"Whatever happened to Gold Rush Games?" Topic

They had some interesting stuff, but seem to have disappeared from the face of the earth. The concept of an Open Game System was fascinating and I've fallen in love with the Sengoku system. They had a game called Patriot that I'ld love to see published.

Any idea what happened? Was he sent to Iraq? Jailed by the evil IRS? Kidnapped by female ninjas? What?

There is a Yahoo group dedicated to the Sengoku game, with little activity the last 3 years. The last message received from mark of GRG was on 16 Sept 2007 saying real-work and family commitments were keeping him from doing any meaningful work on the games.

I wasn't thrilled withe the game engine Sengoku used, but as a sourcebook for Japanese medieval culture for RPGs, it was fantastic.

Damon.

I'll second that – the source material was fantastic. Add in your favorite RPG as the engine and you really had something there.

The man behind most of the historical stuff, Tony Bryant, is brilliant. He used to write a lot about gaming but I think his professional interests have pulled him out of gaming in general. He used to make very penetrating posts concerning all things Samurai.

Oh I dunno, I kinda liked the various maneuvres and okuden that were specific to each martial arts style / school. I think this level of detail is something that is called for in a chanbara style game.

It's a pity they faded away, I was hoping at the time they would do more, and use real history, places and people, not the vague fictional and mythic Japan. I wasn't too keen on the magic and mythical creatures, but that was easy to discard away anyways.

When I run an RPG, the last thing I need is for the player to be thinking about mechanics of the rules. The quality of the source material IS EVERYTHING! Sengoku and Shinobi were phenomenal with source material. I'll fudge the rules to make things go fast anyway.

I sure wish that they had sold the company, or at least the rights to the game and system to someone who cared.