RM Revision

[witchking20k]

It disappoints me to hear/see the direction RM is being take in. Most of my really great early gaming memories are from RM2, then later RMSS.

I play with some newer players pretty regularly and they are absolutely shocked when I introduce them to RM or HARP and follow it up with something along the lines of "don't even bother going to the website" because it will only aggravate you. Which I think is fair after many many many years of revision for a game that was never broken - just misrepresented.

A truncated RM version could have been produced in a matter of months using bits and pieces of existing versions - my preference:
-the armor & Spell Casting/Lists from MERP (up to level 10 fully populated like in MERP)
-the Base Hit Points/Power Points, spell aquisition & stat averaging from RMX
-Critical Charts from MERP/RMX
-the background options, Primary Skills & professional level bonuses from RM2/RMC
-5 professions - fighter, thief, ranger, mentalist, mage
-5 races - the core 4 plus either a half elf or half orc or high man
-6 cultures  (rural, 2x urban, sylvan, nomad, hillock
This is all basically cut/paste

The only thing I might have done "differently" is use 1 melee attack chart & 1 missile attack chart - plus the directed spell chart - and have them with the damage caps built in like RMFRP did (I think)  and relied on OB mods based on AT on the character sheet to create a little more separation....

I also would have rebalanced the SM & MM tables to actually be based on TN100 or used the HARP table because it is very diverse in what it lets you do.

This could have been to market quickly and been compatible with almost all, if  not all, existing material. I would have spent resources on making the books beautiful and developing adventures and actual intellectual property. A system is incredibly hard to protect from piracy (I'm looking at Against the Dark Master).

[markc]

I classify the beta editions in the following way, RMU B1, RMU B2 and RMU JDE but I stepped down before JDE took over the helm of RMU.

I did download a version listed as RMUB2 last year as some people were looking for a game so I wanted to see if it would work for them. 
It did have crit tables more like RMSS and less a simple mathematical progression of things listed. ie less spread sheet and had a little more art to it.

Having said that, IMHO making RM simple for simplicity sake often treaded on HARP and blurred the lines between the two products, it would be better to add RM spell casting to HARP then dramatically simplify RM's math and skill system.

I like RMSS for the detail and if I want to play a less detailed game I will play something else. Also if you have computer support the game is often a lot easier to play and run.

MDC

[Rasyr]

Having said that, IMHO making RM simple for simplicity sake often treaded on HARP and blurred the lines between the two products, it would be better to add RM spell casting to HARP then dramatically simplify RM's math and skill system.

HARP had a number of flaws in it (I should know) all because I did not stick to my guns and let others dictate some things.  If it had been released how I had originally wrote it, it would have actually been more MERP like in nature, and would have a different spell system (the wonkiness there was the buggest issue, I belive, and that is cause the actual spells got tweaked, not the system I used to make them (a mistake that is mostly on my shoulders).

And RMX? That did nto simplify Rolemaster, it simply stripped it back to the bare, and then started adding thing back in via the Express Additions.

I like RMSS for the detail and if I want to play a less detailed game I will play something else. Also if you have computer support the game is often a lot easier to play and run.

RMSS was good, but had its issues too (the biggest being the huge increase in number of skills without a proportional increase in DPs), and the fact that a level 1 character was barely viable.

A starting character should be fully capable (not against big threats, but against those of equal power, and most RMSS characters were not for the first few levels).

but another point of the revision was to create an easy buy in for new players, something that RMU  would never do with multiple core books needed to play. RM is not D&D and needed a sngle book entry into the system.

[markc]

I agree on the starting PC note of RMSS and I often started PC's at 3rd to 5th level if I wanted a more fleshed out PC for players to play or if I wanted to start the game as teens then start at 1st.

IMHO, no system is perfect and all have issues as it is impossible to cover all play styles, players and trends.

[witchking20k]

To be clear: I only provided the above example as a demonstration of how ICE could have revised in a manner that updated the rules a bit while not playing right into the hands of the 30+ years of bias from gamers that endlessly refer to RM as chartmaster etc.

Agreed - no system is perfect. RM & HARP have their strengths, just like D&D does, and Novus. I quite enjoyed RMSS actually as I found it at a time in life where I really wanted to go all in with characters and stories so the skill category system was appealing...at the time. I think a fully developed HARP/MERP hybrid (which I have poked at for my own purposes) would have been close to the ideal system (IMO) as it would been immediately more digestible than RMSS/RMFRP & ultimately RMU.

The problem with ICE is that they are, seemingly, not savvy to the fact that you have to actually have a product to sell. It's clearly being run by hobbyists, not people trying to make a living off of it, so there is this air of acceptability to the projects just dragging on forever.

