Topic: Brainstorming Corner

[PhillipAEllis]

I don't know if this will work, but I'm inviting us to get together in this thread and throw out ideas for promoting Rolemaster/HARP/etcetera among our fellow gamers, etcetera.

For example:

* what about making Youtube videos of portions of our gaming sessions, enabling comments, to show the relevant game in action? Then passing along the relevant details to Colin....

[Voriig Kye]

Ok, this may sound silly, but you asked for it.
One of the strengths I see in the RM System is that is "models life better than other games". With this I mean that rules seem more logical, and many times I've joked with my friend about how some situations could be interpreted as RM fumbles, criticals, skill difficulties, etc.
So maybe there could be a section where people could for example tell how a TV show or a movie would map to RM (any version, or even a comparative between how a combat scene might be resolved under RM2, RMFRP, RMU). This, if it where to have visibility outside the forum and could be found via google searches (I'm thinking your new blog may be of use in this respect), could help create the idea of using RM for any kind of adventures.

[PhillipAEllis]

Don't worry about sounding silly: the thread's for our ideas, and one person's ideas could inspire many more to explore others. To give you an example of a riff off of your idea, I could say something like: as a blog post we could take a scene or encounter from a famous book or movie, and give a breakdown of it as if it were a Rolemaster or HARP encounter (such as the encounter between the certain wicked witch and the water from The Wizard of Oz using Acid criticals). See what I mean?

It's not whether the idea is good or bad but rather the idea itself, and how we can later come back to this thread for inspiration and the starting points of our efforts.

Thank you!

[markc]

Voriig Kye,
 I myself love the idea.
+1 Idea Point
MDC

[GrumpyOldFart]

One of the really cool things about combat maneuvers and such is that there are SCA fighters I know personally that I could probably put on a character sheet for RM or HARP and have them be instantly recognizable to any gamer who knows them.

There's enough cross-pollination between gamers and various reenactment groups that it might be good to try to map their uber-well-known people to given systems for the purpose of advertising. While I can't prove it, I strongly suspect that "models life better than other games" carries more weight with gamers in reenactment groups than elsewhere, for the obvious reasons.

Given that, you may want to not only map movie scenes to RM/HARP, but existing YouTube videos of reenactors doing their thing out on the field. Find some Crown Tourney bout between two skilled and well known (within their circle) fighters and lay out the character sheets and a round-by-round progression.

[Thom @ ICE]

Conceptually I would think that a comparison to real life events would fit better into the RM system.

HARP may be a better application for depicting an action/adventure movie in rpg terms.

[GrumpyOldFart]

It would better represent the feel the designers were apparently trying for that way.

However, if there are going to be character sheets and ways to track the data round by round, there will need to be more of a website to support that than just YouTube. YouTube will be where you post video and a link back to the page that allows you to have your video window and your game mechanics window laid out to take advantage of the page space, so the viewer can easily follow everything at once. Use up too much of the page footprint on advertising and suggestions, as YouTube is apt to do, what's left over isn't enough to display everything in a usable size.

[PhillipAEllis]

Since it almost literally took my five minutes to pick up the basics of RM, with the first time I played it, how does a youtube tutorial, or set of tutorial on aspects of game play, each less than five minutes long, and each emphasising the same basic core mechanic of the D% roll + modifiers? I know repetition is important (hence the annoyance when ads do it so blatantly--I'm looking at you, Jeep...) to getting a brand identity through to the punters, so having a short series, preferably one that can be watched out of sequence, would be a decent possibility.

[intothatdarkness]

For a modern product, I can easily see breaking down a scene from a movie into a round-by-round RM equivalent. You might be able to do something similar for some of the LoTR stuff, but I'm focusing much more on modern (and things like Old West) stuff right now.

[markc]

 I can see a couple of videos, one one the D100 mechanic for skills, one for combat, one for combat results (hits, bleeds, stun, etc), one for each of the phases of PC gen and options. Well I guess that is quite a few.
MDC

[Voriig Kye]

How about a dual screen presentation, one side has the real situation, and the other something like the character sheet being updated with the damage, power point usage, etc?
I got this idea from a post on another topic regarding the character sheet web application our gaming group uses.
http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=13588.msg174158#msg174158

[PhillipAEllis]

There has to be room for a lolcat or two.

[ironmaul]

Don't forget about IP issues. You can't take footage from a movie and use it to advertise the RM game system(sorry to rain on your parade guys). But get a few guys or gals from the SCA perhaps and have their permission and your good to go. As for the overall idea I think it's a good one, all you need now is someone to do it with ICE's blessing.

[Voriig Kye]

What about news? A well detailed event in a newspaper or something could also be transcribed to RM. People failing RR against poison, an unexpected 66 at a spelling contest...

[PhillipAEllis]

And there's always the usual standby of press releases, but from the players rather than Aurigas &/or the GCP, to our local media outlets. (And yes I'm aware that they may well need to be vetted by Colin et al.)

[Cory Magel]

...for example tell how a TV show or a movie would map to RM ...

How a particular class (profession) from an online game would map to RM...  a lot of online games have skill and talent development as well as things akin to critical hits that would translate well into RM, although obviously RM's is much more robust.

[PhillipAEllis]

Riffing off Mr Magel, how about examples of great figures of history, myth and legend in Rm &/or HARP format? They could be solo, or collected, (eg. a collection of the Knights of the Round Table), and made freely available, with relevant hot links etcetera to the relevant web pages & sites online.

[Voriig Kye]

Well, there are already many books with that information. Greek Gods, Musketeers, Pirates and many others were mentioned and given stats in the old ICE source books. Maybe a small review and conversion to HARP and RMU is in order, but other than that I think the job is done.

[GrumpyOldFart]

How about a dual screen presentation, one side has the real situation, and the other something like the character sheet being updated with the damage, power point usage, etc?
I got this idea from a post on another topic regarding the character sheet web application our gaming group uses.
http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=13588.msg174158#msg174158

That's the kind of thing I was thinking about when I said this:

However, if there are going to be character sheets and ways to track the data round by round, there will need to be more of a website to support that than just YouTube. YouTube will be where you post video and a link back to the page that allows you to have your video window and your game mechanics window laid out to take advantage of the page space, so the viewer can easily follow everything at once. Use up too much of the page footprint on advertising and suggestions, as YouTube is apt to do, what's left over isn't enough to display everything in a usable size.

Watching the video doesn't do any good unless, when A gets a good shot in on B, B is down, getting back up, shaking his head, the "mechanics side" shows the hit & crit result he got, the maneuver, the stun, etc.

[markc]

  I think the problem with video games and movies is that you need permission to use their stuff. Which is not bad for either side if all the hoops can be jumped through.
MDC