Culture and Nuance in Rolemaster

One of the things that's rather dandy about RMFRP (and also the sadly-no-more MERP) is the inclusion of tables that replace adolescence development with cultural options. If a character is, say, a Wood Elf, they receive a set number of ranks in various skills. There is a reasonably wide range of cultures available (one for each race, and several human cultures). There were some interesting developments in RMFRP Races and Cultures, where the system expanded to include mix-and-match races and cultures. This meant you could be a Wood Elf, with all the benefits and disadvantages of membership in that race, but you could have grown up in a human city, thus altering your set ranks and Hobby Skills. In addition, there was variation within each cultural option to reflect class and location (so that a riverside city-dweller of lower class had quite different options than an upper-class dweller in a plains city).

This was very welcome. However, for someone like yours truly who wants a really wide and nuanced range of options available, this didn't quite go far enough - and also didn't exactly match my New Kingdoms setting. I tried several different approaches: for the RM2 incarnation of my campaign, I created different versions of the RMFRP tables (which I also did for RMFRP). I also made a set of development costs for each race and culture: this had several advantages, including giving the possibility of playing a racial or cultural 'profession'. But it was also rather labour-intensive, and created the annoyance of changing development costs after adolescence level. I've tried something similar for RMFRP - less work, thanks to the category system, but not much player uptake.

Now if you read the previous couple of posts on Professional Builds for RMC, you'll note I've mentioned 'cultural packages': this is my latest attempt at a solution - for RMC, in any case. It's meant to pair up with the build system outlined in those posts. It takes most of the labour out of character creation. The player simply adds their Cultural Package and their Profession Build together to create a functional 1st-level character, hopefully in good time!

I've posted a Cultural Package here. It outlines the Plains Marauder culture - i.e. raiding steppe barbarians - and their given skills, granted talents and selectable Background Options. I will be posting rather more of these as time goes by, reflecting the full range of available cultures for the New Kingdoms. This runs the gamut from many - many! - human variants (from Petty Nobility to Urban Working-Class to Villager) and cultural packages for every New Kingdoms race.

But Channeling Can't Do That! A New Look At Old Skills

If you happened to look at the alternative character generation system described in the previous post, you might have noted that a number of the Background Options and Skill Unlocks expanded the capabilities of particular skills. More specifically, Meditation, the Lore skills and Channeling are operating in ways quite outside the original scope of the Rolemaster Classic rules. Why?

Simply put, the aim is to keep a lid on skill bloat and to allow for a more  - ‘mysterious’ is the word, I guess -  exercise of magic than just spell lists. The powers so created are intended to be quite low-powered (certainly when compared with mid-level spells), and are quite limited in their number of daily uses. For those familiar with Pathfinder, they represent a mix of supernatural and extraordinary abilities.

Looking more closely at the individual skills and how they are used, the most obvious change is in the Channeling skill: I’ve chosen to reduce this to its most fundamental concept – that of projecting or manipulating power – in order to broaden its applicability. In addition to its standard role of sending power points and spells, it gains the following uses:

                • It can be used to recharge items that have run out of power points     

                • It is used as a measure of one’s capability to project power or create magical effects. The higher your number of ranks in Channeling, the greater the potential range of effects.

                • At the highest levels of implementation, it can be used to drain foes of various resources (Exhaustion Points, Hits, Power Points and, ultimately, temporary stats), and to share your own resources with your allies.

                • Channeling can be used – as per RMFRPChanneling Companion – to pray for divine intervention.

                • In very rare circumstances, it can be used with great risk to siphon away power from an elemental attack.

These uses will be explained in greater depth and detail where required as part of a particular Background Option or Skill Unlock.

The next set of skills that I’m taking liberties with are the various Lore skills. Simply put, as part of a Skill Unlock, particular forms of knowledge can aid in the deployment of unusual – or even magical – abilities. I’ve also elected to consider some Lore skills as equivalent to practical skill. Ritual Lore is one such for the Primal Ranger build. Although there are plenty of solid arguments for a separation of skills between ‘know-how’ and ‘know-that’- type skills, my aim, as stated above, is to keep the number of skills down. That’s why you might find a Skill Unlock that requires, say, 10 ranks in Perception and 5 ranks in Disarm Traps and grants a permanent +15 to Perception rolls, but only to detect traps. So, skills like Demon/Devil Lore might, in combination with Spell-mastery in a summoning spell, grant bonuses to summoning a particular type of devil.

Meditation is another skill that is somewhat expanded: there are various different Meditation skills in RM2 and RMFRP, but not in RMC. These will be incorporated under the one skill, but can only be attained when certain other skill rank prerequisites are met. Also, I treat Meditation as the go-to skill for any efforts to focus the mind – and to use the mind ‘out in the world’.

The hope here is that builds are thereby rendered unique, and the temptation to make a cookie-cutter Ranger might be countered by the pull towards making an Explorer, with heightened social and language skills, or a Botanist, who can craft low-level potions, manifest a thorny armor, and has a way with all plants. That’s the hope, anyways.