The Rolemaster Blog

With Terry’s unfortunate passing we are left with 2 basic dilemmas: understanding Terry’s thoughts and intents with material he had written and published, and guidance, ideas and rules for any new material that might be published. We will never have any new “Ask Andraax” articles or threads where Terry can answer player and SW user questions, clarify his material or adjudicate any conflicts in the material. So how can we move forward with “WWTS”? Obviously we can rely on what has been written: forum posts, interviews, comments and of course all of his original Shadow World material. But how should we utilize these resources?

One guideline that we can refer to is the concept of Orginialism. This is a term used in American law that guides the view of legal and constitutional interpretation using the context of the founding authors when they wrote it. The same rough idea can be used when viewing the written works of Terry as it relates to Shadow World. Terry was pretty clear about some of his greatest influences: anime, Star Trek, Dune, art, architecture and his experiences travelling overseas (Italy specifically). There is also the thought line that runs simultaneously through the development of the Loremaster series and the early MERP modules. His SW books, which could vary in tonality, was still a consistent work product. Each new book built upon the last without significant retcons needed. This is not simply about “Canon”, but about applying Terry’s ethos, influences and aesthetic style when reviewing new work.

This is a subject I’m going to write more about in lieu of possible new SW material, adaption of RMU for SW and even to influence the thought process around Shadow World development. To be clear, SW Originialism only relies on Canon material for guidance and interpretation. This is not to say that SW adjacent material: Sea Law, Races & Cultures, or even non Terry SW modules are useless. Most are solid products, useable in play and can add to the SW body of work. But that material wasn’t imagined, inspired or specifically included by Terry even if he had some level of approval or editorial control.

While there will be different opinions, styles of play and inclinations among SW users, I certainly think that volume of books that Terry wrote over the years provides enough material to make informed decisions about new material.

I started this blog ten years ago (7th November 2014). The question that kicked it all off was “Where is all the playable material?” from someone who pointed at all the supporting material posted on blogs for many game systems. People sharing adventures, or just adventure seeds, and homebrew content.

When I started, I thought RMU was just around the corner, and I still hope that they will publish the last of the core rules within the next year.

I have mostly dropped off the blog for the last couple of years. Partly, it was RMU frustrations. My group won’t play RMU because it isn’t finished. There are no monsters; it is just the core rules and none of the options they are used to. It isn’t similar enough to the game they grew up with. They don’t want to learn a new version, and characters feel underpowered. It wasn’t fun. That is quite a basket of grumbles. Getting them to give up RM2 and move the RMC was hard enough, which is ostensibly the same game.

Over the past ten years, there have been times when I have doubted that RMU will ever be finished. That fear kicked off one of my own projects, now called BME or Bare Metal Edition.

For me, the big problem remains, where is the playable material? Who is writing adventures for RMU?

My experience in RPG publishing both as an indie publisher, as an art director for Grim & Perilous Studios, and doing freelance work, has shown me that none of the big publishers can make adventures pay. Wizards of the Coast don’t produce modules like most of us grew up with. They produce one or maybe two substantial adventure paths each year and focus all their marketing power on just one or two books to get the sales volume to make them pay.

Many bigger publishers have community content programs. The idea is that we, the fans, create the adventures using their intellectual property. The publisher takes 10%- 20% of the cover price, the fan gets 50%- 60%, and the rest goes to DriveThruRPG/Roll20, who runs the stores. This model worked for a short while. Most of the community content programs are now effectively dead in the water. A handful still function. The flaw in the model is that the same volumes are so low that the publisher’s 10%-20% take did not cover the expense of them having someone manage the program and promoting the titles. No promotion -> No sales -> No Income -> No promotion. A death spiral.

For the last five years, DriveThruRPG/Roll20 has said that there will be no more community content programs except for the ones where they are already in talks with the publisher. More have shut down than have been created in that time, and as far as I can tell, there is only one more in the pipeline.

Even if Colin at ICE had the time to promote a CCP, ICE would probably not be able to set one up. Too late to the party.

ICE cannot afford to write adventures that won’t make money. Their only option is to ask us to write adventures and then offer us a royalty payment. That means we take all the risks, writing stuff that gets binned if Nicholas doesn’t like it. Nicholas is one man; he cannot do everything and has a day job. There are stories I know to be true of works that have been written, submitted, accepted, and shelved for years. That is no way to treat your fan base trying to help the game survive.

So where are the adventures going to come from?

When I started the fanzine, I wanted that to have at least an adventure a month, but that was a struggle. When RMU started to appear as books I hoped my players would adopt it, but that didn’t happen. It is hard to write adventures when your players won’t play the game.

The fanzine is not dead; it is just sleeping.

This brings me to BME, Bare Metal Edition. These are Rolemaster retro-clones. I have taken open-game content and a bare-bones set of Rolemaster-style rules and done translations. Slowly but steadily, I am crawling through the different genres. So far, we have Sci-Fi/Space Opera, Fantasy, Cthulhu, Zorro, and WWII. Every game is cross-compatible, so you can mix and match elements from each game.

The core concept in BME is openness. Anyone can write for it, publish adventures for it, or create supplemental material. Write an adventure and sell it, and you get to keep all the money. I typically produce two iterations of the game each year: one in the Spring and one in the Fall.

The other thing I am building for it is conversion rules. The first set is conversion tools from Traveller to the Sci-Fi game. I already have some Traveller adventures and am bringing on a new writer who wants to write for Traveller and Cepheus Deluxe. Those adventures can then be ported to BME.

I just really wish that ICE could embrace the concept of openness. Would I rather be creating for Rolemaster? Do I think other people would want to write for the game? Would people want to take the core of RMU to work up a Space Master Unified? Yes to all of the above is my guess.

You don’t have to give away all your intellectual property. ICE could create a document that contains just the core of the system. Just enough to create a viable NPC, a selection of spells (like the ones that Rolemaster borrowed from D&D in the first place) and some monsters, and then make that single document Creative Commons Attribution. Bolt on an RMU-compatible logo, and I would nearly guarantee that we would see RMU-compatible adventures appearing within weeks. With that in place, the popularity of RMU would increase, and I would expect the sales of all the core books to uptick along with it.

Unfortunately, Nicholas does not do openness. Which is his prerogative; he owns the IP.