From: mavra@cpac.washington.edu (Peter D. Adkison)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy,rec.games.design
Subject: Re: Supplements for Multiple Systems
Date: 15 Sep 92 17:50:12 GMT
Organization: Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

In article <1992Sep11.215349.23527@afterlife.ncsc.mil> acadams@afterlife.ncsc.mil (Arthur C. Adams) writes:

>   Wouldn't it be great if, some day, role-playing supplements
>   were released with stats for _all_ of the appropriate systems?

Funny you should mention this.  :-)  I'm cross posting my response to
rec.games.design, since I think this will be of interest to those
readers as well.

You are not alone.  I know of several cases where this type of stuff
is starting to crop up.  For example:

* The product by The Armory, that someone else mentioned, which allows
someone to convert back and forth between various game systems (if
there's someone out there who has this, mind posting a review?).

* 3G3, by BTRC, which has rules for using weapons in various game
systems.

* Dave Nalle has a game system called Ysgarth, which he is marketing
as a system that can be purchased as a standalone system for use with
other settings.

* Atlas Games just came out with a new game by Jonathan Tweet, called
Over The Edge.  It has conversion notes for several other systems,
although most of them are rather obscure.

* We (Wizards of the Coast) have published The Primal Order, which has
converstion notes for a whole slew of systems.  The first supplement,
Pawns: The Opening Move is a bestiary which also has conversion notes.

Personally, I am completely in love with this sort of thing.  We are
working on several ideas in this direction:

* We host an online mailing list dedicated to writing integration
notes for how to use our products with other game systems.  There
hasn't been much mail on this recently, because we're just wrapping up
one project, but as soon as we start the next one things should get
real interesting.  If you'd like to be on this mailing list, write to:

	experts-l-request@wizards.com

This mailing list developed the integration notes for The Primal
Order, and Pawns: The Opening Move (which should be showing up in
retail stores this week).

* I asked Steve Jackson if he'd be interested in a joint venture to
publish a product on how to play Talislanta using the GURPS rules.
There are a lot of GURPS players who complain about not having a
well-developed and supported world to play in, and a lot of Talislanta
players who want a more detailed rules system.  Steve was enthusiastic
about the idea, and I'm working on a formal proposal to send to him
(if you're reading this Loyd, expect e-mail Real Soon Now!).

* I asked Bruce Niedlinger, the president of ICE, about doing a
similar project with RoleMaster and Hero.  His response was less
enthusiastic, but "possible."

* I plan to approach other companies about similar ventures.

* I was approached by Ray Winninger of Mayfair.  He liked The Primal
Order so much that he wants to do the RoleAids *Deities* project using
the Primal Order concepts.  He also discussed the possibility of using
these concepts for a fantasy world that Mayfair has under development
for release next year.  Another step closer to cooperative use of
rules/settings between various companies.

So, as you can see, there are efforts like this that are starting to
pop up around the industry.

Now, since you like to dream, I'll share my dream with you.  For the
last two years at Wizards of the Coast we have been developing an idea
for developing an industry standard for the expression of game stats.
Here's a summary of our thinking so far:

* In-house we call this project Envoy.  The name fits pretty well,
once you see what we're talking about here.

* We'd like to see published a description of how one can write stats
for various creatures, NPCs, and items in a system-independent format.
This would *not* have rules for actually resolving things like melee,
or spell combat, but would simply provide a way of publishing "stats."

* This publication would be considered "public domain."  Anyone and
everyone could freely use the rules, terms, etc, photocopy to their
hearts content, and refer to the publication itself without fear of
copyright or trademark infringement.

* To catch on, we'd want to work together with as many game companies
as possible to get "Official" conversion notes for how to convert
stats from Envoy to their game system.

* Naturally, we'd need a system that works well, or the gamers are
going to rip it to shreds.

So far, our strategy on how to approach this has been the development
of a standard for a specific task, followed by integration notes for
that particular task.

For example, The Primal Order coined some terms for expressing a
character's skill rating overall, for resolving a primal blast and
primal shield (basically a high-powered energy attack, and energy
shield), resistence rolls (saving throws, karma, etc...), and
adjustments to attributes.  Pawns took this quite a bit further and
discussed attribute tables, attack speeds, movement rates, and scads
of other stuff.

What we've developed so far I think will work pretty well for
high-powered stuff, but may have some problems on the lower end.  But
that's certainly fixable.

Our plan now is to develop this in to a more general use format, get
gobs and gobs of feedback from people like y'all, and then start
marketing it as described above.

Will this work?  Post your opinions!  A big part of it will depend on
how much support we can enlist from other companies, and how much
support the consumers provide in terms of sales in these types of
products.  It is entirely possible that this is a bad idea and people
don't want to buy products where they have to convert everything over.

If you'd like to be involved in the mailing list dedicated to
discussing these issues, please write to:

	experts-l-request@wizards.com

The main problem with this type of work is the various legal issues.
Most companies very closely guard their trademarks.  Now it's
perfectly legal and ethical to refer to other company's trademarks, as
long as you do it correctly.  But that doesn't matter to some.  For
example, we consulted with an intellectual properties attorney about
what we could and could not do with Primal Order and Pawns, and then
stayed well within the legal boundaries.  It didn't matter, Palladium
sued us anyways, and higherups in TSR have informed us that they're
going to sue us too.

Ergo, just the threat of suit would almost force a product like this
to be produced in such a way that the conversion notes (from Envoy to
game system X) only be printed with support of the various companies.
To get a game company to support this one of three things has to
happen:  (a) They're simply nice guys and want to support something
that would obviously be bennificial to the industry as a whole, (b)
they would like to produce Envoy material, and therefore see this as a
business opportunity, or (c) they would require royalty payments for
using their trademarks.  If enough companies chose A or B, this could
work.

And then there will be companies like TSR which would see this as a
challenge to the current default standard of AD&D, and would probably
do everything they could to stop it, including prohibiting advertising
in Dragon and Dungeon, and may even go so far as to threaten
distributors that carried such products.

Looking forward to reading this thread...

				--Mavra!
				  Peter D. Adkison
				  Janitor, Wizards of the Coast
				  mavra@wizards.com

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