Rolemaster Unified is too ugly for this Earth

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pawsplay said:
I was excited about Rolemaster Unified, both as nostalgia, and also because I actually contemplated getting back into Rolemaster. A few months ago, I sold my hard copy. The main reason is that it's incredibly ugly. I feel a little silly saying it, but it's just not something I could treasure, being filled with weird and often bad art. There are some artists who turned in workable pieces. Other pieces of art are just shocking for a professional product. Especially for something that may not get played, I was just not happy with the overall appearance.
I find myself wondering, how did this happen? Did they set an unfathomably small art budget? Did they just hire friends? Does the person making the book just have little ability to discern what looks good? I have so many questions.
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I detect a massive swing in the Pub towards discussing Rolemaster over the past few days... which I think was started by your post, ironically

The open-ended roll for "attract forum interest" must have been a crit!
 
Triumvir said:
I detect a massive swing in the Pub towards discussing Rolemaster over the past few days... which I think was started by your post, ironically

The open-ended roll for "attract forum interest" must have been a crit!
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I keep telling you, people, I'm not a Mythras cultist, I'm polyteist, even if I have some tendency towards henotheism...::honkhonk:
 
Triumvir said:
I detect a massive swing in the Pub towards discussing Rolemaster over the past few days... which I think was started by your post, ironically

The open-ended roll for "attract forum interest" must have been a crit!
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I mean, that makes me happy. I would love for RMU to become so popular they can afford art. :smile:
 
Acmegamer said:
From this issue of Dragon Magazine.

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Hmmm...
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Hmmm...
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Hmmm...
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Heh heh heh
:grin:
 
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Speaking of too ugly for this Earth, the Rolemaster art in the OP looks like a Michelangelo fresco beside that Dragon cover painting: a lion nuzzles a dragon above a burbling stream while an ESP Priestess zaps John Carter of Mars, who grasps a stiff goose in one hand, all the while observed by a giant snail.
 
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philig said:
Speaking of too ugly for this Earth, the Rolemaster art in the OP looks like a Michelangelo fresco beside that Dragon cover painting: a lion nuzzles a dragon above a burbling stream while an ESP Priestess zaps John Carter of Mars, who grasps a stiff goose in one hand, all the while observed by a giant snail.
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You say that like it's a bad thing.
 
philig said:
Speaking of too ugly for this Earth, the Rolemaster art in the OP looks like a Michelangelo fresco beside that Dragon cover painting: a lion nuzzles a dragon above a burbling stream while an ESP Priestess zaps John Carter of Mars, who grasps a stiff goose in one hand, all the while observed by a giant snail.
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I kinda like it. It's not a masterpiece, but it's got some weird charm.
 
Akrasia said:
The reason why I adored -- and still adore -- Pete Fenlon's Middle-earth maps over all others is that they clearly were composed by a human hand. (And they are similar in style to Tolkien's own maps, which had a huge impact on the development of my imagination as a wee lad.) Hence, Fenlon's maps have a certain character that I find lacking in many other contemporary fantasy maps. (Harn maps are beautiful, but they don't have the distinctive character that Fenlon's maps do.)

I wish Fenlon had composed the maps for Shadow World as well (aside from a couple of the early "Loremaster" ones, e.g., Tanara). The SW maps are not in the same league at all. (I say that as a fan of the setting.)
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Yes same. If you compare the maps Christopher Tolkien drew, you can see that Pete Fenlon drew several cartographic and stylistic elements from them. It's why they fitted Middle-earth so well.

Also, unlike many current RPG maps, Fenlon's maps inspired adventure ideas. Looking at them put you into teh world and you could imagine wondering around the landscape. By contrast, the ones for The One Ring are nothing more than decoration; they have less detail even than the original Tolkien ones.
 
Acmegamer said:
Hehe. Yeah, it's an article in the magazine from July 1980. Written by both a female and male author, about getting more women into the hobby etc. If I recall.
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There are actually two articles. One with ostensibly a male and female author and another with just a female author.
They go over the misogynistic and puerile behavior that turned a lot of women off of certain gaming groups...then we come to the rules.

