Other intellectual properties (Ideas, hopes, dreams)

(non-mantic) other games
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In the recent Mantic Universe Podcast (Episode 70), the guys kindly read out a question I submitted.

I asked, more or less, what intellectual properties would people like to see Mantic take on? (For example, we’ve had The Walking Dead, Halo etc).

And what ruleset would be appropriate?

I suggested Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy series “The Wheel of Time” might be adapted into a war-game.

While I had proposed that existing KOW rules could be repurposed for it, in the same way Deadzone rules were repurposed for Halo, an even better suggestion was put forward on the pod that it could be an opportunity to do a 10mm battle game, so that it wasn’t directly competing with KOW…. Love this idea!

For anyone who’s ever read the Wheel of Time, some rules concepts, by faction, that I think would be fun:-

Human factions… I suspect it would be helpful just to have a finite number of differences between them, not unlike in KOW. Maybe each faction could have a bonus to a particular unit style, and then have no access to one style of unit as a weakness. Maybe some get magic (One Power) access, and the factions that don’t get another special rule of some kind.

  • Borderlanders (Shienar, Kandor, Arafel, Saldea) - Stronger heavy cavalry for Shienar, maybe elite infantry variations for the others. Or do the Borderlands as one faction, collectively. Maybe no artillery, for honour reasons. Can take Aes Sedai.

  • Illian- Stronger heavy infantry (The Companions). Can take Aes Sedai.

  • Tear- Better defence for infantry. Maybe better artillery, to compensate for no Aes Sedai allowed.

  • Andor- Better light cavalry and infantry (Queen’s Guard). Can take Aes Sedai.

(Potentially, you roll Illian, Tear, Andor, Murandy, Arad Doman, Carhien and all the human kingdoms more or less into one faction, for rules purposes, like the Borderlands, I guess… just one stand-out unit for each. The problem is, in the books, they’re not united until the Last Battle)

  • Whitecloaks- Better defence and offence, maybe reflected in a fanatic rule. Cannot take Aes Sedai.

  • Tar Valon- Larger Aes Sedai contingents, units of Warders (Elite infantry), small numbers of Tower guard.

-Two Rivers folk- Can be added to any of the above. Elite missile fire and scouting.

  • Aiel- No cavalry, but faster light infantry that hits as hard as heavy infantry. Short range missile fire. Has limited One Power access, in the form of Wise Ones.

  • Seanchan- Kind of an elite monster-mash army… Elite foot, Ogier Gardeners, flyers, those one-eyed frog things and One Power users in the form of Damane.

  • The Shadow- Trolloc heavy infantry, Fade elite characters, Draghkar flying assassins, Darkfriend light infantry, access to One Power via Black Ajah (Dreadlord upgrade in armies of a certain size?)

Maybe follow the above with release of special characters from the books, including the Dragon, the Forsaken, the Amyrlin Seat, Mat and the Band of the Red Hand, Perrin and the wolves etc.

Anyway, I don’t know what the realistic possibility is that Mantic would opt for something like The Wheel of Time, but he’s some cover art for the sake of it.

Original cover art from one of the books, famously a bit naff in parts, but I still love these:-

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More recent, contemporary-styled cover art:-

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The other intellectual properties that I was thinking about this morning, that I think would bring people in…

I’ll go with one modest but potentially interesting one…

Anything Brandon Sanderson… Whether it’s based on his Stormlight Archive or his Mistborn books, you’ve got another fantasy setting that could incorporate adventuring, fighting and Sanderson’s elaborate magic system. This IP doesn’t really do it for me, but Sanderson’s popularity is undeniable. The biggest amount of money ever raised, as a Kickstarter author, I think? I think a fantasy skirmish game with an emphasis on movement (including vertical, what about going really high with the table top set-ups, as a lot of his characters can literally shoot up the side of tall towers).

Next… I mean… If you want to pull in a whole ready-made group of people… JK Rowling’s Harry Potter.

A skirmish game based on character building and mixing dice and cards. Something a little bit like Dungeon Saga? But I’d lean into the ability to create highly customisable player characters…

Chose sex, chose between adult or teenager (Adults get an extra spell, teenagers like the book characters get a speed advantage), choose school, choose special affiliation (Auror, Ministry of Magic, Death-Eater), and then it becomes either a dungeon-crawler / skirmish battle game / scenario-driven game.

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I thibk that the problem with making games using an existing IP is that it doesn’t seem to work long term.
It’s riding the sucess of something, but with no control over it’s direction or a way to renew interest.

All the “exteranl IP” wargames that I have seen have come and gone. Dwindling in popularity until, maybe, something happens to renew interest.
How many Star Wars wargames has there been?
With surges in popularity for new games or (more impactfully) new movies.

People are interesed in those games incidentally.

