Topic: Misc SW material

[jdale]

Regarding that last link, read that last paragraph:
Let’s tie the two together. I.C.E. was founded by young people in college, most in their early 20’s. The growth in RPG players is: overseas, youth and females. Does I.C.E. now need to recruit new, relevant writers to appeal to today’s player demographics? What happens in just the next decade as we all enter our 60’s and even 70’s? Will our writing be relevant or we just existing for the small core of die hards our own age? Who takes over after that? Does ICE sell it’s catalog to a young upstart company or established gaming entity?

Then think about the issues in https://ironcrown.co.uk/ICEforums/index.php?topic=20451.0

I am afraid I am not bringing down the average age of RM writers (I'm 50 myself).

[Malim]

To clarify!

Terry`s world should stay as it is thought. But re-organizing is key, to getting new people into our beloved setting.

New people will want to buy into a setting that is set and easy to start up in. That aint it now in my opinion :/

[rdanhenry]

A setting that's frozen in time and isn't going to get genuinely new material, but only reorganization of old material, probably isn't going to sell very well. There's a very strong Cult of the New in gaming, and for "old school" settings for the nostalgia crowd, there's too many better-known worlds out there. A Shadow World that sticks strictly to Terry's canon and doesn't continue to grow beyond it isn't going to bring people into Rolemaster.

[Vladimir]

A setting that's frozen in time and isn't going to get genuinely new material, but only reorganization of old material, probably isn't going to sell very well. There's a very strong Cult of the New in gaming, and for "old school" settings for the nostalgia crowd, there's too many better-known worlds out there. A Shadow World that sticks strictly to Terry's canon and doesn't continue to grow beyond it isn't going to bring people into Rolemaster.

  My current GM decided to transfer all the characters in his current MERP campaign to SW. I've glanced at the SW material but it's all new to me and opens a world not constrained by a timeline that all the players are familiar with.
  There are benefits and liabilities to a universal timeline. A GM could schedule events like wars and royal successions while (as I've seen in the past) players can take advantage of knowledge of future events, such as actively preparing for them.
  SW opens up new possibilities to me as it is as new to me today as it would have been if I had played it when it was first published. In that respect, some gaming elements are timeless and so far as I've read, SW is one of them. I wish I had discovered SW years ago.

  There is a company that makes cell phones (which shall remain nameless) that releases a new one every year with enough cosmetic changes to attract new buyers without actually improving their product. They have made a huge profit on repackaging the same product every year. While I don't recommend copying that marketing technique, it does work in practice. There are worse business models, like rewriting (censored) rules ever few months just to sell a line of (censored) miniatures...               

[Voriig Kye]

My group would use:
- More detailed descriptions of the other continents, especially as they related between them (is there a portal from A to B? are the tribes in C descendant from settlers from D?)
- Some adventure ideas, and also hooks for higher level adventures
- Detailed cultures to be used as PCs when playing in those continents
- Retconning or errata documents unifying the ideas in the old books, since some are contradictory (I know the blog has some ideas about that, but an official account on how it all ties together would be good for new players and GMs)

[Hurin]

- Detailed cultures to be used as PCs when playing in those continents

Yes, I'd even like more cultural summaries for just the basic races in RMU for example. Those old 'Cultural Summaries' that we see in the old Shadow World books were very helpful for my players, but there are many races that never got them (e.g. Avinarc, Idiyva, Sibbicai, Sstoi, Vulfen), and the ones that do exist are scattered across assorted SW publications. Having a collection of cultural summaries for each playable race would really help roleplaying.

[B Hanson]

I listed out all of the lists and links to expedite searches in the future.

https://www.rolemasterblog.com/master-spell-list-reference/

[Arigon]

Thank you for that link!

[terefang]

basically i do consider a static/frozen setting a dead duck in the water.

yet than again Middle Earth is exactly the same thing. we have history up to the forth age and then nil.

also warhammer fantasy has been rehashing their empire in flames a forth time until a publisher got enough balls to do an alternative base campaign in a different part of the country.

maybe it is exactly that -- freeze emer and jaiman -- and develop another part of the globe for the upcoming RMU.

but dont get into the frenzy and detail every other outhouse there is.

[Hurin]

...maybe it is exactly that -- freeze emer and jaiman -- and develop another part of the globe for the upcoming RMU.

I like that idea. We know that Emer IV will be coming out, I believe as Terry's last major work in SW, and mostly completing the continents of Jaiman and Emer. I do like the idea of leaving those regions as is, and exploring some of the other continents.

From what I recall, there are already some works set beyond Jaiman/Emer: Star Crown Empire; Kingdom of the Desert Jewel; Islands of the Oracle; Gethaena; Nomads of the Nine Nations; and the Bladestorm stuff.

There is enough background material in Shadow World to make adventures set in these areas feel like Shadow World, while giving enough freedom to create new adventures. These other areas are entire continents, after all

As a map fetisist, I'd also really like to see a map of another continent done in the style of the Emer maps.

[MisterK]

...maybe it is exactly that -- freeze emer and jaiman -- and develop another part of the globe for the upcoming RMU.

I like that idea. We know that Emer IV will be coming out, I believe as Terry's last major work in SW, and mostly completing the continents of Jaiman and Emer. I do like the idea of leaving those regions as is, and exploring some of the other continents.

From what I recall, there are already some works set beyond Jaiman/Emer: Star Crown Empire; Kingdom of the Desert Jewel; Islands of the Oracle; Gethaena; Nomads of the Nine Nations; and the Bladestorm stuff.

