Rolemaster lives!
Oct. 10th, 2006 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rochndilI probably should start at the beginning for this one.
Back in the distant past (late 70s), my father learned of this fascinating new type of game, where you created an imaginary character and through its eyes explored an imaginary world. He heard of this because Gary Snyder's (yes, the poet) kids were playing it. The game was the original Dungeons and Dragons. Not long after, he bought the boxed set for my brother James and me to play. Now, this is WELL before AD&D even existed, and at the time polyhedral dice weren't being manufactured (yet). The game came equipped with punch-out chits to be drawn from a bag. And so we played the game, and loved it. I still have that original rulebook and the module, now horribly marked up with my atrocious handwriting, in PEN of course.
Time passed, dice became available (sadly, I burned that original set of hideously ugly dice when I got my first set of GEM dice, which I have still), and AD&D came along. We bought those volumes, and played on, and on, and on...for many years. In the fullness of time, 2ed came out, and left such a bad taste in my mouth that I lost interest in the system, but hurray, just in time, a rescue came along!
James had met some kids at his new high school, and they played an entirely different game system, and it was supposed to be great! So I joined in, even though the games (at that time) cost money to play (the GM was good enough to be a professional, and used the moderate income to help pay off some bad debts). The game was Rolemaster, first edition, and I was hooked.
Off and on, all through my college years I played with that group. Even after I graduated, and while I was in grad school, I still attended bi-weekly sessions, though not always regularly. Overall, I probably played with that group for the better part of a decade, from about '87 to '95. Alas, all good things come to an end, and eventually we had a falling-out and I went along on my way. Life had become complicated for me, and the time to game wasn't really available anymore either, so perhaps the time was right for a break.
Most of a decade passed again, and things changed, changed some more, and eventually I came full-circle and decided it was time to re-connect with my roots. While I'd been away from the RPG scene, lots had changed. TSR was bought by Wizards of the Coast (evilevil), makers of Magic the Gathering (EvilEvilEvil!), and Iron Crown Enterprises (the makers of Rolemaster) had gone into bankruptcy and come out the other side. AD&D created the D20 license scheme to try to further leverage it's stranglehold on the P&P game market (with considerable success), and, unsurprisingly, fewer and fewer kids took up the RPG torch, preferring instead to follow the easier path of CRPGs and MMORPGs, where instant gratification was the way of the world.
So I step back into the hobby, after many years away, and the landscape has definitely changed. Most of the gaming stores I had known are now nothing more than a fading memory. My beloved game system has become even more marginalized than it ever was, because the complexity and detail that I love, what makes it magic for me, offends the eye and mind of the impatient youth of today, whose short attention span is legendary.
Only time will tell the full story, but the way I see it, if we, who love these games, don't actively recruit some young blood into the fold, all the wonder and joy they brought into our live shall die with us. And I, for one, am not going to take that lying down. Torches only cost a few copper, it's not hardship to pass one on. Rolemaster lives, in me.
Rochndil, strapping on sword and shield, and carrying a 10' pole...
Back in the distant past (late 70s), my father learned of this fascinating new type of game, where you created an imaginary character and through its eyes explored an imaginary world. He heard of this because Gary Snyder's (yes, the poet) kids were playing it. The game was the original Dungeons and Dragons. Not long after, he bought the boxed set for my brother James and me to play. Now, this is WELL before AD&D even existed, and at the time polyhedral dice weren't being manufactured (yet). The game came equipped with punch-out chits to be drawn from a bag. And so we played the game, and loved it. I still have that original rulebook and the module, now horribly marked up with my atrocious handwriting, in PEN of course.
Time passed, dice became available (sadly, I burned that original set of hideously ugly dice when I got my first set of GEM dice, which I have still), and AD&D came along. We bought those volumes, and played on, and on, and on...for many years. In the fullness of time, 2ed came out, and left such a bad taste in my mouth that I lost interest in the system, but hurray, just in time, a rescue came along!
James had met some kids at his new high school, and they played an entirely different game system, and it was supposed to be great! So I joined in, even though the games (at that time) cost money to play (the GM was good enough to be a professional, and used the moderate income to help pay off some bad debts). The game was Rolemaster, first edition, and I was hooked.
Off and on, all through my college years I played with that group. Even after I graduated, and while I was in grad school, I still attended bi-weekly sessions, though not always regularly. Overall, I probably played with that group for the better part of a decade, from about '87 to '95. Alas, all good things come to an end, and eventually we had a falling-out and I went along on my way. Life had become complicated for me, and the time to game wasn't really available anymore either, so perhaps the time was right for a break.
Most of a decade passed again, and things changed, changed some more, and eventually I came full-circle and decided it was time to re-connect with my roots. While I'd been away from the RPG scene, lots had changed. TSR was bought by Wizards of the Coast (evilevil), makers of Magic the Gathering (EvilEvilEvil!), and Iron Crown Enterprises (the makers of Rolemaster) had gone into bankruptcy and come out the other side. AD&D created the D20 license scheme to try to further leverage it's stranglehold on the P&P game market (with considerable success), and, unsurprisingly, fewer and fewer kids took up the RPG torch, preferring instead to follow the easier path of CRPGs and MMORPGs, where instant gratification was the way of the world.
So I step back into the hobby, after many years away, and the landscape has definitely changed. Most of the gaming stores I had known are now nothing more than a fading memory. My beloved game system has become even more marginalized than it ever was, because the complexity and detail that I love, what makes it magic for me, offends the eye and mind of the impatient youth of today, whose short attention span is legendary.
Only time will tell the full story, but the way I see it, if we, who love these games, don't actively recruit some young blood into the fold, all the wonder and joy they brought into our live shall die with us. And I, for one, am not going to take that lying down. Torches only cost a few copper, it's not hardship to pass one on. Rolemaster lives, in me.
Rochndil, strapping on sword and shield, and carrying a 10' pole...
