Iron Crown Enterprises Newsletter – October 2014


 
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Apologies for the slight delay in releasing this month’s Iron Crown Enterprises Newsletter. I am currently in the throes of a terrible case of man flu and as such my reasoning is currently at -30 and everything is taking me a lot longer than normal. Despite that, there is plenty of news to be getting on with….
 
Catch up on what you’ve missed with this month’s Director’s Briefing.
 
 
ROLEMASTER
 
This month has seen the official release of the brand new e-support package ERA for Rolemaster.
 
ERA is a multi-functional e-support package with a number of capabilities including:
 

  • Create characters step by step then level them up and update them as your games progress
  • Manage adventures, handle combat, skill resolution, spell casting, resistances, resting and more
  • Watch each character status (hits, pp’s, stun, bleed, penalties) and check skills and spells (including full descriptions) from a smartphone, tablet or laptop.
  • Customise skills, professions, races, cultures, attack tables, criticals, spells and talents and flaws


You can download the online application for free and then improve on the experience by purchasing the data for Rolemaster Classic Spell Law, Arms Law and Character Law. All are available at RPGNow.
 
THE ORDER OF THE IRON CROWN
 
The Order of the Iron Crown is a select group of fans that have made it their mission to promote the play of Iron Crown products at game conventions and in game stores around the world.
 
This month has seen a number of OIC members earning points for running games, reviewing products and writing posts for the Iron Crown Enterprises blog.
 
Once they have enough, members of the Order of the Iron Crown will be able to exchange these points for exclusive merchandise or money off ICE products.
 
To become a member please visit our website.
 
 
SETTINGS
 
The adventure module ‘Tales from the Green Gryphon Inn’ has now been finished by Terry Amthor and is just awaiting artwork before it is given one final check and then sent to RPGNow ready for sale. We don’t foresee it being much longer until this product hits the shelves so keep an eye on your inbox and we’ll let you know the second it is available.
 
With the adventure module out of the way Terry has now resumed work on Eidolon and Emer II revisions whilst editing a submission on Lethys city in Jaiman and working on his new NE Jaiman module.
 
 
PARTNERS
 
The virtual online gaming table Fantasy grounds is now available on steam.
 
Fantasy Grounds helps you run pen and paper role playing games by performing many of the tasks that occur while playing at a conventional gaming table. Run games as the gamemaster or take part as a player, the application provides all the necessary tools to communicate, manage information and perform tasks such as rolling the dice or creating drawings.
 
FG now has a cheaper entry point for groups looking to try Fantasy Grounds. For just $9.99 a month, a GM can run games for their entire game group and they won’t have to buy a license at all.
 
And Fantasy Grounds is running an online con – FG Con 5. The event kicks off on October 17-19. It’s 24 hours a day and is ran worldwide. It’s been growing each year. Find out more here: www.fg-con.com. ICE hopes to be there next year.
 
 
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Memories of Minas Tirith

Minas TirithReading up on recent news the other day, minding my own business as I scrolled through the various RSS feeds I subscribe to, I happened upon THIS PAGE at Geek Native and some fond memories.
 
This beautiful map of Minas Tirith from J.R.R Tolkien’s Middle Earth was originally created by ICE for a Middle Earth Role Playing product. While ICE no longer holds the licence for this product or any other Middle Earth related material, it is nice to know that people are still enjoying the work ICE did many years ago.
 
If you want to find out what Iron Crown Enterprises have been up to since the days this map was in print, you can find our complete catalogue of available products at RPGNow or sign up to our mailing list to get monthly updates straight to your inbox.
 
 

ERA for Rolemaster – Out Now!

Electronic Roleplaying AssistantIron Crown Enterprises are thrilled to announce the release of a brand new piece of e-support software to help you run your games of Rolemaster quickly and easily – ERA for Rolemaster.
 
ERA (Electronic Roleplaying Assistant) is a free application that allows players to create their characters using a step by step wizard, then level them up and configure all details in stats, skills and special abilities, even overriding the automatic calculations. Afterwards, they can be added to a running campaign in the adventuring module.
 
