Author Topic: Starting a long term group for RM/MERP  (Read 4021 times)

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Offline Sjattuh

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Starting a long term group for RM/MERP
« on: November 18, 2016, 09:04:03 PM »
2 years ago I was reminiscing about my early teen years (20+ years ago) and how my friends and I started to play FRP. We started with MERP 2nd Edition, but quickly ran into the 10 level limitation and found our way to RM 2nd edition. The famed box containing Character Law and Campaign Law, Arms Law & Claw Law, and Spell Law.

For several years we explored the world off Tolkien laying waste to orcs and trolls using this genius gaming system. What I really liked about that time is that we kept playing together, the same group, for all those years and my friends barely changed chars. We played up to level 50's and got really involved. I always GM'd the games so it was really fun to see my friends get attached to their chars and started to create more and more around them. I remember a big deal about them (after great fortunes had been obtained) wanting to buy a house in Tharbad and the 4 of them spend weeks (if not months) discussing where in Tharbad, purchasing it, discussing what they wanted from the house, and eventually drawing it all out.

2 years ago I browsed the internet a little and found Fantasy Grounds - and was stunned. After researching it more I ended up with roll20 and played for a while with a Pathfinder group. A big community. They have multiply games daily. But I never really liked it there and they way they ran things. First off - it wasn't Rolemaster... And second - every game was with other people. Never the same group.

What I would like is to find some people who love RM and Middle-Earth. And who would like to start at level 1 and stick with their chars for many many adventures. Building them up from lost little puppies into kings and warlords.

The setting:
We shall use the old RM 2nd edition books and play according to those rules (with some custom adjustments). The world will be Middle-Earth somewhere in the 5th Era. So no running into Frodo or Sauron. I pick this Era (with a minor adjustment that all the races are still plenty represented and e.g. Orc's are "friendly" and accepted in some areas - but still absolutely not in others and of course there are still many evil Orcs out there) because for me it isn't about Lord of the Rings. LotR got me hooked to fantasy and will always hold a special place in my heart - but I want to play in Middle-Earth, all of it. Not just the small portion of it that was used for LotR. And this Era will give me freedom. In the end of the 3rd Era we would have to consider the situation as it was.

RMU - I am very interested in this and if the party would like to try we can, together, figure out the new rules, once the final release comes out, and transfer our chars to this new system. I think it might be wise to for new content and so forth.
I have just recently obtained the RM2 books again and am studying them very hard. I remember a lot - but also realise that as 11 year old Dutch kids we got some of the rules wrong. I am not worried about this the least bit - I will need some runs to get used to GM'ing anyways and during these first few sessions you guys can point out the few small details of the rules I might've missed.

What to expect?
I always believed that the people going out looking for adventure, crawling into Troll caves to find treasures, exploring ruined fortresses searching for a mad sorcerer, and agreeing to protect a valuable heirloom being transferred right through Harradrim invested territory to be people with a little extra.

An average person would not so quickly jump into these occasions, but someone who has stood out all his life just might...

To translate this into the chars I am very generous. I don't mind having people using all their stats for development points. I would prefer we use a set group of numbers to assign to the stats (and I mean high numbers, e.g. 2x85, 4x90, 2x95, 2x100). And so forth - although this all would be discussible as a group, it has my preference and I shall explain you why.

And to keep the chars interesting I have no issues with rebuilds (just as long as it stays in line with any background story you might've made and anything that happened during the campaigns (e.g. if you won a price for archery and are known and famous for it, it would be weird if your rebuild has no archery skill...)).

The above is my "in game" explanation to why I want this (apart from the last sentence - I can't justify this in game :) ) - now the real reason. I think that for a good GM it doesn't really matter how skilled or unskilled a group's chars are. He should be able to provide entertaining and challenging games either way. But - having chars with a lot of skills will create for a lot more situations. If absolutely no-one can pick a lock (not by hand or by magic) it will take a situation as followed out:

The party has broken in into a keep to steal a magic orb and right after they obtained it they get caught by the guard. A small fight breaks out that k.o.'d the groups Thief/Scout. As the group hears more and more guards screaming they pick up the thief and make a run for it. While they transcend down deeper and deeper into the Keep they also hear (more and more) guards closing in. They make a left into an unlit hallway and at the end... a locked steel door. No worries - we have a Thief with +40 lock picking... who is knocked out. Ok, mage you're up! If you had some mana left...

These are situations I like to create and so the more skills, the more flexible I can be.

