Rolemaster FRP, The Best Version?

Sometimes, the Rolemaster FRP system was one of the most bloated games ever created; other times, it was the best-put-together version of  Rolemaster ever made. In every section, they provide the formulas, offer relevant charts, and clearly explain them on the page.

This isn't obscure. Nothing is hidden, like in the paragraphs of Rolemaster 2nd Edition. It is on a page if you need to find a rule or know what a chart and formula do. The 2nd Edition is straightforward and simple, but RM FRP is laid out like a fantasy wargame.

There may be a LOT of it, but nothing is hidden.

I first reach for the FRP books if I need clarification on a Rolemaster rule. There are times when I play 2nd Edition, and I simply default to the FRP rule because the 2nd Edition rule is either nowhere to be found or is intentionally overlooked. RM FRP will clarify it; the procedure will be straightforward, even if the math is slightly different.

Yes, characters need four pages of skills. It's insane, but GURPS has hundreds of skills as well. GURPS Dungeon Fantasy and this game share many similarities, including their shared "detailed characters and gritty combat" genre style. Rolemaster has more class direction and adjusts skill point costs depending on the chosen profession, whereas GURPS has a flat cost that remains the same for everyone.

Is there a difference between GURPS and Rolemaster?

Rolemaster features critical hit charts and a degree of role protection in skill costs per profession, enabling rapid progression in a few favored areas. GURPS features tactical hex combat, an open-ended skill system that allows you to develop your character however you want, and a detailed system for building advantages and disadvantages.

Both feature complex characters and intense combat.

If you think of RM FRP as "Advanced AD&D" that only uses a 1d100, you will be better prepared to understand it. It has less in common with GURPS than with a massively mutated, house-ruled, and extra rules-added version of AD&D that leans into Tolkien and classic fantasy novels.

Once you complete character creation, the in-game systems are more straightforward than those of D&D. It's all just 1d100. The charts are easy. Download the PDF and print out your weapon tables and critical hit charts. Every player is responsible for their own.

Best of all, the first book is all you need to play the basic game. They took the best of the best, including combat, magic, and spells, and you just need the first book to get started and support campaign play. Spells only go up to level 10, but then again, Rolemaster games rarely reach that point unless it is a hardcore group.

Rolemaster United is a bit wordy, much like the HARP expansion books, which often write essays on a subject and worry about the rules later. I appreciate the clarity and straightforward nature of RM FRP; it provides the charts and game rules, keeping the chit-chat to a minimum. I do not want a term paper or an explanation of "why this is" - I want the rules because I am in the middle of a game, and please do not waste my time.

RMU needs an editing pass by people who do not play the game and understand nothing. Every page needs a "top 10" question list written, and we must ensure those are answered before moving on. I've read the books, and I still have questions; it's tough to find answers quickly.

I like the new Rolemaster United, but it needs improvement in terms of clarity, conciseness, and artwork. It needs a "tightening up" pass, and all the formulas and charts should be pulled out and placed on the page first, with a short box explaining the rule and how it works, similar to RM FRP's 250 pages of tightly organized game rules. Writing a great rulebook is a lost art, and so far, only Shadowdark and Old School Essentials have managed to knock it out of the park.

I have high hopes for this version; I need to see the bestiaries and others. Until then, my heart is with RM SS/FRP. RM FRP is a complex system, but it is also very transparent about everything. I still have a few questions as I read through the book, but most everything is well laid out.

The Gamemaster Law book is excellent and included rules for "kingdom events" decades before other games recognized their existence. Like HARP, the RM FRP game contains numerous books and things to discover. This is a GM book written before the modern era, and it delves into many great world-building subjects and ideas. The GM book also includes race creation, perfect for building your campaign worlds with unique cultures and character backgrounds.

A hidden gem in the series is the book At Rapier's Point, which offers roleplaying in classic 17th-century Europe during the era of the Three Musketeers. The game's combat system and even HARP are ideally suited to this sort of swashbuckling game.

Whenever I pick up Rolemaster, I am conflicted. I like to support the new version and that vision. I like RP FRP and how complete and well-supported this version is. I get that "Unified" is trying to bring together fans of both versions and have one core, supported game. I also understand that the 2nd Edition is the easiest to play (once you know it) due to the lack of skills, in-depth calculations, and sub-calculations.

Rolemaster Classic will always be my AD&D of the system, the best-supported, earliest edition.

