State of the Mongoose 2012: Choice Bits

It's always interesting to read up on the State of the Mongoose. There's a perception of the game industry that's open, yet insider-y, and from a pretty big player as well. Here's what caught my eye:

Writers -- Full-time to Freelancers

A second, but no less major issue, at least for RPGs, is that we have changed the way we work with writers. We no longer have half a dozen-odd full-time writers but instead a hand-picked set of freelancers (none of whom we would have been able to tempt away from their Real Life work anyway!) who are absolutely, 100%, completely dedicated to the games they work on – people like Colin Dunn, who is Mr 2300AD, and Don McKinney and Rob Eaglestone who work alongside Mr Miller on Traveller. This means the quality of work we receive for these games is second to none, done by people who want to write this material because they have a real passion for it.

The flip side is that freelancers will never work as fast as full-time writers, as Real Life all too often intrudes. This, in turn, results in slower release schedule; but, we think, better books overall, the effect of which you will already have seen with titles such as Solomani Rim, Deneb Sector, and French Arm Adventures. In those terms, we are satisfied that the books being produced today are every bit as good as those from our Gareth Hanrahan/Lawrence Whitaker days (for my money – and it was – the two best writers in the RPG industry today). There will just be a few less of them.

In essence assuring us that the quality will be at least as good as during their best days, but not necessarily on schedule.

RPGs -- The Digital Shift

The current RPG market is miserable. There really is no other word for it. I was talking to the owner of a certain well known RPG company just a little while ago, and he mentioned that he had sold a few hundred of his latest release. We agreed it was a good total in this day and age for the average RPG product (not saying his book was average but… oh, you get the point!). Then he dropped the bombshell; he had reliable information that his book had outsold the latest supplement of a very well known, not to mention market-leading, game.

If the top tier games are selling at these levels, then something is seriously wonky in the market.

That is not to say that good sales are impossible. Publishers can still get into decent four figure ranges on new releases (our own 2300AD is a good example). But it is not the norm. Most RPG books these days are being bought by just a few hundred people, no more. Think on that for a moment…

On the other hand, RPG sales among PDFs, spearheaded by DrivethruRPG.com, are fairly booming. Which, of course, brings us to the inevitable question; is digital taking over?

For our part, we now look at each and every book as it goes through layout, and do a lot of soul-searching as to whether it should be given a full print run. More and more often, the answer is starting to be ‘no.’

Now, before anyone panics, you will always be able to get Mongoose books in a printed edition. Not going for a full print run still means we will do a limited run to supply our mail order customers, and you will be able to get our entire range printed (even books that are officially OOP) via Drivethru – more on that later too. Just to be clear, I’ll repeat: You will always be able to get hold of Mongoose books in a printed format!

However, the tipping point between digital and print has been reached among RPGs. The days where we automatically printed x thousand copies of all titles are long, long gone.

What is really peculiar is that while a large number of roleplayers have embraced PDF books, wargamers have not – and the difference is staggering, especially when you consider the relative sizes of the two markets. And yet… to my addled mind at least, it makes more sense for miniatures games to be presented in PDF format. Instant updates, errata fully integrated into the core rules, every time; yet it seems miniatures gamers are just not keen on this new-fangled technology! Perhaps Games Workshop’s efforts in this area will have an effect. We’ll be watching closely, in any case.

Interestingly insight on the RPGers vs. wargamers, and juicy news from the chat with 'other industry bigshots'. I know I'm primarily PDF these days. I just don't have the space for more books, and the only option for the collector in me is electronic.

Fortunately, Mongoose is looking to upping the quality of PDFs available.

PDFs -- A New Standard

We have been on DrivethruRPG/RPGNow for many years and, throughout that time, many employees of Mongoose have been responsible for uploading PDF files – resulting in many different ways of doing them. This year, we decided to standardise them all, adding bookmarks, making sure the pagination was correct, that art was at the right resolution, and so on and so forth. We are just coming to the end of this now, and will be uploading the results before Christmas. Expect a ton of updates if you have purchased any of our PDFs, and feel assured of consistent quality if you are looking to pick up any more.

It's nice to see that -- and if that helps when people search for things on RPGNow / DriveThruRPG, great!

For more news on individual RPGs, check out this link to the State of the Mongoose 2012. As an armchair gamer, the Solo Traveller initiative sounds great!

Runequest, The Design Mechanism, and $1 Sourcebooks

This is not about Legend, but about Runequest. But I'll talk briefly about Legend first.

As you may know, Legend is Mongoose's current open ruleset that is pretty much their current take on the original Runequest rules (they had two prior takes on it in the past), but separated from the Runequest name and setting. Perhaps due to its $1 price, it has remained at the top of the RPGNow bestseller list for a couple of months and was mentioned favorably in Mongoose's end-of-year public wrap up report known as "State of the Mongoose".

