Topic: Director's Briefing - 4th December 2012

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

This is our seventeenth Briefing and is the scheduled Briefing for December. Before I get into the Briefing proper, a quick thank you from myself and my wife for all the best wishes and congratulatory messages.

Print-on-demand and Shadow World (and more)

So in last month’s Director’s Briefing, I discussed the new standard colour option being offered by OneBookShelf and that we would be trialling this with the Shadow World: Land of Xa-ar sourcebook. Well, I received my proof softcover and hardcover versions of Xa-ar and I’m very happy too. Xa-ar is now available in both these formats from OneBookShelf. I’d suggest that you treat yourself for Christmas with a printed version of the book.

We are looking at creating a standard colour version of HARP SF Xtreme and once we have that, we will be posting sample pages so that you can compare standard versus premium colour for yourselves.

Dragonmeet 2012

For the first time in several years, I attended the Dragonmeet convention in London. This was a bit of a snap decision to attend, but the time seemed right to kickoff an ICE/GCP presence at conventions and Dragonmeet is a comfortable convention to ease back into the con scene. Aurigas/ICE were also attending in the form of John and Colin and they doubtless will be talking about their experiences.

Rather than simply attend, I decided that I would GM a game; I decided that since I knew HARP Fantasy inside out and had physical copies of the new rules (master proof copies), this would be the easiest game to run. I did consider HARP SF but I did not feel like rerunning any of my existing HARP SF convention scenarios and had not enough time to build a new adventure (which also ruled out RMU). I ransacked my collection of existing convention scenarios, decided that I had worn them out (and anyway they are all available in the Guild Companion magazine archives), and considered running Muck and Mire from the future TGA#4 but ruled it out because I’d not run it myself and a convention is not the right place to run an adventure for the first time.

Then I stumbled across the Deserted Village, which was a RMSS scenario extracted from my playtest campaign for Mentalism Companion back in the late 90s, and I had written it up for publication in Portals magazine (the predecessor of the Guild Companion) but Portals closed first and for reasons unknown I never published the adventure myself in The Guild Companion. Of course The Deserted Village was statted for RMSS, so four evenings of ruthless rejigging of the mechanical material and creation of six sample player-characters at 3rd level duly followed. All material was ready two days before the convention fortunately.

I met up with Colin and John at the convention and we had a wander around the convention, chatting with industry folks including Graham Bottley of Arion Games who had some softcover versions of Rolemaster Rome on sale at his booth, and seeing what was happening on the scene. I ran the Deserted Village in the afternoon gaming slot with five players (one of whom was Colin getting his first face-to-face RPG experience.) Various of the changes made to HARP Fantasy paid off in the gaming, such as the revised Turn Undead spell reducing the amount of havoc the Cleric could dish out in any one round to not-so hapless Zombies. For a few very tense minutes, it looked like the final battle was going to end in a total party kill. However, a couple of wisely used fate points, persistent archery by the ranger and thief against the witch’s henchfey, and a combo of Cleric heals Mage who casts a scaled Dispel Magic using the new targeted spell effect scaling option knocking out the witch’s +60 from maxed out Tree Skin, giving the Fighter the necessary edge to take her down in hand-to-hand combat, altered the odds and we had a total party victory instead. I think everyone had fun.

All being well, we (GCP and ICE) will be at Dragonmeet next year and indeed will have a presence one way or another at other 2013 conventions.

Lots for us to do, something for you to think about

I did manage to check through the AutoHARP software and it is now available in a beta format from our website and Sourceforge for you all to try and see. I have also received all of the interior artwork for the enhanced version of Loot: A Field Guide and have two of the five new covers for RMU now in hand as well. I and others on the team still have a lot to do in all of HARP, RMU, Shadow World and Cyradon, so while we’re deep in project work, there’s something we would like you to think about.

Many of the projects that we’re working on and indeed those in Public Playtest are obviously rules-oriented products, and core rules and key supplements are the heart of any game line and the bread and butter for any company. But they aren’t and can’t be the whole deal. Busy GMs need more than just rules – some need complete settings, some need ready-made campaigns that they can tailor to suit, some need ready-to-run adventures to plug a hole in their own campaign.

