| Mongoose Publishing | |
|---|---|
| Type | Unknown |
| Founded | 2001 |
| Headquarters | Swindon, England |
| Industry | Role-playing, card games and miniature wargaming publisher |
| Products | Babylon 5, Judge Dredd, Starship Troopers, Conan the Barbarian role-playing games |
| Website | www.mongoosepublishing.com |
Mongoose Publishing is a prolific British manufacturer of role-playing, miniatures, and card games, actively publishing material since 2001. Its licenses include products based on the popular science fiction properties Babylon 5, Judge Dredd, and Starship Troopers, as well as the fantasy title Conan the Barbarian.
Contents |
History
Mongoose Publishing grew out of the d20 System boom sparked by Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition, quickly achieving popularity and notoriety in equal measure by virtue of the sheer volume of its releases, and the early successes of its initial lines. Early product lines were aimed directly at supplementing the Dungeons & Dragons game. The first releases, the Slayer's Guides, concentrated on different monster types for the D20 system, while the following Quintessential books, detailing specific character classes, went on to become one of the best selling D20 lines outside of Wizards of the Coast. The latter were to span three years and thirty-six different titles [1] Mongoose was to gain a reputation for being 'predatory' and targeting other publisher's release schedules by producing similar books at the same time. However, Mongoose later denied any malicious intent, and said that with nearly 100 D20 publishers all producing books at the same time, such clashes were inevitable. [2] Later, as the company's fortunes solidified, Mongoose began an aggressive pursuit of licensed properties, acquiring the rights to the popular British comic series Sláine and Judge Dredd in 2002 and the landmark television series Babylon 5 in 2003. 2003 also saw the release of the magazine Signs and Portents, a house organ aimed at supplementing and supporting Mongoose's growing range of products, as well as a range of generic standalone products based on the d20 System, collectively known as the "OGL series". Further acquisitions followed in 2004, including the rights to a roleplaying game based on Conan the Barbarian, the defunct roleplaying game Paranoia, and a joint venture with popular d20 System portal EN World, the EN World Gamer quarterly magazine. Signs & Portents was turned into an online magazine after two years, which saw its popularity increase to over 50,000 downloads a month. Signs & Portents</ref> As of 2007, Mongoose Publishing has released roleplaying and miniatures games based on the Starship Troopers license, as well as the rights to RuneQuest and Traveller, and other out-of-print roleplaying game.
Controversy
In its early years, Mongoose Publishing sparked some measure of controversy due to poor layout and inconsistent editing. Its rapid rate of output resulted in quality suffering . The release of Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 in 2003 — an updated version of the Third Edition with small but important tweaks in many areas — provided additional difficulties; in early 3.5 releases, such as Sheoloth: City of the Drow, Third Edition and 3.5 material freely intermingled, severely marring their usability. As part of an effort to improve overall quality, Mongoose destroyed all remaining copies of Sheoloth and two other titles, Ultimate Monsters and Ultimate Arcane Spellbook. This caused Mongoose Publishing to rapidly re-evaluate its editing procedures, which were claimed to have risen to the industry standard. [3]. However, repeated problems with products such as Battlefield: Evoloution (poor quality control of prepainted models), A Call To Arms (poor manufacturing quality or models), Victory At Sea (poor editing of the "Order of Battle" supplement) and the quality control issues surrounding the in-house printing facility (including warped and misaligned covers and loose pages) indicates that Mongoose still has along way to go to reach truly professional standards. [4]
Games and products
Miniature Games
- Babylon 5: A Call to Arms
- Judge Dredd: Gangs of Mega-City One
- Starship Troopers: The Miniatures Game
- Mighty Armies
- Battlefield Evolution
- Victory At Sea
Role-Playing Games and Supplements
- Armageddon: 2089
- Babylon 5: The Roleplaying Game
- Cities of Fantasy series
- Skraag: City of Orcs
- Stormhaven: City of a Thousand Seas
- Highthrone: City of the Clouds
- Stonebridge: City of Illusions
- Classic Play series
- Conan: The Roleplaying Game
- CthulhuTech
- Encyclopedia Arcane series
- Infernum
- Jeremiah RPG
- Judge Dredd: The Roleplaying Game
- Lone Wolf: The Roleplaying Game
- Macho Women with Guns
- OGL Ancients
- OGL CyberNet
- OGL Horror
- OGL Steampunk
- OGL Wild West
- Paranoia
- Power Classes series
- Quintessential series
- RuneQuest
- Sláine: The Roleplaying Game of Celtic Heroes
- Slayers Guide series
- Starship Troopers: The Roleplaying Game
- Traveller (not yet released - expected February 2008)
- Travellers' Tales series
- Ultimate series
- Wars RPG
Periodicals
- Signs & Portents
- EN World Gamer
References
- ^ www.mongoosepublishing.com The Quintessential Series
- ^ www.mongoosepublishing.com Signs & Portents Origins Article
- ^ www.mongoosepublishing.com Signs & Portents Origins Article
- ^ http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/forum.php [Mongoose Publishing Forum, various debates and complaints]
