Today on #RPGaDAY: “What is an RPG you would like to see published?”
Probably one based off of Mass Effect.
Nicole Linross of Green Ronin, the company that publishes a roleplaying game based on Bioware’s other big IP, Dragon Age, said that they have been in talks with the Mass Effect team and Bioware’s licensing team over the years, but to no avail. The sticking point comes from the Mass Effect team, it seems. “The most recent time we dusted off our [Mass Effect RPG] proposal for them,” she writes, “licensing asked US why we ‘didn’t want’ to do the game and when we told them we’d be more than happy to do it, they merrily went off to the ME team who wasted no time in telling licensing they were *still* not interested.” This is a good company who has been working with the owners of Dragon Age (which has had its share of problems with approval turnaround times), so they know Green Ronin delivers fantastic good-quality work. But the Mass Effect people are just “not interested in taking Mass Effect to tabletop, it’s as simple as that.”
However, that hasn’t stopped fans from making their own gaming solutions. In 2015, a 252-page book based off of Fate (specifically the Bulldogs! Fate-based RPG), which actually was nominated for Product of the Year in that years’ ENnies. (You can read most of the fallout from that over at an article I wrote for Purple Pawn.) I’ve seen fan-created Mass Effect games based on Marvel Heroic (aka Cortex Plus Action), the d6 System, New World of Darkness, the d20 System, Savage Worlds, Star Wars SAGA, Apocalypse World, and even Green Ronin’s AGE system. So many fan-created Shepards. So many.
But man, I would love to throw money at Green Ronin for an official Mass Effect roleplaying game.
Previously, on RPGaDAY…
Last year, we talked about food and gaming. “Do you eat with your tabletop group? Are meals an important part of the game gathering?” This year, I’ve only been gaming via online hangouts, and our timing doesn’t have us coincide with eating. In that original post, I mentioned how Chicken Kiev is super simple to make and how Target’s house food brand is awful in nearly every conceivable way.
In 2015, the topic was “the crowdfunded game I’m most pleased to have backed”. While most of my games I’ve been getting from Kickstarter campaigns have been boardgames, there have been a few RPGs I’ve backed — and received! ((Which is a whole ‘nother thing. What is it with late RPGs?)) Tales from the Loop is fantastic. ((And has a fantastic spine.)) I heard about this halfway through the campaign and was amazed. It’s a game that’s set in Sweden (and there’s an alternative setting in the United States) during the 1980s where some superscience things have been going on. You’re playing teenagers, where they encounter strange things — adults just can’t see the weirdness of the world. It’s basically the Netflix show Stranger Things: the RPG. Also tickling my sweet spot, the system is basically Apocalypse World with dice pools.
Tales from the Loop is up for Product of the Year at this year’s ENnies and a whole bunch of other categories that put it in direct competition with the 7th Sea books I’ve been working on. Honestly, if it beats my stuff out, I’m not gonna be upset at all. ((As I mentioned in an earlier post, if I don’t look at what I’ve worked on — because there are blinders there – Tales from the Loop is my RPG of the Year.))
In 2014, the topic was “First RPG GMed”. That’s still the Holmes Dungeons & Dragons box: the first of many games I’ve run. While I played a few different characters in other people’s worlds, the majority of my gaming experience has been running the game.