Rolemaster Classic: Complex Characters?

Looking back at some of my old articles, I am noticing a shift in my feelings about complicated character systems. Yes I know, this is the Internet and everything you say will be held against you someday, but hey, I am human and my feelings can change.

I had this assumption that games with complicated character design systems were bad. Now, reading through Rolemaster and enjoying some of the stakes and depth, my mind is slowly changing. Also, being alone I have a lot of time on my hands to read and understand things. In my old life, yeah, my gaming group lived fast and loose. We wanted to get in, shoot some lasers and swing some swords, and kick down the door to the room with the loot. 

These days, I have time. Time to think and to understand.

I still appreciate the simple games, the ones quick to get into and enjoy. There is an art to crafting those, and to create one with depth and a lasting appeal is a difficult thing. I am planning on reading HARP and enjoying it post Rolemaster Classic, but diving through this games lets me relive a part of my experience gaming and understand things a little better.

"But have you played this...?"

I am looking at all the confused rules and tables, trying to figure them out, and getting a rush when I discover the secret that makes it all work. That is the arcane knowledge that made a good gamemaster back in the day - someone who knew their stuff. Someone who could teach others, be the cool kid, and start others on the journey to be as cool and smart as they were.

It was like this with AD&D, if you were a great dungeon master in your school, that was social status. That was being popular (among us nerds). That was being someone all the cool kids wanted to play with.

If you were a great DM, kids knew you. You were a wizard like Gandalf who knew all the arcane rules and could unlock the door to unlimited adventures.

Simple games were for kids (that was our group's feeling back then). We play this because it is hard to play for a reason. Your commitment to that game, and to those rules, and your investment in time and brain power to decipher the game you loved wasn't only a commitment to yourself, it was a commitment to your friends and your group.

The Appeal of Simple Games

As I got older, I had less time. Simple games were where it was at. It did not help the profit model for these companies required them to revise and reprint their rules on a schedule, and expand the game into obsolescence and "create a reason" for the next edition. Simple games were an immunization versus that, and that in part lies in the appeal of the OGL retro-clones today.

Those won't change. Games like Basic Fantasy are here forever.

But having more time means once I read a simple game, the effort spent understanding it is simple, and while i may get a weekend of fun reading it, I never end up playing it. I would with new players, perhaps, if I had a group. I would not start new players on a game like Rolemaster, no way.

To Pour Over Ancient Texts...

I still like the simple games, but to play them alone feels like an exercise in math and dice rolling. Whiff, whiff, hit, damage, whiff, damage, win fight, treasure, next room, roll initiative and repeat. There isn't much there, nothing to hold my attention.

At least with Rolemaster, the crit charts provide a source of accomplishment, terror, and unpredictability. They are really the heart of this game, and the involved character design process that forces you to think and care about your character puts the emotional impact on those results. I like HARP, it is just I fear the crit charts won't be as meaningful as a game that takes a little more care and time to build a hero.

Plus there is the fun of deciphering this game and sharing my experiences. For a simple game, why would I need to post anything at all except a post saying, "I got this today!" At least with Rolemaster Classic, I am diving deep into the game's strange nooks and crannies and sharing my experiences trying to understand a source text that - while revised and cleaned up - still manages to be obscure and mysteriously vague at points. There is a fun in breaking the code, and sharing that thought process so others can enjoy my story.

Perhaps people will read those posts and learn how to play, or become interested in the game enough to pick it up. A lot of the posts I wrote here still get hits, and great roleplaying blogs have long-long lifespans. The material doesn't change. The games can still be played. The information presented here really never ages.

To say, "I did it."

I do like teaching, and I write really clear, conversational stuff. There is a goal here, to be able to play through a short game, to see what happens, to build a character and guide their fate, and to master a complex system. Will it mean anything? Likely not. What, maybe less than a 1% chance I find a group to play with? I do this for myself, and also to teach others the path so they might have a better chance to enjoy this game.

But more than enjoyment, to understand the time it was written in. To share that time and those feelings with people is cool. What was it like back then? We were a bunch of scruffy nerds having fun with games people were afraid of, nobody understood, and that were for us "older, smarter kids."

I know girls would come along eventually and ruin everything, but there was a magical time right before that moment where being cool meant knowing the rules - no matter how obscure and arcane they were, how many charts you had to reference, or how hard things were to find in the book.

Because if you knew where to look, you were a wizard like one that laid waste to the darkest dungeons below. You knew the secrets and could guide others to greatness.