[markc]

I think we are on the same page.
MDC

[Rasyr]

Well,  RMU has two books out. And no actual creatures to fight, but it appears they tried to cram a lot into those books that did nto need to be in the core rules.

And the first of the two books were out with no spells for months, and still no creatures....

It puts a lot of onus on the GM to make combatants. For experienced RM fans, this would not be an issue. They can always raid their previous editions of RM.

But for new players? it falls flat on its face by being too much, and too incomplete at the same time......

[markc]

I agree you need monsters and spells...but having said that a friend loaned me his copy to read and we both did not think much of the game.
He was also interested in the new version of HARP but when he went to the website, he said it was a mess and it really turned him off of buying HARP II.

MDC

[Rasyr]

I agree you need monsters and spells...but having said that a friend loaned me his copy to read and we both did not think much of the game.

Yup, it is simply yet another version that will divide the  RM fans even more. And then there is Against the Darkmaster which  technically belongs in the same d100 family*  of games, and which folks could easily adapt to bring in bits of RM that they like to expand to what they need. And I am planning on making a d20fied version of Against the Darkmaster as well (not a straight conversion, but adjust things to my preferred style of play as well).

He was also interested in the new version of HARP but when he went to the website, he said it was a mess and it really turned him off of buying HARP II.

They are doing a HARP II, huh? I think it would be hilarious if they do that and it fails... hehehe

[markc]

A two or three ago (last time I was on the site)  I heard that they were going to do a revision of HARP about the same time as RMU. I do not know if that is still in the works or if it went along the wayside.

As to if it fails or not I will let the product speak for itself but not having the support system in place (website, etc) does not make it easier for people to want to pick it up. As I said it really turned my friend off when he went to the website.

I do think now is the time for a newish or new system to break into the market as there is some upheaval with the missteps WotC has been making, the new version of 5e is a bit wacky (yes I know it is a beta but there are some very strange concepts being floated). And I do not think it would necessarily be a bad thing if another system or two became very popular.
MDC   

[Rasyr]

I do think now is the time for a newish or new system to break into the market as there is some upheaval with the missteps WotC has been making, the new version of 5e is a bit wacky (yes I know it is a beta but there are some very strange concepts being floated). And I do not think it would necessarily be a bad thing if another system or two became very popular.

Well, Novus is available 

I am also working on two other systems...

1) Fantasy Express -- a 2d6 based system, meant to be simple and easy...
2) DAG (Delta Adventure Game) -- a game based on Against the Darkmaster, using a d20 open-ended dice mechanic rather than d100 (likely be more palatable to D&D players upset at WotC). Though instead of spell lists, I was thinking of converting the Novus spell creation rules into a spell casting system where they construct and cast spells on the fly.....

[Falconer]

According to a post on the Iron Crown forums, “The earliest HARP rulebook [2003] had 160 pages; it was replaced by a 192-page version within a handful of months [2004]. The current version of HARP [2012] is 203 pages and has ICE and GCP logos on the front.” I presume that’s RMU-contemporary revision (it just took RMU a while to come out, obviously).

[Rasyr]

According to a post on the Iron Crown forums, “The earliest HARP rulebook [2003] had 160 pages; it was replaced by a 192-page version within a handful of months [2004]. The current version of HARP [2012] is 203 pages and has ICE and GCP logos on the front.” I presume that’s RMU-contemporary revision (it just took RMU a while to come out, obviously).

Yup, the first release had 160 pages, and after it went out, there was some concerns about some things in regards to it (I cannot remember what exactly, that was 20 years ago afterall... hehe), and so 32 pages were added and it was re-released.

I have no idea what was added or changed in the 2012 version....

[Grumpy Old Fart]

My personal opinion is that if you're going to make a "new" version of an existing system, then what you do is

1. Find out what bits of the old system are the most universally popular (in RM2, healers transferring wounds IMO. in HARP, mana sources and spell scaling).

2. Keep those bits.

3. Write a new system without fear of losing any of the old system *except for those bits.*

[markc]

In general people have ideas they think are going to be great all of the time and sometimes it works and others it fails. And at times even great ideas fail and horrible ideas generate lots of $$$. But having done all of the things that are necessary to make the product successful at launch is very important.
Think about what would have happened to D&D and AD&D in that late 70's if they waited 5 years beyond launch to make all of the different dice available to play the game (that is to say the game only shipped with d6's but required D4's, D8's, D10's, D12's, D20's and D100's). I think if they had not had the various dice the game would not have gone anywhere. 

But having said that, there were quite a few issues that to me, showed up at the beginning (alpha) that persisted that were problematic and these ideas lost quite a bit of what I and a lot of people I know loved about RM.