fulfilling THE FANTASY TRIP is back...

[Dr.Bedlam]

Can it be that I'm the only one excited about THIS business?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/the-fantasy-trip-old-school-roleplaying/description

One of the first RPG systems. One of the stepping stones that launched Steve Jackson's career. The ancestor of the venerable GURPS. They're bringing back Liz Danforth, the original illustrator, and reworking and refurbishing the whole enchilada.

Article on Boing Boing linked here.

And it's BACK.

Why are you not all immediately funding this?

 

 

Edited July 24, 2018 by Dr.Bedlam

[Doug Sundseth]

This looks very much like an edited re-release with better component quality.

 

Which is fine, but I still have my original stuff. Not sure I want to spend $60 to get the prettier new version of a game I haven't played in decades. Worth watching, though.

[kristof65]

One of the first things i did with my 3d Printer last year was print out some hexes and built myself a fancy Melee board.  Then played 3 games of Melee with my son - first time I had played the game since middle school in the 80s.  And immediately realized why I had moved on to other games. 

I probably would have bought into this if a) I didn't still have my original copies and b) I hadn't played it recently. 

[Dr.Bedlam]

Yeah, but some of us don't have our old originals....

[Thoramel]

My wife played this at Origins this summer with Mr. Jackson. She said it was pretty fun and quick to learn. But I think it cost her all of $6 to have him run a game. After that I was a bit shocked to see one of the levels was $500 to do essentially the same thing at next year's Origins (plus all the loot, but still).

[Broonkah]

I am totally on board with this one, Dr B.  I still have almost all of the original materials.  But am looking to forward to that new box smell.

[Dr.Bedlam]

57 minutes ago, Broonkah said:

I am totally on board with this one, Dr B.  I still have almost all of the original materials.  But am looking to forward to that new box smell.

 

I admit, it's partially nostalgia. I still remember the original games, and had them all at one point. At this point, all I have is the PDFs. They worked as boardgames, and they worked as an RPG. It's a bit of history, there, and nostalgia, and finally, some justice, as well; Metagaming hung onto the rights like a moray eel, apparently just to stick it to Jackson, since Metagaming's been a dead concern since the eighties. I'm glad to see it finally coming home.

[Doug Sundseth]

If I got the story right, when Metagaming was circling the drain, Steve tried to buy back the rights to TFT. At the time, Metagaming was asking a seven-figure price*, which was completely absurd in the mid-80s. Steve wrote GURPS instead.

 

One of these companies is still in business.

 

* Do not rely upon these details. I heard the story decades ago and at least secondhand (though from people who should have had some idea). The probability that I remember everything correctly is non-zero, but not what you might describe as "1".

[TGP]

17 hours ago, Dr.Bedlam said:

Why are you not all immediately funding this?

Never heard of it before. 

 

14 hours ago, Dr.Bedlam said:

Yeah, but some of us don't have our old originals....

Awww. 

[Dr.Bedlam]

 Howard Thompson, owner of Metagaming, and Steve Jackson apparently had some issues with one another to which I am not privy, and do not care to speculate. Jackson left Metagaming around 1980, and purchased The Space Gamer, their magazine, on the way out. A subsequent lawsuit reveals that when he did so, Jackson also purchased the rights to OGRE, GEV, and One Page Bulge, all of which were later published by SJG.

Metagaming was famous in its time for its small format (games were often sold in ziplock baggies) and low prices, and dominated their little niche of the market that way. With the entry of Steve Jackson Games, suddenly Metagaming had competition, and Thompson didn't like that. His publication of A Fistful Of Turkeys By Some Turkey Games seems to have been a shot at Jackson personally. But the fact remains that Jackson, with his introduction of the Pocket Box and his release of a fair number of Pocket Box products, notably Car Wars (which was HUGELY successful in its day) and the metric honkload of expansions and side products for CW, could NOT have been making Thompson terribly happy.

