Chronicles of Amber TV series

[finarvyn]

I'm not sure why this has been floating around in the General RPG section and not moved over here, but in case you have missed it there is discussion about a new Amber TV series in development.

http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?34800-Chronicles-of-Amber-TV-series-in-the-making

[RPGPundit]

Yeah, it's promising, but with Amber's bad luck, I'll believe it when I see it!

[Thoth]

Plus, I haven't seen anything on this in a while.

What I would like to see is someone get a hold of the Amber rights, and so up another RPG, diceless or not. Maybe  a Kickstarter?

[finarvyn]

Plus, I haven't seen anything on this in a while.

Strange, right? A flurry of stories on the web and then ... silence. That seems pretty much par for anything Amber related anymore.

What I would like to see is someone get a hold of the Amber rights, and so up another RPG, diceless or not. Maybe  a Kickstarter?

Agreed. Other than selling PDFs of ADRP and allowing the LoGaS folks to create a "ADRP compatible" game, the current owners of the rights seem to be doing nothing. I'd love to see pretty much anything Amber hit the market at this point -- RPG, novels, board game, card game, action figures, I don't much care what.

[Jason D]

Agreed. Other than selling PDFs of ADRP and allowing the LoGaS folks to create a "ADRP compatible" game, the current owners of the rights seem to be doing nothing. I'd love to see pretty much anything Amber hit the market at this point -- RPG, novels, board game, card game, action figures, I don't much care what.

As I understand the situation, Diceless by Design has only the rights to the ADRP system created by Wujcik. They have the rights to keep the ADRPG in print, but I do not believe those rights extend to anything beyond the existing game. A new edition would almost definitely need to be negotiated by the Zelazny Estate, which has historically been a challenge. I don't know if the situation has changed, but I've seen at least half a dozen publishers (Rite Publishing included) make an attempt to negotiate the gaming rights and get nowhere.

[finarvyn]

Well, Jason, I trust what you say because you always seem to have the inside scoop on all things Amber.

I would have thought that the Zelazny estate would be interested in cashing in since Roger has been gone for so long and fewer people seem to be familiar with his work. Any gaming exposure is bound to increase book sales, I should think, which would benefit the estate. I wonder why they are so reluctant to merchandise the Zelazny brand.

[Thoth]

Well, Jason, I trust what you say because you always seem to have the inside scoop on all things Amber.

I would have thought that the Zelazny estate would be interested in cashing in since Roger has been gone for so long and fewer people seem to be familiar with his work. Any gaming exposure is bound to increase book sales, I should think, which would benefit the estate. I wonder why they are so reluctant to merchandise the Zelazny brand.

Exactly.

It is strange that it is so silent. I think this could be the next big franchise, a la, Game of Thrones and the like.

It is a great story, there are ten novels, and a whole universe to explore.

Plus, you don't even have to have the RPG be diceless...

[Headless]

Plus, you don't even have to have the RPG be diceless...

Yes you do.

[Jason D]

I would have thought that the Zelazny estate would be interested in cashing in since Roger has been gone for so long and fewer people seem to be familiar with his work. Any gaming exposure is bound to increase book sales, I should think, which would benefit the estate. I wonder why they are so reluctant to merchandise the Zelazny brand.

This is what I have heard about the issues. I may have been misinformed or my info might be out of date, so bear with me.

When Roger died, he was legally separated from his wife, but rights to the estate were still in his ex-wife's hands, and partially with his children. His partner at the time (Jane Lindskold) was left as executor of his estate. If you can imagine such a situation, you can get a pretty good idea of why it might not be terribly easy to negotiate things. Roger's literary agency was the Pimlico Agency, run by Kirby and Kay McCawley. Kirby died in 2014, and I'm not sure Kay is very active, or if the rights to his work are still with her. A check of the Best Business NY site (where they were incorporated) says that the agency closed in 1992, after 28 years in business. They may have transferred his representation to another agency, or they may have simply handed it back to his family and let them deal with his representation. I've heard conflicting stories about where the rights are.  

This becomes complicated if you take into account that the holders of his estate might not have the rights to The Chronicles of Amber for television/film, as there have been numerous attempts at bringing it to the screen. They may have sold those rights long ago, and in some cases, rights to ancillary projects are often tied into those rights, just as the Lord of the Rings license encompasses almost everything other than the actual books by Tolkien. My guess is that Skybound Entertainment, who are working on the series, bought the rights from the Scifi Network, who had them beforehand. Or from some intermediary.

So the question is whether Phage Press had a contract that allowed new editions of the game to be created, if the rights allowed for transfer of ownership of the license, and if the rights are not in conflict with another licensee, in which case these things usually have to be negotiated.

Ultimately, though, if a license isn't easy and clear to  get, there usually isn't enough money in RPGs to warrant sorting things out. Unless a roleplaying publisher has a legal advisor or lawyer on staff willing to work for free, it's going to be prohibitively expensive to resolve these sorts of situations.

