Okay, I refuse to use the joke "chart master" again since the game is much more than this, and I feel this label has been overused and is reductive. Yes, there are a lot of charts, but that is why we love the game.
You know all the times you struggle to come up with an interesting combat result, and an attack is, "The monster loses 12 hit points, next player, please?" Not Rolemaster, every attack is unique and has a chance to reward the player (and the table) with an interesting and possibly deadly result.
Why wouldn't I want to highlight the outcome of every attack? Isn't that why we are here? A mobile game can give you an endless stream of meaningless damage numbers. I am not here to go around a table and endlessly roll d20s, damage dice, and get nothing out of it except scratch paper with an endlessly descending column of hit point totals.
We sometimes turn to our roleplaying games and say, "Give us more."
Rolemaster was that game in the 1980s, and it still is today.
Rolemaster is also a game that turns to the players and asks more of us in return.
Oddly enough, some of my most-read articles here are my Rolemaster ones, so there are still hardcore fans of the system out there. The company is remastering the books and putting out VTT modules for Roll20. The progress is slow, and we have older books to lean on in the meantime, but the work is getting done. We even have the Rolemaster Classic system in print-on-demand like it was back in the day. And the Roll20 modules are very nice to see!
Rolemaster survives.
We have three books: Core Law, Spell Law, and Treasure Law. The art in them is full-color and passable, but it is not AI-made, which is nice. I will take okay art over AI art any day. I am waiting for the two-volume Monster Law to be released, which I hope comes this year.
Otherwise, we fall back on the compatible Rolemaster Classic monster books, which work well enough. Pick up the RMC Creatures and Treasures book, and you will be fine. Monsters are not complicated, nor do they have colossal stat blocks.
The system is percentage-based, with many modifiers (but it is not hard) and skills with levels that provide bonuses as they rank up. Ability scores are split between the current value and the maximum potential, but the game is generous with tweaking, so you won't feel like you can't be your favorite profession if your rolls aren't perfect. I like this system since it gives you the current statistic value, and the character's maximum is what they work towards.
Race determines development points, culture gives free skills, and professions determine the costs of different skills. Once you understand the profession skill tables, the rest of the system will be straightforward and easy to use. With less math, this is easier than GURPS, and the tables are fun to use.
Rolemaster does things its own way, which is interesting. Gnolls are the more traditional folklore-style kin, and they are a character option. I like that they did not take the easy route and made these the D&D "hyena-men," who are getting a little tired and on their way to becoming another animal-cracker "misunderstood PC race" in modern gaming. The trend to gentrify classic folklore along Twitter values and turn everything into cosplay is a toxic development in contemporary gaming. It is the bland, nihilistic "sameification" of everything, and suddenly, nothing is different, and nothing matters.
There are plenty of small folk in RM; this is a very Tolkien-inspired world and experience, but with a few additions and improvements. This is one of the best games for campaigns that are primarily small folk since there are so many cultures and types to choose from, and they are all unique and interesting.
The line art is from Rolemaster Classic (Monsters & Treasures book), which I love. The above are the trolls, of which the game has many types. They are classic beasts that chase small folk around as the big bad guy of an adventure. The monsters have this Old English vibe, and they aren't Americanized Versions of folklore beasts.
Rolemaster Classic and Spacemaster are viable systems, but the new RM books have VTT support in Roll20. It is nice to see this system back from the dead, and I hope for more PoD books and releases soon.
Despite its legendary skill bloat, the Rolemaster FRP edition is one of the best-presented versions in the series. Once you grasp the broader "skill categories" and the specialization-like skill ranks, you will see what they were trying to do with the math. The layout and
https://ironcrown.co.uk/rolemaster-version-comparison/
They have a version comparison above, which does not include the newest core system (25 areas, 3-6 skills per area). In short, RM Classic is like "B/X," and RM FRP is the "advanced set" - some like the 300+ skills of RM FRP, others like it simple with RMC and the 22 primary and 43 optional secondary skills.
RM FRP is deep and complicated. People were more intelligent in the 1990s and could grasp all this. The newest RM CORE is a middle ground between the 1990s RM FRP and the 1980s RM Classic.
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