I always wondered what messed up contractual issues caused WotC to not renew their license with LFL for Star Wars.
I agree that it would work well. FF isn’t making RPGs anymore, IIRC, so maybe that means we will see soemthing new another company soon.I always wondered what messed up contractual issues caused WotC to not renew their license with LFL for Star Wars.
It was clear that the SWRPG was doing well overall, and it's hard to believe they made renewing the license in 2010 so expensive that WotC couldn't afford it but FFG could.
To my understanding, and I'm recalling things that were posted well over a decade ago, it had something to do with the fact that their Star Wars minis line and the RPG both fell under the same license, and there were issues about how many products they could make a year (minimum and maximum) and minis releases counting towards that, and what kind of sales Hasbro wanted to see for the RPG. The license was never written with a miniatures game in mind alongside the RPG and it always kept WotC in an awkward position to support a hit minis game under a license they were having to stretch the wording of to get the minis to even fall under in the first place.
A SWRPG based on the 5e rules I think would work well. The 5e subclass idea seems well suited to Star Wars. I'm already imagining Jedi Guardian, Jedi Sentinel and Jedi Consular, along with Sith Warrior, Sith Sorcerer and Sith Assassin sub-classes for a Jedi base class.
No.I wonder if it had something to do with Disney buying Star Wars in 2012, if the deal was in negotiations when WotC was trying to renew their license in 2010?
No.
I've read and studied a LOT about the Disney acquisition of LFL.
Disney originally made an offer in the summer 2011, but Lucas didn't take it seriously and refused, not wanting to sell the company. What changed his mind was the flop of the film Red Tails in January 2012. It flopped hard enough that LFL would have to lay off most of its employees and seriously reduce operations to avoid bankruptcy. Lucas didn't want that, and thought that selling LFL to Disney would protect the jobs of the people that worked there. So, Lucas talked to the "Big 3" OT cast members of Hamill, Ford, and Fisher to get them under contract "in case" LFL ever made another trilogy (Hamill has said that he had no idea when he signed that Lucas was going to sell LFL, and that sequel films were only mentioned by Lucas as something he was just contemplating possibly doing one day, so he signed not knowing that Lucas was planning to sell his contract to Disney), and wrote some script outlines as a way to pad the asking price of the company, then called Bob Iger back (who was an old acquaintance of Lucas's, having met back in the early 90's when Lucas was making Young Indiana Jones and Iger was a low-level employee at ABC working on the show), and they made negotiations in the Spring and Summer of 2012, such as Kathleen Kennedy coming on as Co-CEO in summer 2012 to facilitate the transition before the deal was finalized in October 2012.
There are no indications that Lucas was seriously considering selling LFL before January 2012, and the earliest that they've even mentioned that Disney showed any interest was 2011.
WotC's Star Wars license was from 2000 to 2010. Their first RPG product, the original core rules came out in November 2000, and they purged their website of all Star Wars content circa July 2010. So, when license renewal was an issue was over a year before the buyout was even first proposed.
No.
I've read and studied a LOT about the Disney acquisition of LFL.
Disney originally made an offer in the summer 2011, but Lucas didn't take it seriously and refused, not wanting to sell the company. What changed his mind was the flop of the film Red Tails in January 2012. It flopped hard enough that LFL would have to lay off most of its employees and seriously reduce operations to avoid bankruptcy.
I thought for sure Marvel Super Heroes would walk away with this. I guess not enough voters played. The best supers game to date.
I've finally gotten the whole thing...No love for DL 5th Age? I'd love to see a modern version of the Saga rules.
In my memory this was a little later so I thought it was a WotC game. I love the Marvel version of the game and would really like a more generic toolkit based on the system.
I thought for sure Marvel Super Heroes would walk away with this. I guess not enough voters played. The best supers game to date.
It came out in August/September 1996, just before TSR went under. Great system and setting wasted on an unappreciative franchise and fan base.