If it were up to me, I'd do the following:

1. Find out who actually owns the rights to a new edition of the RPG
2. Discuss options with Diceless by Design, to see if using Wujcik's rules are the best choice moving forward*
3. Contact Skybound Entertainment and find out what the status of the TV series is. There's nothing about it on their website other than the announcement.
4. Coordinate with the above parties to do a Kickstarter for a deluxe, hardcover edition of the core rules and all sorts of associated merch, such as a tarot deck, GM screen, etc. Stretch goals would be a line of adventures or expansions from a dream-team of RPG authors.
5. Assess based on the success of the Kickstarter if there'd be any point in continuing a game line beyond the core book, but making those separate projects.


* I could make a strong argument for using a tarot based task resolution system, with a themed deck of cards.

[Lord Darkview]

I'd love to see this get off the ground, but I'm with Pundit: I'll believe it when I see it.

Regarding rights management: I don't think LoGaS technically needed anyone's permission to create and ADRPG-compatible game.  IIRC, copyright does not protect game mechanics.  So unless we have a direct account that a conversation was had, LoGaS probably isn't a good indicator that any rights-related discussions were happening that involve Amber on any level.

[Jason D]

I'd love to see this get off the ground, but I'm with Pundit: I'll believe it when I see it.

Regarding rights management: I don't think LoGaS technically needed anyone's permission to create and ADRPG-compatible game.  IIRC, copyright does not protect game mechanics.  So unless we have a direct account that a conversation was had, LoGaS probably isn't a good indicator that any rights-related discussions were happening that involve Amber on any level.

I was there every step of the way on multiple occasions, so I'm not sure how much more of an "indicator" you need.

We could have done a compatible-but-unlicensed version, but wanted to do things aboveboard and with the agreement of the current ADRP license-holders, who are friends. We also wanted the blessing of the thriving and quite large ADRP-playing community, and an unlicensed product would have been antithetical to that goal. I also had zero interest in writing something with the serial numbers scraped off, so to speak.

Steve Russell doggedly tried to negotiate for the Amber rights, but got nowhere.  I've participated in at least four separate attempts at the rights from well-known and respected publishers and game designers, and they all got nowhere. I have no idea how many other attempts were made, but I've heard of at least two others. Simply put, the license-holders at that time weren't interested in discussing RPG licensing.

I don't know what the current status is, but the amount of RZ that's out of print gives me an indication that there's not a lot of activity there. I've also worked with a publisher who simply wanted to get Zelazny's back catalog back into print -- titles like Roadmarks, Jack of Shadows, A Dark Traveling, Changeling/Madwand -- for the purposes of potentially licensing them for game development, and they also got nowhere.

I've communicated extensively in the past with Trent Zelazny, and he's expressed frustration and sympathy about the situation, but he's also quite adamant that he's out of the loop on such matters. Even the Roger Zelazny tribute anthology he was editing had to exclude Amber material.

So by all means, if you have some better source of information about past negotiations, speak your piece.

[Thoth]

Great post Jason.

Thanks for the update.

I cannot understand the thinking behind decisions like this. Why not share the wealth? Sit down, hash out the issues, so everyone can get a piece of the pie. Oh well, family is family.

[Lord Darkview]

I was there every step of the way on multiple occasions, so I'm not sure how much more of an "indicator" you need.

We could have done a compatible-but-unlicensed version, but wanted to do things aboveboard and with the agreement of the current ADRP license-holders, who are friends. We also wanted the blessing of the thriving and quite large ADRP-playing community, and an unlicensed product would have been antithetical to that goal. I also had zero interest in writing something with the serial numbers scraped off, so to speak.

Steve Russell doggedly tried to negotiate for the Amber rights, but got nowhere.  I've participated in at least four separate attempts at the rights from well-known and respected publishers and game designers, and they all got nowhere. I have no idea how many other attempts were made, but I've heard of at least two others. Simply put, the license-holders at that time weren't interested in discussing RPG licensing.

I don't know what the current status is, but the amount of RZ that's out of print gives me an indication that there's not a lot of activity there. I've also worked with a publisher who simply wanted to get Zelazny's back catalog back into print -- titles like Roadmarks, Jack of Shadows, A Dark Traveling, Changeling/Madwand -- for the purposes of potentially licensing them for game development, and they also got nowhere.

I've communicated extensively in the past with Trent Zelazny, and he's expressed frustration and sympathy about the situation, but he's also quite adamant that he's out of the loop on such matters. Even the Roger Zelazny tribute anthology he was editing had to exclude Amber material.

So by all means, if you have some better source of information about past negotiations, speak your piece.

Just speculating based on what little I know about game-related IP versus other types of IP.  Your info is certainly better.

[finarvyn]

I was inspired to look for "Chronicles of Amber tv series" on google, and saddened to realize that the most recent updates were nearly a year ago. (Mostly July 19-20, 2016.) Ugh. I'd like to see occasional news on this project, if it is really happening at all.

[daniel_ream]

I could make a strong argument for using a tarot based task resolution system, with a themed deck of cards.

Shut up and take my money.