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Does anyone still play this game? It was very big in the mid 80's and 3.5 seemed like a classic rolemaster lite in many ways.
I am sure it wouldn't take to much to do a conversion of many of these rules for 3.5 and the crit charts would work much like the gamemastery deck that is coming out.
I am just wondering if anyone has tried this yet and what complications this has caused?
It's funny you should say that, because I was distracted from attempting such a conversion when the crit deck came out.
It's going to be a lot of work, and I had come to the conclusion that rather than patching the two together, I would be better off building my own D&D crit tables from the d20 hit roll onward, using the Rolemaster tables as a reference.
Also, I would probably just program it instead so that I could let my computer do the crit roles for me. Meshing the severity (A,B,C...), and the hits seemed like a real headache.
I say this because the last time we played Rolemaster we had the whole thing on computer and it worked great--sped the whole game right up--it was almost as fast as 3.5--AND I REALLY LIKED IT.
well, I love Rolemaster and SpaceMaster, and still have a lot of stuff for it; but we have not played it in about a decade. I would be up for a game :)
Sigh!
I really miss Spell Law.
I converted the rolemaster crit tables for use in D&D back in the late 80's and still use them in my 3.5 games today. I use the results of the crit confirmation roll to determine which critical category to use (A,B,C, etc) and have modified all of the critical descriptions to better fit D&D rules.
My players seem to love the rules, even though they know the tables tend to favor their enemies.
well, I love Rolemaster and SpaceMaster, and still have a lot of stuff for it; but we have not played it in about a decade. I would be up for a game :)
Yes, I loved Spacemaster and still have my battered boxes of the RPG, Armored Assault and the Space Combat game. The space combat game particularly was very good. I ran a Spacemaster campaign for about 4-5 years in the early 90's and everyone liked it. I have all my old campaign material and notes carefully preserved in a box in my garage.
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I just noticed that ICE is re~releasing, with a few modifications, the "classic" rolemaster game. My problem is with the cost. So if I spend the $40 a hard bound book (they don't print in China) I wont be able to purchase $4E (what a loss) I just was wondering how hard the conversions would be. Since I will still be using Pathfinder for the setting, and also if OGL conversions would be wanted and warrented. I couldn't stand Shadow world but love ROTRL as a setting.
Yes, I loved Spacemaster and still have my battered boxes of the RPG, Armored Assault and the Space Combat game. The space combat game particularly was very good. I ran a Spacemaster campaign for about 4-5 years in the early 90's and everyone liked it. I have all my old campaign material and notes carefully preserved in a box in my garage.
Rolemaster was ok, but I hated Spacemaster. That was one of the most frustrating games ever...you get hit by a stunner which manages a crit, any crit, and you die (because next round you are stunned, you get hit by another stunner blast, you are stunned for some extra rounds, continue until not moving).
Our campaign dried out quickly when people started to avoid any combat, which of course is quite sensible approach to life but not particularly good for RPGs, especially such rules-heavy RPGs as Spacemaster.
well, my spacemaster game involved a lot of ship building and ship to ship combat and exploration; I set my game in the near future with mankind just leaving the solar system and having the first documented alien encounter so we didnt have any problems like the stunner one you are describing; there was battles with pirates and corporate thieves, but still; nothing like you describe. I dont really see how it is different from dying in Rolemaster; sheesh the bleeds could be a killer crit and many of the other crits were just instant death; played a few straight mages and most fights were over before i could even get a spell off; still like the games though.
The only Rolemaster I played was using the simplified MERP rules, expanded/hybridized with Spell Law. Even the simplified rules were pretty complex. Each action (even as simple as moving from one side of a room to the other, it seemed) required at least one, if not two or three, dice rolls to perform, which might be opposed by an opponent's roll... not to mention the unbalancing effects of criticals. After a few sessions, and looking at the full Rolemaster rules set, I decided that it was more trouble than it was worth.
I still use Spell Law and some of the MERP supplements as idea sources, but that's about it.