There is no substitute for a “home grown”, over decades, lore and IP the the company controls and can develop.

It makes a fandom who are interested in the game and associated lore for that game.

Games Workshop can have events in their worlds that kick off a wave of releases and people get excited for it.
Corvus Belli has people following their story and buying the minis that come out of new factions.
I genuinely think that Mantic are well on their way to this with Pannithor. It’s just a slow process.

That said…

I’d rather have Discworld.
Mostly because I like it more, but also because I think that Discworld has a more sustainable fandom.

As far as I can tell, interest in Harry Potter hasn’t been picked up by the younger generation. So the fandom seems to be only the group who loved it as teenagers and are now middle aged.

Discworld has fans who were born after the first book was published and kept getting published for 3 decades.
Also, the Discworld RPG just raised over a million pounds in 4 days (from Tuesday).

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The pros and cons of buying an IP are somewhat outside of my bailiwick… I must admit my assumption is that people like Ronnie “do the maths” and are clear that they’ll be able to turn a profit with products like Halo: Flashpoint.

I suspect it’s true that ‘finished’ IPs naturally enough allow less long-term development and open ended development (compared to something like Pannithor or the Warhammer universe). But on the other hand, if a game “only” sells for a period of 5-20 years, that might still be very profitable and a good jaunt for everyone.

On the MUP show there was a claim - which I can’t verify - that the Lord of the Rings IP was a bit of a lifeline for GW, at one point.

I suppose, overall, my assumption is that an IP is inherently coming with leaner margins than your own property, but you’ve got a shot at a wider audience, for whatever window.

Halo is an interesting one. I played it as a teenager and am fond of it, but my own kids have zero idea what it is. If I bought that game and brought it home, it might as well be Deadzone, as far as they’re concerned.

Now… If it were Fortnite… They’d crawl over broken glass to get a game of it.

With regard to Harry Potter, I’m not sure you’re correct with regard to waning popularity. Or at least, 25 years later, if it may not be selling at the levels of peak Pottermania… It’s still kicking the arse off almost every other IP out there… Didn’t the recent video game do really well, despite all the noise around Rowling’s beliefs about sex? That’s probably a decent marker of how a board or table top game could do. I suspect the issue with a game adaptation would actually be affordability.

Discworld gets mentioned by a lot of people, certainly would have its niche. And presumably not crazy money? It’s huge but it’s not Harry Potter or Star Wars huge.

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What I was trying to say is that existing IP games seem to be better for “profitable jaunt”, like the boardgames that Mantic does. While I think that the a company needs to build their own IP for a long lived flagship wargame.

I think we’re both seeing more of what we’re interested in here.
I think that a £1000 000 RPG is is a decent marker of how well a wargame would do, but haven’t even heard of the video game.

We’d need actual data to say which is bigger.

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Sorry, this thread is supposed to be about “ideas, hopes, dreams”, rather than arguing over IPs.

I’d love a Discworld skirmish wargame (or even miniature boardgame) thats a more lighthearted version of Malifaux.
With each team trying to score for their own objectives while the oppont scores theirs and “accidentally” interferes.
Like the Watch would get points for keeping order, while the postal service is trying to deliver something or get through, Wizards bumble around not sure what they’re doing themselves, etc.

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Quite like survival horror.

I think The Walking Dead ticks a lot of boxes, but I think some kind of cooperative siege survival game based on 28 Days later… or Richard Matheson’s I am Legend would be interesting.

Maybe with a day cycle where you scavenge and venture from safety, and the further you go the more loot you can get, but you then have a longer run back to safety during the dusk period… and then a night cycle where your defenses are tested by the NPC enemies.

A Predator skirmish game could be fun too. Could make availavle different predator models, and maybe play different settings and time periods. The predator could randomly activate / appear, but odds of going after more heavily equipped characters could be increased. So you move around and you pick up a gatling gun, but then hes definitley coming for you. Pick up a handgun and you might be relatively safe for a while, and could use that time to lay traps until youre ready to pick up a heavier weapon and bring on a confrontation…

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For the dreams, Discworld or Perry Rhodan (both being a similar game to Walking Dead) would be something

Predator (1 and 2) on a Deadzone engine as well but not much replay ability here unless the Predator is the NPC in a 2 player standalone board game

PS:
IP games have one problem in recent times and this is the IP struggling
Be it Star Wars, Walking Dead, Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings, you want your game/toys to be out with the latest release but if that sucks or is different to the IP you bought, it hurts a lot

Like even Lego gets into trouble with that if the ships they made are cut from the final film and nobody cares about your release

So either the IP has legacy were new releases can be ignored (looking at Star Wars Legion) or you need to be lucky

Halo is interesting here as the TV show was cancelled before it released but people are still hyped so the legacy might be strong enough

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