Those ‘between the years’ days

I confess that I haven’t so much as read Core Lore yet. I started to, I read the first dozen pages, but I have no one to play it with at the moment, we have an ongoing 5e campaign, and one of my main RM players is busy with other stuff, so my game is on hiatus again.

I then decided that I would wait for Spell Law to arrive, hoping that it would be before Christmas and I could then read and make characters and maybe run a one-shot in this odd week between Christmas and new year.

No Spell Law, and my reading goals have gone awry as I had books for Christmas which have been taking my attention.

I am impressed that RMu is still the No.1 best selling title on DTRPG nearly a month after its release. That is no mean feat. It has been momentarily displaced by War Hammer and Traveler, but to take the top spot back again is even more impressive. It is much more common for titles that lost that top spot to start to slide down the rankings.

So far the book has sold between 500 and 1000 copies. I hadn’t realised that the RM community was that big, and I am assuming that the magic here is that old Rolemaster was such an iconic game system that there are a lot of people that played it decades ago and are curious about the new edition.

We, as a hobby, are terrible for buying games that we will probably never get to play. I hope that those people that are not Rolemaster die-hards are not just buying Core Law just to collect it.

This is where ICE struggles a little. There is no introductory adventure included in Core Law, and with all attention focused on the core books and getting them published, there is not likely to be an official introductory adventure coming any time soon.

I think that is a real pity.

I think that I will use this idea to make a Core Law only introductory adventure issue of the fanzine and kick that back into life.

But, for that to happen I will really have to read the rules and make some characters. Maybe this is the motivation I need?

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4 Replies to “Those ‘between the years’ days”

  1. I was thinking about the release of Core Law recently… I really think they should have released the Core Law and Spell Law pdfs at the same time, even if they just did a few proof copies of Core Law to sell at Dragonmeet. People would have had the full player material to look at and proofread.
    Ideally, combined with a small FREE adventure in pdf…. this could include a sample of creatures and treasures without worrying about all the backing information that will go into TL and CrL 1/2… something simple like a classic trope – missing caravan, ruined keep in the woods taken over by brigands, hidden unquiet tomb beneath it…. and have it up on Drivethrurpg, rather than tucked away in the Vault.

    1. I would probably sent Core Law out to reviewers, as it was ready, but no on general release, and then released Core and Spell at the same same.

  2. I think an introductory low magic adventure would be a great additional to RMU. The mechanics are different enough that leaving magic buy the side might ease someone’s transition or introduction.

    In terms of what kind of adventure? There are so many conventional if not overused ideas. The rescue; the kidnapped royal. The hunt; find the bandit camp in the forest. The heist; raid the kings treasury.

    Great thought and insights.

  3. It might stay there until CDPR does something with Cyberpunk 2077 again, and that will boost that ruleset back into number one in my view. There seems to be a direct connection between that system and developments in the video game when it comes to sales. Haven’t seen it as much with Witcher, but you can expect it once CDPR comes out with even a teaser clip from one of their new Witcher games (supposedly they have around three in development).

    That said, I agree shipping RMU without any kind of adventure was a mistake. Even if it’s a generic “no setting” dungeon crawl people need something to mess with, especially newcomers. The two games you mentioned, Peter, both have strong settings and links to those settings. The same goes for Cyberpunk and Witcher. RMU has…well…RMU and a “demi-official” setting in Shadow World (which hasn’t been converted in any way to work with RMU). People need a way in to a system, and they’re not giving them one.

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