Babylon 5 - Mongoose RPG Books

[Apsu]

Oh,
thanks for clearing that part, I wasn't aware about that story at all !
The thing is that, if I understand correctly, it mainly became bad between the different sides from the moment they tried to do the novels, not the game books.

It seems a very complex subject though...
For those interested, I found these discussions online that completes what you are saying :
- http://jmsnews.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3849
- http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthr...ki-not-pleased
and JMS post about the matter :
- http://www.jmsnews.com/thread.aspx?i...hort%20Stories
and his answer to the founder of Mongoose, Matthew Sprange :

http://jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?ID=1-3848

Even though the novels were indeed pretty bad (I read the first and couldn't finish the second, to me they are just not related to B5 in any way, more like fan fictions that got a B5 stamp on it by luck more than by quality), the game books are pretty good though, and are doing a great work in providing additionnal and plausible universe information. I really did enjoy reading them as I really feel that they make me spend more time in the "B5" universe, even though I know that their content is not sanctionned as canon by the Great Maker .

To conclude, answering my initial question, but only partially as this answer only concerns the B5 novels, and not the gaming books, even though it may also applies to them :

"You have also stated that these books are "100% canon." No, they are not. Because for something to be canon means not that they have been researched, but that the events described therein will be referenced elsewhere, that they will be viewed as "having happened" in the B5 universe...as the Del Rey novels, and my own short B5 stories, are canon. Things referenced in those stories can show up in any future B5 films or TV projects because they *happened* in our story, in this universe. The events in the Mongoose books do not fit this criteria. They are licensed B5 fan fiction, nothing more, nothing less. And lots of folks like that stuff, and that's all to the good. But do not say that they are "100% canon.""
– JMS

"I have, subsequently, washed my hands of the Mongoose books. I haven't seen anything, don't know what they're doing, so sure as hell it ain't canonical."
– JMS

And to Mongoose's credit, written by one of their author on the gaming books, and concerning ONLY the gaming books :

As to canon, Mongoose regularly approached JMS for guidance on darned near anything and also sent draft copies of the game books to JMS for his approval/take. They got no response from the outset except apparently for the Minbari book which was approved for content (which makes sense, I think it's one of their "good" books). The Earth Alliance book didn't get an approval response one way or the other but most of the fluff text was taken from Bruce Graw's approved materials back in the AoG days, as well as the guidance they got from Fionna. They did get feedback later that he liked the section I wrote on spec ops, so that was gratifying.

IOW, Mongoose was continually asking for guidance, support, criticism, etc. Whatever you might think of Mongoose, and I have some strong criticisms of my own, Matt was gung-ho into making sure that their vision matched JMS's, I think he really hoped at the beginning that he'd be torn to shreds and make it exactly what JMS wanted. You have no idea how much energy was spent going through every pronouncement on the net from JMS, every note from AoG that had been feedback, how they went through the AoG stuff, etc to try and make it match.

[Satai with Punsch]

Thanks for providing information folks. That is one of the best things about this forum

I also got the impression that Mongoose acted in a lot of good faith and were enthusiastic fans who tried to do their best. But that they, being just fans more or less, did not had enough experience of working in the league JMS is used to so they had no idea how to do things properly.

Here is a link to the Babylon 5 podcasts interview with Matthew Sprenge:

http://www.babylonpodcast.com/2006/0...dcast-show-13/

I also remember that JMS mentioned this incident in an interview and that he was annoyed that they did not do things properly and that they should have payed him if they wanted him to take the time to look at things. What I find surprising is that JMS who have put a lot of effort into educating fans on how things work in the TV- and writing business would not take even a tiny bit of time to educate these guys.

It is sad all around as to me there do not seem to be any bad guys in this, and Mongoose actually put in a huge effort in producing the roleplaying game and the A call to arms miniature game, which are both quite good.

[Jan]

I also remember that JMS mentioned this incident in an interview and that he was annoyed that they did not do things properly and that they should have payed him if they wanted him to take the time to look at things. What I find surprising is that JMS who have put a lot of effort into educating fans on how things work in the TV- and writing business would not take even a tiny bit of time to educate these guys.

Perhaps. But it's the difference between "Hey, would you give us your professional work on this?" and "Hey, we'd really like your input, can you tell us what your fee would be?" The second is how true professionals do it. Really, anybody running a business shouldn't have needed to be told that.

It seems to have been a perfect storm. Prevarication over JMS' involvement - big mistake. Using JMS' scripts and pretending that they were outlines 'by JMS' - big mistake. Asking for JMS' input and notes without mentioning payment - small mistake but made larger by the other two.

[Looney]

"Hey, we'd really like your input, can you tell us what your fee would be?"

