Arthaus reverts rights to Ravenloft and Gamma World back to Wotc

[Wraith Form]

THANK YOU GOD!!!

"Great Job" my ass. White Wolf completely buggered Gamma World. Not only did they botch the setting, but the books themselves are misleading and completely useless.

Gamma World had two key concepts throughout the previous editions. One, anything goes fun. You did not play GW for gritty, realistic Post-Apocalyptic roleplaying. If you want that play Twilight 2000. You played Gamma World so that you could play bizarre characters fighting wierd menaces and encountering robots, mutants and strange artifacts.

Second, you played GW so you could have strangely mutated characters and NPC's. Gutting the mutation system in GW is like taking the magic out of D&D. Sure you can do it, but why would you?

Also, the amount of typos was mindboggling. In some cases, you have to read two sentences past to figure out what they were trying to say in another sentence.

The incompetence in publishing was matched only by their indifference and lack of support. The official WW GW site has not been updated since the initial launch.

The rule books themselves don't offer a setting. They offer bits of settings and tons of advice on how to run a RPG in general. While stuff like that can be helpful, that's not what I paid my money for.

I dropped my money on the game, and with each book I kept hoping it would improve. I kept hoping that maybe WW would listen to the gamers and "fix" the damage. Of course, that didn't happen and now I've got 20-30 pounds of wasted paper sitting on my shelves.

Now I have a real excuse to clearance price the Ravenloft and Gamma World books at the store.

Hmm... you should just put them in the restrooms at GenCon, in case they run out of toilet paper.

God, keep the bashing to yourself.

Some of us will mourn the death of these product lines, as they won't get any new treatments or updates, and will fade into obscurity.

 

[shaylon]

Well I will add that I find this disappointing. When I started playing back in the end of the 1E rise of the 2E days, Ravenloft was one of my first adventures. I always enjoyed the dark setting and even though I do not play anything in RL currently it is sad to think that one of the old settings will yet again fade away.

I truly hope WoTC does something with this, although like most of you I am guessing they will let it die.

-Shay

 

[Darth Mikey]

God, keep the bashing to yourself.

Nope.

Some of us will mourn the death of these product lines, as they won't get any new treatments or updates, and will fade into obscurity.

You cannot seriously tell me you're going to mourn White Wolf's version of Gamma World.

Ravenloft, I could see people mourning. But, the setting was dumped before and it was kept going by indviduals online (the Kargatane) until WW picked it up. It would not surprise me at all if the online community kept right on going. Especially if the already published material is as good as people say it is.

Gamma World was already obscure. After the debacles around the last two attempts, I don't expect to see it again.

 

[mcrow]

I doubt we will see these two settings published ever again. It takes a large amount of money to get the rights to any of WotC's IP's and all the big players in the RPG industry are droping IPs like hot patatos. The market is just to risky these days to have to try an cover the extra expenses when publishing IPs.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Gamma World was already obscure. After the debacles around the last two attempts, I don't expect to see it again.

I don't recall much of a debacle over the Alternity version-- and I do remember it being a quality game. It was unfortunate that it didn't receive the support of a whole product line.

There was even an article in Dragon that corrected the oversight about mutant animals.

 

[DaveMage]

The market is just to risky these days to have to try an cover the extra expenses when publishing IPs.

Mongoose Publishing might disagree with you about that.

 

[Ghostwind]

While the loss of Ravenloft is regretable, there are other choices for material that has a very Ravenloft-esque feel. It's called Midnight.

 

[mcrow]

Mongoose Publishing might disagree with you about that.

yeah, Mongoose is the one exception(that I know of). I haven't really noticed anyone other them taking on significant IPs, but it seems to work for them.

 

[MaxKaladin]

Mixed feelings here. On the one hand, I feel sorry for the fans who wanted to see their favorites in print. On the other hand, I've never been a big fan of either one and I developed a real dislike for Ravenloft back in the 90s when I heard so many "game-gone-bad" stories that started off with "We were having a lot of fun playing a regular fantasy game and then the GM decided it would be fun to suck us into Ravenloft..."

Anyway, I seriously doubt either will see print from WotC because they're very careful about splitting the market. Gamma World probably has a better chance than Ravenloft because they can publish it as a d20 Future book or something, but I doubt they're going to do much with either.

 

[Darth Mikey]

I don't recall much of a debacle over the Alternity version-- and I do remember it being a quality game. It was unfortunate that it didn't receive the support of a whole product line.

There was even an article in Dragon that corrected the oversight about mutant animals.

The Alternity version was essentially dumped on the market as a "favor" to the gamers. It was already common knowledge that there would be no support and no additional books. Not only that, but it was also common knowledge that the entire Alternity line was dead. Rumors were already circulating about D&D 3.0 and how it was going to revolutionize gaming.

They almost encouraged you not to buy it.

Maybe debacle was too strong a word.

Or maybe I'm just bitter...