What a day it was at this year’s Dragonmeet! Let me start by saying a huge thanks to everyone involved in running the convention and everyone who attended and took the time to come and see us, talk to us and buy from us. Special mention to Order of the Iron Crown member Chris Seal who came down all the way from Manchester to run a game and help out.
This year’s convention saw over 1,500 attendees and, as Iron Crown Enterprises’ first convention in a very long time, was incredibly successful. There were of course areas that we’d look to improve upon for the next convention we attend, but all in all it was a really great day.
Chris Seal’s Rolemaster game was fully booked and really well received by all who played. The Iron Crown Enterprises raffle was also a huge success with one lucky winner walking away with a complete set of Rolemaster Classic rulebooks.
It was nice to see so many ICE fans and so many people with memories of playing ICE roleplaying games. A number of people commented how nice it was to see ICE so active in the market and back at conventions. It was really great to hear and we’re now thinking about next year’s Dragonmeet and a sustainable way of extending our convention attendance.
I had a great day at Dragonmeet. It wasn’t all the games, the stalls or the competitions that made it great for me, it was the people. Everyone (even those with no previous experience or interest in Iron Crown) was so nice and friendly that the day whizzed past. It reaffirmed what I already knew (but sometimes forget) that the gaming industry is an amazing industry to work in. Fans, publishers and retailers, really are some of the nicest people I have ever met.
Dragonmeet Round-up
Dragonmeet here I come!
As I’m sure you all know by now (I’ve been talking about it for the past few months), this weekend some of the Iron Crown Enterprises team (including myself) will be heading off to Dragonmeet at the Ibis hotel Earls Court and ILEC convention center, London.
I’m excited about it for a number of reasons. Personally I’m pretty new to the convention game. I attended Dragonmeet two years ago with a couple of the Iron Crown team to scope it out, run some games and get a feel for what the convention was like. I have to admit, for my first ever convention, it didn’t disappoint. It took all my energy not to run around like a child buying everything in sight.
In addition to wandering about in wide eyed amazement at how awesome everything was, I also got the chance to sit down and play a game of HARP GMd by none other than Guild Companion Publications Director Nicholas Caldwell. It was brilliant fun. Everyone at the table enjoyed it (despite running over the allotted time by quite some way) and it was good to get some thoughts and opinions from people who had never played HARP before.
This year however is a completely different kettle of fish. This year we’re not just turning up for a stroll around the stalls and some gaming. This year we mean business. As a testament to just how serious we are about this year’s Dragonmeet, we’ve been holding weekly team catch ups for the past month to check that we have everything. I myself have a stack of merchandise, table furnishings and other trinkets so high that it is threatening to engulf my tiny work space.
This year we’re running a stool, selling hardcover, softcover and pdf products, running a raffle, handing out a few cool giveaways, selling ICE merchandise and running a really cool competition with our friends from Arion games. I can’t wait!
Needless to say, it has been a long journey to get everything prepared and ready for this weekend but I’ve really enjoyed it and I have a sneaking suspicion I’m going to enjoy Dragonmeet even more. If you’re in London this Saturday, why not pop by and say hello, peruse our products and enter our competitions. If you’re not in London, don’t feel too left out. I’ll be tweeting throughout the day and I’ll post a blog with all the pictures at the end of it.
Hope to see you there.
Iron Crown Enterprises Newsletter – November 2014
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It has been another busy month this month. We currently have a number of big projects on the go and everyone has been knuckling down and working hard to get things finished. While there’s no huge announcements yet, we’re edging ever closer to our next release..
Catch up on what you’ve missed with this month’s Director’s Briefing.
ROLEMASTER
Unified Rolemaster continues to edge towards handover into rapid layout and second beta release.
Everyone is itching to get at the next phase; no one wants to awaken the dread curse of Murphy. We will let you know the second it has been added to the forum for download.
THE ORDER OF THE IRON CROWN
We are now a matter of weeks away from attending Dragonmeet and I for one could not be more excited.
We have all sorts of goodies to take with us including products and merchandise to sell and to offer as prizes for a number of brilliant competitions.
If you’re in the UK and fancy popping in to say hello, Dragonmeet will be at the Ibis hotel Earths Court and ILEC Convention Centre on Saturday 6th December from 10am – Midnight.
SETTINGS
The brand new adventure module ‘Tales from the Green Gryphon Inn’ is still awaiting a few final pieces of artwork before being sent to RPGNow ready for sale.
We fully expect to make the pdf available in the not too distant future with hardcover and softcover formats following soon after.
Terry continues his work on Eidolon and Emer II revisions as well as editing a Lethys city module.
HARP
We now have a complete draft of HARP Folkways and Nicholas is looking forward to a very enjoyable read and editing pass.
Work on the bestiary continues with John Duffield making Dragons anew for HARP and Nicholas working on power levels for classic Undead and how many variant power levels will be presented for Wraiths and Wights, etc.
