Topic: Books - RMC

[Larswik]

Hey All. So we have a game coming up this weekend (Thursday - Sunday) with 9 folks for RMC. I saw a thread here about a guy's books turning to dust after many years of use and his need to replace them. How ever much I love and use technology, books have always been an integral part of our games and always will be.

I grew up with D&D and then moved up to Rolemaster in college. I found it's the things like dice, books, figures, maps and the character sheet that made gaming fun. It was the tangible things that helped make gaming that much cooler. I can remember high school in the late 80's and being excited when it was Friday. Grabbing my books, dice and spending a weekend with friends while we dieted on Coke cola and Doritos.

Anyway, back to the point.

I would love to see at some point high quality collector editions of RMC books role out. Perhaps a limited run edition that I would be proud to use and have on my bookshelf. I am wondering if anyone else would enjoy the same thing? Perhaps we can start a poll to see who likes that idea and what book they would first like to see come out? Maybe even a price range to see what people would be willing to pay?

What do people think?

[Larswik]

For fun I dusted off my 3D software today and did a mock up of a book. It's probably a bit thicker then the Arm's Law and Claw Law book now that I think about it. But it was for fun.

[Spectre771]

Yes, I know the post is over a year old, but it never received replies and it does seem like something worth asking again.

I would love to replace some of my books.  I know the PDF versions are available, but I would end up printing them all out again and I would have reams of paper to sift through rather than an easier to handle  book.  I do photocopy the few pages from the Companions that I would need to access frequently, like the Critical Strike tables.

I would love to see hardcover versions of RM2, but I know that will never come to fruition, but seeing how active the RM2/RMC forum is, I am willing to wager 3-4 Mithril pieces that there is a good interest in the books.  Still taking into consideration the fan base RM2/RMC has, I am willing to wager a Holy Weapon that a good resurgence could be made for the older version of the game.  There is enough of a difference (and it has been reinforced by the forums here) between the Classic version and the SS/FRPS that it can be considered two different games.

Consider... myself, and several others here, started Rolemaster in College.  Now we have grown older and many of us have families.  My kids are at the age to play RM and they love it.  We have Family Game Night and they often request a RM session.  This is the next gen of gamers getting interested in RM.  What I happen to have at my disposal is RM2, so that's what we play.  If they want to start hosting a game, they are going to be hard pressed to find the books they need.  (I'll be thrice damned by the Chaos gods before I let my collection out of my sight!  And to my teenaged kids no less!!!)  The books are just so hard to find now. 

I would be in favor of reprints of the "Classics" as a few of my friends would be too.  Since I have started to talk more about the "old ways", they have agreed to take a little break from Pathfinder and D&D to give RM a go.  A couple have asked where they can find the books and they have started to look online for them.

[jdale]

With print-on-demand, it should be possible to make hardcover versions available even if relatively few people will buy them. I think the only real issue is that the page count is high enough for it to feel like a real book.

For our LARP, the rulebook is available as a softback black and white print fairly cheap and for a much more exorbitant price as a full-color hardback. (It's also a free PDF.) I don't really expect to sell many hardbacks, but I wanted one, and that was a good enough reason.

[markc]

RMC is available at drivethroughrpg.com in softcover and PDF. Again as Jdale says you can get it fairly cheep. Also IIRC RMC has a lot of rules from various RM2 Companions spread through the various books. 


Now if you just have to have the olf RM2 books start dusting off your wallet and hope for a good deal on Ebay, "Convention" or game store. 


(note paraphrasing from various threads over the past few years)
For all of the other books besides RoCo1 ICE has to find the authors (which they have to various degrees but they are still missing some for each or various books), once the get the authors to agree to a "deal" then the books have to go to page layout, art and book packaging. It can take a fair amount of time to get the book ready even if you have the text and art. The Guild Companion publishing takes all of that into account as well as where to ask its "free lancers" to spend there time to make the company profitable.


So the short answer is that it is nice to dream but plan for it not to happen, ie buy what you can now and make sure you can print copies in the future or learn to love PDF's.


MDC