For a long time, I’ve been trying to convince everyone I know just how good of a system Rolemaster is. I’ve been preaching against all of it’s bad reputations.
Now I haven’t changed my mind. But, in a way, I have.
Ok, when a combat starts, everyone rolls initiative, and then in order, each character gets to take actions. To make an attack, you roll 1d100, add your Offensive bonus, subtract the targets defensive bonus, and other applicable modifiers and then cross reference that result with the targets armor type to find out how much damage you do, and whether or not you score a critical hit. It sounds pretty complex. But it works pretty smoothly, if everyone has even a little bit of experience with the system.
That has not changed, I still feel that it is not so complex as everyone says it is.
However, putting the system into use the past few eeks, I have modified my opinion a bit. I still like the system, and would be happy to play it. But to GM? Not so much. Let’s forget the arcane way (as in needlessly difficult) they stat up creatures, the way they code all of the game effects in the critical hit charts, and the way they make character creation take hours (the fastest I ever made a character was 30 minutes, and that’s with a spreadsheet).
Let’s focus on the game in play. In order to achieve a certain level of smoothness, each player should have the proper table for each of their weapons. If you like to use multiple weapons, you have to have multiple charts. Then you need all of the proper critical hit charts available easily. And that’s just so that each player has the information close at hand. If each player has his ow copy of the rulebooks, this is less of a problem. Each magic user needs his spell lists at hand, and then the static maneuver table and the moving maneuver table should be close at hand as well. Magic users need the spell casting static maneuver table, too.
What ends up happening (and this will ease up with experience), is that everyone has a pile of papers next to them in addition to their character sheets, which could be four or more pages long (depending on spells available, status effects, and whether or not you use the long form skill sheets or the short). When someone wants to do something, they then have to flip through this mound of paper to find the chart they need, remember what modifiers to apply (exhaustion, power point use, range, bleeding, penalties for moving…).
Now, I’m usually the GM as I have the rule books. It’s always been that way. And to a degree, I’m okay with it. But when I’m running a game, and I look up to see the faces of my players and how much they are struggling just to do basic things – like swing a sword – I begin to wonder if I haven’t backed the wrong horse.
Of course, it’s worse for me as the GM. I’m expected to know all of the rules (which I do), and create interesting, balanced encounters. But instead of a proper monster stat block, you get a paragraph or two of description, with a long run-on sentence of codes that describe the creatures game stats. Codes that require a novice to look up what those numbers are (instead of, say, listing the numbers with the monster’s description like so many other systems do). If someone scores a critical, you get another run-on code block that tells you about stun and rounds of bleeding, instead of just saying “target bleeds this much per round, and can only parry.”
When it comes to GMing games, I have a lot of experience. I have run several campaigns in GURPS, Rifts, d20, and several others. But as a Rolemaster GM, I’m a rookie. And that learning curve is terrible.
Moreover, it turns out I prefer cinematic action to gritty realism. I’m more likely to fudge the dice if it makes for a better story. Hard to modify the effects of a strike when the system tells you “you slash across his eyes and into his brain.” Great and cinematic if it’s a player killing an orc, but when that orc scores that result on a player…
So, in the end, after all the money I’ve spent on the system, I’m thinking I’m going to have to change systems. The collector in me wants to keep buying the set. I have so many of the books now, and you never know when you’ll find a game that needs another player. But my group was hesitant about playing the game in the first place. They aren’t having a lot of fun (our Magic User spends most of each session unconscious), and if they aren’t having fun, the game falls apart.
The difference is, I now agree with them, at least in part. On top of that, it is very difficult (for me at least) to GM the game. Too many things to look up, too many things written in a way that seems deliberately obtuse. And when a system gets to that point, I usually start looking for greener pastures. The most successful games I’ve run were lighter-weight, dice pool systems. In this case, I’m referring mostly to Silhouette core rules (Dream Pod 9’s system: Jovian Chronicles, Heavy Gear, etc.). In light of the news about “Airship Pirates” coming soon, I’ve been looking at Victoriana 2nd edition. Of course, my group is not fond of dice pool systems. But maybe once the first battle occurs, they’ll see how much quicker and easier it plays compared to Rolemaster.
So if you read my old blog, and you remember how much I gushed about the system, please don’t point and laugh. (Oh, okay. You can. A little.) A lot of times you’ll read a set of rules, think they sound good, and then it all falls apart under actual use. In fact, that’s kind of how I feel about the World of Darkness system. So all the good things I said about Rolemaster in the past were from a position of inexperience. Now that I’ve put it to use, I can see the other side of the coin; for the sanity of my players, I’m going to look for a new system. Something easier to play, easier to use (and certainly easier to set up and GM). Let me know in the comments what your favorite system is, and why. Feel free to tell me a bit about how the mechanics work.
Just a warning, It’ll be a very hard sell to get me to pick up d20 again, regardless of its form.
So, discuss!
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