Topic: RM2 Campaign Advise for Noobies

[intothatdarkness]

I usually used the max (25%) and had no problems with characters lacking skills. That didn't always stop them from selecting the wrong skills or skipping those they needed, of course.

[Hurin]

Yes, given the later skill bloat of RM2, I think 25% is perfectly reasonable.

[Fingolfin80]

I think there are two differnt situations to consider here:

1 - players do not focus on main abilities because they don't get how the system works. In this case I'm perfectly fine with direct them to more useful skills for their profession and help them understand the diferences between the systems in order to make them capable of their own decisions. A couple of one shot with different kind of characters usually help here.

2 - player doesn't care for what his character is supposed to do, he has an idea for the kind of character he wants to build and even though it's not combat-effective he thinks it's fun to play. In this case I never interfere. I once had a Druid player who built the carachter to be a "repented" druid, who was very conflicted in his connection with nature, and as a result couldn't cast any spell anymore. He was an experienced player so I didn't try to stop him, it turned out a very funny campaign, with very interesting charcters, and his broken druid more than others. Of course, this depends on your game style: if you are very combat heavy this could be a difficult approach and you may need to handle it in a more balanced way, maybe giving some advice to the player about the tone of the campaign in general. 

[Prince Finnion]

Not always. In some cases players (especially those new to RM or coming from D&D) don't develop core skills because they don't think they have to. They just assume (based on past game experience perhaps) that they get hits just because, and that attack rolls are automatically based on their profession and not a skill.

This is why I got to the point where I beefed up culture skills (including weapons) and even did half a character's development for them. That way they could go buy (say) Seduction because I'd already made sure they at least had hits and could swing a sword if that was their profession's main purpose.

Running combat tutorials is also a good idea...if for no other reason than to show new players how fatal RM can be.

I'm not denying that it can be hard to cover all bases (the fact that it's easy miss things is a definite flaw in RMSS and in RM2 with the complete optional skill list). However, Prince Finnion didn't say, "I made sure the player had covered his core competencies". The statement was that the barbarian was banned from developing seduction, apparently because it was decided that it is impossible to make an effective barbarian who develops seduction.

If developing one peripheral or non-standard skill means an essential skill has to be left out, there is a major problem somewhere, IMO.

Let me elaborate some here.  Yes I made the Barbarian player drop 3 ranks of Seduction.  No I did not ban him from developing the skill.  What happened was that after lvl 0 and lvl 1 development he had invested just 1 rank of BD and just 2 ranks of weapons skills.  Mathematically his max possible hits would have been 12.

The reason I put this single example (there were more, I have 7 players) was to point out their view of RM compared to D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder, which are the two (basically same) systems they are familiar with.

One player mentioned that he needed Duping to be maxed because he might need to talk his way out of some situation.  I agree that its a useful skill, but I pointed out that if you're a Noble Warrior who develops Duping at the expense of weapons skills what happens if you fail your Duping attempt and now you have to fight your way out?

When you compare the systems skill development you see that in RM more is more and in D&D you can get by with less in most cases.

So far they seem to be coming around, slowly for some, but their getting there.  One player has a few of the books now and builds characters for the fun of it.  That has really helped him out a lot.  He has free time.

[Prince Finnion]

I think there are two differnt situations to consider here:

1 - players do not focus on main abilities because they don't get how the system works. In this case I'm perfectly fine with direct them to more useful skills for their profession and help them understand the diferences between the systems in order to make them capable of their own decisions. A couple of one shot with different kind of characters usually help here.

2 - player doesn't care for what his character is supposed to do, he has an idea for the kind of character he wants to build and even though it's not combat-effective he thinks it's fun to play. In this case I never interfere. I once had a Druid player who built the carachter to be a "repented" druid, who was very conflicted in his connection with nature, and as a result couldn't cast any spell anymore. He was an experienced player so I didn't try to stop him, it turned out a very funny campaign, with very interesting charcters, and his broken druid more than others. Of course, this depends on your game style: if you are very combat heavy this could be a difficult approach and you may need to handle it in a more balanced way, maybe giving some advice to the player about the tone of the campaign in general.

Some of these guys are very experienced.  One wanted his Ranger to be mute.  The Barbarian wanted to be mute.  I allowed a concession with the Ranger that he not be mute, but perhaps has damaged vocal cords as he needs speech to cast.  I did not allow the Barbarian to be mute because I already had one, plus he is the most noob at the table and we all want more RP from him, as a mute that would be difficult.  Now we have issues with the mute Ranger and the Barbarian sees how it affects the game.

As for my game, yes it's combat heavy because I set them in the Third Age of Middle-Earth in the kingdoms of Arthedain, Cardolan, and Rhudaur.  The three were formerly Arnor.  So there's civil wars and war with Angmar.  There also lot of politics.  Three very different kingdoms with interests in each other, Rivendell and the interests of the Elves, Isegard and Saruman, and big brother Gondor not far off, plus the Misty Mountains right there.  I even threw the Shire into the politics of Arthedain.  There are criminal organizations, clans, spy networks, the Great Plague, evil warlords, two warlocks, evil cults, and don't forget... the Witch-King.

