Ah, Rolemaster! That takes me back to the good old days...

A towering skeletal demon rises from the 4 foot high stone crypt that had contained his demented spirit. The party realizes their error too late: They had broken the seal, releasing the demon, and now it was up to them to lay it to rest again.

The party encircled the demon, who stood beside it's burial mound. The whole party... save for me, as there just wasn't enough room to fit us all in around the horror at battle-range. And I had no spells, no useful missile weapons.

No worries, I'll just fall back on my usual cinematics...

ME: "I run in from the side, leaping up atop the burial crypt, so that I am now positioned behind the creature. Then as soon as I am foot-stable, I conduct a devastating back-attack!"

DM: "What's your leaping skill?"

ME: "Leaping skill?" *looks at list of 417 skills through several pages of character sheets, finds a palty skill level in a halfway appropriate skill*. "But didn't you say that there was rubble all around the crypt? Couldn't I just take a running half-step and propell myself up there? It's only 4 feet high, right?"

DM: "Roll your leaping skill. I'll add in the appropriate penalties to your roll."

ME: "Uh, ok.... How about if I do this a bit more careful. I'll rush up to the side of the crypt, away from the weapon's range of the beast, then I'll arm-lift myself up atop the crypt, stand up, and then move and engage the beast. How long will that take?"

DM: "Roll your climbing skill."

ME: ...

ME: "It's only four feet high. And there is rubble I could use as steps to assist me up."

DM: "Roll your climbing skill."

ME: "You're serious?"

DM: "Listen, this is the most detailed system out there; there's a reason for every skill in this book. If you didn't put enough skill points into climbing, then it's your error, not mine."

ME: ....

ME: "You gave us pregenerated characters."

DM: "You could have requested modifications."

*~*~*

Yeah, so those days weren't so good after all.

*~*~*

Rolemaster, in my opinion, greatly reduced what a player can do by assigning skill checks to every possible situation, of which the players often haven't prepared for during character generation. Of course, 3rd edition and other modern systems pretty much followed suit, but I still find most DM's far more lenient than of the Rolemaster DM's of my past.

If you want the good old days of cinematics, play AD&D.