Topic: ICE -- Zombie of the industry

[Stormwatch]

I remember thirty years ago when ICE was the world-class standard of RPG's.  Back in the 1980's, there was so much talent and energy in the organization it was unfathomable.  The company had the ME license, and created RPG support products which, to this day, I have never seen equaled.  Even an "afterthought" like the Iron Crown Quarterly added interesting and pertinent stuff to the game and the ICE community on a regular/semi-regular basis.  Does anyone still have their copy of the "April Fools!" issue?

Alas -- ALAS -- how the mighty have fallen.  I am not going to rehash "the fall of ICE" -- I should say, "the SPECTACULAR fall of ICE" -- again here.  It's been gone over too many times, and God knows a lot of people on this forum are very sensitive to it (and to ANY type of criticism, I must say).  Suffice it to say: the energy is gone.  The creative animus is dead.  The company resurrected itself in 2000-2001 with a burst of new promise, and was permitted to "wither on the vine" and perish a second time. 

Here is an excerpt from a personal communication with ICEBruce from several years back:  "ICE now seems an aimless organization living on past product and rules revisions.  It is certainly not burning up the presses with new material that fires the imagination, like the old ME product did.  Until you can make this happen, ICE will continue to be a poor shadow of what it was before it was, once again, screwed all to hell and gone:   a leader of the RPG industry."

Prophetic?  I bring this up only because a week or so ago I received an update via email, a "brain-dump" on what the company is currently working on.  Again it struck me as, to use a metaphor, a blind man stumbling around a maze, hoping to make a few correct choices.  The thing which leapt off the screen at me was, another Rolemaster incarnation . . . i.e., a rules update.  "Reunifying Rolemaster!" 

Really, folks?  Decided to revise the Rolemaster rules system *AGAIN*, have we?  Vis-a-vis Iron Crown Enterprises, I can think of nothing I desire less right at this moment than yet another -- ANOTHER!! -- revision of the ICE rules, which I would putatively have to shell out $$$ for.  I say putatively because I downright refuse to do so.  I stopped at RMFRP a decade and a half ago, a point at which, I note, the actual productive output of the company fell to a low from which it never recovered.

ShadowWorld/Kulthea is functionally dead -- Terry can't sustain it alone.  Cyradon is an uninspiring mess.  The "class of the world" company which put out so much great stuff is reduced to marketing generalized, nonspecific, third-party "floor-plan" module content on its site.  As far as which it became known for, world-class game support products?  Nothing.  "Hey, folks, we have PDF scans of old rulebooks now available!!!"  Trust me, sir, the only people reading are those who have been loyal fans for so long, we still have the hardcopies sitting in a box, waiting for you people to generate a product we actually want to play with.

2001 is a distant memory of better times (on so many levels, right?).  At this point I will continue to receive, and read, the updates on ICE's status and ongoing efforts.  Whenever I do, I'll continue to hope to see something substantial and inspiring for a change.  I am not holding my breath waiting.  Which seems a shame.

I don't want a response vaguely intimating that I don't know all the issues that must be dealt with, or the difficulties involved in all the work going on "behind the scenes", or pissily disagreeing with my evaluation as "unfair to a lot of good people who have been working really hard and simply hitting a wall."  Scheiss.  Ka-ka.  Heard it ad infinitum from ICE personnel in the past, and am not interested.  Blackberry too was a world leader in its niche because it was a great product that everyone wanted -- until it wasn't.  I am not going to buy Blackberry products out of sheer nostalgia, and I don't need to listen to their sob story, either. 

So please, don't bore me.  Either fix what's wrong, or don't.

Until then, ciao. 

[markc]

Stormwatch,
 Please do not use vulgarity or cussing on the ICE Forums. You can get your point across, make your arguments and rebut without using them.
Thanks
MDC

[yammahoper]

Stormwatch...+1.

[pastaav]

Well Ironcrown at it is prime did stuff that is without comparison to the rest of the industry. They also in many cases failed to pay the freelancers that did the heavy lifting. Can that level be reached again...perhaps...depends on if Ironcrown can get a massive surge of new customers. MERP quality require lots of customers.

Can Ironcrown get a surge of new customers without revising RM...I very much doubt it. Both RMC and RMFRP was rehashes of old rules...you can never get the needed buzz with such products. RMC was done mostly by volunteers, but still failed to fix the bad cash flow. Did RMX and RMC even make up for the lost sales of RMFRP when new customers could not understand what RM version that was the supported one, dunno about that.

