Goodbye RedBrick, Hello FASA

RedBrick is closing up shop, according to this post on their messageboards (which may eventually go down in upcoming months, so I'll copy the post in its entirety):

RedBrick Retiring From Game Publishing

This is an open letter to the game community and to fans of RedBrick.

In a couple of months, RedBrick will be nine years old. We started in 2003 with the Earthdawn license, picking up Fading Suns in 2007, Blue Planet in 2008, and Demonworld in 2011. During this time, the number of people involved waxed and waned. Everyone was part-time (we still are), but we had dozens of talented people contributing in different ways to their favorite games at any one time.

The company was born by accident -- an email sent without my knowledge, in fact -- and it became an opportunity to work with emerging technologies, print-on-demand and e-publishing being key. RedBrick was an early supporter of DriveThruRPG (now OneBookShelf) and an early adopter of Lulu's POD services.

We suffered ups and downs, as all companies do. Some of those were decisions made by myself; others, through the vagaries of real life intervening on members of the RedBrick team. Personally, one life-changing event meant the company relocated from New Zealand to the United States, where it is based today.

But all things have their time. Different opportunities arise and we need to embrace them for what they are. In this case, RedBrick has served its purpose and now it is time for it to become something else.

At Gen Con Indy 2012, RedBrick shared a booth with FASA. There are several interviews on the Internet recorded at Gen Con that summarize the changes and plans going on at present. As is the way of things, there will no doubt be rumor and speculation and all the usual interplay that happens on the Internet. But the reasons for RedBrick's retirement from game publishing are actually very simple, and much of this is just timing:

Business: You could call this lessons learned about people and business. I've made both good decisions and (very) poor decisions; I've been both hands on and (very) uninvolved in how the business runs; I've made many friends along the way, and I've dropped the ball and lost some of those friends also. Overall, I think we had more wins than losses, but it's time for the old ways of doing business to change.

Personal: Part of the reason for setting up RedBrick was to involve my late son in the company (he was a gifted child, very social and intelligent, and crazy about gaming). This isn't going to happen and I need to move on and get some closure.

Opportunity: I was offered an opportunity to work with people far more experienced in this industry than I am. Such opportunities do not come up often, so the answer was yes. To that end, I have accepted a position as President of FASA Games, Inc., working with one of the original founders and owner of FASA Corporation. The upcoming effort and commitment required, however, means that I cannot run multiple game publishing businesses and a day job.

Timing: Well, this is always in the hands of fate. The opportunity came up earlier this year, but the pace of change required to implement it has meant a LOT of work in a very short time, especially with commitments to Gen Con already in hand. So we've had to roll with the punches a lot, sorry.

Here's a summary of what's happening with various game lines previously held by RedBrick:

Earthdawn, Demonworld: These licenses reverted back to FASA Corporation and have been subsequently picked up by FASA Games, Inc.
Fading Suns, Noble Armada, Blue Planet: These licenses reverted back to their licensors and have been subsequently picked up by FASA Games, Inc.

Any future plans that RedBrick had in place or announced are now void or being reviewed. While some RedBrick personnel are working for FASA, not everyone has come across. FASA will be running with Revised Editions of Earthdawn, Blue Planet, and Fading Suns. The Savage Worlds and Pathfinder game lines for Earthdawn are coming across, along with Demonworld. For the most part, it's status quo across the board. "Business as usual."

The RedBrick Forums and Online Store will remain in place, even after the FASA web presence becomes operational in the next month or so. During this transition period, RedBrick is happy to share resources with FASA -- we will sell FASA products on the RedBrick Shop, for instance. Until FASA is fully operational, we will make announcements for new products on the RedBrick web site. In this respect, no change is expected for a while. However, most, if not all, of the ebook products currently sold by RedBrick on OneBookShelf will be going away in the very near future. Many of these will not be coming back.

FASA will make their own announcements in due course, but with the cat out of the bag after Gen Con, it seemed appropriate to let people know what was happening with RedBrick. I do want to be very clear that the decisions to retire RedBrick and the transition to FASA are completely independent and unrelated to recent changes within RedBrick. I do admit, however, that the opportunity to work with FASA did change the timing of RedBrick's retirement, bringing it forward.

