For those who do not know me, I am Nicholas Caldwell, the Director and sole shareholder of Guild Companion Publications Limited, the company licensed by Aurigas Aldebaron LLC to publish Rolemaster, Spacemaster, HARP, Shadow World and Cyradon. Director means that I am in charge of managing the company; sole shareholder means that I own the company.
The point of these Briefings is give you as fans and customers insights into what we are doing, what projects are underway, and what we see on the horizon. They are not going to be in-depth financial discussions, but because this is the first Briefing, I will say that the GCP Ltd. business model is already working – our licensor (that’s Aurigas) is getting their royalties automatically on each and every sale, our freelancers are being paid on time, products are steadily returning and being bought, and we’re making a profit. Now we can all agree that it would be even better if the rebranding was moving faster, print-on-demand was already initiated, and new products like HARP SF Xtreme and Guild Adventurer #4 were already out on sale, but we are getting there.
So what’s coming next from GCP Ltd.?
If you have been following the Heisenberg uncertainty countdown on the forums, you’ll know that HARP SF Xtreme is tantalisingly close to being complete. At some undefined point, Craig John will stride into my inbox with a final completed HARP SF Xtreme, there will be final checks, and then we will release it (and I’ll be spending an evening or two chasing down HARP SciFi beta purchasers so that they can get their complimentary copies.)
Secondly if you have been watching the ever-increasing back catalogue of products appearing on the OneBookShelf network, you will have spotted that we have put various scanned products from the Golden Age of Old ICE on sale – Cyberspace, Rolemaster and a handful of classic Shadow World products. We also have a significant number of Spacemaster 2nd Edition scanned products, both rulebooks and adventure modules, resting in the archives. The plan is to get these products back on sale over this month and next. The process here involves me fishing out a pdf, taking a screenshot of its cover, resizing that screenshot to the regulation 220px wide jpg for OneBookShelf, entering all the product data into the OneBookShelf system (which includes painfully transcribing the relevant back cover text as these are all scans), uploading the pdf and setting its release date and licensing royalty. Typically it takes me between half an hour and an hour to get a product ready for release on OneBookShelf. These are all scanned products, so be warned that their quality is imperfect. As scanned products, their release dates are subject to some shuffling as new products and rebranded products (e.g. Spacemaster: Privateers) will and must take priority in the release schedule.
Thirdly, there are six Shadow World products that are not scans which have yet to be rereleased by us, namely Emer I, Emer II, Haalkitaine, Eidolon, Cloudlords of Tanara and Jaiman. Our plan here is to add RMSS/FRP appendices, get these products rebranded and available in both pdf and print-on-demand. Brent Knorr has already produced the RMSS/FRP conversion for Cloudlords, Cormac Doyle is nearly finished with Emer I, and Julien Buseyne is hard at work on Eidolon. The current plan is that when Terry hands in Emer III for editing and illustration, he’ll switch into layout mode on these six products to give him a breather before embarking on Emer IV!
Fourthly, HARP, or more correctly HARP Fantasy. I’ve indicated in the past that we intend to make some changes to the fantasy half of HARP. For various legal reasons, one area of the overall rules set needs more changes than we would have preferred to make. Given that is the case, it now makes sense to make more significant changes to areas that also need it. This is not a full-blown second edition, think of it as version 1.5. Here’s some of the modifications that we will be making to HARP. For a start, we will be renaming the core rulebook to HARP Fantasy to provide differentiation from the original 160-page and the revised 192-page products. Core professions such as the Fighter and the Thief will receive a choice of professional abilities to provide greater variation, while the Cleric will gain a level bonus to bring its power level into balance with its peers. Some of the races will be rebalanced – more stat points as well as Skill Flexibility for humans and a whole slew of talents have been recosted. One of the cross-book changes affecting HARP Fantasy and College of Magics is an adjustment of the spell creation system drawing upon the epic elements in the Something Wicked manuscript and fixing the problems that have bedevilled many of the core rulebook spells. All of the spells will have their base and scaling options made consistent with the adjusted spell creation system. More detail on these and other upcoming changes in due course. Note that the Cyradon setting book and existing modules such as Wedding at Axebridge and Ruins of Kausur will be made consistent with the modifications as part of their rebranding process before they are rereleased.
Fifthly, the next scheduled Director’s Briefing will be presented at the start of September.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
Director, Guild Companion Publications Ltd.
