Rolemaster, originally written as Role Master, is a generic fantasy role-playing game. It was first published in 1980 by Iron Crown Enterprises.
Publication history[]
Rolemaster began as a series of modular sourcebooks, beginning with Arms Law, Claw Law, Spell Law, Character Law, and Campaign Law.
About the Game[]
Rolemaster offers advanced and expert role players the opportunity to take part in a game filled with gritty realism and exciting open-ended dice rolls where the only limit is your imagination.
Rolemaster is a very detailed, consistent and intuitive system designed for those who want more out of their gaming experience. It is an extremely customizable skill-based system where character development is truly in the hands of the player as every skill is available to every player while making use of professions to determine the development cost for the skill. This makes every character unique and allows the system to be used with any setting.
While Rolemaster offers far more than just combat, the combat system is often considered one of the best aspects of the game. The critical charts make combat far more realistic and exciting. It does away with the idea of combat damage as simple numbers and replaces it with life threatening strikes. Combat has moved from a basic dice rolling mechanic to a strategic decision, as the players are now forced to consider how aggressive they wish to be, and thereby how much they leave themselves open to a death-dealing critical.
There are a number of versions of Iron Crown Enterprise's flagship Rolemaster system available. Each offers gamers a slightly different gaming experience. In addition to previous versions, the brand new Unified Rolemaster which seeks to unite fans of all previous versions under one banner is currently in the Beta Testing phase.
The official Rolemaster setting is Shadow World, a vast high-fantasy world with powerful magic, real deities, and shades of grey between good and evil. Creatures both fantastic and horrible call the Shadow World home and keep it wondrous… and dangerous. Invisible flows of magical energy, the Essænce, cross the world interfering with travel but also providing power to those who can manipulate it. Shadow World is a richly detailed and exotic setting suitable for both veterans and newcomers alike.
Spacemaster is a Rolemaster rules system in a science fiction setting for fans who want all the realism and excitement of Rolemaster in a science fiction role-playing game.
External links[]
- Rolemaster at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
- What is Rolemaster? A little bit of history