Compiled Q&A with James Mishler [Archive] - Wizards Community

Compiled Q&A with James Mishler [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Shane
09-05-06, 01:05 AM JAMES MISHLER (Owner of Adventure Games Publishing, makers of the Wilderlands of High Adventure setting; from the Judges Guild forum through Sep 4, 2006)

Wow, great news James! Maybe once you've achieved your goals for the Wilderlands you can snatch the Mystara license too...

Thanks Shane! Believe me, that is something that I have long considered as well, the financial issues behind a license like that, however, are on a different order of magnitude... One step at a time, though... :)

Q: Where does the Blackmoor map (http://www.geocities.com/havardfaa/BlackmoorSmall.jpg) and the Wilderlands map (http://www.judgesguild.com/misc/jg_pmap.jpg) line up along the Valley of the Ancients?

A: The original Blackmoor map, as presented in the First Fantasy Campaign product, was set specifically above the Valley of the Ancients map... however, as the Blackmoor map was at twice the scale as the Wilderlands maps (i.e., 10 mile hexes versus 5 mile hexes) the Blackmoor map was actually equal to four regular Wilderlands hexes. Ergo, only the south-western quarter of Blackmoor fit properly above the Valley of the ancients. Of course, once TSR got Blackmoor back, and published it anew, they changed the scale to 24 miles per hex, and added a whole map section below Blackmoor that obviated the space/time relationship...

Q: Do the places that are marked on the edge of the map (e.g. The Great Glacier and the Kingdom of Karak) conflict with what is known or suspected to lie off the western and southern edges of the Blackmoor map?

A: These have nothing to do with the further regions of Blackmoor as designed by Arneson... these areas are part of Wilderlands canon, not Blackmoor canon. Some folks conflate Thonia and Karak, others have Karak being an empire west of Tonia, etc... there's no official position on this, AFAIK, on Arneson's part...

Q: Do the Blackmoor and Wilderlands books refer to each other at all, such as references to places, people, or events from the other setting?

A: No, the only tie-in was the fact that the FFC version of Blackmoor was placed above the Valley of the Ancients... the Valley being the only thing in common, and, of course, as later developed by TSR, the valley was very, very different from that of the Wilderlands...

Questions for those familiar with Mystara: I know that the Wilderlands is stand-alone setting and a separate intellectual property from Blackmoor and Mystara, but I was wondering if a publisher had a license and permission from both WotC and Judges Guild, could the Wilderlands even fit into Mystara, next to where Blackmoor was located prior to the Great Rain of Fire? Could it physically fit on the continent of Skothar? (http://www.geocities.com/havardfaa/precataclysmic04.jpg) and (http://www.geocities.com/havardfaa/Mystara_BC4000.jpg) (Minor reshaping of the coastline would be acceptable.) Is the area depicted in the link in Question 1 the extent of the "known" Wilderlands? Or is there an official world map that shows whole continents? Is there an extensive history, cosmology, and pantheon of gods that would be/could be rationalized into the Mystara timeline, cosmology, and Immortals scheme? Or would the Wilderlands setting have to be severely pruned and squished to fit into Mystara?

A: Wow, lots of questions there... in a nutshell, it is doubtful that, even were a company to be able to license all three at once, that any canonical mix would be allowed to be made. If a company *owned* all three, sure, that would be possible. As for fitting the Wilderlands on Blackmoor-era Skothar, plenty of folks have done this already, as the Wilderlands at the 5-mile hex size can be readily dropped in just about anywhere on the map with minimal effort...

Q: While I'm at it...TSR had plans (before the Mystara line was canceled) to say that Blackmoor was plucked from Skothar by the Immortals before it was destroyed, and safely placed in the Hollow World. If the Wilderlands fit onto Skothar, would the setting fit onto the continent of Jomphur in the Hollow World map where it is labeled on the lower right-hand corner? (http://www.dablackmoor.com/MMRPG/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=131)

A: Again, the setting is small enough that it could fit jsut about anywhere... including Jomphur, as Havard and others have mentioned.

James, I understand that usually not *every* feature of a designer's home campaign can be published, since most DMs have run proprietary modules from various game companies in their world. For instance, Frank Mentzer has stated that he used a Stephen King story for one of the sessions in Aquaria, so, for copyright reasons, he won't be able to include that scenario in his upcoming Aquaria products. Even though the WoHA represents your home campaign, I wonder if you could speak on elements that can't be included in the published version for copyright reasons, specifically:

Q: In a previous post you stated that your ongoing campaign consisted of the Wilderlands, Mystara, and AErth. I remember you once said how you used Gygax's World of AErth as the equivalent of the Dimension of Myth from the Mystaran cosmology. In your home campaign, are the Wilderlands connected to Blackmoor and Mystara (and thus to AErth)?

