MB: Starting off with the usual suspects, when did you play your first RPG and what was it?
MC: I started playing RPGs when I was nine years old with Dungeoneer, an RPG based on the old Fighting Fantasy
books. Since my friends and I were nine, it got pretty silly pretty fast. Technically I might have started even earlier when I
was making up worlds based on my cuddly toys for my brother to explore. Before Werewolf. Before Vampire. There was...
Stuffed Pig.
MB: What would you say is your favourite RPG system and / or setting?
MC: Oh man... that's a really tough question. I generally prefer fantasy settings to science fiction ones, and I prefer
settings with a healthy dose of 'crazy' - larger-than-life action. Glorantha, Exalted, superheroes, pulp settings generally,
that sort of thing. If I had to pick out specific systems, I'd say my favourites that I've played include Spirit of the Century,
7th Sea, and Mutants and Masterminds - they all do an excellent job of modelling the setting with the mechanics.
MB: Have you had any contact with Virtual Tabletops, if so do you have a preferred one? Are they on Mongoose's radar?
MC: I've had a brief experience with OpenRPG and a slightly more extended one with ScreenMonkey. I didn't really use
either for long enough to develop a meaningful preference, though. Mongoose, as far as I know, has no official Virtual
Tabletop plans although we naturally have no objections to people using our products at their Virtual Tabletop - some
people have already done something similar by converting A Call to Arms, one of our tabletop wargames, into a mod for
Vassal (which does for wargames what VTs do for RPGs).
MB: What do you think of the 4e D&D releases, are you thinking of any software releases for any of your products?
MC: We aren't planning software releases for anything, at least not in the way that Wizards is. I think that the 4e model -
at least what can be seen of it at the moment - is fairly uninteresting. Despite all the hype, D&DI is just another VT. It's
got better graphics than most, but it costs a fortune (next to things like OpenRPG) and has a lot less flexibility - you can
only use it to play one game. The real issue is still going to be 'what's the game like?'
MB: Now onto to Traveller, to quote from your press release: "reintroduce one solid
system (based on Classic Traveller)" and "Traveller will be faithful to Classic
Traveller", what would you say to potential buyers who already have the Classic
Traveller books? What is there in the new release to excite them?
MC: Classic Traveller was, in the best way, a product of its time, but that was 30
years ago. The challenge in creating the new Traveller was to retain all the good
stuff from CT while incorporating all the best stuff from the last three decades of
roleplaying. I think Gareth (Hanrahan, the writer) has succeeded admirably, and
anyone who wants to can check for themselves by downloading the free playtest
document from our website.
That said, we at Mongoose are well aware that there will be CT players who see no
reason to change the game system they love. That's fine. I believe that MGT (my
favourite of the many abbreviations for Mongoose Traveller) has enough in common
with CT to make the transition easy and enough improvements to make it desirable.
Other people might disagree. All we can do is make the best game we can and if it's good enough people will play it
instead of other games - and that includes other versions of Traveller.
MB: In your press release you mention how you want to halt the fragmentation of the Traveller game, and reintroduce
one solid system (based on Classic Traveller), with one source for the official Traveller universe. Do the companies
producing / selling all of the existing Traveller source material agree with you?
MC: Well, I haven't received any death threats yet. I expected the various companies to take the news worse than they
did, but I think a combination of the 'sunset' arrangement and the OGL plans have taken the edge off. The intention here
is definitely not to obliterate all the hard work the third-party publishers have put in: I'm more than happy to answer any
questions they have and help them adapt their products to the MGT system with as little wailing and gnashing of teeth as
possible. I've already had my first third-party content producer sign up.
If any third-party producers are reading this and want to get in touch, I'm available at my work email of
clonghurst@mongoosepublishing.com .
MB: "T5 will be a superset of the Mongoose Traveller rules, providing detailed coverage of rules, concepts and history
not available elsewhere. There will be cross-compatibility between Traveller and Traveller5, allowing you to use rules and
supplements from each." How closely have you been working with Marc Miller and how compatible will the rules be?
MC: The initial intention when MGT was first handed to me was to have full compatibility - you would have been able to
take a character from an MGT game straight into a T5 game with no conversion work at all. Unfortunately, as the ruleset
has developed this goal had to be watered down in order to produce the sort of game we wanted MGT to be. There will
almost certainly be some work involved in converting material from one system to the other, although I would still like to
keep that work to a minimum. More details will have to wait until the final versions of MGT and T5 hit the presses.
Marc Miller still has final approval on everything Traveller we produce. Gareth and Marc have been corresponding about
the rules and no problems have arisen so far, so I'm confident the final product is going to get the green light.
MB: What's your thinking behind making Traveller open source?
MC: It just seemed like a smart idea. Open-source games have pretty good knock-on effects for the RPG community in
general - there's something about an OGL that makes people think "You know what? I can do something with this." Plenty
of companies sprang out of the original OGL for D&D, Mongoose included; Green Ronin and Crafty Games have taken
the d20 licence in very different and interesting directions; and just look at all the good stuff that's based on iterations of
the FUDGE system and, more recently, Wushu, both open-source games. RuneQuest hasn't spawned anything quite like
that yet, but it would be cool if it did - and the same goes for Traveller.
