Mongoose in 2006 (and a bit on the Industry in General)

[The_Gunslinger658]

Hi-

I'm guessing Greyhawk or Planscape.


Scott

 

[johnsemlak]

I have little knowledge of such things, but I am going to guess offhand that a Harry Potter license might be a tad expensive for Mongoose, right now. It must be one of the most valuable properties in the world at the moment. I would think it would have to be handled by a 'big' RPG publisher (i.e. most likely WotC/Hasbro). Plus, I think the bigger publishers would be crazy to let HP get snagged by a significantly smaller publisher (unless the big boys simply determined that a HP license wasn't worth the hassle or costs, in which case I'd predict that the result would be no HP RPG, for the near future).

Monty Python is a good guess considering hte 'Holy Grail' clue, but my question is, how much material is there in the film for an RPG? It gets quoted extensively at RPG tables, but it's not an RPG world really. I can''t imagine it being anything but a one-off parody RPG release (which woudl be a big release admittedly, and could work that way).

I think Indiana Jones is as good a guess as any, as is Dune.

 

[mythusmage]

Warning, Wild Speculation

Foundation (etc.) by Isaac Asimov et. al.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

To me the Holy Grail of Gaming would be The Known World, also known as Mystara, as unlikely as it may be.

 

[MongooseMatt]

As a BR fan, this sounds pretty good. I wonder if this replaced Mongoose's previously cancelled BR clone (whose name I forget)...

Bloodlines - and yes, this is its replacement. Hyboria just seems. . . the right setting for this kind of game.

 

[Banshee16]

Heh, seriously though, I'm not sure which Holy Grails of RPGs are left.

Dune?

I would love to see somebody finally produce a Midkemia D20 adaptation, personally..

I think Mongoose or Green Ronin are two companies who could do it well.

Dune would also be cool.

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

Little overdue for an update, isn't it?

I e-mailed Midkemia Press about two months ago, asking about that, and never received a response....now maybe they don't care to respond, maybe they've decided it's a dumb idea and scrapped it, maybe it's dead, or maybe something is under negotiations, and for various reasons they're not permitted to reveal anything yet.

I know the author was resistant to D&D, but I'm not sure whether he was resistant because of the old 2nd Ed. rules, because of the 3E rules, or because he's been shown that D20/OGL could be used to represent his setting and isn't confident in it. Or maybe he was thinking a WotC D&D setting, as opposed to OGL or something.

If Green Ronin can turn out "Black Company Campaign Setting", Mongoose "Conan", or Guardians of Order "A Game of Thrones" as RPGs, and each of them do as complete adaptations as they have, I see no reason a really well done Midkemia setting couldn't be done. I'd probably reboot my campaign and go Midkemia in a heartbeat if someone *does* do it. As it stands, I guess I could do it myself, but that's so much work and research for a homebrew.

Banshee

 

[mearls]

The world of the Dark Border by Paul Edwin Zimmer would be a very cool realm to adventure in, but fairly far from Grail status.

I always thought that Zimmer's work was highly underrated. His "A Gathering of Heroes" is to me the iconic form of an epic level D&D adventure.

It's a pretty nifty novel. The Bad Guys launch an invasion to seize a castle that guards an uber-artifact. The Good Guys gather the 100 most powerful heroes in the world to defend the place against vast, endless hordes of goblins, dragons, and other beasties, including a Cthulhoid sort of terror. Good stuff.

 

[Banshee16]

There's only really a few licences (IMO) that could be considered big enough to be "holy grail" material. These, IMO would have to be something with a massive appeal across a number of different types of media (TV, Film, Literature, comics, etc)

Middle Earth
Harry Potter
The Matrix
Marvel universe
DC universe
Star Wars
Star Trek

Much as I would love to see them, I don't think Eddings, Gemmel or Feist's worlds would fit that description, and so probably aren't big enough to be considered "Holy Grail" material. As would be Dr Who, given that its only just come back after a long period of obscurity.

Given that Middle earth, Marvel, Star wars and trek are, to my knowledge, already taken, It leaves us with Potter, the Matrix or DC.

If the comment above is true, that Rowling doesn't like RPGs (she's a funny woman, that one ), then I think we can rule out potter.

Which leaves DC or the Matrix. Much as it pains me to say it (because of Etherscope coming out soon), the Matrix would seem to me to be the most likely. Maybe I'm paranoid... any thoughts?

Ben

Why wouldn't Midkemia be popular enough? The novels are consistently in the New York Times top sellers, they've had an RPG before, it's a 20-year old property that is still doing well, and they've even had a pair of successful computer games (ie. Betrayal at Krondor, Return to Krondor)......plus I believe there was talk of a MMORPG set in Middle Earth as well. That's far more history/success than many other licenses out there...

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

Two people have mentioned Mid-Kemia. A little background for folks.

Mid-Kemia is based upon the Mid-Kimia campaign. An original D&D setting run by a gaming group in San Diego CA. The gaming rights are held by an individual living in San Diego, and he has consistently expressed no interest in seeing the world done by anybody else.

BTW, the original campaign also featured adventures in the original Empire of the Petal Throne. While the serial numbers were filed off for the novels, there is still enough of a connection to make any game publication liable to litigation.

Raymond Feist writes the novels which have popularized the setting. The setting began as a D&D campaign that evolved past that system in the 70's. But I don't think Feist owns the rights. I'm pretty sure that's Midkemia Press, and they themselves posted on their website that they were looking into a D20/D&D adaptation. I've heard Feist is resistant to it, but that's not the same thing.

I don't think it's a clear cut answer, but I'm not on the inside.

Banshee