I give them lots of paths and let them choose, but there is always the passage of time and things that will come to pass.  Some of the players witnessed the fall of Cameth Brin to Angmar.

In short?  If they get bored it's not for a lack of preparing on my part.  I'll always be able to give them plot hooks.

[Prince Finnion]

Do a turtorial!
Start by giving them a very simple premade char and do a combat with them, startign with a movement, a bow being fired etc!
Do the same with static action ( out of combat ) pick locks, seduction etc!

I did this with 3 of the players I have now, but it was a few years ago.  It was a lvl 5 group that I made as diverse racially as I did professionally, with a few arch-types.  At the end of session 1 there was a murder trial by combat almost followed by one of those "let's take it outside and settle this like men" situations.

It was AWESOME!

[Spectre771]

<...>

What happened was that after lvl 0 and lvl 1 development he had invested just 1 rank of BD and just 2 ranks of weapons skills.  Mathematically his max possible hits would have been 12.

<...>

One player mentioned that he needed Duping to be maxed because he might need to talk his way out of some situation.  I agree that its a useful skill, but I pointed out that if you're a Noble Warrior who develops Duping at the expense of weapons skills what happens if you fail your Duping attempt and now you have to fight your way out?

When you compare the systems skill development you see that in RM more is more and in D&D you can get by with less in most cases.

It's OK for the Barbarian to max out Seduction and the Noble Warrior to max out Duping... however, those PCs should also have a primary weapon maxed out, and Body Dev maxed out as their primary means of survival are front line fighters absorbing a good hit or two while dealing out damage.  This is something they'll learn after playing several sessions and perhaps losing a PC to a crit and rolling up a new one. 

Even with a very low amount of DP  (30-31 DP), there are plenty of DP to max out those three skills, plus points towards Maneuver in Armour, Sense Ambush, Stunned Maneuver.  As Duping and/or Seduction aren't my primary means of survival, I'd probably invest only 1 rank per level in those secondary skills as they are, well... secondary.

You hit the nail on the head with D&D/Pathfinder vs. RM.  There is a difference between buying a talent that allows you to "do this now" vs. developing and practicing and training in a skill to get better at it.  RM is more like "learning a skill and bettering yourself" where D&D/Pathfinder just unlocks a talent you can now use as succeed/fail vs. target #. 

My players are starting to come around more and more each session we do.  The biggest challenge for you is keeping them engaged and feeling like they are accomplishing goals with the low stats they have so far.  Gradually let the PCs realize they need to buy more ranks in their primary skills to really succeed and that the secondary skills add the seasoning to the stew.  Keep the NPC's with similar stats to their PC counterparts for now.  When they realize that it's taking 5, 6, 7, rounds to kill two level 1 rats, they'll invest a little more into primary weapon skill before taking on the level 5 skeleton or buying more Seduction. LOL.




There is a background option from the core rules that allows a player to have x# of ranks in a secondary skill or one chosen by the GM to reflect the player's background.  (That's close to the exact wording, I'll look for it when I get home tonight.)  That's something you could offer to the player.  5 free ranks in Seduction, or +10 to Duping, something like that would help the players.  They could use the background option without sacrificing precious DP on secondary skills.


* - just popped into my head... The Dancer profession could very easily be played as a Barbarian.  The description is that of a Martial Artist or fighter and not solely "a dancing parson."   The cost for Seduction is obviously going to be very low, but the primary weapon category is decent and the Martial Arts skills are also decent.  If you allow the optional skills of Tackling or Wrestling (cost as Martial Arts), the player wouldn't feel hemmed into punch/punch/kick.  My daughter rolled up a dancer a couple of weeks ago and has done a few sessions and did really well in combat and still had the Seduction, Dancing, Tale Telling skills well developed.

[intothatdarkness]

Personally I think PF is handling the situation just fine...after all it is his game and he's the one who knows what feel and balance is going to work best in that game over the longer haul.

Given the way RM works, the Barbarian can pick up Seduction later...after he's survived a few scrapes because he actually has some HPs and weapon skills (and can spin some good stories about those scars...). However, if the game is combat-centric the reverse is not often true. Maxing seduction at the expense of weapons and HPs just means there will be more mourning tavern workers at the character's funeral. And if you use the core optional rule Hurin and I were discussing above the PCs will still be able to balance both areas reasonably well.

[Bruce]

Wait, in the title wouldn't it be "Advice" instead of "Advise"?
I normally don't speak up on grammatical errors but in this case the words really are not interchangeable.

[OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol]

I normally don't speak up on grammatical errors but in this case the words really are not interchangeable.

