News about the New HARP (and a discount on the PDF)

I've been wondering about the HARP ruleset that suddenly shot up to the top 10 rankings of RPGNow and DriveThruRPG. It has the old new cover of the edition that I saw in the early 2000s, but what's inside?

Now, according to this news bit from Iron Crown Enterprises, we find out that there are indeed changes to the original 2003 and 2004 editions. Here's what the had to say:

• The Professions have been rebalanced in terms of their professional abilities
• Flat 50 Development Points is the default for calculating Development Points
• Races have been better balanced in terms of stat bonuses, some racial abilities have been revised, and Humans now get Skill Flexibility (the ability to make a single skill in a NonFavored category Favored)
• Blood Talents have been rebalanced in terms of Development Point cost
• The Mandatory Subskills rule has been incorporated from HARP SF
• Four new Influence skills have been added from HARP SF
• New talents have been added from HARP SF and Development Point costs of existing Talents have been properly balanced
• The use of Spell Adders and Power Point Adders has been clarified
• Clarifications and improvements have been made to the rules for Light & Vision, Fighting Blind, Asphyxiation and Holding Breath, Drowning and Stat Loss
• Life Points have been removed and the Stun rules made consistent with HARP SF
• All of the spells have had their base costs and scaling options made consistent with the revised spell creation system (to be published in the enhanced College of Magics) and descriptions have been clarified in specific cases
• Herb and poison prices have been rationalized
• A new monster creation system has been used to rework the monster collection with some monsters being replaced with new creatures
• Several magic items have had their effects adjusted
• The guidance on customizing clerics and magic users has been revised to better fit with the rules given in the enhanced College of Magics and future envisaged sourcebooks.
• The Language Table and associated rules have been made consistent with HARP SF
• The “Non-Adventuring Professions” have been removed – these will return in in a future sourcebook in a form suitable for PCs 

Furthermore there's a discount code on the PDF provided, allowing you to get the PDF (for a limited time until September 15th, 2012) for only $5.

Sound like a good deal?

Goodbye, ICE; Hello New ICE!

Snagged this news announcement over RPG.net:

Aurigas Aldebaron LLC, owner of Iron Crown Enterprises and all its intellectual property, announces the appointment of Guild Companion Publications Limited, based in the United Kingdom, as the licensee for our High Action Role Playing (“HARP”), Rolemaster and Spacemaster game systems, which is in addition to the recently awarded license they hold for HARP Science Fiction system and the long-running Shadow World setting. 

Aurigas Aldebaron LLC is instituting its vision of “next generation game company management” by reducing the number of vertical layers in the industry which stand between game creators and the fans that play such games. It is seeking game developers to utilise its additional properties including Cyberspace and the pirates-based game Run out the Guns!, and possibly the Silent Death game system Combat Express license. Its new strategy also includes more involvement from a community support and marketing perspective, and it expects to have some more involvement with its properties than it has had in its past. To support these efforts, Aurigas Aldebaron LLC has recruited third parties and volunteers to manage its licensee properties, relationships, website, forums and marketing efforts.

About Aurigas Aldebaron LLC: In December of 2001, Iron Crown Enterprises (“ICE”) and all its intellectual property was purchased by Aurigas Aldebaron LLC, a Virginia-based company backed by several wealthy individuals. Aurigas immediately replaced the former ICE management with part of the management team from ICE which formed itself into a separate company to manage ICE under license. Aurigas Aldebaron LLC will continue to act in a capacity of an intellectual property owner licensing its properties to qualified game creators and developers. It will continue to seek properties to acquire and additional game creators and developers to work with. For more information, please visit www.ironcrown.com.

About Guild Companion Publications Limited: Guild Companion Publications Limited is the commercial arm of the Guild Companion magazine (www.guildcompanion.com). Previously it published Rolemaster, HARP and Spacemaster products under license from Mjolnir LLC, and already holds a direct license from Aurigas Aldebaron LLC to publish HARP SF and Shadow World products, and its Director (Nicholas HM Caldwell) is the author of Rolemaster’s Mentalism Companion and Construct Companion, HARP’s College of Magics, and of the upcoming HARP SF and HARP SF Xtreme products. The new license arrangement with Aurigas Aldebaron LLC provides GCP Ltd a complete offering in fantasy and science-fiction gaming. GCP Ltd’s commercial products are available exclusively via the OneBookShelf network of ecommerce outlets (see http://www.rpgnow.com/index.php?manufacturers_id=461).

Guild Companion Publications Limited is a private limited company registered in England and Wales under No 7094505. Registered office: 77 Speedwell Close, Cambridge, CB1 9YS.

So, while there's a loss of the current holder of ICE intellectual properties, apparently a new group will be taking over the reins. And I've grabbed some stuff from Guild Companion for HARP (primarily to look at the system) and HARN (to look at the setting), so I'm hopeful.

My big interests here are more HARP and HARN and Shadow World, as I'm not a big fan of Rolemaster.