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Old 01-10-2016, 07:22 PM   #1
sayke
 
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Default [space] The Expanse is an awesome new show - can we please get a GURPS deal struck?

Hey all -

In case you haven't seen it around, there's a new hard-scifi TV show called The Expanse on the Syfy channel, and it's awesome. Not only does it have good characters, plot, setting, etc, but the science is really good - it actually just got the Atomic Rockets Seal of Approval: http://www.projectrho.com/public_htm...s--The_Expanse

Can SJGames please cut a deal with whoever it takes to get the rights to making an RPG supplement out of it? Please?? =)

I gather that GURPS was originally going to be the RPG system used in first Fallout games - too bad that didn't happen, right? The negotiators couldn't come to terms. I also understand that GURPS was going to be the RPG system used with the Firefly RPG, but the negotiations for that fell through as well.

I strongly suspect that The Expanse is going to become a thing, and it would be in the best interests of everybody, including SJGames, if the RPG system used by the inevitable Expanse RPG was GURPS. I also strongly suspect that the authors of the books, Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, would be up for working with SJGames to put out a GURPS book mapping out the whole setting. I bet it would sell lots of copies, and be generally awesome. It's a win-win, right?

Right? =D
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Old 01-10-2016, 09:09 PM   #2
trooper6
 
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Default Re: [space] The Expanse is an awesome new show - can we please get a GURPS deal struc

I've checked out the pilot and am looking forward to watching the rest of it (I'm reading the book at the moment). But it seems to me that all you need to do to run The Expanse is Transhuman Space. The Expanse and THS have a lot of similarities.
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Old 01-11-2016, 12:17 AM   #3
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Default Re: [space] The Expanse is an awesome new show - can we please get a GURPS deal struc

One thing to realize is most of the licensed books are expensive up-front and have been poor sellers. SJ Games would have to pay to produce a book with limited appeal among the players of an already niche game. Even among "completist" buyers like me I'd think twice before buying an RPG supplement for a TV show I've never seen based on a book I've never read.

I think I've (virtually) opened GURPS Vorkosigan Saga twice since I got it and the first time was to get a sneak peak at the (then unreleased) GURPS Spaceships rules. Never read the books, couldn't get past the first few pages when I tried. I don't think I've ever opened GURPS Casey & Andy.

The only reason GURPS Discworld is in production is because Terry Pratchett himself liked the previous edition and based on the previous edition's sale it would be a big seller. (And even then it's apparently stuck in release limbo more or less for advertising reasons.)
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Old 01-11-2016, 01:05 AM   #4
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Default Re: [space] The Expanse is an awesome new show - can we please get a GURPS deal struc

Most of the licensed games were based off books. Hellboy was before the movies I think, Discworld has movies but not general release ones. TV and general release movies operate on a very different financial scale from RPGs. To them a million is a smallish amount of money so what they expect for a license is large by gaming standards. I've also heard of problem with turn around, you need them to approve something and they don't get back to you for a year because you are such a minor part of what they are doing.

I'd assume if the rights holder is also a gamer so they are doing it not just as a financial matter it would go better.
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Old 01-11-2016, 05:15 AM   #5
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Default Re: [space] The Expanse is an awesome new show - can we please get a GURPS deal struc

Apparently it actually was an RPG setting first, before becoming a series of novels and then this series.

So it might have GURPS roots already, although I've got a small side bet on Traveller.

Edit: Just found this from one of the authors:

Quote:
As to the RPG, those rights now belong to Alcon. It’s entirely possible they’ll make a deal for a tabletop game at some point, and if they do, I’ll totally play it. Because that’s just funny. When we were playing before, the system was a seriously modified d20 modern, because Ty rolls that way. I’ve always been more of a GURPS type, myself.

Last edited by mhd; 01-11-2016 at 05:19 AM.
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Old 01-11-2016, 06:43 AM   #6
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Default Re: [space] The Expanse is an awesome new show - can we please get a GURPS deal struc

I met the authors at ReaderCon several years ago and we chatted. The setting is based on an RPG, and I'm about 80% sure that the system was a modified GURPS. :)

Since Ty Franck already has a dossier several inches thick of setting detail for the game he ran, how hard would it be to turn that back into a game book?

Ninja'ed: so not GURPS, ah well...
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Old 01-11-2016, 11:48 AM   #7
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Default Re: [space] The Expanse is an awesome new show - can we please get a GURPS deal struc

As awesome as that sounds, licenses don't work up from fans' suggestions, and with SJG's current publishing model for GURPS, non-perpetual licenses are a horrible idea, because while you can sell books after a license has expired, you can't generate new copies, which PDFs always are.

All that said, this is GURPS. Why do you even need an official book? Just buy whatever licensed thing comes out play it using GURPS 4, THS, Space and the tech-books. Use Action 2 if you want to!

I'd buy it, though. May not read much of it and probably wouldn't use it, but I'm a sucker for GURPS SF books.
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Old 01-11-2016, 03:58 PM   #8
trooper6
 
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Default Re: [space] The Expanse is an awesome new show - can we please get a GURPS deal struc

I just checked the dates. The first book in the series came out in 2011. I suspect that this originally was a THS campaign that used THS sourcebooks with d20 modern rules. Watching the show and reading the first book at the moment? This has THS all over it. The belters are Tennin parahumans, the OPA seems like a Duncanite group...I think The Expanse could be done with the core book and the Deep Beyond pretty easily. Throw in Transhuman Mysteries for a bit of the conspiratorial flavor and you are done.
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Old 02-02-2016, 05:06 PM   #9
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Default Re: [space] The Expanse is an awesome new show - can we please get a GURPS deal struc

But The Expanse is firmly not transhuman. It's actually as close to stock TL 9 Ultratech as you're likely to find. It has one superscience device- the Epstien drive- and everything else is actually kind of TL 8 prototypes that have finally entered production.

I'd definitely like a GURPS Expanse RPG. The Expanse straddles the cinematic and the realistic in a way that really fits GURPS, and it'd be a shame to let annother great science fiction setting pass GURPS by because of licensing nonsense.

Making a GURPS book for The Expanse isn't for current GURPS players -it's for fans of The Expanse to get turned into GURPS players.
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Old 02-03-2016, 01:32 AM   #10
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Default Re: [space] The Expanse is an awesome new show - can we please get a GURPS deal struc

Terradyne, by any chance?
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