HARP: Martial Law and College of Magics

So when I got Rolemaster, I just picked up the base HARP book - to check it out. I seen reviews saying HARP was the simplified Rolemaster, and got it as a fallback book in case Rolemaster was too complex to learn given my time and projects.

I liked what I saw in HARP, it was different, but the very few crit charts (plus Rolemaster's evil magic) pulled me more towards Rolemaster than this game.

Then I picked up HARP: Martial Law.

Roughly Equivalent in Crit Results

Wow, a surprise when I counted charts and results and realized HARP plus HARP: Martial Law gives you roughly the same amount of crit chart results as Rolemaster. Now, the weapons charts are still a point of difference, there still is "one chart per weapon" in Rolemaster and HARP aggregates weapons into classes, but that feels like less of a huge difference now.

So HARP isn't as limited on crit chart results anymore? I see the base game as a "starter book" like RMFRP's base book, and they give you a choice between the first book's crit charts and this one's. If I played, I would use these.

This was a huge issue keeping me from this game, and now it is gone. This plus the ease of character creation may win me over - but I am still learning Rolemaster Classic because I feel that game is worth the effort and a true classic played and loved by many.

Evil Spells?

Another big difference between HARP and Rolemaster is on the assumption of magic being neutral, versus it having sides like good, neutral, and evil. HARP assumes all magic is neutral and the use and/or culture determines good or evil. Rolemaster assumes there is evil magic, thus there could also be good and neutral magics.

I picked up HARP: College of Magics and they have a spell design system which could be used to simulate all of Rolemaster's evil spells roughly equivalently. It will take some work but it is doable. I am not normally a fan of spell design since I like working with a toy-box full of choices, but having it and using the base game as a starting point and filling in the gaps as needed with spell design is a compromise that works for me.

And another reason to not try HARP is gone. The two games are mechanically similar but different in implementation and focus, so I could see myself getting started with a hero or two in HARP while still working through Rolemaster. To me, Rolemaster's spell lists are a huge box of fun to dig through and master, years of fun had by players around the world. The game is worth learning and playing.

Equal but Different

This is a strange choice. I like both games, and after reading this and learning what I did, I like HARP a lot more than when I started writing about the system. Times change, so do people's minds. Yeah I know it's only been a week.

There is a sweet spot for Rolemaster for me, the sandbox experience with no assumptions of heroes or villains, and the wide variety of results on crit charts for lots of surprises. These two extra guides fill those needs nicely while allowing for the easier to learn and play game that HARP provides.

There still are some mechanical differences, plus a higher low-level character power, but those were not as huge of preference impediments as the two I mentioned were when I started reading Rolemaster. I still have a special place in my heart for Rolemaster, having loved Spacemaster long ago, but HARP now is stepping up and proving it is just as flexible and expressive as its classic forefather.

Very interesting indeed. HARP articles shall be forthcoming as I read more.

Rolemaster Classic: Background Options (Option 8)

Wow, 4-6 picks on the options tables? Check pages 62-69 in Character Law, and unless I am reading this wrong, this option seems really overpowered. Considering the sample characters used as creation examples only have one of these bonuses each, I would consider doing the same for characters I create.

You get one positive bonus, just like the sample characters.

But there are negative options in these tables as well, as rolled results on the tables - but you can still pick (?) on these tables so why would you ever pick those negative results? If I were allowed to pick 6 I would load up on +10 skill bonuses to primaries and some special abilities as well.

Take a Negative Bonus, Get an Extra Positive!

So why take negative traits, like criminal backgrounds? I would houserule you get an extra positive bonus, so two of them, if you take a negative trait. One positive trait otherwise. This way, you can create characters like the sample characters, or ones with an extra positive trait for the cost of a negative trait.

Spell Adders?

I seen this on table 06-02 Set Options Category and at first I could not figure it out. I honestly seen this and thought, it must be a magical snake. Later, via a text search of the PDF, I realized this was a magic item that assists in casting spells, like a magic wand. It is a slightly strange name for these items, I feel something more conventional like spell focus or spell power item would be a little more obvious.

I like the idea of a talking, magical snake though. If it were me, if a player wants a magic snake as a background option, they can have a magic snake. That is my illustration by the way, not in the book.

Spell adders are strange, they aren't like power points, which are consumed at one per level of spell, spell adders are "1 spell of any level." I am so used to having unified rules for these things, once designers create a system like power points, they tend to integrate them into everything, like making some wands have 5 PP, and others 10 PP to tweak power levels. These are wonderfully strange and the mechanics are different, a quirk, and also reflective of the times when unifying systems and rules wasn't such an important goal.

