Director’s Briefing – July 2014

 
Welcome to the thirty-seventh Briefing and the seventh scheduled Briefing for 2014.
 
Marking and Grading
 
I can confirm that marking and grading is an absolutely draining process, and just when you think it’s done, there’s another umpteen forms to fill in. I can also confirm that it did take out my entire June. On the upside, it’s done.
 
Also on the upside, I have seen the projected calendar for the next academic year on the two degree courses that I principally teach on and the message is “No new modules” so this summer and next academic year is *not* going to be an endless lecture writing death march. The university here has also restructured its organisation and the IT teaching team (that I am part of) has now moved to the Department of Science and Technology, which means that the amount of business management teaching that I will be expected to provide will be limited (and again no new modules to take on).
 
Progress on the ToDo List
 
RMU: I deliberately have been keeping updates on RMU minimalist for months.Partly this is because the second quickest way of delaying a writing project is to talk about its details in public (the first quickest way is to declare a release date before writing is completed). Partly this is because I am not Line Editor on Rolemaster (it’s more than enough work running the overall company and being Line for HARP and Cyradon and quasi-Line Editor for Shadow World without trying to micromanage RMU) as that is Marc’s job. Of course, I could get Marc to talk about it in detail but then he’s talking not doing.
 
Colin’s ICE newsletter report gives a sense of how close the team is to getting Arms Law/Character Law and Spell Law off their desks. They do have several stubborn issues such as the RR mechanism that have been frustrating their efforts to declare closure; in the end, these issues will resolve even if Marc or myself have to choose / impose a solution.Despite the marking mountain and despite the home broadband dropping out again for over a week (two simultaneous faults, now fixed), there has been progress on the todo list.
 
With regard to Guild Adventurer #4, it is a painfully slow process updating HARP stats using a tablet on a train. I have not yet found an optimal workflow for this but I will persevere as there are other projects with similar issues.
 
On Shadow World, Terry continues to multitask his way across multiple projects, but Tales from the Green Gryphon Inn is still most likely to be first out from his pack.
 
On Cyradon, I am still open for suggestions for a new name for Phillip Ellis’ module based on the “M is for Murder” adventure seed.
 
The Spacemaster Imperium text recovery process continues with more modules being recovered for their text.
 
Until next time
 
Time for me to get back to the doing and less talking.The next scheduled Briefing will be in August.
 
Best wishes,
Nicholas
 
Director, Guild Companion Publications Ltd.
 
 
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