Director’s Briefing – June 2013

Posted on June 11, 2013 by colinice

 
This is our twenty-third Briefing and is the sixth scheduled Briefing for 2013. This Briefing is deliberately late as I wanted to release it when the next wave of products were ready to go on sale. And they are now.
 
 
Martial Law
 
 
The first supplement to be rereleased for HARP Fantasy, Martial Law has received a series of rules enhancements, many corrections, some additional material, a new layout, and a whole gallery of wonderful new art. In detail, the changes are as follows
 
HARP Martial Law

  • Flying and Influence skills made consistent with both HARP Fantasy and HARP SF
  • Intuition talent removed, while Swashbuckler and Toughness talents made consistent with both HARP Fantasy and HARP SF
  • Underwater Combat and Maritime Combat updated to be consistent with HARP SF
  • Costs for superior and magical materials have been adjusted
  • Damage Adjustment by Armor is now an optional rule
  • The sample characters have been updated for consistency with HARP Fantasy
  • New sample characters have been added for the Cleric, Harper, Mage and Thief professions

As promised, we will be offering Martial Law in pdf at a special price of 5 USD for a strictly time-limited period, so that you can update your HARP collection. Even if you do not own the original 2004 edition of Martial Law, you can still take advantage of this offer. Go straight to this link and buy it right now. Tell your GM, your (fellow) players, and your friends.
 
 
We had a trio of independent proofreaders go over the pdf, but some typos may have escaped their eagle eyes. If you should find any errors, please post on our HARP Martial Law threads on the ICE forums as soon as possible as we will be sending it into the OneBookShelf print-on-demand system in the next two to three weeks. We will then release it in both softcover and hardcover formats.
 
 
AutoHARP Software
 
 
In addition to Martial Law, we now have two software releases to support HARP, namely AutoHARP Fantasy and AutoHARP SF. These software packages combine a character creator and a combat tracker, with the necessary data files to support the HARP Fantasy and HARP SF core rulebooks. Further databases will be released in the near future for HARP SF Xtreme and Martial Law. AutoHARP runs under Windows and will soon be available for most Linux distributions
 
 
As a special introductory offer, we will be offering both products at half-price, so 10 USD instead of 20 USD. Again this is a strictly limited offer, so follow the links below.
 
 
AutoHARP Fantasy
 
AutoHARP-SF
 
 
College of Magics
 
 
And that’s not all coming for HARP. A complete layout pdf proof of College of Magics has been delivered and is now being reviewed by me. As soon as I have checked all the enhancements have been made to my satisfaction, the proof will be sent to the independent proofreaders for checking. All being well, we will have College of Magics available in July.
 
 
Shadow World Early Editions
 
 
All of the collected RMSS stat blocks and suggested corrections for five Shadow World products have been sent to Terry Amthor so that he can incorporate these changes into his new layouts for Emer I, Emer II, Haalkitaine, Jaiman, and Eidolon. As these products will be receiving some art adjustments, it is hard to say which one will be released first.
 
 
RMU
 
 
If you have been paying attention on the ICE forums, we have requested a pause to the discussion portion of the RMU playtest, so that we can focus on getting the next versions of RMU out for review. Thank you for all the feedback to date as it has been very useful.
 
 
We are not pausing the actual playtesting – indeed we would encourage anyone actively playtesting the current beta files to carry on doing so, as actual play may well reveal further insights into strengths and weaknesses of the new rules.
 
 
I cannot say yet when the next version of RMU will be released as there is a limit to how fast things can be done when everyone involved (on RMU, at Aurigas/ICE and at GCP) has a day job. But it will come as soon as we can get it out.
 
 
Until next time
 
 
Completing the review of HARP College of Magics is my next task; the next scheduled Director’s Briefing will be in July and will include the special discount for HARP College of Magics.
 
 
Best wishes
 
 
Nicholas
Director, Guild Companion Publications Ltd.
 

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HARP Martial Law out now!

Posted on June 10, 2013 by colinice

HARP Martial LawHARP Martial Law is back as a shiny enhanced pdf. Buy it now for only $5.00 for a limited time.
 
How do monsters and magic affect weapons, armor, and fighting styles?
 
Martial Law breaks new ground in the field of fantasy role playing combat rules, expanding on the fast, dramatic combat of HARP (High Adventure Role Playing) Fantasy to include detailed hit location criticals.
 
Martial Law also includes a section on creating and playing warriors in fantasy settings and cool new moves and equipment for fighters.
 
