Director’s Briefing – March 2013

This is our twentieth Briefing and is the third scheduled Briefing for 2013.

HARP SF Xtreme
As indicated during last month’s Briefing, standard colour versions of HARP SF Xtreme were created and uploaded into the OneBookShelf system. I received my softcover and hardcover proof copies and they both look great. A very careful examination of the standard colour versus premium colour copies shows that for some of the images, premium colour makes them look even better. Of course the per-page cost for premium is ten cents rather than three cents. From GCP and ICE’s perspective, it makes no financial difference to us which version of HARP SF Xtreme – black&white, standard colour, premium colour, softcover, hardcover or plain pdf – you buy. We earn essentially the same amount on every copy sold. Buy whichever format(s) suit your needs and budget.

What all the experiments with standard and premium colour have shown us is that we can avoid the messiness of transforming colour art for RMU into black&white (and hence avoid the risk of some of the art plain not working when greyscaled). The standard colour option is only marginally more expensive than pure black&white (3 cents per page rather than 2 cents) with only modest loss in quality for some artwork. Thus for RMU, I’m expecting that the print-on-demand versions will be standard and premium colour in both softcover and hardcover formats.

HARP Fantasy
You are probably wondering what has happened with HARP Fantasy. Our layout guru who was working on finalising the cleanup got a date for a serious surgical operation. We are moving the files to another guru so that the work can be completed and the templates reused for Martial Law and College of Magics.

Meanwhile I’ve produced the outline for the new HARP Bestiary and am allocating writers to the various chapters. I will also be producing a list of required art for this project (the list will grow as writers hand in physical descriptions of new monsters), so there will be opportunities for our existing artists and new artists.

Cyradon
The work on HARP Bestiary will necessarily encompass the remaining updates to Cyradon, namely its Bestiary chapter. In other news, I’ve reviewed a full draft of Enya Lote from Andrew and Heleen Durston, and this is already in very good shape. Chris Seal continues to toil away on his Caer Glais module.

I have had one expression of interest in adding material to the “Cyradon: Arrival” module, and none so far for “Cyradon: ReAwakening” (see the January Briefing). Don’t be shy – get in touch with me at director@guildcompanion.com

Shadow World
Last month, I put out a call for RMFRP game statistics for existing Shadow World books. Two fans are now working their way through Emer II and Haalkitaine. Meanwhile Terry has been working his way through his old layout archives for these and other books, bringing them into the modern age of InDesign. At the moment, Cloudlords of Tanara looks set to be the first product to complete the “early edition” process.

Terry is also evaluating third-party Shadow World material. I hope to be able to report on that front in next month’s Briefing.

Rolemaster
The next versions of the RMU beta test files will be landing on my desk in the next couple of weeks. In addition, I am also reading my way through the current drafts of Creature Law and Treasure Law.

Until next time
Back to reading manuscript drafts for me; the next scheduled Director’s Briefing will be in April,

Best wishes,

Nicholas
Director, Guild Companion Publications Ltd.