Re: [GZG] Under the Hammer

On Sat, Jun 7, 2008 at 9:02 PM, james mitchell
<tagalong@sa.chariot.net.au> wrote:
> Wow that time at GW really payed off, where's the love I ask you! I
was
> wandering if they have a marketing plan, cause lately Mongoose have
been all
> over the shop.

It could be due to the change in D20. With D&D 4e just released, and a
new not-so-open gaming license on its way (not to mention the fact
that Mongoose was involved in the D20 implosion), Mongoose seems to be
positioning itself to capture a larger share of the non-D20 market,
particularly the "old school" non-D20 market (the portion of the
market not dominated by White Wolf).

They released the new RuneQuest a couple of years ago. With the
exception of a stupid rule that was roundly criticized even before the
game came out of playtesting, it looks like a solid game. There's now
an OGL for what's essentially Chaosium's BRP rules. They own the
rights to Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion series, due to his
unhappiness with Chaosium (I hear he's not the easiest person to work
with, so I suspect it's not _all_ Chaosium's fault). It's nice to see
BRP seeing some love, especially since it seems to have shaken up
Chaosium enough to release their rules as a generic engine.

I hear pretty good things about Mongoose's version of Traveller, which
is very, very similar to the old black book edition, with a few things
cleaned up. Marc Miller is confusing things with the release of his
"5th edition" Traveller (which looks like it's crunchier than
Mongoose's game). I also haven't seen a whole lot of buzz about the
game online. Those who bought it liked it, but there's not a ton of
love for whatever reason.

-- 
Allan Goodall http://www.hyperbear.com
agoodall@hyperbear.com
awgoodall@gmail.com

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