My friends and I never really were heavy roleplayers as in actors or speaking with thee and thou. We roleplayed a little and they tried to react as how their chars would react but we spoke in our normal voices using our regular words. If you do like heavy roleplaying I have absolutely no problems with this - in fact, I'll enjoy it! I'm just telling you this so you don't expect me to be some genius voice imitator...

If I can find a group of players who would like to be in a game like this, where they will have a lot more "freedom" to create and level their char's and they like to get attached to their chars, I can promise you I will put a lot of my time into creating adventures.

What do I expect?
As a group we will set times and dates to play. And something can always happen that hinders someone last minute. We are, most likely (else we would be playing WOW), adults and have life's, partners, and responsibilities. But what I really disliked in my, previous mentioned, time at this Pathfinder community is that people kind of were only half invested in the sessions. They had to be called each and every time it was their turn, we could see them chat away in the community's chat, they asked way to many times 'my turn? ok what happened?'.

So for the hours we play (and I know a big part in this comes from me making the games run smooth and keep them interesting) I would really appreciate people being busy with only the game.

I hope you understand what I am trying to say - I won't get angry and start kicking people out for helping their partner a couple of minutes during a session, but when this happens constantly its just annoying.

Playing times, dates and frequency?
I am all open for this. We would have to discuss this as a group, together. I am European based so I think it would be best of we all are. But no objections against a night owl from the USA or an early bird from Australia.

Miscellaneous:
I would like to have 4 players.
3-4 hour sessions seem to be the right amount
No racism, porn, constant swearing, or fighting please...
I own ultimate licences on both Fantasy Grounds and Roll20 - I only really know Roll20 but a great guy (whom I meet through these forums) has been helping me a lot with the game and showed me Maptools
So whatever platform the group prefers doesn't really matter to me
As mentioned - I really like it when I see my players are involved in their chars, but this is of course not a set thing. I won't demand 12 page background stories e.g.
Everything is discussable as a group.

I am Dutch, 37 years old, and a RM addict

Enough for now - hope to meet you soon.

Offline bpowell

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Re: Starting a long term group for RM/MERP
« Reply #1 on: November 20, 2016, 01:09:21 AM »
What days are you looking to play.  I an be a night owl (I am in the US).  But only on certain nights.  Also, I only speak English, and some poor attempts at other languages.

-BP

Offline Sjattuh

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Re: Starting a long term group for RM/MERP
« Reply #2 on: November 20, 2016, 06:21:47 AM »
Most definitely English.
Days we will have to decide as a group. It makes no difference to me, I will adjust my schedule to it.

Offline Warl

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Re: Starting a long term group for RM/MERP
« Reply #3 on: November 20, 2016, 11:28:11 AM »
time is an interesting thing.

When you say a Night owl in the US? And a early bird in Aussi.... I am confused about what general time you are looking at.

For instance.
6pm in Amsterdam is 10am in my time zone (mountain), and would be noon in New York.
That would be an Eveing game for you.
Where as if we were talking starting at noon our time, that would be 4am My time and 6am in New York.

Earlier than that would definitely call it Night owl Mode for for some in the US, but still more closer to an early bird.

Where as for Aussi, 6pm your time would be 1am in the morning in Aussi, so depending on start time it, it would be anywhere from late afternoon, eveing, to night Owl for them. If we stuck to day time hours for you.
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Offline Sjattuh

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Re: Starting a long term group for RM/MERP
« Reply #4 on: November 21, 2016, 02:15:37 PM »
I was being quite general. I'm European based.

Offline bpowell

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Re: Starting a long term group for RM/MERP
« Reply #5 on: November 21, 2016, 07:25:38 PM »
time is an interesting thing.

When you say a Night owl in the US? And a early bird in Aussi.... I am confused about what general time you are looking at.

For instance.
6pm in Amsterdam is 10am in my time zone (mountain), and would be noon in New York.
That would be an Eveing game for you.
Where as if we were talking starting at noon our time, that would be 4am My time and 6am in New York.


Strange, I am also in Mountain time.  Where are you from Warl?

-BP

Offline Sjattuh

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Re: Starting a long term group for RM/MERP
« Reply #6 on: November 22, 2016, 11:12:37 AM »
I'm not Amsterdam time... I'm +2 hour from Amsterdam.

