Rolemaster started as Arms Law and Claw Law which were intended to be an alternate combat system for D&D.

Awesome! Would be cool if you checked out the new version of Rolemaster too, to get the "old and new". Rolemaster Unified.

Rolemaster Unified came out less than a year ago and, while a large book, the actual process is much smoother than the original edition. The new bestiary is due out soon.

We played this a bit bitd. There was a lot to like about it. But it was clearly made by people who thought D&D was too simplistic, especially the magic system, and didn't rely enough on tables, and wasn't deadly enough. Lots of pc deaths in my few games. It's definitely extremely well organized and comprehensive. But the best part to me were the critical fail tables for weapons. Hilarious. Overall, tho, way too much for me, and I like math. But I've borrowed from it frequently, and it's a constant source of ideas and inspiration to this day.

It's funny to see popular D&D KZfaqrs trying to create "new" systems and rules without even knowing that Rolemaster existed and that those ideas already existed in that game. I played DnD, Rolemaster and one darker game... Aquelarre. Oh, also Vampire: the masquerade.

Are you familiar with Against the Darkmaster?