Topic: What ICE can learn from "that other company"

[dutch206]

I suspect, that looking at RM/SM, the reality is that the variance in house rules between any two GMs exceeds the variation between RM2/C and RMSS/FRP.

With any "mature" game system, there's a lot of house flavor.

LOL 'House flavor' makes it sound like ICE is holding a Rave.

[dutch206]

"What do you LIKE about the version you DON'T use?"
*More things to do with background options.
*Adolescence development based on culture.
*Fewer blank spots in the spell lists.
*The snap/normal/deliberate actions.
*Spell acquisition by individual spells. 
*Arcane Magic is more clearly defined.

"What DON'T you like about the version you DO use?"
*Spell acquisition by list portions must DIE!
*Not enough uses for background options.
*Adolescence development isn't very well defined. (IMO)

"What do you consider 'hands off' in the version you DO use?"
*Perception as a single skill.

Other Random Thoughts:
*Elves need to be redefined somehow.  Like in D & D, where immortal elves are called LeShay and live on another plane of existence far, far, away. D & D elves have a definitive lifespan and aren't 10,000 years old.
*RE: earlier discussion about core rules clerics vs Channeling Companion "Priests".  If you look at D & D 3.5 as an example, all clerics have the same spells at their disposal except for two domains of nine spells each.  I really don't think it is necessary to give each RM priesthood a completely unique set of spells.
*With all due respect to TKA, Shadow World is a Science-Fantasy Supers campaign.  RM needs a traditional high fantasy setting which is its own intellectual property.  (Using a setting imagined by an author didn't end up so good for ICE last time.  When they lost the rights to MERP, ICE lost half its product catalog.)

[Zut]

To answer specifically about the thread question, I would say : easier MPC (foe) creation. I've heard (not tried it) about how D&D 4e has an easy way for GM to build foes using less skills (hence less DP) than a normal PC.

Otherwise... I enjoy a lot RM as it is. Whatever version, the many tables are what had me draw in.  I like the spell system: 3 realms with pure, hybrid, semi and even semi-hybrid spell users. The lists.

As for combat, I prefer a house rule with a second per second actions instead of rounds. Works well.

Maybe it's because I didn't used RM for a long enough time, but I can't imagine any big improvements for it. Does it need a rewrite somehow? I don't think so. I can think only of cosmetic changes.

I know only of a few RPGs that are as versatile as RM. I think it's already amazing that the books are still available (legally!) after such a long time since ICE's beginnings.

Anyway, I'm a happy RM fan and satisfied with it as it is. 

[MariusH]

I guess house rules are used by everyone, so we all play different systems. That said, it would be nice if the rule books presented rules which were CONSISTENT and UNAMBIGUOUS. Preferrably with several examples, not just describing a trivial case, but delving into complex situations. I also play ASL (Advanced Squad Leader). Although comparing that with roleplaying doesn't make much sense, I really wish RM rules would take a look at ASL to see how well written rules CAN be. Of course, people mey choose to deviate from these rules, and follow their own house rules, but the RAW should be as clear as possible, with very little room for interpretation.

While I'm at it, I'd like a few changes to the Crit tables. A lot, really. I mean, crits are great. Describing damage beyond simply "taking hits" is really nice. But there are two things I dislike about the crits as they are: 1) There is much humour and colorful language in the crit descriptions. All well, I suppose, but it is more important to describe PRESICELY what the effect of the crit is, and what the consequences are. Like: When am I "down" - and what would it take to get back up? If there are X rounds until death, what am I still able to do? So, I have "internal bleedings" - from what organs? And it goes on and on. 2) And this is perhaps what bugs me most about Rolemaster: The crits are too random. FAR too random. No, FAR FAR too random. I'd really like that A crits were A crits, and E crits were E crits, and E crits were always more severe than A crits. Rather than having the severity increase with higher crit number, I'd prefer if just the TYPE of damage changed (sometimes you're hit in the leg, sometimes in the arm, sometimes it's a bleeder, sometimes it's a broken bone or a stun...), while being, by and large, more or less equally "dangerous". Instant death blows only for E crits, for instance. But it seems like many people like the crits the way they are, for some reason or other.

[smug]

I have to say, none of this really leads me to think that there's much of a commercial future, in terms of attracting new people, to some new merged superRM. Chart-based resolution for combat and skill use isn't unique to Rolemaster, but the amount of it in RM is probably more than any other game; I'm personally fine with charts (I prefer them, in fact) but it's an insta-turnoff, it seems to me, for a lot of younger gamers. At the same time you've got stuff like Savage Worlds and FATE-based games that weren't around back in the day, which are quick and easily reskinned to other settings and currently (apparently) burgeoning. How does new-RM compete? What can we say RM does well that's not already covered by existing, supported games that you can order from Amazon or even find in an FLGS? How does new-RM do better than the two existing RMs, for that matter?

