Sovereign Stone Project

[nouny]

Hello,

I'm the webmaster of sstone.org and was planning to work on the future(!) of Sovereign STone.

This world is one of my favorite and I just can't let it die like that!

N'way, I was wondering if it would be better to convert all the current products and new unreleased stuff to the Original System OR let say, D&D 4th edition. We could stick to the 3.5 too, I don't know.

We could work here and publish stuff on the website.



Alex

[Falconer]

Hey, Alex! Good to see you here.

Well, from all I have read, d20 4e seems like it will be a game very specific in scope and not adaptable to other worlds. Forgotten Realms is undergoing a major cataclysm in order to fit with the new rules. If the world has to adapt to the game because the game can not adapt to the world, I say it is unsuitable for what we want to do (without speaking to its various other pros and cons).

d20 3.0 and 3.5 are workable, no doubt. Companies like Paizo will continue to support 3.5. But d20 is no longer the One Game To Rule Them All that it was at the time that Sovereign Press was forced to switch over to it.

To me the Original System is both a better game system than d20 3.x for portraying the world of Sovereign Stone, and a better game system than d20 3.x just in general. Feel free to disagree. But I think we possibly have a better chance of rousing enthusiasm for this game at this point in time than we would for yet another 3.x rendition.

For one thing, Margaret Weis Productions is going ahead with the Cortex System for all of their current game worlds. Cortex is directly based on the Original Sovereign Stone Game System, and plays very similarly. The major difference is that none of the worlds that Cortex currently supports are Fantasy. But I have already heard many Dragonlance fans wonder aloud whether Cortex might not be the way to go.

The trick would be to somehow rally all of the potential “Cortex Fantasy” audience to our banner. This is a good game and could quite possibly be a serious force in an era where 4e has abandoned its traditional audience. It plays like an old-school game but with a brilliant capacity for creating interesting characters that serious roleplayers expect. In fact, it’s almost the perfect answer to that postmodern WoW/M:tG hybrid known as 4e.

What we really need is to have a core rule book in print. Without that, it will be difficult to impossible to gain an audience. But from a Sovereign Stone fan’s point of view, the Original Sovereign Stone Game System is the ideal vehicle for playing in that world.

I would be interested to hear what Don and Les have to say about this, and possibly Jamie if we were ever able to get him over here. But personally I am definitely on board with whatever goes forward!

And it would be great to have your efforts, too, Alex! Your website has long been the bastion of Sovereign Stone on the web. Regards.

[nouny]

Sounds good to me.

Didn't know about the Cortex system, I think it might be the solution for Sovereign Stone. It's already based on the Cortex system and like you said, we might gather more fans for SS that way.

Great!!!!

And ya, with a project like that, I'll be 200% behind it!

[quistar]

nouny said:

Hello,

I'm the webmaster of sstone.org and was planning to work on the future(!) of Sovereign STone.

This world is one of my favorite and I just can't let it die like that!

N'way, I was wondering if it would be better to convert all the current products and new unreleased stuff to the Original System OR let say, D&D 4th edition. We could stick to the 3.5 too, I don't know.

We could work here and publish stuff on the website.



Alex

One thing you'll need to check into is who currently owns the copyright for the SS world and materials. By the way, does anyone know what happened to Whitesilver Publishing? I never saw anything 3.5 from them past the SS core book.

Andrew Hauptman

[nouny]

Hey,

Tony (Lee) told me that for now, the rights are probably lost in the void SINCE Whitesilver Publishing don't exist anymore. John, the owner, is sued here and there and vanished.

They did release the Elves sourcebook and the err... DM screen but otherwise, nothing else.

Alex

[Falconer]

If I understand rightly:

1. The Sovereign Stone Game System is owned by Don Perrin and Lester Smith.

2. The novels are owned by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman and Larry Elmore.

3. Otherwise, the rights to the World of Loerem and all other Sovereign Stone products have reverted back to Larry Elmore.

I could be wrong and that is just my guess. But I would be surprised if whoever licensed Sovereign Stone from Larry Elmore couldn’t by and large use the SP or WSP products however they wanted. Regards.