Author Topic: How much do you customize your game ?  (Read 11093 times)

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Offline intothatdarkness

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Re: How much do you customize your game ?
« Reply #60 on: October 09, 2017, 11:36:21 AM »
My fear is that people will shy away from a system which on the one hand requires so much preparation time for the first play session and then is also a quite deadly system.
Anyone remember that character creation is one of the things RM critics picked on?  Even if the new system, as a whole, is less complex (which I am not remotely convinced of) if people don't get past character creation it's a moot point.

Sure, but that doesn't mean your first level character should be unplayable. And we had that happen during playtest. Sorry...any system that forces you to develop to level three or five in order to be playable is broken. I agree RMU character creation isn't less complex than RM2, especially if you went RAW and ignored most of the Companion stuff.
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Offline Hurin

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Re: How much do you customize your game ?
« Reply #61 on: October 09, 2017, 02:08:31 PM »
This is very true.  The main reason I never went to any newer version of RM from RM2 was the amount of money I had already invested in the game.

I always wondered why the RM2 people never took the RMSS train. I never played RM2, only RMSS, but from what I heard since, RMSS seems to have improved the game on a lot of core areas.

I'm curious to know if the majority of people hold onto RM2 because of their "investment" in the game at that point or if it is because the rules were so different that they chose to continue playing the game they were accustomed to.

My own opinion on RMSS can be summarized by a quote sometimes attributed to Samuel Johnson, supposedly when reviewing a book for publication: "Your manuscript is both good and original. But the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good."

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Offline Hurin

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Re: How much do you customize your game ?
« Reply #62 on: October 09, 2017, 02:13:06 PM »

Sure, but that doesn't mean your first level character should be unplayable. And we had that happen during playtest. Sorry...any system that forces you to develop to level three or five in order to be playable is broken. I agree RMU character creation isn't less complex than RM2, especially if you went RAW and ignored most of the Companion stuff.

That's why I really like the idea we were discussing on the RMBlog. There should be an option for quick character creation, especially for the playtest (but also for the final game for those that want it). Each class has a 'standard build' at level 1, which uses all 60 development points. So if you choose this quick build option, all you do is pick race and class, roll for stats (unless you just want to take a 'standard array'), and you're ready to play. Only at level 2 do you start buying skills individually. This is similar to the way DnD works now, in order to walk players through the creation process: only at level 2 do you start to choose customization options.

Note I am not suggesting this should be the default rule in RMU; I personally will still want to allot every single development point by hand. But I know players in my group would be happy to just be able to pick race and class and start playing, if they had that option. So I think it is good as an optional rule, and essential for a playtest packet.
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Offline Peter R

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Re: How much do you customize your game ?
« Reply #63 on: October 09, 2017, 04:32:55 PM »
The bit that Hurin is referring to is way down in the comments. The comment was by BriH http://www.rolemasterblog.com/well-sir-wouldnt-start/#comment-1521 that is a direct link but I would suggest that you read the whole kit and caboodle just because strangely the discussion Cory and I were having above was running in parallel on the blog.

http://www.rolemasterblog.com/well-sir-wouldnt-start/

If you really have too much time on your hands that post was actually my response to one of BriH's earlier posts which you can read first... here... http://www.rolemasterblog.com/rmu-mission-accomplished/

This whole thing then started my train of thought that lead to my experiment than I mentioned above.
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Offline Dragonking11

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Re: How much do you customize your game ?
« Reply #64 on: October 10, 2017, 07:30:05 AM »
A lot of good discussion going on here

With all that being said, I can see why RM as a game system may have appeared overly complex or just plain scary to new players (in the past or even now) as we are ourselves, as veteran RM players, unable to agree on which version to use.

A new player coming to the forum for info won't be able to decide if he should invest ($$$) in RMC or RMSS for example as we are so much divided. He may then decide to just try another game system instead.

That is what I think ICE aims to achieve with RMU by promoting it heavily (when ready) and by discontinuing past editions completely.

ICE probably knows that the success of RMU will depend on getting new players to play it and not by having "old timers" such as ourselves converting to it.

But this is only my educated guess ... who knows what really is ICE's strategy behind it all (if any).

Offline Peter R

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Re: How much do you customize your game ?
« Reply #65 on: October 10, 2017, 08:04:52 AM »
A lot of good discussion going on here

With all that being said, I can see why RM as a game system may have appeared overly complex or just plain scary to new players (in the past or even now) as we are ourselves, as veteran RM players, unable to agree on which version to use.

A new player coming to the forum for info won't be able to decide if he should invest ($$$) in RMC or RMSS for example as we are so much divided. He may then decide to just try another game system instead.

That is what I think ICE aims to achieve with RMU by promoting it heavily (when ready) and by discontinuing past editions completely.

ICE probably knows that the success of RMU will depend on getting new players to play it and not by having "old timers" such as ourselves converting to it.

