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I want to smooth out some of the ways experience is earned in RM (original rules) as it seems a little unstable IMHO.

Basically, you can get experience for killing, travelling, casting spells and other awards (that I'm not sure if they're in the rules) such as 'idea points' but what about other things? For instance, static and moving manoeuvres? Surely a thief who picks a pocket should receive some form of experience for being successful, or a fighter who somersaults from a table while fighting an orc deserves some recognition for this?

I've never noticed a rule like this in RM, has anyone else?

(PS: not quite sure if the tag is apt for this post.)

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Yes, you do

See section 5.1.1 page 59 and table 15.4.2 on page 62 of Character Law and Campaign Law.

But essentially:

Static maneuvers award XP depending on what they allow you to achieve; for example if backflipping off the table helped the barbarian kill the orc then the orcs kill point value is the base xp.

This value is then multiplied by the difficulty of the manuever:

Difficulty       Modifier
Routine-Medium   x 1/2
Hard, Very Hard  x 1
Sheer Folly+     x 2

This is further modified by how often the character has tried this trick

x5     First Time
x2     Second Time
x1     Subsequent
x1/2   Routine

For skill vs. skill challenges this becomes a little harder to determine the manuever level; this is going to be down to GM judgement.

XP in Rolemaster is a real pain in the backside, it's a lot of calculation and modifiers (much like the rest of it! But with delicious critical tables!) I abandoned tracking XP the RM way and awarded blocks of XP to all players generically at story goal points rather than tracking everything - saved me a ton of trouble.

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    \$\begingroup\$ +1 for references on what I seemed to remember. And yeah, I did the same thing as yourself: XP for story goals. Another way to deal with this is to have the player do their own book keeping but who has time? \$\endgroup\$ – Sardathrion - against SE abuse Sep 9 '14 at 13:00
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    \$\begingroup\$ I don't think I ever played in a game that used the XP rules. We tried and it was more trouble than it was worth. +1 for the Blocks of XP and for the references. \$\endgroup\$ – Chuck Dee Sep 9 '14 at 13:57
  • \$\begingroup\$ Ah! We've also never played in this way before. Usually manoeuvres are never taken into account, never receiving recognition. It's pretty damned complicated by the look of it, and how does anyone remember how many times they've performed a backflip / somersault / disembowelledthedonkeywithaspoon manoeuvre? I like the goals idea, too. Think I'll include a slightly different version of what you've explained above in my campaigns. Thanks Rob. \$\endgroup\$ – Paul Sep 9 '14 at 15:13
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    \$\begingroup\$ disembowelledthedonkeywithaspoon: There's a table for that; it's Rolemaster ;) \$\endgroup\$ – Rob Sep 9 '14 at 15:31
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Rob: Isn't that why it's called RuleMonster or I.C.E - Immense Chart Encyclopedia? \$\endgroup\$ – Paul Sep 10 '14 at 8:39

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