There are times I feel games optimize themselves too much, like we are shipping a software product and every mechanic should be part of a hierarchical whole.

But this funny misunderstanding does highlight the fact that these bonuses should be "make them up based on background!" And really should not be limited by a table. If a person really, really wanted to play an angel-like race with wings...guess what? Let them have wings and flight as their character bonus. I would not limit myself to these charts, nor present them to players as options to choose from. I would rather have the players use their imagination, rule it as a gamemaster, and use these options as guidelines for power level.

That is old-school to me. Be creative, let the players dream up cool stuff, and rule it in with the best balance you can come up with based on other choices.

Now if that angel character wanted an extra holy-type power, they will have to take a disadvantage to offset it. What is fair is fair, and we balance things with equal offsets.

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.

Rolemaster Classic: Base Casting Level Bonus

Okay Rolemaster, don't hide things! I am normally one to never create a caster first because it means learning how the magic system works as well as character creation, ability rolls, combat, skills, and so on. But I want to immerse myself and if I don't learn how magic works it means hours learning in the middle of a combat when an enemy flings a spell at my character and I have no clue.

So I wonder, how do you cast a spell? So in Spell Law, page 38, I find this:

Base Casting Bonus? I flip to section 1.4 of Spell Law, definitions, and look for it there. Not there. Hmm. Index in the back of the book? Sends me back to page 38. Where else did I hear this?

Character generation with the sample character in Chapter 2, Character Creation Overview, of Character Law:

Did she buy that as a skill? Nothing else is said here. Let me check the Index of Character Law. Nothing under Base Casting Level or Casting Level Bonus. Hmm. Wow, I am lost. So I start skimming the book. Maybe it is mentioned in Character Law under Experience and Advancing Levels? Here it is on page 127 of Character Law, but it isn't called Base Casting Bonus:

To be fair, this is also in Spell Law, in a summary chart in the back of the book on page 269, but it isn't called Base Casting Bonus (note the +20 cap is not mentioned here):

Okay, that mystery figured out, cool! Next time, please put all the rules for how to cast a spell in one place! Those of us learning the game are going to go crazy looking for rules like this. Then again, it was the 80's and like people's style and hair, they were all over the place.

Spell To-Hit Types

That mystery solved, the rest of the magic system is a bit crunch-heavy on modifiers and tables, but it doesn't seem too difficult if one understands the concepts.

Non-attack spells are a straight d100 roll with a 2% chance of spell failure.

Attack spells have a handful of modifiers and use a single attack table that results in spell failure or a modifier on the resistance roll table on the next page. That is cool. Note there are no skills covering these types of spells and you don't have to buy any, you are just using your level as a bonus and NOT using a skill.

Elemental skills use special Directed Skill Bonuses from special skills your character needs to buy per spell. If you don't have the skill, you use your agility bonus. The modifiers to the attack roll here are different, and it follows the weapon to-hit system, with charts per spell, skill plus modifiers pushing the number up, and defenses pushing the number down. Crits happen like all other attacks.

Note there is another spell skill type in Channeling, which besides a Directed Skill for a Spell, are the magic skills you buy to use magic. Or at least the ones I know about so far. This answers the question: do I have to buy skills to use spells?

Yes for Channeling, maybe for directed elemental attacks (but recommended, otherwise Agility bonus), and no for all other general purpose spells - this uses your Base Casting Level Bonus. Runes and Staffs/Wands skills are also required before you use those too, and you can find those rules in Character Law on page 86, near Channeling. Now I can design a magic-using character and know what I need, and how it mostly all works with the system.

Informational Spells

A side note here on how cool this game handles scrying - a universal problem to many of the games derived from D&D. Targets pf scrying and informational rolls get resistance rolls, and if they roll high enough they can detect the scrying, information about who is scrying (like location), and the spell can even fail. A smart magical target could scry back, and I may even house rule a powerful wizard (with the spells to do this), could provide the scrying party wrong information on purpose.

Lesson: Don't scry on Saruman. He will let you see what you want to see, or lead you right into a trap without you knowing. Cool stuff and I can see the scrying wars being risky and dangerous business, which solves the problem of divination and puts a fun meta-game of cat and mouse on the normally "we know everything" problem of these types of spells.

Okay, understanding spells is out of the way, now on to this Background system...

