State of the Mongoose 2023

[MarkAlexander]

This was really interesting. It's nice to get to know the company behind the game. I think this could be the first time we've had a British game company since Games Workshop produced the original Warhammer Fantasy role playing and had the license for Call of Cthulhu. I wish you every success and I'm looking forward to receiving my first Traveller books.

 

[MarkAlexander]

Maybe Hasbro will implode.

Copywrite should expire soon on Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien died in1973, so in theory the copyright will expire in 2043.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Maybe Hasbro will implode.

Copywrite should expire soon on Lord of the Rings.

2050, or somewhere round that?

However, may not be that simple - take Conan as an example. Things there are... complicated.

 

[Condottiere]

Conan is like Star Trek, Columbia Broadcasting System, and Paramount - I wouldn't want to touch it without the licensor taking full liability.

Lord of the Rings gives you a limited setting, but could be a loss leader to herd the interested sheep in.

Though, all things being equal, you're probably better off creating your own rules system and setting(s).

Problem is, it's late in the game, what's more likely to happen is consolidation, amidst demographics with increasingly diminished attention spans.

 

[Regnarts]

Talking about fiction... what would you think about a Riverworld RPG?

One other idea - a historical RPG set in the Regency era? You can have military adventures in Napoleonic Wars, you can have exploration - a lot of blanks on maps and who doesn't like a taste of Terra Incognita, you can have intrigue - The Great Game was already starting, and if such you dislike espionage you can have quite a lot of intrigues on the home front, you can even pirates - the Golden Age was over, but still things happened at sea. And not all sailors would be singing Heart of Oak. Well - you could even have a megacorporation influencing the world - the East India Company was in business.
Oh, and Vidocq was reforming policing, so law enforcement is also on the table.

 

[CordwainerFish]

what would you think about a Riverworld RPG?

GURPS did a Riverworld splatbook back in the day.

 

[TrippyHippy]

I think Pioneer will fulfill a niche for me that goes beyond the hard science of 2300AD - without any 'fiction' elements at all. It could be quite educational, perhaps, but I think the popularity of movies like The Martian or Gravity or even things like Oppenheimer suggests that there is an appetite for hard science thrillers.

If there was room for a new licensed setting, I would honestly really like to see an attempt at adapting Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This may be difficult for some to conceptualise but I recall some found it hard to envisage how to do a Doctor Who RPG.... before it came out (I think, in gameplay terms it would be quite similar) and we've even seen a Monty Python game too recently. It would definitely be a different type of campaign - and one that could tap into a large audience perhaps.

The other settings I'd like to see adapted are Space: 1889 or the equivalent - maybe integrating H.G. Wells' The Time Machine and making it a Time Traveller RPG...but we shall see!