The million dollar question is of course if a revised RM can give enough new customers. The jury is still out on that, but I think it is quite clear that if the current customer base sit down and sulk then things look bleak indeed. We are all grown now with jobs and we need to make support purchases to give HARP and RM a chance to gain the momentum they need to survive. Cost should not be an issue in the same way anymore.

Personally I am now waiting for another set of HARP SF books that I intend to give as present to a friend. This will not be the last time and I encourage other people to do the same. Want new material...then make support purchases. It is simple as that.

[intothatdarkness]

And everyone differs on what's wrong. I've seen some suggestions here that would cause me to quit RM point-bank if they came to pass. And I'm sure some of my thoughts on what's wrong would cause others to do the same.

I would argue that many of RM's issues go back to its original function: a set of plug-ins for existing game systems and settings. Combine that with an erratic design philosophy that stuck to that same plug-in model, and you can see the rest. The Companions were for the most part a collection of house rules and bits that people had used in their campaigns. That guaranteed that things would never fit together seamlessly and that balance problems would occur if they were used in total. I was, honestly, never a big fan of Shadow World, and one of the things RM always lacked was a strong setting to help shape/guide its development. MERP HAD that, as do most of the systems that folks like to compare RM to. Or if they don't have a strong setting, they have the same core developers/designers guiding the content.

And as an aside, when you step outside of fantasy, RM was never the world-class standard. For more modern settings, the core RM stuff has to be greatly adjusted to work. But I digress...

I'm hoping that what emerges from a fresh look at the core is something more focused and usable than RMSS (apologies to those who like it...but I could never stand it) and certainly more focused than RM2 with all the Companions figured in. I also hope it's more open to adjusting for gaming areas other than fantasy. But as someone who got shafted by the demise of the old ICE, I'm willing to give them a shot and see what happens.

[GrumpyOldFart]

I don't claim to know what's going on with ICE, but:

1) Regardless of what's going on "behind the scenes", what's going on right here on these forums says that unifying RM is only one of many projects ICE is doing. So in answer to the general tone of "is that all?", well quite obviously it isn't.

2) The old/current fan base is the fan base because they liked what RM initially offered, which was a very modular, very tweakable-to-fit system. Therefore the old/current fan base is going to have a large faction of people (if not a majority) whose games vary widely from group to group. Obviously this is going to make coming up with "a standard" that everyone likes, whether in rule mechanics or setting, supremely difficult. It is what it is, they can try to keep the old fan base and accept the difficulty, abandon them for people who want a more solid standard (and probably make more money but enjoy it less), or try to tightrope walk between the two. If they accept working within the essential paradox of "standard rules" for a fan base they know is going to tweak them to fit, said fan base is going to have to be really patient. I suspect we all need to get over that. I know I'm trying to, and I'll concede that it ain't easy.

3) There are hundreds or thousands of creative people right on this very forum. They're all gamers and GMs, how unimaginative could they possibly be? I gotta ask, if you perceive a lack of creativity and a lack of the kind of materials you'd like to see... why aren't you submitting drafts of the things you think should be there? No offense, but if you think the pot's light, ante up. That's what I've been trying to do. And no, that isn't easy either, and I'm not happy with my progress, but still...

To quote part of a sig line on these forums,

The GM is not a god, he controls the gods.
The GM is not right, he is Rightness and Truth.
The GM is not the universe, he is the Word That Defines The Universe.

And when this guy sees a problem in his game world, he's gonna just accept it rather than finding a way that makes sense to him? Nonsense.

If "somebody should do something".... well, tag, you're it.

Note: The above is not specific to Stormwatch or anyone else. We're all gamers here, if gaming is missing something you think should be there, show us what you have to fix it. Or if you think it's a really good fix, don't show us. Show it to Nicholas or Thom.

 

[Zut]

*sigh*

I've seen this kind of attitude in my rpg club for many years... Old time members disapointed at how the club turned out, about the lack of enthousiasm of new members, about the loss of popularity of rpg's, yadayadayada...

Sorry, I don't listen anymore to this kind of demoralizing speech, whatever it is about. From my experience, I found that this negative attitude is a character trait and is usually not centered on the subject ranted, but about life in general. I can't say it's the case here, as I don't know the people involved at all.