Plus, it makes money. Every third-party product sold drives interest in the core product, and interest in the core product
means sales for us.
MB: Which do you plan on concentrating on after the rules are finished, licensed settings such as Judge Dredd, Starship
Troopers and Strontium Dog or Traveller supplements, adventures, and sourcebooks?
MC: All of the above. =) The initial releases will be Third Imperium books (the Original Traveller Universe by any other
name) but we have releases planned for pretty much every scifi line we do. If a particular line does well, then we'll
support it more - that's the pattern we've been using for the various RuneQuest sub-settings (Eternal Champion,
Glorantha, Lankhmar) and it's served us well.
Actually, here's a good place for a quick bit of rumour control: we are looking at releasing a single product that will cover
the basics of playing B5 with the Traveller rules. This does not mean that B5 is going to get a third edition with the MGT
ruleset - it's just going to be a one-off thing so that people who want to play Travylon 5, can.
MB: Will the licensed settings be complete rule books (and no requirement to buy the Traveller core books) or will they
be background source books that require the core books?
MC: The Third Imperium books will require the Traveller core books. We haven't made a concrete decision on the
others, but I'm leaning towards including all the necessary rules in each one - since our new presses mean we aren't
limited on page count any more, there's not much reason not to, and it gives the writers a chance to customise the rules
to each setting.
MC: So long as they stick to the open content, I'd love to see them. I mentioned A Call to Arms on Vassal above.
MB: Do you plan on any pdf / electronic releases, as these greatly help when playing on VTs?
MC: All of Mongoose's products are released as pdfs. You can find them on Drivethrurpg.com.
MB: Any other news you would like to share?
MC: I should probably fill this place with blurb about upcoming Mongoose products, but I don't have a release schedule
handy so the only ones I can remember are Khitai for Conan, RuneQuest: Land of Samurai, and Corum for the Eternal
Champion line, all of which should be top.
MC: I started playing RPGs when I was nine years old with Dungeoneer, an RPG based on the old Fighting Fantasy
books. Since my friends and I were nine, it got pretty silly pretty fast. Technically I might have started even earlier when I
was making up worlds based on my cuddly toys for my brother to explore. Before Werewolf. Before Vampire. There was...
Stuffed Pig.
MB: What would you say is your favourite RPG system and / or setting?
MC: Oh man... that's a really tough question. I generally prefer fantasy settings to science fiction ones, and I prefer
settings with a healthy dose of 'crazy' - larger-than-life action. Glorantha, Exalted, superheroes, pulp settings generally,
that sort of thing. If I had to pick out specific systems, I'd say my favourites that I've played include Spirit of the Century,
7th Sea, and Mutants and Masterminds - they all do an excellent job of modelling the setting with the mechanics.
MB: Have you had any contact with Virtual Tabletops, if so do you have a preferred one? Are they on Mongoose's radar?
MC: I've had a brief experience with OpenRPG and a slightly more extended one with ScreenMonkey. I didn't really use
either for long enough to develop a meaningful preference, though. Mongoose, as far as I know, has no official Virtual
Tabletop plans although we naturally have no objections to people using our products at their Virtual Tabletop - some
people have already done something similar by converting A Call to Arms, one of our tabletop wargames, into a mod for
Vassal (which does for wargames what VTs do for RPGs).
MB: What do you think of the 4e D&D releases, are you thinking of any software releases for any of your products?
MC: We aren't planning software releases for anything, at least not in the way that Wizards is. I think that the 4e model -
at least what can be seen of it at the moment - is fairly uninteresting. Despite all the hype, D&DI is just another VT. It's
got better graphics than most, but it costs a fortune (next to things like OpenRPG) and has a lot less flexibility - you can
only use it to play one game. The real issue is still going to be 'what's the game like?'
MB: Now onto to Traveller, to quote from your press release: "reintroduce one solid
system (based on Classic Traveller)" and "Traveller will be faithful to Classic
Traveller", what would you say to potential buyers who already have the Classic
Traveller books? What is there in the new release to excite them?
MC: Classic Traveller was, in the best way, a product of its time, but that was 30
years ago. The challenge in creating the new Traveller was to retain all the good
stuff from CT while incorporating all the best stuff from the last three decades of
roleplaying. I think Gareth (Hanrahan, the writer) has succeeded admirably, and
anyone who wants to can check for themselves by downloading the free playtest
document from our website.
That said, we at Mongoose are well aware that there will be CT players who see no
reason to change the game system they love. That's fine. I believe that MGT (my
favourite of the many abbreviations for Mongoose Traveller) has enough in common
with CT to make the transition easy and enough improvements to make it desirable.
Other people might disagree. All we can do is make the best game we can and if it's good enough people will play it
instead of other games - and that includes other versions of Traveller.
MB: In your press release you mention how you want to halt the fragmentation of the Traveller game, and reintroduce
one solid system (based on Classic Traveller), with one source for the official Traveller universe. Do the companies
producing / selling all of the existing Traveller source material agree with you?