From there, the game master can control all aspects of the game: resolve manoeuvres, resistances, resting, and of course, spell casting and combat. Players can also oversee the current status of their characters, check all known spells, current skill values and more, all as the adventure progresses, simply by accessing the application with their mobile devices.
 
The free ERA application comes with a number of Rolemaster Classic sample races, professions, spells, attacks and criticals. For a complete set of Rolemaster Classic data for the application, you can buy Rolemaster Classic Arms Law, Rolemaster Classic Spell Law, and Rolemaster Classic Character Law from the OneBookShelf network for $9.95 each.
 
    
 

Director’s Briefing – October 2014


 
Welcome to the fortieth Briefing and the tenth scheduled Briefing for 2014, and straight to new releases.
 
ERA for Rolemaster
 
For a number of months, Maximiliano Tabacman has been running playtests of his excellent character management software package for Rolemaster. ERA (Electronic Roleplaying Assistant) provides the ability to create characters at any level, add them to the ERA campaign dataset, enabling players and GMs to monitor and manage all aspects of the characters including skills, resistances, spells, abilities and gear, and to resolve maneuvers and actions. You can find tutorial videos HERE and there are extensive discussions on the Rolemaster Software section of the ICE forums.
 
I am very pleased to report that ERA is now ready to go on sale. The base package including some sample data is available for free download via OneBookShelf from today. Three modular data set files will also be available in this round of releases, RMC Character Law, RMC Spell Law and RMC Arms Law. These are all being priced at 9.95 USD each.
 
Yes, I know. Occasionally our release schedule feels like waiting for the bus. You hang around for what seems like ages and then three come along at once. However the base package and the three data modules are a natural fit and should be released essentially together, so that’s what we are doing.
 
Tales from the Green Gryphon Inn
 
As long as all the artwork arrives in time, Terry and I expect that we will be able to release “Tales from the Green Gryphon Inn” in October as a pdf. We will be publishing this Shadow World adventure module as a perfect-bound softcover. Depending upon exactly when we achieve pdf release, and then how quickly we can progress Tales through the OneBookShelf print-on-demand process, we might have printed copies ready in time for…
 
Dragonmeet
 
As indicated last month, I have already booked the stand for Aurigas/ICE and Guild Companion Publications for Dragonmeet, the UK’s premier one-day gaming convention. This year Dragonmeet is at the IBIS Hotel Earls Court and ILEC Convention Centre, London on Saturday 6th December.
 
I have ordered multiple copies of every HARP, HARP SF, and Shadow World that we currently have in print (and the first consignment are already printed and shipping), so there will be opportunities to inspect the merchandise before making purchases. In addition to accepting hard cash, we will, subject to the tech behaving itself, have the capability to accept credit card payments.
 
As well as the stand proper, we have also hired a demo table to run full-length scenarios. John Seal will be running a HARP adventure and I am also expecting to run a HARP or HARP SF adventure. We will also have a Rolemaster minigame in collaboration with Arion Games and competitions.
 
We would love to see lots of ICE fans at Dragonmeet, and would encourage UK members of the Order of the Iron Crown to step forward to run adventures and generally get involved.
 
Colin is heavily involved in the organisational aspects, so expect lots of forum postings, Facebook posts and tweets from Colin from now onwards on Dragonmeet.
 
Until next time
 
Back to work for me. The next scheduled Briefing will be in November.
 
Best wishes,
Nicholas
 
Director, Guild Companion Publications Ltd.
 
 
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Iron Crown Enterprises Newsletter – September 2014


 
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Any of you lucky enough to be following Iron Crown Enterprises on Facebook may have seen a recent post about Lord of the Rings (don’t get your hopes up MERP is NOT coming back). While I have heard many reasons to refuse the theory put forward in the post, I can’t stop thinking about it so I thought I would add it to the newsletter to encourage a debate on the topic. Read the post here.
 
Catch up on what you’ve missed with this month’s Director’s Briefing.
 
