"FGU Space Opera - a new product after thirty years" Topic

Yes – it is true. A new Fantasy games Unlimited product for Space Opera. As a SO grognard I had to get it.

Review at the Woolshed.

link
Cheers
Brian

The GPR: "What's yours is ours and what's ours is ours"

Space commies – they even have a New Siberia.

We loved the game "AFTERMATH" by fantasy games unlimited.
That was something like 32 years ago…

Man i hate getting old.

Given FGU's more recent reputation, this is no happy accident. There is a legal battle over at least one other FGU game.

Without me googling it can you give me a run-down on the legal battle GyspsyComet?

Nice to see a new release from them.

I bought Space Opera in the mid-1980s (it is a strangely clear memory, I remember what store I was in, I remember what shelf it was on) because I looked at the box set and half a dozen supplements and then at Traveller and its 300 supplements and I went cheap.

I regretted it and now own Traveller and those 300 supplements too, but I do have a fondness still for Space Opera and its crazy generation systems. I tried to do Star Wars with it, think it went ok in the planning stages and then fell apart in actual gameplay. Your notes on the setting were interesting, I'll have to dig out the box set and look at that again, maybe doing some gaming in miniature using stuff on hand.

Brian,
As a business entity and going concern, FGU was arguably a casualty of the 90s. They simply disappeared.

The owner reportedly created a new company and transferred all assets of the first to it. In the opinions of the (surviving) designers of FGUs games, and Jeff Dee (one author and primary artist for Villains & Vigilantes) specifically, that transition should have triggered the clause in their sales contracts that reverted the rights of the games back to the authors. Instead, FGU's principle apparently sat on/sold old stock out of his garage by mail order until the internet came along, then moved to PDFs. He apparently releases something new only frequently enough to show that he still produces games and is thus "still in business".

Two trips through the courts have produced opposing rulings. A third is underway, according to the Wikipedia entry and postings by Jeff Dee..

I think I've heard of at least one other of FGU's games in a dispute similar to V&V, but the wiki entry for FGU only mentions V&V as an ongoing case. I know the authors of Other Suns used the early internet to release a second edition of that game in text format, suggesting that they had made an earlier attempt and could not extract their game. I know I'd heard about the garage stash well before I heard about the court cases for V&V.

Nice to hear that SO is not stone cold dead.

Anyone know where I can get errata for SO vol 1 & 2? I'm working on a web form for designing space craft and there are some holes in the rules as well as difference between the rules and Sheldon's.