From: cook@shaman.nexagen.com
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Spacemaster (was Re: Rolemaster)
Date: 28 Jan 1993 01:49:46 -0700
Organization: NeXagen.com
NNTP-Posting-Host: shaman.nexagen.com

seawasp@vm2.cis.pitt.edu (Sea Wasp) writes:


>	Okay, here goes.

>	Overall: Rolemaster is a pretty good system. I'd use it a lot more
>if I didn't have so much of my world constructed around other, incompatible,
>systems.

>	Good Things: I use the RM advancement chart almost exclusively now.
>The advancement of characters in other XP based systems (notably D&D)
>was so ludicrous that to see a simple system like RM's was very refreshing.
>	   Skill Listings: Even if you don't play RM, it provides more neato-
>wow-skill descriptions and so on...
>	   Monsters and Treasures: I love 'em. RoleMaster's C&T compendia
>have such great assortments of items and original creatures.
>	   Odds and ends: things like the special abilities charts (Background
>options -- though I'd like a MUCH longer listing of really interesting
>stuff, rather than mostly +x to Z bonus -- and none of the ones from the
>first rules, where you got a nice advantage and immediately got a nasty
>disadvantage; if people are going to spend their picks on these, I want
>them to get something really nice).

>	Problems:

>	The first and really MAJOR gripe I had with the SpaceMaster series
>was the psionics rules. I had expected something new and interesting, on
>a level with the spell rules.
>	I did NOT expect ICE to just take the spell rules and slap the
>kludged-up word "psion" wherever "spell" showed up (and you didn't even
>GET all of those right; on one of the lists in the books I have, it
>says "number of spell lists...").
>	This was severely disappointing; I'd hoped to have a new and 
>useful psionics system to compare with the others out there, not a
>rather lazy trick of search-and-replace.

>	With all the new skills and so on out there, you've expanded the 
>number of things people can learn to do... but there isn't an official 
>expansion of skill points. 
>	Originally, with the fairly diverse number of skills, the points
>people got worked okay. However, it is now to the point that you have 
>so many skills that it nearly rivals Real Life -- but the skill points 
>don't permit people to learn a number of skills at the level of a 
>talented person in real life.

>	More as I think of them.

Good comments. I agree with pretty much every point, actually. The spell/psion
system in Space Master was disappointing. Hey, I didn't have anything to do
with it, so I can be as critical as the next guy, right :) Actually, there is
a RM/Space Master magazine that is put out quarterly, and it contained a really
neat, completely original psionics system in in for Space Master. I don't
remember what issue, but if you can get ahold of it, its pretty neat. The 
system is called PsiFire. Contact the Grey Worlds publishers (phone:214-221-
9039) if you are really interested.
As for the skills/development point problem, this will be dealt with in the new
edition of Rolemaster. Since this wont be published for about a year and a half
though, try this: Give the players 1/3 to 1/2 extra development points (on top
of their normal total) to spend only on secondary skills. OR, just use a couple
of more stats (like Empathy or Intuition) to determine dev point totals.

BTW, your post reminds me of a question--how many non-RM players out there
use some of the RM stuff (spells, skills, whatever) in their other games?

Monte Cook

>					Sea Wasp
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc