[News] Decipher RPG Product Lines Transferred

[prophetsteve]

And they are taking on more. Starship Troopers later this year as both a non-D20 RPG and as a minis game. It's supposedly really hard to make money off of licensed properties, I don't know how they do it. And they keep up a decent release schedule.

While their written material is top-notch, on the graphics side Mongoose errs on the side of speed rather than quality. There are very few custom graphics and pictures used in their books and when they are used they often are crude-looking (see the Worker-caste symbols in the Minbari book). Also some of their screencaps, which account for most of the internal art, is a bit grainy and blurry.

On a plus side they often buy graphics from the people who do fan-cgi. I have seen quite a few pics from various sites ending up as pictures in the books.

Also, the B5 game uses a lot of dedicated freelancers like August Hahn and Bruce Graw. Though I know August does other d20 work and Bruce is now the miniatures guy for Starship Troopers, their focus seemed to be Babylon 5 for the last 8 months.

In short, Mongoose is very dedicated to getting products out the door quickly - even if the visual presentation suffers a bit because of it. Interestingly enough, even though their books do have some errors, they don't seem as bad as some other products which are much slower released...

[Balok]

Not all of their written material is top-notch. The "Ultimate Arcane Spellbook" was poor. And that's being kind. It's the only "Ultimate" book I bought, and the only Mongoose product I will ever buy. That's how bad it was.

[Don Mappin]

Conan is pretty bad too (in terms of errors). The good news is Mongoose has taken these shortcomings to heart and has taken steps to resolve them.

[REG]

Yeah. I have already read Mongoose_Matt's apology statement and his plan to do better on the EN World Messageboards. While it remains to be seen if his plan will work -- only the end result that matters -- I kinda wish other companies would follow by owing up to their mistakes and apologize publicly, and taking steps to rectify the situation.

[koraldon]

My Personal Guess/estimate -
They will announce soon that the release schedule for Q2 is:
April: Worlds
June: Helm's Deep
(or vice versa)

And that the release schedule for the rest of the year will be published later (i.e. when they make a final decision)
This way they keep the lines "alive" with minimal investment, fulfill the promise they made, don't commit on anything big and have plenty of time to play with....

Probably a good short-term solution for them, since as far I understood from here, those books have completed layout...

[Ineti]

I think Paths of the Wise is in layout or is done, too.

[prophetsteve]

Not all of their written material is top-notch. The "Ultimate Arcane Spellbook" was poor. And that's being kind. It's the only "Ultimate" book I bought, and the only Mongoose product I will ever buy. That's how bad it was.

Well, those friends of mine who are really into D&D basically tell me "when buying material from Mongoose - buy the licenses, stay away from the D&D material".

The top-knotch writing I was referring to was Babylon 5. Judge Dredd isn't too shabby either. Don't have Conan but I have heard about its shortcomings.

Mongoose is nice cause they will take responsibility - if they offend someone or make a goof, they won't go all defensive or ignore the problem. They are pretty straight forward with "we goofed" and then try to fix the errors.

That alone has earned them a bit of slack, and a segment of my RPG budget.

[Balok]

Originally posted by prophetsteve
Well, those friends of mine who are really into D&D basically tell me "when buying material from Mongoose - buy the licenses, stay away from the D&D material".

Okay, your suggestion is noted. I purchased the Ultimate Arcane Spellbook, and found so many problems that I felt compelled to write a review (you can find it over at GamingReport.com), just to warn other folks what they were buying. The errata for it at the Mongoose site is something like 32 pages long, roughly 13% of the size of the book, last time I looked. To me, that screamed of a book that was rushed to press before it was ready, under the new theory some publishers have that "it's all good if we fix it on the website, and no one will care 'cause we'll give the fixes away". To me, the ability to easily distribute errata should not be an excuse for poor production values.

Originally posted by prophetsteve
The top-knotch writing I was referring to was Babylon 5. Judge Dredd isn't too shabby either. Don't have Conan but I have heard about its shortcomings.

Of these three, only B5 really interests me. I read a few Judge Dredd comics, and found them enjoyable, but the notion of running a game set in MegaCity One (?) doesn't "grab" me. However, I'll give B5 a look next time I make a pilgrammage to my Friendly Distant Game Store...

[REG]

My experience is with AEG's early "one word" d20 fantasy products. But lately they're getting a bit better at their line, which such thing as EMPIRE and TOOLBOX.

Mongoose do well when they make their own games, like Armageddon: 2089 (a mecha game with BattleTech feel; though the mecha art could be better and somewhat practical).

Gawd, I hope Decipher come to a decision soon.

[prophetsteve]

Gawd, I hope Decipher come to a decision soon.

So do I

I liked the CODA Trek game - and I want to buy more...

Thank goodness we got as much as we did - At least in terms of generality, the game is complete. Right now all I need to do is get Creatures book and my collection is complete... except for the game screen but that is pre-errata so I am gonna skip that...

I would have liked to seen the series books though

[Jason Durall]

Originally posted by prophetsteve
Don't have Conan but I have heard about its shortcomings.

The Conan RPG is tremendously well-written, but sadly, when it was changed from being a d20 game to being an OGL title, a lot of material was added from the OGL SRD without modification (or even, apparently, examination), creating a great number of wonky issues, and a few sloppy editing tasks made it full of typos and little gaffes.

As for the writing and quality of the source material, it is top-notch. A new printing fixing many of the previous errors is in the making, and Mongoose has publically apologized and offered a sizeable discount (60%) to those who buy a second copy of the rulebook, and offered some exclusive content to those who don't feel like paying for another copy.

[Balok]

Originally posted by Jason Durall
... a lot of material was added from the OGL SRD without modification (or even, apparently, examination), creating a great number of wonky issues, and a few sloppy editing tasks made it full of typos and little gaffes.

If I had to summarize my displeasure with the Ultimate Arcane Spellbook, this description would be darn close. It looked like content was shoveled into a book without regard for consistency, spelling, layout, or editing. It's dismaying to learn that another book from Mongoose has this problem; it suggests they're trying to do too much with the staff they have, or else that they have little regard for their customers -- believing they'll continue to pay good money for poor efforts.

It's nice that they apologize, and even better if they commit to fixing the problem, but I think I'll wait awhile and see if they really fix it.

[REG]

That's what I mean by "only the end result that matter." I still praise for them for responding to us, rather than send no response at all, which will leave us wondering if they're ignoring us.

Probably the same with Decipher. They responded to our inquiries even though they have not yet made any decision, at least not publicly.

[Don Mappin]

Some more news:

Decipher also plans to support all of its current licensed CCGs with additional products in 2004. But it has no current plans to publish additional roleplaying products in 2004.

Read it all here.

[Balok]

That would seem to be the last nail.

Of course, it doesn't preclude the possibility of subcontracting it out, but realistically, how likely is that?

And if they go the rest of 2004 (about nine more months) without an RPG release, what customer base will remain?

I wonder if the f0lks at WoTC plan to call up VCP and favor 'em with a Nelson Muntz style "Ha! Ha!"