Author Topic: Rolemaster blogs  (Read 11395 times)

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Offline Inez Hull

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Rolemaster blogs
« on: October 31, 2014, 05:20:14 AM »
Even though Rolemaster is my RPG of choice I find myself spending a lot of time cruising OSR/DIY D&D blogs due to there being such an active community generating a lot of gameable content. I'm wondering if anyone can recommend some blogs or websites with a Rolemaster focus. In aware of the ICE webring however many if the sites there are old and inactive

Offline Peter R

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #1 on: October 31, 2014, 07:22:08 AM »
Have you checked out the guild companion?
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Offline Inez Hull

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #2 on: October 31, 2014, 09:37:00 PM »
Not recently but I was a subscriber to their old monthly newsletter which often had some great content. I wasn't aware it was all that active now, what with them publishing ICE material and all that!

Offline Inez Hull

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #3 on: October 31, 2014, 11:02:58 PM »
In fact I think I imagined that and simply that I regularly checked the site in the past

Offline Peter R

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #4 on: November 01, 2014, 02:52:34 AM »
You can check out the discussion on the latest issue http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=15434.0
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Offline Colin-ICE

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #5 on: November 01, 2014, 02:59:13 AM »
Have you checked out the Iron Crown blog? http://ironcrown.com/iron-crown-enterprises-blog/

It doesn't have that much 'gameable' content on it, but I want to start moving it in that direction.

What sort of things would you (or anyone else) be looking for? It won't happen over night but it is definitely on my list of things to do.

Offline Inez Hull

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #6 on: November 01, 2014, 03:55:16 AM »
The OSR / DIY D&D scene has a number of blogs regularly posting fleshed out house rules, campaign generation tools, small adventures and maps. There's enough stuff to run whole campaigns off. Obviously there's much more people playing D&D, even "retro" versions, and I'm not expecting the same from Rolemaster players. Perhaps it's the fact that a whole bunch of people are blogging content arising from or developed for there active games. Hit a certain critical mass and it starts to inform itself. I'm looking to start a blog which will contain some Rolemaster content and I'm keen to see what others are doing and link to other sites once things get rolling. A whole lot of rules discussion happens on these boards, perhaps what I'm looking for is where do people actually put there money where there mouth is and post developed material rather than just ideas. That possibly sounds critical and it isn't intended to, I think I'm just mourning that Rolemaster doesn't have the same "scene" around it as DIY D&D. I think Rolemaster could attract a lot of interest in the old school crowd and I'd like to be taking a part in trying to make those links

Offline jdale

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #7 on: November 01, 2014, 10:36:06 AM »
To some extent, I think the problem is feedback. We have a section in the forums for people to post about their own worlds and settings, but the number of responses is low. There's surprisingly little response to Guild Companion articles, which include Peter Mork writing about his own setting.

I'm not sure of the cause. It's got to be at least partly that we tend to make our own settings, and therefore don't need anyone else's. But I think more engagement would encourage more content. Certainly the RMU forums shows that there are enough people with opinions on the forum to maintain good discussions.

None of which is intended to discourage you from contributing your own work, whether on the forums, in the Guild Companion, or in a blog...  I do suggest that if you use a blog, you also post about it on the forums, if only to drive traffic.
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Offline Cory Magel

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #8 on: November 01, 2014, 03:23:22 PM »
Just my personal guessimate...

...but I suspect a large number of RM users are using their own home-brew world or a 'professionally' published world that they've been using for a long time.  As a result they really don't pay much attention to other peoples creations and/or only pay any real attention to a the published world that they've been using.

Again, just my opinion, but existing RM users tend not to be the norm.  We tend to be more self sufficient.  For example, I'll use my own settings.  I'll steal things from other settings or books, but I won't use them as wholesale.  So I don't really comment much on other worlds.  I like Robert Defendi's setting and I like the Shadow World setting, but I'm not going to use them, only steal bits and pieces from them.

But you have new gamers or younger generations that are probably more likely to buy in to a pre-generated setting... hence you'll see more discussion about them elsewhere.
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Offline Peter R

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #9 on: November 02, 2014, 05:23:53 AM »
I also think that the population here specifically are all GMs with active games and players. They are disinclined to publish material that will effectively be spoilers for their own players.

If on the other hand a GM has finished a campaign and could share it they are more likely to be planning and developing the next.