A: While Mystara and Aerth always had that connection in my Mystara campaign (well, at least, since Aerth was created in the early 90's), I usually kept the Wilderlands and Mystara separate and distinct. I never used Blackmoor in the Wilderlands myself, though I often toyed with the idea. It was always for me far more attached to Mystara as a part of the background and history. That was, indeed, a problem when I was working on the HackWurld of Mystaros, as the rights did not include Blackmoor... so Blackmoor and Thonia, and that whole historical period, became the "time of the Elder Empire."

Q: Also, could you comment on what sorts of non-Judges Guilds modules you've run in your Wilderlands campaign?

Fortunately, there are few non-Judges Guild modules that I ever used in the setting; I tended not to use modules wholesale, just taking the bits I needed here and there. That said, I used both B1 and B2 at various times in the Wilderlands, and I used B4 in the Endless Desert and, once, in the Queen's Waste. Most adventures I've run have been city based... I used some materials inspired from B6 in the CSIO at times. But that's really it...
havard
09-05-06, 01:28 PM A: The original Blackmoor map, as presented in the First Fantasy Campaign product, was set specifically above the Valley of the Ancients map... however, as the Blackmoor map was at twice the scale as the Wilderlands maps (i.e., 10 mile hexes versus 5 mile hexes) the Blackmoor map was actually equal to four regular Wilderlands hexes. Ergo, only the south-western quarter of Blackmoor fit properly above the Valley of the ancients. Of course, once TSR got Blackmoor back, and published it anew, they changed the scale to 24 miles per hex, and added a whole map section below Blackmoor that obviated the space/time relationship...

Well, sort of yes. However, extending the Valley of the Ancients further south and then to turning westwards is no big deal and Blackmoor could still easily fit northeast of the Wilderlands.

Q: Do the places that are marked on the edge of the map (e.g. The Great Glacier and the Kingdom of Karak) conflict with what is known or suspected to lie off the western and southern edges of the Blackmoor map?

A: These have nothing to do with the further regions of Blackmoor as designed by Arneson... these areas are part of Wilderlands canon, not Blackmoor canon. Some folks conflate Thonia and Karak, others have Karak being an empire west of Tonia, etc... there's no official position on this, AFAIK, on Arneson's part...

My own suggestion is having Karak between Thonia and the Wilderlands.

A: No, the only tie-in was the fact that the FFC version of Blackmoor was placed above the Valley of the Ancients... the Valley being the only thing in common, and, of course, as later developed by TSR, the valley was very, very different from that of the Wilderlands...

True. Although the combined Blackmoor-Wilderlands Valley will be big enough to make room for all of that. Also, space ships and aliens are not strangers to the Wilderlands setting....

I will leave the rest as it stands. Thanks for posting this Q&A too Shane. I am a big fan of James' writing (both fan stuff and published) and I will probably pick up his new work too. If his company does good enough, I know that he would *want* to get the lisence to do Mystara too... :)

Håvard
Shane
09-05-06, 02:02 PM If his company does good enough, I know that he would *want* to get the lisence to do Mystara too...

Oops! I forgot to include the part where James stated exactly that. :embarrass I just editted it into the beginning of the Q&A.

Shane
OldDawg
09-05-06, 02:22 PM JAMES MISHLER (Owner of Adventure Games Publishing, makers of the Wilderlands of High Adventure setting; from the Judges Guild forum through Sep 4, 2006)

Wow, great news James! Maybe once you've achieved your goals for the Wilderlands you can snatch the Mystara license too...

Thanks Shane! Believe me, that is something that I have long considered as well, the financial issues behind a license like that, however, are on a different order of magnitude... One step at a time, though...

Just out of curiosity :plotting: - does anyone familiar with the industry have any idea what the licensing would cost? Or to purchase the setting outright with the full product library?

-OldDawg
Mystaros
09-05-06, 04:08 PM Well, I can answer the whole Mystara licensing issue for now, as just today I got a response to an inquiry... Wizards (i.e., Hasbro) is not interested in licensing Mystara at this time (nor Gamma World, for that matter, which I also inquired after).

Drat.

That's not to say there are no possibilities in the future; after all, to them, I'm just some guy with a startup publishing company. And circumstances always change. If I go to them in a couple of years with a bucket full of cash and a series of successfully licensed and profitable product lines, they might think differently.