The one co-authored by a man and woman
"Then there is the D&D or AD&D game system itself. Another often-heard complaint from women concerns the built-in restrictions on maximum strength for female player characters. It does seem unfair to many women that human female characters cannot have Strength of more than 18/50, when men can attain 18/00. However, the reason for this is based in reality and cannot logically be argued against. Women are, as a group, less muscular than men, and although some women may indeed be stronger than some men (as in real life), the strongest of men will always be more powerful than the strongest of women.
...
Many suggestions have been advanced for compensating women for the Strength limitation by giving them greater potential for high scores in other ability areas (Editor's note: Some of these suggestions are outlined in the article which accompanies this one. ). Until such time as an official rule change is enacted (which is not to suggest that a change is in the works), women players and those men who are concerned about women's welfare will be left to devise their own methods of strengthening female characters, if they think that such strengthening is necessary."

The above is simple apologetics, to pick out the one trait the "clearly" men always exceed women out in "real life" (after Gygax goes on an on in other articles calling those looking for something more like "real life" in other aspects of the rules are idiots, because you know the game has magic) and then ignore all the traits where real life studies show women exceed men, is selection bias at best and shows where the heads of the designer (and the apologists is at).

Of course no one seems to bring up the argument is the scale fine enough to capture the difference between the strongest man and strongest woman? Is that different in "real life" enough to warrant a hard wired penalty for women? As a presage of times to follow, have seen it argued where women exceed men in dexterity and pain tolerance, the difference is "not enough" to warrant any penalty for men or benefit for women.

Now the article just authored by a woman:
"....while it may be logical to penalize women in terms of sheer strength, it is equally logical to reward them for better Dexterity and hardier Constitution It is a medical fact that the average female can withstand more mental stress than the average male. Because of that, females in D&D should be rewarded with a +1 in Wisdom for magical attack adjustment only. This would give women a better chance to resist mental attack forms involving will force, as described in the Players Handbook.

Also, since women have smaller, more compact muscles, they are less bulky than men, and are naturally more agile. Therefore women warriors, who would logically be trained to take advantage of this, should receive a + 1 on their roll for Dexterity. It has also been shown that women are able to tolerate pain better than men, and when raised under the same conditions, are generally hardier. Women generally live longer than men, barring disease or accidental death. For those reasons, female characters should receive a +1 on their rolls for Constitution."

Let's just say, even in the late '70s we ignored the strength restriction from day 1 (and alas no matter what those in diaper then say now, our games did not collapse, from the apostasy or us, gasp, not taking the screeds of Gygax as holy, more like full of holes). One thing from real life did notice, those groups who held to the Strength limits and other pontific nonsense did meet the stereotype of those who lack social skills and couldn't get a girl. Compare, 3 of the 7 in our regular high school group were girls, and hot ones at that.
 
I've actually checked the records, because of a discussion on another board, and both men and women have set records that indicate a Strength of 18/100, possibly 19, by the benchmarks set by AD&D.
 
pawsplay said:
I've actually checked the records, because of a discussion on another board, and both men and women have set records that indicate a Strength of 18/100, possibly 19, by the benchmarks set by AD&D.
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:smile: but, but its uncontested they say men > women :smile:
Probably technically accurate, when they were penning the rules no one on editorial contested it.
 
pawsplay said:
I've actually checked the records, because of a discussion on another board, and both men and women have set records that indicate a Strength of 18/100, possibly 19, by the benchmarks set by AD&D.
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Well, it doesn't really matter in my book...:shock:

Why? Because in my 25 years of running games, the number of female players that wanted to play a character looking like a 18/00 PC would, approaches 0 but isn't there yet...and it approaches it from below:grin:!
As in, a few of them were violently opposed to such PCs existing at all (or being used as PCs).

It's only male players who'd want to play a 18/00 Str female PC, IME:shade:. In a couple memorable cases, that crashed into the above opposition...:gunslinger:

So no, we're not "denying a female player a PC she can identify with", as was probably implied/stated on said board, if it's TBP.



