Topic: My Biggest RMU Complaint

[Cory Magel]

My only complaint is that I cannot see an answer to the question:
What, specifically and in detail, was the problem with RMFRP that need to be solved by having a new edition?

The biggest reason is portions of the previous editions of RM was designed, in part, by employees of the previous iterations of ICE and was not usable without their permission, which is unlikely to be granted.

See, that was not that difficult. MOST people, myself included, was not fully aware that this was actually the case, aside from a rumor here or there.

So a reason for rewriting the rules was to make a product that the current ICE has complete control over. Good. Makes a great deal of sense. 

Mind you, I'm not official ICE. But understanding the history of what happened I think it's pretty accurate.

[katastrophe]

The book is out, minor adjustments and error fixing being done to it. There's no amount of complaining from a very minor group of very vocal people that will change Core Law into something else. So why whine and spread negativity?

The history of RM provides a significant amount of precedents indicating that the course of the game can be altered in the companions.

Furthermore, criticism provide perspective.

We all know that Core Law itself will not change. Some people think it is good. Others don't. Both have the right to express themselves here. I don't see why another reason would be needed.

Then perhaps make a thread of its own, dedicated to bashing at RMU, ICE why they didn't make RMU as they wanted, add in some bragging how "me and my gaming buddies" could have done it so much better for goodness sake. See how much audience that gets instead of grabbing almost every opportunity to do so in other people's threads that really weren't meant for it, see OP's statement above as an example. This constant negativity is what I see as whining, not constructive, especially since the product is made and being sold after years in the making. A classic example of "you didn't make it as I wanted, now I'm going to be pissed".

You could always just post a lot of Attaboys, trust me, no will stop you, nor will they complain that you are.

I doubt anyone is pissed with respect to the product. I bought it on day one, although I have the Betas and knew basically what was going to be in the book. Nonetheless, there are design concepts that dont make sense to me and in games I run (when we get around to have a fully playable Shadow World game), I will mitigate those concepts to fit how we play or add some modern concepts that we've adopted for the sake of simplifying the game or making it run faster.

There are actually two separate discussion ongoing. The first is why were certain decisions made in the first place. The second is how will the decision make the game more likely to attract new players. You've contributed to neither discussion except to complain that I have provided negative feedback on aspects of the game. You like it. Fine, Happy for you. If the limit of your ability to contribute is to say that, good. No one forces you to post. If you want positivity only, stay out of threads that discuss negative aspects.

If you disagree with my posts, provide a cogent argument as to why I might have an incorrect view or observation. Saying it is fine as is does nothing for the conversation. Explaining why micromanaging xp is a good thing is better than saying, it is an old welcome mechanic.

[5th Knight of Xar]

I think you need to step back a few and read what the OP wrote above here, you my "friend" missed the point of this thread totally in your eager to bash at RMU. Do you even read what you type before you post, a little reality check might be in order.

[chook]

The biggest reason is portions of the previous editions of RM was designed, in part, by employees of the previous iterations of ICE and was not usable without their permission, which is unlikely to be granted.

Putting the user hat on, I would liked to have seen more content for RMSS/RMFRP, before a new system. I'm not sure how much quality material was going to be forthcoming on that front however and republishing RMSS books for RMFRP wouldn't have gotten me to buy them. It would need to be new material.

Putting the company hot on (and as stated above), I think a new edition was necessary for a number of reasons. The most problematic being the IP legalities. The second issue being where new content was going to come from, how unique that content was, and who was going to create it (time required by the author and the quality of that authors work).

My primary issue with RMU at this point is, from what I can tell, it isn't near as backwards compatible. It's fairly easy to cross pollinate between the old RM editions, but it seems like that's going to be a larger issue with RMU... which means for someone who is likely to keep using RMSS, RMU becomes even less useful.  For example, if round structure and how Haste works has changed, I can no longer use spell lists with Haste on them.  Simply using an RMU spell list as is and changing the Haste spells to how they used to work might have balancing implications that I'm not okay with... which means redesigning the spell list entirely, which effectively reduces its usefulness to me. But we have yet to see how this really ended up at the finish line. Odds are good I'm going to pick up most the books for various reasons, but odds are also good (at this point) I may never use them.

Thank-you sir.  Have to say that I am genuinely surprised ICE doesn't own the copyright to their IP.  I imagine this might have ties back to the end of ICE around 1990 when freelancers weren't getting paid.  I am not privy to that period and only know what I have read in in Designers & Dragons along with the tales online so don't want to put myself forward as an expert or authority.