See I would never have used the word "fee". I'm not a professional in these matters, but if I were doing it I would have said "how much do you want upfront and how much of a percentage of profits would you like to start negotiating?" I mean if I were going to try to expand the Universe of an author's work and I wanted their blessing I wouldn't even dream of offering a one time fee. I would assume he would be on board for as much time and money as it takes to get it right because I am going to expect him to look at things more than once. Let's be honest, they were asking him to be a head editor of sorts. Of course it all has to be balanced out, but I would expect the author to know that they are as much a part of the project as they want to be and as I can afford them to be.

[Triple F]

Well rather than putting up quotes that no one actually said (Jan) - which does little to inform the discussion other than to give a sense of your view of what happened - and which Looney is now quoting and responding to as if Sprange actually said it.. Here’s a couple of extracts with an interview with Mathew Sprange himself. . . . . . I think someone once said the truth is a three edged something or other.

Now you have just opened up a whole can of worms! This is where the 'faults on all sides' I mentioned earlier really comes in. To keep things very, very brief. . . We were given permission to do B5 novels by WB, basically extending our licence. One of the projects we _specifically_ asked WB about was taking the un-filmed Crusade scripts, and turning them into a novel. We also asked WB if all our novels could be considered canon. They said yes to both of these requests.

However, no one had asked Joe. The Crusade scripts, it turned out, were not WB's property to give away, nor was canon status - both of which were complete news to us. When Joe found out, it is fair to say he went 'ape'. Things went down hill from there. Agreements were made with Joe directly, and then voided. New agreements went the same way. It soon became clear that the novels were not going to happen.

Much has been made of our $500 offer to Joe as well - however, as always, it is not the whole truth. That $500 was for Joe reading a 1-2 page outline (and that is what it is called in the novel world!), saying whether he liked it or not, and what had to change. Maybe an hour or two's work? We also made offers (which Joe never mentioned) for him to become a lot more involved, with correspondingly higher returns - the largest was to receive exactly what WB does for each book which, combined, is a _serious_ amount of money.

[Jan]

Well rather than putting up quotes that no one actually said (Jan) - which does little to inform the discussion other than to give a sense of your view of what happened - and which Looney is now quoting and responding to as if Sprange actually said it.. Here’s a couple of extracts with an interview with Mathew Sprange himself. . . . . . I think someone once said the truth is a three edged something or other.

Obviously I can't help what anybody else does, but it was certainly clear in context that what I posted was an example, of course, not an actual quote.

Also note that nothing in my post mentioned the $500 offer. And I made it clear that as far as I can tell, WB did mislead Sprange into thinking that 'canon' was something that could be purchased. However, this sentence made my point for me that they were trying to play in a league well out of their own:

The Crusade scripts, it turned out, were not WB's property to give away, nor was canon status - both of which were complete news to us.

These were fans. Fans really should know how 'canon' works. And a publisher, even one not involved in show business, should know that using another writer's work without said writer being in the loop would be a faux pas at the least. If nothing else, couldn't they have asked Fiona Avery, their contact?

I spent several weeks in email communication with Sprange, at his invitation, asking him about what happened, when it happened, with whom it happened (emails, WB approvals, etc.) and came away with the conclusion that he meant well but that his memory and the actual history of things that happened were often not in alignment.

Bottom lines: Did JMS over-react? Yeah, probably. Did Sprange make claims he shouldn't have? Yes. Were the novels quite bad? Yep, the ones I saw were far from ready for prime time.

[b5historyman]

This is probably one of those 'truth in the middle' situations. I'm going to try to explain from that middle since I observed online and also communicated with the President (owner?) of the company.

Once upon a time, there was a company called Mongoose who did Role Playing Games and published guide books and rule books and stuff. And then Mongoose wanted to expand and approached WB for a license for both comics and novels and wanted WB to let them call them 'canon'. Reportedly, WB said that could be done. Shortly thereafter, though the comics part fell through because (again reportedly) DC claimed ownership to the rights to do comics (even though they apparently had no inclination to actually do any). But plans moved forward on the plans to do novels, some written by cast members. Mongoose proclaimed that the novels would be 'canon in every detail' and made some claims about JMS' involvement.

At some point two things happened which ruffled JMS'. One was that they asked for him to review the books and give notes and didn't mention payment. The other is that they planned to write novels based on the unproduced Crusade scripts which (reportedly) WB provided to Mongoose. There arose an online exchange where JMS declared that nothing in the novels would be considered canon and that he *really* didn't appreciate Mongoose using his material without so much as a word.

A while later, JMS agreed to take a look at the novels but then let fans know that they were very unprofessionally done and that they could only be considered licensed fan fiction and he couldn't endorse them in any way. Shortly after that, Mongoose dropped the idea of doing novels.

