Known Space RPG

[degordon3000]

Hi I was informed by one of the forum members that there was a request to have some of Larry Niven's stuff published in game form (specifically Gil Hamilton).

From 2003 to 2006 I'd worked with Niven to get a set of rules published via Chaosium. See the website I set up back in 2003 - I parked it on a friends server back in early 2006 and got rid of the www.ringworldrpg.co.uk/.com and .org domains.
http://www.dennisantinori.com/niven/ringworldrpg/

Niven loved the Ringworld RPG rules that Chaosium produced back in 1984 and in 2003 I decided to see if I could persuade Chaosium to republish it. Niven wanted and backed it but apparently Niven had sold the rights of Ringworld to Hollywood (there is or was a miniseries being made by the SciFi channel - not sure how advanced it is - Niven didn't know). Anyway - the producer wouldn't let Chaosium republish the rules or even reissue them as they were.

So I started to work with Chaosium and Niven on producing a Known Space RPG. We thought we'd found a loop hole - well Niven's agents decided that this was also a grey area and didn't want to jeopardise any chances of product being produced in Hollywood. So that died too. Niven wasn't happy.

What I was looking at was a Known Space RPG that would start back in the future history with source books that would cover each era, so you would have a Man-Kzin War source book, a Gil Hamilton source book, a sourcebook for just before the Ringworld was discovered (Can't mention or use Ringworld at all), etc.

But if Mongoose can cut through the red tape then I'd be over-joyed and very happy to help out in any way. I did send Matt Sprange a mail about this last year but haven't heard back on it.

David

 

[Nerroth]

Interesting to hear!


Although, as a big fan of the Star Fleet Universe, the Kzintis I'm used to are a bit different to the Kzinti you are...


Gary

 

[pasuuli]

Man-Kzin Wars and Known Space settings should be amenable to SpaceQuest/Whatever.

What kind of system was the Ringworld RPG like?

 

[Osentalka]

Did you know that there was a planned second supplement for the "Ringworld RPG" named "The City and the Jungle" (announced in a Chaosium flyer that was included in the "Pendragon RPG" boxed set... and maybe in others)?

I have no clue who the author was, but i bought a manuscript in an auction a few years ago (and Greg Stafford, former Chaosium President, said that it is authentic!) called "The City in the Jungle".
It is 32 pages long typewriter manuscript (and says on the first page that this is the outline... "Major Compenents to 80-Page Book") + 5 pages hand drawn maps.

It it says also "copyright (c) 1985 Chaosium Inc.


Cheers

Osentalka

 

[pasuuli]

Neat -- sounds like a collector's item to me.

 

[yojimbo]

What kind of system was the Ringworld RPG like?

It was a BRP game. I know that SIZe became MASs in RW. Other than that not much. It was never licensed by Games Workshop unlike RQ, Stormbringer and Call of Cthulhu so it was pretty rare in the UK.