Offline JUNKdeLUXE

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Re: Starting a long term group for RM/MERP
« Reply #7 on: November 22, 2016, 02:15:09 PM »
I would be very much interested in this little endavour :)

I love Rolemaster and have been playing it (almost solely) since I was was 15ish. Today I'm 37. I absolutely love Tolkien's stories and have read Silmarillion and LotR a couple of times.

I, like You, am not the biggest roleplayer/actor but I love "living" the character, if that makes sense. I have tendencies to min/max within the givin' ruleset, but I would never metagame.

I've never tried these "online" tabletop games, but I've wanted to dive into it for some time now, as my usual bunch of RP buddies (same group I started with) have gotten kids, married, careers etc and we only meet 3-4 times a year now to roll some die.

I live in Denmark and as such I believe we're in the same timezone, so that would probably not be a problem for me. I don't own a microphone (not sure if that's needed) but I can get one should it prove a disadvantage.
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Offline ChaosTribbles

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Re: Starting a long term group for RM/MERP
« Reply #8 on: November 24, 2016, 03:08:20 PM »
Sounds fun.  I'd like to join.  I'm UK based.

Offline VladD

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Re: Starting a long term group for RM/MERP
« Reply #9 on: November 24, 2016, 04:49:48 PM »
Waar woon je, Sjattuh? Ik heb een twee-wekelijkse game: RMU in MERP in Enschede op Zaterdag. Je bent altijd welkom, al is het maar om een keer te kijken. We zoeken al geruime tijd een extra speler ;)
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Offline Sjattuh

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Re: Starting a long term group for RM/MERP
« Reply #10 on: November 25, 2016, 07:22:47 AM »
Waar woon je, Sjattuh? Ik heb een twee-wekelijkse game: RMU in MERP in Enschede op Zaterdag. Je bent altijd welkom, al is het maar om een keer te kijken. We zoeken al geruime tijd een extra speler ;)

Ik ben 11 jaar geleden naar het buitenland verhuist :( - en voor die tijd woonde ik in Nijmegen. Maar bedankt voor je aanbod!

Offline VladD

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Re: Starting a long term group for RM/MERP
« Reply #11 on: November 25, 2016, 10:53:04 AM »
ah bah! Jammer. Ik kan helaas niet mee doen met je FG/Roll20 game.... Succes!
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Offline Peter R

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Re: Starting a long term group for RM/MERP
« Reply #12 on: November 25, 2016, 01:06:12 PM »
Am I the only one copy and pasting the Dutch into Google translate just to be nosey?
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Offline Warl

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Re: Starting a long term group for RM/MERP
« Reply #13 on: November 25, 2016, 01:36:31 PM »
Am I the only one copy and pasting the Dutch into Google translate just to be nosey?

No, your not  :P
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Offline Sjattuh

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Re: Starting a long term group for RM/MERP
« Reply #14 on: November 26, 2016, 02:45:31 PM »
Oh I'm sorry. He said he lives in Groningen and has a game twice a month that I am welcome to join. I told him thanks, but I moved abroad and even if I still was in NL we would be to far apart.

Offline Warl

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Re: Starting a long term group for RM/MERP
« Reply #15 on: November 26, 2016, 11:50:03 PM »
lol ya I know, it doesnt bother me :-) i just translate it :-)
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Offline Peter R

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Re: Starting a long term group for RM/MERP
« Reply #16 on: November 27, 2016, 03:20:18 AM »
Same here, I just try and guess what it says first and then run it through Google translate to see how close I was. I got about 3 words.
 :)
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Offline bpowell

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Re: Starting a long term group for RM/MERP
« Reply #17 on: November 27, 2016, 07:23:20 PM »
I must be totally non-curious.  I figured that if I was supposed to know they would translate it to either English or the like.  Also, figured I might get made if i knew what they were saying so I ignored it.  8)

Actually, guess I was not that curious.

-BP

Offline twilightson

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Re: Starting a long term group for RM/MERP
« Reply #18 on: March 17, 2017, 05:48:28 PM »
Funny thing is I thought only me, my cousin and our friends went from MERP to RM. We played often, but once I hit 19 we parted ways and I have been heavily into online since because I have been trying to recapture the experience. The highest level we ended with was a 36th level alchemist. I would be interested I would just like a few questions answered so message me when you get a moment. Thank you.

Offline Appolyon

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Re: Starting a long term group for RM/MERP
« Reply #19 on: April 15, 2017, 05:28:57 PM »
I'd be interested in this game.  I have a fair amount of experience with RMSS, but little experience with Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds, but I'm aware of what they are.  Please send me a message.