Just one question today but it bears a bit more discussion.

A fan of the venerable (pre NWG in fact) Fast and Dirty inquired if there would ever be an updated version of the "unofficial" v5 rules.

The answer is complicated. Quick history lesson: The FAD rules came about around the time of the 15mm scifi boom and I think spread in part because they had the good fortune of arriving in their proper version, as that scene was blowing up 

Over time of course that turned inexorably towards Gruntz which was both less "military" but also easier to make units for and I moved on to other projects and mostly let FAD sit around. The  3rd and 4th editions (with the nice art work) had been big efforts that were pulled together as much by a gentleman who assisted with layout and rewrites. The 4th edition was also a "community edition" in that fans submitted their artwork for the project. Really quite special in hindsight. 

I had struggled for a while with what to do. I knew I wanted to do an updated version, but I also didn't know what to actually DO. Yahoo groups were dying, forums at the time were not really the way forward and I didn't really want to run a website. (as evidenced by still being very bad at all things internet to this day). To top it off, FAD was in a strange situation where it had relied so much on fan contributions that I didn't really think I could monetise it fairly. But I also didn't really understand what would need to be done to make the game open source.

I started work on the "5th" edition (if you have a copy that looks a lot rougher and has minis photos, this is the 5e) just to experiment with various ideas I had at the time. Some were rather too derivative, some were good tweaks. But it never really went anywhere due to never solving the problems above. And since NWG was looking to take up a ton of my time and effort, as FiveCore blew up, FAD went to the shelf for a while. 

That seemed to solve itself when a gentleman emailed me and asked if I wanted to just sell them the game. They were wanting to update it a bit, put it online on their website and were willing to pay a bit for the privilege. I figured that solved my problem in that I wouldn't really have to figure it out and so the deal was done. In hindsight, for a relative pittance but I wasn't certain it was really worth much at all and in any event, I wasn't looking to do anything with it. 

Many years have passed now. I still get a couple emails every year with people saying they liked FAD or asking if there will ever be a new version. So I decided to look into things and try to contact the fine folks who had done their version. Except there does not seem to be any lights on any longer. Attempts to contact them has not resulted in any responses and there does not appear to be any sort of community existing online.

However, I did legitimately sell off the name. So I can't just make the same game again. I could of course create something descended from it and I have some notes to that extent, but then it raises the question of whether NWG really needs yet another scifi skirmish game? Well, you know me, that's never stopped me before but are old FAD fans looking for that or are they looking for the real FAD6, clunk and all?

It's a good question. When I have an answer, I will share it with you all.