With Judge Dredd in the bag, we started looking for other licences
and we were way more ambitious now. We knew Star Wars was
out of our reach (ahem) but my other lifelong passion, Babylon
5, seemed ripe for an approach. After all, the series had been off
air for quite a while, nothing new was coming out – surely the
owners, Warner Brothers, would let it go for a song. Well, Alex
found the contact details, made an appointment, and then we
drove down to London to meet with the head of publishing.
We completely wowed them – and it was all down to Judge Dredd.
That colourful looking hardback was everything we needed to
prove we could handle B5 properly. I also have to say we took a
copy of The Babylon Project with us, and did some unfavourable
comparisons. Well, it certainly did not harm our case.
The deal was made, a traditional advance/royalties arrangement.
Our wallets were also $65,000 lighter – an amount I would be very,
very unlikely to pay for a pure RPG licence these days. However,
as it turned out, that was cheap. The royalties would blast past that
advance in just a few months. But that was for later.
Three interesting points about the Babylon 5 RPG. First off, it
took Warner Brothers an absolute age to process the contracts.
If you are a regular visitor of EN World, you may remember
me making various posts saying we are about to announce a
new licence, no it will be announced next week, no a bit later.
Frankly, it was embarrassing and it all happened because Warner
Brothers’ legal team promised us a date for the fi nal contract,
then another, then another. We know some visitors to EN World
were getting irate at this – not as much as we were! Anyway,
what Warner Brothers never knew and what I have never told
anyone up to now… The Babylon 5 RPG was completely
written and ready to go before we so much as sniffed a contract.
That was some risk, as they could have told us to bugger off at
any point. What can I say? Inspiration overtook me!
Second, this was also the time in which Agents of Gaming lost
their licence to produce the B5 Wars miniatures game. There
was some speculation at the time that we had ‘torpedoed’ them
by stealing the licence (something we could not refute at the
time as we had yet to sign the contract!) but, in truth, they
lost the licence because Warner Brothers felt they had taken
the licence as far they could take it. As it happens, Agents of
Gaming losing the licence was a massive boon for Mongoose,
but those events would take another 3 years to unfold – another
tale for another time.
Finally, I have a very clear memory of writing the B5 RPG. I
was sat, cross-legged on my bed, hunched over a laptop most of
the time. The rules had been mostly done and I was working on
the season guide chapter. This involved watching each episode
in turn, scribbling notes furiously as I went, constantly stopping
and pausing the video (no DVDs then!). Anyway, I fi nished one
episode and, gathering my notes to start transcribing them on
the laptop, I switched back to the BBC. There, right in front of
me, were the towers of the World Trade Centre, smoke billowing
out of them. To say this caught my eye is something of an
understatement and I watched, trying to fi gure out what had
happened.
The reporter was whittling on about how two planes had
crashed into the towers at separate intervals, and was speculating
whether it could be an accident or something else. Now, I
know a little about aviation and knew there was no way that
could be an accident without an incredible set of circumstances.
I twigged it was terrorism (growing up through the 80’s in
the UK, you tend to pick up on the vibes). So, I carried on
watching, waiting for more news about the event to unfold
– when, without warning, one of the towers came down. I cast a
suspicious eye on the second tower, wondering when that would
go too.
Anyway, just thought I would lighten the mood there.
