Author Topic: Call me old fashioned...  (Read 8408 times)

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Offline Terry K. Amthor

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Call me old fashioned...
« on: February 19, 2015, 11:33:10 AM »
Wow, love to see how active this board is; it's my first time here. I still use RM2, and frankly, do not like RMSS; I think RM2 could use a few tweaks (not all those crazy Companions, thank you!) but some profession additions and adjustments. And I even like the HARP lesser spells.

Just MHO,

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Offline intothatdarkness

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Re: Call me old fashioned...
« Reply #1 on: February 19, 2015, 12:27:24 PM »
I never cared for RMSS, either, honestly. I modified the mess out of RM2, but that was more setting-specific and integrating things from the Companions in a (for us) sensible way. RMSS...well...no.
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Offline Spectre771

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Re: Call me old fashioned...
« Reply #2 on: February 19, 2015, 01:25:06 PM »
You're old fashioned.  :)

I still love RM2.  Not RMC.  Just plain old RM2.  My kids are all hooked on it now, my now ex-wife, and just a few months ago, three, possibly four new players really into it.

RMSS had some great ideas and refinements that I really liked, but too much of a departure from what I loved but not enough to get me to re-invest all that time and money into a "similar" game system.  (I have all of the RM Companions.  I'm an addict. What can I say?)  It wasn't like going from RM2 to White Wolf or D20.  It was still RM, just different.

I have an open mind and anticipation for RMU, but still not sure it will be enough to get me to leap from RM2.

I think the only major mod we ever did to RM2 was the initiative system.  We simplified it down to just open ended D100+QU bonus.  Everyone went in order or held their initiative until the wanted to act to interrupt someone.



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Offline Warl

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Re: Call me old fashioned...
« Reply #3 on: February 19, 2015, 01:45:26 PM »
I remain RM2 core... Though I have hopes for RMU.. they still didn't go the way I went with my own modifications to RM2. But given the choice between RMU and RMSS? I think I am leaning towards RMU.
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Offline Peter R

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Re: Call me old fashioned...
« Reply #4 on: February 19, 2015, 01:55:32 PM »
I have been a pure RM2 player and GM for 30 years or so right up until this month where I just bought the 4 RMC books as PDFs.

I have never even read the RMSS books.
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Offline tbigness

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Re: Call me old fashioned...
« Reply #5 on: February 19, 2015, 02:42:13 PM »
I have tried everything from MERP to RMSS/RFP and use bits of each. I am RMSS to the core once I got the house rules fine tuned. The Category system sealed it for me. I miss all the extra classes in the RM2 Companions but that was getting complicated to handle and remember. I am looking forward to seeing RMU become the next great thing but have issues with the development system of talents being purchased through out game play.
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Offline Cory Magel

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Re: Call me old fashioned...
« Reply #6 on: February 20, 2015, 12:23:15 AM »
We prefer RMSS, however we had been implementing RM into our D&D campaigns much farther back (even pre-RM2).  However, we pull a lot of stuff from RM2 into RMSS since there's so much more material there, we just have to tweek it a bit (sometimes a lot) to balance better.
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Offline markc

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Re: Call me old fashioned...
« Reply #7 on: February 20, 2015, 02:21:19 AM »
 I prefer RMSS for many reasons that I will not go into here as I have been accused of bashing RM2/C in the past, and quite a few of players that I have had in the past also share my version of RM preference.
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Offline damage

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Re: Call me old fashioned...
« Reply #8 on: February 20, 2015, 04:05:20 AM »
Started off with RM2, switched to RMSS for a lot of years after that. RM2 had some really unbalanced Companion books.

I run RMFRP these days, with a few bits thrown in from HARP, but frankly I should have stayed with RMSS. RMFRP has too many small and subtle changes, I'm still finding differences between RMSS and RMFRP after 5 years.

Looking forward to trying RMU when the next release appears!