Rolemaster Classic: How Many Skill Levels per Level?

This was one that bit me last night, and this is some of that invaluable "new user experience" feedback my team used to pay people to give back when I was in software development. The question is as follows:

In Rolemaster, how many skill levels can you buy when you level up?

I was reading through the two character creation examples in the chapter for creating characters, and I saw some of the examples buy four levels of a skill, two levels, or just one. The first question that came into my mind was, can I buy as many levels as I want when I level up? Then I felt that familiar sense of panic I felt when I know I don't know something for sure.

The answer is surprisingly easy, and thankfully very consistent across both leveling-up, and the first two skill increases you have during character creation. Let's look at the skill chart:

For every class, there is an entry with either a single number (such as "9", two or three numbers separated by a slash (such as "2/7"), or a number-slash-asterisk (such as "1/*").

If there is one number, you can buy only ONE level of that skill during a level-up. Check the green circle, there is just a "9" there, so that means we can buy one level of the skill for 9 points and that is all for the level-up.

If there are two or three numbers, you can buy the first level at the first cost, the second at the next cost, and if there is a third, a third at the next cost. If there are only two, you can buy up to two. Check the blue circle above, this is a "1/5" which means you could buy one level for one point, or two levels with the second level costing 5 points - for a total of 6 points to raise the skill two during this level-up.

If there is a number-slash-asterisk, you can buy ANY NUMBER of levels of the skill during this level-up, at a cost of the number before the slash per level purchased. So above, in our red circle, you could buy any number of these skill levels for one point each, say you wanted seven levels of this skill, pay 7 x 1 = 7 points to get 7 levels.

During Character Creation

Here is where I got confused. I wanted to rush and buy everything at once, and when I checked out the example character sheets given, I saw levels of skills all over the place. I assumed you could buy any amount at any level - and then I discovered I was wrong.

One level-up is the adolescence level up when you first begin, and these rules apply.

Then you get a potential ability score increase. I would recalculate your development points after this in case you are owed an extra point or two, because you will be doing another level-up shortly.

The final level-up happens for apprenticeship skill development and you buy skills again.

Each time you level-up, the same rules explained above apply. When your character starts, some skills will be capped at 2 points (if you bought a level each time and you were only allowed one increase for this skill per level), some will be capped at 4 or 6 points (2 increases per level and three, respectively), and some will not have any cap (the asterisked ones). You do not have to buy them to the cap, but the cap exists.

Game Design Reasons

I am guessing Rolemaster's designers use their level and skill increase system to cap skills important to classes and to control player ability. If I am a fighter and could buy 16 levels of sword-fighting at level 1, that would give me a huge advantage and put me on a skill level (for that skill) comparable to a level 8 fighter (since 16 potential levels is the cap for level 8 with what I am assuming is the character's primary 1/5 weapon skill).

Knowing these caps also lets you GM the game a little better, since if you are estimating the power of a NPC bad guy, you can figure their capped skill levels petty easily given their class.

Well, that wasn't too hard, but it caused some confusion for me so I thought I would mention it, and I hope I got this right. Now to figure out this spell system...

Rolemaster Classic: Character Creation

 

So I was on the couch reading through my printed copies of Rolemaster Classic last night trying to understand the character creation process. I was getting impatient with the entire complicated process, choosing a profession, the two times you buy skills, a strange stat-increase between those skill buys, background development, choosing what armor and weapons you were trained with early in life (and choices that stay with you throughout life), your final bonuses, and outfittting.

Couldn't this get any more complicated? I wanted to throw my hands up, put the PDF printouts on the shelf, and go read HARP. I want my character now, darn it!

But then it hit me. This is one of those magical moments where the concept clicks with you and you start to take that first step into the Rolemaster way of thinking.

The designers of the game slammed the brakes on character creation for a good reason.

Character Creation is Class Creation

It is strange being put into a position to defend lengthy character creation. I have played many games that make you run around in circles, going from chart to chart, just to take up time for no good reason and for no meaningful impact on gameplay. I love the roll 3d6 three times, pick a class, roll hit points, grab a short sword and leather armor style of play a lot. Being able to start playing like that is cool.

When I realized there is a strategy Rolemaster my mind started to change and get the concept. In the skills you pick how you setup your favored weapons and armor, how you acquired spells (many you can't use yet), and a lot of other point costs and factors that will stay with your character through their life. In essence, you are designing the character's class - one custom to your character's upbringing and life - when you begin play.