 
ROLEMASTER
 
We are pleased to announce the imminent release of ERA for Rolemaster. If you’ve spent any time on the ICE forum recently you have no doubt seen the thread dedicated to its playtesting, feedback and revisions, well now it is done. We’re just finalising the file upload to RPGNow and we will let you know when it is finished. ERA is a multi-functional e-support package with a number of capabilities including:
 

  • Create characters step by step then level them up and update them as your games progress
  • Manage adventures, handle combat, skill resolution, spell casting, resistances, resting and more
  • Watch each character status (hits, pp’s, stun, bleed, penalties) and check skills and spells (including full descriptions) from a smartphone, tablet or laptop.
  • Customise skills, professions, races, cultures, attack tables, criticals, spells and talents and flaws


THE ORDER OF THE IRON CROWN
 
You may have noticed that the Iron Crown Enterprises blog has recently seen a flurry of activity around members of the Order of the Iron Crown running games, attending conventions and generally promoting ICE products to the big wide world.
 
This trend is set to continue as Iron Crown start prepping run an OFFICIAL ICE STALL at this year’s Dragonmeet in London, UK. We’ll soon be releasing an e-mail outlining our plans for the event, who will be there and when and how you can get involved. In the mean time, if you or anyone you know is interested in becoming a member of the Order of the Iron Crown and recieving rewards just for playing and promoting ICE products, get in touch and we’ll get you all signed up.
 
 
SETTINGS
 
It is all go in Shadow World with Terry K. Amthor working on a number of projects at once (but what’s new there). The adventure module ‘Tales from the Green Gryphon Inn’ is nearing completion with Terry “just tweaking a final adventure” and awaiting artwork.
 
Aside from that he has been working on a new module for NE Jaiman (similar to Xa-ar), which has already reached 75 pp of text alone, and tinkering with Eidolon and Emer II revisions.
 
 
PARTNERS
 
Ready for playtesting at last, the folks at our sister site Metal Express have released new ship displays and rules for the dreaded Night Brood for the Silent Death game, including the six ships that have for so many years now had no ship display available!
 
That’s right, loyal fans of Silent Death can find ship displays for the Bright Thorn, the Skree, the Scarab, the Eel, the formidable Monarch, and the insidious Worm Pod at long last, so now you can expand your Night Brood swarms and even take on Terran Warhounds (and take them out!) as only the vile Night Brood can.
 
 
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Order of the Iron Crown – Playtesting at GenCon 2014

As you may be aware, this year a couple of members of the Order of the Iron Crown went to GenCon. Below is one member’s (BeggarKing’s) account of GenCon and his playtesting of the new Rolemaster system at the world’s biggest RPG convention.
 
“I had the opportunity to run a few RMU sessions at gencon earlier this year. It was great to see such excitement about RM. My events came to registration late, and were in out of the way places but I still had full tables.
 
About the players: The tables were multi-generational, in that each session had at least one to 2 old timers (original RM) and couple that came aboard during RMSS. Most of the attendees had played one version or another. Only 1 complete newbie. Almost all were familiar enough with the system rules that there weren’t many surprises with the beta rules. For both sessions, half the spots were filled by a group the Roleplayed together and wanted to get the gang out to try the new rules. They tended not to be heavy roleplayers – mainly they wanted to get in and try out combat (criticals being the highlight, of course).
 
I also ran into RM players outside of the events – a couple of us fought over a dusty copy of The Iron Wind found in the exhibit hall. The Good news: There still seem to be many passionate fans. Possible bad news: Most of these players were oblivious to the beta rules. Ones that had been active in the beta generally expressed frustration around the slowpace/lack of updates/lack of transparency into the process.
 
The play sessions themselves went well – generally the first hour was choosing characters, backgrounds, and asking questions to get up to speed on abilities (note – it takes a while to ramp up even with experienced players and pre-made characters). There were some quick roleplaying opportunities (only a few took advantage) and then into combat. Experienced RMers really fought over playing spellcasters, and wanted to do crazy things with the spells. (1 group fought a bear, and after being told “no” to casting leaving on the bear and using that as a projectile attack, used leaving instead to ‘port the bear into the air above enemies). Everyone seemed to really appreciated spell expertise and combat expertise.
 
