Mongoose Publishing and Twilight 2000

[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by Raellus

It must be hard for a small gaming company to get its product out there among the masses in this day and age. I don't fault 93GS for this situation. I'm sure they were doing the best they could with the resources they had. I think it's symptomatic of the PnP RPG industry as a whole.

I've never been in a position to deal with the business side of operations (always been freelance writing talent, never a "captive" employee), but my understanding is that the game distribution channels have radically contracted over the past decade. I can recall at least three major closures - one that outright destroyed several small publishers whose sole distributor went out of business.

Originally Posted by helbent4

As for who I listened to, I had some questions with the rules and figured I should go directly to the horse's mouth. These problems were posted there. In fact, I found a mea culpa from I what i believe were the game designers themselves, about how they tried to adapt T2Ks vehicle combat rules to Reflex and this created unexpected rules conflicts. (Like many things in life, I could be mistaken.) I don't think I'm being unnecessarily harsh if I'm simply agreeing with openly acknowledged flaws.

I'll own that particular cock-up. This was the intersection of two separate design efforts that I didn't fully test in conjunction with one another before we released.

First was small arms effects on personnel. When we designed this, we went with an all-new damage and penetration formula based on a combination of kinetic energy and cross-sectional area. We calibrated the baseline numbers for a key set of calibers against the expected range of character wound thresholds. Then we set the numbers for body armor so it would equal real-world performance as per NIJ standards. So far, so good.

The problems came when, rather than doing the same thing for heavy weapons and vehicle armor, I tried to keep GDW's 2.0/2.2 values intact to allow easy adaptation of the vehicle guides. Unfortunately, because GDW's small arms damage and armor equivalency scales were different, this created situations where assault rifles could damage, if not outright kill, some AFVs - and a PC wearing Level IV trauma plates had better protection than a Stryker.

If anyone still cares at this point, here's the thread on the 93GS forum where I posted the complete fix. It's also in the Driver's Guide: Czech Your Engine manuscript I released in July.

That's certainly not the only rules hole in Reflex. It's far from perfect and I have a laundry list of things I'd change if I had the opportunity to do a second edition of it.

Originally Posted by helbent4

Bringing this back to Mongoose, updating T2013 had demonstrably mixed results. Arguably, some gamers were at least a little alienated while the hoped-for breakthrough with younger gamers that was apparently the whole point of the exercise wasn't altogether achieved. It's not clear to me why if Mongoose were to take a kick at the can they would want to do it in the same way and expect different results.

The more I think about this, the more I expect Mongoose is going to attempt to cash in on the nostalgia market and apply their existing Trav rules set to a 1.0 or 2.0 timeline. I have no evidence for this belief beyond the fact that I don't think they did a reboot of the Trav timeline. I doubt it'll be successful, but niche products have surprised me before.

- C.

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by Tegyrius

I'll own that particular cock-up. This was the intersection of two separate design efforts that I didn't fully test in conjunction with one another before we released.

The more I think about this, the more I expect Mongoose is going to attempt to cash in on the nostalgia market and apply their existing Trav rules set to a 1.0 or 2.0 timeline. I have no evidence for this belief beyond the fact that I don't think they did a reboot of the Trav timeline. I doubt it'll be successful, but niche products have surprised me before.

Tegyrus,

Please accept my apologies, I don't want to stir up any more ragging on you or 93SG. Thanks for including the link!

Regarding Mongoose, I think it's a little optimistic to hope that any game based on T2K (pretty much the definition of a realistic, crunchy, detailed military RPG) would somehow appeal to any untapped demographic segment of the market. Mongoose may as well go back to the well if niches are the dominant market reality.

Tony

[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by helbent4

Please accept my apologies, I don't want to stir up any more ragging on you or 93SG. Thanks for including the link!

No, you're good. Pointing out that particular issue was a valid criticism of the system and it's a hole I should have plugged shortly after release. Keeping up with errata is part of the job. Or was. Whichever.

Anyway. I'm unlikely to take exception to people pointing out errata issues unless they do it with significantly less tact than you did. My main issue is with people arbitrarily dismissing the system, unplayed and sometimes even unread, because something in the setting beat up their honor students or shaved their dogs.

Regarding Mongoose, I think it's a little optimistic to hope that any game based on T2K (pretty much the definition of a realistic, crunchy, detailed military RPG) would somehow appeal to any untapped demographic segment of the market. Mongoose may as well go back to the well if niches are the dominant market reality.

This entire industry is a niche. No one does this to get rich. Well, some people get in thinking they will and learn painful lessons about the tiny and fickle nature of their target markets. But most of us do it because we're gamers and we have a burning drive to create, not just follow.

Now... from what Matt Sprange has said, Mongoose tends not to go after licenses unless someone on staff is passionate enough about the property to champion its acquisition and drive the subsequent projects. So there may be someone in their shop who'd fit in well here (if he isn't already lurking) and whose vision matches this community's more than the 2013 team's did. I suspect they have a business plan that they think they can make work. I just don't know that I share their optimism right now.

- C.

[Legbreaker]

I suppose the demise of T:2013 must be somewhat like loosing a child. You put a lot of love and effort into raising it the best you can and then, after a short illness you try to stay positive through, it's all over and you find yourself shovelling dirt into it's grave.

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

I suppose the demise of T:2013 must be somewhat like loosing a child. You put a lot of love and effort into raising it the best you can and then, after a short illness you try to stay positive through, it's all over and you find yourself shovelling dirt into it's grave.

Leg,

Bloody hell, now I want to kill myself.

Worst. Metaphor. Ever.

Tony

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by Tegyrius

Now... from what Matt Sprange has said, Mongoose tends not to go after licenses unless someone on staff is passionate enough about the property to champion its acquisition and drive the subsequent projects. So there may be someone in their shop who'd fit in well here (if he isn't already lurking) and whose vision matches this community's more than the 2013 team's did. I suspect they have a business plan that they think they can make work. I just don't know that I share their optimism right now.

Tegyrus,

Hey, I would imagine that if Mongoose had someone who went to bat for Traveller, there is someone who likes T2K due to the natural cross-over between the games. There may or may not be cause for optimism, I think there is enough of an established market to break even. We can only hope!

Tony