Author Topic: Director's Briefing - January 2019  (Read 3953 times)

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Offline NicholasHMCaldwell

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Director's Briefing - January 2019
« on: January 09, 2019, 12:45:51 AM »
Welcome to 2019

Happy New Year to everyone. Welcome to the ninety-second Briefing and the first scheduled Briefing of 2019.

Over the course of 2018, I managed to read Elizabeth Moon’s Paladin’s Legacy quintet, Terry Brook’s Legends of Shannara duology, and multiple Valdemar trilogies from Mercedes Lackey. My holiday reading was the Evermen quartet by James Maxwell and his Shifting Tides quartet. The Evermen cycle features a rune-based magic where spells are inscribed onto surfaces before being invoked through incantation and used by bladesingers for combat and to create multiple forms of constructs. The Shifting Tides is a completely different setting set in an analogue of classical Greece and the wider Mediterranean where ogres, giants, furies, merfolk, sea serpents and dragons are forms taken by shapeshifters – but if they spend too long in the wild form, they lose their humanity and ability to change back.

A retrospective on 2018

As we have done since 2018, let us begin our year with a look back at the previous year. We had hoped 2018 to be the partitioned year. It turned out to be a year of delays.

In the convention arena, we had an ICE presence at GenCon for the second time thanks to our friends at Pointy Hat Games and a team of loyal fans, although Terry was unable to attend. The UK team had our fifth stand at Dragonmeet.

The goal had been to have two, perhaps even three, full Shadow World manuscripts to publication. In the end, only Shadow World: Jaiman: Land of Twilight made it to release.

In HARP Fantasy and HARP SF, the army of freelancers suffered various trials and tribulations so there were no new product releases. However, four manuscripts have reached essentially complete text status and were in the editing queue by the end of 2018.

Software support for HARP and Rolemaster continued through AutoHARP and ERA, with four new datasets being released for ERA.

RMU’s Creature Law refused to reach the much sought-after singularity.

ICE is in discussions with new potential licensees.

2019

One way or another, we are going to bring RMU to a resolution this year. As you know, Creature Law is to be split into two volumes. I have decided that Creature Law volume 1 will be essentially those creatures that appeared in the original Creatures & Treasure product. Everything else including the creature creation materials will have to wait to the second volume for publication. I have also requested the team to indicate what sort of assistance they feel they need to complete the rejigging of creatures.

In the convention arena, ICE will have a presence at GenCon, once again through our friends at Pointy Hat Games. The UK team will also be at Dragonmeet as traders.

For Shadow World, Terry is mostly working on the Haalkitaine manuscript with occasional forays into Emer IV. We would really like to see both of those manuscripts come to publication this year. In terms of other Shadow World authors and their manuscripts, Priest-King of Shade is now in my editing queue, while Lethys is receiving a deep editing pass by a freelance editor.

For HARP Fantasy and HARP SF, 2018 ended with four products in my editing queue. The adventure module, HARP Garden of Rain, and the sourcebook, HARP Subterfuge, have both completed editing. (Finishing the editing on Subterfuge is why the Briefing is so late – I wanted it complete before anything could go wrong with my predictions.) HARP SF Poseidon Gambit is next in the queue, and will be followed by the completion of the editing of HARP Bestiary. HARP Beyond the Veil, HARP Strongholds, HARP SF Vehicles Compendium, Caer Glais (the followon sourcebook/campaign module to Wedding in Axebridge) and Dark Hunt (the sequel to HARP Garden of Rain) are all in progress. I am still quietly working on Something Wicked, Something Wondrous.

For Cyradon, Colin has a long list of tasks to complete on the main Cyradon sourcebook, but I will let him report on his successes as he works his way through the tasks.

Until next time

Off to commission lots of fantastic new artwork and then some more happy editing. The next scheduled Briefing will be in February 2019

Best wishes,
Nicholas

Director, Iron Crown Enterprises Ltd
Dr Nicholas HM Caldwell
Director, Iron Crown Enterprises Ltd
Publisher of Rolemaster, Spacemaster, Shadow World, Cyradon, HARP & HARP SF, and Cyberspace, with products available from www.drivethrurpg.com
Author: Mentalism Companion, GURPS Age of Napoleon, Construct Companion, College of Magics, HARP SF/HARP SF Xtreme

Offline Hurin

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Re: Director's Briefing - January 2019
« Reply #1 on: January 09, 2019, 10:10:29 AM »
I'm very glad to hear that finishing RMU is a firm goal for the year!

The solution to Creature Law seems reasonable: I've always been in favor of a core book with core monsters and then a later book or books for more exotic fare (kind of like C+T I and II).