Yeah, I guess spaceships and such might work well in Spacemaster, the personal combat was a pain. Worse than Rolemaster...Sure, instant deaths happened in both but it really took the taste when you get hit by a stunner with some measly A-crit rolling 20 or something, get stunned for two rounds, after that you are easier to hit resulting to, say, C-crit...which will make you stunned for five more rounds etc.
There was no equivalent of this snowball effect in Rolemaster, that whoever manages to get first stuncrit in wins the fight, no matter what the crit actually is. Probably realistic, but soooo boring.
I just noticed that ICE is re~releasing, with a few modifications, the "classic" rolemaster game.
Cool. For me anyway.
There was no equivalent of this snowball effect in Rolemaster, that whoever manages to get first stuncrit in wins the fight, no matter what the crit actually is. Probably realistic, but soooo boring.
The PCs invented an automatically dispensing stunstim dispenser that took care of that problem. It hooked into a medical sensor and dispensed stimulants when certain conditions triggered it.
We had such fun with that game....
me too; sigh, remember when Dragon magazine was more than just a D&D rag and they had stuff for lots of game systems; sigh, the good old days; you would think that since they had run so many ICE advertisements that they would have put in a put of game support.
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me too; sigh, remember when Dragon magazine was more than just a D&D rag and they had stuff for lots of game systems; sigh, the good old days; you would think that since they had run so many ICE advertisements that they would have put in a put of game support.
You would have thought that, wouldnt you?
Does anyone still play this game? It was very big in the mid 80's and 3.5 seemed like a classic rolemaster lite in many ways.
I am sure it wouldn't take to much to do a conversion of many of these rules for 3.5 and the crit charts would work much like the gamemastery deck that is coming out.
I am just wondering if anyone has tried this yet and what complications this has caused?
Hi I played rolemaster 2nd ed. (is it classic now?) & spacemaster for a long time. After a while I ended up running some pbem online campaigns as I no longer played in a 'in person' setting.
I found success copying key charts and keeping them on hand and also putting some things on computer.I never really converted rules, but i did take some elements from other games, such as spells and creatures and gave them rolemaster levels and bonuses by balancing up with things of similiar level and write them into the campaign.
Some of the rolemaster systems for creating characters and game play I adjusted after playing the game on many occasions i naturally saw areas that could be tweaked.
Haven't done any online rolemaster gaming for a few years now but I still have all the materials. Itd be fun to get back into it sometime!
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I have played rolemaster and spacemaster. i was a bigger fan of spacemaster, there was ways around the stunners mentioned earlier. I am not a big fan of the rolemaster spells at all which is why I liked spacemaster much better.
Now with that all said as someone that has stayed up on ICE and such to clear up a few things.
Rolemaster 1st ed and 2nd ed was more or less the same thing. Rolemaster classic is indeed a edited and mildly fixed 2nd edtion.
Rolemaster express is a very simplied version of RM more along the ways of MERP though i never played it but what I heard.
HARP is a varition of RM simplied, streamlined even more than MERP was from what I hear.
Then you have RMSS and RMFRP which was when ICE noticiebly changed RM and core aspects of it. Some loved it and some hated it.
Spacemaster used RM2 core rules and built of them, the new Spacemaster Privateers uses the RMFRP rules.
Now to the original question of the OP. Yes I have done it before, there is a few ways to handle it depending how much math you are willing to do. the easy way is just use the A crit for all crits you would normally score in D20, though I would recommend checking out HARP for this since it already has a single crit chart (no A, B ect just one longer chart). The other way to do it and the way we did it is, pick a number that suits you are your group 3-5 is common and each time you break that you do a higher level crit.
Example Leafstern the fighter swings at a smuggler. He needs a 13 to hit him. If he gets a 13-17 He just hits and does normal dmg. If he rolls a 18-22 he hits and does a A crit, 23-27 B crit and so on. This rewards skilled fighters as the better you are the more likely you are to do crits. Then you can have things like improved crit just lower the margin number down. (so in this case it would go from a 5 to a 4 for that PC)
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I have played rolemaster and spacemaster. i was a bigger fan of spacemaster, there was ways around the stunners mentioned earlier. I am not a big fan of the rolemaster spells at all which is why I liked spacemaster much better.