Like me, many of you keep copious notes on the adventures and campaigns that they have created for their own groups. As the core rules for RMU settle down and as more of HARP Fantasy line returns, there will be a need in the first instance for collections of adventures for Shadow World, Cyradon and Tintamar. We do have a number of setting-related and adventure products - TGA#4, Enya Lote, Caer Glais, No Quarter under the Crown, The Sirens of the Silence and Emer III - at various stages in the creative pipeline plus Ruins of Kausur and A Wedding at Axebridge to return. However we (and those busy GMs) will need more material. So for those of you who might like to try your hand at rpg writing, have a look through your treasury of campaign materials and/or muse upon new material that you might like to write.

For now, just rummage for notes and muse. We will get into specifics about what we need most urgently and the mechanics of product proposals next year.

Until next time

The next scheduled Director’s Briefing will be in January, so until then Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

Director, Guild Companion Publications Ltd.

[Mungo]

To be honest, the reason for not playing any ICE system at the moment is the lack of interesting worlds. I ran a Dark Heresy campaign for 2 years, the system is total crap but the world...

- Cyradon has some potential, but there is nothing in detail.
- Shadow World is too high magic for me and feels a bit unbalanced.
- Privateers is too one dimensional
- Tintamar is not developed and the 50m (did it change?) gate diameter also put me a bit off
- I do have all Middle Earth modules, but with RMU as it is the effort to convert might be too high

Also simple scenarios don't cut it. I can wing them on the fly. So I would be looking for something with very high production quality, Ptolus is a good example but also ME.

[Ecthelion]

- I do have all Middle Earth modules, but with RMU as it is the effort to convert might be too high

For me it's the same. I also have lots of the old modules and regularly use them in our sessions. But to me it looks like usage with RMU would involve quite some work. And unfortunately the same would probably be true for all the adventures for the RM system that can be found on the internet :-(.

[DavidKlecker]

How hard would it be to get rights to make A Game of Thrones modules for RM or Harp?

[Zut]

But A game of throne is licensed by FFG, right? I know they did some games based on this, but I'm not sure about RPGs.

[craggles]

Excellent idea - that would put ICE well and truly back on the map almost as much as MERP did back in the day!!! :O

Mind you, now that the Hobbit is coming to the big screen after the LotR trilogy, whoever has the MERP license currently must be rubbing their hands with glee. There's no chance that's coming back to ICE at all is there?

[intothatdarkness]

Excellent idea - that would put ICE well and truly back on the map almost as much as MERP did back in the day!!! :O

Mind you, now that the Hobbit is coming to the big screen after the LotR trilogy, whoever has the MERP license currently must be rubbing their hands with glee. There's no chance that's coming back to ICE at all is there?

I think Games Workshop currently has the Middle Earth license. And they're pushing stuff out like crazy for it...

[Cory Magel]

Licensed products are dangerous for a few reasons.  Being allowed to do what you want with the setting is one problem, but royalties can make it impossible sometimes.

While Middle Earth is probably the most marketable gaming world next to Star Wars it is not the most profitable due to the agreement a company must come to with Tolkien Enterprises (not to be mistaken for the Tolkien Estate) to get the license.  I know the profit margin was low enough for old-old-ICE that if the price of paper went up significantly after they priced the products they could actually lose money on their MERP products.  They (Tolkien Enterprises) also pretty much pulled the carpet out from under the first incarnation of ICE (although I don't know as if they can be entirely blamed for ICE's demise in the bigger picture).  They also have a bit of a 'reputation' and that's about all the further I am going to comment on that.

I think a Steam Punk setting could be a good goal.  It's an up and coming concept and no license would be required (unless they wanted to use a specific authors material - Cherie Priest would probably be the best bet on that).  Put out a "Steampunk Companion", mix Jules Vern and modern day Steam Punk ideas and you could create a setting that combines RM and SM in some ways.

[craggles]

The good thing about having a license is that people who like the world/setting already are more likely to try out the RPG and when it's a hugely popular setting, it'd mean lots of sales. I hadn't thought about Star Wars but that'd make a great Spacemaster setting - now that Disney own it, I can't see them even thinking about licensing it out.

