Rolemaster conversions of fantasy fiction worlds?

[McGee]

I'm just curious to know if anyone out there has used Rolemaster to convert fantasy fiction novels into a playable campaign world for their own personal gaming group.  If not, are there any that you are considering?

There are three that I am interested in.

1.  The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist.
2.  A Game Of Thrones (and the succeeding books) by George R.R. Martin.
3.  The world of Shannara, created by Terry Brooks.

Of the three (which were listed in no particular order), I actually would prefer playing/GMing in #'s 1 and 3.  I am still reading the books for #2.

I guess I should throw in a disclaimer here, just in case the authors of the above books or their agents happen upon this post.  I am not advocating the commercial production or use of any of their intellectual property in any way.  I am merely curious to know if anyone else has thought of using Rolemaster to adapt a novelized fantasy world for gameplay in the privacy of their own home.  Disclaimer off.  Oh, and as I type this, I just realized that we gamers probably could not use any of the above-mentioned intellectual property in an online, public messageboard format for playing an rpg.   Of course, there's always email with your gaming group

As a side note, I wonder how much WoTC had to pay Terry Brooks for that Dragon article on adapting Shannara to D&D 3.0...?

Anyway, these are my thoughts at 1:30am with a couple of stout beers in my system

McGee

[Kalu]

I've played in Feist's Riftwar Saga setting... My GM at that time made the "conversion", and it felt like an interesting setting. I can't really relate much more as I haven't read the Riftwar Saga books, but I just wanted to tell you that it can be done...

//K

[vytzka]

I would in fact love to hear lawyer's version of the answer. But hey, we are playing games here, and most of those games are also intellectual property, blah blah, and it has worked fine so far. I think there are even MERP groups still playing PbP and that says something, if you have in mind that Tolkien Enterprise is the biggest *transmission interrupt due to excessive use of swear words*

As for technical side of adapting a setting, I believe there are three main points to consider:

Professions - which ones to allow and which to forbid
Training Packages - which ones to allow and which new ones to create
Economy -  how much things cost and which ones are available.

You may also want to mess with spell lists and skill costs (and possibly new skills too), but it might not be necessary. Also, converting famous heroes and artifacts is a good idea. Everything else is roleplaying and GM legwork  

Also you can of course use supplements for other gaming systems. While general quality (and price tags) of d20 products don't exactly make me want them, say GURPS has many licensed setting books (like Discworld I'm so fond of).

I'll also gladly read what others will have to advise, since I had a brainstorming session with one other member to run a gore/horror/action game in veins of Evil Dead/Dead Alive movies and Blood computer game. It will probably have to be password protected though A question for admins: is it possible for two people to be game forum mods?

[Sunwolf]

I did a rough draft version of "The Land" but without Thomas Covenant and White Gold for HARP and ran it as part of a summer program, worked OK but not perfect and would be easy enough to adapt to RM.

Of the above choices I think Shanarra would be the most fun, I would love to play a Walker Boh like character.

Rift War Saga would be very hard to do correctly even if it did start life as a mutant D&D game.

[Grafton]

As to the Game of Thrones, it has already (or about to be) a Roleplaying game as stated on GRRM's web site. Unfortunately, it uses the unmentionable system but it seems like it would be worth getting for the material itself. Then you could ignore/modify the D20 stuff and convert to RM or P&P or whatever system.

I've considered asking the powers that be here for an exception on the D20 ban just for this game. Wonder what they would say?

[McGee]

I've considered asking the powers that be here for an exception on the D20 ban just for this game. Wonder what they would say?

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Probably:  "Do you have asbestos underwear?"  

[Sorloc]

I've considered asking the powers that be here for an exception on the D20 ban just for this game. Wonder what they would say?

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Probably:  "Do you have asbestos underwear?"  

     
Pretty close...

The intent of that rule is to keep 'certain elements' uninteresed in our site, and to remain a role-playing site, not degenerate into pure hack n slash or computer RPG gaming.