This is somewhat like Traveller's character generation, but you get to make the choices. Your fighter or mage won't be the same as another player's character of the same class - your adolescence and apprenticeship character creation steps let you write "mini background stories" and make real mechanical class design choices during them that stay with your character.

What spells do you want to start with? What is your favored weapon? What type of armor did you train with? What are the background skills you picked up? What magic system do you believe in? The magic system is sort of important, because even non-magic users can acquire and use spells (at a greater cost later).

These choices stick with you. They will be of critical important during that first adventure. You can change your mind and later buy the skills you need, sometimes at a greater cost, but this first set of choices you make is like a customized class design step for your character before you even begin play.

Now I can see why in RMFRP they went crazy and added over 300 skills to the game (in both good and bad ways). Part of me loves that detail, but another part of me wonders if "too much is too much" and Rolemaster Classic's more focused list of 60+ skills doesn't work better and is a easier list to manage and design with. If you are a character design fetishist, I would go with the later 90's version of RMFRP. If you want a tighter design that is more focused on the adventure and dungeon crawling, I would gravitate towards the 80's Rolemaster Classic and cut out the extra information.

It is tough since I like detail and role-playing, but I am just getting started with something complex and prefer straightforward over depth.

Character Creation is Investment

Putting the brakes on character creation and slowing the process down increases player investment into their character. This is kind of an obvious argument, like a 2 + 2 = 4 thing, but it has some important ramifications later on. I put some time into creating this pen-and-paper "avatar" and invested some emotion into building him or her. I have chips on the table now, I am bought in, and I care what happens to them because the process took some time and required me to make choices. This is all good.

Now let's bring HARP into the equation, or even the old-school D&D style character generation of: 3d6 six time, class, hit points, gear, and go. Character creation is fast, and we aren't really making many decisions for our character. The character is a lot more disposable. We don't care if the character meets a quick end by stepping into a 10' deep spike-filled pit with poisonous snakes at the bottom. Again, if this is the type of game you are playing and enjoy this, all well and good.

But now consider this. Rolemaster is a game with a lot of detailed critical hit tables. Lots of bad things can happen to your character. Your character could get an eye poked out, or lose a hand from a bad roll.

Now which character would you dread rolling an attack against using these detailed crit charts?

The disposable one you took 30 seconds and little thought creating?

Or the detailed one where the player wrote stories about their background, how they grew up, and how they first trained in their class?

I would hate to roll for the second one, myself. Now there is a fun to the HARP style "this is almost like a horror movie and the characters are disposable anyways" sort of play, and that is also good if you are into that. But another part of me likes the emotional investment of a slower character creation process, and then putting all that "on the table" during combat.

It is the difference between making a huge bet at a poker table versus a smaller one where you don't care if you win or lose. Character creation is what gives Rolemaster's combat tables their punch, emotional weight, and meaning.

Horror Movies

I watch Youtube shows where people review horror movies, and in my earlier article I compared Rolemaster to a horror RPG and the game really fits in that genre of play. Some games need artificial "insanity" stats and fear rolls (and I am sure there are options for that in Rolemaster somewhere), but to me those crit charts are Rolemaster's insanity rolls. Fear exists in the mind of the player, exactly where it should be.

Do not roll on that chart against my character! Don't do it! Not with that high of an attack bonus!

A lot of games go our of their way to design a positive player experience, to make death hard, and to engineer the experience so people want to come back and play with their "comic book hero" the next time. This is all well and good, but it runs counter to the aim and feeling a horror game should deliver.

I want to stare at that dark hole in the ground in the dank marsh and wonder if my character will make it out alive. There is a million things that could go wrong, and I tried my best to design a survivor with the skills and abilities I think my character needed to survive, but I am not sure. One can never be sure.

Also, in those horror movie reviews, the reviewers often say something like "Well, the movie never showed us why we should care about this character, so why would I care if the monster gets them?" It is a dark and funny comment on human nature, but this is true in movie making. If the film maker never gave us a reason to care about someone on the screen, the tension of something bad happening is gone, and the impact of their ultimate fate has less meaning.

This ties back into character creation as investment, above. This a faster system of character creation where no histories are written, the tension and impact of a loss is lessened to a great degree.

Computer Aided Generation?

Well, let's get a computer program to design characters with! Right? Well, something says in the back of my mind, "Do this by hand." Yes, I may make mistakes, but I can fix those in the next character and read through. A computer design program takes some of the investment out, as computers can handle a lot more complexity than I can, but a part of me likes the experience of character creation to not be so complicated a computer is needed and a human can work through it. And a computer lessens my emotional investment in the final product.