*Technically, my sister would want a PC like that, but it would be a male PC. She just likes playing hulking bruisers without much brains, always male ones and always ugly - it's her jam, and she usually makes them suffer for it:tongue:!
I've never been able to understand the appeal, but then I don't have a problem with it, either...:thumbsup:
Amusingly, her female PCs are seldom any of those. But she just likes playing those ugly male bruisers!
I sometimes make her roll for the PC's gender just because if I don't torment my sister, who would::honkhonk:?

xanther said:
:smile: but, but its uncontested they say men > women :smile:
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Stronger for the same level of training/weight? Yes, but hopefully nobody would deny that, anyway.

Simply "more"? Hopefully they didn't say that, really...:gooseshades:

xanther said:
Probably technically accurate, when they were penning the rules no one on editorial contested it.
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Probably nobody cared, I suspect.
 
AsenRG said:
Well, it doesn't really matter in my book...:shock:

Why? Because in my 25 years of running games, the number of female players that wanted to play a character looking like a 18/00 PC would, approaches 0 but isn't there yet...and it approaches it from below:grin:!
As in, a few of them were violently opposed to such PCs existing at all (or being used as PCs).

It's only male players who'd want to play a 18/00 Str female PC, IME:shade:. In a couple memorable cases, that crashed into the above opposition...:gunslinger:
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Well, that's clearly absurd. I had a woman player play a female barbarian in my last 3e campaign.

AsenRG said:
So no, we're not "denying a female player a PC she can identify with", as was probably implied/stated on said board, if it's TBP.
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Way to get political there.

Anyway, women who can beat the top AD&D benchmarks actually exist, women who play hulking female fighters actually exist. If you want to have feelings about that, I guess that's your business.
 
pawsplay said:
Well, that's clearly absurd. I had a woman player play a female barbarian in my last 3e campaign.
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Sure. I'm stating my experiences, that's all, and that's why I labelled them accordingly.

It was a "this simply wouldn't affect my gaming, no matter what the rule was, so I'm kinda wondering why it keeps being discussed" post:thumbsup:.

If we get such a player, I might start caring, but we're still waiting...:grin:

pawsplay said:
Way to get political there.
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...not my goal, sorry if that's how it reads:shock:!

I guess I botched my Craft: Writing roll. Either way, my point was that this is an argument that I simply hate, as it can't be further from the truth IME...:madgoose:

pawsplay said:
Anyway, women who can beat the top AD&D benchmarks actually exist, women who play hulking female fighters actually exist. If you want to have feelings about that, I guess that's your business.
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Where do you get the feelings part from?

I mean, how much less feelings can you get then "it wouldn't affect my games either way because that's not what my local players want to play":gooseshades:?
 
pawsplay said:
Well, you're defending yourself from a criticism you yourself made up, so it comes across as a little defensive, TBH.
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Nope, I sure wish I'd invented it:grin:!

But it's one I remember from discussions on TBP, and I noted it was probably mentioned on that board you mentioned "if it's TBP":thumbsup:.

In retrospect, I should have let it lay dormant, but alas, I always remember it when the topic is mentioned...:gooseshades:

Neon said:
I dont understand. They were trying to be inclusive back in 1980?
How can that be? Inclusivity in the rpg hobby was invented just in 2020!
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Inconceivable::honkhonk:!
 
Neon said:
I dont understand. They were trying to be inclusive back in 1980?
How can that be? Inclusivity in the rpg hobby was invented just in 2020!
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Well...they were trying to include more customers (women's dollars just as green as men) and likely counter the serious negative loser-can't-get a date stereotypes. Trying to include others goes way back, I recall something about even including tax collectors and prostitutes :smile:, and generally in the '80s from my recollection including others was an admirable thing, it's only now it seems to be a bad thing.

If TSR and their mouthpieces were trying to be inclusive they epic failed, mansplaining about "reality" and don't worry your little head have never in my experience convinced anyone of anything, but YMMV. In fact, they double down on how the rule is right and just :smile:

Let's use more appropriate terminology for the time, they were trying to turn-on women to D&D, after doing a good job denouncing the really skeevy/creepy shit, they still had to double down on a women lesser than men in STR, but men never lesser than women in any way, hardcoded rules. So they denounced a turn-off they had no real control over (creepy male players) and engaged in apologetics for a turn-off they did have control over.
 
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