We plan to publish 12 books:
GURPS PRIME DIRECTIVE
D20 PRIME DIRECTIVE
D6 PRIME DIRECTIVE
GURPS FEDERATION
D20 FEDERATION
D6 FEDERATION
GURPS KLINGONS
D20 KLINGONS
D6 KLINGONS
GURPS ROMULANS
D20 ROMULANS
D6 ROMULANS

After that, we have an open mind.

We might do new systems, such as HERO, FUSION, or others. These might get....
1. their own core-book and be part of a multi-system fed-klingon-rom book.
2. their own core-book AND their own feds, klingons, and romulans.

We might do a series of multi-system sourcebooks such as PLANETS, ASTEROIDS, STATIONS, DERLICTS, or even SPACE MONSTERS.

We might do future books such as GORNS, THOLIANS, ORION PIRATES, FELINE EMPIRES, and so forth either as individual books for individual systems or as multi-system books. We might do some of them for some of the systems and then do a multi-system book for the "other systems".

There are several considerations.
1. multi-system books tend to have pages related to systems other than the one you wanted. This means everybody is paying for pages they didn't want.
2. we'd have to work out a royalty-sharing system.
3. if the sales of a given system support it's own separate books, maybe it should get it.

So it all depends on everything. Sales, licenses, how many systems we do, how many pages a new system takes, and how the product line develops. Can't lock in any one idea now as market forces will rewrite the plan by year's end.

But since this was being discussed in all three system topics, I decided to just create one separate topic for this issue.

By Troy J. Latta (Saaur) on Wednesday, March 23, 2005 - 11:26 pm: Edit

Is it too early to put in my two cents? I'd like to see Gorns before anything else. I've been able to find less background material on them than on any other race in the game.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, March 23, 2005 - 11:45 pm: Edit

Even that Tholians?

Have you checked Module Y and SSJ2?

In any case work on Tholians has already begun.

But I look forward to seeing Gorns too.

By William F. Hostman (Aramis) on Thursday, March 24, 2005 - 02:10 am: Edit

Perhaps release one version with say, D6,d20, GURPS, and PD1 stats, and separate mail-order rules addenda for the various other supported systems?
Or bundle a setting book with an insert rules addenda with a "mail-order" style cover

If the core lines merit it, absolutely give them separate editions.

One other thing: multi-system editions of some other settings have really been problematic with not providing rules for each item for each game. (L5R specifically)

By John Hall (Fedf111fan) on Thursday, March 24, 2005 - 03:49 am: Edit

Maybe for multi-system books for starships, give each class hull of ships 2 pages. You have picture, basic history and tech info on page 1 with page 2 being ship stats for the 3 game systems. D20 takes about 1/4 to 1/3 of a page, D6 take 1/4 page and gurps 1/4 page. for the varaints, just list the differences. Fed BC example: Kirov carries 2 drones rails, Bismarck carries 2 Plasma F-s, New Jersey carries, 2 extra photons, etc

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, March 24, 2005 - 09:30 am: Edit

I suspect that starship books would always have to be done as game system specific.

By Robert Gilson (Bobcat) on Thursday, March 24, 2005 - 09:44 am: Edit

I would very much agree with SVC on that. If you put all the stats for the ships in one book it would be huge. Each system should have its own Starship book.

By F. Douglas Wall (Knarf) on Friday, March 25, 2005 - 09:32 pm: Edit

It really depends on how many ships you want to cover. If you assume 2 pages per ship (as proposed above), that's about 60 ships in a 128 page book. Maybe 55 ships if you allow for things like an introductory chapter or if a few ships go over that limit.

The sticky wicket right now is GURPS. There really isn't a vehicle system for it right now (unless you count the brief one in Campaigns). Until we can get a full vehicle system for GURPS, any ships book can't go into too much detail for that system, whether or not it includes data for the other systems.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, March 25, 2005 - 10:55 pm: Edit

You know... if ever there was a time to produce a color book of ships (Ted Geible art) its now. Leannas Fighting Ships would be very cool but a lot of work but a simple book of scenes will basic info such as race and hull type would allow RPG'ers to show nice pictures of the ship they are encountering. It would be a book strickly of Teg Geible scens. Mabey with a small data print out imposed in the corner.

For hard data on these hulls the players simply look them up in thier regular race books.

(And lets not get started on how many plain SFB'ers and F&E'ers would want one!)

Prime Directive: Alpha Ships

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, March 25, 2005 - 10:58 pm: Edit

BTW: I realize that ADB doesn't print color (although they may someday) and it would be advisable to see how the whole RPG thing works out but if its a great success it might be worth it to outsource for full color one last time.

Of course, what do I know?