Drawing upon years of actual play from the fan base, HARP Martial Law is an enhanced version of the original HARP supplement published in 2004.
 
Buy your copy for $5.00 now and make the most of this limited time offer.
 

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Rolemaster at Fantasy Grounds Virtual Con – The roundup

Posted on June 8, 2013 by colinice

For those of you who couldn’t make this years Fantasy Grounds Virtual Con, one of our fans, the brilliant Bennis1980 who GM’d one of the Rolemaster games, has put together this brilliant round up of how it went:

“The Fantasy Grounds Online Con had a good RM contingent present. I ran one game (my first at a Con) and I feel I could have run one or two more as all the RM games were fully booked.

I sent a survey before I started to check who was familiar with RM and who had experience with using Fantasy Grounds. About half the players who joined had little or no FG knowledge. I ran a tutorial for these players after the game was finished.

So the game:
I ran a module of A Wedding at Axebridge (converted from HARP). We skipped the wedding and went straight to the after-party, a romp through an evil fey temple! I managed to include three combat encounters in the 4hr game (RM combat is super quick in Fantasy Grounds – tables are automatically retrieved for the GM when the dice are rolled so no searching). The party also had time for a spot of treasure fishing in a 15′ pool and had to figure out how to deal with a particularly nasty trap. We had one PC death (well it was only a flesh wound) and from the feedback I received afterwards, everyone seemed to have a good time.

We hope more RM players join us over on the FG forums so we can really grow this ruleset for Fantasy Grounds. Remember, you don’t need to purchase FG to enjoy it if the GM has an ultimate licence.”

-Bennis1980

So if you’re interested in seeing what Fantasy Grounds has to offer, or if you’re simply looking for a game, pop along to www.fantasygrounds.com and have a look. I can’t recommend it enough.

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Iron Crown Newsletter – May 2013

Posted on May 21, 2013 by colinice



Ordinarily I’m not a fan of this time of year. I think somewhere down the line, one of my great ancestors must have been a polar bear and as such I tend to spend the hotter months growling at people for suggesting that it would be “nice” to go and sit outside in the sun. Luckily I have a whole host of exciting news to bring you to help get me through the summer.


Catch up on what you’ve missed with this month’s Director’s Briefing.


Rolemaster


We understand better than anyone that real life often gets in the way of what we really want to do. That’s why we have simplified the rules of our Rolemaster’s 30th anniversary competition. You can now submit entries to any category for Character Law until the 6th June. We’re looking for your best, most exciting, funniest or most imaginative character and will be judging them in the following categories:

  • Character from the realm of Arms
  • Character from the realm of Channeling
  • Character from the realm of Essence
  • Character from the realm of Mentalism
  • Character from the Hybrid realms

You’ve got until the 6th of June to submit your characters via our forum, so get posting.


For more information and further rules on this and other upcoming competitions please visit our website.


HARP


There is lots of exciting news to report on HARP Fantasy this month. For starters the new HARP Fantasy book is now available in softcover and hardcover via print-on-demand from RPGNow and other OneBookShelf outlets.


In other news, the long awaited HARP Martial Law and HARP College of Magics are due for release very soon and soon respectively. A complete pdf of the enhanced Martial Law is currently with proofreaders for a final typo catch. College of Magics has been updated to its new layout and updates are being made to its interior text. When they are released, both books will be available on special offer for a limited time to give all HARP fans the opportunity to upgrade to the new enhanced version.


It is expected that Martial Law will hit the pdf “shelves” before the next newsletter so keep and eye on our website / social media outlets / forums and we’ll let you know the second it is available.


Settings


This month has seen the release of the brilliant Shadow World: Cloudlords of Tanara in hardcover and softcover color via print-on-demand.


Buy it here!


Shadow World: Cloudlords of Tanara is a classic module of Shadow World, set in the east of the continent of Jaiman, and updated by Terry Amthor for play in both its original time era and the current Shadow World timeline.


The original Cloudlords of Tanara was set over three thousand years before the present time of 6056 in the Third Era. Some things are the same, but many things have changed. Groups dormant for ages have awakened again: The evil Cult of Ezran, the Priests Arnak, and even the Cloudlords themselves have returned from legend into stark reality. And the Elven-realm to the east, Urulan, long thought lost, has awakened again with a Queen wearing the ancient, magical Unicorn Crown. Turning back an invasion by the imperialist Rhakhaan Kingdom, she threatens the peace of Tanara, which now finds itself caught between two realms.


