A reflection on Rolemaster - tweakablility

Having been in a conversation about Burning Wheel, a game built very tightly to a specific specification, I think back on how amazingly modular Rolemaster is.

Anyone who have seen the long series of companions published for the system probably know what I mean. Almost any part of the system can be tweaked, added to or subtracted from. It would still be Rolemaster! I think I have at least four different initiative systems in my collection, and that not counting the fan made stuff free on the internet!

I think that was the same thing that made me a fan of GURPS back in the day. Take the parts you like and the core is still the same. Learn some basics and then you know the game, but there's more flavour if you need it.

Contrast that with modern iterations of D&D.

Do you remember how convoluted, complex and contradictory the 3rd ed D&D rules became when you started hacking them with all the splat books that came out?

I still look favourably on Rolemaster, and even though I don't expect to play it again soon I almost always start make up new and exciting rules tweaks as soon as I start to read it. I like that quality in a game.

A depressing read

Since Traveller is a game I have a very complicated relationship to, I don't know if I dare to get ideas about starting a game of Traveller. But, you can always read your gamebooks, right?

I've been reading 1248 Sourcebook 1: Out of the Darkness lately. It's number one in a series of books expanding the time line and concepts of the Traveller edition knows as TNE, or The New Era. TNE have caught a lot of flak from the fans, and for good reasons.

The guys at GDW lasting impression in the rpg hobby is How To Ruin Your Game Setting. A sad one.
This book have a long section where all the threads from older sources are tied up into a long history from 1116 to 1248 Imperial time. Many times I find time lines be of little use, but in this case its kind of needed, since older source have included information about what would happen, and tying it all together takes some time.

It's an impressive effort, and author Martin J. Dougherty have managed to include a lot of back history, and reasonably often making sense of them. Still, the lasting impression is one of failure.

Mind you, it's not a failure by the author in his task of assembling the data and presenting a gameable setting. In that I think it probably does as well as could be hoped for. No, the impression of failure is rather the theme of 132 years of pure misery in the game setting. Step by step civilization is rebuilt after the madness that was the civil war of the Rebellion, and the senseless slaughter that came after with the unleashing of Virus. But, as soon as someone forms some stellar state that can rebuild, another hammer comes along and beats them into dust again. Frankly, it's unbelievably depressing.

More problematic is the idea of 130 years of warfare. Considering that multiple times the wars degenerate into orbital bombardment with spinal guns and nuclear warheads (case in point - Vland) it's hard to believe that anything would be left. And you know what, smoking ruins makes for a boring game setting.

So, while something emerges that looks like a setting that could actually be fun to game in, the way there is depressing. To say the least.

A Rolemaster combat variant

Way back in the days, Rolemaster was one of those big systems used in fantasy campaigns all over the place. Then the company who published it, I.C.E. suffered some setbacks and eventually folded. Through all this a few new iterations of the game saw the light of day, and being an old fan of the system, having started my GM career with MERP, I own more than a few of these books.

Now the company is back again, and it's time for consolidation and a new edition of the rules. Will it be viable in today's marketplace? I have my doubts, but for old times sake I took a peek at the play test documents.

One thing I never liked was how every weapon in the system had its own attack table. If for nothing but logistical reasons, it was unwieldy. But, it also made no sense. While the difference between getting hit by a small piece of sharpened metal and a bigger one might might be significant, the steps in between were just way too fine grained. It was often lauded as realistic, but in reality that was a simulationist dream. But, in MERP and in RMFRP they did something else.

In those variants of the rules (I consider them all to be kind of the same, even HARP), you had groups of weapons, like one handed edged weapons. It was easier to handle, and kept a level of verisimilitude. Today, considering the effects of what this about to model, I came upon an idea of how to present this even more concisely.

