Author Topic: The lightest possible set of rules  (Read 9434 times)

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Offline Peter R

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The lightest possible set of rules
« on: May 05, 2016, 04:02:07 AM »
Three times a year I pack up all of my campaign world, game notes, character sheets and rules and cart them half way across the country by train to run a long weekend of gaming for my players. We are spread all over the UK and one or two players who live fairly centrally play host. For this reason I am really keen on minimalising everything. As the campaign continues the game notes expand. I don't run a railroaded game so I have to be prepared for the players to go off at a tangent.

The two things I want to minimise are:
a) The rules in play
b) The time lost through rules look ups

These are obviously connected.

Where I am right now is that I have junked 99% of all the companions after Companion 1. I am only using one RM2 profession (Warrior Mage) because one player really wanted to play that profession). I am using the rules of for deity specific clerical spell lists and that is about it from the other companions.

I have replaced Arms Law with the combat companion. That has improved combat speed beyond recognition. I have tried combat minion but didn't get on with the trial version.

I have copied all of the charts I use most frequently into a single PDF which I have on a tablet to give me a single quick reference for RR, BAR, initiative, MM rolls and DB modifiers etc. That is a 12 page PDF and replaces the GM screen.

I have given every spell caster copies of their own spell lists as part of their character sheet so they do not have to reference Spell Law as often.

I am using the cinematic healing as detailed in RMU.

What else can I do in an existing game to minimise time lost over my precious weekends to looking up rules? Are there further simplifications I can slip into the game that the players will not notice but will speed things along?

I know there are loads of things I can do if I rebooted the game but that is not an option now. The PCs are all 3rd level and making good progress towards 4th.
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Offline Malim

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Re: The lightest possible set of rules
« Reply #1 on: May 05, 2016, 07:31:34 AM »
I am a player in our setting.
To take work load of using books and the GM to be mister know it all, we do this:

I manage all weapons , spell tables nad base attack list for most players, GM handles crits still.
I made spell books for most players so they have their complete lists and description of spells.
That made things happen alot faster.
Our GM made a book for him self with all tables in it instead of swapping between 9 books!

Sir Elor Blacke knight of Helyssa, Kytari Fighter lvl 25 (RM2)
Malim Naruum, Yinka Lord Bashkor lvl 27  (RM2)

Offline Witchking20k

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Re: The lightest possible set of rules
« Reply #2 on: May 05, 2016, 08:11:24 AM »
I use RMX & a one page document of backgrounds options.  One of the background options allows you to become a semi-spell user. and develop one skill list as 10 for a fighter and 5 for a thief.  The Semi-Spell user can build their own spell list using the Open Spells fro either Essence or Channelling.  The rest of the Backgrounds are the standard +5 Primary Skill/+15 Secondary Skill etc found in MERP.  Creates just enough diversity without being encumbering.

For the purpose of light gaming RMX/MERP are my games of choice.
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Offline Peter R

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Re: The lightest possible set of rules
« Reply #3 on: May 05, 2016, 08:52:30 AM »
I am a player in our setting.
To take work load of using books and the GM to be mister know it all, we do this:

I manage all weapons , spell tables nad base attack list for most players, GM handles crits still.
I made spell books for most players so they have their complete lists and description of spells.
That made things happen alot faster.
Our GM made a book for him self with all tables in it instead of swapping between 9 books!

Thanks, I agree giving each player all their spell lists made a big change for us. I don't like delegating combat to a player, it can be a bit of a spoiler. I had an illusionist that would make it appear that he was wearing AT20 full plate but it was purely for show. If anyone attacked him he was actually AT1 and that would have been given away immediately if someone else was consulting the combat charts. The same can happen if someone has an unusually high DB.

