Yesterday I played role-playing games with a bunch of strangers and it was fun!

A random post on Mastodon caught my attention (thanks hashtags!) and I signed up for the game.

Although I've played a lot of #RPG over the years, especially #rolemaster in the 90s and #DungeonWorld in the 2000s, I haven't played much in the last 10+ years.

This was a great way to get back into it - no campaign pressure, no long character generation, just an old-fashioned bit of dungeon-crawling and monster-bashing with #DCCRPG and it's unusual dice system.

We played in a local social club - right alongside a bunch of old ladies playing bridge and asking us to keep it down.

Thanks again to @davej and Walter's Burly Griffins for the invite.

#ttrpg #dcc #DungeonCrawlClassics

@hairylarry I got HARP with the original kickstarter, but that edition was almost unusable. Eventually I got a cleaned up PDF & ran it some. It's… OK.

But: One hit/crit table quickly repeated results, esp since you'd mostly get 0-20 point successes. The spell list was pretty short. Races, skills, & spells didn't adapt well to Shadow World, Vog Mur, or MERP modules.

Some of that was fixed by supplements, Codex & Martial Law, but nothing fixed the setting. I hate Cyradon!
@zdl
#harp #rolemaster

@MagisterLudi The changes to Initiative & movement will either be infuriating, or better gameplay; I waver between those, but I don't like any edition's init & move rules (CEATS from RMC5? is nice, for very small fights).

The 10+ year editing & 5+ year publishing timeline is just awful. And I don't have the patience for the "Iron Crown" forums where all development is done.
#rolemaster

@MagisterLudi So for the most part I prefer RM2, or SpaceMaster, to any later version. RM Classic is nice.

BUT, RMFRP was a pretty good, concise game which fixes a lot of problems of RMSS, I don't hate running it. Level 10 cap in it can be fixed by pulling in RMSS Spell Law and a few other fixes.

RMU is a *fantastic* update of the game, mostly simpler than RMFRP, marred by: Multiple huge volumes, mid- to terrible art, lacking final volumes, a few weird spell changes.
#rolemaster

I mean, it's still better than the current RoleMaster Unified situation, where there's a player book, Spell Law, treasure, and PDF-only (I think?) of the monster books. There's no GM book even planned, you still need the 1980s Campaign Law to play the goddamned game.

#ttrpg #rolemaster