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Although I have many favorites, perhaps my most memorable Rolemaster Moment of all time was my first gaming experience with the system. At that time, I was already a veteran gamer, having played Dungeons & Dragons and other systems for years. Rolemaster, however, was something entirely new! “Oh my god, look at all these skills! So many to choose from!” I thought to myself. I marveled and delighted in the complexity and realism of the Rolemaster system. I was immediately hooked, and I never looked back. Dungeons & what, now?
With some help from the experienced Rolemaster gamers in the group, I generated my first Rolemaster character, a first-level Illusionist named Rudak Stobernack. Unfortunately, not knowing the system very well and not having had the chance to read through any of the books, many of the choices I made during my character’s creation were unwise and ill informed. Important skills like Body Development and Power Point Development were left undeveloped, as I focused on interesting sounding and expensive skills like Surfing and Pole-vaulting! Not understanding the game mechanics, of course, I didn’t realize that my character was horribly unsuited for these types of maneuvers..
During our first combat encounter with a handful of surly orcs, I realized that my character lacked any useful spells, let alone any offensive combat spells. As a result, I knew that this would be an ideal time to try out some of my cool skills… “I know!” I shouted out. “I’ll pole-vault into combat, trying to knock over a few of the orcs on the landing!” The other novice players cheered me on while the Gamemaster grabbed his temples and shook his head in grief. I grabbed the dice and gleefully rolled, knowing that my character’s efforts would definitely change the tide in the fight. My outstanding roll: 01.
“Is that bad?” I asked, still not understanding the system. “Yes. That’s very bad,” the Gamemaster replied, straining to contain his irrepressible laughter.
A couple of rolls later, the Gamemaster made a quick look up in the tables and informed me that I had failed miserably. I completely misjudged every angle and landed hard on the ground, shattering my hip and effectively leaving me a cripple. Luckily, he at least rewarded my valiant heroism by role-playing the event kindly: having just seen a frail old man come charging down the hill, screaming bloody murder, using his cane as a pole-vault, flying gracefully through the air, but ungracefully landing horizontally a few feet in front of them, and shrieking briefly before falling unconscious from the bone-crunching pain, the orcs stood stunned and slack-jawed at the utter stupidity they had just witnessed... This of course gave the rest of the party time to assail the orcs and stop them from finishing off my character.
Luckily, Rudak survived the battle and went on to become one of my most beloved and memorable characters. I’ll never forget my first Rolemaster gaming session, or the first maneuver that my character ever attempted. Thank you I.C.E. for the best RPG system out there...And thanks for the memories.
Grevus Slate a burglar, and his companions, a Smith and a Arms Master were just getting to know each other. They had all recently arrived to this quiet little town and were resting at the Town's only Tavern/Inn. Now there was a stranger staying at the Inn as well, and he was under protection from the Town guard. We didn't know why at the time, we didn't really care either. Come to find out later legions of undead are trying to kill him for a necklace he stole (of course the guards didn't know) a few weeks earlier.
Now sometime during the night we heard some screams from the streets. Me being a Burl gar decided to take the high road and went out to the porch roof with my short bow. The others (guards included) went outside to investigate. We see towns people running towards us ranting about Zombies coming our way. Pretty soon there in sight and I get ready to fire away. Then Karma reared her ugly head for all the times I stole presents from under the kids trees during the night.
I fumbled with my bow. And then I roll a 99 on the fumble chart. So this is pretty much what ensued. My string snaps and I whack myself in the face breaking my nose. Blinded and disoriented I stumble a bit. Now I realized that I'm on a roof 15 ft. off the ground so next I make a Agility Maneuver roll to keep my balance and stay on the roof. Just my luck I roll a 01. So down I go taking a 'B' crit on the fall/crush table. Now I don't remember exactly what I rolled but I think it was in the high 90's. I land right on my face breaking my neck. Scaring the dickens out of everyone on the porch who had no idea I was on the roof. They managed to bring me back though, and I now have a fear of heights, good thing for a burglar to have don't you think?
I was running my group through a Dungeon module that involved a really neat castle, a lich master, a bunch of gremlins, and a few other undead. The whole adventure up to the climax had already been terrific in every way imaginable: scope, danger, difficulty, problem-solving, etc.