Combat was generally smooth, although I credit cards and mats I put together that makes that experience fairly smooth – everyone was able to leverage the tactical combat rules after the very first round (my own group took some time to get used to this). I used a ton of props – I had figures (wooden meeples I use when travelling) cards I put together for players to set up their phase actions, and tiles I picked up from other games. All these made it easier to handle the finer tactical parts of RM.
 
The only really fidgety parts in the beta were around calculating movement (“so I’m moving with 25% and I want to run over to the bear that’s on fire, what pace is that and what’s my negative? Wait, how do figure that without a calculator??”). There was one doc-bug we hit where a 64 crit was more damaging than a 66 on the same table (I think the results are switched).
 
Summary: I had fun running the games and will likely do so again. Players as well seemed to like the rules.”
 
If you are interested in running ICE games at conventions and becoming a member of the Order of the Iron Crown, get in touch!
 

Director’s Briefing – September 2014


 
Welcome to the thirty-ninth Briefing and the ninth scheduled Briefing for 2014. My August was sandwiched between the conference at the start and short trips to France and Spain in the final week. September in the real world for me will be writing materials for a new module (I did in the end acquire a new IT module), tidying up my existing modules, dealing with requests for new degree specifications, and another conference (though in the UK).
 
Progress on the ToDo List
 
RMU: The team are rattling through the combined Arms Law & Character Law checking cross-references, double-checking clarity, completeness and correctness of examples, and trapping typos. I have Terry on standby to push Arms Law & Character Law through layout.
 
Guild Adventurer #4 and HARP Bestiary: I have went through “The Elemental Powers” chapter of the Something Wicked manuscript, identifying which sections will fit as-is into HARP Bestiary, which need modification, and which don’t need to be included (e.g. the section that explained why I had a chapter on Elementals in a book on evil powers). Remember that the “Who Saves the Savior” scenario for TGA#4 requires Earth Elementals. John Duffield has submitted his first draft of the Land Monsters which I have already edited and returned, and submitted his first draft of Air Monsters for my review. John has already written up the first draft of a Dragon (which again we need for “Who Saves the Savior”) and is taking on the Dragon chapter. Colin has now submitted nearly all the various subsections of the Animals chapter and I’ve returned feedback on half of them already. Sam Orton is plugging away at the Sea Monsters chapter and I hope to see it soon.
 
HARP Folkways: Jonathan Cassie has been quietly working away on this project which will provide a wealth of new races and cultures and the supporting material to make best use of them in HARP. He’s completed his first four chapters and is doing chapters 5 and 6 in tandem. His wordcount is 45,000 already so HARP Folkways will be a meaty sourcebook.
 
Shadow World: I completed an editorial pass of Terry’s “Tales from the Green Gryphon Inn” and Terry is now wrestling with one particularly stubborn section that has not jelled fully. Other than that, this module is only waiting on the artwork. Charles Morris helpfully stepped in to expand the RM2/Classic stats for the upcoming Emer 2 and Eidolon enhancement to match the detail he had already produced for us in RMSS/FRP stats, and saved Terry many hours of painful number-crunching.
 
Other Projects: I have more recovered text to check from the Spacemaster Imperium modules, the ERA software for Rolemaster to push towards commercial release, and an unexpected surprise project to organise.
 
Dragonmeet
 
I have booked the stand for Aurigas/ICE and Guild Companion Publications for Dragonmeet. We and Arion Games have requested that our stands will be neighbours so hopefully the organisers will be able to arrange this and make it easy for us to run joint minigames.
 
Until next time
 
Always more editing and more fun HARP writing for me to do. The next scheduled Briefing will be in October.
 
Best wishes,
Nicholas
 
Director, Guild Companion Publications Ltd.
 
 
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Pyrotech’s Gen Con 2014 After Incident Report


‘Pyrotech’, a member of the Order of the Iron Crown went to this year’s GenCon (along with a couple of other members). Below he gives us a view of how his GenCon went, along with tips for those planning to attend next years.
 
Wednesday
 
I drove into downtown Indy and checked in to my hotel (the Hyatt) and was ready to go to the Convention Center by 5:00pm. In the convention center things were already hopping. The Will Call line was very busy and many people commented that Gen Con is one con where paying for shipping on your badges and tickets is worth it. In my experience this is true, and I was able to avoid these lines because I had paid to have my items shipped to me. I went to the Swag Bag line which was moving pretty quickly. I waited in this line about 10 minutes to get my bag and coupon book.
 