HARP has always been my B/X version; it is simple, fast, and fun. It is a complete game and a worthy D&D replacement, as the systems are simple yet offer an authentic Rolemaster experience. It features a ten-book core collection, all presented in hardcover editions. This is the game closest to Against the Darkmaster, but it's more suited for generic dungeon adventures. The "stuff collection" in this game is significantly more expansive and complete.

RM FRP is akin to my AD&D 2nd Edition, where the game offers more options and is complex, yet it still retains its charm and expanded play options. This is the "roleplaying" edition of the game, as its extensive skill coverage and numerous templates and build options allow you to play any character you can imagine. It is a comprehensive game with multiple books to purchase, so support is excellent and superior to HARP. This includes a 21-book core rulebook collection, but none of the books are in hardcover or print.

That is my wish: to see a Kickstarter campaign to collect all these books in hardcover, perhaps even premium editions with leather covers. This is also my first version of the game, which introduced me to Rolemaster, so it will remain one of my favorites.

Rolemaster United still needs to prove itself, and the game is incomplete. I support this, but I am holding off for now. Once the monster books are out, then we will see. All of these are offered in hardcover.

HARP SF is an anomaly. I have this, but I don't know what to do with it. It is sort of like B/X science fiction and exists as its own thing. You can get these in hardcovers.

Spacemaster is an SF game closely related to Rolemaster Classic. We actually played this back in the day, and it was a strange, fun, out-there experience. This is the more expansive "space opera" game style with battleships, tanks, power armor, and all sorts of tech and science fiction tropes. These are PDF-only.

Spacemaster Privateers is the RM FRP version of science fiction, and it is better suited for those who are more comfortable with RM FRP and the design concepts used in that game. I discovered this one recently, and I wish we had played it. It diverges in its own direction regarding the universe, and there is a recommendation to use Silent Death as the ship combat game for SM Privateers, which would be interesting since this would limit ship tonnage in the universe to 10,000 tons or under, with a focus on starfighters and small ships. Most are offered as PoD, with two exceptions.

We were big into Silent Death, and the rules are still available on DriveThruRPG. This would be fun to play on VTTs. It is also very playable with any Spacemaster or HARP SF games. The universe here is fascinating and varied, and many sleep on this for both a "Battle-tech style" divided universe and an interesting science fiction setting in its own right, with a faction for everyone. There are 22 books here, but they are all in PDF format.

I need to follow my heart in this regard, as I watch the new books and support them as they come out.

RM FRP is my game.

HARP is always a strong second choice.

SpaceMaster 2nd Edition: Computers

 

The late 80's and early 90's were a strange time for the role of computers in pen-and-paper games. I remember the 4k to 4 megabyte supercomputers old Space Opera in the late 1970's, and those seem laughably quaint by today's standards - but who could have known?

ZIP Drives

SpaceMaster falls into the pattern of limiting CPU power and storage for programs, given a computer and the programs loaded on it. They have 3cm diameter memory disks which hold 100 megabytes (like a mini CD or a ZIP Drive). Your computers have "mark numbers" which rate power, CPU, RAM, and storage. A Mk 10 computer would have 10 CPU points, 20 RAM points, and 100 storage points.

Some programs have "unit picks" and those can add a skill roll bonus to certain skills (mainly science/technical, but evasion and tactics can also be unit picked up. These give you direct skill roll bonuses.

The lesson is, when talking about computers, never use today's terms or even capabilities. Likely 10 years from now they will be mass-producing silicon wafers with every movie and song ever created in bulk and those will be how you stream legacy data. Next year you buy a new chip with the new stuff added on and you don't have to store that in memory. Could we see that coming? Probably not, so it is best to invent your own terms and processing units and de-link them from technology that will look archaic by the time the game goes to print (or most people find out about it).

Oh, You Didn't Buy...

Some of the programs are hidden penalties (which I don't like), such as the Target Lock-On program and heavy energy projectors being at a -30 to-hit without this program. I just feel those lock on systems should come with the guns and you should eliminate having to remember to buy this for each and every design. You are paying enough for those giant turret lasers, why are you space arms manufacturers ripping me off with optional extras that I really need?

Answer: because they are space arms manufacturers.

Also, in Star Strike, they (for the most part) discard this computer system and opt for a simplified one. So if your primary use for computers in your game is for starships, ignore the computer rules in this book (except for the reference programs) and go with Star Strike's rules. I don't like they "kind of" abandoned this system and still support programs (reference) from this one, make the systems independent, use on or the other, and clean this up.

Either way, the computers cost millions of credits and they take a considerable amount of time to spec out, buy programs for, and design. And you have to buy auxiliary computers if you want back-up systems.