I would first check which part of the old catalogue Terry actually considered canon or close enough to be part of his vision. There were a number of things he did not, and it would be nice to make sure they stay that way.
Second would be to ensure compatibility with existing material from Terry, first and foremost the Master Atlas descriptions. After all, this is the most comprehensive data we had to work with since basically the beginning whenever an area was not covered by a campaign module already.

And then... yes, going somewhere new is good. I would seriously suggest either Kelestia or Thuul, both because they have *not* been covered by a previous product and because they are close enough to areas that *have* been covered already (Jaiman and Emer) that going from one to the other is actually possible with mundane means (ships) and authors would have to care about integration of new material with the old - the continents are close enough that they might really have influenced one another, and having successful integration is much more interesting than having completely separate continents that could as well be on different worlds.

[Hurin]

And then... yes, going somewhere new is good. I would seriously suggest either Kelestia or Thuul, both because they have *not* been covered by a previous product and because they are close enough to areas that *have* been covered already (Jaiman and Emer) that going from one to the other is actually possible with mundane means (ships) and authors would have to care about integration of new material with the old - the continents are close enough that they might really have influenced one another, and having successful integration is much more interesting than having completely separate continents that could as well be on different worlds.

Those are good suggestions. Of the two, I'd probably lean towards Kelestia, since it is roughly equidistant from Jaiman and Emer, whereas Thuul is far from Jaiman.

[MisterK]

Those are good suggestions. Of the two, I'd probably lean towards Kelestia, since it is roughly equidistant from Jaiman and Emer, whereas Thuul is far from Jaiman.

True. On the other hand, Thuul is much bigger - you could make about four Thuul books (same as Emer), while Kelestia would likely go in one or at most two books.

And since I already used Kelestia, mine would not be canon, so I'd rather have Thuul 

[terefang]

Those are good suggestions. Of the two, I'd probably lean towards Kelestia, since it is roughly equidistant from Jaiman and Emer, whereas Thuul is far from Jaiman.

rereading the master atlas ...

Kelestia would be some sort of mostly stone/bronze age setting with the Raven Queen as only adversary.

Thuul on the other side is interesting ... almost like europe including mediterrenian seas and northern africa !

[MisterK]

Those are good suggestions. Of the two, I'd probably lean towards Kelestia, since it is roughly equidistant from Jaiman and Emer, whereas Thuul is far from Jaiman.

rereading the master atlas ...

Kelestia would be some sort of mostly stone/bronze age setting with the Raven Queen as only adversary.

Thuul on the other side is interesting ... almost like europe including mediterrenian seas and northern africa !

Isra in Kelestia is TL4, and parts of Verya are up to TL3. But the rest is officially TL1-2, which is more primitive, technologically speaking, than most of Jaiman.

However, technological bronze age does not mean non-civilised (most of heroic and classic Greece is bronze age, as are Egypt and most famous middle eastern pre-islamic civilisations). On Emer, almost all of Tai-Emer (Pochantos and Lankanôk) is TL2-3, Vajaar is 2-3, the Rhiani and Shynsari are TL2, as are Quon and Ahnasan. Basically, more than half of Emer is TL2 or at most 3. And no one ever said that Emer was dull

(and if you check Thuul, the situation is not much better).

Kelestia is also close to both Jaiman and Emer, and also close to Gaalt (I'm not including Iyxia, because it is mostly inaccessible), and most of southern Kelestia was once part of Voriig Kye's Dragon Kingdom, which is a major plot point of sorts.

In terms of integration with the existing books, Kelestia is the better choice.

(but as I said, I am partial to Thuul. It's even more a continent of contrasts than Emer is, has unmistakable features - including the Pillar of the Gods, major plot points in the Alliance war against Vashaan colonies, one of the Ahrenreth's Secrets... and the racial mix is all over the place).

[terefang]

it is not for us to decide.

someone has to sell it to the powers of the iron crown.

[Hurin]

it is not for us to decide.

Yes, but it is kinda fun to think about!

[jdale]

There wouldn't be any point in selling something if the fans didn't want it.

[metallion]

We don't need to sell a single thing to a single person at Iron Crown.  Indeed, they are the ones with a need to sell to us.  It's very kind of us to give them this market research for free.

I'm personally not very concerned about what non-TKA content ICE publishes, and won't be until it is demonnstrated that content is worth my while.  The non-TKA SW content was shaky at best I'll most likely write my own content. 

[Arigon]

I agree with the above poster. I have taken to writing my own material. Frankly it has been one of the most rewarding parts of my hobby time now and for many years.

Once I sat down with an actual great outline map of Jaiman, and began filling it in with Wonderdraft, TKA errors began flushing to the top like crazy, and this is just something recent, not going to besmirch TKA, he had a great imagination. What he did not have was consistency.

Believe it or not, I RAGED over a couple of things in the revised Jaiman material.

Frelic the Usurper lives in Minion, and had allies from Saralis come to his aid in his quest.

Earlier materials show Minion in the NORTH basically in Prevan, and new material has moved it to SOUTH Rhakhaan. This single point, which was not sufficiently addressed in his Haalkitain sourcebook really triggered me. Minion in the North and having his troops invading Prevan and elsewhere in the North made sense, in the older materials.  In the newer book, it made no sense.

Just one stupid point, which set me off. I have taken to following the map when it makes sense, and throwing out things which do not. My players are in wholehearted agreement.

Likewise I write new material almost every week as I have for years. Much of it is completely contrary to later materials released.

So I will look long and hard before buying future materials, even assuming I will make the shift to RMU, which is unlikely.
Peace