d20 Sci-Fi: where is Babylon 5?

[Winterthorn]

Hey folks,

A month ago I copied from the Wizard's Homebrew about 20 pages of B5 stuff created by Giant in the Playground. (I can't find the link right now, sorry.) He did excellent stuff borrowing ideas from the Star Wars RPG and a few other sources--I believe he owns that first B5 RPG that came a few years ago... I'm am wondering if anyone has heard if a publisher is putting anything new to print? I know that Mr. Stravinski (sp?), the creator, has licenced material "out there" to someone for an RPG.

Any news?

I think, after seeing the rules from other non-fantasy d20 games coming out, Babylon 5 deserves some attention. I am looking forward to the T20 (that's Traveller a la d20 if you're wondering) hardback core rules coming out this month (over 450 pages!). I read a few days ago that all gaming stores in North America should have access to it around October 21st. Yay! I figure T20 will set the bar for a B5 game--even if we GM's have to create our own version.

What does everyone think?

-W.

 

[Gallowglass]

d20 Babylon 5

From JMS's recent comments that someone else has taken up the RPG license, I do wonder whether it will be a d20 publisher, especially given how popular established licenses seem to be with the more commercially savvy companies (Mongoose and the 200AD characters; WotC has WoT, SW, CoC; AEG have done Farscape).

Sadly I think QuickLink Interactive are too small themselves to take on B5 as well as their ambitious plans for Traveller (and they appear to have the sense to realise that, which is very encouraging!).

My own, half finished Traveller B5 conversion (partly derived from the T4.1/T5 draft that's been circulating) languishes unfinished because T20 looks good. Some of the fundemental technology will need sorting out (Ships, Jump gates, PPG's ) but its not ahuge amount of work, and of course a lot of the Travellers Handbook is OGC as I understand it.

So an enterprising d20 publisher with the B5 license could wait for T20, then use a significant chunk of the T20 OGC, with their own work covering the variant technologies, and licensing from WB cover the setting specific PI. Hmm, I wonder in fact if someone has appraoched QLI to not only ask permission, but possibly get a head start?

Nice idea even if it's not true...

 

[Winterthorn]

Hey, I acquired a link to Giant in the Playground's discussion of his d20 rules for Babylon 5!

Try this!

Have fun.

-W.

 

[Darrin Drader]

Just a question here. I started with the material Giant in the Playground created, added stuff that I've found from various websites, and mixed in a healthy amount of OGC. Once I'm done compiling and editing this monstrosity, does anyone have a website that would be willing to post it? So far I'm trying to stay D20 compliant, but even so, by just using B5 material, it violates copyright law, and I have not checked with the owners of the websites (yet).

So far I've created a spell list for the technomage, revamped the D20 weapons table to weed out the ones that aren't very B5'ish, added PPG's and other trademark weapons, and I'm working on armor now. I've also added a great deal of background info that I pulled from various websites. I have racial information for the Drakh. I keep going back and forth between adding the combat system info in, or just the relevant changes. Still needs prestige classes.

 

[Eosin the Red]

As a huge B5 fan and the webmaster of an already legaly rooked site (WoT d20). I will be glad to plug your B5 into cyberspace - with permission for the web stuff you got (it sounds like you were gonna get that anyway).

Doing a pretty big overhaul on the site right now and getting all of the formating the same within each section, so throwing in a whole new section won't be that big of a deal ~ link is in the sig.


Email is eosin_the_red@cox.net we can talk particulars.

 

[Morgenstern]

Hehh...

You might want to check out the Spycraft lite download and the preview material for the classes at www.spycraftrpg.com for ideas. It's already tuned for a modern (firearms) combat environment...

 

[Darrin Drader]

I already have Spycraft and Shadow Force Archer. There is some excellent material in there that can be mined, but I'm not sure that the character classes really work for B5. Thanks for the suggestion though.

 

[Morgenstern]

What sort of archetypes (classes) were you looking at having in B5. Wheelmen are figter jocks. Slueth makes a good security director. Pointman in operations. Explorer is an explorer . Snoops for Earth gov spooks. Facemen con men down in the zoccalo <sp?>. Ok, it's not a perfect match for everybody, but there was an awful lot of espionage going on in that setting...

 

[Darrin Drader]

In all honesty, I want to give the classes designed by Giant in the Playground (see the link above) a shot before switching to classes designed for a different game.

On the other hand, this will also need prestige classes, and I haven't even begun thinking about what should go in there. Giant has, and I may be willing to lift them from other sources if they make sense within the context of the setting.

 

[GiantInThePlayground]

Hey! Wow, I'm happy to see people enjoying my long-lost conversion. I'll admit the copyright issues are a bit dicey; it uses B5 info, plus non-OGL rules from Star Wars. Though I imagine it would be easy to swap in d20 Modern for the Star Wars stuff when that comes out.

Anyway, I would love to be involved in whatever is begotten somewhere on the web. I had a lot of ideas I never posted, paticularly on the various Non-Aligned Races and some Prestige Classes. If you guys are serious about getting this together, you can count me in.

Heh, I sign up for this message board this week, and people were already talking about me!