Star Wars (the movie series) is quintessentially pulp at its core, and the d6 system West End Games designed for their licensed RPG emulates it beautifully. As a huge Indiana Jones fan (well, the first three movies at least), and formerly an avid GM of the WEG Star Wars RPG, I eagerly snapped up The World of Indiana Jones boxed set not long after WEG released it in the '90s.
Despite having a ready-made pulp emulator at their fingertips, WEG decided to go instead with the fiddly Masterbook "universal" rule system for Indiana Jones. I scanned said rules system, spat out a "yuck", and promptly sold the boxed set off.
Fast-forward a few decades and find me transformed from a gamer to a game tourist, where I read and write more about playing than actually rolling dice. Collecting games plays a big part in the life of a reluctant game tourist, and lo and behold, I find myself with The World of Indiana Jones on my shelf again.
The love of the Indy IP coupled with the desire to run it using a different system means that not only did I reacquire the main boxed set but actually the entire run of supplements. Since the game came out in West End Games' twilight years, the print runs of these supplements were presumably low, as evidenced by their general rarity. Tracking them all down cost a modest amount of both time and money.
Boxing up my RPG collection while preparing for our impending move, I felt a mixed swell of both pride and shame as I grabbed the WEG Indy stuff. Seeing the entire run of an RPG sitting in that bookcase gave me joy, until I started flipping through a few of them and realizing I had never done so before. "Am I ever going to use these," I thought?
Complicating matters, I just discovered the Crown of Command Podcast and listened to their deep dive on Man O'War, Games Workshop's wonky fantasy naval battle game from the early '90s. Man O'War always piqued my curiosity back in high school, but other miniatures games stretched my adolescent funds too thin. Although Man O'War rules and minis go for stupid prices on today's secondhand market, after listening to those podcasts... I want in!
So, I'm sitting on a complete collection of a rare RPG, in great shape, which I believe I could easily convert into cash-for-miniatures. Finding a single opponent for a miniatures game, even an old one, is a much easier feat than organizing an RPG group, especially one willing to play anything besides D&D. It's a no-brainer right? Then I look at that logo, the fedora, the leather jacket and think, "how can I let Indy go?"
Decisions decisions...
PS EDIT: Any fans of The World of Indiana Jones know that WEG realized their mistake with the Masterbook rules and actually provided conversion rules in the Indiana Jones Adventures to allow use of the classic WEG d6 mechanics. A step in the right direction yes, but not a compelling reason to keep the lot. The conversion rules occupy maybe a page if memory serves... yet WEG produced an entire generic d6 rulebook. That leads me to believe there would be a lot of unanswered "how do I...?" questions.
Converting all the stats from Masterbook to d6 rules takes nearly as much time as just making them up on the fly. As I stated in the Comments section below, I've never had much use for RPG adventures and sourcebooks are only occasionally helpful, especially with media IP-based settings. I know all the Indiana Jones tropes, how the universe works, and WEG produced a much more accessible generic d6 rulebook. Other than the Artifacts book, and maybe the Africa supplement, I don't see a lot of ideas I couldn't plunder from other sources.
I believe there is a lot of man o war minis available as stls to be printed. Either scans or 'inspired by'. If you know anyone with a resin printer this would be the affordable approach (to say nothing of the difficulty of sourcing certain minis).
ReplyDeleteThanks for that Dave. Yes, I did see some fleets on eBay that were obviously 3D printed, going for about the price of a single OOP original mini. There's just something about that metal heft though...
ReplyDeleteYou could put them on a metal base to trick yourself. The models are pretty small. They were surprisingly expensive at the time for what you got. I'm not that surprised there isn't a ton of them around.
DeleteThat's a good idea! Another idea I had, probably overly ambitious, was to try to sculpt my own proxy ships (with my hands and epoxy putties, not computer).
DeleteUnless you truly love doing it, I would think that your hobby time is better spent elsewhere (like painting or playing).
DeleteFair point! Scratch building is my passion but the best way to stop being a game tourist and get back to being a true gamer is painting and playing.
Deletelol. I have been there as well when we moved 6 years ago. There was a few things I knew i would never use but flipping throught it I could not let it go. But then there was some stuff I flipped through and made the decision to let it go (and have not regretted it so far). So good luck :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks Shaun! Yeah, I think I've already committed to selling these. Assuming I get a good offer that is. I love Indy but honestly, these books don't stoke the nostalgia fires like WEG's old Star Wars books. The Star Wars books were just loaded with good stills from the movies and little in-universe Easter eggs for the fan. The Indiana Jones books read like boring travel guides and have precious few illustrations, mostly being walls of text.
DeleteI've really been bitten by the miniature wargame bug again, so I'm actually also thinking of letting go of my shrink-wrapped FASA Star Trek RPG stuff. I adore the original series Star Trek and thought this would be the last collection to ever leave my shelf. The thing with RPGs though, is that all the action takes place in the imagination, so I've never felt that a robust set of books were all that useful, especially with media IP-based RPGs where one knows how the respective setting works.