The characters were an eighth or ninth level sorcerer, a fifth or sixth level pixie mentalist, a mythic, a ninth level thief, and two sixth-level henchman fighters named 'Canon' and 'Fodder'.
The climax of the adventure came when the lich master decided to confront the PC's in an all-out battle, bringing in his big guns--a half-dozen shadows--for the first time. The battle didn't go well for the PC's. The thief tried fighting the shadows and was knocked down fairly early. The Mythic and the Sorcerer concentrated their firepower on the lich, to no avail. nothing they could do would stop it; the lich--being 20th level--just kept resisting all their spells. They, of course, were not so lucky.
I thought it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that they would lose. The hirelings were taken out, all of the PCs except for the soccer were at 10% hits or lower. The sorcerer was having no luck getting his spells to affect the lich, and the thing had too many hits left.
Then Anton--the guy playing the sorcerer--turned to me and said: I cast a spell on him; it takes me one round. When he won initiative, I asked him what spell he'd cast. He wouldn't tell me; he wanted the results first so I wouldn't think of some way to get around it if it didn't work the first time. By some miracle, he managed to affect the lich with his spell, by a factor of maybe five or ten points.
Me: so what'd you cast? Anton: Demonic possession. Me: What? (insert expletives) that's the most useless spell in the book. Why the @#$# did you do that? (I always hated that spell because I could never figure out anything interesting for the demons to do in their possessed hosts) Me: now I've got to figure out what the &%$# this demon's going to-- Anton: no you don't! Is it going to do anything during the next round? Me: what? Anton: I'm going to control the demon; you don't have to worry about making up anything.
So with a shrug I finished out the round, seeing if the demon would have enough sense to try anything that round. It failed its orientation, so it just kind of took the round to get its bearings. That was enough time for Anton to cast control over it. I rolled the percentage to see if the demon resisted the control; it didn't. So what was Anton going to do?
Anton: now I go up to the Demon and I say: let me cast a spell on you. Me: OK, the demon agrees. Anton: I cast teleport. I teleport him as far as I can...straight down.
In my game, teleport spells only can be cast on willing targets since they're utility spells and I had an unfortunate incident of a sorcerer a few campaigns ago who got very creative with teleportation and leaving as attack spells...+100 fall/crush if you know what I mean.
Since Anton's character was ninth or tenth level, he was able to teleport the lich at least nine miles straight down. Not only did that suffocate him, it also took him so far away from his locus that he was destroyed. It was the best save I've ever seen, and that's saying quite a bit.
Before I begin this Moment, I must give a little background information. In every world I’ve ever created, I try to work in this city I call Theata. It houses every race in the newly created world, and is always a free-standing city. It’s completely lawless and inner-city wars can start in thirty seconds or less. Each race has its own section of the city, which means of course, that they must invade each other. This city is always both the highlight of the campaign (my players like to fight) and somewhere either the villain or the party takes refuge.
*Note: if you haven’t already, read “Of Falls, Thieves, and Other Things,” May 2003.* In the dungeon where Terrin died, Darcil and Drisan picked up a dwarven Fighter named Brunstein (Bob’s new character) and a high man Cleric named Rasdar Xien (NPC). Kailea was found and killed by the party in the dungeon, but Khendric was no-where to be found. After a major scuffle with a few trolls and a guy who has since been remembered as “Psycho-Mage,” the party learned that Khen fled to Theata. Naturally, they bolted as fast as their exhaustion points would allow to Theata. Upon their arrival, Rasdar mentioned that he knew a guy who ran a thieves guild in the city. They went to go see him, only to find that there’s currently a guild war going on between the Pyrohawks (Rasdar’s buddy’s guild) and the Króno-metyrs (another thieves guild). They showed up just in time for some major street-fighting.
While recovering from the fight, there was a little OOC conversation: eviL: We should kill something. Bob: Yeah… but what? Me: This is Theata, Bob. You guys can fight just about whatever you want. Messenjah: It’d be cool to have a competition. eviL, me, and Bob at the same time: What do you mean? Messenjah: Ya know… Drisan and Brunstein go out and kill something, Darcil and Rasdar go out and kill something else, and whoever comes back with the best war story wins. eviL and Bob: Wins what? Messenjah: They just win. eviL: Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Bob: We should totally do that!
