rust Posted December 17, 2009 Author Share Posted December 17, 2009 What was the problem with Niven, please remind me? I do not know for sure, so I better keep silent, but as far as I know Chaosium published the Ringworld RPG and Ringworld Companion only in 1984. By the way, I just remembered an even shorter literary license, the one QLI had for David Weber's Honor Harrington stuff - and never used. Quote "Mind like parachute, function only when open." (Charlie Chan) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
threedeesix Posted December 17, 2009 Share Posted December 17, 2009 (edited) I do not know for sure, so I better keep silent, but as far as I know Chaosium published the Ringworld RPG and Ringworld Companion only in 1984. By the way, I just remembered an even shorter literary license, the one QLI had for David Weber's Honor Harrington stuff - and never used. GURPS has numerous literary licenses that never went beyond one setting book and maybe a single supplement. Andre Norton's "Witch World" Alan Dean Foster's "Humanx" Vack Vance's "Planet of Adventure" David Brin's "Uplift" novels E.E "Doc" Smith's "Lensmen" Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" and those are just the ones that come to mind... Oh yeah, "Conan" This is what I would love to see with Chaosium. Rod Edited December 17, 2009 by threedeesix Quote Join my Mythras/RuneQuest 6: Classic Fantasy Yahoo Group at https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/RQCF/info "D100 - Exactly 5 times better than D20" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lawrence.whitaker Posted December 17, 2009 Share Posted December 17, 2009 Moorcock was so ... odd... that he sued Chaosium several times to try and get the license back. I imagine that Chaosium simply said enough, and got rid of a line that was costing them money on the legal side to try and retain. I don't think he ever sued. There might have been threats, but never any court action. Mongoose approached Chaosium for the EC rights and they were sold, but Mongoose also had to negotiate with MM as a part of securing the rights. The EC line has a huge amount of potential. Part of the problem is that Moorcock's popularity has not increased in recent years. Where once the M section of bookshelves would once be groaning under maybe a dozen in-print Moorcock titles, you're lucky to find one or two these days. However, EC as far as gaming goes has always been a small niche. The work in the pipeline for the line under Mongoose may help reverse this a little; Corum will be appearing, an Elric campaign, plus other books designed to support the line across its various titles. The future is pretty bright for EC gaming and I'm looking forward to writing that Elric campaign next year. Ringworld was a different matter. The license cost a lot for Chaosium to secure, and then the rights to a movie and TV series were sold separately, and this included merchandising and game rights. Chaosium could not afford to bid on this and so the license had to lapse immediately. All stock had to be liquidated and a planned campaign book, already underway, was rapidly mothballed. The rights to Known Space and Ringworld are still in that state. Chaosium were keen to publish a Known Space setting for BRP but Niven's agent kiboshed the idea owing to the TV/Film rights. Niven himself, however, was fully supportive. Quote The Design Mechanism: Publishers of Mythras Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rust Posted December 17, 2009 Author Share Posted December 17, 2009 GURPS has numerous literary licenses that never went beyond one setting book and maybe a single supplement. True, but with perhaps one or two sad exceptions those books remained available for many years, some even had several editions, while Ringworld had to be abandoned almost immediately after its start. Quote "Mind like parachute, function only when open." (Charlie Chan) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Akrasia Posted December 17, 2009 Share Posted December 17, 2009 ... The work in the pipeline for the line under Mongoose may help reverse this a little; Corum will be appearing, an Elric campaign, plus other books designed to support the line across its various titles. The future is pretty bright for EC gaming and I'm looking forward to writing that Elric campaign next year... Sounds good -- I look forward to checking these books out! :thumb: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
threedeesix Posted December 18, 2009 Share Posted December 18, 2009 True, but with perhaps one or two sad exceptions those books remained available for many years, some even had several editions, while Ringworld had to be abandoned almost immediately after its start. Quite right... *slowly slips it back in the safe* Quote Join my Mythras/RuneQuest 6: Classic Fantasy Yahoo Group at https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/RQCF/info "D100 - Exactly 5 times better than D20" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickMiddleton Posted December 18, 2009 Share Posted December 18, 2009 Quite right... *slowly slips it back in the safe* The particularly painful story, for those of use who missed a chance to pick it up all those years ago, is that in order to dispose of stock Chaosium were apparently wandering around a game convention near their base (Dundracon?) giving copies away. ;-( I so wish I'd had less scruples and had just "forgotten to return" my university game societies copy when I left... Nick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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