The people in my club with a negative attitude toward the "actual" club are the ones, IMHO, who are actually putting it down. Strangely enough, for at least the six years I've been there, there are always new members wanting lift up the club. Not so strangely, they only hardly manage to run it partly because the most critics ones refuses to do anything to help...

Still, what I read here strikes me as being so similar in speech...

Negative comments are ok, as long as they point to specific parts. I think a generalized, unsatisfacting (bad spelling?) attitude toward the game is ok, as long as doesn't discredit the people doing it or playing the new version.

If you don't like the new version (even before having read anything of it!), fine. Go on with the one you prefer. There is plenty of material in RM2 and RMFRP to play for many years. Why this post???

I will wait for the new version to come out, read it, play it and only after all that, comment it.

Thanks for reading.

[jdale]

There's a balance that needs to be struck. RM needs a larger player base. To get that, someone has to evangelize it. But you need people playing to be those evangelists. That means it needs to appeal to the current player base.  So you can't go so far in changes aimed at mass appeal that you sacrifice your current player base. (Some of them, ok because any change no matter what it is will leave some people behind, but can't be most.)

As for issues like "The Companions were for the most part a collection of house rules and bits that people had used in their campaigns. That guaranteed that things would never fit together seamlessly and that balance problems would occur if they were used in total."  While that's true, it's also true that this was similarly a problem with D&D 3.5, and did not reduce its popularity. If anything it helped. Even though in some cases parts of the system became broken.

When it comes to the bottom line, to sell books you need them to incorporate material that players can use to make characters. A book targeted at the GM only is going to have a quarter the sales of a book targeted at players....  That unfortunate fact means that you have to design in a way that creates some bloat.

Ideally -- Arms Law should have fighting skills, weapon styles, and other options important for fighters, Creature Law should have rules about playing monster races, Treasure Law needs the alchemist class, training packages (or equivalent) for other classes, spell lists for making magic items, etc. Easy for the core books. But each additional book has to be adding classes, spells, etc.

 

[ubiquitousrat]

Speaking as a person who played RM back in the 80s and now, with a group playing regularly, find us back wanting to play RM, I find it interesting to ask why.

We are back because RM offers something that we sorely miss from our FRPGs these days. Flexibility, detail, challenge and something different to D&D edition blah.

I think that Iron Crown's timing with RMU is good. The current mishmash of editions is confusing... but the new edition also taps into our groups' Old School Renaissance. My guys wanna playtest it and see.

If you don't, that's fair do's.... but don't try and rain our our hobby. We'll try the new game, just like we try any. If it's a good game then we'll keep playing it. Game on!

[egdcltd]

Although I own lots of the RM rulebooks, it's the various sourcebooks and adventure modules that I've always liked the most, especially for the Game Which Must Not Be Named. I would therefore like to see more of them, so I'll probably get the new rules to help support the system.

Another way of helping support the creation of new modules and sourcebooks would probably be to provide information on how to convert them to the more popular current systems (D&D I suppose). I believe a SW Master Atlas using D20 was started, but I'm not sure if that could be finished - I think there were problems. Still, I do thing easy to use conversion documentation could help.

[Thom @ ICE]

A blast from the past.... Welcome back Stormwatch.

To those of you supporting ICE's current direction thanks - we do appreciate your support and hope that with the upcoming new products we will deliver a full resurrection and not just reanimation...

For the rest of  you, here's some insight into my personal thoughts on the topic...
ICE is all of that intellectual property which most of us think of fondly, though almost all agree have become a bit of a mess.  Too many versions of Rolemaster and Spacemaster.  Many minor issues in HARP with need for cleanup and some new art.  No new products for Cyradon, and Shadow World caught in a bit of a dead zone.... 

What's a roleplaying company to do about this? 
Honor the old versions of Rolemaster and Spacemaster, but pave the way forward with a single new version of each, and keeping them aimed at the experienced gamer who is looking for a system that offers more...

Tweak the HARP products to address the weaknesses and add some new art. Establishing the solid foundation and then building out the product line to reach out to the rpg gamers who want some high adventure...  And don't forget HARP SF, there's still plenty more to be done with that... including both setting and system expansion material.