Partners


Thanks to some brilliant work carried out by some of our amazing fans, there is now an updated version of Rolemaster Classic available in Fantasy Grounds with a whole bunch of improvements including two entirely new modules.


For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, Fantasy Grounds is an application that acts as a virtual gaming table which allows you to play with players from across the world as seamlessly as if you were sat in the same room.


The update includes:

  • Initial stat generation rolls (all 3 character law options included)
  • Stat Gain rolls (All 10 rolls can be completed in seconds)
  • Skill Development (Lots of options to help with adding and changing skills)
  • Spell Lists can be added quickly

In addition to this, the new version includes modules for The Armory and Rolemaster Fantasy Weapons, making it even simpler to play Rolemaster in Fantasy Grounds.


To get Iron Crown Enterprises’ newsletter straight to your inbox, sign up to our mailing list.

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Cloudlords of Tanara available in softcover color and hardcover color NOW!

Posted on May 7, 2013 by colinice


Cloudlords of Tanara available now in softcover color and hardcover color copies!

Get yours now!

A classic module of Shadow World, set in the east of the continent of Jaiman, and updated by Terry Amthor for play in both its original time era and the current Shadow World timeline.

The original Cloudlords of Tanara was set over three thousand years before the present time of 6056 in the Third Era. Some things are the same, but many things have changed. Groups dormant for ages have awakened again: The evil Cult of Ezran, the Priests Arnak, and even the Cloudlords themselves have returned from legend into stark reality. And the Elven-realm to the east, Urulan, long thought lost, has awakened again with a Queen wearing the ancient, magical Unicorn Crown. Turning back an invasion by the imperialist Rhakhaan Kingdom, she threatens the peace of Tanara, which now finds itself caught between two realms.

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Rolemaster’s 30th anniversary competition – Character Law

Posted on May 3, 2013 by colinice

To celebrate 30 years of Rolemaster, each month we’re giving you the chance to win some great Rolemaster prizes. This month it’s character law and all you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is submit a character.

There will be five different categories and in each of them we will be looking for the best, most imaginative and most original character and crowning them the category winner. The category winners will then be considered against each other and an overall Character Law winner will be announced. The Character Law winner will then be considered against the overall winners for Spell Law, Treasure Law and Creature Law and Arms Law (they will also have sub contests) to find an overall “Rolemaster’s 30th anniversary competition winner!”

So here’s April’s schedule:

Character from the realm of Arms (eg Fighter, Warrior Monk, Thief, Rogue, Laborer, Scholar etc) – 5/2 – 5/9

Character from the realm of Channeling (eg Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger etc) – 5/9 – 5/16

Character from the realm of Essence (eg Magician, Illusionist, Bard, Dabbler etc) – 5/16 – 5/23

Character from the realm of Mentalism (eg Mentalist, Lay Healer, Monk, Magent etc)- 5/23 – 5/30

Character from the Hybrid realms (eg Healer, Sorcerer, Mystic etc) – 5/30 – 6/6

Start submitting your characters now. We want to see them all.

Submit them HERE.

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Director’s Briefing – May 2013

Posted on May 2, 2013 by colinice



This is our twenty-second Briefing and is the fifth scheduled Briefing for 2013.

Shadow World: The Cloudlords of Tanara

Cloudlords of Tanara is back and is better than ever, combining material from the classic era and the current Kulthean timeframe, and includes RM2/Classic and RMSS/FRP stats. Available in pdf from the OneBookShelf ecommerce network (see RPGNow and also www.drivethrurpg.com ), it will also be available in standard colour softcover and hardcover. Indeed as I write this, the first hardbound copy has arrived with Terry and he’s indicated happiness with how it has turned out.

Shadow World: And More Early Editions

In last month’s Briefing, I indicated that the creation of RMSS stat blocks for the Early Editions was well underway. It is now almost complete – I have reviewed and approved the stat blocks for Emer 2, Eidolon, Haalkitaine, and Jaiman. The Emer I RMSS stat block is just awaiting some final material. These products need some replacement artwork and some new maps, so they will not instantly reappear, but while the artists and cartographers do their stuff, the next products to be released will be for:

HARP Fantasy

All the corrections have been made to the layout of HARP Fantasy and we’ve fixed the errata that eagle-eyed fans spotted. So if you have bought HARP Fantasy, please go immediately to www.rpgnow.com (or www.drivethrurpg.com or whichever OneBookShelf affiliate you bought it from) and download the updated version.