So what happened to Runequest and the Glorantha setting?

Apparently, a company known as The Design Mechanism has picked up the IP and is having their own $1 sale. Just look at some of the products currently available at that price:

• Glorantha - The Second Age (Core Rulebook)
• Cults of Glorantha
• Trolls: Guide to the Uz
• Elfs: Guide to the Aldryami
• Dwarfs: Guide to the Mostali
• Ducks: Guide to the Durulz
• Dragonewts: Guide to the Eravssar
• Epic Campaign Sourcebook:Dara Hapa Stirs
• Epic Campaign Sourcebook: Pavis Rises
• Adventure: Blood of Orlanth

That's just half of them, I think. And there are some pretty sweet bundles there too. It kinda makes you wonder what they'll be coming out with this year. According to their site:

• "The Design Mechanism will be producing the sixth published edition of RQ for an early 2012 release."
• "We will be publishing the core rules and all future supplements in partnership with Moon Design. This allows us to call upon their resources for a wide range of things that would be too costly for us to develop singly."
• "Working with Moon we also have access to Glorantha, meaning that RuneQuest material for both Second and Third Age Glorantha will be not just possible, but a reality."

Here's the cover artwork from their site for Runequest 6th Edition.

Looks awesome. Will try to find out more about this company.

Stars Without Number to be published by Mongoose Games

It seems that Stars Without Number is going to be published by Mongoose Games. An announcement on the Mongoose site says that the release will be some time in September:

Stars Without Number will be published in September (though copies will be available at Gen Con) with the first supplement, Skyward Steel, following in October.

Stars Without Number, currently freely available to download, is an intriguing neo-clone in that its rule systems are similar to both old school D&D and old school Traveller. But above and beyond that, it has tables and source material very useful to any space-based science fiction campaign, and has eminently usable rules for dealing with factions (worlds, countries, organizations, political movements, secret societies, etc.) and allowing abstract resolution / simulation of conflicts between them.

Congratulations to Sine Nomine (Kevin), and here's hoping that it helps you produce even more products of quality!

Of course, since Mongoose is behind the current incarnation of Traveller and is a publisher of D20 derived material as well, one wonders if there will be conversion material in the future, whether it be setting or system conversions to or from SWN.

What am I hoping to see in that arena? Well, I know that Babylon 5 is out of the question (valiant effort, Mongoose), but certainly closer ties with all the new Traveller material and perhaps some representation in the newly revived "A Call To Arms" tabletop game. And an expanded faction wars system.

State of the Mongoose: Point of Interest 1 -- Noble Armada

I read up on the State of the Mongoose today and found out this little item (which I'd read about in passing on RPG.net in one of the threads) was confirmed:

A Call to Arms: Noble Armada 

This came about because of a fortuitous meeting with Chris Wiese of Holistic Design at Gen Con this year. In a nutshell, Chris was looking for a new vehicle for Noble Armada (especially as the 3rd edition of Fading Suns is due for release in 2011 – more on that a little later), while we were looking for a new setting for A Call to Arms. 

We had looked at Star Trek, and even developed a working conversion of the rules, but during the licence negotiations we found we were going head to head with Wizkids. And that was never going to go well! 

When Noble Armada was suggested to us, however, it just seemed like a perfect fit. Multiple fleets with room to add more, a developed universe to draw upon, and a very different style of ship combat for us to play with. No downsides! 

Signs & Portents [#87 for those of you interested in looking for it] is currently previewing CTA: Noble Armada, and we would direct you to look at the current issues for more details of this game – it is going to be a good ‘un, so if space fleet combat is your thing, take a peek.

CTA + NA =?

This is good news, because I really wanted to try out a whole bunch of Babylon 5 stuff when Mongoose had the license, but unfortunately wasn't able to. Fortunately, A Call to Arms lives on with its unusually named maneuvers (which look fun to call out when you declare 'em) by transitioning into the Fading Suns universe!
Also, it will help answer some of the questions that I've always had about the ships and their role in the Known Worlds -- not the least of which is locking down what kind of differences there are in the various ships (Hawkwoods, Decados, Guild, al-Malik, etc.) so that you get that thrill you got in B5 -- where the tech and the ship design is so well-defined you can tell where a ship is from and what kind of technology it has built into it.

Also, it may be that the old ship lists of B5 may be usable still, and perform the role of ships to round out non-provided fleets -- the minor houses, the new ships of the Imperial fleet, mercenary fleets, alien ships, and perhaps ships from the Kurgan Caliphate and various Lost Worlds...

Here's hoping for rules on ship-building as well, just in case I'll need to tweak them existing ships for some pirate ships with extra surprises, and some 'ghost ships' that have survived long voyages through the blackness of space.

My ultimate meta-gaming layer for the Fading Suns universe would be somehow integrating Victory By Any Means (VBAM) into the macro level of the setting. Someday, perhaps.