The individual hit points matter little in RM. What kills you is the critical hits, which are divided into levels of severity. So, I thought why not boil it down to those crits? Since a critical shows up in the upper level on the hit charts, you can see how big a percentage of the hits are of a specific level. Those percentages could be rolled in tandem with the attack roll, skipping the roll on the hit table. If you beat your opponents roll, add the overlap to the crit roll and see what level of crit you inflicted. It will make a bunch of simplifications to the RM system, but keeps some of the flavour. The obvious thing missing is of course the difference against different kinds of armour. Maybe I can shoe horn that back in somehow as well, given some time.

I wont be able to do a proper play test, since I'm lacking a group to test with. But, I felt like throwing it out there for anyone who happen to see it, and for my own archival purposes. Enjoy.

What the eye can see

Right now the eye is half closed, sleeping and waiting the arrival of those days when free time and gaming is plenty. Some of you who have been faithful readers might still be around. Thanks for your patience! I have managed to get a few sessions of gaming in the last months and will have a few posts coming in the near future. Still, I make no promises and posting will probably continue to be sparse for a while more.

Take care, and game on.

Just something that needed to be said

I think some people need to see this.

On hiatus

As if it is not bleeding obvious, I'm not gaming much at all right now. I hate it, and am quite drain for ideas to write about when I am not getting regular feedback from actual games.

It will continue to be quiet around here some more.

Hang around and The Eye will, hopefully, open up and peer at the world again.

The hangover

I got a bunch of emails today that made me sad. Today I got refunds from IndieGoGo for "Of Unknown Provenance", "Machinations of the Space Princess", "The Unbegotten Citadel" and "The Land that Exuded Evil".

Damn.

I really wanted to see those adventures...

Some thoughts on crowdfunding

(edit: Jim Raggi have chimed in on the specific case of Monte Cook, on The Mule Abides blog, and apparently Monte did promote his project, even more than others, but not where I saw it. I still think video is key, as per below)

I guess everyone right now is looking at LotFP, and the big crowdfunding campaign of Jim Raggi. So am I, and I'm thinking a bit about what this tells us. Everyone has an opinion, I know. These are mine.

So. There were 19 adventures up for funding. Four of those funded. That is a success rate of 21%, which is not great. But, I think the interesting part is how far the 79% got. 3 got in the 54-27% funded and the rest (often far) less than 30% funded. Those numbers talk louder than if most had gotten around 50% but not funded.

This might tell us a few things. Let's assume one: gamers have a limited amount of money, and Jim's hypothesis that "Each author's fans would follow them to their adventure here." is wrong. In that case it would explain the campaign was so "top heavy". Is that true? Well, if they pledgers where mostly from existing LotFP fans, that would be true. I've heard many gamers talk about how they have to pick and choose these days so I think that part is true. It would be bad for LotFP if the outreach has failed and the author has not managed to pull in their fans. There are two sides to that coin.

I think Jim's assumption is quite sound. Probably each author should be able to pull in their fans, getting a solid ground for funding. If they all have a big enough crowd to begin with. For some of the creators, I have no idea if that is true. Maybe. I know the Monte Cook example have been used before, and I'm going to use it again. I think the assumption rests upon the crucial idea that the authors could rally their fans to their cause. I suggest that for that to happen either the publisher or the author would have to do some marketing.

If we look at the projects that did well, It's clear that marketing played a factor. Vincent Baker did Q&A videos, Jeff Rients did videos of "design notes" and Brockie added extra stuff which related to him and his previous activities and creations and finally Green announced it would get published no matter what. Those who have analyzed the numbers claim to see clear spikes in contributions when those "added value" actions took place.

I'm going to hold up Monte Cook as the anti-example here. He did no marketing that I noticed, at all, until the Ptolus pdf. Also, it was not an addition that felt tied in to the project. Also, I think most of the expected hard core fans have Ptolus already. I wonder about the other projects that achieved under 20% if those authors did any promotion? Face it, if money is tight, you need to work to get some of it. Talk about it on your blog, get interviewed, pitch in extras. Also, do a video.