So what is happening to RedBrick after this transition is complete? Well, we'll still be around. Many years ago, I promised my late son that he and I would work on some books together. We talked about some ideas and it's time to start getting those down on paper and into print. RedBrick will become an imprint for fiction, no longer publishing games. And at a personal level, I'm hoping it will help achieve the aforementioned closure. "And so to bed."

Lastly, I want to thank the fans and developers who have supported RedBrick over the last nine years. It has been a truly exciting, scary, emotional, sometimes sad, but overall fun journey and everyone who has been a part of it should be proud of being part of the community. You are all a talented bunch and I'm proud that we have collectively been a part of the history of our hobby.

"And so we dim the lights and pour a glass of wine. It is a time for reflection, a time for change."

Thank you all very much.

Kind regards,

James Sutton
Managing Partner, RedBrick LLC

And FASA is stepping in to handle things, as presaged by the post I made last week on its (at the time of this writing) one page website.

But hold on, Mr. James Sutton is also apparently the new President & CEO of the reborn FASA, and was interviewed in this capacity on Roleplayers Chronicle. Choice quotes from this article include:

"RPC: What’s the difference between traditional Earthdawn and the conversions to Savage Worlds and Pathfinder?
JS: That’s a pretty good question. Really it’s just an opportunity to try and get Earthdawn out onto Savage Worlds and Pathfinder… to try and grow the game into a new audience, ideally will largely attract more people back to the core. People that play Pathfinder tend to play Pathfinder and people that play Savage Worlds tend to play Savage Worlds. The intent with Savage [Worlds] is our first foray into the Savage Worlds game. We’re going to be doing some things with Blue Planet and Fading Suns in time [for Savage Worlds] as well. It’s sort of translating the whole Earthdawn genre into the Savage Worlds rules. In the core you play adepts and in the Savage Worlds version you play adepts. Pathfinder is a little different. We took the approach that we didn’t want to upset the Pathfinder core anymore than we needed to. The Pathfinder products are more of a bolt-on to Pathfinder."

and

"RPC: Moving on to Fading Suns… What is different about this version and the last?
JS: We’ve put this out as a Revised Edition. We were going to be doing a Third Edition, but there were some politics involved with that which we can talk about some other time.

RPC: It’s a Revised Second Edition
JS: Right, Second Edition. A lot has changed. In the core rulebook itself, if you’re familiar with the Victory Point System…? What we’ve done with the Victory Point System is gotten rid of the “whiff” factor that was quite prevalent in Second Edition. It’s a lot simpler; one roll, divide by two, and that’s your number of Victory Points. Everything’s based on those successes, there’s not need to look up additional charts. Much, much simpler. Combat’s been streamlined. We’ve done away with the whole multiple-action “am I doing this, am I doing that”… with the penalties… So the combat system’s been completely overhauled."

and

RPC: I like the life path systems, but some of them seemed a little bulky.
JS: They were and they’ve been thinned down a bit. Skills have been trimmed down as well, there aren’t quite as many skills. The only area we’ve increased skills is combat, a bit ironic. There’s a couple more that have been added to round out combat a little better. But that’s because we’ve done away with the Second Edition rules of everyone can use this type of fighting action and now you need a fighting style, you actually need to be trained in it. The goal is… you get some core abilities and can add on to that with various stances that give you bonuses and penalties in certain situations. Someone who’s a pugilist can do good things when it comes to boxing, but when they’re outside that particular skill of competency, not quite so good. Psi, theurgy, again they’ve been streamlined and overhauled. We’ve done a lot of revisions with the actual abilities themselves, but they remain largely unchanged, depending upon how you approach it. Characteristics is a big one; we’ve done away with the whole passions thing. You now have spiritual characteristics; three body characteristics, three mind characteristics, and three spiritual characteristics.

RPC: And what do those do?
JS: They do something similar to what you used to get in Second Edition… you still have Wyrd, that’s its own characteristic, but now they allow you do things like Faith for example. If the Faith is strong in this one, then I have some specific abilities I can use my Faith characteristic on.

