Matthew Sprange: As a player, it all started off in primary school with the Lone Wolf and Fighting Fantasy gamebooks (in a way, we are coming full circle with Lone Wolf). A teacher's helper saw my friends and I playing these books and offered to run a 'proper' roleplaying game called Tunnels & Trolls - that was the first RPG I ever played! We were soon hooked and I ran out and bought the red box Basic Dungeons & Dragons, and never looked back.

As for games design, I tended to be the regular Games Master for all our games - design is part and parcel of a GM's lot in life, and I was soon creating new monsters, classes and other rules to fill in the gaps of our own games.

Matthew Sprange: Well, the how is like any other business - we conducted market research, built a business plan and gathered investment. In that sense an RPG company is the same as any other. For the why, well, because we could!

The reason we called the company Mongoose is a long one and a tale we rarely relate :)

Matthew Sprange: Certainly - from its launch, it expanded and revitalised the entire RPG market. It has also proved to be exceptionally mutable to various genres which has also given something to its success.

Matthew Sprange: The current fight for popularity is between Babylon 5 and Conan, though both have a way to go to beat the Quintessential range in terms of sheer numbers.

Matthew Sprange: Starship Troopers is the biggie - we are doing this as an RPG, a miniatures wargame (with some cracking models!) and a range of graphic novels. We are approaching all three in a slightly different manner than we have done RPGs in the past, and will be able to offer an 'immersive gaming experience' rather than just a few hours a week playing around a table. More on that at a later date.

Paranoia XP is due for release at Gen Con this year, and looks to be a real hoot. Aaron Varney is collaborating with Aaron Allston for the main writing of the book, and we have some special treats coming up in this line!

Matthew Sprange: The only source we have taken as being 100% canon is the TV series (and films). However, we use material from other sources, such as the novels and B5 Wars, where appropriate and interesting. We have also added a fair bit of new information - whether this will be regarded as canon or not will be decided when the new B5 project is revealed by JMS.

Matthew Sprange: Both! As always, licenced RPGs use canon material but inevitably delve into areas not covered by the original source. We then begin to create this new material, while keeping the flavour of canon material. What a player gets in the end is a seamless mesh of information.

Matthew Sprange: The concept actually came from an off-hand comment Ryan Dancey once made about players preferring toolkits to create their own settings rather than having everything handed on a plate - the OGL series is our experiement of this idea. OGL Ancients and OGL Steampunk are both about to come out, and OGL Wild West will be appearing in the middle of this year.

Matthew Sprange: Well, you pretty much explain the concept yourself - they are designed to be central resources for OGC. Further releases this year will include Ultimate NPCs, Traps and Magic Items.

Matthew Sprange: Conan, Babylon 5 and the Quintessentials are our big-hitters right now. However, we have three miniatures games planned for release over the next 12 months (Mighty Armies, Judge Dredd and Starship Troopers), which we are expecting to do very well. The roleplaying lines will continue as well, and both Conan and Babylon 5 will be well supported throughout the duration of their licences.