By far, the 40K setting is one of the best RPG settings ever.

Has Fantasy Flight ever considered licencing the setting to alternate system vendors, like Savage Worlds, etc.? Just curious

They can't.

It's not their setting. It belongs to GW, and FFG are already under licence. GW could licence the setting to other RPG companies, but I would imagine that FFG would have contractually assured sole rights to 40k RPG products for the duration of the original licencing contract.

Even though they cannot license the setting, they could license the GAME SYSTEM.

I am already using this system for nearly every game I play. I am in the middle of retooling it to be rankless and more horizontal and vertical based in its progression rather than simply vertical as we get with ranks,

Mechanically I have now used this game system to run everything from Modern Day Spy Games, Star Wars (better than D20, not as good for it as D6 WEG but good nonetheless), Fantasy Medieval, Super Heroes and Mutants, Deific Beings and more.. They system stripped down nude, has massive potential across genres. But then again I tend to think of game systems this way. I use whatever core system I think will service my game best, be it HERO, White Wolf, WEG D6, 40k, a hybrid 7th Sea/ Ars Magicka for my alternate history games, or any other system I feel like using for a given game.

Alexis

*smiles*

They might not be able to licence the game system either. It was a system created by Games Workshop and I don't know if the agreement gave Fantasy Flight full rights to the system (in fact I have heard they had some obligation to limit the changes they made at least until they had published the DH, RT and DW lot... which is one of the reasons there have been more significant changes made for Black Crusade.

Also, there is little reason in doing so. Wizards did with 3rd edition D&D as it allowed them to farm off producing lots of supplements to other companies, and they all required the purchase of the 3rd edition rulebook to play. I don't really see it being possible with the 40k rpg system (for one, the name itself is tied fairly solidly to 40k). Also, which system would you use? DH? RT? DW? While they share a solid core there are minor but important differences between them. The system is also very much built with 4ok in mind. Obviously you can alter it to accept other settings, but none spring to mind as being ideal (I did see you have already done it yourself), and truthfully there are many other systems which work better as "generic" systems than 40k rpg, which has certain principles in mind which make it a bit complicated to convert.

Cailieg said:

Just a reminder that game systems/mechanics are not subject to copyright. You could produce a clone of the 40K system much the way that D&D retro-clones (OSRIC, S&W, Dark Dungeons etc.) and publishers who refused to sign WotC's GSL have done. After you have a cloned system add background and you are good to go. FFG could go this route, but it would probably make GW very unhappy and might breach the licensing contract. Suffice it to say we are unlikely to see any non-40K RPGs using the system from FFG.

P.S. Where can I view your modifications to the base system?