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Offline MrApollinax

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Re: Call me old fashioned...
« Reply #9 on: February 20, 2015, 04:37:45 AM »
After running RM2 for many years I switched to RMSS and ran it for several years too, but never quite surmounted the nagging feeling that something had been lost. I suspect that this was in part intangible - rather like dating someone closely reminiscent of one's first true love but lacking the zing of the earlier experience - but also due to the fact that RMSS seemed somehow over-organised, rather as if the sprawling vistas of RM2 had been framed, tamed and somehow lost their organic beauty (I thought the category system a nifty piece of work but didn't actually like it).
All prolixity aside, the earlier version just seemed more open and malleable from a worldbuilding perspective. I never really worried about power creep in the Companions (after witnessing two of my players, a Mystic and a Magician regularly deploying the Oxygenation-Firebolt one-two punch), preferring to interpret power creep as rising levels of challenge, rare and dangerous gems to be unearthed and surmounted (or not). And some of the new options in the Companions simply worked better in the context of the world I was building. I was grateful to encounter them.
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Offline Justin

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Re: Call me old fashioned...
« Reply #10 on: February 20, 2015, 07:12:19 AM »
I got the Character book for RMSS by mistake when I started building my RM collection. I wasn't sure how I felt about things like developing categories of skills, and I nerd-raged ridiculously about the stat bonus changes(me<--dumb), but I absolutely hated the cultures and racial skills. To me an important aspect of Rolemaster was its generic-ness. Cultures and especially racial skills forced setting into the mechanics really bothered me. Now, I realize that somewhere in the mechanics there are going to be setting/cosmological assumptions--it's inescapable. But the smaller and fewer they are the more I can build my world setting and not have to incorporate or houserule.

I've just started going through CL for RMU; I probably won't get through it too fast as I'm also ramping up a new RM campaign group. I see that cultures are in there, but I haven't gotten to their specifics yet. How much cosmology is assumed in the mechanics will certainly be a major question as to whether or not I buy it when it's done.
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Offline tbigness

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Re: Call me old fashioned...
« Reply #11 on: February 20, 2015, 12:24:49 PM »
I actually liked the racial and cultural skills at character development. This brings in a flavor of what your upbringing influences skills in ones history. The Racial skills are fixed but the cultural skills can change the outcome of a character concept. If you don't like the stated skill list you can adjust them to your liking as long as the balance of skill points is the same. This really endured me to the RMSS system as it gave skills to characters that players usually pass up during character develpement (Culture Lore, Ect....).
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Offline Justin

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Re: Call me old fashioned...
« Reply #12 on: February 23, 2015, 10:37:36 AM »
I feel like there needs to be a balancing template provided for things like that. Am I supposed to call two cultural packages equivalent because one spends 2 DP on Animal Herding and the other on Stalk/Hide? Unless you're running a heavy agricultural game that's not equal. So how should I balance them? Is doubling the effective cost of Stalk/Hide enough? I don't know....

I am very aware that the process of balancing things in games is a much more complicated process than it seems, and I don't know much of anything about it yet. So I want the people who did do the balancing to tell me how to get to balanced sets. I only know enough to get myself in trouble.
(yes, balance is a huge concern for me, which is also partly why I'm not a fan of houserules in general. That and I'm just a bit of a stick-in-the-mud.  ;)  )
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Offline HawksNut

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Re: Call me old fashioned...
« Reply #13 on: February 23, 2015, 10:55:10 AM »
Ditto Cory, Markc and others. I prefer RMSS.

Offline yammahoper

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Re: Call me old fashioned...
« Reply #14 on: February 23, 2015, 11:12:26 AM »
I feel like there needs to be a balancing template provided for things like that. Am I supposed to call two cultural packages equivalent because one spends 2 DP on Animal Herding and the other on Stalk/Hide? Unless you're running a heavy agricultural game that's not equal. So how should I balance them? Is doubling the effective cost of Stalk/Hide enough? I don't know....