I am also 95% certain that I will be at GenCon, and would be happy to volunteer to run some RM games there, and do anything else necessary to promote the new edition. If anyone else on these forums is going, I think it might also be worthwhile to have a private GMs session, where we sit down and run a test combat of the phased round (Swordsmen vs. Archers for example), to make sure we all understand how it all fits together and can work out any remaining bugs in the system.
'Last of all, Húrin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed'. --J.R.R. Tolkien

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Offline Siltoneous

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Re: Director's Briefing - January 2019
« Reply #2 on: January 09, 2019, 11:05:33 AM »
Can't say how pleased I was to hear there would be a determination on RMU this year.  I'm super happy and thankful for/to the heavy lifters, be they ICE or not.  Nothing quite as exhilarating a project coming to a conclusion, after so many years of hard work, sweat and frustration.

Personally I've already registered for GenCon, but can't say how over the moon I'd be to have an official event there. It's a big ask, but... incredible.
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Offline pantsorama

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Re: Director's Briefing - January 2019
« Reply #3 on: January 09, 2019, 08:43:06 PM »

2019

One way or another, we are going to bring RMU to a resolution this year. As you know, Creature Law is to be split into two volumes. I have decided that Creature Law volume 1 will be essentially those creatures that appeared in the original Creatures & Treasure product. Everything else including the creature creation materials will have to wait to the second volume for publication. I have also requested the team to indicate what sort of assistance they feel they need to complete the rejigging of creatures.

Huzzah! 

Offline Terry K. Amthor

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Re: Director's Briefing - January 2019
« Reply #4 on: January 09, 2019, 09:23:58 PM »
I regret not attending GenCon, but for a variety of health reasons made it impossible. Unfortunately, I doubt that I could attend one of these new giant GenCons (I have not gone since he '80s). But I'd be interested in running demos online, using software like, what is it, Dungeon Grounds?
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-- Clarke's First Law.

Offline egdcltd

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Re: Director's Briefing - January 2019
« Reply #5 on: January 10, 2019, 08:17:39 AM »
Fantasy Grounds. I bought the Ultimate version last year during a sale, but still haven't got around to doing anything with it!
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Offline Nightblade42

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Re: Director's Briefing - January 2019
« Reply #6 on: January 10, 2019, 10:23:28 PM »
It's great to hear that ICE wants RMU to hit the world in 2019!  I also think splitting CrL is an excellent idea.  A "Here's the creatures you want in your game" book & a "Here's how to make your own creatures & races" book is a great way to split things up!  I hope the process goes smoothly!

Happy New Year to everyone at ICE & all the best!

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Offline Peter R

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Re: Director's Briefing - January 2019
« Reply #7 on: January 11, 2019, 02:10:37 AM »
Does this.mean that the creatures in CrLI will be useable off the page, no archetypes, no having to spend DP and not normalised hits?

Then all the archetypes, DPs and monster building in CrLII?
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Offline jdale

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Re: Director's Briefing - January 2019
« Reply #8 on: January 11, 2019, 09:50:29 AM »
Does this.mean that the creatures in CrLI will be useable off the page, no archetypes, no having to spend DP and not normalised hits?

Then all the archetypes, DPs and monster building in CrLII?

It's not "no archetypes" because the archetypes are used to create the stats, but yes, the creatures in CrL I will be usable off the page with no need to spend DP, and larger creatures will have proportionately more hits while small ones have proportionately fewer. Cr II will have the rules for creating and customizing creatures (including how to use and switch archetypes), so CrL I has to work without those rules.

Most of that has been planned for a while, one of the unanswered questions (which is now decided) was which creatures would go in which book.

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Offline Peter R

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Re: Director's Briefing - January 2019
« Reply #9 on: January 11, 2019, 10:18:28 AM »
Does this.mean that the creatures in CrLI will be useable off the page, no archetypes, no having to spend DP and not normalised hits?

Then all the archetypes, DPs and monster building in CrLII?

It's not "no archetypes" because the archetypes are used to create the stats, but yes, the creatures in CrL I will be usable off the page with no need to spend DP, and larger creatures will have proportionately more hits while small ones have proportionately fewer. Cr II will have the rules for creating and customizing creatures (including how to use and switch archetypes), so CrL I has to work without those rules.

Most of that has been planned for a while, one of the unanswered questions (which is now decided) was which creatures would go in which book.

Excellent!
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Offline Hurin

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Re: Director's Briefing - January 2019
« Reply #10 on: January 11, 2019, 10:19:15 AM »
Yes, two thumbs up!
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Offline Nightblade42

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Re: Director's Briefing - January 2019
« Reply #11 on: January 11, 2019, 08:18:38 PM »
I'll add my two thumbs as well  8)

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Offline rdanhenry

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Re: Director's Briefing - January 2019
« Reply #12 on: January 13, 2019, 11:04:43 PM »
Two pinkies up, just to be different!

But it'll be great if RMU finally gets released this year.
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Offline Soulcleave

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Re: Director's Briefing - January 2019
« Reply #13 on: January 14, 2019, 01:39:03 PM »
Wootsauce!
  Mostly because i am looking forward to ERA for RMU to be released next. [emoji16]
 Yes i want to be to lazy to do the chart lookups.
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