But for now, at least, an official rebirth of Mystara is still just a dream.

For Adventure Games Publishing, this simply means that once the Wilderlands line is solidly established, I'll be moving on to something else for a second line...
Mystaros
09-05-06, 04:12 PM Just out of curiosity :plotting: - does anyone familiar with the industry have any idea what the licensing would cost? Or to purchase the setting outright with the full product library?

-OldDawg

To merely license the line would require, in my estimation, low five figures. To buy it... well, I doubt Hasbro is in the business of selling anything. Once a company like that gets ahold of a property, they will keep it forever, even if it just sits in their warehouse like the Ark of the Covenant... :mad:

That said, when I win that big lottery, I'll drop by at Hasbro the next day with a big, blank check... :D
JohnBiles
09-05-06, 07:07 PM Well, I can answer the whole Mystara licensing issue for now, as just today I got a response to an inquiry... Wizards (i.e., Hasbro) is not interested in licensing Mystara at this time (nor Gamma World, for that matter, which I also inquired after).

Isn't Gamma World still licensed out to White Wolf? Or did that lapse?
JohnBiles
09-05-06, 07:07 PM To merely license the line would require, in my estimation, low five figures. To buy it... well, I doubt Hasbro is in the business of selling anything. Once a company like that gets ahold of a property, they will keep it forever, even if it just sits in their warehouse like the Ark of the Covenant... :mad:

That said, when I win that big lottery, I'll drop by at Hasbro the next day with a big, blank check... :D

I have dim memories that someone once quoted it would probably cost 50,000 to license out Mystara, but I may be hallucinating.
Cthulhudrew
09-05-06, 09:25 PM I have dim memories that someone once quoted it would probably cost 50,000 to license out Mystara, but I may be hallucinating.

According to page 32 in this article on Mongoose publishing (http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/sp34wargamer.pdf), the license for Babylon 5 cost them $65,000. As Mystara is a far less popular and recognized brand than Babylon 5, I'd say that speculations about $50k for it's license were highly overestimated.
Mystaros
09-05-06, 11:27 PM Isn't Gamma World still licensed out to White Wolf? Or did that lapse?

White Wolf reverted the license back to WotC when the line tanked miserably... IMNSHO, it was the worst of the six editions, and that says a lot when you consider the fifth and the third!

