Topic: Director's Briefing - September 2022

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

Welcome

To the one hundred-and-thirty-fourth Briefing and ninth scheduled Briefing of 2022.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022)

On behalf of ICE, I offer our sincere condolences to the Royal Family following the death of Her Majesty the Queen. She served her country well and did her duty throughout her life and reign.

The Rings of Power

In fandom, one of the biggest events of the month has been the release of Amazon’s long awaited and hugely expensive Rings of Power series. This has caused all sorts of controversy, some of it becoming unpleasant. I know there have been arguments even on some ICE fora and discussion platforms about the series. As I don’t have an Amazon Prime Video subscription, I cannot comment on whether it is actually any good and I am avoiding the reviews and posts that Google wants to serve up to me in my news feed. What I do know is that many of us, myself included, have created or played in adventures and campaigns set in Middle-Earth on the basis of some obscure entry in the Tale of Years or the other Appendices of the Lord of the Rings. In one campaign I played in, our party time travelled briefly to the Second Age and were in Eregion while Sauron was beguiling the Elven-smiths. Although our Third Age characters tried to warn the Elves, the GM had read much more Tolkien lore and had Sauron use one of his other names, so our warnings were not heeded and the timeline was unharmed. While I can hope that the Rings of Power will indirectly help support the popularity of role-playing games, I certainly know that it is encouraging me to want to reread my Tolkien collection.

HARP

Rodd Kleinschmidt, the author of HARP Subterfuge, is determined that the print version be absolutely perfect. He is therefore compiling his own list of errata that got past both him in writing and myself at edit. Once we have these and those flagged on the forums, we will make the corrections and proceed to sending print masters to DriveThru. We will also update the pdf version at that point.

Rolemaster and RMU

I am in my “Columbo” mode. I am about half way through RMU Core Law. It is slow work because there are so few niggles remaining. It is really hard work when all the obvious errors have been caught by others, so only slow reading will catch the errors that our brains are all too happy to replace with what it should be. It also involves me fiddling with Adobe every so often when it looks like there’s been a rogue font change – it’s almost always been a rendering issue. I can confirm that the artwork and layout have really gelled together – and I am very pleased with our near-final version.

Until next time

Please stay safe.

Best wishes,
Nicholas
Director, Iron Crown Enterprises Ltd

[Hurin]

Although our Third Age characters tried to warn the Elves, the GM had read much more Tolkien lore and had Sauron use one of his other names, so our warnings were not heeded and the timeline was unharmed.

If you are concerned with the lore, then I would be very wary watching Rings of Power. They are compressing the 3,441 year history of the Second Age into a single human generation. Indeed, they are not simply compressing the timeline but also reordering events so they do not happen in sequence, and many of the plotlines and characters are wholly invented. All of that might be defensible if the dialogue and plotlines were sharply written and original.... but they are not.
          That's just my take, though. My friend who is a Tolkien fanatic is loving it, so maybe you will too. I just wanted to give fair warning that the timeline is compressed and jumbled and it might be best to approach the show as 'inspired by' Tolkien rather than an adaptation.

Glad work is progressing on RMU!

[caeaston]

I just wanted to thank you for keeping up the "Columbo-ing". I'm sure I speak for many when I say that teaser of the RMU books from GenCon has peaked my enthusiasm and given us a glance into the future.
 

[pastaav]

Rolemaster and RMU

I am in my “Columbo” mode. I am about half way through RMU Core Law. It is slow work because there are so few niggles remaining. It is really hard work when all the obvious errors have been caught by others, so only slow reading will catch the errors that our brains are all too happy to replace with what it should be.

The growing differences between the available beta and the many improvements done to the rules made my group drop out of test playing RMU. The knowledge that you had fixed the many dealbreakers that disturbed our gaming took the fun out of it.

Now when the book is almost done, would it not make sense to cut time by having more eyes hunting for errors?

My idea is that you release a digital-only version of the rules for full price that can be purchased only if you have a special code from the beta test forum. You get paying customers that is very keen on having the printed books and will go “Columbo” over the rules text and report any problems they find.

Speaking about the Rings of Power, I must say that I think the series is good exactly because it does not follow Tolkien's notes. The extreme time jumps in Tolkiens notes is IMHO a nightmare if you want to make a show. I also think the stretched out timeline is one of the reasons why Tolkien never got around to write the story down. Great for background, but it makes a poor story if you try to write it down.

[Ecthelion]

Fully agree to both parts you mentioned pastaav, the many eyes that could hunts for errors and the quality of the Rings of Power series.

[Eryius]

Honest question:

As far as I understand, you plan to release Core Law and Spell Law together. If the Columbo mode takes longer than expected, is there the option of releasing Core Law first and then continuing Columbo mode on Spell Law? Or is it "set in stone" to release them together? Or perhaps you could touch on this briefly in the next update?
(I could imagine both scenarios, but curious to learn about your plans)

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

Honest question:

As far as I understand, you plan to release Core Law and Spell Law together. If the Columbo mode takes longer than expected, is there the option of releasing Core Law first and then continuing Columbo mode on Spell Law? Or is it "set in stone" to release them together? Or perhaps you could touch on this briefly in the next update?
(I could imagine both scenarios, but curious to learn about your plans)

They will be released in short order after each other, but not at the same time.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[Eryius]

That's great news! And with the October update of Core Law being imminent, I can't wait!
Much hype