I want to be able to do this on my own, and I want the designers to be forced to keep the process manageable and straightforward enough that I can do it without a computer. There is a designer-player contract here that I feel is important. We had games recently like D&D 4 where the books just felt like paper manuals for the computerized character creator, and then the books get errata'ed out of usefulness and sit in boxes in my closet, worthless.

I want the printed book to mean something, I want the process to be manageable, I don't want choice paralysis, and I don't want computers taking over the game. This is one of the huge reasons I did not choose the 90's RMFRP version and went with 80's classic - I wanted the core experience, not a more in-depth one where too many choices could distract me from the experience I came to enjoy. I can see how the 90's version was a love letter to core fans and those wanting "more" - which played to their base, but I feel ultimately was an expansion "more for more's sake" than keeping the game focused and manageable.

In a year or two when I am playing RMFRP and enjoying the complexity and depth I will probably change my mind. This is pen-and-paper gaming, after all.

But it does highlight the important pillar of design to keep the base game simple, and save the "extra skill lists" for optional expansions. If I were designing a new version of RMFRP, I would keep the core experience as close as possible to the 80's version in simplicity and focus, and make the depth added by the 90's additions completely optional. This is the professions book that adds 80 optional crafting skills! Oh, nice! Thanks for the options! Maybe we won't be using that this time since we are just focused on dungeon-ing.

Starting with everything is overwhelming.

TLDR; I am Starting to Get It

It was a fun feeling reading that printout and finally getting how all this works. I was sitting there, reading, becoming more and more frustrated with all of the hoops the game made me jump through when the light went on in my head. It was an uplifting feeling, almost euphoric as all of the gears in my head realized what was going on and why all this was here.

Oh yeah...

And then realizing how it all started to work together with the combat system and spells made more gears turn. This is a good example of a game with design decisions hidden in the system that aren't really explained, but they are there for a reason. Once you take the time to read and discover them you get it, and all of the notorious charts and reference work melts away and become the framework for which you build and explore ideas upon.

Rolemaster Classic

So here I was looking for "realistic combat systems" in pen and paper games, because I wanted to simulate an MMA fight on the tabletop. I came across a thread on Reddit, and one of the posters recommended Rolemaster:

https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/13qc6d/realistic_combat_systems/

I felt like a grizzled Jedi Knight saying the words, "Rolemaster, now there is a name I have not heard in a long, long while." My gaming group's history with Rolemaster in one focused more on a lengthy campaign of Spacemaster we ran as a multi-player sage spread across dozens of worlds and starring some of the cool spacefighters and starships out of the Silent Death game.

And then I learned they did a re-edit and re-printing of the classic rules out of the 1980's. So now there are two versions of Rolemaster to try, and a third if you include the semi-related HARP.

https://ironcrown.com/rolemaster/rolemaster-past/

http://ironcrown.com/harp/

And there were several videos on Youtube saying people loved Rolemaster as a solo game. All right, I knew what I was getting into, and I wanted a solo game desperately now that I am alone - so let's take the plunge. I got everything I wanted, including POD copies, from the incredible DriveThruRPG:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/461/Iron-Crown-Enterprises

What Version to Try?

Well, hold up - there are quite a few versions of the game to try. Let's break this down, from what I can piece together:

Rolemaster FRP / Rolemaster Standard System: The 1990's version of the game. Hundreds of skills, lots of character customization, very detailed characters I feel are better suited for roleplaying and social encounters. Sort of like the "epic adventure" setting for those who really get into their characters and want a more robust and detailed game. Character creation is the slowest here. The spell systems are split into 3 books, and 6 books total are needed for a complete game. You can play with just the basic book though.

Rolemaster Classic: Sort of like the AD&D version of the game as it was in the 1980's, but this version is edited, cleaned up, and things cleared up. Less skills and a tighter focus on dungeoning. Character creation is still complex, but not as many choices as RMFRP so things move faster. The basic books are more complete, but you need four books for a complete set - and a minimum of three to play. Characters are weak at low levels, like RMFRP.

HARP: A lot of people like HARP, and the system is very similar, so I added this to the discussion since this was one of my choices. This is a stripped-down, easy to play, one book game reminiscent of a D&D retro-clone these days. The mechanics on how things work are a bit different than RMC and RMFRP/SS, but the game's origin is the same. Character creation is lightning fast. The combat tables are aggregated. Magic is more generic. The character options and spell usage are a lot less restrictive, and characters are stronger at low levels. HARP has a sci-fi option too that looks fun.

