With the recent announcement about Nocturnal's acquisition of D6, what should they do with it? What setting or license would make a good new D6 game? Preferably something that both fits the system and would sell books?
Species.
Necroscope.
World of Aden.
Tales from the Crypt.
GUARANTEED bestsellers.
A general Andersonverse game that somehow blends all the shows... UFO/Space 1999/Thunderbirds/Captain Scarlett/Joe 90/etc... even Space Precinct.
Dark Horse did a Starkiller comic a few years back. AKA, they used the original Star Wars script for the basis of their SW comic.
I wonder if Disney would sell THAT as a separate license and if Dark Horse would team up for the project (especially as DH did this a few years back and now its just old stock.)
Then, WEG could put out an Alternate Universe Star Wars D6 game. And we would gobble it up like crack addicts.
Also, WEG should get the Ghostbusters license. But I don't know who they would call about that.
Far West?
Abercrombie or Sanderson properties.
A tribute to d6s pick up and go pulpy aesthetic, Harryhausen & Hammer films. It'd mostly just please crotchety old fucks like me, but I wouldn't mind.
To actually get money from the young 'uns? Probably Adventure Time, Archer, and or Venture Bros.
I'd go more generic. They already have D6 Fantasy, D6 Space, and D6 Adventure. How about D6 Horror, D6 Steampunk, D6 Lost World, etc.
Firefly would be a good match, but it already has a Savage Worlds treatment.
What kind of settings would be fitting for d6 in terms of granularity, range, chance of success, power level and deadliness?
Quote from: Premier;891918Firefly would be a good match, but it already has a Savage Worlds treatment.
Does it? AFAIK Firefly is a Cortex+ game. And Serenity was Cortex.
Quote from: 3rik;891922What kind of settings would be fitting for d6 in terms of granularity, range, chance of success, power level and deadliness?
Does it? AFAIK Firefly is a Cortex+ game. And Serenity was Cortex.
It is, I made a similar mistake a few years ago. The mechanics are similar, though I'd say Cortex+/Cortex were more inspired by the way old Deadlands played than SW.
d6 Firefly would be a purchase for me.
I'd like to see:
Metabarons
Firefly
Dune
Mad Max
Indiana Jones
Crimson Skies
Quote from: tenbones;891946Metabarons
The old Metabarons game was D6 right? A thinly disguised veneer over the Star Wars rules IIRC.
A proper take on that setting and the Inkal stuff would pull me in, yeah.
Quote from: Rincewind1;891925It is, I made a similar mistake a few years ago. The mechanics are similar, though I'd say Cortex+/Cortex were more inspired by the way old Deadlands played than SW.
Cortex Plus heavily borrows from Fate. In fact reading through Fate Core gave me my Eureka moment in figuring out how to play Marvel Heroic.
Quote from: Simlasa;891956The old Metabarons game was D6 right? A thinly disguised veneer over the Star Wars rules IIRC.
A proper take on that setting and the Inkal stuff would pull me in, yeah.
Never owned it. Always wanted to - just never got around to finding a copy. Hmm. I'll go sniff around.
None of them, it should its own IP. Licenses are not cheap.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;891997None of them, it should its own IP. Licenses are not cheap.
I agree... much better to build from scratch or file the IP off of something they can actually own and run with however they like.
Even my desire to see an Andersonverse game is probably going to be better served by someone taking inspiration from that source than a designer who is locked down by legal constraints and fanboy nitpicking.
Quote from: Simlasa;891829A general Andersonverse game that somehow blends all the shows... UFO/Space 1999/Thunderbirds/Captain Scarlett/Joe 90/etc... even Space Precinct.
Oooh I like that!
Granted it's pretty niche and I don't think it would have a wide appeal.
Umm, tough call.
New school space opera. Something like Iain Banks' Culture or Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space. Only not as grim as Eclipse Phase.
Science fantasy and/or sword & planet. Is E. R. Burroughs' stuff public domain in the US yet?
Fantasy with swashbuckling and/or steampunk elements. Something a WoW player might latch on to. Gnomes in zeppelins and stuff.