I am very aware that the process of balancing things in games is a much more complicated process than it seems, and I don't know much of anything about it yet. So I want the people who did do the balancing to tell me how to get to balanced sets. I only know enough to get myself in trouble.
(yes, balance is a huge concern for me, which is also partly why I'm not a fan of houserules in general. That and I'm just a bit of a stick-in-the-mud.  ;)  )

How to balance them is simple.  Like set dev points, assign a set number of adolescence ranks that players can spend however they with to design their youth/cultural upbringing.

I have done this in RMSS for years now.  I totaled the adolescent ranks for all the cultures and averaged.  Then I decided screw it and gave everyone the 85 ranks a high elf always gets (they have a lot of languages).  I limit ranks to four in most cases, but if a player really wants 6 ranks in surgery or boat pilot and it makes sense, I am game.

Set ranksremoves a bunch of needless tables and allows GM's and players to tailor their PC's to their gaming style.  Win/win. 
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Offline MrApollinax

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Re: Call me old fashioned...
« Reply #15 on: February 26, 2015, 07:18:48 PM »
I actually didn't mind the set race/culture options for adolescence in RMSS - or at least, I didn't mind the mechanic - but I adapted it for my own campaign. The general Middle Earth flavour (Hillmen, Mariners and whathaveyou) of the options presented didn't appeal, and anyway, my campaign at that time didn't use any of the archetypal RPG races (there were some...analogues of those races, I guess).
I like the idea that during adolescence character options are channeled into narrow-ish parameters and rather enjoyed compiling a few needless tables  ::) I'm currently going through that process again for a new campaign. As long as the players have plenty of wriggle room, I'm fine with it. And like tbigness I'm in favour of players receiving ranks in skills that they might not otherwise develop. 
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Offline Cory Magel

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Re: Call me old fashioned...
« Reply #16 on: February 26, 2015, 07:32:54 PM »
I'm right there with you on that MrApollinax.  I like the idea of adolescence, but it needs to be fined tuned a bit more depending on your setting.
- Cory Magel

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Offline tbigness

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Re: Call me old fashioned...
« Reply #17 on: February 27, 2015, 02:38:42 PM »
I like the element of backgrounds to provide how a PC was raised. So I don't think giving a PC complete control of Adolescent development is good for the game. The Adolescent development generally gives skills to otherwise looked over skill that are a part of role playing such as Region Lore and Basic Math. if one does not have any ranks then they cannot know the local customs of the region or how to use the concept of counting, weighing, or the fundamental exchange of currency. So there should be background skills developed according to the upbringing you choose to play as.
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Offline yammahoper

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Re: Call me old fashioned...
« Reply #18 on: February 27, 2015, 03:39:29 PM »
I like the element of backgrounds to provide how a PC was raised. So I don't think giving a PC complete control of Adolescent development is good for the game. The Adolescent development generally gives skills to otherwise looked over skill that are a part of role playing such as Region Lore and Basic Math. if one does not have any ranks then they cannot know the local customs of the region or how to use the concept of counting, weighing, or the fundamental exchange of currency. So there should be background skills developed according to the upbringing you choose to play as.

I agree.  Basic Math is an oft over looked skill for example.  Many outdoor skills in rural settings or crafts are ignored on the standard adolescent table.  Hobby ranks are good and all, but most of my players look to represent their youth, not min max, and honestly, in a game with a GM, seeing to properly spending tose ranks is part of her job anyway.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain... Time to die.

Offline Cory Magel

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Re: Call me old fashioned...
« Reply #19 on: February 28, 2015, 01:00:49 AM »
I've been working with coming up with a new campaign (life keeps getting in the way) and one of the things I'm going to do is ask each player what their character did before 'adventuring' (i.e. before the campaign begins).  It needs to be something aside from combat type skills.  So you could have been a sailor, or a carpenter, or a baker, etc.  Then I'll provide a set of skills in that 'non-adventuring' trade.
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