Thom Vinson's page

ok, Next order!

I would certainly welcome a renewed World of Greyhawk. It was my first campaign setting and has always remained dearest to me.

But nothing about it appears on the release schedule through 2010. Dark Sun gets the nod next year so 2011 would likely be the soonest, if ever, that we might see a Greyhawk release.

We can always hope, but until there is official notice thats all it will be, just hope. . .

Recently I decided to pursue the Primal Order idea and managed to locate Peter D. Adkison, the original authors of that system. I asked him about the feasibility of seeing that product revived and updated. (I think it would make a fantastic basis for Pathfinder Epic Level campaigns as well as a basis for Deific powers.) He was the founder of WotC and in the days before the OGL they were releasing generic products compatible with a variety of gaming systems, Primal Order being the first.

This is his reply via email posted in entirety as he requested.

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Hello Thom,

Terri, our customer service manager at Hidden City Games, forwarded to me your email below.

First of all, thank you for your interest in The Primal Order (TPO). As my first published work and as the first release from my first company, it’s always heart-warming when someone remembers it and thinks to reach out.

To answer your question, yes, I own 100% of the rights to TPO and to the Capsystem trademarks, free and clear.

Unfortunately I do not currently have the personal bandwidth to rewrite / author TPO, or even oversee someone else’s efforts to do so.

It is my hope that someday I will have the time to revisit the Capsystem projects and re-release TPO and finish development of the other products that I wanted to publish in this line, in particular, The Military Order, The Economic Order, and the Governmental Order, each of which I developed to varying degrees.

But the reality is that there is no economic incentive to do so. The tabletop RPG category has declined to the point that this would purely be “a labor of love.” That doesn’t mean I won’t come back to it, but it’ll have to be at a time between other projects when I have time for leisurely activities. Right now, no way, I’m neck deep in building Bella Sara as an international entertainment brand and supporting Gen Con’s economic recovery from a disastrous show last year based on a popular license. But I predict there will be a less hectic point in my career at some point in the future and I hope to return to this labor of love that started back in 1990. At that time I’ll take a close look at the state of the RPG market and figure out the most intriguing approach I can fathom based on that context, with, of course, the goal of publishing the most definitive system-independent reference work on that topic.

I welcome comments or questions from the gaming community, please email me at peter@gencon.com.

Thom, feel free to forward this email to any forum you think appropriate, but only if you include the previous sentence with my email address (which I consider public information).

Sincerely yours,

Peter D. Adkison
Gaming Mogul and Burner
CEO • Hidden City Games Inc • Publishers of Bella Sara • www.hiddencitygames.com
CEO • Gen Con LLC • www.gencon.com
***********************************************************************

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Thom Vinson wrote:

So perhaps this would be the point where "Primal Order" could/would/should be rebooted and slipped into the system.

Thom. . .

I'm not familiar with this. Link? Wiki? Term paper?

The Primal Order was a generic RPG product produced by WoTC long before they bought TSR. In fact, it was released before Magic: The Gathering came out.

Basically, it presented a set of rules for roleplaying gods and epic-level heroes in a wide variety of different game systems. The system that it provided was extremely clever - far more flexible than anything in the Epic Level Handbook IMHO.

(Thats a lot of quoting quoters!)

My appologies for not replying sooner. . . *Laughing* I couldn't find my way back to this forum!

"The Primal Order" basicly ranked the greater powers by their base Primal Energy. One point of Primal could accomplish many things, in roughest terms one point of Primal equaled a 1st level spell or a D8 of healing. Greater powers awarded Primal to loyal followers or to rewarded mortals for great deeds or accomplishments. Beings gaining Primal become Demi-Powers and thus begin the path to ascension.

Please understand that this is all a rough synopsis of the game supplement, but it had a wonderfully smooth mechanic that melded very well with many gaming systems. "The Primal Order" or something very much like it is long overdue for a reboot and would provide and excellent shoehorn for epic level campaigning. . .

Thom. . .

Edit note I just found an excellent review of "The Primal Order" on RPGnet which should help you understand it better than my own poor explination.!

sacerd wrote:

On a related topic, Sense everyone is talking Epic,How does everyone feel about a Deities and Demi-Gods Type of book, with rules that include Deity Stats and divine ascension.

I would also include any planar information in this book as well if it was possible.

I don't believe a god should be a combat encounter for PCs at any level. Deity > Mortal. If I ever had a party seriously try, they'd get slapped around until they gave up, or squished if they actually had a chance to accomplish it.

That being said, I'm all for divine ascension stuff. PCs becoming gods is a traditional element. I would probably pick up a book such as this, even if I only ever used a tenth of the content.

Back to epic play, I would buy a PRPG Epic handbook. I want to play my 36th level monk again. ^_^

So perhaps this would be the point where "Primal Order" could/would/should be rebooted and slipped into the system.

Thom. . .