten we used those to add some spice circa 1989.

I think I'll probably just buy it anyway because I have a couple empty spots on the shelf that need to be filled.
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Arioch

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Re: New Rolemaster Unified is out
« Reply #44 on: December 08, 2022, 11:11:20 AM »
For someone who isn´t familiar with Darkmaster, would it work well as a replacement for the WHRP rules? I like the world but the career system does it for me...

Author here: I think it's relatively easy to make it work, you could set the gods of Chaos as your Darkmaster, the rest is pretty straightforward. The biggest obstacle would be the lack of guns, but someone made a third party supplement that takes care of that: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/354181/Black-Powder-Guns