“All
your life has been spent in pursuit of archaeological relics. Inside
the Ark are treasures beyond your wildest aspirations. You want to
see it opened as well as I.”
– Belloq
 |
| Following clues to the lost files.... |
Someone
on Twitter last week posted a photo of their used bookstore haul of
West End Games’
World
of Indiana Jones
roleplaying game books...and I immediately had a flashback to those
final months of the company’s existence before bankruptcy in 1998
when we
proposed a complete reboot of the game line in a premium, full-color
hardcover core rulebook.
I not only managed to find the proposal still lurking on my hard
drive but also – far in the depths of my bottom-most file drawer –
the three-page print out in a folder labeled “Indiana Jones D6.”
Given its
history I’m glad no angry, cursed
ghosts
few out of the dusty pages to melt my face.
When
West End acquired the license from Lucasfilm to publish books based
on the Indiana Jones property the company had put its stock in a
non-
D6
game system.
MasterBook
was the refinement of a d10-based game engine (enhanced
with cards) first
seen in
TORG
and further developed in
Shatterzone.
The
editorial staff divided itself into two factions: those who
favored
the
D6
system from
the
Star
Wars
game and
those who
saw
MasterBook
as
the key to the company’s future success. Management views on the
subject further weighted
the issue in
favor of MasterBook.
Ultimately
it proved a poor choice.
Having
played the
Star
Wars
game
since
it first released
and already veering away from high-complexity games, I knew
MasterBook
and Indy were not a good match. Part of the appeal and success of the
Star
Wars RPG
came from its cinematic game system; it
was so
intuitive
one could teach it
to complete
newcomers in no more than 15 minutes. Anyone
who’d seen the films
knew
the universe and anyone with any familiarity with roleplaying games
could run it. Diving
into the game to capitalize on fan enthusiasm was key; catering to
gamers who
preferred
complicated
rules was
not a priority. Alas,
I was too new at West End to
have much influence and
the corporate winds were blowing in
MasterBook’s
favor. So
in the summer of 1994
The
World of Indiana Jones
released
under
the cumbersome
MasterBook
rules.
MasterBook
published
a slew of “World of” books tied to various original and licensed
settings. These
included the “World of” Tales
from the Crypt, Necroscope, Species,
and the original horror-noir setting of Bloodshadows.
Perhaps
the most notorious adaptation was The
World of Tank Girl
(though staff convinced owner Scott Palter not to pursue the Barb
Wire
movie license...). Few approached the same levels of success when
compared to the sales of Star
Wars Roleplaying Game
products. One
might link this to the level of interest gamers had in these
licenses, but I’d note the complicated game mechanics discouraged
fans from trying associated roleplaying games...whereas the cinematic
streamlining of the system for the Star
Wars
game more
easily drew fans into the adventure gaming hobby (though
many fans simply bought
the sourcebooks for the then-official setting information for their
favorite galaxy far, far away). Meanwhile the Star
Wars Roleplaying Game
line
was doing quite well. Where other products released material every
few months, the Star
Wars
game line published three or four products each month.
Eventually
West End management realized the
D6
System
could exist separately from Lucasfilm’s Star
Wars
license. This change developed from turnover in the creative
editorial staff, now dominated by people working on numerous Star
Wars
game products. When I signed on in the summer of 1993 I was one of
only two people dedicated to editing Star
Wars
products, with two other editors working on other lines (one of whom
served as “editorial director” of the department). By 1996 the
staff shifted, with one non-Star
Wars
editor departing and several more signed on to work on Star
Wars
projects...and other evolving D6
System
games. The
company abandoned MasterBook
and sought to develop new games and licenses using D6.
The first title was a generic rulebook for the system, George
Strayton’s The
D6 System: The Customizable Roleplaying Game.
While
it set out the rules previously entwined with Star
Wars
terminology and that setting, it was a
necessarily hasty effort to establish the D6
System
as a separate rules set. It also lacked a setting to entice new
gamers. West End quickly addressed that, releasing Indiana
Jones Adventures
(1996) – a collection of short scenarios (like the popular Star
Wars
supplement Instant
Adventures)
prefaced by a conversion of The
World of Indiana Jones
rules to the D6
System
– and a timely game adaptation tied to the Men
in Black
film (1997). Strayton further refined and streamlined the mechanics
in his Hercules
& Xena Roleplaying Game
(called the Legend
System).