By Troy J. Latta (Saaur) on Saturday, March 26, 2005 - 09:58 am: Edit

In order to do that, Ted will need to fix several of his models. ost of the Gorn cruisers have cut-off deflector dishes, for example, and the Gojira-class BB is missing its Plasma-D racks. For that matter, I've never seen any variants on his website, just standard combat models.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, March 26, 2005 - 11:35 am: Edit

As for GURPS STAR FLEET, we have already said that when they do space and vehicles we will do GSF but we can't do it until then.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, March 26, 2005 - 11:36 am: Edit

There are somewhere around a dozen "basic hull types" in SFB. There are (depends on how you count them) about 20 races (remember that the Romulans have three different fleets and the Hydrans might as well have two different fleets). So a ship book might do only eight races and only six ships each (96 pages) or it might do all the hull types and all the races (roughly 600 pages).

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Saturday, March 26, 2005 - 12:54 pm: Edit

I suspect that those of us who would drool over the 600-page version are not numerous enough to justify the work you'd have to do.

But the 96-page version might do better.

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Saturday, March 26, 2005 - 01:18 pm: Edit

SVC,

Have you though of doing a color fold out map of the Alpha sector. I saw a new Star Trek book that had a 3d color map. It was centered on earth and had the various empires, planets, NZ and Starbases etc. Everthing was depicted like they were in actual space. For the SF version you could list the hex # these items are in.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, March 26, 2005 - 02:19 pm: Edit

We actually have that, Jonathan, called the F&E-LSM.

I think that a 144-page or 200-page book is more practical and sells for a better price. We could then follow it up with one or two or three "extra ships books", perhaps one each for the alliance, coalition, and neutral powers. And one for X-ships, and one for Y-ships, and one for "ships we thought of later or didn't have room for the first time."

So you could see....

RPG STAR FLEET
RPG STAR FLEET ALLIANCE
RPG STAR FLEET COALITION
RPG STAR FLEET NEUTRALS
RPG STAR FLEET X-SHIPS
RPG STAR FLEET EARLY YEARS
RPG STAR FLEET REINFORCEMENTS

Substitute GURPS, D6, D20, HEROES, or whatever you like for "RPG".

By William F. Hostman (Aramis) on Monday, March 28, 2005 - 09:48 pm: Edit

Would these include thumbnail plans? (say 1:1000 or so?)

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Tuesday, March 29, 2005 - 12:18 am: Edit

Deck plans, or exterior views of the ship?

By F. Douglas Wall (Knarf) on Tuesday, March 29, 2005 - 01:31 am: Edit

I can see a visual element being very important from a roleplaying perspective. Whether this is a deckplan or an "action shot" doesn't really matter. Being able to hold up something and say "This is what you see" and having it look cool is a definite plus.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Tuesday, March 29, 2005 - 02:40 am: Edit

Both GK and GR have a section on ships. There are a bunch of exterior views for all of the major classes, so that angle is completely covered. GFed should be the same, ditto other sourcebooks in the future.

GPD4 has the Free Trader deckplans, MPA has deckplans for the Fed Frigate, GK has deckplans for the G1/U1, and GR has deckplans for the Skyhawk DD.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, March 29, 2005 - 09:58 am: Edit

It's funny, this topic is about the general concept of doing some future books as multi-system books and most of the posts in it are about the one thing (space combat) that would NOT be done as multi-system.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica) on Tuesday, March 29, 2005 - 12:11 pm: Edit

It's too bad that a full-color product really isn't a practical option; the way that AEG did their multisystem books was to use different font colors for the different system data sections (I think it was blue for d10 and black for d20, or something like that). Then again, color deliniation is no fun for the color-blind; I can only imagine the chaos if red and green were thrown into the mix....

By F. Douglas Wall (Knarf) on Thursday, March 31, 2005 - 02:01 am: Edit

And also, I don't think the press they have really does color, so that's not much of an option. You'd probably have to come up with some different approach. Fonts might work, but might also mess with the visual consistency of the book. Putting a really big header for each rules section or putting them in their own separate text boxes might be the way to go.

By William F. Hostman (Aramis) on Thursday, March 31, 2005 - 05:43 pm: Edit

Gary: Either? Was actually thinking deck, but upon thinking more, a good 4 view exterior plans would rock, too! (Fore, Plan, Side, Aft, and or 3/4 views?)

By Ken Humpherys (Pmthecat) on Thursday, March 31, 2005 - 06:25 pm: Edit

I was looking aroung the web and found the Hero Games website.
According to their Licensing policy section (part V) they charge 5%(sometimes more) for using their system.

If you are interested in using the Hero system I found the info at http://www.herogames.com/policies.jsp

This page also contains links to appropriate email addresses.