Rolemasterblog: My 2018 Retrospective.

Welcome to 2019! Peter and I usually do a look-back and a look-forward at year’s end so I thought I would start the process. First off, I spent some time looking over the past year; due to my work on opening a new business, my blog output dropped off considerably; I think I only posted about 50 times or 1x week on average.

It’s interesting to read back through the last year. While 12 months seems like a short time, I barely remembered what i blogged! Between work related writing, game material and blogging I’m sitting at a computer quite a bit. It blurs together. I definitely have a “fire & forget” process when it comes to blogging; I write quickly when something comes to the forefront or I’m stimulated by someone else’s post or thought and then it’s out of my mind.

3 Blog post(s) that I wrote that I wanted to revisit:

  1. The Messengers of the Iron Wind. I had fun with this and it forced me to finalize the specific spells lists for the six orders. I had most of them up to 10th lvl and used them for the Priests, but my overview made me rethink and now have the Messengers themselves with the order specific list. These are some of my favorite villains in Jaiman.
  2. Early ICE advertising in Dragon Magazines. This brought back a lot of old memories! I had a long running subscription to Dragon starting at around issue 75 and this gave me the chance to read the older Dragons from Issue #1 to #60 cover to cover. It was a D&D and Rolemaster flashback.
  3. Reviews of the Loremaster Series. (Iron Wind, Vog Mur, Cloudlords & Shade). Similar to the advertising review, I spend time really reading these modules again cover to cover; every word and try to reconcile them with my understanding of early I.C.E. and the evolution into Shadow World.

Rolemasterblog Adventures. 2018 wasn’t just blogging. Peter & Adrian really stepped up their game and published our 50 Adventures in 50 Weeks Challenge. We did it!…well mostly….I still have 3 left of my 25 still to be published. However, it was fantastic to go from concept to execution, see supplements reach metal status, generate hundreds of dollars and realize proof of concept in small publishing. To revisit the genesis of the project go HERE.

New faces and new ideas. 2018 brought us new writers and contributors to the blog. First in January, Brad posted a great article about the Magician; Spectre discussed “Absolute Success” thresholds in March and equipment combos in July, a tribute blog in August and an opinion piece on RMU this past December; Adrian (EGDCLTD) found time outside of publishing RMBlog adventures to write about RPG’s and complexity; starting in March we had a burst of great activity and new perspectives from Ovarwa who posted HERE, HERE, and an article on the “cost of charts” that generated a good bit of comments. Ovarwa, where did you go? In May we had another new poster, Bjorn, who started diving into HARP., returned in October to analyze falling in HARP.

Rolemasterblog hits puberty? To me, 2018 displayed a lot of maturing for the blog. A weekly adventure publication, monthly fanzine, new bloggers, new topics and coverage of other games. We are steadily approaching an inflection point where we will publish material with agnostic d100 stats compatible with Rolemaster and other systems. While the wait for RMU continues along, I wonder what RMBlog will bring to 2019?

What are your thoughts on 2018?

3 Replies to “Rolemasterblog: My 2018 Retrospective.”

  1. Apparently I published 137 posts in 2018.

    I do tend to ‘off load’ into my posts. I have an idea and I can fire off some ideas. Lots of these ideas flare up on the blog and then disappear for months only to reemerge in a bit more mature form.

    I am really pleased with the 50in50 adventures and I think we can do more and better in 2019. Right now I am playing with these beginner adventures.

    One reason you may not remember that much of your blogging could be that a fair few of them started off with a reference to blogging and whiskey?

    One of these ideas that has been bubbling away in the back of my mind for the past 6 months is the Guild Adventurer. There have been 4 of them in the past and they typically hold four or five adventures and run to 40 or fifty pages. I was going to write an entire issue and submit it to Nicholas but I have different plans now and these will come to fruition in 2019.

  2. Early ICE Advertising… How’s this for fun? I think I mentioned this in the other RM forum. I ordered three sets of books for my gaming friends for gifts this holiday. Three copies each of RMC-II and Elemental Companion. I was able to get near-mint condition, and store shelf quality books for prices ranging from $9 – $19. There were a couple used-quality copies as well. If any of you fans run into a sudden glut in the RM Companion market, you have me to thank. LOL

    Upon opening one of the store shelf copies, an advertisement fell onto the table “UPCOMING PRODUCTS FROM I.C.E. for 1984” It was great. What a kick in the ole memory chest to see all those “upcoming companions” and remembering when and where I bought them. The Game Keeper in Providence, RI. The Arcade Mall downtown.

    * – The oldest mall in the USA. The wooden floors are so old and warped, the upper levels are perilous to traverse. To get to the upper levels, one has to exit the building and go up the exterior stairs, then re-enter the building.

    http://arcadeprovidence.com/history/

    If you search for pictures of the mall, you’ll find much better than what the website provides.

    As this is a retrospective post, I have quite a few fond memories of the past year. I’ve discovered that level 1 PCs are every bit of fun (if not more) as my 5th level PC’s. Most of the readers here and there know that I’ve always started my players at 5th level because I first learned the game that way and those guys always started at 5th level. RM is deadly, PC creation is long, 5th level PC’s have a good fighting chance and spell casters can have some heft to their attacks. All of that was turned on its ear when I had a level 1 spell caster with two spell lists and no 1st level spells. He managed to play, to contribute, and to excel in the party by using his skills to his advantage. He’s level 2 now and can finally cast spells. The challenges are different and really fun to watch develop.

    I’ve seen this blog really take off and it is due to the steady contributors, the great and fleshed out posts (not simply single sentence remarks), the 50 in 50 material, the breadth and scope of ideas and topics, and the coverage of other games and systems. My favorite is the crowd sourced adventure we were working on and which I hope we continue to do soon as I’ve already started working in seedling ideas into the campaign I’m currently running.

    The party has noticed a pair of suspicious looking elves speaking to patrons in the Green Gryphon Inn. It appears to be some sort of clandestine deal of sorts. Days later, the party notices that only one or two of the patrons are at the Inn and they look disheveled and thoroughly beaten. They also notice the pair of elves are speaking to another group of seemingly hearty adventurers. Once the group is ready to tackle the challenges of the adventure, I’ll have the pair of elves approach them with an interesting offer.

    Looking into 2019, I’m hoping to see Devil’s Staircase explode off the electronic shelves, the 50 in 50 start up again, or maybe a 25 in 25. I’m hoping to contribute something to the 50 in 50. I’m anxiously awaiting the completion of the crowd sourced adventure. Maybe RMU will release a release date?

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