My custom PDF probably serves the same purpose as your GMs book and probably had the same stuff in it.
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Offline Peter R

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Re: The lightest possible set of rules
« Reply #4 on: May 05, 2016, 08:58:56 AM »
I use RMX & a one page document of backgrounds options.  One of the background options allows you to become a semi-spell user. and develop one skill list as 10 for a fighter and 5 for a thief.  The Semi-Spell user can build their own spell list using the Open Spells fro either Essence or Channelling.  The rest of the Backgrounds are the standard +5 Primary Skill/+15 Secondary Skill etc found in MERP.  Creates just enough diversity without being encumbering.

For the purpose of light gaming RMX/MERP are my games of choice.

I have never used RMX and the only two people I know using it are you and Kwickam. If I was going to completely change system I would probably go with HARP now. I bought myself the rules for Christmas so I have the rules already. If my players are not keen on HARP then I would start my house ruled game which is based on everyone being No Profession, fixed DPs and is level-less. I don't want to junk this campaign though as the players are just settling in to their characters.
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Offline Peter R

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Re: The lightest possible set of rules
« Reply #5 on: May 05, 2016, 09:02:37 AM »
Do other GMs here use a player character backgound questionnaire? The sort of thing about the characters motivations, what would they sell their soul for and that sort of thing?

That is something else I have scrapped as it was the accepted norm i our groups to have to fill out one of those for your character. I have with just a first impressions post-it note now.
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Offline Malim

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Re: The lightest possible set of rules
« Reply #6 on: May 05, 2016, 09:11:56 AM »
The GM can ofc himself use tables if he has surprises!
But it takes a huge load of him that i do the tables normaly!
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Offline jdale

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Re: The lightest possible set of rules
« Reply #7 on: May 05, 2016, 09:16:44 AM »
Do other GMs here use a player character backgound questionnaire? The sort of thing about the characters motivations, what would they sell their soul for and that sort of thing?

That is something else I have scrapped as it was the accepted norm i our groups to have to fill out one of those for your character. I have with just a first impressions post-it note now.

Normal practice for us is to write up a character history as prose. No structured questionnaire, but same purpose. I think this is because we are mostly LARPers and our LARPs require character histories that way.
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Offline Malim

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Re: The lightest possible set of rules
« Reply #8 on: May 05, 2016, 09:17:40 AM »
We do a character background story. With goals etc..
And reward it wirh 5000 Xp if its good!
Sir Elor Blacke knight of Helyssa, Kytari Fighter lvl 25 (RM2)
Malim Naruum, Yinka Lord Bashkor lvl 27  (RM2)

Offline Witchking20k

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Re: The lightest possible set of rules
« Reply #9 on: May 05, 2016, 09:50:10 AM »
I think RMX is less of a departure than HARP as it is condensed from RMC.  However, it is not sold any moer and has a very limited scope of characters available.....  Do you use RMC or RMFRP?

HARP is great and contained in one book; it's definitely worth trying.  I just assumed you were looking at RM specifically.
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Offline Peter R

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Re: The lightest possible set of rules
« Reply #10 on: May 05, 2016, 09:59:48 AM »
I introduced a new GM to rolemaster last year so I bought all the new RMC books so he and I would have the same rules. I come from a background of MERP and then RM2 originally.
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Offline Peter R

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Re: The lightest possible set of rules
« Reply #11 on: May 05, 2016, 10:04:43 AM »
I think RMX is less of a departure than HARP as it is condensed from RMC.  However, it is not sold any moer and has a very limited scope of characters available.....  Do you use RMC or RMFRP?

HARP is great and contained in one book; it's definitely worth trying.  I just assumed you were looking at RM specifically.

The other advantage, to me, to HARP is HARP SF. I have managed to lose all my Spacemaster rules in a house move or such. I bought HARP SF at the same time so I now have a single coherent system in HARP for all of time and space. I imagine the Spacemaster revision of RMU is years away.