That's a great idea about Steam Punk! A license free setting and the Steam Punk trend doesn't seem to be slowing down!

It could be an all in one package of rules (being a sort of RMU Lite type thing) like the old MERP ruleset was or just as another RMU source book called 'Steam Law' or 'Steam Punk Law'. I'm thinking that it should be the former all-in-one option but with the ability of making use of the other RMU source books for extra detail.
(I can't remember how close MERP was to RM2 - could you make use of the other RM2 books with the MERP rules straight away or would you have had to remake your character in RM2 first to get the benefit out of them? I'm talking about same professions, stat bonuses, skill names, weapon tables, movement rules etc)

...As it happens, the Loari Elves in the Shadow World have a bit of a Steam Punk vibe going for them.

[GrumpyOldFart]

http://www.pcez.com/~artemis/SLAmcandrews.htm

[Zut]

Don't look too far, FFG (Fantasy Flight Games) has also some game license for both Star Wars and LOTR. I play some tabletop games, so I go to their web site sometimes. A game of thrones, Conan, Lovecraft, Battlestar Galactica, WarHammer (Fantasy, 40K), board games, card games, RPGs, etc. Their catalog is impressive! They even have print on demand stock! Those titles are out-of-range for GCP (IMHO).

But there are other worlds, like what about the Dragonriders of Pern? (Maybe too old?) The Dragon knight series (The dragon and the George)? Or more recently, The Fionavar Tapestry (from Guy Gavriel Kay)?

[Mungo]

I am not sure a license would boost sales dramatically. There are also good examples of worlds that have been generated without movies / books behind them and that are widely popular, i.e. GCP could develop their own setting. That's why I mentioned Ptolus, which simply shines though its high quality.

The major issue for me is that besides MERP none of the ICE settings looks appealing. Cyradon might be, but there is not enough material yet.

What I would be looking for is something that goes beyond the "evil vs. good / kill that sorceror over there" (ala Privateers). I.e. politics, intrigue, far reaching consequences, not so easy choices, ... And not too overpowered and complicated (ala Shadow World).

For example Dark Heresy: basically the players are evil according to our morals, but they need to be to defend against a bigger evil. Plus there is never a real victory.

Actually I might have given Defendi's Echoes of Heaven a go, but there hasn't been any news for years..

[WoeRie]

Yes, I have to second that, I doubt that it is important to have an expensive licence. I think the issue is to have a world spiced up with a LONG campaign, to get people into the setting. In the old days most GMs had enough time to create their own worlds or at least own adventures, but today most of us have less time, because we are working and have families. So a lot of us need finished high end campaigns, which are able to fascinate both GM and players and tie us to the setting/world.

Echoes of Heaven was perfect in doing that! It was the campaign and the adventures, which explained the world and everything got clearer and clearer during the campaign! My players (and I) really loved it. Sadly the campaign is not brought to an end (only half of it was released), yet. But it was the most promising approach released for an ICE game.

Cyradon: Nice world and idea, but everything except of the outer frame is missing. Maybe it would be an idea to compile the adventures from Allen Maher and others to a huge starting campaign, released as a nice book with great maps and pictures (á la Ptholus). I think this could revive Cyradon, as I always felt it died shortly after its release.

Shadow World: I like it, and it is a wildy fleshed out world. But it also misses a campaign. So, to give it the potential to get new players into it, finish and release the Grand Campaign (maybe for RMU & HARP), so it can be started with L1 Shadow World Noobs and will bring them to L20 experts.


I think things like that tie players to a game setting and with the setting to a game system. I would really look forward to come back to GCP/ICE games, but as long as there is no material to play with, I will stick with RuneQuest and Glorantha.

[craggles]

I totally agree that a strong campaign is what's needed to keep players interested and coming back for more... but how do you get brand new players to pick it up an ICE product in the first place instead of picking up a Game of Thrones board game by FFG or choose D&D or not choose anything at all?

[egdcltd]

For Shadow World, there's a partial big campaign at present - The Grand Campaign. Now, if that were finished, it could be quite impressive.

