Rolemaster Companion V

Rating:
Summary: Historic end to paper gaming era products
Review: D&D is a 20 sided dice system where everything has points. You can't stop a dragon from flying by piercing its wings, or remove the horns from the minotaur to make them less dangerous. Everything just has points. You are stuck. Iron Crown's, Rolemaster was the first attempt to go beyond the 20D system. D&D added critical hits and hoped they would go away. In the early 90's all gaming was dashed by the economy. With a final blow, Tolkein pulled its license. Next the French gobbled up D&D. Most of the MERP websites, catalogs, and Angus McBride art have vanished. The French began closing roleplaying stores in 2003 in the US, and most of what you see today is on e-bay. It was the end of gaming as we know it. The Chineese made a desperate bid to buy the company in Virginia and make it an anime factory, but the a banker swooped down like a hero and saved it for the time being. Now the French D&D company does that weird stuff (violent expensive Asian trading cards aimed at 7 year olds).

Role Master Companion VI is one of the last great products ever produced. I loved the new spell lists in all the Companions. Here are Mentalism, Essence, and Channeling high level lists, as well as new professions. I'm not into the science mage. Putting too much emphasis on why people did or did not wear glasses, could perform magic but not combustion, and goblin electricity are totally defeating of escapism to me.

Rating:
Summary: Historic end to paper gaming era products
Review: D&D is a 20 sided dice system where everything has points. You can't stop a dragon from flying by piercing its wings, or remove the horns from the minotaur to make them less dangerous. Everything just has points. You are stuck. Iron Crown's, Rolemaster was the first attempt to go beyond the 20D system. D&D added critical hits and hoped they would go away. In the early 90's all gaming was dashed by the economy. With a final blow, Tolkein pulled its license. Next the French gobbled up D&D. Most of the MERP websites, catalogs, and Angus McBride art have vanished. The French began closing roleplaying stores in 2003 in the US, and most of what you see today is on e-bay. It was the end of gaming as we know it. The Chineese made a desperate bid to buy the company in Virginia and make it an anime factory, but the a banker swooped down like a hero and saved it for the time being. Now the French D&D company does that weird stuff (violent expensive Asian trading cards aimed at 7 year olds).

Role Master Companion VI is one of the last great products ever produced. I loved the new spell lists in all the Companions. Here are Mentalism, Essence, and Channeling high level lists, as well as new professions. I'm not into the science mage. Putting too much emphasis on why people did or did not wear glasses, could perform magic but not combustion, and goblin electricity are totally defeating of escapism to me.

Rating:
Summary: Valuable - as all the Companions
Review: Rolemaster Companion V has the same format as all the other Companion books. It presents new character classes and optional rules. I didn't find anything too significant on the rules section but I liked all the 3 new classes (Wizard, Forcemage and Maleficiant) a lot. The book also has many new spell lists for all these three plus some older character classes. Especially druid fans should love these new add-ons. New magical items were a nice bonus for a gamemaster tired of inventing his/her own.