Being a Hero is tough. Especially if you're wasting your precious game time fighting silly rules instead of monsters. When it comes to designing characters, no system gives you more control over your character design than Rolemaster. Say goodbye to arbitrary limits and "you can't do that!", because with Rolemaster you can!

Many of today's hottest selling games--both non-electronic and electronic--focus on such elements as shooting up as many bad guys as one can (Duke Nuk'em), beating the toughest level (Mortal Kombat), collecting all the cards (Pokemon), and scoring the most points (Tetris). Fantasy role-playing games (Dungeons & Dragons, Rolemaster, GURPS), while they may involve some of those aforementioned elements, rarely focus on them. Instead, playing a fantasy role-playing game is much like acting out a scene from a play, movie or book, only without a predefined script. Players take on such roles as wise wizards, noble knights, roguish sellswords, crafty hobbits, greedy dwarves, and anything else one can imagine and the referee allows. The players don't exactly compete; instead, they interact with each other and with the fantasy setting. The game is played orally with no game board, and although the referee usually has a storyline planned for a game, much of the action is impromptu. Performance is a major part of role-playing, and role-playing games as a performing art is the subject of this book, which attempts to introduce an appreciation for the performance aesthetics of such games. The author provides the framework for a critical model useful in understanding the art--especially in terms of aesthetics--of role-playing games. The book also serves as a contribution to the beginnings of a body of criticism, theory, and aesthetics analysis of a mostly unrecognized and newly developing art form. There are four parts: the cultural structure, the extent to which the game relates to outside cultural elements; the formal structure, or the rules of the game; the social structure, which encompasses the degree and quality of social interaction among players; and the aesthetic structure, concerned with the emergence of role-playing as an art form.

The ultimate dungeon adventure is back in print again because the fans demanded it! Set in the Underdark and designed to be used in any AD&D"RM" campaign, Night Below presents an epic adventure that takes player characters from 1st level to loth level and beyond. Available again for a limited time, this huge adventure is packed with plots, subplots, sinister conspiracies, and action on a grand scale.

The wounded man knelt beside the gilded chest. He knew that inside was all that he had been fighting for: the wealth of kings... You can now determine how many gemstones are set into that bejeweled cup; or what the King will think of the magical saddle that you have found. Inside this book are full discussions on the nature of wealth in a fantasy role playing game. Also, the long awaited Alchemist profession, is now added to the Rolemaster Standard System. In Treasure Companion you get: -- A discussion of the concepts and premises behind treasure, wealth and the effects they have in a GM's game world. -- Guidelines on how to mesh the rules for alchemy presented in this book into the Rolemaster Standard System, buying and selling magical items, and ways to customize the treasure generation tables. -- Three new Alchemist professions. -- 22 Alchemist spell lists (including 4 General Alchemy Base Lists, and 3 Divine Alchemy Lists). -- Complete tables for generating all types of treasure (including a detailed system for generating gemstones and jewelry). All magic items generated from the tables can be created using the spells presented in this book. -- Complete item descriptions for over a hundred unique magic items. Get Real, Get Rolemaster! The latest in the evolution of role playing. Now provided in a convenient 3-hole punch format, the Rolemaster Standard System contains four parts: -- Rolemaster Standard Rules"TM": These are all the rules needed to play Rolemaster. With 20 professions and dozens of new training packages, this system is all you will ever need. -- Arms Law "TM": The complete Rolemaster melee and missile combat system! -- Spell Law "TM" The complete Rolemaster magic system (over 2,000 spells)! -- Gamemaster Law "TM": The definitive guide for GMs of all systems! In addition, you can test the waters. For those new to Rolemaster: -- Rolemaster: The Basics "TM": This boxed set provides the elements that you need to learn to play using a selection of Rolemaster's wide range of choices. -- Rolemaster Player Guide"TM": An excellent way to introduce players to the Rolemaster system.

A guide for game preview and rules: history, definitions, classification, theory, video game consoles, cheating, links, etc. While many different subdivisions have been proposed, anthropologists classify games under three major headings, and have drawn some conclusions as to the social bases that each sort of game requires. They divide games broadly into, games of pure skill, such as hopscotch and target shooting; games of pure strategy, such as checkers, go, or tic-tac-toe; and games of chance, such as craps and snakes and ladders. A guide for game preview and rules: history, definitions, classification, theory, video game consoles, cheating, links, etc.

Tracing the evolution of fantasy gaming from its origins in tabletop war and collectible card games to contemporary web-based live action and massive multi-player games, this book examines the archetypes and concepts within the fantasy gaming genre alongside the roles and functions of the game players themselves. Other topics include: how The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings helped shape fantasy gaming through Tolkien's obsessive attention to detail and virtual world building; the community-based fellowship embraced by players of both play-by-post and persistent browser-based games, despite the fact that these games are fundamentally solo experiences; the origins of gamebooks and interactive fiction; and the evolution of online gaming in terms of technological capabilities, media richness, narrative structure, coding authority, and participant roles.