Space arms manufacturers, everybody. 

SimComputer

Part of me dislikes these types of overly detailed computer purchase and simulation type rules. Yes, I know they are needed, but I would like these to be optional purchases that give bonuses to the baseline systems, not required for everything as an add-on checklist to every purchase I make and if you forget N-Space course you are not going anywhere. It is like buying $30 cup-holders in a new car and being forced to buy the $70 cup holder protectors as well, and you just feel you are being nickled and dimed instead of making meaningful choices.

Bonuses and Extra Function

If I buy "advanced space targeting" give me a +10 on weapons fire - otherwise - just use my base skill and the targeting systems that came with the ship's weapons should be enough for "basic usage." By default, the ships "parts" should come with with enough switches, screens, and control panels for basic use. Weapons come with basic control and targeting. Jump drives can do basic jumps. In-space drives can thrust and get you places, but you will be working on pen and paper and your space telescope to plot a course.

If you want to automate these, get extra functionality, link them together, plot courses on a holographic map, improve them over and above standard, or get bonuses over your basic skills - then you break out the checkbook and see the glint in the salesperson's eyes. Cool stuff and bonuses will be extra, please, but at least they shall be meaningful options that give in-game effects and not cup-holder covers.

There is that point where you will do anything to get out of the spaceship dealership, and it is done by making you wait until dinner and you will sign anything as long as the ordeal ends. It seemed like a great idea to buy a starship today, but please get me out of here! I get that feeling when I read through these design rules and see how one requirement is tied to another, and my brain melts at having to initial 300 pages of forms in 250 places.

GURPS Space and Sci-Fi Worldbuilding

I mentioned GURPS Space previously in comparison to the SpaceMaster 2nd Edition Game Master book, and the GURPS line does a lot right when it comes to add-on books. They keep the fiddly character-building stuff out of the genre books and focus on the things the GM needs, random systems, worlds, aliens, cultures, and lots of imagination-expanding suggestions and discussions on how to build a sci-fi universe.

The book is great even for sci-fi writers not even interested in playing the game, you could just wander through this book and explore all the possibilities and come away inspired. There are discussions of theoretical space drives, fiction, theory, and all sorts of mind-blowing sci-fi goodness. They hit upon some recommended advantages by the end of the book and present some pregen characters, but you do not need this book to design sci-fi characters.

A lot of games make that mistake, where they come out with a source-book and then every player needs it to design characters because the genre-specific talents are in the book. Yes, it provides expand-ability for your base system, but the game suffers bloat and then there are twenty other supplements needed to design and build characters. With GURPS, you could get away with just owning the base book as a play and be set for any type of world or campaign.

I would dare say the rules for system, planet, and alien generation here are better than SpaceMaster's and a lot more useful. But...

GURPS is Cool

GURPS for me is a dangerous game, once I pick the books up I want to play it and nothing else. It is just the better set of tools to express an idea or explore a genre. I don't like picking it up when I am trying to learn other games, because the rules just work so well and everything is a clear and unified whole. Some people say "GURPS is the game we play if we don't have the licensed official game."

For me it is the opposite, GURPS is the patient monster in the room waiting for me to put other games on the shelf because of their flaws and limitations, and come back to something that works in a unified and comprehensive whole. It shall always be there, waiting for me to return. It doesn't have the crit tables...but with this much cool stuff and support, did you really need them?

GURPS sits there waiting for other games to falter, and finishes the contest strong through endurance and a solid selection of play options and character builds.

There is sort of a idol-like and pedantic fascination with the crit charts in Rolemaster, like you put up with the game's clunky parts just to get to the good parts. GURPS is likely to be every bit as real-feeling as Rolemaster, just a lot less clinical in the details. Then again, do I need a chart to tell me what happens when 30 points of crushing damage hits an arm in GURPS? I can pretty much well imagine it myself, rule what happens using logic, and let the shock and other realistic combat options in GURPS pick up the slack for the aftermath.

A lot of people use forced random hit locations in GURPS to amp the realism, along with some of the realistic combat options. I can see this working, since you are essentially saying, "unless you target a location, what you hit will be random." In a melee or gunfight, what you hit will be affected by the chaos and confusion of the moment. I have always thought the "default to torso unless called shot is made" targeting felt a bit too much like "the gentleman's rules to pistol dueling" and it eliminated the random factor of chaos and unpredictability to combat.

More on combat realism in GURPS later.

Back Into Space!

