Topic: Races

[Sneast]

    Ok so I am new to this Rolemaster game so my apologies ahead of time... if I don't use the correct terms or because of my lack of knowledge !!    I'm wanting to create a character and finding it difficult to get a chart or full listing of all playable races with their stats.   According to the Classic  theres 11 races & then with RMFRP there is 12.     So again can anyone provide me the list of 12 races & there stats?   Thanks I would really appreciate it !!! 

[Majyk]

RMFRP Core rules have a partial list on Pg 13.
RM Classic looks like Pg 46.
Character Law is where you'll want to go for the rest in most cases.
If not, the stats for each Race is on the top left margin of each page and easily copyable.

RM2 had a RM Companion 1 that we'd always use.
Another had PC stats for every single Monster and Race in the game, if memory serves...

Races and Cultures was another ok rehash of earlier work.


"We do not stop playing because we get older.
We get old because we've stopped playing!"
-Bernard Shaw

[jdale]

For stats, see the books. It is fairly significant to figure out whether you are using RMSS/RMFRP or RM2/RMC. RMSS and RMFRP are close enough you can borrow back and forth with no real issues, but are different enough from RM2/RMC that going across that divide is more awkward.

RMSS core book includes: common men, mixed men, high men, wood elves, grey elves, high elves, half-elves, dwarves, halflings, common orcs, greater orcs, half-orcs

RMFRP core book includes: common men, high men, wood elves, dwarves, halflings
RMFRP's Character Law adds: common orcs, greater orcs, grey elves, half-elves, half-orcs, high elves, hillmen, mariners, nomads, urbanmen, woodmen

Not enough?
RMFRP's Races & Cultures includes: centaurs (horse, lion, lizard), droloi, dwarves, elves (wood, grey, high, dyari, erlini, linaeri, loari, shuluri), fey (dwelfs, satyrs, tylweth teg, lennai), garks, gnomes, goblinoids (goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, murlogi), gratar (black, green, grey, yellow), half-elves (eritari, ky'taari, punkari, sulini, vorloi), halflings, half-orcs, hira'razhir/hirazi, idivya, jhordi, men (common, high, mixed, laan, umli), mermen, orcs (common, greater, lesser lugroki, greater lugroki), quishadi, shuikmar, sohleugir, saurkur, troglodytes, urlocs, vulfen

There was also an Underground Races book for RMSS.

For RM2, there are a ton of races in the various Companions. Not sure what is available in RMC.

[markc]

The other thing is you may ask your GM as they may allow more or less races presented in the books.
MDC

[chukoliang]

The system you are playing in matters a lot for ICE questions. There are a couple of RMC games. There are a couple of RMSS games. Then there is HARP. Thankfullly ICE is trying to create a best of all systems RMU (or Unified system). Which should make life easier.

As Markc said you really need to talk to your GM, as part of playing RM is it's flexibility. Thus house rules may change drastically from group to group. My GM doesn't allow Dwarves and Halflings as balanced by ICE and the RM system into his games. He hates their magic saves. So he nerfed the saves and left all the minuses. Which is a disadvantaged character to say the least. On top of that he left High Elves and their super Quickness and lack of negatives unchecked. Worse of all, our Easy going GM went by our Hard Cores GM's rules and we could never really enjoy Dwarves or Halflings in our game. So certain races may not be allowed by your GM.

I wasn't really able to confirm this Dwarf/Halfling prejudice (as he would argue the rules) until I purchased a Character recordsheet book from ICE. It is fabulous if you have questions as it has many race/class character sheets all set up for printing. Which was great for confirming Dwarf conspiracies in my case  .  Or for helping you to make sure you are understanding the character race creation math. As it puts all of your races stats and bonuses, development stuff on that sheet. It even has the racial saves etc factored in. A very nice book to have, especially if your new to RMSS. As it just confirms what you are learning.

If you don't have that, there are some programs that will create your character for you. I think there are some links to it somewhere on these forums. 

As far as the races Mayjk had that covered. RMSS has a ton of them. One of the many reasons I love it. I play RMSS and I have most of their source books if not all of them. This is great as it gives many races, but there is a book that allows you to create your own races. It has campaign power levels and helps you to design races that fit into those types of campaigns.  Some bird men and other races were examples. So with your GM you can create any race that he deems balanced for his world's power level.

Sorry if no one was able to help you with your question. The problem is you need to know the system and what races your GM allows. The best thing to do is to get a friend who plays Rolemaster to guide you through making a character. Sadly many RM GM's seem to like to intimidate players new to RM. Either they don't like the person or think intimidating them will impress them. But all it does is scare them away and make it seem harder to do than it actually is.

Just remember this, it seems hard at first. AD&D seemed impossible when I was trying to teach myself to create a character. But once someone showed me it wasn't that hard. Well Rolemaster is actually easier. As you only deal with % dice. Or 1-100. And everything in the character creation process is helpful. With the stats you do, your GM could make a nose picking skill and you could look at your stats and categories and know your roll for it. And then everyone else playing could do the same thing and easily calculate their nose picking skill  . It is truly a fantastic system that lets you do whatever you want. But sometimes that ability to do everything makes learning things very tough.

If you have no friends who play RM to help you create a character, I would hope someone has videos of how to make a RMC, RMSS, or HARP character on youtube somewhere. Fantasy Grounds is a system for playing many tabletop games online. They often have videos on youtube and may have one on how to make a RMC character for FG. As they have a RMC ruleset for their game.