RPC: What was the motivation to do the separate Player’s Guide and Game Master’s Guide? Page count?
JS: Page count primarily. This [Fading Suns Player's Guide] is a 384-page book in small format, which is probably equivalent to a 320-page book in 8 1/2 by 11. There’s a lot of stuff in here, each chapter has been expanded hugely.

More interesting bits in the interview -- I recommend you read it there.

So there we go, FASA has returned with some old games and some newer games, with Sutton at the helm. Obviously a lot of passion and heartbreak for a lot of people, but life moves on -- hopefully for the better.

The Players Guides are out for Earthdawn, Blue Planet, and Fading Suns and apparently more products on the way. This may also be your last chance to get the RedBrick stuff online.

As for me, I'm not sure how I feel about this yet.

But life goes on.

On the Radar: Blue Planet... from FASA?

The Blue Planet Player's Guide is finally available on DriveThruRPG. But instead of finding it under the RedBrick banner, it's under FASA. In fact, at the time of this writing, it's the only FASA product listed under this particular publisher.

Completely ignoring the product write-up -- I'm a fan, I want it anyway -- I skip to the following information:

Blue Planet Player's Guide™
Revised Edition Core Rulebook
Published by FASA Games, Inc.
Format: 352 pages, ~6" x 9", B+W Interior

This core rulebook is for Players and Game Masters. For a complete Poseidon game experience, the GM will require a copy of the Blue Planet Game Master's Guide (due out in October 2012).

Blue Planet, Blue Planet Revised, and Blue Planet Player’s Guide are trademarks of Biohazard Games. Blue Planet Second Edition Edition material copyright © 2000–2012 Biohazard Games. FASA and the FASA logo are trademarks of FASA Corporation and are used under license. Published by FASA Games, Inc. under license from Biohazard Games — Made in the USA. Copyright © 2012 Biohazard Games. All rights reserved.

Okay, no mention whatsoever of RedBrick. I clearly missed something, somewhere.

Still, a quick look at a current post on the RedBrick forums has the following message:

Blue Planet Revised Player's Guide Available!

Following on from its release at Gen Con Indy 2012, the Revised Edition of the Blue Planet Player's Guide is now available in PDF format from the following online stores:

FASA's DriveThruRPG Shop
RedBrick's Online Shop

Well, I don't really know what's up here, so I'll dig a bit more. I'm happy the product's out, and I'm just curious as to what's going on with the ownership and publishing of the property.

UPDATE

According to the new FASA website at www.fasagames.com, uh... well:

Earthdawn is a registered trademark of FASA Corporation. 1879, FASA, and the FASA logo are trademarks of FASA Corporation. Demonworld is a trademark of FASA Corporation and its subsidiary Ral Partha Europe Ltd. Fading Suns and Noble Armada are trademarks of Holistic Design, Inc. Blue Planet is a trademark of Biohazard Games. Anachrocosm, Earthrise, Earthdusk, and Earthfall are trademarks of FASA Games, Inc. Used under license where applicable. Copyright © 2012 FASA Games, Inc. All rights reserved.

So there. Hm...

Fading Suns 3E Character Sheet Available

A character sheet for the new Fading Suns RPG (3rd Edition) is available for download on the RedBrick website.

It has three pages for the Character Sheet, and one page for a ship.

Looks interesting (the changes are obvious to the Fading Suns faithful), but I'll be waiting for the actual Fading Suns Player's Guide (which some people have mentioned they purchased) for more detail before I comment.


What intrigues me? Well, the changes to the characteristics are intriguing, and the modifications to the progression for the VP successes seem easier keep in memory (if a shift from every 3 or every 2 seems easier to you, however marginal). The skill listings include new Natural Skills, and there's a fairly lengthy set of blank lines for learned languages -- does that mean most characters will have four or five of them?

Just counting the days...

Expect Fading Suns at GenCon 2012

According to a post on their site, RedBrick will be coming out with their much-awaited Fading Suns Player's Guide at GenCon 2012.

The Fading Suns Player's Guide (Revised Edition) will be released at Gen Con Indy 2012 and is available only from the RedBrick/FASA booth #1935. Holistic Design Inc. will also have limited quantities of the Player's Guide for sale at Dragon*Con 2012, in Atlanta, GA. The book is perfect-bound, 6.125x9.125", 384 pages, b+w interior, MSRP$34.99. A PDF version will be available for purchase soon from OneBookShelf (details to come). Trade print and distribution to come after Gen Con (details to come).

