[Open_Gaming] Reply to John

[Githianki]

You forgot Dawn Patrol 1980. Not focused on role-playing but it did have a basic system for it.  I have all the games on the list (+DP) up to 1984 except Gangbusters (not sure I ever heard of it either).  I would have bought Conan if I had known about it but the rest? Who the hell would buy a game called Amazing Engine? Unlike Johnathan T., I never expected to be getting the same game with just a different setting.  Learning new games was part of the fun (wargamer in me I guess).  Even though I never wound up playing DP (never made it in either category), BH (seriously lacked production values to the point of inspiring boredom), or IJ (though I did buy an IJ module) my friends and I had a blast with the others. SF may not have been as serious as say Traveller, but we still really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I think John is dead on when he says they didn't know how to do a space adventure though, but that is something nebulous. Even now it is hard to pin something down because you expect zipping about in spaceships but the worlds are the places of activity. The movie modules were nice but like the IJ material you already knew what it was about.  The bluprint for Discovery was too cool though (too bad I lost it). I even have friends who still like to play MSH.  I think whether you grew up reading pulp sci-fi/fantasy or watching Westerns has a tremedous effect on whether the atmosphere of those early games were appealing.   As for the future I am curious to see how Star Wars does.  My personal feeling (though I'm a Star Wars fan) is that if you aren't a Jedi, what is the point? Han Solo  had a ship at least. That is kind of the dilema of space settings.  And Star Wars has such a powerful story that your character is sort of forced into obscurity in order to not know what is going on. Of course the online MMRPG and new movies could throw some interesting twists in that.  Does Wizards have any connection with what Verant is doing, even just through Lucas? I heard Clark? mention Wizards won't be doing anything d20 with the old settings.  Even if Wizards didn't themselves, I would think releasing some of that as OGC would be part of the point of things.  Is Wizards not interested because it creates competition for the core brands or is it something else?   Having those genres would strengthen d20's appeal IMO, even if they are minor players.  They are far more attractive to me than Mystara or Birthright or the other D&D settings some people have asked about. Anyone have a guess at what numbers make a market and whether there would be one such for admittedly minor settings? -Alex PS>It seems to me that CoC has to have a new core book too. In fact I can see at least two if the real spirit of the game is to be captured. Amongst all the announced stuff,  the Psionics book and the CoC stuff are the ones that have me totally juiced in anticipation.