Just contrasting the SpaceMaster GM Book and GURPS Space is really no contest, and GURPS Space is 100% capable of replacing the SpaceMaster GM book for universe generation because 90% of the book's content is honestly system-neutral information about creating worlds, aliens, cultures, and discussions of space campaigns and future technologies. If you don't mind rolling d6's, then GURPS Space can do everything you need without even requiring another GURPS book in your library (that is a hard thing to do, trust me).

Then the question becomes, why not just play GURPS Space?

I like learning and playing games, so there is an educational aspect to tearing apart a game and understanding it. By doing that, you can appreciate other games, and the game you are analyzing, better as well. Plus people still play Rolemaster and Spacemaster, so all games are good. But if I can enhance my experience with the game by borrowing some top-notch material from other books, that is a good thing in my feeling. You can get the best of both games by mixing and picking what you want from each, and it isn't an all-or-nothing play this OR that affair.

Both games do certain things well, and GURPS has the advantage of a lot more research and many modern updates. Spacemaster is a retro product of its time and I fondly remember my games with the rules and charts. Both are cool and have their place.

The question for me really isn't a question. I am playing SpaceMaster. I am also playing GURPS Space. For different reasons, and for different games. I can enjoy both and have preferences for either given the game and feel I am shooting for.

SpaceMaster 2nd Edition: Art and Feel, the GM Book

The art in Space Master 2nd Edition ranges from the cool to the not-so-cool, but overall it does the job. It presents sort of a generic Space Opera style universe that we for the most part ran like any other Space Opera type world. You have a detached galactic government, corrupt local planetary factions with agendas, and a mess of independent operators scattered through the light years between stars.

If I were to play this today I would mostly ignore the art and insert my ideas and designs into the world to replace the slightly dated imagery. I would not go the HARP-SF route and do the 3d art style of sci-fi, there is a sameness to those assets across a lot of Internet sci-fi art and I feel you need to stand out with a unique look and feel, plus there are so many talented indie and up-and-coming artists looking to make a mark and show their stuff.

The art though in sci-fi games does give you the basic feel of the game. It is important. If I were to play with players, I would collect a series of cool pictures that express the feeling we were shooting for and tell them to ignore the art in the books. If I found a series of cool painted-looking horror moonscape art with wiry monsters and laser-firing spacesuit soldiers with giant sphere ships - I would go with that.

This is what we are playing.

Please ignore the art in the book.

It isn't terrible, mind you, it is just I need a visual style to express what I am shooting for creatively, and art helps unify that in my mind and that of my players. Even I were playing in the default SpaceMaster setting, I would find art to fit my interpretation of it today and go with that - a fresh coat of paint helps excite people and drive interest.

To me, the rules and feeling are important, again, mechanics will drive the world design and the art should support that goal.

The GM Book

Sop what do we get in the GM book? Let's look at the table of contents!

We have the standard star system and planet generation rules, and these are a good starting point but not overly detailed (a surprise, given SpaceMaster and its charts). I really wanted more here with all sorts of cool tables for unique planetary types and compositions, like cave-worlds, glacier worlds, ring worlds, and all sorts of other charts where you could roll millions of planet types with unique personalities, current situations, and problems. As it is, it is basic and workable but a lot of imagination is needed to take it places.

The encounter generation is a step up and gives you a lot of options, and this helps fill the gaps some for the planets. You get nice businesses, missions, cultures, and a simple random events table. All this does a good job getting the creative juices flowing and this is a highlight.

Another highlight is the Milieus Section, where they run the gamut of classic sci-fi fiction one could play with the system. This is actually pretty cool, and it is fun to see classic TV series such as U.F.O. and Space 1999 get nods, along with Star Trek and even the Masters of the Universe cartoon. Star Wars is never mentioned, and that is probably for the better since it is the 800 pound gorilla in the room. Or wookie. A lot of fiction is mentioned as well, and it is nice to see some of the classics represented.

So it is supported and possible to play "other stuff" with the rules. But then again, that is possible with any sci-fi game, and I would more likely use GURPS to do many of these if I wanted to do them with a minimum of effort.

The rest of the book is devoted to the game's setting (which I will cover later) and a sample adventure. Part of me wishes this book were meatier with more planetary generation, scenario generation, mining and colony rules, intergalactic trade rules, faction generation, random ship creation, random alien races, space anomaly generators, space monsters, and other stuff that would help the GM out in any setting rather than have the official setting described. I would have loved an official setting book separate from this one, and the GM book to be more "rules for the GM for 1001 crazy, silly, or smart space things players could do."

