FantasyCraft not stand-alone?!

[jolt]

If you read through the crit/fumble charts you'll see that a lot of the flavor text, especially at the extreme results, is very comical and absurd.  One result, and this is towards the middle of the chart, has you tripping over "an unseen imaginary deceased turtle".  The flavor text was never meant to be taken literally and most of it, where applicable, is still identical to the original release of Arms Law in 1980 before RoleMaster even existed as a system.

Back in 1980, you could be whimsical like that and pretty much everyone "got it".  Nowadays, you could write an entire paragraph in pink Blooshooz font prefaced by, "This paragraph is just a joke!", and you'd still get asked dozens of times on a given forum if that rule was meant to be taken seriously or not.

jolt

[Typhon]

I loved that dead turtle fumble LOL! The electrical crit charts made for some great downtime reading.

I've never considered basic math much of number crunching.

The only downside to RM was how long it took to do the combat

There's a correlation there most folks overlook. It's not that the math is basic - it's the number of calculations. Pile on one too many and even the most mathematically inclined are overwhelmed. As with all things it's best for the designer to shoot a bit off from "average" (in this case, erring on the side of simplicity).

Well the 2nd quote is out of context since I was referring to the number of charts you had to look up and unless everyone had a copy of the rules, there was a lot of juggling which is what slowed it down. Not much of an issue now since most everyone has a scanner at home and can just zip off a copy of the most needed charts. It would still take longer than most games but it was part of the fun!

As far as the number of calculations, unless you open ended a roll (...multiple times) you're not doing much.
% roll for attack, add bonuses, subtract def. Pretty standard for any die game.

[Crafty_Alex]

Note I have split the discussion on the computers skill to another thread, here.

[Psion]

Note I have split the discussion on the computers skill to another thread, here.

Thank you.