I think we look on convergence of the RM tribes as a good, when we firstly don't know if it's achievable (and a new edition is obviously a fair amount of work) and without enough consideration of how any RM will do well in the market that currently exists. I love RM and did buy the new RMC, but to be honest I can get a bunch of other games, all good, in hard copy in a game store or ordered simply online. I do buy PoD products -- I got OSRIC + monster book, as well as Dark Dungeons, that way -- but it's less nice (and on that topic, I still can't buy RMC that way, right?) and it makes it harder to build groups and spread the word, if there's no store presence.

When it comes to pdfs, I can get all the core Pathfinder pdfs for $10 each (and their basic world guide for Golarion for $10 on .pdf) and the entire ruleset is available online for free anyhow, via at least two very good resources (the PRD at Paizo and d20pfsrd). FATE is also OGL, I think; you can spend a fair amount on, say, the Dresden Files RPG (which is FATE-based) books but they're gorgeous, and people can use the core rules set to build their own stuff freely. Savage Worlds isn't OGL but has a cheap, small core book and thanks to popularity and easy licensing, is getting a load of product. Even GURPS, which is a bit RM-like in terms of complexity and realism/simulation, is at least available in hard copy and I believe has full-time people working on the game. MRQII/Legend is also in active development, has hard copy and has an Open license. That's some of the market place for games available now, all of those companies have full-time people and we are told the market is shrinking anyhow (for a bunch of reasons we needn't rehash now).

Obviously, there's more to the success of some of those games; Paizo has a webstore and had a springboard in Dungeon and Dragon, SJG has Munchkin to bring in the money, Mongoose has a ton of games, Evil Hat just knocked it out of the park with Dresden Files RPG (and Pinnacle just seem really clever), etc. We don't get to pick our realities, though, and I think we should spend some significant time discussing the market into which a new game, and/or the existing ones, would be sold and I don't think we're doing that enough (not that our discussions will lead to decisions by ICE, but if we're going to discuss the situation then I think we should ensure that we discuss the whole situation).

I do love RM and if I were rich, I'd sink money into it to get it into stores and in more speedy development, but not with an eye to making that money back because I can't help feeling that its appeal is mostly to older gamers who played it before, when it was cool. I'd do it for the love of the game*.

*This is a pretty good way to get not-rich, of course.

[GrumpyOldFart]

...and I think we should spend some significant time discussing the market into which a new game, and/or the existing ones, would be sold and I don't think we're doing that enough (not that our discussions will lead to decisions by ICE, but if we're going to discuss the situation then I think we should ensure that we discuss the whole situation).

I agree that the discussion should be had... and I tend to assume that in fact it is being had behind the scenes. But I'm not going to be active in it. Maybe the very occasional comment, but I learned decades ago that I should not have any input where "how to make this profitable" type decisions are concerned. I could lose money on a lemonade stand in Hell. It's a knack, I guess.

That said, don't be surprised if a fair proportion of the people here have a similar assessment of the value of their opinions where marketing strategy is concerned.

[smug]

Well, I wouldn't claim (indeed, I said the same in an earlier post) to have marketing expertise, but I think a bunch of us can discuss the current market and the games in it, their strengths and weaknesses and maybe what RM has as its own strengths in light of that.

Marketing a product, though, that's a different deal (but one for which you have to have an actual product).

[kevinmccollum]

I would consider re-looking at the attack charts and maybe having criticals achieved less frequently too.  They become more climactic if you aren't rolling them after 2/3rds of your attacks

Originally, they were achieved much less frequently. Power creep pushed offensive bonuses up with the result of achieving higher results therefore more crits dealt out, deadlier combats. etc. Try rolling up a RM2 character by the book, no background options outside of the original character law and look at the character you get vs. what you get with all the optional rules for character generation and background option selection and availability.

[Cory Magel]

I was going to say something similar.  In many groups the abundance of criticals is a result of how the group plays.  What mechanics they use, if they actually parry or not, etc.

When we first ran MERP we did some test runs that really taught us the importance of parrying.  However there are ways to inflate your DB to the point that it becomes much less necessary, causing stronger attacks resulting in more criticals.  Definitely not a problem specific to RM2 either.

