Do we even need Decipher anymore?

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Originally posted by Solo
So what if we just create a list of all netbooks available with links to support fan created books? A sticky just like the erratas to give so publicity to the authors.

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Someone has already done this awhile ago. It was never made a sticky thread. It was where I downloaded all my copies of the fan made .pdf's that I have.

I was unable to find it just now, but I will search again latter when I have more time. However, if I remember right the last time I looked at that thread most of the links it had were dead.

If someone wanted to make a new thread. . .the old one would be a good place to start. . .it listed the title and author for each .pdf file it listed.

My "best case" (in my not-so-humble-opinion, of course!) situation would be the licence going to AEG or Mongoose.

Spycraft, SG-1 and Babylon 5 are all d20, and all sensational.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I am no fan of d20 but I really really wanted to see Star Trek d20.

Call me crazy :)

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Originally posted by D.S.McBride

Indeed. Don alerted us to the fact that the Trek license was "purportedly" for five years back in Sept. '00, when the annoucement about the acquisition was first made.

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Actually, the first announcement was made at GenCon 2000 in August, and it took me by surprise. The LUG's license (acquired by WotC) was good for up to December 2000.

Who knows? Another game company can make an announcement at GenCon 2005 (July) that they got the Trek license, despite that Decipher's license is still good for up to December 2005.

[size=0.5]Hehehehehe.[/size]

You mean GenCon 2004, not 2005, don't you?

Maybe Viacom will found its own RPG company. They are such a greedy bunch of people when it comes to selling Trek merchandise that they will produce at least one book a month. :D

is there actually a company out there who thinks they can make more money than decipher at this? maybe trek rpg just isn't profitable for a company to even want to produce.

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Originally posted by Ergi

You mean GenCon 2004, not 2005, don't you?

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I initially thought so while I was posting, but then I remembered if the LUG's license expired on December 31, 2000, then Decipher's license became effective on January 1, 2001. A five-year period would mean that it is expected to expire by either December 31, 2005 (less likely, IMO) or January 1, 2006 (more likely, IMO).

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Maybe Viacom will found its own RPG company. They are such a greedy bunch of people when it comes to selling Trek merchandise that they will produce at least one book a month. :D

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I think it is more cost-effective for them to license out the IP (with strict conditions such as reviewing and approving material), so they can just sit back and wait for their regularly scheduled royalty payments coming in, rather than invest their own money and resources running a RPG company and all the expenses.

If anything, they should at least learn the mistakes made with Marvel Entertainment who tried to publish their own Marvel Universe RPG (it was short-lived).

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Originally posted by jened

is there actually a company out there who thinks they can make more money than decipher at this? maybe trek rpg just isn't profitable for a company to even want to produce.

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If they are, they're not disclosing nor displaying such interest out in public ... yet.

btw,
does anyone know if there is a clause in the trek/lotr contract that decipher must make X products per year ?

Only Decipher management knows the specific details of each of the two contracts.

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Originally posted by Capt. Anderson
Question is: Who would want the cursed ST line? As a long time Trek fan and a bandwagon fan of LotR since 2001, I would venture a guess that WoC might want Star Trek line.

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Lucas won't allow WotC to make a Star Trek RPG and still keep a Star Wars RPG. (Apparently, it's personal). Given that, then, frankly, as a business, Star Wars makes more sense. Trek isn't nearly as popular as it once was.

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I couldn't bring myself to purchase ST in the D20 setting. Setting 16 on phaser doing 3D8 damage and crits on a 19-20. :rolleyes:

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I think that d20 would really only suffer because of the concept of character levels. Combat wise, it's pretty swift and clear, so that part wouldn't be a huge deal. But explaining how a 10th level Ensign has to take orders from a 2nd level Lieutenant may be a pisser. :)

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Originally posted by jened
is there actually a company out there who thinks they can make more money than decipher at this? maybe trek rpg just isn't profitable for a company to even want to produce.

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Well, considering that even the biggest RPG out there right now is on a shoe-string budget, as soon as you tack on the very large licensing fees to the Trek franchise, you can easily the hesistation to go for an official Trek RPG. Prime Directive skirts this for other, quite convoluted, reasons.

Personally, I think that the chances of a new and official Trek RPG coming out are pretty slim until ENT is off the air and the next movie is officially shelved. The license fees have to come down to this side of utterly-rediculous.

Particularly for the bad return they're getting right now.

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Originally posted by koraldon
btw,
does anyone know if there is a clause in the trek/lotr contract that decipher must make X products per year ?

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In general agreements of this type are pretty 'flat-fee' for 'so many uses'. There wouldn't be a 'you must make at least' clause, more than likely, but a 'you cannot make more than' clause with some stipulations onto what those pieces are.

Of course, additional material could have an 'extension' to the license, particularly if the license holder (Viacom/Paramount) wanted to push the license a little harder for some reason.

Has anyone from Lucasfilm, Viacom, WotC, Decipher, or someone similar ever confirmed that WotC can't have both the Trek and Star Wars licenses? I've heard it said many times but I can't recall hearing it from an official source...

d20 Trek would depend on how you implemented it. D&D Trek would kinda stink, as would Star Wars Trek... However, using something like Mongoose's Babylon 5 as a starting point would be pretty reasonable (10th level characters able to be killed from a single shot or a well-placed sword blow). I'd probably dial down the grittiness a little with something like Courage Points to protect heroes from dice (as Trek seems a bit more "swashbuckling" than B5, though far less so than Star Wars).

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Has anyone from Lucasfilm, Viacom, WotC, Decipher, or someone similar ever confirmed that WotC can't have both the Trek and Star Wars licenses? I've heard it said many times but I can't recall hearing it from an official source...

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I don't think that there's a specific letter or anything that's out, but I have heard it from WOTC and Hasbro's employees directly, and Lucas is pretty well known to dislike all things 'Trek'.

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d20 Trek would depend on how you implemented it. D&D Trek would kinda stink, as would Star Wars Trek...

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There is a fantasy game I was just looking at that handles it fairly well, since the emphasis is on ship-to-ship combat, exploration, and all. It is, of course, still fantasy, but it really showed that a 'Kirk-Style' Trek setting could be done.

So long as the mechanics are written and explained with Trek in mind, I really don't see a problem inherent in most of the rules, except...

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I'd probably dial down the grittiness a little with something like Courage Points to protect heroes from dice (as Trek seems a bit more "swashbuckling" than B5, though far less so than Star Wars). [/B]

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Well, if you look at Trek, there isn't a lot of prolonged firefights going on, for a reason. To mirror the 'feel' of Trek, you would have adventures and setting material that emphasized the use of skills over the use of phasers.

That said, the 'one-shot one-kill' mentality works for fiction and TV, but it's terrible for games. I mean, who wants to play a James T Kirk that gets killed by a collapsing brid... erm.. scratch that.