The Table of Contents for the book is also available at their site. It gives us a general sense of the depth and breadth of coverage of this book -- important, because we are also expecting the Game Master's Guide to come out after this -- however, they have also shared other bits of news regarding what we can expect:

The universe is still the same as described in Fading Suns Second Edition, but the timeline has advanced to the year 5002. Emperor Alexius has steadily worked to increase the strength of the Phoenix Empire. Minor houses are beginning to play a more important role, both as puppets of the Royal houses and as strong supporters of the Emperor. By placing sons and daughters into the Order of the Phoenix as Questing Knights, the minor houses have been granted new access to land and titles.

The Victory Point System (VPS) has been modified to use Victory Points as both the number of successes and as a quality of success...

Body and Mind traits remain the same as in Fading Suns Second Edition, but there are new Spirit traits: Presence, Will, and Faith. These traits are not the opposed Spirit traits of Fading Suns Second Edition, but mirror the Body and Mind traits...

Skills have been streamlined and narrowed in focus. In some cases (such as combat) there are more skills, instead of relying only on a few skills to perform all combat actions...

Psychic powers are more flexible, as they can be modified by spending extra Wyrd before the power is used, or by spending Victory Points after the power is complete, to reduce the effect but make the duration longer. Theurgic powers are still static, but tend to have more powerful effects. Both Urge and Hubris remain as a counterbalance to using these abilities.

The combat system has been overhauled. Characters have a derived Initiative trait, and each combat turn add a d6 to it to determine their starting order. Combatants can choose different stances, based on whether they want to act aggressively, defensively, or balanced. Those characters that specialize in fighting styles have special stances available to them that can add to or improve the standard stances. Each turn in combat represents one action; multiple actions have been removed, though some actions may act like multiple actions, such as striking or shooting more than once, or drawing and shooting. Instead of dodging attacks, all characters have a Defense trait that represents their ability to avoid harm. The more attacks they face in a turn, the lower their Defense.

Armor and weapons remain the same as in Fading Suns Second Edition by having effect dice for armor or damage respectively...

For more information, check out the post. Now, we may have to wait a while for the actual PDFs to come up and pass judgement -- here's hoping it does reignite this property.

Fading Suns 3rd Edition: I've Got A Bad Feeling About This

Rest in peace, 3rd Edition.

I read the following post about Mr. Darthgus being effectively fired from RedBrick's FS 3e Project.

After some shocked silence, I began to read a bit more closely.

Here are some choice lines in the communications sent to him (you can check his responses and reactions at the link above):

[April 30th, 2012] -- 

Dear Angus,

After serious consideration, I regret to inform you that your services are no longer required with regards to Fading Suns Third Edition and Noble Armada Third Edition development...

Brutal. No more 3rd Edition? And then this one was also sent after he sent some e-mails asking for clarifications and explanations:

I don't believe that I indicated the game line would be canceled. However, to avoid ambiguity, RedBrick will be continuing with the Fading Suns and Noble Armada licenses and with Third Editions of those games. I confirm that none of the content that you personally have created for FS3 and/or supporting materials (Dispatches, Shards, etc.) will be used by RedBrick.

More shocking there. Considering the project was written largely by Angus/Darthgus, pretty much all the posts I put up previously are out the window. Further communications show that he retains the rights to all the material he's written, except:

any and all elements directly related to HDI's Fading Suns and Noble Armada games, including, but not limited to elements of trade dress (logos, images), proper and place names, races, game elements, or content that has been published by Holistic Design and/or RedBrick under license from HDI. This includes use of and/or representation of the mechanics of FS3 as the Victory Point System.

So what does that mean, aside from someone essentially losing years of his life's work (until he can find someway to rewrite it and publish it in a manner that doesn't violate the agreements he signed)?

Here's what I think it means, based on pure speculation: RedBrick has probably gotten some promising numbers on their release of Earthdawn under the Savage Worlds and Pathfinder rulesets and is moving ahead instead to push Fading Suns under one or both of those rulesets.