Thursday
 
We got up in the morning and left the room around 8:30 to get my wife and niece to their first event (a photo scavenger hunt put on by the Gamer Wenches). After my wife and niece started their scavenger hunt I went to my first event – Ready Set Play for D&D 5ed.
 
The Ready Set Play event went over the highlights of the new edition and some of the most common errors GMs and players might make in the new system. It was enlightening to see some of the rationale behind some of the new ideas in this edition. I may start playing the new edition again, but I suspect I’m still going to stick to HARP Fantasy for my main fantasy system.
 
I spent about an hour and a half in the Dealer room Thursday and made my way through about 1/3 of the booths. There were a lot more booths this year, and every day after Thursday the Dealer room was a press of people. I am always amazed with the variety of really cool stuff I wish I had more money to buy on display in the Gen Con Dealer Room, and this year had even more than normal.
 
After lunch my niece and I played in an Advanced Green Ninja Elementary Preparatory Super Educational Fortress 555 (ADGNEPSEF555) game. I have been playing this game every Gen Con and Origins I have been to for 15 years and it is still a lot of fun – and I still haven’t played every character. I can’t recommend this game enough for anyone looking for a fun, slapstick game or anyone who has ever wanted to blow up their elementary school (3 times in this year’s game).
 
Friday
 
Friday my wife and niece had a couple of SPA events (highly recommended for the non-gamers who may be with you). They made dice bracelets and something else that day. After swapping my daughter back to my wife I went to watch Ken Hite and Robin Law record a podcast for “Ken and Robin Talk about stuff”. If anyone is a fan of historic fantasy gaming, conspiracy theory games, esoteric lore, or just plain good food recipes then this podcast is for them.
 
For Lunch Friday my family and I briefly met up with a college buddy of mine who is playing in my HARP SF game on Google Hangouts. In the Afternoon I went to a workshop to decorate a short Steampunk top hat. There was little instruction for this workshop, but the quality of the top hat was decent. The materials to decorate the hats had a nice variety and were well organized. They had a lot of hot glue guns on hand to use and I was easily able to complete my hat in the time allowed for the event.
 
I spent another hour in the Dealer Room Friday and barely made it to the half-way point. The crowd was thick but manageable.
 
I attended the D&D 5ed street party Friday night. It was decent but somewhat of a let-down compared to the 35th anniversary party and 3ed release party in years past. I stayed to look through the “museum” but left soon after finishing in there. It was far better than the 4ed launch however.
 
Saturday
 
My wife and niece were heavily booked on Saturday so I didn’t schedule any events for Saturday for myself. So I spent quite a bit of time with my daughter while the other two did their events. They decorated cupcakes and decorated boxes using comic books and Modge-podge. The results were pretty nice. The cupcakes looked and tasted great, but the decorated boxes needed some additional lining materials.
 
I was able to spend another hour in the Dealer Room on Saturday. The press of people was too much for my wife, and I was only able to make it another 4 or so isles through the Dealer Room. One area stood out for us this day however. Diana Pressnell was reading her “The SurReal Mother Geek” in the family fun area of the Dealer Room. I had bought this book for my daughter last year and she is very familiar with it. My daughter greatly enjoyed listening to the author read it in a circle with a half dozen other young children. Over the last year this book has become one of my daughter’s favorites – so I would have to recommend it to gamers with young children.
 
Saturday night I took the skywalks over to the J.W. Marriott (a rather long walk from the Hyatt) to check out Aaron Smalley’s RMU game. My family was getting hungry so I didn’t have much time to hang out and chat (or play for that matter). I stopped by, said hi, and had to bail. It sounds like it was a pretty fun game however.
 
Sunday
 
We packed up the bags and checked out of our hotel then headed on over to the convention center. My wife insisted on no events for anyone on Sunday to ensure we could leave at a reasonable time and still have time for the Dealer Room. We also avoided buying any art until Sunday because of the likelihood that it will get mangled before we can get it home. So we spent around two and a half more hours in the Dealer Room Sunday. We checked out the Art (and bought some) and picked up the last few things we wanted to get before leaving.
 