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The Order of the Iron Crown in Fresno, CA
Recently a member of the Order of the Iron Crown ran a Rolemaster demo game in the crazy squirrel game store in Fresno, CA for charity. Here’s what he had to say about the event:
“Things Went well the turnout was amazing. I had 5 players for the demo. We went through the whole character creation process in the first session then did a nice adventure. Things went so well I am now running a RM2 game every Thursday evening at The Crazy Squirrel. The event raised a lot of cash for the Valley Children’s Hospital. The Owner of the store is very community oriented. Over all it was a rousing success even GMing over the people dancing to The Y.M.C.A. Not my choice of songs 🙂 I found many folks who were familiar with ICE products and were delighted to see us playing RM. I am sure when and if ICE products are more available the store will gladly stock them.”
A huge thanks to MikeG for organising and running the game and to everyone who attended the event, played Rolemaster and contributed time and money to a very worthy cause. If you are interested in running an ICE game at a local event or would like the chance to earn rewards for promoting ICE and our products by becoming a member of the Order of the Iron Crown, check out the Order webpage for details.
Director’s Briefing – November 2014
Welcome to the forty-first Briefing and the eleventh scheduled Briefing for 2014.
Missing cats
At one of the stations on my morning commute, there is an advertising stand for the regional daily newspaper, which displays the headline for the day in an effort to drum up sales. Usually these are of a parochial nature but one caught my eye – “Dozens of cats missing” – and this is a headline that has reappeared a couple of times. Apparently in one of the local towns, lots of domestic cats have gone missing. Now doubtless there is a prosaic explanation for this (which I have no interest in) but I was reminded of Tolkien’s minor comment about “the cats of Queen Beruthiel” which in Unfinished Tales were described as being her spies, and also of the adventure seed involving an errant shapeshifting Maia and a religious cult in one Middle-Earth supplement. Transposing the disappearance of pets to a fantasy setting, there are possibilities for low-level adventures involving strange predators, were-creatures drawing animals to their rule, one or more mages / witches requiring the creatures for magical rituals or searching for the perfect familiar, and so on. I offer this as an instance where a GM can use the odd in the contemporary world as a spark of creativity for scenario writing.
ERA for Rolemaster
At the start of October, we were able to launch ERA (Electronic Roleplaying Assistant) for Rolemaster by Maximiliano Tabacman. This character management software package 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. The base software package is available for free and you can purchase prebuilt data sets for RMC Arms Law, Spell Law, and Character Law. An update to all three platform-specific (Windows, Mac, Linux) packages has been recently made which will make the process of installing data set files easier. If you have any difficulties with any part of ERA, please post your queries on the Rolemaster Software discussion board.
ERA’s base package has had almost five hundred downloads so far from RPGNow, so thanks to everyone who has tried it out, and even more thanks to those customers who have purchased data files. With ERA joining AutoHARP and Rolemaster Combat Minion in our commercial software offerings, GCP moved into the #2 spot for computer software sales in October across OneBookShelf. For comparison, we are routinely in the top 20 for print-on-demand sales, and in the top 30 when sales of everything are considered. Note there are over 1700 active publishers across OneBookShelf.
HARP
HARP Bestiary continues to make incremental progress and we are accumulating ever more animals and monsters. We are by no means complete yet, but we do now have a greater selection of material to support module writers. I am also going to formally pull in the rewriting of the Bestiary chapter for the Cyradon main book into the HARP Bestiary team’s remit as that is the key chapter still needing fixing there.
The consequence of delays in second drafts of Bestiary chapters is that The Guild Adventurer #4 is still in a holding pattern.
Some really good news is that Jonathan Cassie has been making great progress with HARP Folkways. He is currently working on example culture writeups for Shadow World and Cyradon, and then only has two more chapters to write.
Tales from the Green Gryphon Inn
Unfortunately some of the artwork has yet to arrive for “Tales from the Green Gryphon Inn”, so we were not able to release it in pdf last month. The moment it does arrive, Terry and I will get it prepped and safely out as pdf. It is now looking much less likely that it will be ready as a print edition for Dragonmeet.
Terry is not twiddling his thumbs – he’s writing and editing on other manuscripts.
Unified Rolemaster
Edited manuscripts are still not ready to hand over to me. I hope that the team will be able to deliver material in a fit state to me that I have time to deploy it in the Rolemaster mini-game at Dragonmeet next month. If not, we will use RMC combat rules instead.
Dragonmeet 2014
Colin continues to run around doing some of our logistical preparation, the card payment reader is on order, and the print inventory is with John Seal for transport to the convention site. We expect to also be able to burn cds with pdfs for people who’d like to purchase our products in pdf.
John Seal has a HARP scenario to run, Chris Seal will be running Rolemaster, and I will either run HARP SF or a Cyradon adventure. We would love to see lots of ICE fans at Dragonmeet and UK members of the Order of the Iron Crown are very welcome to participate.
Full details on Dragonmeet are available on their website at www.dragonmeet.co.uk
Until next time
Back to work for me. The next scheduled Briefing will be in December.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
Director, Guild Companion Publications Ltd.
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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
Reading 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!
Iron 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.
If you would like to receive the Director’s Briefing straight to your inbox each month, you can sign up to our mailing list HERE.
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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