Sadly, I play neither system.

UPDATE 1

A quick hop to this post on the RedBrick forums suggests they're still looking at a GenCon release. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what the heck is going on here:

Too early to make that call, but we're still looking for a Gen Con release (Player's Guide only, however; not both Player's and GM Guides). The changes to the game won't be as extensive, however.

In terms of impact for the Savage Worlds and Pathfinder Editions, there are none at all. In this case, it means a closer alignment to the VPS product.

UPDATE 2

Well, the post I mentioned in Update 1 is down. Actually the entire thread is down. I guess they're sorting things out of the public eye, and I hope things are cleared up. In the meantime, there's a note on message boards that the discussion forums are closing (dated May 10, 2012).

We wish to advise that the RedBrick Discussion Forums will be closing in a few days' time.

In the meantime, current posts and threads have been set to read-only to allow people to archive material that they might find useful.

The News and Announcements and Downloads areas will remain open for now, to provide updates on current and new products.

Once we have migrated to the Online Shop, new product releases/announcements and errata will be available from the home page and/or product pages.

Should you wish to contact us, you can do so at:

General Inquiries: admin@redbrickllc.com
Product Errata: errata@redbrickllc.com

Thank you for your patience and support as we go through this period of rapid change.

And an official statement on the situation with Angus that posted earlier (dated May 7, 2012):

It is with regret that we announce that RedBrick will not be continuing with the work and vision previously laid out for Fading Suns Third Edition by Angus McNicholl. Angus is no longer a member of the Fading Suns Development Team.

The remaining members of the team -- including Vidar Edland, who has also been active with Fading Suns Third Edition to date -- will be taking on the responsibility and direction for the Fading Suns game lines. It is our intent to focus on a team approach to development, rather than the vision of individuals, moving forwards.

These changes were not made lightly, and while sudden, we regret any disruption in the production timeline.

RedBrick is committed to creating quality products in line with the vision held by and directives of Holistic Design, from whom we have full support. To this extent, we have recently negotiated a license for a revised Noble Armada space miniatures game and extended our license to include tabletop miniatures and game rules for the Fading Suns universe, among other yet-to-be-announced products.

While time is now against us, our expectation is to have a book released for Fading Suns at Gen Con 2012. While it is fair to say that the changes to Third Edition may not be as extensive as originally laid out by the previous Line Developer, it is still our business goal to ensure that Fading Suns is available in print and supported over multiple game systems, including VPS, Savage Worlds, and Pathfinder. This is as previously announced and no changes to those plans have occurred; this change affects only the VPS game line.

EDIT: There has been some misconception about the multiple systems with people concerned it means dual- or triple-statting books. Per our House of 'Brick newsletter, it's a separate game line for each system (people who don't want SW or PF can have VPS, or SW-only, or PF-only, as desired). Apologies for that confusion.

We understand that there will be some degree of emotional duress among Fading Suns fans over this announcement, and for that we apologize. However, the background and reasons leading to this decision will not be discussed by RedBrick or our members.

We respect Angus's skills and abilities and wish him every success with his endeavors in the future.

Which is troubling, since even this post will disappear when the message boards go down. So, still waiting for the dust to clear.

Fading Suns Updates from RedBrick

It seems that I missed this on the Google+ feed, but even a month old it's still relevant. The mentions of Fading Suns in the "State of the Brick" post for 2012, as found on the RedBrick messageboard.

Check 'em out:

FADING SUNS THIRD EDITION
Fading Suns Third Edition is one of the game lines that’s suffered most during our downtime period and we are thankful for the support from Holistic Design throughout this time. Angus McNicholl, FS3 Line Developer, and his team have persevered and produced what we think is an excellent incarnation of Fading Suns, moving the timeline forwards and revisiting the game system to streamline and improve the “Fading Suns experience.” We’re close to releasing the Player’s Guide and more books are in the pipeline. At time of writing, the general schedule for 2012/early-2013 looks like this:

2012/Q2: Player’s Guide
2012/Q3: GM’s Guide
2012/Q4: House of the Lion, Shards Collection I
2013/Q1: Pirates of the Jumpweb, House of the Mantis

A number of Shards are being developed for Fading Suns Third Edition, which will be released throughout the year. You can also expect an additional news announcement related to Fading Suns in the near future. It’s a great time to be part of the Known Worlds!

