My God, you don't know an edition of RM you know all its editions? You are awesome. Love these in depth videos!

Excellent video. Very informative. I only ever played some MERP long ago but I happened to get some old RM books (1984 edition) in a used RPG lot long ago and would like to try it out.

Crazy idea: Warlock of Firetop Mountain as a prelude to the Temple of EE. Is that crazy? I think it could be done . . .

There is something very special about the FF world and style. I recently returned to it after many years and am enjoying AFF. Thank you for these A/FF videos, by the way. And I like your channel in general.

I recently read The Averoigne Chronicles, the collected works of Smith on the region, which has an excellent introduction (and recommends pronouncing it "A-ve-rone" for what it's worth). They bore little resemblance overall to what I remembered of Castle Amber, tho there were some obvious connections, as you say. Still a brilliant module. And they are brilliant stories, if you like the style. I recommend them highly, especially if you know Appendix N.

Thanks, Ian. A lot of good information. It would be fun to roll a wizard character sheet and cast some spells. Most campaigns are usually limited to elves opening magic doors. 🚪✨🧝‍♂

I have played DnD since 1979. Today I still run 3-3.5 games. I still believe that the 3-3.5 era was by far the best version of DnD. It had the most options, the most options in both worlds, publishers, data, you name it. The ability to lay on templates on basic races you name it. And the original OGL that allowed ANYBODY to publish their ideas was great. I have around 150 hardcover books for 3-3.5, let alone the previous versions, along with that many or more soft covers. While it was certainly more complicated, and at times broken, a good DM and group had homebrew rules to address anything that came up. I tried 5e, but find it a watered down version of 3 and further, I find it kind of insulting to previous version players. I don't know of ANY player who was ever insulted by the word "race". I never encountered a single player who was concerned on how certain groups in the fantasy game were oppressed or marginalized etc. That is strictly a construct of the current political philosophy of victimhood of anybody not white or not male. I have ran games with many different ethnicities since there is only 1 sentient race that currently plays DnD on this planet. I have ran games with men, women, straight and gay. One thing that never came up was sexuality or how the fantasy game oppressed various groups. IT WAS A GAME. We all played, we all laughed and we all got along. Which is MUCH more important than what the current version of DnD is trying to do by showing us that Orcs, which I always looked at as evil monsters of fantasy and an amalgamation of folk beliefs of human history and literature, are apparently Mexican and have lots of gay members as well. Talk about racist........

Thanks for bringing some much needed attention and insight to RM's Spell Law. RM is a great joy for me to run, but I find that players generally struggle to grasp the procedures and rely upon me to guide them through anything much beyond rolling the dice and looking up the result. Cheers!

Thank for your video and to talking about Rolemaster System :)

Great job! I really miss my old Rolemaster and MERP sessions with the lads. A video on Arms Law would be very well received as well. Maybe you already have one. Let me check.

Well done.

Loved this magic system. Wish this was in creative commons so more people would integrate it into their games.

Lot of memories returned while listening to this.

As always, a fantastic overview and explanation of a classic system.

Great explanation. Thank you.

This was excellent! Please do more Rolemaster.

Bravo zulu! Great content.

Great video! I’ll take all the RMU content you care to make!

I was never super excited for the Rolemaster magic system, although I enjoyed the Rolemaster system in general, the spells never felt quite as 'special' as in Ad&d. Saying that my group played a lot more Rolemaster than Ad&d, but I never played a magic using character, always a martial class, the combat system was very fun.

I'm really enjoying Hawkwind. Thanks for the share!!

This overview is EXCELLENT!! Thank u for creating it. I will definitely refer to it in the future. 😊

Im really tempted to get a copy of the new rolemaster. Even if its just for nostalgia purpose.

Excellent retrospective on this one, had forgotten about it for a time. I think I had it as part of a boxed set in the early 80s. Unfortunately, my mother sent this one (along with more relics of the day that I want to think about) to dumpster oblivion. Salud! 🍻⚔

I’m excited for this! 😃

Excellent informative video. I have Arms Law, Spell Law, and Character Law from 2nd edition but have never used them. Got them used in a bundle of old RPG items. Always intrigued me. I did play a little bit of MERP when it was new. Wish I sset. had the boxed set.

So um... I prefer this version...

Metamorphosis Alpha is a game I tried for the first time at garycon this past year. It was great fun!