And that’s not all, the print-on-demand masters have been sent to OneBookShelf / Lightning Source and are now progressing through the system. At some point in the next couple of weeks, I will receive the proof copies and assuming no problems, we will be releasing HARP Fantasy in black&white softcover and hardcover formats.

And there’s more, layout has now commenced on HARP Martial Law with HARP College of Magics queued behind it. I hope that we will be able to release HARP Martial Law either at the end of May or the start of June, with HARP College of Magics a month later. You will remember that we ran a one-month special offer on HARP Fantasy in order to provide all HARP fans an opportunity to upgrade to the enhanced version. We are going to run special offers for both HARP Martial Law and HARP College of Magics – these will be time-limited again, so pay attention to the forums, our Facebook pages and the newsletters as Colin will be getting the word out, and you don’t want to miss these offers.

The Printing Survey

And speaking of Colin and of printing, many thanks to everyone who completed the print survey. Reading through the comments, there are a few misunderstandings that need to be cleared up as they may be preventing some of our fans from getting their hands on print copies.

1. One respondent indicated that he/she used DriveThru as a reason for not buying print-on-demand books from RPGNow. RPGNow.com and DriveThruRPG are the same company, merely different storefronts, so anything available on one site is available on the other, and in particular all our products are available on both.

2. One respondent was worried about being in the UK and whether the books could be shipped to the UK. OneBookShelf’s printing partner, LightningSource, uses two manufacturing plants for products printed through the programme. One of these is based in the USA, the other is based in the UK! So I get my proof copies made by the UK plant and delivered by Royal Mail.

3. One respondent was worried about how long it would take to get copies, and that it might take as long as four weeks. It takes two to five working days for the book to be printed; thereafter the shipping depends on how far it has to travel to reach you and how much you are prepared to pay for the shipping. Virtually all non-US customers get their books printed in the UK because it is easier in terms of customs and duties than coming from the USA plant – in particular customers in Canada normally get their books from the UK which is why shipping seems high for them.

Of course ordering a book over the internet lacks the immediacy of being able to walk into a store, make a purchase and walk away with the product in your hand. However, many of our customers no longer have the luxury of a friendly local games store, so print-on-demand really is ideal in that instance. It also has the advantage that once we make a book available via print-on-demand, it need never go out-of-print. A fan wants to buy a physical book, they pay their money, Lightning Source prints a copy of the book and ships it, and the postman delivers it. It is that simple. From GCP’s perspective, it means we don’t have to invest in warehousing, lock up capital in inventory which may or may not ever sell in a sensible timeframe (Aurigas still has unsold copies of Old ICE books published in the 1990s), or handle the logistics of shipping and handling (i.e. the company and you are not relying on my ability to package books or get to a post office).

With regard to the quality of the print-on-demand books, I’m certainly happy with them and I know that GCP freelancers and Aurigas staff who’ve received copies have been equally happy. Buy one and see for yourself.

Until next time

Rolemaster, Cyradon, HARP Bestiary and more projects are clamouring for my attention; the next scheduled Director’s Briefing will be in June, but keep watching for HARP Fantasy going to print and HARP Martial Law coming to pdf and the special discount offer for it.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

Director, Guild Companion Publications Ltd.

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New modules for Rolemaster in Fantasy Grounds

Posted on April 23, 2013 by colinice

Thanks to some brilliant work carried out by some of our amazing fans, there is now an updated version of Rolemaster Classic available in Fantasy Grounds with a whole bunch of improvements including two entirely new modules.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, Fantasy Grounds is an application that acts as a virtual gaming table which allows you to play with players from across the world as seamlessly as if you were sat in the same room.

The update includes:

  • Initial Stat Generation rolls (All 3 Character Law options included)
  • Stat Gain rolls (All 10 rolls can be completed in seconds)
  • Skill Development (Lots of options to help with adding and changing skills)
  • Spell Lists can be added quickly

In addition to this, the new version includes modules for The Armory and Rolemaster Fantasy Weapons, making it even simpler to play Rolemaster in Fantasy Grounds.

To play sign up to Fantasy Grounds now. Looking for players? Why not visit our forum and visit our gamers seeking gamers section.

To receive this and other Iron Crown Enterprises news and updates straight into your inbox, join our mailing list now.

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Iron Crown Newsletter – April 2013

Posted on April 22, 2013 by colinice

This month saw Iron Crown Enterprises first EVER (that I’m aware of) April fools joke. It may not have been particularly sophisticated but I thought it was pretty good. For those of you that got your hopes up, I’m afraid we will not be releasing Rollmaster, a supplement explaining the various ways of rolling dice. We are however releasing a number of much more exciting products so read on to find out more…

Catch up on what you’ve missed with this month’s Director’s Briefing.