Darcil and Rasdar- Neither of them like orcs. At all. Sometimes when Darcil is around orcs, his ST bonus triples do to Uncontrollable Strength and a racial intolerance complex. They resolved to enter a bar in the greater orc section of town and kill everyone inside it. They never made it to the bar.
They were mugged by three orcs and a rather large ogre. After some seriously fast blade work, Rasdar had slain all the orcs, Darcil had dropped himself an ogre. The highlights of this fight had to be Rasdar killing an uninjured orc with a single blow from his falchion without any help from the E crit he earned and Darcil throwing a 97 (96 + 1) on the Large Creature/Mithril table (“Strike foe in his head and destroy his brain. If that’s not power, what is? You have half the round left to act.”). The duo returned to the Pyrohawk’s inn duly impressed with themselves.
Drisan and Brunstein- They followed a blood trail from the street fight mentioned early to a sewer entrance. After bashing the locked man-hole in, they both fell off the slippery ladder and landed in what they hoped was water. All semblance of stealth now being gone, Drisan takes out his longbow and notches two arrows (note: this isn’t a skill provided in the RMFRP handbook… we made it up. Yeah for customizable systems!). After walking for a few rounds, they happen upon an Efreet. Like I said, Theata’s a strange city. Anyhoo, Drisan unleashes the furry of wood elven archery… by missing with both arrows. Brunstein prepared to let loose the dwarven battle rage… but failed his Berserk maneuver. The Efreet likewise missed completely. What a way to start it. The Efreet deals some minor damage to Drisan in the next round. Brunstein lets loose a minor blow to the Efreet’s legs with his war mattock. Drisan, having discarded his longbow for his magic quarterstaff, swings and misses. The entirety of the Efreet’s OB was put into parrying due to Brunsteins crit, so needless to say, both the Efreet and the dwarf missed. Drisan had previously stored Shock Bolt, so he cast it in the off chance that a Shock Bolt would actually do something useful. On the attack roll, he hit the open end. The crowd holds its breath… The Shock Bolt spell can only do up to C Heat crits. But wait! An Efreet is a fire-based creature! Thus, I ruled that the C crit was reduced to a B. Now, up until this point, the highest crit roll was 30-something. Drisan drew a quick breath and threw his dice… only to have two beautiful 0s staring back at him. The Efreet goes down in a heap!
The general consensus in the party is that Drisan and Brunstein won the competition on the grounds that a level 8 monster was killed by a Shock Bolt.
I want to explain where my nickname comes from, as its origin lies within Rolemaster :)
Well, my english isn't that good, so mind the gap ... euh, mistakes ;):P
ttsgosadow stands for Timotheus the Sorcerer Gatherer of Souls and Destroyer of Worlds. Quite a mouth full! It is derived from the name of my favourite character I ever played at a RPG (roleplaying game) called Rolemaster (a pen and paper role playing game that totally kicks ass!). Timotheus was a Sorcerer, as his name also says. He was a mighty sorcerer, able to make the earth swallow whole cities. He could also do a variaty of other cool tricks :). The city thing brought him his death too.
Timotheus had a familiar, called dagger ("I am going to ride my dagger", lol), wich was a huge spider! Dagger was a multi spider, meaning it could multiply itself up to a maximum of 9 (!!) spiders. This was quite funny, becausecause I was a whole caravan by myself!. We (Dagger) actually carried an army tent that could sleep 50. You should have seen the faces of the people I roleplay with, wonderfull!
When I was at a town, I did some things the people there did not like, why? I am still not sure ;). Anyway, a huge mob was following me, planning to lynch me. I tried to get away, I was on top of the city wall, when I realised Dagger was still standing at the bottom. So I let myself drop, planning to cast a teleport just in time before I hit the ground, teleporting both me and Dagger far far away. This failed and I hit the ground face first. Leaving me with a headache a mouth full of dirt and an angry mob. The latter one being the one lynching me afterwarths!
Although the ending is not good, I think the world is a better place without Timotheus walking there :)/
I hope its a bit understandable, cause it involves quite some roleplay words. But this is where my name comes from :)
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