When I have contributed to Kickstarter projects I have noticed that they seem to include a video pitching the project. Every guide to how to succeed in crowdfunding seem to suggest you need a video. I claim Jeff and Vincent have proven that advice to be correct.

I'd like to hail the hero of LotFP promotion, Jennifer Steen (of the Jennisodes fame). Her interviews with the project creators was great. I think more of that special sauce would have helped the 79%. Why would I chip in money when you don't want to tell me about your project? Jenn did I great job there. 

The last thought I have on the matter relates to the upper tier of the whole shebang.  


When I think about an offer where I have to shell out $100+ in order to maybe get something, I withhold my funds. Come one. If I see no money on any project I would feel like an idiot taking the chance to put down $100. If I had 19 projects almost all funded, it would make more sense. Needless to say, if someone has to plunk down a few hundred for the campaign to get past that bump, it wont happen. Nobody puts down money for something which seem to have a slim chance of happening. 

This part of the campaign is where I think James Raggi didn't think it through enough from a consumer perspective. High tiers should be for those stretch goals a couple of hundred percent above fully funded. Otherwise they don't make sense.


All in all it was an interesting experiment and kudos to James Raggi for exploring the limits! 


Personally I supported a few of the winning bids, and even though I'm really pumped up about Vincent Baker's project, I'm sad I wont get to see what Monte Cook could do.

Summertime

I love summer. Finally some heat for these old bones, and no more of that cloak of darkness that descends over you in winter.

But, I never get to play any games during summer! Since everyone is away on summer vacation it's even harder than usual to get people together. I hate it.

So, I sigh and read games, not play them. It makes it hard to write anything inspired here, since I lack the input of real play.

But.

How about this idea.

A big starship has crashed, and sits there with the nose buried in the soil, smoking. The imperial marines are sent there, in case the aliens are hostile, since it's clearly a warship. But, something is leaking out, into the soil. It's the aliens reality leaking...

Things are about to get interesting for our brave team.

Maybe I'll type it all up.

How to not write a game

Last night I had some time to browse a game I have borrowed from a friend, Dresden Files the rpg. This is a game that have been talked about a lot, and most of it very positive. I did find some points of it so grating I had to put the book down. What do you do then? Gripe online!

In Dresden Files, the pages a very "designed". In my view, overly so. For example, some parts of the pages are designed to look like someone took a highlighter pen to some words and sentences. Personally I have never been able to use highlighter pens. For me they are of no use. I don't read like that. Sometimes I have read books bought second hand, and underlining or highlighting drives me up the wall. If anything, I take notes on a separate paper, never in the book I read! Having a thing like that in a printed book, by design, drives me nuts. It makes my eyes stop at intervals which are not natural to my way of reading. Quite jarring.

The other design element is sticky notes. Yes, they have small "sticky notes", with faux hand writing in the sidebars of the text! To me it just makes the text on the page drown in the clutter of notes. Adding insult to injury, the few times I stopped reading and glanced at those notes, almost all of them contained snarky remarks of a very annoying nature. I mean, if you add something to the text, add least make sure it adds information!

Since it's very easy to complain, I'm also going to say how I think it should be done.

The best game book I ever read is the 2nd ed. rules book for Unknown Armies. What's so good about it? It's clear and understandable. There are no witty quotes or snarky sidebars, just a clearly presented text with illustrations not interfering with the text. The text is different from the majority of gaming prose, though. It is not detached. Instead it is personal, and with a very clear author voice. For some that is a killer, and for those I direct you to SPI's DragonQuest, which is as formal as it gets.

But, I'd like to emphasize that in Unknown Armies, the voice never hinders the important function of the text, to get the information across on how to play the game. You can read one sentence after the other and the information flows naturally. The combination of all these factors are sadly quite rare, and one reason why I have sought out Greg Stolze's writing since.