Traveller 5 is a work of art. In my opinion it's utterly unplayable, but it's fascinating and amazing somehow.

Weird scenes inside the cargo bay. 🚀

Great review. I like that you don’t give just a short view of the product, but put it into a context and provide perspectives about what it is trying to do. That combined with the great knowledge about the lore of the hobby is amazing.

ad&d 2 best édition of d&d. Big Hug from Québec.

Fantastic video. A clear and concise overview of the whole series of JG's Wilderlands, especially when explaining which book belongs to where on the map. Same as you, I pretty much prefer the blank slate approach for a more open sandbox experience and more unique emerging narrative. FYI I came across a very interesting 84-page script called "A Wilderlands Sandbox Campaign For B/X Fantasy Role Playing Games" (v1.4, Jul 2021) by Norman J. Harman Jr.. It contains a complete set of modified B/X rules with tables and fluff for running sandbox Wilderlands campaigns using JG's Wilderlands of High Fantasy and even Ready Ref Sheets.

I got the original "City State" material in 1976, and had a year-long subscription to the published material. I thought the material was good, but let my subscription lapse because it ended up being more than I could use. Good quality material - really groundbreaking for its time. I never knew that it kept expanding for several more years.

Really nice review, thank you. I appreciated the positive and insightful comparison. I agree with you that Pharaoh seems like it could have been more. I personally would have loved to see it treated the way Tomb of Horrors was in Tomb of Annihilation - as inspiration for something new that really played off of the themes and challenges from the series.

It's a shame the original box set can't easily be re-released in pdf - there are far too many different rights holders involved and I doubt they'd all be willing for it to be re-released. Wizards of the Coast would probably object even if nobody else did...

I’ve never really been a fan of fumbles, but I do sometimes house rule Nat 20s dealing max damage in osr games. Edit: I will say though that I definitely prefer role master critical hits over how any edition of dnd handles them

What is the reason that Traveller isn't the D&D of Sci-Fi? I've never played this but scifi is my genre of choice so I need help determining if I dive in. Is it a heavy system? Can it easily run settings like Star Trek, Star Wars, Firefly, Babylon 5, Farscape? Is it mechanics or Setting, or storytelling focused? I'm grateful for any help, thank you.

I was lucky enough to pick up the necromancer boxed set and I love it, it's one of the best RPG products I've ever owned.

I bought the Mayfair version of the City-State when it came out. I was away from home in the military and didn't have my Judges Guild stuff with me, and of course there was no internet. Boy was I confused trying to figure out why everything looked different...

Very interesting! Thank you. All this was more than a bit before my time, though I'd see or hear references to it over the years. It's too bad some company or another doesn't emulate it. A detailed sandbox without prescribed storylines sounds amazing, though perhaps not profitable, or not profitable enough.

I'm an enthusiast of this franchise and I was impressed with your collection. Here in Brazil we didn't have all of them published, which is a shame.

Concise and comprehensive. Precisely what i need from a review. well done sir! you have a new fan!

I was waiting for this one!

One of my favorite settings. I was looking for all the old materials recently to convert to GURPS. It all seemed to be scrubbed from the internet. Imagine my face when I discovered the reason.

This really is what I consider to be the quintessential old school D&D setting, even more so than something like the published version of Greyhawk, which hit the market later and was considerably different from the home campaign that spawned it. It's "kitchen sink" enough to accomodate practically any module or homebrew adventure concept, but still manages to have oodles of funky '70s pulp fantasy flavor all its own. It even leaves the door open for as much gonzo science-fantasy as the Judge feels like including. Want to go hog wild and use everything in Deities & Demigods? This is the world for you. The Necromancer Games boxed set that collects all the original maps with expanded keys is worth its weight in gold. Pity it almost has the price to match on the secondary market.

Another good one! Thanks for the share!!

JG also put out 32-page campaign installments in each issue of Pegasus magazine. There's a ton of info for the setting there. Troll Lord Games also published some Wilderlands campaign installments using their Castles & Crusades system. They pop up on eBay every now & then.

I use tables from the Wilderlands of High Fantasy for my campaigns all the time. It really helps me build out my hex's with interesting things.

I am seeing a couple of the Judges Guilds products coming out from Good man. There is "The Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor" and something else at the local store. There is an active DCC road crew game every week so I think the store gets in more Goodman games material.