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Sunday, September 30, 2012

Rolemaster backgrounds

Rolemaster had the background roll you could make when you created your character. This roll could give you a magic item, such as the equivalent of a +1 sword or a ring that casts a spell once per day. I think this was a really good idea. I'm wondering why it was never incorporated into D&D or any of the OSR games, though. It seems a natural fit for many campaigns.

1 comment:

Black Vulmea said...

It's the sort of thing I think a lot of us did without needing a rule for it.

For the fighters, a family suit of armor with shield and helm, for the thieves a filched potion or two, for the magic-users a wand with 2-5 charges from a thoughtful master, for the clerics a scroll from their temple archives - that was pretty standard stuff in the campaigns I ran.

Make it a rule, and then everyone feels the need to abide by it. Make it a suggestion, or leave it the referee altogether, and it can added or not without changing the implied setting of the game.