FADING SUNS SAVAGE WORLDS AND PATHFINDER
As we announced on Pinnacle Games web site last year, RedBrick is working on releasing a version of Fading Suns for Savage Worlds. We are also updating the previous d20 version for use with the popular Pathfinder roleplaying game. Both editions are based on Fading Suns Second Edition. Development on Third Edition has taken precedence over these editions, so the first books are currently scheduled for release in late 2012/early-2013, as follows (for each system):

2012/Q4: Player’s and GM’s Guides
2013/Q1: Lords of the Known Worlds, Priests of the Celestial Sun

FADING SUNS CLASSIC
A number of Fading Suns Second Edition books are currently out of print. As with Earthdawn Classic, we will be publishing the range of Fading Suns Second Edition books in the smaller 6.14x9.21” format. These are low-priority releases and are being scheduled around standard releases from other editions.

I must say, the Savage Worlds / Pathfinder thing caught me by surprise. Should be interesting!

RPG News: Pelgrane-Hero-Redbrick

What happened in the past year for some Game Publishers of note? And what lies in store in the future? Here's an initial roundup of several publishers I keep track of:

Pelgrane Press

According to their December post, Pelgrane enjoyed a good year in 2011 - more sales, more review, more rewards, and more people playing their games (which, as an armchair gamer, I understand as not necessarily being the same as sales).

Apparently, the Trail of Cthulhu campaign frame Bookhounds of London had a limited edition run which included "The Book of the Smoke", which was a sleeper hit. A sleeper hit? Fine, am gonna hunt that down then -- it's only visible on their site though, and doesn't appear to be in DriveThruRPG/RPGNow or in the PDF copy of Bookhounds. Grrrr.

Ashen Stars, their science fiction offering for Gumshoe broke even, which is good because I rather liked the setting and have decided that combat-light, exploration & investigation-heavy games might be good for short-run play-by-post online games this year. Next year, we can expect a larger campaign book for Ashen Stars called Terra Nova in January.

Other things we can look forward to:

• a collection of four adventures for the Night's Black Agents RPG - a cool little RPG by Ken Hite that calls to my fascination with espionage adventures and a shadow war against supernatural forces;
• more stuff for Trail of Cthulhu
• more stuff for Esoterrorists

Hero Games

In the wake of the reduction of Hero Games's regular workforce by two-thirds, there's apparently a kickstarter out for an RPG supplement called Book of the Empress. The empress in question would be a multiverse-conquering villainess (well known to longtime Hero 5th Edition followers) who has set her sights on Earth: Istvatha V'han.



Also, we can expect the revised 3rd party license for new Hero products out soon - after current licensees review it and give feedback.

Redbrick

A forum post on the new site last year reveals that we can expect four Fading Suns releases from Redbrick every year onwards, starting this year. In Q1, the Fading Suns Player's Guide, and in Q2, the Fading Suns Zoomba Guide -- just kidding -- the Fading Suns Game Master's Guide. Quite a gap between the two, but we're assured that much of the second book is source material and therefore not necessarily a hinderance to longtime fans of the setting.

Some longtime fans wonder: "when in Q1?" Well, according to a translated French site -- January 2012! Then again, it refers back to the forum pages of Redbrick and I can't seem to find that particular date.

As for Q3 and Q4, we can expect two of the following books to come out: House of the Lion [to be written by Angus McNicholl], House of the Mantis [to be written by Gabriel Zarate], Universal Church [to be written by Vidar Edland], Forbidden Lore: Heresies [to be written by Vidar Edland],
Pirates of the Jumpweb [to be written by Todd Bogenrief].

Based on the chosen nomenclature of the books of the Houses of Nobility, one wonders what they'll be calling the books for the Li Halan, The Hazat, and the Al-Malik.

But it won't be all big books; apparently we can expect 3rd Edition shards to come out which should not only give some new gamers sample scenarios, but also let the rest of us know what the Known Worlds is like in the updated milieu.