Campaign Law and Other gaming, Miscellany.

[tcpip]

I was originally asked to write one chapter (World Building) of the upcoming new edition of Campaign Law for Rolemaster Classic, I am now significantly contributing to two other chapters (Peoples and Campaigns). Appropriately, the Rolemaster Companion I wrote some sixteen years ago, with a cover price of $14, now sells for $100 USD. I recently finished playing a Rolemaster PBeM run by Luther Martin set in Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age (I played a Dafarian mentalist named Xanana). Now he wants to start a PBeM set in Middle-Earth after the Hobbit, but before the Lord of the Rings. I shall have to revive my lovesick Halfling, Paul McGann. Iron Crown also had a 'remembrance contest' in honour of Gary Gygax. I submitted "A Tale of Two (Rolemaster) Paladins", which I am sure grailchaser could correct me on some of the finer details.

This is quite a big week for me in hanging out with friends in the shared imaginary space of roleplaying games. Thursday evening (D&D 3.5, Fantasy Australia), Friday evening (Swordbearer Castofan), Saturday day (AD&D1e, Norman Britain) and Sunday day (L5R, Ainu Nezumi) is all going to be taken up with ham improvised acting and dice rolling. This is on top of recent events such as an increasingly notorious Easter Sunday GURPS Bunnies & Burrows game (complete with players in rabbit ears). Although without amusing images, I must say the last two retro-AD&D Norman Britian games has been enormous fun (visiting hell, stopping Arachne's revenge against the Gods). In the HeroQuest Glorantha game I narrate, the players have been doing some crazy things, such as winning wars, playing cupid and planning seductions; improvised storytelling at its best - all's fair in love and war.

The past weeks haven't all been fun and games however.. I've spent a fair bit of time working through the implementation of subdomains on DNS and Apache with a PHP/MySQL site; not for the first time Debian Administration has come to my aid. National PornographicGeographic informs us that apparently sex was invented in Australia. Finally, ctudball alerts us to the disaster that is the refusual to separate church and state in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. I take the opportunity to, once again, break Victoria's Racial and Religious Tolerance Act; and I incite others to do.

Comments

[curufea.livejournal.com]

I had no idea you wrote that supplement - If I had, I'd have had you sign my copy when I was in Melbourne :)
Although I quite like Rolemaster, I do find the charts for weapons a bit pretentious - granularity for the sake of it. It isn't as if the numbers were based on anything.

Anyhow, I'd be quite pleased to see a new edition of Rolemaster - I have a couple. Unlike a new edition of D&D, I'm quite likely to buy it.

And speaking PHP/SQL and Apache - I should re-install a server for myself to fiddle around with PHP - it's getting irritating to edit files, upload, and then check to see if they work.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Rolemaster Companion VI? Yeah, that was me.. I agree with your comments on Arms Law; you will note that one of the rules in RoCo VI reduced all the charts to a single column :-)

Apache/PHP/MySQL is the sort of thing you really need to fiddle around with with alarming regularity.

[curufea.livejournal.com]

Very true.

I've been arguing with a RM fan over on the Hero forums that the charts are pointless. You only want granularity if it adds detail to the game - having a chart of random numbers is a waste of time. It could be easily accomplished with only a formula and it would save space and time.

I don't understand why they have a problem with abstracting something that isn't based on any research or level of detail in the first place.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

One of the big advantages of the charts is that they ensured that a 'good hit' did 'good damage'. This does not occur in games (like Hero) where a roll to hit could succeed by a large amount, but the damage rolled afterwards was pitiful.

The other thing which the RM charts did well was incorporating the old 'weapon modifiers vs AC' in AD&D. So maces are designed to be particularly good against solid armor types (e.g., plate), whereas daggers could be devastating against unarmoured opponents. Teeth and claws are particularly devastating against unarmoured opponents, but even some minimal armour could help out a great deal.

To an extent this could be included in the Hero system with the Armour Piercing and Reduced Penetration modifiers, but I am yet to see anyone - for example - write up a mace a xd6 damage, AP vs armour values of x.

[curufea.livejournal.com]

Hero could do with more granularity. The armour values are abstracted by the system. Although the system is capable of supporting detail if required. You could design armour as, for example 6 DEF vs slashing weapons but 4 DEF vs blunt impact weapons.

Mind you the damage is also abstracted to hit-point equivalents so it isn't that helpful in telling you when you have a bruise and when you have a broken arm.

However, formulas could be used instead of tables. The only reason I see for tables it to maintain some kind of artificial intellectual property rights, by using a fictional legacy table generation algorithm.

I'd have far less problem with the tables is there were substantive research as to the results and didn't appear to be numbers drawn out of a hat.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

However, formulas could be used instead of tables.

Well, you will note I have a "kinda-sorta" formula in the RoCo version (albeit partially presented in a table). Essentially every 10% over the the basic to-hit value increased the damage by a factor from a (low) base number.

I'd have far less problem with the tables is there were substantive research as to the results and didn't appear to be numbers drawn out of a hat.

Well the general principles were thought out, but as you say the actual numbers themselves were less than sophisticated. It's a typical complaint on ICE forums that AT's 5 and 9 for example were pure punishment.

[curufea.livejournal.com]

The converse is also true, however - that detail and research can also be detrimental to an RPG. The classic example here being Phoenix Command which used computer models to simulate gunfire. It really is an RPG for wargamers.

These days though - I'm a narrative and rules-lite biased person. But those kinds of rules are only good for genres the GM is alread familiar with and aren't great for introducing old-school style players to roleplaying. However - they are good rules for writers and drama folk :)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

To be fair Phenoix Command didn't even pretend to be a roleplaying game. It was a combat system that could be incorporated into an RPG if one so desired.

Rules light and narrativist, eh? What does that mean for your use of the Hero System? ;-)

I was gaming last night with a person who other group played 10 sessions of Champions: "Never Again!", he declared, "We're now using Marvel SH".

I cannot work out what they did wrong.

[curufea.livejournal.com]

It's a compromise to my D&D friends - a step from effect simulation to cause simulation and effect special effect. However - I hardly ever GM anything these days. When I do - I prefer PBeM over like GMing if I can get it, due to time contraints of players, and just because I'm naturally quite shy and have an easier time of it if I have a chance to think through responses.

I've only been in a superhero game once - and that was based on Mystery Men. Although I have a lot of superhero genre books for the Hero System (which you can see on my LibraryThing catalogue) - I've never actually used them. Mind you, I bought Champions when it was Champions, the Hero system came later. I mainly like the simplicity of it, and the ability to simulate far more things.

It's simple to simulate a new power, new magic item, or invented spell - the rules exist and give you hard guidelines to go by as to how to simulate things in their system. Other systems - not so much.

A major failing of GMs to Champions is using all the rules with players who have very little experience with the system. Usually they've been on D&D for so long, they can't even remember what it is like to learn something new.