When Jackson attempted to buy the rights to TFT, Thompson quoted a price of $250,000, which Jackson declined. Later, when Metagaming went under, Thompson seems to have left the gaming scene entirely, leaving the rights to Metagaming's IP in limbo. Jackson reacquired the TFT product rights last year, via a law that lets the author reclaim his work after 35 years.

[Heisler]

19 hours ago, Dr.Bedlam said:

 Howard Thompson, owner of Metagaming, and Steve Jackson apparently had some issues with one another to which I am not privy, and do not care to speculate. Jackson left Metagaming around 1980, and purchased The Space Gamer, their magazine, on the way out. A subsequent lawsuit reveals that when he did so, Jackson also purchased the rights to OGRE, GEV, and One Page Bulge, all of which were later published by SJG.

Metagaming was famous in its time for its small format (games were often sold in ziplock baggies) and low prices, and dominated their little niche of the market that way. With the entry of Steve Jackson Games, suddenly Metagaming had competition, and Thompson didn't like that. His publication of A Fistful Of Turkeys By Some Turkey Games seems to have been a shot at Jackson personally. But the fact remains that Jackson, with his introduction of the Pocket Box and his release of a fair number of Pocket Box products, notably Car Wars (which was HUGELY successful in its day) and the metric honkload of expansions and side products for CW, could NOT have been making Thompson terribly happy.

When Jackson attempted to buy the rights to TFT, Thompson quoted a price of $250,000, which Jackson declined. Later, when Metagaming went under, Thompson seems to have left the gaming scene entirely, leaving the rights to Metagaming's IP in limbo. Jackson reacquired the TFT product rights last year, via a law that lets the author reclaim his work after 35 years.

 

Jackson didn't buy the rights to Ogre, GEV and One Page Bulge (actually not sure about this one) when he bought Space Gamer. Those all fell to him as part of the first lawsuit between him and Thompson. He tried to get TFT at the same time but there was something around the copyright that allowed Thompson to hang on to those properties. 

 

I was at the Origins in San Francisco which took place at the Dunfey Hotel the first year that Jackson attended as Steve Jackson games. That's were Thompson released A Fistful of Turkeys. I was on the shuttle bus with Jackson trying to figure out how to get my vendor badge as I was working for Dimension Six at the time (volunteer) and Mark Simmons had mis-communicated where I should meet him. Jackson offered to sneak me in. He loaded me up with boxes of product and got me into the vendors room. That was my last good contact with him. The next time I saw him he had been brought in by a competing convention in Denver trying to go up against Genghis Con when I was running it. He left their show (ICON I think) and came over to ours and pretty much acted like a jerk and expected us to kowtow to him, pretty much lost all respect for him at that point.

 

However, I have multiple copies of all the TFT stuff because I really enjoyed it although it never came close to replacing D&D for my group. I'm on the fence with this one.

Edited July 25, 2018 by Heisler

[Dr.Bedlam]

I stand corrected. I was under the impression that when he bought the Space Gamer, he'd bought back those three games as well.

[Heisler]

The early days of Steve Jackson Games and the interactions with Thompson are quite interesting. Shades of Palladium!

[Doug Sundseth]

44 minutes ago, Heisler said:

... Mark Simmons had mis-communicated where I should meet him.

 

Shocking.  

 

45 minutes ago, Heisler said:

He left their show (ICON I think) and came over to ours and pretty much acted like a jerk and expected us to kowtow to him, pretty much lost all respect for him at that point.

 

About 70% of the time the nicest guy in the world. And the rest of the time, ... not.

 

Reverse the numbers and you have Harlan Ellison. 

[Heisler]

2 minutes ago, Doug Sundseth said:

 

Shocking.  

 

 

About 70% of the time the nicest guy in the world. And the rest of the time, ... not.

 

Reverse the numbers and you have Harlan Ellison. 

 

And my encounter with Harlan Ellison was really good!