Cyradon products... starting with bringing it in line with the tweaks in HARP, then adventures and expanding gryphon world from there, but don't worry, it's not all about HARP, Rolemaster fans need their own material for Cyradon - and it won't require a new version of Rolemaster to do it...

Shadow World is already getting new products wirtten by Terry, and as they are completed it's a matter of getting those writings into product form and moving onward with even more writing...

So what it comes down to is that there are a lot of products ahead of us, and while not everything will happen overnight, it will be done right.  New and high quality art...  Excellent content... And products with a plan (both short and long range)... 

But don't believe any of this just because I posted it - instead take a look at the products as they come out over the next few months, and keep on coming out in the years ahead to provide an additional 30 years of great roleplaying experiences... 

Finally, speaking of those experiences, keep an eye out for some opportunities to share yours soon...

[rdanhenry]

ICE is a zombie? Okay, I'll run with that metaphor:

ICE needs your BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS to generate new products. Most folk on this list have many years of experience behind them. If you don't have a book-length supplement in you, you could still put something together for the Guild Companion, which has been looking pretty sparse lately.

[Temujin]

LOL rdanhenry.  To be frank, I understand the rant, however I see this new line as the chance to spur a new wave of creativity at ICE rather than a symptom of its failure.  A question of perspective I suppose.

[intothatdarkness]

I'm waiting for the new edition to emerge before I put too much into product development. Got a few ideas milling around, though...

[GrumpyOldFart]

Yeah, that. As I said earlier...

No offense, but if you think the pot's light, ante up.

And yes, I know it's not as easy as it looks, and I know you'll get it wrong more often than right, especially at first. To quote one of the best composers and performers I've ever personally known,

"There are a thousand sucky performances in you. Hurry up and let them out, so the good stuff can start showing up."

The same goes for writing I bet.   

[ironmaul]

ICE is a zombie? Okay, I'll run with that metaphor:

ICE needs your BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS to generate new products. Most folk on this list have many years of experience behind them. If you don't have a book-length supplement in you, you could still put something together for the Guild Companion, which has been looking pretty sparse lately.

LOL!!!, Yeah, they already have my brain!

Yeah, that. As I said earlier...

No offense, but if you think the pot's light, ante up.

And yes, I know it's not as easy as it looks, and I know you'll get it wrong more often than right, especially at first. To quote one of the best composers and performers I've ever personally known,

"There are a thousand sucky performances in you. Hurry up and let them out, so the good stuff can start showing up."

The same goes for writing I bet.   

And for artwork too!!!
Hell, if you said to me seven years ago that I'd be doing art for a game company I'd laugh in your face! Just because I don't play RM anymore doesn't mean I can't contribute. I AM still a fan, and who knows how the new RM will inspire me.

3) There are hundreds or thousands of creative people right on this very forum. They're all gamers and GMs, how unimaginative could they possibly be? I gotta ask, if you perceive a lack of creativity and a lack of the kind of materials you'd like to see... why aren't you submitting drafts of the things you think should be there? No offense, but if you think the pot's light, ante up. That's what I've been trying to do. And no, that isn't easy either, and I'm not happy with my progress, but still...

Amen brother! You heard him people...get cracking!!!

[intothatdarkness]

Amen brother! You heard him people...get cracking!!!

Heh...already am. Just waiting on the finished rules so I don't have to rework much system stuff. Much of what will push my stuff along is how "modular" the new rules are. In other words, how easy it is to shift them to non-fantasy settings. Since this was pretty workable with RM2 I remain hopeful. Of course, there's also the fantasy setting, but it sounds like they have two already...

[Thom @ ICE]

While we appreciate the offer, I don't think we need to have dozens of new writers, but we do fully encourage you to submit material to The Guild Companion, previous submissions have led to other opportunities.

There will also be chances to submit to Iron Crown, but more about that will be coming soon enough....

[markc]

While we appreciate the offer, I don't think we need to have dozens of new writers, but we do fully encourage you to submit material to The Guild Companion, previous submissions have led to other opportunities.

There will also be chances to submit to Iron Crown, but more about that will be coming soon enough....

 Yes but 12 new writers might be able to put a dent in some of the boring stuff or provide some good ideas for other projects.
MDC

[egdcltd]

I would love it if RM could do what Paizo do with their 6 month Adventure Paths and bi-monthly modules subscriptions. That would definitely need a bunch of new writers. Maybe not start out at quite that level, but something published on a regular schedule would be great.