Rolemaster

Last year we started a long line of competitions to celebrate Rolemaster's 30th anniversary, and now we're finishing them!

So far we have completed the Arms Law competitions and almost completed the Spell Law competitions. We'll then move on to Character Law, Treasure Law and Creature Law. Winners from these contests will then be voted on by the fans to select an overall winner in each category. The category winners will receive a hardcopy version of the corresponding new Rolemaster book. The winners will then compete against each other to find an overall "Rolemaster's 30th anniversary competition" winner!

This month we're looking for your best story involving Spell Mastery. For more information and rules visit our website. You've got until the end of the month to submit your stories via our our facebook page or our forum.

HARP

With other work completed (please see the settings section for this exciting piece of news) our team are now entirely focused on HARP and its upcoming releases.

It is still anyone's guess as to whether it will be College of Magics or Martial Law that will be first across the line and released first as they're currently both very close to completion.

In addition to these two great titles, HARP Bestiary is well under way with a whole host of writers working on the various types of creatures in an attempt to get it finished as soon as possible. On completion, we plan to offer all three books in harback color versions as well as the normal pdf. These will be available through the OneBookShelf network. We'll let you know the second they are made available so that you can rush out and order them.

Settings

This month has seen the release of the brilliant Shadow World: Cloudlords of Tanara. It is available now as a pdf from the OneBookShelf Network.

Buy it here!

Shadow World: Cloudlords of Tanara is a classic module of Shadow World, set in the east of the continent of Jaiman, and updated by Terry Amthor for play in both its original time era and the current Shadow World timeline.

The original Cloudlords of Tanara was set over three thousand years before the present time of 6056 in the Third Era. Some things are the same, but many things have changed. Groups dormant for ages have awakened again: The evil Cult of Ezran, the Priests Arnak, and even the Cloudlords themselves have returned from legend into stark reality. And the Elven-realm to the east, Urulan, long thought lost, has awakened again with a Queen wearing the ancient, magical Unicorn Crown. Turning back an invasion by the imperialist Rhakhaan Kingdom, she threatens the peace of Tanara, which now finds itself caught between two realms.

Partners

AppEndix

A few months back we brought you word of the brilliant "Murder at the Diogenes club", the Sherlock Holmes adventure book app made by our friends over at Appendix, well those smart folks are at it again and have just released an incredible preview to their next adventure "The black river emerald".

Watch the teaser trailer here. Keep watching the website, forum and social media pages and we'll let you know the second they release it in full.

PyCharGen

For those of you that haven't been on it our forum is a great little place filled with intelligent conversation about our favorite hobby and, in addition to these discussions, we sometimes have a fan send us something pretty special.

This month saw one of our fans post This. It is a brilliant Character Generator for the new Rolemaster system. I haven't had a chance to test it myself but it looks great. Keep up the good work guys!

To receive these and other updates, news and offers straight to your inbox sign up to our mailing list.

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Shadow World: The Cloudlords of Tanara OUT NOW!

Posted on April 19, 2013 by colinice


Available now from RPGNow Shadow World: The Cloudlords of Tanara.

A classic module of Shadow World, set in the east of the continent of Jaiman, and updated by Terry Amthor for play in both its original time era and the current Shadow World timeline.

The original Cloudlords of Tanara was set over three thousand years before the present time of 6056 in the Third Era. Some things are the same, but many things have changed. Groups dormant for ages have awakened again: The evil Cult of Ezran, the Priests Arnak, and even the Cloudlords themselves have returned from legend into stark reality. And the Elven-realm to the east, Urulan, long thought lost, has awakened again with a Queen wearing the ancient, magical Unicorn Crown. Turning back an invasion by the imperialist Rhakhaan Kingdom, she threatens the peace of Tanara, which now finds itself caught between two realms.

Cloudlords of Tanara

  • All the stats and information from the original time, c. 2500 TEI, plus new skill stats, and characters from the current time.
  • New material about the Coral Roads.
  • Updated history of the region.
  • Information on agents sent from mysterious Urulan.
  • New character backgrounds and adventure scenarios for 6056.
  • Stats for both Rolemaster Classic/RM2 and RMSS/FRP!
  • An eastern Jaiman map with more details of Urulan.

Buy it now from RPGNow

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