I simply took your suggested art budget of $6000 for a book and multiplied by 5 to cover all the books.

So you took a number at the top end of what I suggested, then applied the whole budget to cover art instead of the whole book, and multiplied it by five for books that haven't been published yet. Okay.

Anyway, for those saying art isn't the deciding factor... I think this is the first time it ever has been for me. Maybe it's just me. In that case, carry on. That sucks for me, but there are plenty of other games out there.

Quote from: pastaav on May 26, 2024, 03:56:02 AM

How much would your small business need to grow to be able to commission art for $30 000 to cover the five main RMU books?

I don't know where you are getting that figure. $3,000 would probably get you nice covers for all five books; for twice that, you would have your pick of artists.

I simply took your suggested art budget of $6000 for a book and multiplied by 5 to cover all the books. It is a lot of money and I am still curious how much your business would need to grow to support such large investment. My hunch is that you don't answer despite your bold words since making a major roleplaying game is whole different ballpark from your style of publishing.

Quote from: pastaav on May 26, 2024, 03:56:02 AM

Why should we at all assume they could predict such sales?

Well, if you run a Kickstarter, it's a cinch.

Maybe...they would have known how much money they could devote for art, but on the negative side of running a kickstarter is that it would raise demands on very different release schedule. Ironcrowns release pace for RMU is something that would generate lots of bad blood in a kickstarter situation. Without a kickstarter we can be sorry it is so slow, but not make any real complaints.

Of course, if the kickstarter had given enough money to be able to pay the freelancers to skip their daytime job the release schedule could be  made much more user friendly but that requires a very different scale of money. Essentially it require hiring the freelancers as full time employee, but only for a very limited time. If the person is really sure they can get their old job back afterward, they might consider it but myself I would require lots more than $100 each hour even complement to accept such offer.

There really aren't the rules for handling any kind of vehicles in significant detail yet. Or buildings and siege weapons. Which is why these subjects are barely touched by the magic rules.

If the quality of the art in RMU is the most contentious issue of the publications, and judging by the forum response, it appears to be, the actual rules presented must be generally agreed upon to be universally very bad, or very good.
[...]

They are very good. My only critique so far is that the magic item creation process in Treaure Law seems a bit overcomplicated, but that's also kind of a feature.

That's fine by me. I was just trying to respond fairly to people who felt skeptical. I don't really relish going into details about the inner workings of my business.

I already purchased the book. I sold my printed copy. But if this isn't such a big deal to some people, I guess it's not a big deal. I have a lot of fond memories of Rolemaster. This is not the book I want to put on my shelf to commemorate that.

I just wish I understood why Dragon Warriors is kicking Rolemaster's butt so much in the cover art department.

I agree, at least that cover in the link might have helped this book reaching Platinum tier, by selling 1000+ copies in 13 years.