Was JMS right to be miffed? Yep, though, he may have been a bit harsh at first. Did Mongoose screw up? Yep, though it seems they were acting in good faith with WB, they really messed up by making proclamations that were over-blown to say the least and then tried to spin things to make themselves look better.

As an afterword, I read, or attempted to read, three of the novels. Two were completely unreadable. One (Claudia's) could probably have been a good read with some editing.

Probably more than you really wanted to know, huh?

ETA: One reason for all of the 'reportedly' comments is that much of this info came from Matthew Sprange who'd contacted me to give his side of things and offered proof of anything I might ask. He seems like a very nice man. And I got the impression that he meant well. But he never really proved much and my own feeble internet research found quite a few inconsistencies with what he said he remembered of events.

Thanks for the background information Jan, and you and I know there's no such thing as knowing too much with B5!

[Looney]

and which Looney is now quoting and responding to as if Sprange actually said it..

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! I quoted one word that I thought sounded weird in terms of this discussion. Thank you for confirming what Mongoose's BIG MISTAKE was - they went to WB first. Like I said I am no expert in these matters, but if it were at all possible I would have gone to the author first. Their aid would have been my primary goal well before I would have wanted to try to deal with a corporate studio; if anything just to learn what leverage I had in negotiating with the studio. I mean knowing ahead of time that I really didn't need their permission on the scripts would have been a BIG DEAL. Cart before the horse, JMS being the horse in that they were expecting him to do actual work on the project.

Thank you for bringing up the point that the Crusade scripts were not WB's property. What does this mean in terms of what can be done with them? Is that why we still might get audio dramas? Is WB's control over Crusade not the same as their control over B5 (I thought it was)? Does the fact that it was not their permission to give strictly stem from the fact that they didn't make the episodes so they don't control the scripts? (I ask these questions knowing some of the answers ahead of time, but dreaming there might be magical hope somewhere. ) I assume by this point in time he would have used Studio JMS to do a series of books or comic books that used those scripts to wrap up the Crusade arc if he could have, right?

[Looney]

Thanks for the background information Jan, and you and I know there's no such thing as knowing too much with B5!

OMG! That quote is SOOOO true. Actually it is true for anything in the entertainment world you love. People always think how great it would be to know JMS or Mira or Claudia or Bruce etc, but the reality is you might not like the person behind what you know they have done and that could tarnish your view of the show. I will say, in light of recent events, that Stephen Furst might have been an exception. It might have been REALLY great to have known the man behind the character. Of course this is likely true for many of the people involved in B5, but I guarantee it is not 100% true for all of them - [he said as he looked toward Julie Caitlin Brown. ] I have seen her at numerous conventions and she just seems like a personality I want to avoid. This is NOT based on actual interaction, more on seeing her behavior and interaction with others. She might be a lovely person, but I will never find out because every time I see her I instinctively want to run away as fast as possible before she spots me and pounces.

[Satai with Punsch]

To ring the thread back to the RPG books and some positive things ...

The ones I have read I really like. The worldbuilding is great, which is no surprise considering the source, and I have only come across very few things that make me feel like it would not fit in the B5 universe.

One of the more interesting ones is the Mars book. It has a system for playing Mars resistance adventures that would be interesting to try out.

Anyone else here who have read the books, and/or played the game and liked it?

[Apsu]

The ones I have read I really like. The worldbuilding is great, which is no surprise considering the source, and I have only come across very few things that make me feel like it would not fit in the B5 universe.

Yep,
same as you, read them, and was very surprised by all the details provided that completely fit into B5 with few to no inconsistencies.
I read the vorlons/shadow one, the drakh, psi corps and mars, and they are all pretty good !

[b5historyman]

Yep,
same as you, read them, and was very surprised by all the details provided that completely fit into B5 with few to no inconsistencies.
I read the vorlons/shadow one, the drakh, psi corps and mars, and they are all pretty good !

The details are made to fit within the existing framework, what is in the RPG books are to facilitate game playing scenarios and are non canon. As long as that is always understood, people carry on playing to their heart's content. When they start passing it off as fact (as numerous people still do on various FB pages), then I have a problem.

[Apsu]

When they start passing it off as fact (as numerous people still do on various FB pages), then I have a problem.

Yeah, that's why I asked for their canonicity first and started this thread. I wanted to be able to categorize without doubt the "core story" and "additionnal non-canon stuff" from JMS' B5.

[b5historyman]

This is how all the B5 canon across the media fits together. Hopefully this is useful, as it gives you everything in its proper chronological place too.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/5781...7983056973233/

[Apsu]

Wow,
great ressource !!! Thank you !