Right now though we are playing pretty much RMC rules as written apart from the RMC combat companion combat charts and modified versions of those that I wrote myself.
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Offline Witchking20k

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Re: The lightest possible set of rules
« Reply #12 on: May 05, 2016, 10:07:17 AM »
I switched back to MERP after years of RMSS (then HARP).  We played MERP for about a year.  Then switched to RMX because its the same "weight of game" but with the RM skill system.  The appeal of RMX was using the good aspects of RM (specifically the skill system) with the MERP modules. RMC, RMX, and MERP are largely interchangeable. 

So, is your goal everything you need to play in a single book?  Or, having the rules trimmed down a bit (less charts and lists)?
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Offline Peter R

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Re: The lightest possible set of rules
« Reply #13 on: May 05, 2016, 10:44:07 AM »
It is kind of everything.

All my rules are now PDF. Those that I could not buy in PDF format I have scanned and OCRed just the pages I use. These are now on a tablet. I use lots of creatures that are not in Creatures and Treasures so I have them all in PDF format too. All of that is on a Tablet I use at the gaming table.

I have made combat as efficient as I believe I can using the condensed combat system without resorting Combat Minion. The only change I have made to that is that I scanned and imported the combat tables into Word and re-wrote all the descriptive text (the location and damage effects all remain the same) for the criticals for swords, bows and short blades. The only 'flaw' in the condensed combat system is that the same criticals come around too frequently especially when everyone is wielding similar weapons. I swap between my criticals and the published criticals for each session. I ran a combat with 5 PCs, an NPC and 18 Kobalds last session just using two pages which I had facing each other on paper. There was no page flipping at all.

Every character has all their spell lists printed out as part of their character sheet. Spell Law used to be a bottle neck as everyone tried to see what spell they should prepare next. Every one of the PCs and NPC is a spell caster. That removed that bottle neck.

I don't use the uber skills list from RoCoII just the secondary skills from ChL and RMC Companion 1. That cut out a lot of looking up of skills and made levelling up a bit quicker.

I normally level people up before play starts if they are close to or just over the level break point.

I gathered together all the most commonly used charts into a single PDF in place of the GM screen and that cut out most of the page flipping for skill resolution, MMs and RRs.

Are there other parts of RMC that can be simplified to speed up play that I have missed or are there other techniques GMs are using to speed up play.

I was given one suggestion the other day that I am going to try this weekend. For each NPC I have added a post-it note saying what spell they will cast first, then second etc., or what is their primary attack/tactics. The idea being that at a glance I can see what they are about to do without having to start checking spell lists. That should I hope move some of the effort into my prep time and out of the game session.

I also prefill all of those Gamemaster Summary sheets with every creature/NPC that they are likely to meet and a selection of the most common random encounters so I have all those stats to hand.
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Offline Witchking20k

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Re: The lightest possible set of rules
« Reply #14 on: May 05, 2016, 11:05:06 AM »
I do something very similar- I use a single melee and missile attack chart & use some revised crits based on the MERP/RMX crit tables.  I've just added in a few more to spice it up a bit.  The use a single column MM table and general SM table.  RR TNs are standard based on the spell level.

I do use the MERP combat round though. Mostly because it's easy to keep track of multiple actions and reduces the time for rolling initiative. 

If you're suing RMC then you could trim the skills down dramatically- I use a sub skill system where you use the numerical value of either the Medium, Hard or Very Hard Column as a bonus to a similar skill.  I found this encourages creativity too.  For example: having a +85 in Sword skill gives you +60 Swashbuckling skill (using the medium column). 

I also eliminated spell casting rolls, and adrenal defence rolls by applying "prep" peanlties
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Offline Peter R

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Re: The lightest possible set of rules
« Reply #15 on: May 05, 2016, 01:21:17 PM »
I have stripped out all the skills I didn't feel added anything to the game and added in the RMU Vocational Skill. I am happy with the skills as are my players.

I find the Gamemaster Summary Sheet speeds the game up. It gathers together all the combat stats of every PC, NPC and monster into a single reference with precalcuated OB and DBs including parrying.

