The Comae Engine

Clarence Redd debuted his Frostbyte Books a few years ago with M-Space, a stripped-down science fiction rules set based on Mythras. I suspect that M-Space is pretty good, though due to a certain necessary blandness, it never quite clicked with me - I was never sure why I should choose it over something more flavourful like Traveller or Frontier Space.

However, M-Space brought an interesting innovation to Mythras and d-100 gaming in general: Its own extended conflict mechanism, which basically consists of a series of opposed rolls, where the winner deals damage to the loser's conflict pool (the conflict pool being based on one or two of the core characteristics).

Open-Ended Rolls Will Pierce Your Liver!

 I'm immersing myself in all things Rolemaster right now.

It's madness.

(Imagine Charlton Heston, slamming his fists into the sand.)

To be clear: I've played about three sessions of Rolemaster (the classic edition) about 30 years ago because we considered it "Advanced MERP". It was a PITA. We returned to MERP pretty fast. And I haven't played MERP in ages, I even sold off my collection about 15 years ago because I'd convinced myself that I'd never, ever again muster any interest in anything to do with MERP or RM.

How I regret that. How wrong I was.

Now, I long for the days of critical hits that describe which inner organ has been skewered.

Now I long for endless customization of characters I will never play.

I can't really say why, because by all logic, I should be interested in systems like PbtA or Savage Worlds or Fate, which are more than enough to handle for my age-addled mind.

But I want more than I can handle. I want to bite off more than I can chew.

So I've absorbed Against the Darkmaster into my system.

I keep opening up my HARP pdf, reading random passages.

I've read the Player's Guide to Shadow World (which really is not a player's guide at all, but probably a serviceable introduction for prospective GMs nevertheless).

I'm reading a third party campaign for Against the Darkmaster right now.

I'm even brainstorming a campaign setting for Against the Darkmaster on their Discord server.

And tomorrow, I'm going the buy the "Core Law" of the new edition of Rolemaster: Rolemaster Unified.

I'm beyond help. Don't try.