More like an orthographical error. That and "its"/"it's", "there"/"they're"/"their" or "he's"/his" are even more blatant grammatical errors. Yet, do you know how many people not only don't know the differences, they don't even care? For some reasons, everyone would agree that someone who doesn't know basic mathematics (1+1=2) is a moron, yet not knowing basic grammar is apparently fine…

[Nightblade42]

+1 OLF.

I am always amazed when someone pronounces that a 1D10 is a single "dice" 

It makes me want to die 

Nightblade ->--

p.s. sorry for the bad pun… 

[OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol]

It makes me want to die 

Roll that die over your grave?

[Nightblade42]

It makes me want to die 

Roll that die over your grave?

Something like that… 

[Prince Finnion]

Quick update, or correction actually

While discussing this topic with the group or was brought to my attention that I got a very key fact wrong, which would've prevented much of this discussion. The Barbarian in question did not invest in Seduction. It was Animal Husbandry, to which his brother in law explained that he couldn't marry his horse.

[Spectre771]

Quick update, or correction actually

While discussing this topic with the group or was brought to my attention that I got a very key fact wrong, which would've prevented much of this discussion. The Barbarian in question did not invest in Seduction. It was Animal Husbandry, to which his brother in law explained that he couldn't marry his horse.

   Who's to judge?  As long as the horse is of age and isn't being forced into marriage...

[netbat]

You can lead a horse to...
Wait, nevermind.

[Prince Finnion]

A bit of an update here.
But need to address something first: I really did misspell Advice... smh

And no back to your regularly scheduled program.

I should state here that this is as close to a sand box campaign as I can build for them.  They can go where ever they want and they can do anything they want to do.  This is a blessing and a curse.  You'll see what I mean.

There have been a few interesting updates to this campaign.  The original idea, FROM THE PLAYERS, was to be members of a mercenary army.  This lasted 2 sessions... Thanks for asking me to build a great campaign only to have them trash it.
Two of my players stopped playing, one because the system is to complicated for him and the other to chase women (He's 20 and is also the above mentioned character that wanted to marry his horse).  These were the only melee classes in the group so our Beast Master decided to switch characters.  THIS meant their motive of transportation left the group too.  So if you saw another thread I started I was looking for help with hireling and shipping costs.  Yeah, all that work went to waist too.  Now he's an Armsmaster with ridiculous DB.
Our Bard was very unhappy with his Bard, which can be difficult to play plus he was expecting a D&D Bard, so now he's playing a Duelist with a psychotic temper back ground.
Re-enter our melee player who wanted to marry his horse three months later (side note: he never caught any of those young women he was chasing) who is a Bashkar BTW.
Our Magician thinks he has the answers to all life's questions (in and out of character sometimes) and constantly gets into trouble.  He's currently being held by a local temple for meddling in affairs WAY above his head.  I'm really looking forward to this next session!
The Ranger was trying to cast a simple healing spell to stop bleeding but fumbled, double open ended mind you, and has the background where all of his fumbles are on the combat casting chart. He cannot cast spell for another 2 months and 24 days of in-game time. But who's counting?

More to come maybe

[Spectre771]

That is beautiful!  That is exactly what makes Rolemaster... Rolemaster.  That is a fantastic story line and you can build so many sub-quests and plots off of those adventures. 

I can see the pattern developing in your players that have developed in the groups that I've had over the years.  They make their first PC and mistakenly assume that RM plays as D&D.  They find that their PC's simply can't do what they imagined they would do so they change to a new PC, usually something extremely focused (i.e.: Bashkar instead of Barbarian) and over focus on the skills they didn't have originally, then lament that they can't do anything except fight.  Eventually, by their 3rd PC and several gaming sessions of RM, they start to find the blend.

There have been a few interesting updates to this campaign.  The original idea, FROM THE PLAYERS, was to be members of a mercenary army.  This lasted 2 sessions... Thanks for asking me to build a great campaign only to have them trash it.

Yes, I've had players do that to me as well, but don't look at it as a derailment, just a separate adventure.  You don't need to lose the work you've already done, just find a way to work the group back into your original story line.  Perhaps the group that hired the mercenary army saw that the Jack-of-all-trades approach didn't work and now they want the Hammer-and-anvil approach with a frenzied over the top Bashkar and a psychotic Duelist.  I've come to make my campaigns more of a skeleton framework with some meat to them and the players end up writing the rest of the campaign for me.  You'll never plan for every eventuality because the players come up with ideas you never thought of, so I go with it.  I work their actions into my skeleton of a campaign and end up with a grand adventure that the players helped write.  They feel more invested in the story because they actually are shaping the world with their actions and don't feel like passengers on a train just doing each stop you have planned out for them.

  THIS meant their motive of transportation left the group too.  So if you saw another thread I started I was looking for help with hireling and shipping costs.  Yeah, all that work went to waist too. 

Yes, as we get older, a lot of things go to our waist, however don't let all your hard work go to waste. 

p.s.:  Did the horse say yes???