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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Truth about Rolemaster...,
By "jsu0457d" (Delta, Alabama United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Rolemaster Standard Rules (#5500) (Paperback)
Okay, people, if you are interested in purchasing the Rolemaster system, here is what you need to know. Firstly, the black and white illustrations are terrible, and one some pages the print is not centered perfectly. ICE publishes a hard back version of the standard book, something players who get into this game will want to buy. This soft backed version of the book should have been bound with lay flat binding to aid in photocopying (see below).Now on to the meet of the game... The rules for character generation are complex, and can be a 95% diceless generation if desired. This is a nice break from players who feel that d20 system rules are too random. This allow players to design exactly what they want to play. The book could have been laid out better, to aid in new players understanding the rules. If will take a few read throughs and flipping back and forth to determine all the "hobby ranks", development points, proffesion bonuses, racial bonuses, etc. etc. to calculate all the stats. There are ten basic stats, too many in my opinion. I like GURPS' system with four basics stats allowing every stat to be very influential on the character. This is not a "player handbook" as other RPG core books are. Players will have to purchase the Arms Law book to have complete explanations of weapons, three Spell Law books (Essance, Channeling, and Mentalism Laws), Character Law (for extended character generation rules), and Gamemaster Law (the equivent of D&D's DMG) to have what Rolemaster calls the "standard system". All are neccessary to fully enjoy the game's versitility. Is it worth it to buy these books and spend the time learning all the rules and tables? Depends... Rolemaster is for you if 1) you have "improved" other FRPG with homemade rules, skills and combat tables. Buy rolemaster instead 2) Combat is fairly rare in your games but in the combat that is there you want to be very descriptive and real 3) You are a seasoned gamer and are looking for something other than the generic d20 system games and other RPGs that are all getting to be the same. Rolemaster has a very "old school" feel to it. 4)You like "low fantasy" adventures. Rolemaster feels very grounded, but can be made high fantasty by GM. 5) You think having players who can shrug of five strikes from a halberd swung by an giant and three quarrels stiking in him from his goblin buddies is STUPID. Getting hit in the chest with a halberd swung by a normal man HURTS and rolemaster reflects that. 6) As a player character, you sigh as you attack the troll because there is no way you can heroicly slay it (like the hero you are supposed to be) because you know the troll has more hit points than your longsword is capable of doing in one hit. No matter how big and bad the troll is, jamming your sword through his jugular and into it brain will HURT it, no matter who you are. Rolemaster reflects that, and even low level characters can get in deadly strikes. 7)You don't think being assured of victory against the troll becasue you have four attacks a round, weapon specialization, weapon mastery, a plus 80 vorpal long sword of freezing and blah blah blah is very heroic either. Rolemaster is not for you if... 1)You are not willing to invest some time in learning a "heavy system" 2) You hate tables. Everything is based on a percentile roll applied to a table. Everything. And everything has its own table. Everything 3) You are looking for a fast playing game. Rolemaster does not have to be slow, but it can be. There are other systems where combat is fast and furious and colored by the imagination. In RM, everything is detailed, explained, and goes to a table. 4) Combat is constantly going on in your game. Playing out a dozen fights before the main fight in a night's worth of gaming may not be possible for all but he most experienced players. 5) This is your first RPG, especially if you have to learn it by yourself. The rules might over shadow the fun of the RPG. Look into D&D,GURPS, or Lord of the Rings Role Playing Game. Overall, I do not think it is a bad investment. I will with hold the "best RPG" title. I would have a hard time dealing this out to any RPG. It all depends on what the gaming group is looking for in its RPG. There are a few things I would recommend doing though in a RM game: 1)Photocopy all the tables for a GM's notebook and order them in an alphabetized list with dividers clearing marking the tables. There are so many tables the game will get slowed down with flipping pages, especially if there is only one copy of the basic rules in the gaming group 2) download MERP Lite copyright 2000 by Craig Pay (run a search on Google, and apply the rules to Rolemaster (MERP and RM are compatible systems). This will speed game play up dramatically. Save the ultra technically rules for the "big showdowns" with the big bad guys worthy of the time. 3) Don't let "rule lawyering" slow the game down. Keep the game flowing. Anyway, hopefully with this information you can make a better informed decision on what the Rolemaster system really is. As always, happy gaming!!
