ICE is not planning on doing a revision of Rolemaster right now. In fact, the bosses aren’t even planning on doing a plan for doing a revision. However, that does not stop me from wanting to do a revision and from coming up with my own ideas on how I think that it should be done.
The following is simply an overview of the books that I think should be included in such a revision, and a general idea of what I think they should contain. I will do additional Musing articles on some of the specific products proposed below, to expand what I think should be contained within them.
- Rolemaster Xpress: Note that I changed the name slightly, so that it would be less likely to be confused with the current version. In this product, we would put the basics of the game. The entirety of the skill system, the core races, the core professions, etc. Everything that was needed to play would be in this single book.
- Character Law: This product would give more races and more professions for characters to choose from. The choices given would adhere to the standards set in the core book. Spell Lists for any spell using professions would also be included.
- Arms Law: This would expand the combat tables given in Rolemaster Xpress so that there is an attack table for each weapon (and we would expand the choices of weapons as well). The attack tables would be essentially identical to the ones from the core book, but for one weapon only, rather than a whole class of weapons. The critical tables would include the standard generic crit tables, and also critical tables based on each weapon group (i.e. slightly tweaked versions). Since critical tables are a major selling point of Rolemaster, this would be a huge success, I think.
- Spell Law: In this product, we would expand the Open and Closed lists for each realm. We would also give additional rules for such things as item creation. Also, this product would add in the realm of “Arcane Magic”. Arcane magic would not follow the spell list format. Instead, Arcane magic would be composed of individual scalable spells (i.e. HARP’s spells). While more flexible than standard spells, this magic is also more dangerous and more likely to incur extraordinary spell failure.
- Skill Law: This product would flesh out the core skill system a bit, and it would also offer an alternative skill system that used categories and skills (with the player able to purchase ranks in both) that would be attractive to our RMFRP fans.
- Out of the Box: Contains rules/options for Training Packages, Cultures, and Gifts. All of which are used to help customize characters. However, this product would have to be optional, since the inclusion of these things would all up the power level of the game.
- Creatures & Treasures: This product would provide a basic selection of monsters of all sorts of types, as well as fuller treasure generation rules.
- Bestiary: Dragons: This product would expand upon the Dragons section of C&T, giving new types and more information overall.
- Bestiary: Demons: This product would expand upon the Demons section of C&T, giving new types and more information overall.
- Bestiary: Devils: This product would expand upon the Devils section of C&T, giving new types and more information overall. .
- Other Bestiaries: There are other Bestiary products that could also be done, Giants, Underground Races, and so on.
- Xpress 20: This will be the core book redone using a d20 (or perhaps 2d10) instead of a d100 for the resolution. Everything would be adjusted accordingly, attack/crit tables, etc. This could be released along the same time as the core Rolemaster Xpress, and thus ICE could objectively see which would fare better on down the road (i.e. if Xpress 20 sales far outstrip those of Rolemaster Xpress, then perhaps ICE should consider just doing it).
- Setting: This would be the setting book for Rolemaster Xpress. It would have the standard races and professions given in the core book, so nothing would be unusual. It could be done in several ways. The setting could be presented with no rules information at all, the setting could be combined with the core rules to create a stand-alone game, and/or the setting could just have those rules required to play using the core rules (for the setting that I have in mind, this would likely be nothing more than Spell Folios and perhaps some creatures unique to the setting).
One thing I’d like is for books like Character Law to be able to be a complete replacement for the equivalent section from the Xpress book. What I mean is that it would include the Professions and Races from the Xpress book as well as the new information. Ultimately, if you bought all the supplements, you wouldn’t even need to pull out the original Xpress book to play or roll up a character.
Now, there are of course some problems with this idea, primarily that fact that you may be chewing up your page count for a supplement with material that is available in another book already. I’d be interested in hearing what other people think of this idea.
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Rasyr Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Not only is there the danger of eating up the page count (as one of the ideas is that each product would be relatively small (96 pages or less), but the replication of data also has other problem as fans may become disgruntled because of the repeated information (i.e. “Why do I have to pay for material I already have?”)
On the other hand, this could also open up for another potential product, one that does consolidate all of the different race and profession material into a single product.
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I would modify that some (I don’t like the “word” Xpress, so I change it to just Rolemaster)…
Rolemaster X – Replace X with 3, 4 or 5, depending on what version number the current company feels is best. This would be the core system.
System Lines:
Character Law – Contains expanded and optional rules/stuff for characters.
Combat Law – (Renamed Arms Law, to be more clear what the product is) Contains expanded and optional rules/stuff for combat.
Magic Law – (Renamed Spell Law, because you might use an optional magic system that doesn’t have spells) Contains expanded and optional rules/stuff for magic.
Skill Law – Contains expanded and optional rules/stuff for skills.
Out of the Box – No, do not do this book. These are character options and belong in the character law line (Character Law 1, Character Law 2, etc. OR if preferred Character Law: Talents & Options, Character Law: Whatever etc.) Also, these do not necessarily have to boost the power level of the game, especially if such things are included in the core system, which I would hope they were – to be balanced from the start.
Rolemaster 20 – No, do not do this book. Simply include (divide by 5) in the core rulebook as an option to scale the math back and swap d20 for d100. Or do this as part of a Rolemaster X: Options line, but please don’t associate it with d20, which Xpress 20 does, at least to me.
Rolemaster Bestiary – (replaces creatures and treasures – along with RM Treasures below) This is broken into several books, there is no one “catch-all” because different worlds might contain different things.
Rolemaster Bestiary: Animals – Contains real world animals, rules for turning them all to “giant” versions, Fantastic Animals (non-earth, but still basically recognizable animals) etc.
RB: Dragons
RB: Demons & Angels
Others: Undead, Shapechanging Races, Giant Races, Underground Races, Other Planes, Elementals, etc.
Don’t bother with a “little-bit-of-everything” book.
Rolemaster Treasures – (replaces Creatures and Treasures & Treasure Companion) This contains magic items, gems, fantasy metals, etc.
Setting: I suppose you must have a “sterotypical” fantasy world, let Shadow World be that, but beyond that have several other lines that are unique and different, like Dark Sun for D&D was very different from sterotypical fantasy back when it was introduced, less so now. Have a human-centric setting or two. Have a human-less setting or two. Some high-fantasy, some low, some high magic, some low. So yes, do a standard world, but surprise us with some others as well.
Yeah, mostly small changes, but some nice ones IMHO.
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