As a user I think you are correct in that the system was "complete" for the most part and the future products would have to be setting material like modules and campaign worlds.  That has long been the way that gaming companies have kept revenue streams open after the rules have been bought.  That would have been the path required thinking abotu the situation in a company scene.

I am not particularly excited by RMU.  At the risk of sounding like a stick in the mud it just doesn't have the RM vibe to it so for me the likely outcome is that I will just continue playing RMFRP.

[Cory Magel]

Thank-you sir.  Have to say that I am genuinely surprised ICE doesn't own the copyright to their IP.  I imagine this might have ties back to the end of ICE around 1990 when freelancers weren't getting paid.  I am not privy to that period and only know what I have read in in Designers & Dragons along with the tales online so don't want to put myself forward as an expert or authority.

Put briefly, without getting into the how's and why's, you had what was the original incarnation of ICE go bankrupt.  It was was bought up by an outside party and basically licensed back to some of the individuals from the original ICE.  They then lost the license and it was licensed to the current incarnation of ICE (pretty much made up of the freelancers that had written a good portion of the RMSS material and some of the long time forum posters who mostly had the needed talent).  The problem is some of the material from the second incarnation of ICE was tied to individuals related to that ICE that aren't inclined to work with the newest ICE.  For example, my book (the Channeling Companion) has a small amount of material contributed by one of those people and we had to remove it in order to re-publish it.

[lordmalachdrim]

Impatient people have the excellent option to download the free beta versions, until the PDFs are ready on drivethrurpg

So you are telling new people (hell even older folks) who picked up the Core Rules nearly 2 months ago that they can just go download the BETA PDF from this web site that has not been updated in 7 years and that should be good enough for them? That is a terrible answer.

And in regards to the Core Rules they have not been updated or put up for PoD within the alluded 1 month time frame given in the Director Briefings, which is not a good look for new people coming in either.

Also instead of rushing to get Spell Law out and maybe a preview of Creature Law out to capitalize on all the angst over the WotC/OGL stuff they just went radio silent.

Overall this has been bungled and you are looking like a pure fan boy who can not pull their head out of their own posterior to see this failure.

[jdale]

I think the size of the errata thread pretty clearly explains why the update has taken this long. That has also taken our limited attention away from Spell Law.

[5th Knight of Xar]

Impatient people have the excellent option to download the free beta versions, until the PDFs are ready on drivethrurpg

So you are telling new people (hell even older folks) who picked up the Core Rules nearly 2 months ago that they can just go download the BETA PDF from this web site that has not been updated in 7 years and that should be good enough for them? That is a terrible answer.

And in regards to the Core Rules they have not been updated or put up for PoD within the alluded 1 month time frame given in the Director Briefings, which is not a good look for new people coming in either.

Also instead of rushing to get Spell Law out and maybe a preview of Creature Law out to capitalize on all the angst over the WotC/OGL stuff they just went radio silent.

Overall this has been bungled and you are looking like a pure fan boy who can not pull their head out of their own posterior to see this failure.

Come on, you can do better than this, brand new profile.

[lordmalachdrim]

Come on, you can do better than this, brand new profile.

Brand new? I've had this account since 2011, all you have to do is click on my name to see that. I don't post much because there hasn't been much of a reason to post while waiting for Unified to be released.

[Cory Magel]

Come on, you can do better than this, brand new profile.

Getting a bit over-zealous here. One could point out that all but one post you've made in this thread is arguably no more constructive than the ones you're responding to.

[GrumpyOldFart]

I suspect that I'm not the only one getting tired of the flame war.

[5th Knight of Xar]

Come on, you can do better than this, brand new profile.

Getting a bit over-zealous here. One could point out that all but one post you've made in this thread is arguably no more constructive than the ones you're responding to.

I had hoped the first quarrel was the very end of it.

[sarenyon]

Getting back to the OP,

I am super happy to support the RMU content and it has had a successful launch! This is OUTSTANDING.

However, biggest complaint:
A couple:
Agree with the OP, a few pages of creatures and monsters stat blocks would of been nice. A few Spell lists would also have been nice, but neither is a deal breaker for me - I'm going to just adjust from my old RM2 C&T and HOPE that SPELL LAW will be released soon. I think we will do some historical fun games, learning the new system until then.

But my Biggest complaint is the Art inside the RMU book. Very few pictures are of quality in most TTRPG books now available. I know this was put together with love and the damn hard work of all of the people around here - and THANK YOU!!! But the art is a big factor to many new, would-be players. It would be nice that when we get enough for a true printing of the game (maybe) we get some good art.