Are there other sheets in any of the books that I have missed that people find useful?
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Offline Witchking20k

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Re: The lightest possible set of rules
« Reply #16 on: May 05, 2016, 02:27:27 PM »
I pushed to do pre calculated DB/OB splits too.  The players resisted.  So, what do you feel slows it down?
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Offline Malim

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Re: The lightest possible set of rules
« Reply #17 on: May 05, 2016, 03:10:26 PM »
I find the Gamemaster Summary Sheet speeds the game up. It gathers together all the combat stats of every PC, NPC and monster into a single reference with precalcuated OB and DBs including parrying.

Sounds like you play the game with your self ;)
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Offline Peter R

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Re: The lightest possible set of rules
« Reply #18 on: May 06, 2016, 02:35:49 AM »
I find the Gamemaster Summary Sheet speeds the game up. It gathers together all the combat stats of every PC, NPC and monster into a single reference with precalcuated OB and DBs including parrying.

Sounds like you play the game with your self ;)

The strength of those sheets is that many encounters that you are 99.9% will result in combat or similar (such as attempting to evade) you do not need the full creatures stats and descriptions. In this coming weekend the villain has a guard dog that is trained to attack and it is possible we will have a 'Smythers, release the hounds!" moment. I know what a dog looks like, the players know what a big dog looks like so I don't need to reference C&T to get the stats as I have already have them in front of me as a single line of numbers. Another encounter that is likely to happen is 4 skeletal guards. There is no negotiation with them so again it is likely to be into combat but everyone knows what they look like. The delay in finding the correct page in C&T adds nothing to the game. It took about 2hrs to sit there with Excel putting the numbers and notes in for all the new creatures that they could possibly meet. I hide the rows of ones they will not meet so what I am left with is a printable sheet, one row for every creature so I can record hits taken and bleeding etc. I can then print that off before the game session. I am only ever adding new creatures they have not met before or copying rows dow to build new encounters.

We meet infrequently but play for many hours (the game will start about 5pm today and go on until Sunday afternoon), we will get about 25hrs play in in the next three days. The long months between sessions means that political/investigation types games do not work well for us as we cannot retain the clues or make the connections in what has been minutes or hours for the PCs but 4 months for us. This means that the games are more character play and combat oriented. I, as a GM, model my combats on James Bond/Hollywood movies. Meaning that if you think of the typical JB finale the hero will likely escape his cell killing his guard, meet two more guards in a corridor, another on the stairs, one foe comes from each side on a gantry before being cornered by four guards which he takes out by blowing up a gas cylinder and so on. So in total there were five encounters and 10 opponents interspersed with skill checks to open doors, perception rolls to avoid guards, stalking, MMs  to leap from one place to another, and so on.

My adventures are demanding on PPs because rather than one epic battle where the players can just unload all their big gun type spells in a barrage they really need to pace themselves so they still have something in the tank when they do finally face down the bad guy.

So in such a combat centric game I need combat to be slick, which I think I have achieved. It is a magic heavy game in a high magic world. Every one of my players is playing a pure (1), Hybrid (2) or Semi (2) spell user. I think I have made that as slick as I can by giving the players all their spell lists straight from SLaw and moving the BAR tables to my GMs PDF. I use a limited list of broad skills to reduce the number of looking up to check skill descriptions in the rules and pouring over character sheets to see if they have the right skill(s). I use the RMC alternative static action table for skill resolution, again from my GMs PDF. I have familiarised myself with my NPCs strengths and tactics and have a post-it quick reference on each sheet so I can get into character.

I think the question is, is there anything else I could do?
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Offline Malim

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Re: The lightest possible set of rules
« Reply #19 on: May 06, 2016, 04:25:00 AM »
It was mostly a joke though.. It was because you wrote you had all the PCs stats so they dint need to do anything them self :)
Sir Elor Blacke knight of Helyssa, Kytari Fighter lvl 25 (RM2)
Malim Naruum, Yinka Lord Bashkor lvl 27  (RM2)