I am running a game right now that is based upon old style D20 modules which I am converting over and this is the first time I have used someone elses material since I first discovered MERP and bought the settings modules.

I suspect that because RM characters are very much hand crafted, our end of level bosses so to speak are also hand crafted to be exactly the sort of villain we want them to be that lends itself to attracting the sort of GM that likes to build everything themselves.
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Offline jdale

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #10 on: November 02, 2014, 12:06:30 PM »
So does this mean we are more interested in the mechanics than the ideas alone? E.g. I might not use your race, but I might be interested in how you assigned costs etc so I can adapt it more easily. I'm less interested in your theory of magic, and more interested in the spell lists and items that I can fit to my magic theory. Etc.
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Offline Peter R

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #11 on: November 02, 2014, 02:20:59 PM »
So does this mean we are more interested in the mechanics than the ideas alone? E.g. I might not use your race, but I might be interested in how you assigned costs etc so I can adapt it more easily. I'm less interested in your theory of magic, and more interested in the spell lists and items that I can fit to my magic theory. Etc.

Neither and both, surely? Depending on who you are, what you just read and what you are looking for?
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Offline jdale

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #12 on: November 02, 2014, 02:38:38 PM »
While "it varies" is probably a true answer, I am wondering what will attract the most interest, and inspire the most discussion? Given that the current material does not inspire as much discussion as some would like.
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Offline Peter R

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #13 on: November 02, 2014, 03:11:14 PM »
I was thinking about this this morning. If I were to write a rolemaster blog what would I write about and the answer is I don't know. I have two half finished guild companion articles what I intended to have finished two months ago so that doesn't bode well and they both relate to material that has spun off from the campaign I am running. I didn't give myself a hard deadline for writing them until I sounded out my players to see if they used these forums, which they don't, and I wanted to run the sessions with them before I published anything they would not know.

I am about to embark on my first ever foray into pbp rolemaster but the GM who does use these forums doesn't want us to share anything about our adventures as each player is a solo character at present. That would be a potentially interesting topic and ongoing making it prime blog material but is also a non starter out of respect for the GM.

I have never played in two games with the same rules for example our GM has made stunned maneurver far more powerful but you can only parry with the 'skill' element of your OB not your level bonus, stat or item elements and all minuses are applied as a percentage to your skill bonus not the total skill. That is a bit of mixed bag of house rules but fighters now wade through fights mostly ingoring stun from criticals and the minuses from torn muscles and tendons etc.

Balancing a fight for that game is a totally different thing to my game where I generally try to stick fairly closesly to the RM2 rules. My house rules tend to be about streamlining play and speeding up combat. Another GM we have all played with is a stickler for absolute accuracy and if there was a combat with 4 PCs 10 npc armed escorts and 50 orcs he would roll every single attack against every single orc and npc and you could make the tea and drink it between attacks.

I would be reticent to publish adventures or even wholely developed NPCs for another persons game.

So I really do not know what I would blog about if I was put on the spot.
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Offline Peter R

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #14 on: November 02, 2014, 03:29:13 PM »
Another issue is whether just because I found it interesting woud anyone else find it so? I fear the answer is probably not.

If I was really put on the spot to produce regular content for something like a blog or the guild companion then I would probably start by taking a town and breaking it down into minute detail so one month you introduce the town guards, who they are, their stats and their relationships to each other and other town residents. The next month you look at the market place and the traders there. Who deals in stolen goods, who is paying off the guard to look the other way, who has contacts with the thieves or the magical community. The third month you look at the magic users in the town, who has a dark side, who likes to help the guard with investigations and who is amenable to helping adventurers.  The idea falls down though when you hit the churches as religion varies so much from game to game and world to world. A town in Gondor will be worshipping in a totally different way to one in Emer.

I think I could develop a town 'live' like that bit by bit over the months, producing NPC descriptions and stats for well over a year and the town could be used by most people or an NPC lifted out to be used as needed. One could drill down to floor plans of guild buildings or even notable residents homes or detail every single member of the thieves guild in a sort of specialised Heroes & Rogues. I could easily spend a year just building a thieves guild, their appartments and the members.

The question is, would it interest anybody but myself and why spend so much creative effort to create something I then cannot use as all my players will know that the +50 sword of beasty slaying is behind the umbrella stand.
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Offline Cory Magel

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #15 on: November 02, 2014, 04:01:49 PM »
What I look for is materials I can drop into my own setting using RMSS (subject to the usual individual modification).  So I don't give a hoot about mechanics or game rules.  I know what system I want to use and I have my own setting.