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Complex Realism,
By John (Green Bay, WI United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Rolemaster Standard Rules (#5500) (Paperback)
The best thing I can say about Rolemaster is that is injects a much-needed dose of realism into RPG's.When I finally got sick of playing DnD, it was because I had seen a character standing and laughing in front of a guard who was shooting him repeatedly with a crossbow. The crossbow was completely ineffective on the high level PC and this was, obviously, ridiculous. Being shot with a crossbow in real life will put a damper on your day and DnD just didn't reflect that. Even experienced adventurers should be wary of being shot in the head. The same situation in Rolemaster plays out somewhat differently. First off, the PC would never intentionally be in such a situation but if he was, then there would be a good chance that the crossbow bolt "enters through the eye, penetrates the brain, and kills the target instantly." whether that PC was level 1 or 100. This means that as the PC's gain levels, it is not that they become unreal and unheroic juggernaughts of strength and immunity, but rather that they know what to do, which skills to use, and when to cut and run. In short, it means that the system encourages roleplaying and solving of problems in an intelligent way rather than just trusting your godlike abilities yet again. This also works in reverse of course. Even the lowliest of characters can get in that lucky hit with his sword and fell the evil demon. It's unlikely, but it's possible, and that's what really makes the system come alive. With literally hundreds of styles of magic, from traditional fireballs and healing magics right through to invading dreams and aging targets years in a second, the mage players find more than enough to occupy their time and flesh their characters out. Are there any downsides to Rolemaster? Yes there are. It is a complicated system and requires a lot of book referencing and page flipping. I would recomend that the GM print himself a fast-reference booklet of the more commonly used Critical Tables before starting play in order to keep game flow uninterupted.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Complex for who???,
By
This review is from: Rolemaster Standard Rules (#5500) (Paperback)
I have been gaming now for the better part of 20 years. I have played a staggering variety of fantasy rpg's: AD&D 1st and 2nd,D&D, D&D 3 and 3.5, Rune Quest, Pendragon, Earthdawn, Warhammer 1st and 2nd, Cthulhu Dark Ages, D6, Masterbook, Torg, GURPS, and about a dozen others. Here's the truth about Rolemaster from a seasoned GM and Player.It is not the best fantasy rpg out there. My personal vote on that front goes to Earthdawn for setting and magic and Pendragon for system and vision. That said, it blows D20 out of the water. D20 is an absurdist game at best, with characters surviving ridiculuous situations, a dee dee dee magic system where you turned retarded after casting, thousands upon thousands of rules cover minutia the likes of which only a rules-freak would get into, and prestige classes that should just be freaking classes. D20 sucks. Now, compared to games that don't suck, Rolemaster is one of the finest "generic" fantasy rpg's on the market- if not the finest. It has a massive variety of magical types and styles, of professions magical and otherwise, races, monsters, and glorious weapons. There are all the requirements to build your game world- any game world- fromthe ground up. The system is NOT complex. If you can read a chart, you can play and run Rolemaster. It is, in fact, one of the simplest game engines I've ever seen. Everything is resolved by chart. It is unwieldy, but not complex. Arms Law- the combat system- is worth getting into Rolemaster alone! Spell Law is simply incredible. The spells add to the character and the "class" you play, instead of being generic, come-one-come-all spells.Rolemaster is great. But not perfect. It has a big flaw- that's why I gave it only 4 stars. The character creation system sucks. It is too big and takes too long. Skills are divided into categories and skills, and every imaginable task is covered by a skill. It's too much. It needs scaling back. Now, here's where I go back to praising the game. It requires little imagination and less effort to change this problem. Most of Rolemaster is like that, see. Instead of a D20 style games where every rule resonates through every other rule, Rolemaster is modular. You can dump entire parts of the game out and IT STILL WORKS! For example, you can leave off attributes (I run with 6 myself), you can leave off skill categories (my favorite trick), you can leave off talents and flaws (but why would you want to), etc. You canb leave off the magic system, if you are so inclined. It still works. It is immanently flexible and adaptable. Rolemaster is not for every one. It's just for everyone who likes exciting combat, depth and breadth of magic, realism, and choice. It is for GM's who wish to build their own vision instead of playing in someone else's. It is not complex at all. The charts are always gathered in a central locale. Arms Law has all of the combat charts. Spell Law has all of the magic charts. The rulebook's first appendix has all of the skill charts. That's all you need to play. Honest. Those 3 groups of charts do it all. I recommend this game to you. If you are sick of D20 and want a "generic" fantasy rpg you can't do better.
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