Overall, a good book, not really equal to a giant encyclopedia of fun like GURPS Space, and I would like a little more in terms of generic campaign support material.

SpaceMaster 2nd Edition

 

Spacemaster was my introduction to Rolemaster - I did not play Rolemaster at all and picked up Spacemaster 2nd Edition first. My book was the 1992 large floppy all-in-one version, which I still have in a box around here. The book itself is covered in clear plastic Contact paper, like some textbook, but that has kept the book in neat perfect shape for nearly 30 years - and that is saying something for a soft-cover floppy book.

I recently got the PDFs as I sort through dozens of boxes of rulebooks looking for my copy, and I still love this game. But why?

Many Better Choices Today

GURPS Space is cool and it does a lot. Cepheus Engine is another great sci-fi game, and it is OGL as well so it shall live forever. You can even find copies of Space Opera and Star Frontiers out there, and those are classics. Traveller too, in all its interpretations. Star Wars - for our group - shined with the old d6 System books. And many generic games do sci-fi just as well, from FATE to Savage Worlds to many, many others. HARP even has a HARP-SF book as a sci-fi role playing option while keeping you in the Rolemaster style rules continuity.

So why Space Master?

Specifically, the 2nd Edition of the game and not the later "SpaceMaster Privateer" version? For starters, the Privateer version was based off of RMFRP, so I get this feeling the skill bloat that makes me cautious of that game will get weighed down in those two-form skill sheets for 300+ skills. SpaceMaster 2nd already has a lot of skills, and if at all possible I want to keep them simple.

SpaceMaster 2nd also is closest mechanically to RoleMaster Classic, so all my experience with one will mirror itself nicely with the other. The two are compatible, so I can re-use my RMC monster books and put latex masks and some foam-rubber carapace on them should I need some creepy-crawly monsters for planets and asteroid caves with minimal conversion effort.

If I am currently interested in Rolemaster Classic, SpaceMaster 2nd Edition seems like a nice fit.

But the Other Games?

SpaceMaster to our group has always been sort of "the messed up version of Star Trek." Back when Trek was still idealistic and innocent of the modern tendency to smear the smelly brown goo of 2020 relevance all over our fiction and entertainment, SpaceMaster was the messy, corrupt, violent, dark, and twisted version of the Federation and the better society that failed and never was.

Corrupt politicians had private armies, ran prison ships, and started wars just because they wanted to profit or take out petty revenge on planetary dictators. Criminal syndicates ran wild and black markets for illegal goods were everywhere. If you were a star miner, you didn't file a claim, you just flew somewhere, setup shop, and mined whatever you found and prayed no one would jump you on the way back. If there were others mining the area, join in or blow them all up, your choice, there are no rules of conduct in this galaxy.

The way we ran it, it was really a mix of the worst of the cocaine-wars, Iran-Contra style deals, drug and gun running, wars as politics, media as gatekeeper, evil mega-corporation, and corruption filled 1980's and 1990's version of Star Trek as we could dream up. It was fun and the campaign lasted a long time.

The Crits were a Part of It

The number of violent and clinically specific ways you could die were a huge part of this game. You could be a corporate executive selling drugs on the side to your mining colonies, encounter a bunch of space thugs, and get blown to smithereens by laser fire in spectacular fashion. In a way the original Robocop movie influenced a lot of the gunplay and action, brutally specific and violent like a horror movie - but since many of the characters were horrible people there was a puritanical sense of just desserts to everyone's fate in this game.

Horrible space people died in horrible ways trying to do horrible things to each other.

The game was played PvP with factions, and when one got wiped out, we would create another and have the players who needed new characters work together there to attack the survivors of the first round. That would continue with backstabbing and all sorts of plots and intertwined fates, with the PvP aspects of how bad you could foil the others and mess with their plots taking center stage.

Some groups went off on their own for sections, to do mining or specific missions, but everyone was tied into an area of space that seemed like Miami during the cartel drug wars of the 1980's, so characters got stepped on and pulled into plots with alarming frequency. Often players found reasons just out of spite, but it was all in good fun and it gave players a reason to PvP so we loved it.

But again, the mechanics of the game supported our game world, and the brutal nature of the game helped create the world and conflicts. We could not get that with a d6 System Star Wars or GURPS version that easily, so SpaceMaster provided a great fit of brutal realism while serving as the sandbox for violent space mayhem.

More soon on this, and it is fun to read these again and reminisce.