Welcome
To the one hundred-and-forty-eighth Briefing and eleventh scheduled Briefing of 2023.
Dragonmeet
Dragonmeet will be on Saturday 2nd December at Novotel Hammersmith. Print copies of Rolemaster Core Law and Rolemaster Spell Law have been ordered and have arrived very speedily. None of the drama of last year or indeed the nailbiting email exchanges that characterised our runup to Gen Con. I ordered them and a few days later they were in London. Although there are partial train strikes on the 2nd, I still have routes down to London, so looking forward to being at Dragonmeet.
HARP
I am in the final parsecs of the editing work on HARP SF The Corporate Worlds. This has been a very instructive process. I have spoken in the last couple of editorials about nuanced editing to ensure that what Dave introduces remains in line with the technological constraints of the Tintamar setting and also in line with the cultural and political expectations. As Dave can see my comments and changes on the shared file, he already knows that I have vetoed or challenged some content for being a touch overpowered in a rules sense. That, however, is not news. I routinely make rules modifications to HARP sourcebooks.
The final portion of this setting book is a mini-campaign providing an opportunity to experience some of the wonders and perils of the Octagon Cluster of worlds and beyond. In contrast to my previous editing of published fantasy adventures, it is much harder to close off the plot holes in a good science fiction adventure. In fantasy, the biggest worry is normally some magic-using character bypassing an important encounter with a clever use of spells (let’s all Teleport to Mount Doom). Dave is having to worry about technical solutions to problems and then I start chucking in plasma grenades of technological and setting constraints (and pointing out his own setting decisions at him), and ask what happens if the characters try action A or don’t go for action B. All of this will pay off and we will have an excellent setting book addition to HARP SF and a great set of starting ready-to-run adventures.
And yes, for me this is a good warmup for the Cyradon editing revamp and the even harder work of ensuring any new works for Shadow World stay true to Terry’s legacy.
Rolemaster Unified
Jonathan has been doing some editing sweeps on Treasure Law. Nick has been slaving away turning this into a pdf. I will be injecting myself into the process to perform my own final sweep and eventual imprimatur for the book to be published.
Until next time
Back to future corporate skulduggery and last preparations for Dragonmeet.
Please stay safe and keep gaming.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
Director, Iron Crown Enterprises Ltd