But this is only my educated guess ... who knows what really is ICE's strategy behind it all (if any).

I would go so far as to suggest that we are nothing more than an insurance policy. If RMU does not gain substantial numbers of new players then they will need the existing user base. We, however, are not the future.
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Offline jdale

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Re: How much do you customize your game ?
« Reply #66 on: October 10, 2017, 02:59:09 PM »
I don't think you can reach new players without having old players to carry the torch to them. If you don't care about that, you create a new game with a new name. ICE has, of course, already done that with HARP, and it would be pointless to try to repeat that strategy with RM.
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Offline Peter R

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Re: How much do you customize your game ?
« Reply #67 on: October 10, 2017, 03:23:42 PM »
I don't think you can reach new players without having old players to carry the torch to them. If you don't care about that, you create a new game with a new name. ICE has, of course, already done that with HARP, and it would be pointless to try to repeat that strategy with RM.

Does that work? I think in 30+ years I have introduced 2 new GMs to RM. I am pretty much still playing with the same group I started out with in the 80s. Even the blog mostly preaches to the converted despite my best efforts. Granted I am a statistical sample of just 1 and I may be statistically abnormal, that wouldn't surprise me either way.

It sounds like a pretty big cohort of existing players do not intend to migrate to RMU at least until there is more supporting material available, if at all. That leaves some slim pickings if you want to rely on word of mouth recommendations.
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Offline jdale

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Re: How much do you customize your game ?
« Reply #68 on: October 10, 2017, 03:46:36 PM »
None of the players in our existing RM games had played RM previously. Mind you, some of them have now been playing RM for a long time, and some of them joined us recently.

There was a time when I bought new games just because I thought they were interesting, way more of them than I ever actually played. But that was a long time ago. Do you think most people adopt a new system now because of a random encounter with it on a shelf in a store, or based just on social media exposure?
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Offline Cory Magel

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Re: How much do you customize your game ?
« Reply #69 on: October 10, 2017, 07:06:57 PM »
I don't think you can reach new players without having old players to carry the torch to them. If you don't care about that, you create a new game with a new name. ICE has, of course, already done that with HARP, and it would be pointless to try to repeat that strategy with RM.
How did RM become popular in the first place?  Granted, MERP can be pointed at, but it's really a 'Light' version of RM2/RMSS and without such an obvious beacon would it have reached one of the top RPG's of its time back then?

The existing customer base hasn't been pulling in enough people for a long time. What makes you think they will now?

Quote
None of the players in our existing RM games had played RM previously. Mind you, some of them have now been playing RM for a long time, and some of them joined us recently.
We have the same story really.  We were very experienced RPGers and actively went looking for an alternative to D&D.  However, firstly, how common is that today in a younger demographic?  Secondly, when long time RPG gamers see a new RM is out, and start making the same comments about it they did before, what then? Nothing has changed in this scenario except that we're all older.

Quote
There was a time when I bought new games just because I thought they were interesting, way more of them than I ever actually played. But that was a long time ago. Do you think most people adopt a new system now because of a random encounter with it on a shelf in a store, or based just on social media exposure?
RPG web sites and Social Media (maybe you're lumping those together) and maybe true game stores.
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Offline rdanhenry

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Re: How much do you customize your game ?
« Reply #70 on: October 10, 2017, 07:17:30 PM »
If existing RM players and GMs do not move to RMU until there is a lot of support material, then where is the support material going to come from? The money is not there to put employees on the job, or that would have been done for the core game, which would have then been done much sooner. The support material must be written by freelancers. Experienced RM GMs revising material to the new edition are the most promising source for those freelancers.
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Offline Cory Magel

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Re: How much do you customize your game ?
« Reply #71 on: October 10, 2017, 11:49:54 PM »
This is the dilemma RM faces.  You pretty much just described what happened from RM2 to RMSS aside from the core books.  RM is still in the same situation it was back then (or worse), it's just now being run by people with better business morals.

I will say that I trust the new ICE to actually pay people the royalties they are owed.  Most the RMSS material was written under the promise of getting paid more (but then they didn't actually GET paid by the old ICE).  The problem this brings is that you need people that can create good material do so and not have it aimed at a specific personal viewpoint of RM while understanding they are mostly doing it for the love of it or the exposure (and you're not going to get a professional to do something free for mere exposure).

If I either had the spare time to dedicate to this kind of thing, or the ability to live off the income doing it full time, I'd still be writing for more than just my own groups consumption.  I also do very enthusiastically encourage those with the ability to do so to write for RM and ICE in general.

But RM is in the same position it was before and I'm not so sure the current path is different enough to expect better results.
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Offline Peter R

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Re: How much do you customize your game ?
« Reply #72 on: October 11, 2017, 06:26:38 AM »
None of the players in our existing RM games had played RM previously. Mind you, some of them have now been playing RM for a long time, and some of them joined us recently.

