…they somehow get licensed out to new chumps.
Over 20 years ago, Space 1889 was a money pit killing GDW according to my friend Steve Bryant. It was an interesting idea, a roleplaying game set in the Victorian Era using all the high-tech of Jules Verne novels. Sort of a precursor to the more popular Steampunk genre most usually associate with William Gibson and Bruce Sterling via their novel The Difference Engine.
The problem was this. It was an interesting idea as a one-shot campaign or an alternate universe the players may encounter in a time-traveling/dimension-jumping genre (TORG, GURPS, Star Trek or a superhero RPG). It just wasn’t interesting enough to be its own, ongoing game like D&D, Champions or Star Wars. The original’s execution didn’t appeal to many people neither: the game’s mechanics were crude (I remember stats were lousier than Traveller), much of it played more like a board/wargame than an RPG and I found it too Anglophilic. Let’s face it, gaming is predominantly an American hobby. If America isn’t part of the equation in a hypothetical future, then don’t count on much interest. This was also the fate of 2300 AD in which the French Empire is the power to heed.
I mean, with a little work, 1889 could’ve incorporated elements of the cowboys and Indians genre…ergo an RPG of The Wild Wild West, the show, not the putrid movie starring Will Smith.
However, the game just wasn’t capable of standing on its own no matter how many supplemental materials GDW gave it. In the late Eighties, D&D Second Edition ruled alongside with FASA’s twin hits Shadowrun and BattleTech. The only retro RPG people played then was Call of Cthulhu since Lovecraft’s novels were set in the Roaring Twenties.
Maybe this Savage Worlds supplement will give 1889 a second wind. I know a couple people who like the Savage rules system. To me, 1889 would be a cool “what if” dimension to encounter with d20 Modern.