[WoeRie]

I totally agree that a strong campaign is what's needed to keep players interested and coming back for more... but how do you get brand new players to pick it up an ICE product in the first place instead of picking up a Game of Thrones board game by FFG or choose D&D or not choose anything at all?

That has do be done using Advertisments on RPG.NET, conventions and so on. ICE/RM already has a name in the industry, maybe not always the best, but it is known and a lot of people talk about giving it a try.

For Shadow World, there's a partial big campaign at present - The Grand Campaign. Now, if that were finished, it could be quite impressive.

Yes, I know that. But it would need a lot of work to make it something you can use to learn more about Shadow World. Even the finished parts require work as it only contains an overview. It's only a skeleton, at least that was my impression after checking it.

[egdcltd]

For Shadow World, there's a partial big campaign at present - The Grand Campaign. Now, if that were finished, it could be quite impressive.

Yes, I know that. But it would need a lot of work to make it something you can use to learn more about Shadow World. Even the finished parts require work as it only contains an overview. It's only a skeleton, at least that was my impression after checking it.

I agree, it does need a fair bit of work. It's possibly only about a third done at most, but it could be a great introduction once finished. I'm sure that some people have fleshed it out a bit, so it might be possible to get it up and running quicker.

[Mungo]

What about reusing good worlds from other game companies that are not tied to a big license? Wouldn't that be a "win-win"?

[Cory Magel]

That has do be done using Advertisments on RPG.NET, conventions and so on. ICE/RM already has a name in the industry, maybe not always the best, but it is known and a lot of people talk about giving it a try.

Over the years, since the first ICE went under, that vast majority of game store owners say the same thing when I mention Iron Crown Enterprises... and that is "Didn't they go bankrupt?"  One of the biggest issues they faced was a lack of visibility.  I'm not going to get into my opinion of their efforts on that front, but suffice to say ICE is not "known" to too many.  I am pretty much 99% certain one of the newest ICE's goals is to go to GenCon as that will provide the biggest single thing they can do to get their name out there, but they need a nice polished product to do it with.  Until they have that product there's not a whole lot of point in putting loads of effort into advertising.

I do think it would behoove them to start gathering information on the major game stores in each state (county, province, etc) in the mean time.  This would likely fall under the new marketing guys umbrella (sorry, can't remember who you are!).  Start doing research online to find the best stores in each state and/or start asking people here what the best stores are near them.  There are fewer and fewer over the years, but hopefully there's at least a couple GOOD game stores that are RPG oriented in most states.  We can provide a list of stores, but then ICE needs to start reaching out to them themselves in a professional capacity - and one of the first things said needs to be "Some of our fans/customers have passed your stores information to us in order to... blah blah blah."  Make them aware that people who live near and likely been in/shopped at their store are interested in ICE products.  Of course this then leads to the fact that there really needs to be something physical ICE can provide them, so some kind of arrangement needs to be worked out there since most of the product in on a print on demand basis now.  Of course this assumes they want to try to get the product out through brick and mortar stores, which I feel is a requirement at the moment.  Online gaming are becoming more and more an online purchase business, but the stores can still be very important... and for more reason than just having your product on your shelf.  They are a gathering point and an actual gaming location if they are a full on RPG store.

[PhillipAEllis]

I'll address game worlds in my next post.

Regarding visibility and a solid, polished product, I see what Cory says and agree with it up to a point.

Simply, there are a number of strategies that can work together. One is the social media angle, which is really getting a conversation going. Part of that is already happening: we have the facebook pages, but there doesn't appear to be as much conversation there as there could be.

Another is, as Cory points out, the gaming stores. These are, yes, more than just stoores, they are loci for gaming to happen in, and the physical hub for real gaming communities. And this is an area where the gamers have excellent potential as gaming ambassadors: we can go to our stores, organise games, events, even keep ICE noticed. (It's all part of the word-of-mouth effort that can complement ICE's efforts.)

A third way is to have the con presence. Here, a mixture of players and staff can work. Nicholas has written of his successes, and it inspires me to want to do likewise.

I am sure we can sit down, at some point, and brainstorm other ways of getting ICE and its products visible again. And, as they say, the best time to start getting your platform going is when the work you're doing is just a twinkle in your eye.