The first thing I want?  Good maps.  Buildings and towns/cities mainly or smaller area/region maps that can be dropped into my own world without disruption.  I own large vinyl maps of Ptolus, Neverwinter, one (of a name I can't remember) that is a round city in a desert setting and a heavy paper version postermap of Ankh-morpork.  I have the Eidolon box set from Shadow World.  Plus I have loads of JPG format maps.  I have a large Helms Deep map file I need to get printed someday.

The second thing?  Localized plot ideas (that are not world impacting or can be ignored if they are) and maybe some NPC's related specifically to those plot ideas.  I don't need details on the local shopkeeper unless he's relevant to the plot.

The second thing?  Graphic representations (artwork) is nice, but not required.
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Offline Peter R

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #16 on: November 02, 2014, 04:32:17 PM »
I quite like having shopkeepers detailed out. If I am put on the spot all of a sudden the world gets too many 'Bobs' and 'Burts'. If the players are going to visiting a town often or even based there then they can strike up relationships with some shopkeepers they visit often as well as the landlords of taverns. If they develop an afinity with a particular normal person then you can always put that person in the firing line to add a little twist to an otherwise run of the mill fight or have them play some other significant role even if it is just vouching for the PCs good character to the guard. If everyone is as equally well detailed then the players cannot identify the important characters just because they have personnalities. "You walk into the bar, there are 15 or 20 people of no consequence and an evil looking guy with a leather waistcoat, riding chaps and a scimitar on his weapon belt."

It feels like all my players will visit every bookseller they get wind of as well as fletchers, blacksmiths, they use stables, visit taverns and try and use serving girls. They normally try and talk to gate guards either when entering a town or if they get near any castle or defended property. I generally do not have 'magic shops' but they will always try and find herbalists and apothacaries and they also use messanger boys or runners.
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Offline Inez Hull

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #17 on: November 03, 2014, 04:34:59 AM »
Peter R I think the key is just to write what you find interesting and useful and a readership will develop (or not!) based on that.


For me I find that there is already plenty of non Rolemaster resources out there for generating non specific campaign content such as npc motivations, tavern names, wandering encounters, city generators etc. Whilst things being statted out for Rolemaster helps, as observed above any two Rolemaster games may vary considerably in power level.

Personally I'm more interested in house rules that have been tested in game and people then putting their observations out there. Kinda like the guild companion actually, I guess i just wish there was more of it!

If/when I get my blog up I aim to post a mix of D&D and RM stuff. On the RM side I'll look to discuss my thoughts in detail on some of the sacred cows of  RM and how they could be addressed differently.

Offline Peter R

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #18 on: November 03, 2014, 05:22:57 AM »
That is all true enough, I manage a financial services blog and it took us two years to build up a readership of just 1,000 readers a month and that is on a blog hosted on a 2million visitors a year established site on the same topic.

Most blogs fail because the blogger runs out of ideas and in the early days they get very little feedback so it can feel like you are talking just to yourself.

I think RM suffers because the userbase is not massive but that userbase is fragmented between half a dozen rule sets that are not entirely compatible. Putting in the stats for RM is one a do it once and forget effort. I certainly do not own all the rules in all the flavours and I do not even have all the rulebooks in my preferred flavour of RM2. As a group we sort of stopped buying things after the core rules and the companions. There seem to be a lot of other books that I have never seen. At our last session we ended up discussing the Spell Users Companion but none of us owned it. There was a optional rule that appartently lives in that book that a player wanted to use. If it is available in pdf I may consider buying it.
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Offline John @ ICE

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Re: Rolemaster blogs
« Reply #19 on: November 03, 2014, 08:33:56 AM »
We were debating this internally in spurts, and I have a basic question - why a blog?  Why not the forums? just start a topic when you do have a creative idea and get the juices flowing there.  Look, we don't have a large user base, so I would be worried we are sending people to multiple sites when it can all be hosted here in a "one-stop-shop".   we have the ability to post any fan generated material and social media it so people know it exists as long as we are notified.  Hence I am very reluctant to go to a blog much beyond the one Colin runs for news-like notifications and the occasional musing.  But...

What do you all think? ???
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