Thanks again though to the team that put this together.

[nash]

I think the size of the errata thread pretty clearly explains why the update has taken this long. That has also taken our limited attention away from Spell Law.

I think you are at a point you could probably draw a line on the errata so far, apply them, and then add any new errata to a new revision or a published 'errata doc'.   The obvious stuff seems mostly found.

On the bright side... look how many people are looking at the product with a magnifying glass to make the product shine.

[pastaav]

I think the size of the errata thread pretty clearly explains why the update has taken this long. That has also taken our limited attention away from Spell Law.

I think you are at a point you could probably draw a line on the errata so far, apply them, and then add any new errata to a new revision or a published 'errata doc'.   The obvious stuff seems mostly found.

I agree that it is time to release what you got. It is possible to wait until all the errata for Core Law start to slow down to ensure you have captured as many errata items as possible before making the "perfect" physical book. Still, I think it is not the most effective path forward. I think it is likely that any important issues that have not been found so far will not be found until the other books are out.

Also, the likelihood that the other books will be fine without extensive scrutiny by the users seems slim if we consider the number of errata found in the first book. If there are fewer authors creating the text for those might make the next books more coherent, but the layout process has caused a number of errors on its own. The books will probably not be ready for print even if the text started as perfect; furthermore, having an errata-free Core Law, but the other books in need of massive errata will not look very smart.

The largest thing holding back my RMU enjoyment now is hesitation if I shall start to print the pages I need for the game or if I should wait until there is a fixed digital release. There are good reasons that people are talking about Ironcrown release speed as glacial. I want physical books as much as most people do, but more than that, I want digital books that I can print so I can play the game.

I suggest it would be better to release all the RMU books as soon as they are done with layouts and let us fans scrutinize them as we play the game. Releasing books that need extensive fixes before the text is done is not good PR, but Ironcrown spends years proofreading the text and still leaves lots of things that need to be fixed, feeding the narrative of the glacial release process.

In computer software, you often use a set release schedule when the improvements that are done are shipped on certain dates. Sometimes the number of improvements included become minimal, and sometimes they turn out to be more significant but having a release schedule that you follow builds trust that the remaining errors will eventually be fixed. If RMU should start to gain momentum, I think Ironcrown should aim for digital releases of all the books and tell the customers that there will be errata updates to those according to a fixed schedule. When the number of errata suggestions dwindles down, the physical book is released. 

[OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol]

Half-joking but… the medieval sword is still called a "broadsword". :p
Well, at least, the arming sword is called as such rather than "longsword" whereas the longsword is correctly a two-handed sword but…

[Ecthelion]

My biggest complaint is that I think the races are not well balanced. Especially those races, e.g. dwarces and elves, which have few bonus DPs left seem very unattractive to me. I think the underlying race system is somewhat flawed. YMMV

[lordmalachdrim]

I think the size of the errata thread pretty clearly explains why the update has taken this long. That has also taken our limited attention away from Spell Law.

So you indicated with this response that the update was done but I'm not seeing any updates yet. Can you please indicate when this update will be going live?

[jdale]

It will go live when Nicholas says so and uploads it to DTRPG.

[pantsorama]

Your post was not unclear nash, some just want to spread negativity for the sake of doing so.

I don't think it's "for the sake of doing so". Some people would have liked RMU to be different from what it is, and they are vocal about it. And that's fine, unless this forum is a congratulations forum where dissent is not accepted (in which case it could stand to be named more appropriately).

Contrary to popular opinion, I don't think criticism needs to be constructive to be worthwhile - it needs to be explained. Constructive (providing a solution) is optional, especially if you're merely a player and have no skill in game design. As I said in another thread, the lack of design notes in the RMU books make constructive criticism all the more difficult. However, explaining *why* you think parts of the rules are wrong is valid.

I agree completely. The worst thing that can happen to any forum is for it to become an echo chamber.

I hear you, but thread-crapping is also a very real problem, which drives people out of the thread and eventually the forum.  When you come into the a thread, dominate the discussion, and do not approach other points with the least bit of good faith you have moved from "let's let everyone have their say" and into polluting the discussion.  Everyone's mileage will vary, but it is not a binary where if you have someone who has no intention of having a discussion but wants to have a soap box - especially re-litigating things that are long ago decided - asking them to tone it down does not magically make the forum an echo chamber.