Dihad/Darok status?

[larsdangly]

Originally Posted by Jim Kane

Lars, how do you mean? Are you saying after 1982 Gamelords (or someone) published modules for the lands of Soukar, and Muipoco after Metagaming went out of business?

JK

Yes, the two unpublished manuscripts were converted to some sort of systemless format, some names were changed, and then they were published. They are like the wordy parts of the first two without the TFT stats.

[Jim Kane]

Fascinating that someone would bother to do so. Thanks for the clarification guys... I would have never guessed.

JK

[JLV]

No.

I did a bad job of explaining.

Gamelords was still selling both the Dihad and Darok modules in their original form (as TFT items). (Currently it looks like you can only get the Dihad one -- they must have sold out on the Darok one.)

After Metagaming went Tango Uniform, Gamelords converted the capital city modules for Dihad and Darok to Thieves' World and published them for that system (as the two city modules I mentioned earlier).

The other modules in the proposed group (for Soukar and Muipoco) never saw the light of day (nor did their capital cities) as far as I know.

So there are a total of four modules that were either Land Beyond the Mountains, or hastily converted from that format to Thieves' World. They are the modules for Dihad and Darok (the two that were still in TFT format) and the two capital city modules for Dihad and Darok, which were converted from TFT to Thieves World and published for that system. Nothing for the other two "countries" in Land Beyond the Mountains was ever published.

Sorry for making things worse with an inadequate explanation!

[slocum]

Thieves Guild, not Thieves World, which is also an RPG.

[JLV]

Originally Posted by slocum

Thieves Guild, not Thieves World, which is also an RPG.

I stand corrected.

I wonder if Gamelords actually owns the copyright on them (as opposed to merely having the old stock to sell)? If they do, and if Steve Jackson were to contact them, do you suppose they might re-release them (suitably updated for Legacy Edition) some day? That would be kind of cool.

Then, THAT makes me wonder if they have any of the original material for the two capital cities still in TFT format in their files somewhere, and if they have any of the drafts for the OTHER two Lands Beyond the Mountains (which were, supposedly, quite close to being published, according to Metagaming back in the day) that could be knocked into shape, thus, finally, after 35 years, delivering the Lands Beyond the Mountains as originally envisioned!

I know, a complete pipe-dream. Still, one wonders... ;-)

[larsdangly]

Thanks for all that.

Speaking as someone who owns and has used every imaginable material made for the Land Beyond the Mountains setting, my opinion is they should ignore it and move on. It just isn't good enough on its own merits to expend their limited creative energy and financial resources on. Plus I doubt they have access to the IP rights. I'm glad I own this stuff because I'm an TFT obsessive and completist, but honestly I don't use it in play because it isn't that great. If you want it for collector reasons, you'll probably want to hunt down the originals anyway.

[JLV]

Since I wasn't suggesting Steve Jackson purchase anything, I'd have to agree. What I was saying is that if SJGs wanted to "relicense" Gamelords to do the stuff over again (thus making it Gamelords' job to do the work, not SJG's), that would be a fascinating outcome.

Given that SJG is now the copyright holder (or Steve is personally, maybe), I would think there wouldn't be anything in the legal side of the house that would prevent something like this from being done. The only real question would be, is Gamelords (and SJG) interested, and do they have the ability to do anything with it nowadays.

Considering that supposedly most of the work was already "in the bag" (at least according to what was publicly said by Metagaming back in the day -- see Angantyr's blog posts for more in-depth discussion), the question then becomes whether or not Gamelords still has all that material in a file box somewhere. If they do, and if there was any interest in publishing it (and fixing it up a bit), it would be pretty cool.

I understand the feeling that it "wasn't worth it" held by some folks, however I believe that such a feeling can be traced to two elements in the stuff as published -- one, the stupid (and extremely lazy) names of the NPCs -- which tended to be so jarring they spoiled the otherwise excellent "atmosphere" of the games; and two, the fact that the complete series was never published, and two of the key elements that WERE published were published for a different game system. But if the originals still exist somewhere, and the other, unpublished material still existed, it would be a relatively trivial exercise in terms of "creativity" to simply scan them, re-do the layout, and get them ready for print (which is not to say that those things are not a lot of work, but rather that "creativity" doesn't come into play much, given that the material is already "created"). Naturally this all pre-supposes that somewhere, Gamelords still has all the draft material -- which is a VERY big assumption given the amount of time that's passed. But if they did...

[JLV]

Originally Posted by Charles G.

Unfortunately, based on the interview I had with former Gamelord's employees, they had done little or nothing on the Muipoco and Soukhor provinces - else they'd have mined THAT for Thieves' Guild modules!

That's too bad. Not surprised the Metagaming over-hyped the status though; Howard had a bad habit of doing that...

Ah well, think of the NEW might-have-beens now (you already did a great job of covering the OLD might-have-beens on your web site)!

[JLV]

Originally Posted by Charles G.

An interesting addendum that I forgot to include in my previous reply: apparently, the intent had been to detail the province AND its capitol in the same booklet, but due to size limits they had to split them out. So because of the additional effort to split out the capitols as separate modules, work on the remaining two provinces was delayed. Would have been interesting if the first two provinces had been "complete" and the last two at least close to completion.

Well, logically, that would be the way you'd want to do it -- and with companies like Frog God putting out 700 page books these days, I suppose it would have happened that way if it were done today. Ah well. I always thought it would have been nice to have the complete Lands Beyond the Mountains... even if I DID have to change all the NPC names to get away from their BS "cutesy" ones... ;-)