[pastaav]

With all this said I also think it is good if we recall that at what level some business is profitable very much depend on how the business is run. Having a store filled with printed books that you ship to customers cost money. Heck even getting a decent insurance of the books you have printed in advance cost money. Add in people handling shipping, returns and so one who should get salary no matter if there is work to be done. It is quite possible to have a steady sale of books but still losing money in the process. Overhead is often the killer of small business.

The downside of print on demand shops is that the cost for the customer often is higher, but the upside is that the upfront cost for GCP to do new product is less. A product that does not start to sell until there two more supplements out is not huge deal with print on demand but is a killer if you keep the books in store until it happens. 

Most likely RM will not become a major RPG again, but that does not mean the alternative is to become nothing. I think there great opportunity if material keep coming out. If not else that is a different thing than what we used to... 

[smug]

Obviously, printed inventory is an expensive investment (which is why ICE/GC aren't doing it at the moment) but if you can shift the volume you get better returns per book. As I understand it, you need to be confident of selling something in the thousands and work out how to get it into distribution. However, at least in areas with decent gaming stores, if you can't get onto the gaming store shelves then you may not have great visibility; plenty of places don't have good games stores, though.

I am not sure what the model is for RM, in terms of what other companies are doing well at. How many games are PoD-only (well, RM at the moment doesn't have PoD but we assume it will happen) and have decent penetration? The game companies I'm most familiar with -- WotC, Paizo, Pinnacle, Troll Lord Games, Mongoose, Cubicle 7, etc -- all produce physical product for sale through distribution (even other pdf-heavy companies like Adamant also produce physical product, through print partners like Cubicle 7, which I guess is an option available to ICE if print partners are interested).

[markc]

Obviously, printed inventory is an expensive investment (which is why ICE/GC aren't doing it at the moment) but if you can shift the volume you get better returns per book. As I understand it, you need to be confident of selling something in the thousands and work out how to get it into distribution. However, at least in areas with decent gaming stores, if you can't get onto the gaming store shelves then you may not have great visibility; plenty of places don't have good games stores, though.

I am not sure what the model is for RM, in terms of what other companies are doing well at. How many games are PoD-only (well, RM at the moment doesn't have PoD but we assume it will happen) and have decent penetration? The game companies I'm most familiar with -- WotC, Paizo, Pinnacle, Troll Lord Games, Mongoose, Cubicle 7, etc -- all produce physical product for sale through distribution (even other pdf-heavy companies like Adamant also produce physical product, through print partners like Cubicle 7, which I guess is an option available to ICE if print partners are interested).

Sort of a tangent of the thought above I would like to see some plan to offer PDF's at a discount at FLGS. Where the store either burns you a disk or provides some type of protective encryption of the PDF. IMHO this would help the FLGS and in the long run also help the PDF seller and game designer. But the proffit margin may be too small to make this work for each section of the suply chain; ie designer, RPGNow, FLGS.
 IMHO this might also provide a point of contact if the PDF is pirated in someway.
MDC

[smug]

Obviously, printed inventory is an expensive investment (which is why ICE/GC aren't doing it at the moment) but if you can shift the volume you get better returns per book. As I understand it, you need to be confident of selling something in the thousands and work out how to get it into distribution. However, at least in areas with decent gaming stores, if you can't get onto the gaming store shelves then you may not have great visibility; plenty of places don't have good games stores, though.

I am not sure what the model is for RM, in terms of what other companies are doing well at. How many games are PoD-only (well, RM at the moment doesn't have PoD but we assume it will happen) and have decent penetration? The game companies I'm most familiar with -- WotC, Paizo, Pinnacle, Troll Lord Games, Mongoose, Cubicle 7, etc -- all produce physical product for sale through distribution (even other pdf-heavy companies like Adamant also produce physical product, through print partners like Cubicle 7, which I guess is an option available to ICE if print partners are interested).

Sort of a tangent of the thought above I would like to see some plan to offer PDF's at a discount at FLGS. Where the store either burns you a disk or provides some type of protective encryption of the PDF. IMHO this would help the FLGS and in the long run also help the PDF seller and game designer. But the proffit margin may be too small to make this work for each section of the suply chain; ie designer, RPGNow, FLGS.
 IMHO this might also provide a point of contact if the PDF is pirated in someway.
MDC

Evil Hat did that for Dresden Files, I think, and they're not the only ones; their direct sales were book + pdf bundled, and they made sure that FLGS were able to offer the same deal (book at cover price, then a download of the pdf).

Fred Hicks of Evil Hat must have been the most open about a physical gaming product's sales and print run, etc, of anyone. It was a really interesting process, to read his blog posts about the run coming together.

Of course, this is contingent on ICE/GC finding a way to get into print distribution.