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Shane 09-05-06, 01:05 AM	JAMES MISHLER (Owner of Adventure Games Publishing, makers of the Wilderlands of High Adventure setting; from the Judges Guild forum through Sep 4, 2006) Wow, great news James! Maybe once you've achieved your goals for the Wilderlands you can snatch the Mystara license too... Thanks Shane! Believe me, that is something that I have long considered as well, the financial issues behind a license like that, however, are on a different order of magnitude... One step at a time, though... :) Q: Where does the Blackmoor map (http://www.geocities.com/havardfaa/BlackmoorSmall.jpg) and the Wilderlands map (http://www.judgesguild.com/misc/jg_pmap.jpg) line up along the Valley of the Ancients? A: The original Blackmoor map, as presented in the First Fantasy Campaign product, was set specifically above the Valley of the Ancients map... however, as the Blackmoor map was at twice the scale as the Wilderlands maps (i.e., 10 mile hexes versus 5 mile hexes) the Blackmoor map was actually equal to four regular Wilderlands hexes. Ergo, only the south-western quarter of Blackmoor fit properly above the Valley of the ancients. Of course, once TSR got Blackmoor back, and published it anew, they changed the scale to 24 miles per hex, and added a whole map section below Blackmoor that obviated the space/time relationship... Q: Do the places that are marked on the edge of the map (e.g. The Great Glacier and the Kingdom of Karak) conflict with what is known or suspected to lie off the western and southern edges of the Blackmoor map? A: These have nothing to do with the further regions of Blackmoor as designed by Arneson... these areas are part of Wilderlands canon, not Blackmoor canon. Some folks conflate Thonia and Karak, others have Karak being an empire west of Tonia, etc... there's no official position on this, AFAIK, on Arneson's part... Q: Do the Blackmoor and Wilderlands books refer to each other at all, such as references to places, people, or events from the other setting? A: No, the only tie-in was the fact that the FFC version of Blackmoor was placed above the Valley of the Ancients... the Valley being the only thing in common, and, of course, as later developed by TSR, the valley was very, very different from that of the Wilderlands... Questions for those familiar with Mystara: I know that the Wilderlands is stand-alone setting and a separate intellectual property from Blackmoor and Mystara, but I was wondering if a publisher had a license and permission from both WotC and Judges Guild, could the Wilderlands even fit into Mystara, next to where Blackmoor was located prior to the Great Rain of Fire? Could it physically fit on the continent of Skothar? (http://www.geocities.com/havardfaa/precataclysmic04.jpg) and (http://www.geocities.com/havardfaa/Mystara_BC4000.jpg) (Minor reshaping of the coastline would be acceptable.) Is the area depicted in the link in Question 1 the extent of the "known" Wilderlands? Or is there an official world map that shows whole continents? Is there an extensive history, cosmology, and pantheon of gods that would be/could be rationalized into the Mystara timeline, cosmology, and Immortals scheme? Or would the Wilderlands setting have to be severely pruned and squished to fit into Mystara? A: Wow, lots of questions there... in a nutshell, it is doubtful that, even were a company to be able to license all three at once, that any canonical mix would be allowed to be made. If a company owned all three, sure, that would be possible. As for fitting the Wilderlands on Blackmoor-era Skothar, plenty of folks have done this already, as the Wilderlands at the 5-mile hex size can be readily dropped in just about anywhere on the map with minimal effort... Q: While I'm at it...TSR had plans (before the Mystara line was canceled) to say that Blackmoor was plucked from Skothar by the Immortals before it was destroyed, and safely placed in the Hollow World. If the Wilderlands fit onto Skothar, would the setting fit onto the continent of Jomphur in the Hollow World map where it is labeled on the lower right-hand corner? (http://www.dablackmoor.com/MMRPG/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=131) A: Again, the setting is small enough that it could fit jsut about anywhere... including Jomphur, as Havard and others have mentioned. James, I understand that usually not every feature of a designer's home campaign can be published, since most DMs have run proprietary modules from various game companies in their world. For instance, Frank Mentzer has stated that he used a Stephen King story for one of the sessions in Aquaria, so, for copyright reasons, he won't be able to include that scenario in his upcoming Aquaria products. Even though the WoHA represents your home campaign, I wonder if you could speak on elements that can't be included in the published version for copyright reasons, specifically: Q: In a previous post you stated that your ongoing campaign consisted of the Wilderlands, Mystara, and AErth. I remember you once said how you used Gygax's World of AErth as the equivalent of the Dimension of Myth from the Mystaran cosmology. In your home campaign, are the Wilderlands connected to Blackmoor and Mystara (and thus to AErth)? A: While Mystara and Aerth always had that connection in my Mystara campaign (well, at least, since Aerth was created in the early 90's), I usually kept the Wilderlands and Mystara separate and distinct. I never used Blackmoor in the Wilderlands myself, though I often toyed with the idea. It was always for me far more attached to Mystara as a part of the background and history. That was, indeed, a problem when I was working on the HackWurld of Mystaros, as the rights did not include Blackmoor... so Blackmoor and Thonia, and that whole historical period, became the "time of the Elder Empire." Q: Also, could you comment on what sorts of non-Judges Guilds modules you've run in your Wilderlands campaign? Fortunately, there are few non-Judges Guild modules that I ever used in the setting; I tended not to use modules wholesale, just taking the bits I needed here and there. That said, I used both B1 and B2 at various times in the Wilderlands, and I used B4 in the Endless Desert and, once, in the Queen's Waste. Most adventures I've run have been city based... I used some materials inspired from B6 in the CSIO at times. But that's really it...
