Rolemaster

Rolemaster is a table-top role-playing game published by Iron Crown Enterprises. Rolemaster has come in four separate editions. The 3rd edition, first published in 1995, is also known as the "Rolemaster Standard System" (or RMSS for short). Since 1999, the current edition is called "Rolemaster Fantasy Roleplaying" (or RMFRP).

Contents

1 Game mechanics

2 History of Rolemaster

2.1 RM1 and RM2
2.2 Rolemaster Standard System
2.3 Rolemaster Fantasy Roleplaying

3 External links

Game mechanics

RMSS uses a percentile dice system and uses both classes and levels to describe character growth. Character generation can take quite a long time if a player doesn't know the rules well, and even experienced RMSS players can take over an hour generating a new character. Often derisively called 'Chartmaster' or 'Rulemonster' for its dependence on a truly bewildering number of different charts and rules for determining quantity and quality of success. Skills are very detailed, sometimes taking multiple skills to perform a single action.

Rolemaster is also renowned for (others might say 'infamous for') its use of 'Critical Hits'. When in combat a person will find on the weapon charts primary damage as well as secondary damage in the form of a Critical Hit. By rolling on (yet another) chart a player can determine this secondary damage, which can be anything from your opponent laughing at you if you roll poorly to instant death of the target if you roll well. The fact that opponents also roll on these same charts makes RMSS a very deadly game since at any given time an opponent can get lucky and then a completely healthy character is instantly dead. Also, many rolls are open-ended, meaning that when a number between (and including) 96-100 is rolled, another roll is performed and added to the previous result. If another number between 96 and 100 is rolled, this happens again until the player or game master throws smaller number than that. This can make even an usually harmless player or non-player character perform occasionally surprisingly good actions. On the other hand, if a roll between 1-5 results, then another roll is done and subtracted from the initial result. This causes even usually superbly skilled characters to have occasional severe failures in their actions.

The rules for RMSS don't come so much in a single base book as they come spread out among many source books. It's easy to tell which books are called this as the last word in the title is always ...'Law', thus the book on magic is called 'Spell Law' and the book on weapons is called 'Arms Law'. This spreading out of required material with the dependence on charts can make the game burdensome if a trip to the nearest copy machine isn't made. This also leads to an additional derisive name for the system: 'Arm Slaw'.

History of Rolemaster

Over the years, a large number of products have been brought out for Rolemaster and it can be rather confusing to figure out which of these were put out for which version of the game and what books are needed to actually play.

There have been four versions of the game produced, which fall into two major groups. First Edition and Second Edition Rolemaster belong to the first group, usually just referred to as RM2. There was then a fairly major revision to the game when the third version, Rolemaster Standard System was released (RMSS). This was then reorganized somewhat, with very few actual rule changes for the fourth version, Rolemaster Fantasy Roleplaying (RMFRP). Lists with cover images of the all the products for the various Rolemaster versions can be found at: http://www.icewebring.com/ICE_products.shtml

RM1 and RM2

The term Rolemaster First Edition (RM1) is generally used to refer to the products released between 1980 and 1982, the first versions of Arms Law, Claw Law, Spell Law, Character Law and Campaign Law. These were available as individual items and in various boxed sets. The original idea of these products was to replace portions of existing Roleplaying games (particularly Advanced Dungeons & Dragrons) rather than being a stand-alone game on it’s own. However, once the full set of material was available, it was quite capable of being an independent game.

In 1984 the information in the books was expanded and revised, some of the books were combined and the material in them was rearranged. An initial boxed set was brought out in 1984 which resembled the previous Spell Law and Arms Law/Claw Law boxed set but contained a new Spell Law book and a combined Arms Law/Claw Law book but the older Character Law and the Vog Mur module.

A new boxed set was released shortly after containing three rule books and an Adventure module. The rule books were the combined Arms Law/Claw Law book and the Spell Law book from the previous boxed set and a combined Character Law/Campaign Law book. Several additional books were published from 1985 to 1988, including Rolemaster Companions 1, 2, and 3 and the first Creatures and Treasures book. Technically, the products released between 1984 and 1988 are also First Edition Rolemaster products. The official start of the Second Edition Rolemaster series came with the Boxed Set containing the Arms Law & Claw Law book, the Spell Law book, and the Character Law and Campaign Law book, all with red-bordered covers. However, other than a slight modification to the Combat Sequence and some rearranging of material, there are very few differences between the 1984 Rule Books and the 1989 Rule Books. This means the in most cases the term Rolemaster Second Edition (RM2) is used to refer everything published from 1984 to 1994. In particular, Rolemaster Companion II included the Complete Skill Descriptions section and Master Development Point Cost Tables as well as several Professions that are often considered the distinguishing features of Rolemaster Second Edition.

With all the material that was published for Rolemaster Second Edition, it really became more of a method of developing a Roleplaying Game than an actual game itself. You could play in several different campaigns, all of them using Rolemaster, and they could all be quite different. It's a matter of quite abit of debate whether that was the strongest point of RM2 or its weakest point. It made for a very flexible system with a lot of options, but could easily suffer from play balance problems if particular sets of rules were used together.

Rolemaster Standard System

In 1995 the game was revamped and released as Rolemaster Standard System (RMSS). The biggest changes were to Character Generation, particularly in the number of skills available and the way bonuses for the skills were calculated. Skills were now grouped into Categories of similiar skills and you can buy ranks (bonuses) separately in the Category and the actual Skill. Also the way combat rounds were laid out changed as well. The way Spell Lists were learned was changed and most of the Spell lists were adjusted and rebalanced. The actual method of doing attacks and figuring out damage did not change much, and there weren't much more than cosmetic changes to the stats for Creatures and Monsters. Like most changes, opinions on whether the changes were for the better or not vary widely, some people really like the changes, others are not so exited by the changes. To quote Smug (Adam) from the ICE Forums: "RM2 was the highpoint of the game of rolemaster. RMSS and RMFRP are widely considered to be harbingers of the end of the world from a calamitous impact with a huge asteroid from outer space" For the most part the objections to RMSS from RM2 players were more to do with not feeling that Rolemaster needed an overhaul and sadness that RM2 was no longer going to be supported rather than any major complaints about the system itself.

Rolemaster Fantasy Roleplaying

In 1999 the game underwent a slight restructuring when Rolemaster Fantasy Roleplaying was released, but this was mostly a rearranging of material with very few changes to the rules themselves. A detailed comparison of the RMSS and RMFRP systems can be found at: http://www.icewebring.com/RMSSvsRMFRP/RMSSvsRMFRPfull.shtml

Rolemaster Fantasy Roleplaying is the version of Rolemaster that is currently being sold and supported and thus is the version that is the easiest to get hold of and the one a new player is most likely to pick up. One of the changes made for this version was to come out with one book, stock number 5800 simply called “Rolemaster Fantasy Roleplaying” that can be purchased that has all the information needed to play the game.

A full review of the Rolemaster Fantasy Roleplaying book can be found at: http://www.icewebring.com/Reviews/RMFRPreview.shtml

Arms Law adds additional Attack and Critical tables. A detailed discussion of the different versions of Arms Law for all the editions of Rolemaster can be found at: http://www.icewebring.com/docs/Arms_Law.pdf

Character Law adds additional races, professions, skills and the full talent and flaw system. A detailed review of Character Law can be found at: http://www.icewebring.com/Reviews/character_law_review.shtml

There are three Spell Law books (Of Essence, Of Channelling, Of Mentalism), each of which adds additional professions and spell lists for one area of magic expanding the lists to 50th level spells.

There are other supplements as well, but most of them build upon the material presented in the books listed.