At about 2:30pm it was time for my family to get back on the road and head home. Traffic out of town wasn’t bad at all (despite a couple of failed navigation rolls on our part).
 
 
 
A huge thanks to Pyrotech for taking the time to write this report. If you are interested in running ICE games at conventions and would like to become a member of the Order of the Iron Crown, get in touch.
 

Iron Crown Enterprises Newsletter – August 2014


 
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It has been another big month here at ICE HQ packed full of yet more great news and announcements. Before we get into that however I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone that continues to support ICE whether that is by buying products, contributing to our forum or simply reading our monthly newsletters. Now on with the news…
 
Catch up on what you’ve missed with this month’s Director’s Briefing.
 
 
ROLEMASTER
 
This month saw the Rolemaster Facebook group reach 1,000 follows! To celebrate we gave fans and followers the opportunity to buying hardcover versions of HARP SF, HARP SF Xtreme, Shadow World Cloudlords of Tanara and Shadow World Emer III with a $5 discount.
 
In the world of the new Rolemaster which is currently being playtested – Terry Amthor is primed and ready to start a rapid layout of the new Core Rules while the tables and texts are getting their final signoff from the team.
 
 
HARP
 
Last month’s Christmas in July sale was a great success. A huge thanks to everybody who took the opportunity to buy HARP products for 25% off, please don’t forget to review your purchases on RPGNow.
 
You will be pleased to hear that real progress is being made on the HARP Bestiary and I received my first ‘editorial nag’ to encourage me to work a little faster on it. Luckily I have earmarked a lot of time over the coming week to finish my sections and consider the opportunity to take on some other sections.
 
 
SETTINGS
 
The upcoming Shadow World adventure “Tales from Green Gryphon Inn” is nearing completion and just waiting on graphics. Once these are in palce it will be ready to go for final approval.
 
Meanwhile, Terry is working hard on Eidolon before moving on to Emer II. According to Terry himself “Emer I is going to require some major map work (those old maps from the first edition are not acceptible). I am also writing/editing on both the NE Jaiman and Artifacts/Lost Tech books” so lots to come for Shadow World.
 
 
PARTNERS
 
As I’m sure you are all aware, GenCon was last week and this year we had a number of members of the Order of the Iron Crown attend and run ICE games. By all accounts the convention was a complete success with a number of them managing to meet up on the final day.
 
I already have a GenCon round up form one of the attendees which will be up on the Iron Crown blog in the coming days and (hopefully) there will be more to come.
 
If you’re interested in joining the Order of the Iron Crown and running games at conventions, Get in touch.
 
 
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GMing for first time gamers

I’ve managed to convince some friends who have never gamed before to let me run a one off game for them. My plan is for it to be so good that they consider playing on a more regular basis (or at least agree to a second game).
 
As they’re first game (and they’re pretty cynical about the whole thing) I want it to be really engaging. I’ve come up with a basic idea but I would really appreciate any thoughts/ideas/opinions that anyone else has.
 
Rough idea:
 
A simple dungeon layout with a number of rooms in a rough circle around a central (much larger) room. There are a number of ways to enter the central room. In each (or most) non-central room are challenges be they puzzles, traps or monsters which grant magic items/weapons/potions to the adventurers. Unbeknownst to the adventurers, defeating each challenge will best equip them to defeat the beast lurking in the central room guarding the… whatever it is they’re after but it is up to them which doors they take and when.
 
My challenge is coming up with enough puzzles and traps etc to fill the rooms. Also I would like them to be things which take them away from the gaming table or give the players themselves the opportunity to shine. Current ideas (and very rough ideas) are as follows:
 

  • A room that looks exactly like a room in my house with a timer ticking down to find something (they need to search the room in my house)
  • A riddle from a mischievous parrot
  • A collection of potions with each giving a clue about which potion must be drunk
  • Flat out fight with a monster of some sort
  • A booby trapped room which requires some form of knowledge (a la the last crusade)


Anyone ideas please let me know on the ICE Forum.
 
– Colin