havard 09-05-06, 01:28 PM	A: The original Blackmoor map, as presented in the First Fantasy Campaign product, was set specifically above the Valley of the Ancients map... however, as the Blackmoor map was at twice the scale as the Wilderlands maps (i.e., 10 mile hexes versus 5 mile hexes) the Blackmoor map was actually equal to four regular Wilderlands hexes. Ergo, only the south-western quarter of Blackmoor fit properly above the Valley of the ancients. Of course, once TSR got Blackmoor back, and published it anew, they changed the scale to 24 miles per hex, and added a whole map section below Blackmoor that obviated the space/time relationship... Well, sort of yes. However, extending the Valley of the Ancients further south and then to turning westwards is no big deal and Blackmoor could still easily fit northeast of the Wilderlands. Q: Do the places that are marked on the edge of the map (e.g. The Great Glacier and the Kingdom of Karak) conflict with what is known or suspected to lie off the western and southern edges of the Blackmoor map? A: These have nothing to do with the further regions of Blackmoor as designed by Arneson... these areas are part of Wilderlands canon, not Blackmoor canon. Some folks conflate Thonia and Karak, others have Karak being an empire west of Tonia, etc... there's no official position on this, AFAIK, on Arneson's part... My own suggestion is having Karak between Thonia and the Wilderlands. A: No, the only tie-in was the fact that the FFC version of Blackmoor was placed above the Valley of the Ancients... the Valley being the only thing in common, and, of course, as later developed by TSR, the valley was very, very different from that of the Wilderlands... True. Although the combined Blackmoor-Wilderlands Valley will be big enough to make room for all of that. Also, space ships and aliens are not strangers to the Wilderlands setting.... I will leave the rest as it stands. Thanks for posting this Q&A too Shane. I am a big fan of James' writing (both fan stuff and published) and I will probably pick up his new work too. If his company does good enough, I know that he would want to get the lisence to do Mystara too... :) Håvard
Shane 09-05-06, 02:02 PM	If his company does good enough, I know that he would want to get the lisence to do Mystara too... Oops! I forgot to include the part where James stated exactly that. :embarrass I just editted it into the beginning of the Q&A. Shane
OldDawg 09-05-06, 02:22 PM	JAMES MISHLER (Owner of Adventure Games Publishing, makers of the Wilderlands of High Adventure setting; from the Judges Guild forum through Sep 4, 2006) Wow, great news James! Maybe once you've achieved your goals for the Wilderlands you can snatch the Mystara license too... Thanks Shane! Believe me, that is something that I have long considered as well, the financial issues behind a license like that, however, are on a different order of magnitude... One step at a time, though... Just out of curiosity :plotting: - does anyone familiar with the industry have any idea what the licensing would cost? Or to purchase the setting outright with the full product library? -OldDawg
Mystaros 09-05-06, 04:08 PM	Well, I can answer the whole Mystara licensing issue for now, as just today I got a response to an inquiry... Wizards (i.e., Hasbro) is not interested in licensing Mystara at this time (nor Gamma World, for that matter, which I also inquired after). Drat. That's not to say there are no possibilities in the future; after all, to them, I'm just some guy with a startup publishing company. And circumstances always change. If I go to them in a couple of years with a bucket full of cash and a series of successfully licensed and profitable product lines, they might think differently. But for now, at least, an official rebirth of Mystara is still just a dream. For Adventure Games Publishing, this simply means that once the Wilderlands line is solidly established, I'll be moving on to something else for a second line...
Mystaros 09-05-06, 04:12 PM	Just out of curiosity :plotting: - does anyone familiar with the industry have any idea what the licensing would cost? Or to purchase the setting outright with the full product library? -OldDawg To merely license the line would require, in my estimation, low five figures. To buy it... well, I doubt Hasbro is in the business of selling anything. Once a company like that gets ahold of a property, they will keep it forever, even if it just sits in their warehouse like the Ark of the Covenant... :mad: That said, when I win that big lottery, I'll drop by at Hasbro the next day with a big, blank check... :D
JohnBiles 09-05-06, 07:07 PM	Well, I can answer the whole Mystara licensing issue for now, as just today I got a response to an inquiry... Wizards (i.e., Hasbro) is not interested in licensing Mystara at this time (nor Gamma World, for that matter, which I also inquired after). Isn't Gamma World still licensed out to White Wolf? Or did that lapse?
JohnBiles 09-05-06, 07:07 PM	To merely license the line would require, in my estimation, low five figures. To buy it... well, I doubt Hasbro is in the business of selling anything. Once a company like that gets ahold of a property, they will keep it forever, even if it just sits in their warehouse like the Ark of the Covenant... :mad: That said, when I win that big lottery, I'll drop by at Hasbro the next day with a big, blank check... :D I have dim memories that someone once quoted it would probably cost 50,000 to license out Mystara, but I may be hallucinating.
Cthulhudrew 09-05-06, 09:25 PM	I have dim memories that someone once quoted it would probably cost 50,000 to license out Mystara, but I may be hallucinating. According to page 32 in this article on Mongoose publishing (http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/sp34wargamer.pdf), the license for Babylon 5 cost them $65,000. As Mystara is a far less popular and recognized brand than Babylon 5, I'd say that speculations about $50k for it's license were highly overestimated.
Mystaros 09-05-06, 11:27 PM	Isn't Gamma World still licensed out to White Wolf? Or did that lapse? White Wolf reverted the license back to WotC when the line tanked miserably... IMNSHO, it was the worst of the six editions, and that says a lot when you consider the fifth and the third!