Happy New Year from Guild Companion Publications Limited.
This is the sixth of our scheduled Director’s Briefing and will review the progress made in 2011 and where we expect to be across the product lines in 2012.
Let us begin with Rolemaster. 2011 was the year of rebranding existing products. We still have a residual trio of RMSS/FRP products that we wish to rebrand – namely Arcane Companion, Channeling Companion and School of Hard Knocks, all of which date from an era when Old ICE used more fonts than is sane and software did not preserve these rare fonts, and that is why they’ve been left to last. The next major stage of our Rolemaster progress will be to get as many as possible of the rebranded products into print-on-demand via OneBookShelf. I say “possible†because the risk is always that the state of the archives will not permit us to get particular products into print-on-demand in a timely or cost-effective fashion. Looking further out when our layout experts have cleared the rebranding/printing queues, we will have the fourth issue of The Guild Adventurer and additional adventure products – for example, we have one author who is currently writing a ten-scenario campaign. We will also be seeking to conclude our recovery of copyright limbo products that resulted from the original Old ICE bankruptcy.
Turning to Spacemaster, 2011 saw the pdf rerelease of almost all the Spacemaster 2nd Edition materials, including a set of classic adventures never before legally available in pdf. Our layout gurus are already attempting the rebranding of the Spacemaster Privateers. The aim is to rerelease in pdf and print-on-demand and to apply various errata fixes. The archives are, unfortunately, in a fonts mess, so triage may be necessary here. If we can get the whole of the Privateers line into print-on-demand, then we will seek to produce a compendium of the DataNets as a single pdf and print-on-demand product.
And onward to the Shadow World setting, which saw the release of the Shadow World Player’s Guide in print-on-demand as a full-colour softcover product. Behind the scenes, Terry Amthor has been toiling away on Emer 3 (120+ pages now complete), and we expect to see it in both pdf and print-on-demand this year. We will also be complementing this with Xa-ar in print-on-demand, the Shadow World GM Guide, one or more regional modules (approved by Terry Amthor but written by other authors), and all being well, the first of the system-specific rulebooks, the Shadow World HARP Handbook.
This brings us neatly to HARP & HARP SF. We opened 2011 with the release of HARP SF as a pdf product. We closed 2011 with the release of both HARP SF and HARP SF Xtreme in print-on-demand in multiple formats via OneBookShelf. Behind the scenes in 2011, we were and have been working to reconstruct the HARP Fantasy line, which was complicated by the fact that two major sourcebooks, Monsters: a Field Guide and Loot: a Field Guide, were in a copyright limbo. We were able to reach agreement with the author of Loot, and it will return in due course; we were unsuccessful with Monsters. This has had the knock-on consequences that we have needed to develop a new monster creation system (which we are still working on) and will also need to produce a new Bestiary product. It also has impacts on other unreleased products. As those who followed the progress of the Something Wicked project in my old Guild Companion editorials may remember, there are almost as many Demons, Undead and Elemental beings in that work as there were monsters of any sort in Monsters: a Field Guide. These were all designed using the MaFG rules set and so all need to be reworked to conform to the new emergent monster creation system. Our plan is that we will move most of these out of Something Wicked into our new HARP Bestiary product. We will move the Mystic profession, which was originally part of my College of Magics manuscript, into a reshaped Something Wicked. HARP Codex and the various HARPer’s Bazaar issues will not be returning as these have too many balance issues. Instead there will be future themed sourcebooks on divine magic, martial arts, and other topics; as the year progresses, expect to see calls for proposals on these. Construct Toolkit will also be brought into conformance with the new monster creation rules and concepts matured in HARP SF Xtreme. HARP SF will also see calls for proposals for expansions and adventures for it.
And finally to Cyradon, our second setting, which was on hold during 2011, due to its need for the completion of the HARP Fantasy reconstruction. Once all the improvements have been made to HARP Fantasy, we expect to be able to make the HARP version of Cyradon conform relatively easy, which will pave the way for new Cyradon adventure modules, which are already in progress.
That completes our rapid review of the product lines as they were in 2011 and as they will be in 2012. The next scheduled Director’s Briefing will be presented in early February.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
Director, Guild Companion Publications Ltd.
