Bummer news today from Gareth-Michael Skarka of Adamant Entertainment. As you may remember in a previous post, I mentioned he was planning on doing a Trek adaptation for Mongoose's Traveller. Looks like it's not to be. From his LiveJournal...
...Cancelled our proposed Traveller sourcebook, Final Frontier: The Unauthorized Sourcebook to the World's Most Popular SF TV Franchise, for several reasons -- first and foremost being the amount of things on my plate at the moment (specifically the effects of the first bullet point, above). The thought of a potential legal scrum was there as well, although admittedly low on the list, along with doubts about potential audience viability. Really, though -- the main thing was that I've got enough irons in the fire right now, and I should be careful not to confuse what I'd love to see as a player with what I should be working on as a publisher.
Still, this could make things more interesting for me should I feel the initiative. I've been working on a lifepath-based character generation system for my Trek adaptation, and it would easily port over to Traveller. If, that is, I felt like going all out and doing something for Traveller. Not sure how I feel about that, especially for Trek and especially when I've actually got some original projects I'm working on as well.
Despite the fact a slot opened up, I'm still not going to call mine Final Frontier any longer, lol.
Got Michael Giacchino's score for Star Trek today from Amazon. It's really wonderful. I think I've listened to it a half-dozen times already. Big review to come, probably tomorrow.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
One Less Frontier
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
A semi-humble thought: keep it very simple and vivid. And short! Spirit of the Century has a good model here. I'd say no more than five items. For instance, events in a certain starship captain's life might be:
ReplyDeleteFamily Legacy
Tarsus IV Famine
(No, I'm not putting Finnegan here. Everyone gets hazed.)
Kobayashi Maru Scenario Solved
Garrovick and the Farragut
Enterprise -- A Love for Life
As for not using "Final Frontier" -- pshaw. What else can you call it? "Buckle Up"? :-)
Great minds think alike! Basically, I'm going for tables that would result in something like the 5 "hooks" used in TS, but also have an impact on career path (and resulting skills).
ReplyDeleteHere's something funny... look at your list and my list for Kirk's hooks:
- Well-versed in Earth's history and cultures
- As a boy, witnessed the massacre of 4,000 colonists
- Only cadet to beat the Kobayashi Maru "no-win" scenario… by cheating
- Blames himself for the death of his captain and 200 crew while serving as lieutenant on the USS Farragut
- "You're too beautiful to ignore. Too much woman."
I was just at a marketing seminer where they reminded us that "sexy sells", so I'll be calling my game "Starships & Slave Girls".
Heh. In my EZFudge write-up, I gave him "Historian (Earth, pre-warp)" skill. In the above, I overlooked that and ladies man 'cause ... they're not events in his history. They're other factors of his make-up. Or so I read it.
ReplyDeleteI also threw in "Family Legacy" here to keep myself sort of current with the new film.
Also I'm entirely jealous that you have the soundtrack album. Given how neatly Michael G riffed from John Barry's "Goldfinger" score in "The Incredibles", I can only imagine what he's done here.
Just FYI -- maybe it was the release of the DVD, but I've weakened. I'm planning to release "Final Frontier" after all.
ReplyDelete