There was a time when I bought new games just because I thought they were interesting, way more of them than I ever actually played. But that was a long time ago. Do you think most people adopt a new system now because of a random encounter with it on a shelf in a store, or based just on social media exposure?

If you followed #RPGaDAY2017 the question asked on 3rd of August was How do you find out about new RPGs?

If you search for that day's answers then you will have the answer to where people find out about new games.

In the 80s I would buy games, more games than I ever played.
In the 90s I didn't buy any games at all, I was busy with family, kids and work.
In the Noughties (2000-2009) I mainly bought or downloaded 'Lite' versions of games and normally for free.
In the Teenies (2010 to present) I download pdf quickstart packs. Theses are always free and everything I need to get up and playing inside an hour. I can then play and keep or play and bin. I select those quickstart downloads based upon the recommendations of bloggers I have come to trust.

The only full games I have bought the rules for in the past 10 years have been a complete re-buy of RMC and all the HARP books.
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Offline Peter R

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Re: How much do you customize your game ?
« Reply #73 on: October 11, 2017, 07:03:09 AM »
If existing RM players and GMs do not move to RMU until there is a lot of support material, then where is the support material going to come from? The money is not there to put employees on the job, or that would have been done for the core game, which would have then been done much sooner. The support material must be written by freelancers. Experienced RM GMs revising material to the new edition are the most promising source for those freelancers.

This is the dilemma RM faces.  You pretty much just described what happened from RM2 to RMSS aside from the core books.  RM is still in the same situation it was back then (or worse), it's just now being run by people with better business morals.

I will say that I trust the new ICE to actually pay people the royalties they are owed.  Most the RMSS material was written under the promise of getting paid more (but then they didn't actually GET paid by the old ICE).  The problem this brings is that you need people that can create good material do so and not have it aimed at a specific personal viewpoint of RM while understanding they are mostly doing it for the love of it or the exposure (and you're not going to get a professional to do something free for mere exposure).

If I either had the spare time to dedicate to this kind of thing, or the ability to live off the income doing it full time, I'd still be writing for more than just my own groups consumption.  I also do very enthusiastically encourage those with the ability to do so to write for RM and ICE in general.

But RM is in the same position it was before and I'm not so sure the current path is different enough to expect better results.

The answer to both of these probably lies in changing the business model. There are a body of developers queuing up so produce new content for RMU, and all the existing versions if that was desirable but ICE is a closed system. I am talking about Community Created Content programmes. ICE open up just enough of their intellectual property so that independent developers can produce adventures or supplements for the games. The programme is administered via sites like OneBookShelf and they take 30% of the sales figure but do all the fulfilment. The developer gets 50% of the sales value and ICE get 20% for effectively doing nothing but also retain ultimate editorial control. They can block any product that does not meet their criteria.

They do not have to read and approve everything, they can be purely responsive and act of anything flagged by users. OBS have their own content guidelines that prevent 'bad stuff' being published.

As an example Cypher System is owned by Monte Cook Games. Cypher System products are being released by 15 different publishers in addition to Monte Cook Games. In addition to that all the independents can publish their own content under the Monte Cook Games banner. This week along I have sold supplements for John Wick Presents (7th Sea), Mongoose (Traveller) and Monte Cook Games (Cypher System). In addition to that I have sold supplements for generic/no system but the branded ones are by far the best sellers.

We (the blog crew) have 50 adventures we are queuing up to publish. They are being sold as generic/no system because we cannot add monster stats, NPC details or spells for Rolemaster because of IP issues. We cannot write an adventure for Shadow World because we are not allowed even if it was intended to take place in a no name little village in the back end of nowhere and have no repercussions for anyone more influential than a pig farmer.

In the rolemaster world there is tumbleweed blowing across deserted plains where all the creative content should be. Many other systems by contrast a bustling hives of creativity.

Have a look at this comment from the blog last week. It actually refers to Cory and I posting earlier.

egdcltd
OCTOBER 8, 2017 AT 8:51 AM   EDIT
There was discussion in the thread on the ICE forums about Paizo being a lot bigger (it is; only Wizards looks bigger) and ICE being solely dependent on freelancers. One thing that seemed to be overlooked is that, although Paizo do have permanent staff, a lot of their work is written by freelancers. Owen K.C. Stevens (who is on the Starfinder team) runs Rogue Genius Games, as well as doing stuff for Rite Publishing and Green Ronin. Greg A. Vaughan, who has written a lot of adventure path modules (he may still have written one adventure for each path) is also the Creative Director: Pathfinder for Frog God Games. Heck, for the last couple of months I have hired a freelancer who has published works for Paizo!


...egdcltd has released 146 supplements
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Offline Peter R

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Re: How much do you customize your game ?
« Reply #74 on: October 11, 2017, 08:01:28 AM »
Sorry, I was too late to modify my previous post...

