Potential Revision Overview

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).