A good, old-fashioned men's adventure pulp RPG, with plenty of room for supernatural weirdness.
Would it be crazy if they teamed up with SyFy and put out stuff for all the cool SyFy series like Dark Matter, Killjoys, Defiance, The Expanse, even Z Nation?
Of course, that's part of what did them in back in the day, grabbing up every B list license they could. Still, some of those would be cool to see in RPG form.
License NOTHING.
Instead, make products that allow the user to hit up his fan wiki of choice and effortlessly let him roll his own fan campaign.
We don't need "official" stuff anymore. The Internet handles all that nit-picky obsessive shit better than any gaming product ever will, so stop trying. Stick to what you actually fucking need: a way to take natural language and turn it into playable stat blocks.
Lots of good ideas here, but....
Quote from: Christopher Brady;891997None of them, it should its own IP. Licenses are not cheap.
A lot of truth in that statement.
As we are spit balling here though. I would like to see,
Into the Badlands (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Badlands_(TV_series))
Peaky Blinders (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaky_Blinders_(TV_series))
Baltimore, or The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore,_or,_The_Steadfast_Tin_Soldier_and_the_Vampire)
Although the genre is way over done nowadays, The Walking Dead would be a huge franchise.
Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;892081Instead, make products that allow the user to hit up his fan wiki of choice and effortlessly let him roll his own fan campaign.
I think debadged versions of _Men in Black_ and _Hercules & Xena_ would be gameable. I don't know how well they'd sell.
Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;892081License NOTHING.
Instead, make products that allow the user to hit up his fan wiki of choice and effortlessly let him roll his own fan campaign.
The issue with this, is that American litigation being what it is, if it's 'too similar' to the thing that it wants to crib from, you're getting sued. Or you're paying for a license which would allow one to actually use those fan Wikis better.
Quote from: Technomancer;892069Would it be crazy if they teamed up with SyFy and put out stuff for all the cool SyFy series like Dark Matter, Killjoys, Defiance, The Expanse, even Z Nation?
Of course, that's part of what did them in back in the day, grabbing up every B list license they could. Still, some of those would be cool to see in RPG form.
That actually sounds really cool. I have ended up liking SyFy's past season of shows. A collaboration, especially with the pick up and play speed of d6, could be truly killer.
But a little goes a long way. If they were to do it, it would have to be with the whole channel from the onset. That way if the channel wanted to parley Face Off past works as a Monster Manual folio, you don't have to go through complete renegotiations or worry about massive print runs. Basically it'd be a concessions vendor for the equivalent of niche silk screen t-shirts, but a wide spread choice of images.
Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;892081License NOTHING.
Instead, make products that allow the user to hit up his fan wiki of choice and effortlessly let him roll his own fan campaign.
We don't need "official" stuff anymore. The Internet handles all that nit-picky obsessive shit better than any gaming product ever will, so stop trying. Stick to what you actually fucking need: a way to take natural language and turn it into playable stat blocks.
Isn't that already the setting agnostic genre splats? Space d6, Fantasy d6, etc. just add DIY elbow grease for setting conversions? Doesn't seem to be working out too great for them.
There's something to be said for a strong opinion and direction, hence settings more detailed beyond loose genre conventions appearing to do better.
Or are you proposing a mechanistic translation of language into d6 system widgets? That sounds like an even harder challenge, particularly in more interpretive areas. At some point you're going to have to "contain" all comparable nouns from all popular settings within a singular math formula spectrum, which is like asking for the world's largest fandoms to dogpile in a free-for-all shitstorm.
Other than the aforementioned SyFy stuff, I always thought the 1980s Buck Rogers tv series was a prime candidate for a D6 write-up.
Or maybe Flash Gordon.
(Which I believe actually was a short lived SyFy series).
Quote from: Technomancer;892111Or maybe Flash Gordon.
(Which I believe actually was a short lived SyFy series).
You wouldn't recognize it as Flash Gordon, though.