Wow, Lots of Choices!

Choice paralysis set in. My first instinct was to go HARP, get something simple up and running, and forget the rest. All I wanted was something quick and simple, with lots of options, capable characters, and a fast character creation time. You can go to town and buy five main books for HARP, but I opted for the one PDF you need and printed that out to read.

And then...I started to read people's experiences with Rolemaster Classic. The books full of charts. The one table per weapon type combat. The lower-powered and less-capable heroes, one hit away from certain unlucky doom.

But what sold me on RMC (RMFRP has these too) were the evil spells. The game did not make a moral choice for you like most games do these days. You could play the bad guys. Weak, powerless, conniving, take every advantage they got and stab each other in the back classic AD&D "please ban this game from being played after school" type bad guys. That felt so 1980's to me and familiar I had to take a look. You could be the good guys if you wanted, granted, but the game made no decision for you.

It was a sandbox that you used to craft your own world and game.

And yes, RMC became my Rolemaster. I have a copy of RMFRP in the house in a box somewhere but I can't find it, but seeing a cleaned-up classic throwback retro version of the original game warmed my heart, and I wanted to support that and let people know. My articles here still get hits and reads every month, and I felt strongly about this so I am back.

Solo Play?

Another cool part about the game is solo play. Now, you can solo-play just about anything, but very few games surprise you like this one does - and this applies to RMFRP, RMC, and HARP equally - all of them are excellent for solo play. These crit charts for combat make the magic happen. You are not sitting there rolling to-hit, damage, next combatant, to-hit, damage, and then playing "math and statistics" all the way down zero hit points.

No, you crush collarbones. You stab goblins in the eye. You immolate your enemy with fire spells and all that is left are ashes. Cool stuff happens not only to your opponents, but your character as well. You got stabbed in the foot and are limping along, what now? You going to press farther on into the dungeon with a reduced movement rate and then need to run from something you can't handle - and you can't? You get one-shot killed a lot, and that adds to the danger. Every combat, even against "low level" monsters - is still a threat.

You do have to deal with a lot of charts - less so in HARP which is why so many people like it - but I feel playing solo you are not being pressed for time as much as you are sitting in front of a room full of impatient players looking for a ruling. You can learn a complex system better if it solo plays well.

Plus there is an appeal of creating a character and watching what happens in this fantasy world simulator. One character, alone. Your choices matter. You can be good or bad. Your character may meet an early end, but the story of the footsteps this person took through the world is what you came for.

Horror Gaming

It needs to be said that the tables in these games (more so in RMC and RMFRP, HARP's are condensed and there are not as many results) are like walking through a horror aisle at your local 1980's video rental store. You are not going to get your arm chopped off in D&D, or bleed out from a gaping wound you can't effectively bandage. Again, this is really fun 1980's throwback gaming that would upset parents and teachers - and thus, it is cool. You can imagine a teacher listening in as an goblin gets beheaded by a good ax swing, or the players debate charming the townsfolk against their will to complete a task.

Um, please play another game in the library next time or your after school club's rights will be terminated. It makes me laugh, but few other games are like this, and the tables are a very effective instrument of fear for players - nobody wants this stuff to happen to their characters - so let's play careful - or as careful as we can manage. And you still get bit by a bad roll and suffer a loss when you don't expect it.

This is effective, powerful horror pen-and-paper gaming at its best. It isn't "numbers versus numbers" but actions and consequences, and if I need a reason to wade through all these charts and learn the game, this is it.

It is also worth noting that HARP provides this level of fear as well, though some have said the limited number of character mean you see the same result come up more often. To me, you resolve this by getting enough experience and dropping in house rulings and differing effects for rolls you saw too many of recently.

The Plan

I have HARP, and if RMC galls flat I have that to play. I want to learn RMC and play it effectively, and that is going to take a little time. I also have RMFRP in a box somewhere, but I eliminated that as a choice because I have not experienced the original as much as I would have liked, and the original has a simpler focus and 1980's feel to me. If I find the book, I will read it, otherwise I am not going out of my way to search through boxes.

I will probably keep things updated here as I go with both HARP and RMC, and that will give me another reason to work through the books. Sharing on a timely basis is a good excuse to commit time to read and learn a new game.

Until then, that dark dungeon looks really, really dangerous.

Are you sure we want to go in there?