To the topic:

the Riftwar Saga / Serpentwar Saga is not remarkable for its setting.  The setting is pretty vanila, in fact.  What makes Feist's books so incredible is not his setting, but his characters, and his storytelling ability.  He also does not have 1 or 2 main characters, but several, and usually in several different threads.
If you have the storytelling capability of Feist, then it doesn't matter what setting you use.  Conversely, if you don't, using his setting won't help.


the Empire series with Janny Wurtz is a different matter.  Setting a game on Kelewan would be very interesting, but only if one can handle the politics and intrigue of the Tsurani Empire.


I never read the Game of Thrones, and Shannara I remember only dimly, as I read the first one when it came out and didn't read any of the others.  I was reading Fred Saberhagen's Swords novels.

[Grinnen Baeritt]

I think GURPS has more or less covered all the bases here... I ran a small campaign quite successfully using it for Diskworld... but the grittiness of the system doesn't really go along with the humour of the books...RMSS/HARP Diskworld?....Probably not a good idea!

[vytzka]

I think GURPS has more or less covered all the bases here... I ran a small campaign quite successfully using it for Diskworld... but the grittiness of the system doesn't really go along with the humour of the books...RMSS/HARP Diskworld?....Probably not a good idea!

I think the thing that sticks out the most is criticals (they are way too deadly). Either throw them away and simply double concussion hits off the tables or implement fate point system allowing to avoid nasty results and give lots of them to just about everybody.

[Lorenen]

i have done a small job in the past converting Terry Brooks world in MERP..  tha greatest part of my work was to read many times all of the books and take notes about the names of the kings, the story and the ecology of the world.. that was hard because there were no atlases or similar works made by the author.. if you want to roleplay worlds that are made in d20 using RMSS you can "buy" the d20 module (sorloc don't kill me for that.. ) and use it ONLY for background material than you use the RMSS system for the game.. tha main point in converting a BOOK in RMSS is converting the races.. find the right professions/packages combination and a great part of the job is done..

[Sir Wolf]

Resurrecting an old topic

I had one big world where I put everything I wanted to test. That included a will and the word system from David Edding's Belgariad series. I also created a RM equivivalent of Brave Starrs powers. So yeah I've done quite a few world conversions, well the key elements anyway. I never really did limit any professions. My world started of as a setting of Link II (The NES game). I even created the triforce and the items in the palaces too I then kept expanding the world by adding more islands, each with it's own look and feel.

I should have everything in some notebooks if anyone is interested I can dig stuff out.

[vytzka]

Well, I'm not a big fan of supers games, but it's always fun to see Rolemaster adaptations for diverse settings. So I'd like to see your stuff

[Sir Wolf]

Supers Games? I'm not sure what you refer to..  

I'll start to riffle throug my old note books. I think I saw the Brave Starr powers last week in a note book, and the Link stuff should be in one of those boxes up on the bookself. So if you could be more specific, I can give something. (:

[vytzka]

I meant that I had an impression that this Brave Starr belongs to a superhero genre. I don't know how it is in reality (well, cartoon ), I've never seen it.  So I can't be very specific, I'd just like to see whatever you can dig out without too much trouble.

[Sir Wolf]

Ah Brave Starr was a sheriff in a scifi / fantasy setting. Check out this link: http://www.80scartoons.net/toons/bravestarr.html

He had 4 powers (that I can remember):[ol type=\'1\'][li]Strength of the Bear
[strike]---[/strike] Doubles the strength stat bonus for the duration of one action. One action can be one combat, Time to clear some rubble to save the person inside the collapsed building, etc.[/li][li]Eyes of the Hawk
[strike]---[/strike] Tripples the vision dor 10 min/lvl. Tripple vision translates to a perception bonus of +75 involvin sight.
[strike]---[/strike] You get a birds eye view of (and can see through obstacles like roofs and trees) a 10' / lvl R area up to 1 mile / lvl away.[/li][li]Ears of the Wolf
[strike]---[/strike] You can pinpoint and hear any existing sound in an area of 100'/lvl around you. Duration is 1 minute / lvl[/li][li]Speed of the Puma
[strike]---[/strike] Your run movement rate for the duration is 1000'/rd for a duration of 10 min/lvl.[/li][/list]

[skathros]

Well, there's always the conversion Dennis L McKiernan did for playing in his Mithgar books using the RM RPG.

http://www.geocities.com/mithgarpedia/mithrole.html