Check out http://www.rpgnow.com/browse/pub/6582/Azukail-Games?affiliate_id=730903&src=ICEForum

The most interesting thing is that there is an entire section on Pathfinder and a section on Hero Kids, but sadly no Rolemaster section.
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Offline Felros

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Re: How much do you customize your game ?
« Reply #75 on: October 15, 2017, 11:35:48 AM »
I really really think that Rolemaster is intended to be a do it yourself game. All the GMs  I know, includind myself, work on rules and variations almost as much as in preparing new campaigns... And I think that´s the way it should be

Offline Bruce

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Re: How much do you customize your game ?
« Reply #76 on: October 15, 2017, 11:41:57 AM »
I will be delving into RMU when it comes out with the hopes that I can get whatever players I have at the time to try it out for a few sessions.
I will of course use it as is at first then as we play see if anything needs house rules.

I currently play HARP and have several house rules for. Most of it minor stuff that to me do not affect balance or mechanics that much. An example would be that the Magestaff spell from the Thaumaturge list is also a mage spell. I do have rules for what I call Action Marks (similar to bennies) and I have my own combat system which is in complete revision as we speak. It is sort of a combination of the RM crit tables and HARP's simplified combat system. But it works quite well. I am currently trying to find a way to get the crit system to work faster but still be variable and interesting.

I'd be curious to see what things different people like and dislike about the new RMU system. But not here.
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Offline RandalThor

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Re: How much do you customize your game ?
« Reply #77 on: October 16, 2017, 01:57:03 PM »
I really really think that Rolemaster is intended to be a do it yourself game. All the GMs  I know, includind myself, work on rules and variations almost as much as in preparing new campaigns... And I think that´s the way it should be
Not if they want to sell a lot of copies. The shift in the industry has been away from the house-ruling style, and more to the "just play" style. Meaning, more and more RPGers are wanting to do nothing but sit down and start play as fast as possible. They don't even want to take more than a few minutes to make a character. Everything that is not play is considered "work", and thusly, not fun and they don't want to do it.

And, they need to get this thing done already. It has been what, 10 years in the making? That about right? I, a die-hard Rolemaster fan am getting seriously disillusioned and frustrated, and if it takes much longer, I may not even bother getting it when it (if it) finally does come out. The longer it takes, less more I believe it is not happening.
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Offline Dragonking11

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Re: How much do you customize your game ?
« Reply #78 on: October 16, 2017, 03:14:33 PM »
I really really think that Rolemaster is intended to be a do it yourself game. All the GMs  I know, includind myself, work on rules and variations almost as much as in preparing new campaigns... And I think that´s the way it should be
Not if they want to sell a lot of copies. The shift in the industry has been away from the house-ruling style, and more to the "just play" style. Meaning, more and more RPGers are wanting to do nothing but sit down and start play as fast as possible. They don't even want to take more than a few minutes to make a character. Everything that is not play is considered "work", and thusly, not fun and they don't want to do it.

I agree that in order to attract new players, the system must absolutely be playable as is without having to houserule core features such as character creation or combat.

When I was young, I was thrilled to pass hours upon hours thinking how to tweak the rules and coming with my own way of doing things ... now I much prefer to have other people do it for me (others as in a gaming company I paid money for their products)

Offline Spectre771

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Re: How much do you customize your game ?
« Reply #79 on: October 16, 2017, 03:33:37 PM »
I don' think that the mark of a "great"  or even a "good" game, any game, any format is... "I can't wait to house rule it to make it work."  If I buy a game, I want it working out of the box.  I don't want to have to wait for a patch, a fix, late-post-beta testing, or a Day-0-fix.

If I plunk down cash for RMU, I don't want to house rule it before I can play it.

Obviously just my 2c on the topic.  I can see later on down the road, something's not quite right or it doesn't fit well with your group and you make a small house rule, but it shouldn't be a day-0 house rule.

After 30+ years of RM2, we have simplified initiative to something I don't think appears in any Companion (House Rule 1), and for Hobbies, we allow players to cut the DP cost of two digits for a skill or skills (House Rule 2).  Since we start all players at level 5, that method makes a more balanced PC rather than "4 ranks and 2 ranks" in skills and due to the number of optional skills available from all the Companions, the lower cost in DPs allows players to grab some of those new skills.

Starting players at Level 5 isn't really a house rule, we just like to start at a slightly higher PC level.  The weekend campaign I'm running, I'm starting players at level 1 on Friday, but there will be 4-5 one-offs that will have the players all at level 5 by Saturday morning to get into the Grand Campaign.

30+ years RM2  --->  Two (arguably three) house rules

We limit all magic to only Elemental Companion.  Could that be a considered a house rule or it's just the magic that exists in our gaming world? 
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