Now with that all said as someone that has stayed up on ICE and such to clear up a few things.
Rolemaster 1st ed and 2nd ed was more or less the same thing. Rolemaster classic is indeed a edited and mildly fixed 2nd edtion.
Rolemaster express is a very simplied version of RM more along the ways of MERP though i never played it but what I heard.
HARP is a varition of RM simplied, streamlined even more than MERP was from what I hear.
Then you have RMSS and RMFRP which was when ICE noticiebly changed RM and core aspects of it. Some loved it and some hated it.
Spacemaster used RM2 core rules and built of them, the new Spacemaster Privateers uses the RMFRP rules.
Now to the original question of the OP. Yes I have done it before, there is a few ways to handle it depending how much math you are willing to do. the easy way is just use the A crit for all crits you would normally score in D20, though I would recommend checking out HARP for this since it already has a single crit chart (no A, B ect just one longer chart). The other way to do it and the way we did it is, pick a number that suits you are your group 3-5 is common and each time you break that you do a higher level crit.
Example Leafstern the fighter swings at a smuggler. He needs a 13 to hit him. If he gets a 13-17 He just hits and does normal dmg. If he rolls a 18-22 he hits and does a A crit, 23-27 B crit and so on. This rewards skilled fighters as the better you are the more likely you are to do crits. Then you can have things like improved crit just lower the margin number down. (so in this case it would go from a 5 to a 4 for that PC)
Thank you.
Big rolemaster fan, and we played a 20 session campaign of it up to about 18 months ago
It does urban grit very very well, and i like its spell system
never used it much for 'high adventure'
it has some cracking classes in it, esp in compnaion 2 and 3
we intend to return to the urban campaign sometime next year i hope, party are about 8th level at the moment.
I love Rolemaster. HARP has better class and magic systems, in my opinion, but you just can't beat Rolemaster's combat and skill systems.
Of course, I'm one of those filthy heretics that prefers RMFRP to 2e/Classic.
Never a big fan of RMFRP but I do love some of the concepts they through in there.
And the best part of Rolemaster are critical hit tables!
Repeated or ridiculously specific-- 'boil water' and 'repair broken nose' come to mind.
It was an amazing game overall, but wow... some people really didn't have any sense at all of when a detail wasn't worth observing.
There is a guy who is working on making Rolemaster usable for D20.
Project Wombat is Arms Law Critical hits and the d20 game.
Project Marmot is Spell Law magic system and the d20 game.
I don't know why chose the names project wombat and marmot but the work he has done so far is very interesting.
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Rolemaster was my primary system for the better part of 15 years
I have complete sets of RM classic, RMSS and RMFRP on my shelves
I even have Spacemaster, Spacemaster Privateers, and The initial HARP books.
Left the system after the edition warriors succeeded in bringing back RM2
Been considering Hero 5th, Hero 6th, BRP and Savage worlds as my next main systems
Rolemaster was my primary system for the better part of 15 years
I have complete sets of RM classic, RMSS and RMFRP on my shelves
I even have Spacemaster, Spacemaster Privateers, and The initial HARP books.
Left the system after the edition warriors succeeded in bringing back RM2
Been considering Hero 5th, Hero 6th, BRP and Savage worlds as my next main systems
Favorite systems that are hard to find players for anymore:
1st: Hero system (Fantasy Hero)
2nd: GURPS
3rd: RoleMaster - have all the 10 or so companions ;)
I love point system/tailor your own character games. You make your own spells with the games power frameworks!
And yes, in non high adventure/power ratings, these systems meant that you actually had to take combat seriously or a bunch of nobodies could take you down.
There is an active group of Fantasy Grounds users that are updating and playing Rolemaster using the FG VTT.
Funny I should read this, I just got invited to play in a rolemaster game. I guess some still do play it.
Repeated or ridiculously specific-- 'boil water' and 'repair broken nose' come to mind.
Actually the very specific healing spells made sense with the RM's critical hit tables - if single spell would heal all the critical effects then the variety of possible critical strikes would be pointless anyway.