Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Same Flavor, Less Crunch, and Hopefully with the Same Amount of PUNCH!

No, I'm not talking about a breakfast cereal or snack chips.  I'm talking about Rolemaster Unified.

I downloaded the playtest PDFs of Character Law, and Spell Law, and so far I like what I'm reading.  RMU is not nearly as crunchy as RMSS ( Rolemaster Standard System. ), and is looking to be very playable.

I've been participating in the Official ICE Forums, and discussing the new version of Rolemaster in the playtest forums.  It's been interesting, and fun for the most part.

I'm hoping things don't get changed too much.  There's a lot of different ideas being put forth in the playtest forums, and some I don't like at all.  No levels?!?!?  Anyway, it's still early in the process, and I'm looking forward to seeing the final versions.  The Arms Law PDF hasn't been released yet, I guess it's still in beta playtesting.

One cool thing is that I managed to get the spreadsheet to work.  All I had to do was load it into OpenOffice, but now they have versions for both Excel and OpenOffice!  Man, does this make chargen easy in RM!  It's still being designed, but once it's finished it's going to be wonderous.  The trick is formating it, so a print out doesn't look too "junky".  I've been trying to work on that, but I've had very little success.

Anyway, I alway had a great time playing and running Rolemaster.  Hopefully, RMU will be good, if not a great game.

I'm also working on a spreadsheet for GURPS 4E.  My spreadsheet design skills are poor at best, and I've got a long way to go.  I know Steve Jackson Games has a program to do that, but I'm cheap.  Maybe I'll get it in the future, but for now, a spreadsheet will work just fine.

3 comments:

  1. I'm not that familiar (don't remember) RMSS and looked very briefly at playtest, it didn't seem that different. What do you see as less crunchy?

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    Replies
    1. RMSS had skill categories, and skills in the categories. You bought rankings in both. RMU only has skills.

      To buy skills you bought them with Development Points, that were variable according to five of your stats. Now it's a flat 50 DP per level.

      Character creation tended to take a while. In RMU I think it's going to go quicker.

      If they don't change too much it will be easier for new players to learn, and create characters, and be flow and play better. Actually, if they change too much it won't be Rolemaster anymore, and I would stick with RMSS.

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  2. Ah, thanks. I remember that skill categeories mess a little now.

    I think 10 stats too many, but I guess that would be too much to drop. Besides if I want less, there's HARP.

    I'm really glad to see RM still around. It was the first fantasy system I liked after D&D. Had most the Merp modules.

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