Congratulations! Gary Gygax has mysteriously left you a large lump sum of cash in his will with the stipulation that you use it to "continue great games and bring glory to pen and paper role-playing experiences." What one existing property would you snatch up in a hostile takeover and why? What would you do with it?

Here's mine:

2300AD - This is the only hard science-fiction game I've ever seen and is the first RPG I actually bought with my own hard-earned dog-sitting money at age 12. You could literally role-play anything from a farmer on a frontier world to a corporate troubleshooter to a Swiss Space Marine. What would I do differently? First, I would sever all ties to Twilight 2000 and re-write the timeline. To avoid dating the game there would be no mention of human society prior to, say, 2050, in any published material. I would update all the technology to reflect current trends in communication, engineering and sociology and then kick it forward 300 years. I would hire a group of futurists to help design starships, weapons and tech without ripping off existing sci-fi films or video-games. I would create a semi-utopian Earth that was crazy and imaginative but at peace with itself and that was in direct contrast with far-flung colonies suffering from Kafer attack, homeworld corporate machinations, and internal disputes. Think Cherryh's Downbelow Station and the "Merchanter" books. In terms of game play itself, I would keep the crazy amount of character generation but make the actual dice-rolling and number crunching much simpler. All core rule books would come with a digital table top program on a CD-ROM or a Flash drive but they wouldn't be required if you didn't have access to a laptop... or were a Luddite. There would also be a boxed set Star Cruiser tactical game that uses plastic pieces instead of cardboard chits, a fat book of space battles to recreate as well as rules on creating your own. The core system would be a boxed set with nice hard-backed rules books and a fold-out star map.

How about you?

I bought the 1st Edition - Traveller:2300...
...Which got replaced by 2300AD about 6 months later.

You could just continue with Traveller:The New Era...
...Which is similar to what you want.


It's a tough option...
...But I might fight you for the GDW lineup - Traveller:TNE, Cadillacs&Dinosaurs, Dark Future, etc - put it all in a single game and definitely get the magazine up'n'running again.


Failing that ['cos you're bigger and stronger than me], I'd probably try the original Aeon Trinity RPG line - it had nice rules, good background, good player options [especially if you used the Player's Book, and got rid of the White Wolf obsession with groups], good flexibility, nice presentation.

Tribe 8

Imagine what would happen if Mad Max took place in a mystical post-apocalyptic Canada where the Horrors had returned. Tribe 8 is in my estimation one of the finest RPGs ever made, but only a handful of people ever knew about it. The concept is that at the end of the 20th or beginning of the 21st century, spirits/angels/gods/what have you - basically mythical creatures of that ilk - returned to the world to try and guide mankind back on a more wholesome, spiritual path. Unfortunately, they had spent a thousand or so years away from the physical world, and weren't used to the raw sensation real bodies provided them with.

So they went crazy, indulged in excesses of sensation of all kinds, and enslaved humanity for their sadistic purposes. In fact, they're nearly identical to the twisted passions in Earthdawn - twisted remnants of something awesome and familiar, but totally crazy and horrible.

The game is cinematic yet gritty, has an amazing setting and great mood. The metaplot is awesome and fascinating, and PCs really have a lot of ability to contribute to the development of the game's societies. In a lot of ways, the mood of the new BSG reminds me of Tribe 8. You're beset by an enemy that can crush you because they're horrible and unknowable and powerful, but you have to fight or you're dead. And sometimes the actions of individuals can determine the fate of your entire race.

But like so many of DP9's products - everything but Heavy Gear, really - support died out and crashed due to the RPG market taking a downturn and the Canadian dollar getting strong again.

D&D 1st edition Oriental Adventures...I'd make krotty do even MORE than 1d6 per punch!

Wow, that just made me think of another: D&D's Dark Sun campaign setting. Medieval post-apocalyptic desert survival game with cannibal halflings, bald dwarves, desert nomad elves, human/dwarven hybrids known as mules and giant tentacle monsters living in the Sea of Silt. Humans live in fascistic city-states run by sorcerer kings. Metal is scarce so bizarre-looking weapons are made from obsidian, giant insect carapaces, and animal bone. And every living thing has a psionic ability! It's like a combination of Conan, Dune, and Pirates of Darkwater... minus the water that is. Officially it had no ties to the other D&D settings like Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft or Al-Qadim so it would work just fine as a stand-alone product. Of course I'd have to contract Brom to do all the artwork.

Ohh, how I loved Greyhawk... the version of it we played where magic was much more rare than in regular D&D, more like it appeared in the Greyhawk novels.

So now, it is one of my pet projects for GURPS, making a Greyhawk crossover campaign, using the tight and detailed and visceral GURPS game engine instead of the cotton candy sweet D&D systems, but with the detailed and complex and marvelous Greyhawk backdrop.

That is all it seems to need too, that and ignoring the every ruler is a high level geek factor.


Isshia

I really, really loved the chargen in Twilight 2000. Picking education, professions and the like, really allowed you to build up a character background and, IIRC, affected the types of things you ended up building into your character. I'd like to bring that game back...it was a lot of fun being real-world mercenaries, from what I recall.

Have you seen The Burnt World of Athas? Dark Sun's not dead, it's just gone freeware. A lot of the original authors have been contributing to Burnt World of Athas over the last couple of years.

No, I hadn't seen that. Interesting. It seems like a lot of old RPGs have gone freeware. I'm curious as to why Wizards let go of their copyright. So much work was sunk into developing it I always assumed it was a property they would bring back in some form, either as a D&D setting or an independent D20 system.

I figure it's kinda like bootlegs: they figured the extra sales of core D20 material will be worth it, and they can always decide to pull the plug later if they decide to release new Dark Sun material.

Because its a business...as old settings lose popularity, it affects the bottom-line and something new needs to be brought to the forefront to generate revenue.

To a lot of developers, its still as important as it was when it was making them money, so why not continue to tell the story and expand the setting? At that point, all it costs is time. The overhead for online distribution is relatively small.

Only thing is by not defending their IP Wizards could lose it in a court fight.

Hasbro and it's lawyers and influence vs a bunch of regular joes and their "ethical right". Sorry man, but with the way our court system runs betting on the regular joes would be like expecting this years Seattle Mariners to win their next 86 consecutive games and sweep through the playoffs and world series afterwards.

Isshia

I was just saying that not challenging and actively defending you IP can cause you to lose it. That's the reason why Palladium is such a pain in the rear about conversions, and why TSR use to be so nasty. Would I bet on a single web site vs WotC? No. All I was doing was trying to point out that the law allows one to take an IP away from a company if they don't defend it. It's not easy to do but it is legally possible, and the consequences for failing to succeed can far outweigh any possible benefits of success.


**edit**

To get this thread back on track.

The game I'd go for is Fading Suns.

You know that that's only true for trademarks, which debatably shouldn't even be called IP, right?

~J