Quote from: Technomancer;892069Would it be crazy if they teamed up with SyFy and put out stuff for all the cool SyFy series like Dark Matter, Killjoys, Defiance, The Expanse, even Z Nation?
Of course, that's part of what did them in back in the day, grabbing up every B list license they could. Still, some of those would be cool to see in RPG form.
Good thinking. A WEG/Syfy deal would seem like an ideal match. Defiance in particular is made for gaming (it was tied to a computer game).
But you are also right in pointing out the downfall of license. They cost money, they date a product and have a limited shelf life due to the license expiring.
It is actually worse now that so many sales are pdf based. It used to be that when the license ran out you could still carry on selling the physical stock of the product you had which could keep it in the shops for years. Now, the all the pdfs are withdrawn sale the very day after the license expires.
Quote from: Technomancer;892111Other than the aforementioned SyFy stuff, I always thought the 1980s Buck Rogers tv series was a prime candidate for a D6 write-up.
Or maybe Flash Gordon.
(Which I believe actually was a short lived SyFy series).
Pinnacle's working on Flash Gordon for Savage Worlds, and after the various TSR attempts, I doubt anyone in the hobby will touch Buck Rogers for fear of being associated with Lorraine Williams.
Trion owns Defiance alongside syfy and i cant see them being interested in licencing the universe out to a tabletop game that would instantly prove far superior to their trainwreck of a game(the show has been cancelled)....Dark Matter and Killjoys i could see working well though, or heck Farscape should be cheap these days or Babylon 5
Quote from: 3rik;891922What kind of settings would be fitting for d6 in terms of granularity, range, chance of success, power level and deadliness?
Does it? AFAIK Firefly is a Cortex+ game. And Serenity was Cortex.
Could be. Honestly, I can't tell the difference between the two (three, whatever), which suggests to me they're doing a bad marketing job at communicating their identity to me, the potential customer.
Quote from: Premier;892192Could be. Honestly, I can't tell the difference between the two (three, whatever), which suggests to me they're doing a bad marketing job at communicating their identity to me, the potential customer.
Cortex Plus might be one of my favorite systems and yes you are right. Margaret Weis Publications has totally dropped the ball with support for this system. Apparently there is a Kickstarter impending for the Action and Heroic flavours but I'll believe it when I see it.
Back to the topic. Crimson Skies was mentioned. I would immediately buy it. Another setting that could be nice is Ringworld.
Crimson Skies would be way sweet.:)
If the D6 system was good, it wouldn't need a setting to get players to buy it.
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;892280If the D6 system was good, it wouldn't need a setting to get players to buy it.
Man, you are such a bitter man.
So what you're saying is that any system that comes with a setting sux? D&D, HERO System, GURPS, Savage Worlds, Palladium, Dragon Warrior, Runequest... All these and more are terrible systems?
Really? Seriously? Wow... Just... Wow.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;892285Man, you are such a bitter man.
So what you're saying is that any system that comes with a setting sux? D&D, HERO System, GURPS, Savage Worlds, Palladium, Dragon Warrior, Runequest... All these and more are terrible systems?
Really? Seriously? Wow... Just... Wow.
Since when did HERO, GURPS and Savage Worlds come with a setting? They're all generic toolkit systems.
Quote from: CRKrueger;892294Since when did HERO, GURPS and Savage Worlds come with a setting? They're all generic toolkit systems.
Champions, Fantasy Trip (I believe the name was) and Deadlands, were all the precursors, or intended settings, for those systems.
Quote from: Technomancer;892069Would it be crazy if they teamed up with SyFy and put out stuff for all the cool SyFy series like Dark Matter, Killjoys, Defiance, The Expanse, even Z Nation?
Since Dark Matter is based on a comic by Dark Horse, and The Expanse is based on a series of novels, I doubt SyFy could license those 2 properties out. Killjoys would be nice, but I wouldn't mind seeing them come up with something on their own.
I'd prefer them to create their own settings/games inspired by Z or X peroperty rather than a straight game for Z or X property.
Maybe they could do some of the old amazing engine stuff. Bughunters, Magitech, Kromosome, etc.