The
Star
Wars Roleplaying Game
line
continued
releasing three, sometimes four publications each month,
including The
Star Wars Adventure Journal
I was editing. But the Star
Wars Roleplaying Game Second Edition, Revised and Expanded
(1996,
but almost 1995...that’s another story) really set the bar high
with production values. The 288-page hardcover book had full color
throughout, something West End had never attempted before. Some books
had spot color signatures interspersed among the black-and-white
pages, most notably the famous in-universe advertisements in the two
earlier editions of the core rulebooks. It
was an impressive core rulebook for the company’s flagship game
line, so
stupendous an undertaking that the staff
nicknamed it “super mondo.”
 |
| Okay, so I opened the long lost file folder.... |
In
late 1997 we’d hoped to boost the D6
version of the Indiana
Jones
game with a similar “super mondo” treatment. The
World of Indiana Jones
was no longer a relevant core rulebook. Indiana
Jones Adventures
offered
a rules conversion but wasn’t really a rulebook one could hand new
players to get them started. So I drafted a proposal
for a D6-edition
of the Indiana
Jones Roleplaying Game based
on the successful format of Star
Wars Second Edition, Revised and Expanded. My
name appears as the byline on the document, but I’d like to think I
incorporated ideas and comments from the entire creative staff at the
time. (The
book itself would have required staff contributions to make it
through the production schedule on time.) The
pitch focused
on using the “super mondo” approach to Indiana
Jones:
full-color hardcover book; similar sections for players, gamemasters,
adventures, and setting resources; plenty
of color movie stills augmented with original pieces from artists
like Stephen Daniele (“whose artistic touch helped make Indiana
Jones: Magic & Mysticism
stand out”); even
a solitaire tutorial adventure by yours truly (if only a revised
version of “Silver Horus” from my Raiders
of the Lost Ark Sourcebook).
Resources
would have
included
some material from previous sourcebooks revised to the D6
format and additional material to fill out the setting, particularly
from Indiana
Jones and the Last Crusade,
the only one of the three extant films that didn’t yet have its own
sourcebook.
“The
ultimate goal is to include everything needed
to play – rules and source material – in one book.... The
Indiana Jones Roleplaying Game, Second Edition
would be as much a game rulebook as a sourcebook for running
adventures during this era of history.” Not terribly inspiring, I
realize, but the core intent for a project modeled on one of the
company’s most successful core Star
Wars
products.
 |
| “Consider yourselves unemployed.” |
I
finished the proposal in
December 1997 (the “last updated” date on my file); it probably
crossed Palter’s
desk in January 1998. I vaguely recall handing it to him and chatting
briefly about it, but nothing came of it. During the next six months
the company entered a death spiral – despite staff efforts to
promote games and management efforts to solve financial problems –
and at the end of June Palter called everyone into his office to
announce
“Consider yourselves unemployed.”
 |
An opportunity that slipped
through our fingers. |
No
doubt The
Indiana Jones Roleplaying Game, Second Edition
as outlined would have reinvigorated the game line and led to more
supplements. It could never have come close to sales numbers for the
Star
Wars Roleplaying Game
and it certainly couldn’t have saved the company from its dire
financial straits. But it had the potential to promote more cinematic
pulp gaming in the spirit that characterized both the Star
Wars
and Indiana
Jones
franchises. Just
one more of the amazing possibilities that dissipated in the West End
bankruptcy.
“I
don’t know, I’m making it up as I go.”
– Indiana
Jones
Addendum:
Not
all was completely lost. I’d long had an interest in Egypt of
ancient times and the more modern Victorian and early 20th century
periods. I’d written a proposal and manuscript for a Castle
Falkenstein
supplement, Maxwell’s
Egyptian Diary,
that never saw publication. So as I was drafting the proposal for the
Indiana
Jones RPG
super mondo edition I started developing in my head a logical
setting sourcebook to accompany it. A
Valley
of the Pharaohs
sourcebook could
cover
many aspects of Egypt in the 1930s.
It
never coalesced into anything more than a few pages of notes and I
obviously never wrote a proposal to pitch to West End. The
idea sat in a drawer, abandoned over time and tainted with the
resentment I felt at West End’s demise.
After
my Desperate Freelancing Years I decided to strike out on my own as
Griffon Publishing Studio (thanks to the utility of the internet and
PDF publications). My
first project transformed the ideas behind an Indiana
Jones Valley of the Pharaohs
supplement into the system-neutral Pulp
Egypt
sourcebook. (I
almost published it as a D6
System
book, though at the time it was not free to use as an Open Game
License.) It’s
done well over the years and I’m still very proud of it. People
still buy a copy or two occasionally on DriveThruRPG along with a
host of free/pay-what-you-want adventures I’ve uploaded over the
years. It’s
the ideal pulp resource I would have wanted had West End Games ever
published
The
Indiana Jones Roleplaying Game, Second Edition.
