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Software Reviews
RolePlayingMaster (1.9)
Ease of Use: 5/10
Functionality: 10/10
Robustness: 6/10
Technical Support: 8/10
Value for Money: 10/10
Total: 8/10
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Golly. I think this program does every save from cracking Amazon’s database and ordering you a couple of free books. Actually, it might even do that but although I’ve been playing with the software for a few weeks now I’ve not yet managed to explore, test and try every nook and button.
There’s no getting away from it; RolePlayingMaster is one complex bit of software. The tutorial section with the sample combat came highly recommended to me. Without the tutorial I would have been defeated, as much as I like to play with things I seriously doubt I’d be able to piece together everything that RolePlayingMaster does and how it does it without help.
For example, if you have one of the characters try and spot a hiding hobgoblin the code has all the possible modifiers at hand and simply by selecting the hobgoblin as the target of your “spot check” (where’d in d20 rules – this is a d20 software product) it automatically checks against the hobgoblin’s hide skill. If you’re making a swim check the code knows (if you’ve told it) what you’re carrying and factors in the weight of your equipment.
This review is primarily based on version 1.91b and although I recently upgraded to 1.92b the changes here have been to improve the product’s performance on PDAs (which I don’t have), to tidy up the Adventure Builder section and to fix some of the feat modifiers. I downloaded the upgrade in the search for stability. If I want to start this review off with the big downer for RolePlayingMaster then I’ll continue to talk about stability. RolePlayingMaster crashes less often than some RPG products I’ve tried but it still crashes far too often. The problem is made significantly more annoying given how impressive RolePlayingMaster’s suite of features is; if you put all your eggs in the one basket then you really don’t want that basket to break. I had some great fun with RolePlayingMaster by seeing how long a pair of high-level elf fighters stand against an overwhelming horde of orc barbarians. Once, after rounds and rounds of melee, it looked as if the elves might actually win but the darn thing crashed and it was mighty annoying. It would have been worse if I was playing that fight out over the internet (as you can do with this otherwise impressive software) as a key scene in an actual game. Although the 1.92b update didn’t really seem to fix this too much it does arrive with comments from Luke Jones, the brave soul behind this 18 month (so far) project that certain types of users are prone to generic problems if they also happen to have Outlook Express or Internet Explorer open. That’ll be me. Although I’m really impressed by the power of RolePlayingMaster I’m not so impressed that I’ll sit at the computer without my email open. I also know that given any chance to flake out and crash – my computer will. A look at the user feedback section show reams and reams of users who’ve never encountered a crash at all.
When I’m rating a pen and paper RPG supplement I judge to see whether it does what it sets out to do; it’s the only way you can gauge cheap 32-paged PDF supplements and expensive, hardback, 320-paged campaign worlds. RolePlayingMaster sets out to provide a comprehensive, integrated set of utilities for all your 3rd ed needs. It certainly manages to do that. I’ve found some features more intuitive than others though. Character generation is quick and easy – even with the various options. RolePlayingMasters offers up access to offline Jamis Generators (another ENWorld hosted site) and so you can create NPCs in seconds with a full range of stats, equipment, names, backgrounds and motivations. The encyclopaedia are amazingly detailed and easy to navigate through. In fact, they’re probably too detailed for WotC lawyers but at the minute I can do without having a copy of the rules down here with me at the computer because I can simply check skills, weapons, environment rules (like ice or weather hazards) or spells (and find them more quickly too) in RolePlayingMaster. I think searching through the spells is slightly more tricky but I imagine their inclusion is perhaps aimed for the in-game abilities of the suite of features rather than the rule summaries. Of course, I’ve not even mentioned the list of creatures available, creatures and classes, and I should because they’re as comprehensive as the rest of the program.
I imagine the BattleMap will appeal greatly to a certain style of gamer. Someone in the feedback section succinctly put “it sure beats drawing and tabletop hex maps” and they’re right. The BattleMap doesn’t just allow you to drag dots (representing those involved) around but it lets you do it on a map of your choice and then, for those combat perfectionists, can calculate the exact distance between people – so that spell and missile range debates never waste any more game playing time. My mouse wheel and the BattleMap don’t appear to get along, just nudging the mouse wheel is enough to cause the Map to shake and keep shaking for minutes. I can see vast merits in the BattleMap but it doesn’t appeal to me. I think I’ll use RolePlayMaster to help me quickly do combat though, rather than explore the minutia of complexities, and one of the best aspects of the program is that you can take or leave what you want.
The program’s designed so that you can use it either before a game as a GM preparation tool and in fact there’s a range of adventure writing features in the software as well – an easy to use record entry system and a way to deal with groups of people. It’s also designed so that if you’re lucky enough to have a laptop from which to GM from behind (or play behind) that you can use it in-game to resolve combat. I should point out that just as you can take or leave features from the software you can take and leave combat rolls too. If you want the computer to roll the dice for the tens of goblins you have attacking the players (again – shame on you) and yet you want to see your players bounce sparkly polyhedra over the table in way of their defence then you can still do that. It is easy enough to edit in the results of the player’s dice rolls and have RolePlayingMaster work with those instead.
RolePlayingMaster is such a comprehensive bit of software it seems like an insurmountable task to visit every feature and review it. I think this degree of completeness is the key aspect of any review though. If you actually want a computer program to provide everything but the roleplaying in a roleplaying game and you’re happy to sit down, read the tutorials and learn how to use it then RolePlayingMaster will certainly appeal to you. If you’re looking for a general gaming aid then it’s worth taking a general look at RolePlayingMaster. Whether the software wins you around or not, I think, depends on whether you pick up on the way it works and learn the interface. If you’re entirely against the idea of roleplaying with the aid of a computer then I wonder why you’ve read so far down the review.
I’m going to keep tabs on RolePlayingMaster. I don’t have a laptop and so I don’t have the ways and means to use it as I would like to use it (to sort out combat for me and to quickly produce notes and records for complex rules or scenario facts). I’m also going to keep on practising with RolePlayingMaster. Yes “practising” because I know there are probably better, quicker, ways to get it to produce the results I’ve been getting in my mock battles. I should note that you can do mock battles; the amount of things the software can keep track of before falling over is truly impressive. Given that you’re still reading my advice boils down to this: Do you have time to learn a new bit of complex software? Yes – check out RolePlayingMaster. No – check back later when the tutorials have had time to grow and mature.
It’s tempting to rate RolePlayingMaster as “mostly harmless” but I won’t explain why!
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