Rolemaster, published by Iron Crown Enterprises (ICE), has long held
the roleplaying game industry claim to fame as one of the most complex
RPGs in the market. Popularly derided as "Chartmaster", the game is
known for complex and lengthy character creation, gameplay
characterized by large amounts of chart-consultation, and a large
number of supplements containing charts for just about any aspect of
play one could think of. Still, despite its detractors, Rolemaster
remains one of the most popular RPGs in the market, with consistently
good support material.

Nonetheless, Rolemaster would normally be one of the last games that
anyone would recommend as a "simple" RPG for first-time gamers. ICE,
however, has made the attempt anyway. They've successfully released an
introductory kit, called an "adventure kit", using a stripped-down
Rolemaster engine, targetted at new players. This is fundamentally
similar to the introductory kit concepts used by TSR in their AD&D
FirstQuest product, and West End Games in their Introductory Box
Set for Star Wars.

ICE's product, "Run Out The Guns!" (ROTG), has the perhaps unique
claim of being an introductory kit that appeals not only to new
players, but to veterans as well. ROTG introduces a new setting, based
on real-world 17th-century piracy in the Caribbean, with a fine
combination of historical verisimilitude and swashbuckling
adventure. It's a self-contained, standalone RPG; the boxed set
contains a pared-down set of Rolemaster rules, character archetypes,
character backgrounds, background information, maps, dice, an
introductory adventure complete with pre-generated characters,
and an explanation of how to use the product with standard
Rolemaster.

Character creation is extremely straightforward. There is a booklet
containing sixteen archetypes, with background history, all necessary
statistics, special abilities which provide both flavor and
uniqueness, and starting equipment list (some useful, and some just
for flavor). Each player chooses an archetype; the archetypes have
been broken down into categories based on the likely positions that
each type would hold on a ship, and the player group should choose
their characters to avoid duplication. Then, each player chooses two
backgrounds (from a set of fourteen) from a second booklet, which
provide additional skills and character background information. The
skill numbers from the backgrounds are added to the base skill numbers
on the archetype, the player chooses his character's name, and voila --
that's it.

The archetypes and backgrounds have been well-chosen; they provide a
strong foundation for later character development, as well as solid
concepts which can be easily roleplayed by novices. There's enough
variety, and combinations, to provide a good spectrum of
differentiated characters. It's also trivial to generate NPCs in this
manner.

One could complain that the character generation system suffers from
the same basic flaw as other archetype-based systems, namely,
"everyone is stamped from the same mold", a problem which is
exacerbated by the lack of character customization -- there are no
additional skill points to assign freely, for example, as is true of
Star Wars. Nonetheless, the simplification works well, and an
experienced GameMaster ought to be easily able to modify the character
generation process to suit his own tastes, including using standard
Rolemaster character generation rules if he so chooses.

ROTG provides a variety of starting scenarios, which are essentially
ways to explain how the party members know each other, and how they
came to be in possession of a ship. It's assumed that the party
will be pirates or privateers, though they could choose to be, for
example, legitimate merchants. There is also one session-length
adventure, with pre-generated characters, but it seems likely that
tournament-style play and campaigns alike would be more likely to
use one of the seed scenario ideas instead.

The one real oddity of the system is that it lacks a detailed naval
combat system, a significant lack in a pirates game. Shipboard combat
is done in a more "quick play" style, with the GameMaster being 
instructed to use his own discretion, but this basically reduces
ship combat down to die rolls and the GM's descriptions, unless
the GM is knowledgeable enough in naval tactics to be able to make
up something on his own. Hopefully, ICE will remedy this lack in
some future supplement, but it's a crucial missing component in the
otherwise complete kit.

Nonetheless, for anyone who likes pirates roleplaying, this is an
RPG to definitely have on one's shelf.