MC: Well, I haven't received any death threats yet. I expected the various companies to take the news worse than they
did, but I think a combination of the 'sunset' arrangement and the OGL plans have taken the edge off. The intention here
is definitely not to obliterate all the hard work the third-party publishers have put in: I'm more than happy to answer any
questions they have and help them adapt their products to the MGT system with as little wailing and gnashing of teeth as
possible. I've already had my first third-party content producer sign up.
If any third-party producers are reading this and want to get in touch, I'm available at my work email of
clonghurst@mongoosepublishing.com .
MB: "T5 will be a superset of the Mongoose Traveller rules, providing detailed coverage of rules, concepts and history
not available elsewhere. There will be cross-compatibility between Traveller and Traveller5, allowing you to use rules and
supplements from each." How closely have you been working with Marc Miller and how compatible will the rules be?
MC: The initial intention when MGT was first handed to me was to have full compatibility - you would have been able to
take a character from an MGT game straight into a T5 game with no conversion work at all. Unfortunately, as the ruleset
has developed this goal had to be watered down in order to produce the sort of game we wanted MGT to be. There will
almost certainly be some work involved in converting material from one system to the other, although I would still like to
keep that work to a minimum. More details will have to wait until the final versions of MGT and T5 hit the presses.
Marc Miller still has final approval on everything Traveller we produce. Gareth and Marc have been corresponding about
the rules and no problems have arisen so far, so I'm confident the final product is going to get the green light.
MB: What's your thinking behind making Traveller open source?
MC: It just seemed like a smart idea. Open-source games have pretty good knock-on effects for the RPG community in
general - there's something about an OGL that makes people think "You know what? I can do something with this." Plenty
of companies sprang out of the original OGL for D&D, Mongoose included; Green Ronin and Crafty Games have taken
the d20 licence in very different and interesting directions; and just look at all the good stuff that's based on iterations of
the FUDGE system and, more recently, Wushu, both open-source games. RuneQuest hasn't spawned anything quite like
that yet, but it would be cool if it did - and the same goes for Traveller.
Plus, it makes money. Every third-party product sold drives interest in the core product, and interest in the core product
means sales for us.
MB: Which do you plan on concentrating on after the rules are finished, licensed settings such as Judge Dredd, Starship
Troopers and Strontium Dog or Traveller supplements, adventures, and sourcebooks?
MC: All of the above. =) The initial releases will be Third Imperium books (the Original Traveller Universe by any other
name) but we have releases planned for pretty much every scifi line we do. If a particular line does well, then we'll
support it more - that's the pattern we've been using for the various RuneQuest sub-settings (Eternal Champion,
Glorantha, Lankhmar) and it's served us well.
Actually, here's a good place for a quick bit of rumour control: we are looking at releasing a single product that will cover
the basics of playing B5 with the Traveller rules. This does not mean that B5 is going to get a third edition with the MGT
ruleset - it's just going to be a one-off thing so that people who want to play Travylon 5, can.
MB: Will the licensed settings be complete rule books (and no requirement to buy the Traveller core books) or will they
be background source books that require the core books?
MC: The Third Imperium books will require the Traveller core books. We haven't made a concrete decision on the
others, but I'm leaning towards including all the necessary rules in each one - since our new presses mean we aren't
limited on page count any more, there's not much reason not to, and it gives the writers a chance to customise the rules
to each setting.
- MB: What expansions do you plan for traveller?
MC: Well, the first will be The Spinward Marches, a campaign setting book
covering that (in)famous area of the Third Imperium setting. Shortly after that you'll
see Mercenary and High Guard, covering advanced rules for ground warfare and
spaceship 'stuff' respectively, and including expanded character generation
options for the Army, Marines and Navy career paths. We've also got Beltstrike
lined up for mid-2008, which will be a setting-independent campaign revolving
around asteroid miners and the terrible things that can happen to them at the
hands of a cold and uncaring GM-or-universe. There'll be books covering the
Aslan, psionics and the Zhodani in roughly that order. We've got the Strontium
Dog core rules pencilled in for the end of '08, too. I plan to invent time travel
around April so I can get everything done.
- MB: Would you be happy for 3rd party conversions of the Traveller rules for VTs?
MC: So long as they stick to the open content, I'd love to see them. I mentioned A Call to Arms on Vassal above.
MB: Do you plan on any pdf / electronic releases, as these greatly help when playing on VTs?
MC: All of Mongoose's products are released as pdfs. You can find them on Drivethrurpg.com.
MB: Any other news you would like to share?
MC: I should probably fill this place with blurb about upcoming Mongoose products, but I don't have a release schedule
handy so the only ones I can remember are Khitai for Conan, RuneQuest: Land of Samurai, and Corum for the Eternal
Champion line, all of which should be top.
Interview with "Mongoose Chris" from Mongoose Publishing on their upcoming release, Traveller
Murgh Bpurn 21/12/07
RPG Virtual Tabletop
|
