Backers pissed at James M. and Dwimmermount

misterguignol · February 03, 2013, 02:19:48 PM

Quote from: Warthur;624484The irony of this is, of course, that if James ever gets back to the project he may find it even more overwhelming because he finds himself having to produce something which compares favourably to all the cool fan remixes - which might send him straight back into turtling mode again.

Of course, if the Dwimmermount remixes out there are good enough, by that point people may not care so much.

It's true, but...I'm one of the people who suspects James has washed his hands of his own project.

Quote from: Sigmund;624489Just DLed it, and looking forward to reading it cuz Mr. G stuff rocks Thanks Jack. Maybe I should go and take my $10 back from JM and give it to you, would probably get more for it anyway. I just feel sorry for Tavis. Feller's caught between Scylla and Carybdis on this one.

Thanks, man! No worries about money; I've donated 100% of the profits I've made off publishing my humble game stuff to charity. This isn't a business to me, it's just something I do for fun.

And yeah, I do feel bad for Tavis & co. in this. Not for nothing, Tavis encouraged me to post my hack of Dwimmermount on the G+ page for the project.

Quote from: J Arcane;624491Someday I really want to see what you make of Hulks and Horrors. You have a peculiar luridness to your creations that tickles my parts in just the right ways, and may even have been further inspiration on the gonzo feel of H&H.

I'd actually love to look at it. How far along is H&H? Did it slip under my radar?

J Arcane · February 03, 2013, 02:25:07 PM

QuoteI'd actually love to look at it. How far along is H&H? Did it slip under my radar?

I was delaying it because I had a publisher offer that wouldn't be able to begin until this year.

However, I've since learned that his schedule is booked until next year, so I've decided to dust things off and have a go of it on my own. I fixed my Amazon Payments account finally, so I can make a second attempt at crowdfunding via proper Kickstarter this time, though it's looking like it will be with a new stable of artists.

I'm currently working on it as I write this, doing some finetuning of the spell rules and working on preliminary layout.

arminius · February 03, 2013, 02:46:53 PM

Quote from: Settembrini;624463Sure, the people who signed up still are debtors towards him. They deserve the megadungeon full of bore, in PRINTED form.
As for the sympathy side, he has lost all good will by being pompous & vacous. As I noted upthread lazyness or a depression are human & understandable things. But keeping the money is where sympathy shrinks towards nothing. As far as we know, he sends away his wife to provide for him and the family. So by all logical means he still should have the money. So depression or lazyness do not prevent anybody to hand over the money back to tavis!

Yes, I agree with all this. I just don't assume malice aforethought, thus residual sympathy for a person who's in desperate straits because he got in over his head. He owes everyone an update and a credible plan to either finish the project or return the money...but if he can't...that's pathetic in the full sense.

The Butcher · February 03, 2013, 04:25:32 PM

Quote from: misterguignol;624472Not sure how many of you guys are on G+, but I've been posting my "hack, revision, re-flavoring" of Dwimmermount to my gaming circles over there. It's called Devilmount.

Basically, my plan is to strip out the bog-standard fantasy elements and make it more weird & gonzo. No orcs, kobolds, troglodytes - instead there are hogmen, pugmen, and skunkmen. No elves and dwarves - instead we've got devil-spawn and gray aliens. No fantasy gods - instead we've got a warped take on Catholicism.

No dusty rooms, BLOOD-SPATTERED ROOMS. No 2000 coppers - randomized coins rule the day!

People are even doing art for it pro-bono. If you're over there, check it out and let me know what you think.

This is the absolute best Dwimmermount-related news I could get. Jmal can keep my $10, or better still, send it to misterguignol.

If a week sooner, I wouldn't have ordered ASE. Ah well, no such thing as too many dungeons. Devilmount sounds exactly like the sort of thing I want to run this year. What are you stating it for, B/X?

VectorSigma · February 03, 2013, 04:59:18 PM

Quote from: The Butcher;624519If a week sooner, I wouldn't have ordered ASE.

Crank up the 'Grey Men might be artificial alien life forms' implication in Devilmount and hop right from Devilmount to ASE. Via interplanetary teleport or a wicked-sweet Spelljammer-type interlude between your megadungeons.

crkrueger · February 03, 2013, 05:59:48 PM

Quote from: JRT;624111I think the main thing that's troubling is that much of the ado seems to be because James is a big target. There's a lot of people IMO who have a bone to pick with James--either because he's got more blog traffic than others, because they dislike his opinions, or even jealousy. I think that has lead to an unusual harshness in the criticism, and when people start doing things like taking private posts on G+ publicly, or trying to dig up stuff he wrote almost a decade ago and psychoanalyze him based on an old LiveJournal post--it's rather troubling. It's akin to pig-piling on.

Live by the internet, die by the internet. Cost of doing business. The only thing fast-food culture of any kind loves more then a new self-anointed celebrity, is the destruction of one. The guy rode his completely unfounded and undeserved "scholar" image for all it was worth, hell if he did absolutely nothing and people turned on him and piled on he would 100% deserve it.

Let's get one thing straight. He took $50,000 from people and is giving no one, not even his business partners in this enterprise any communication for months now. The internet shitstorm he's getting hit with now is 100% one of his own creation.

crkrueger · February 03, 2013, 06:06:10 PM

Quote from: TristramEvans;624225Whatever Jmal has done or doesnt do, he's not the one hanging out on RPG forums acting like an ass.

Yeah he does that on his blog *cue rimshot*.

Sorry, back to the regularly scheduled Schadenfreude.

crkrueger · February 03, 2013, 06:27:31 PM

You know what, fuck Schadenfreude and fuck James M. close this thread and make a new one where people can talk about their

Dwimmermount Mixes, which at this point it's safe to say, will be better than the original anyway.

misterguignol · February 03, 2013, 07:35:29 PM

Quote from: The Butcher;624519This is the absolute best Dwimmermount-related news I could get. Jmal can keep my $10, or better still, send it to misterguignol.

If a week sooner, I wouldn't have ordered ASE. Ah well, no such thing as too many dungeons. Devilmount sounds exactly like the sort of thing I want to run this year. What are you stating it for, B/X?

ASE is worth your time and money, though. Good stuff in there.

Yeah, I do B/X or LL style stats.

Dirk Remmecke · February 03, 2013, 09:39:55 PM

Quote from: estar;624128I am sure there will be criticism of the use of the Outdoor Survival Map. But it not a simple case of copying the original board game art. You can't use the map I created to play Outdoor Survival. Yes it duplicates the overall geography but the symbols, the shading, and the rest of it are new pieces of art created by myself. Enough differences exist that I am comfortable in releasing it.

Sounds a bit like taking the map of Talisman, Zargos Lords, Barbarian Prince, Divine Right, Dungeon, or Greyhawk, and reinterpret them in another style.
I do that all the time at my table games but for a commercial product this seems a bit risky.

Personally, I'd be more interested in seeing a vinyl map of a new area but I guess since the Outdoor Survival map is a part of the history of RPGs it has a certain standing in the OSR.

Benoist · February 03, 2013, 10:00:14 PM

Quote from: misterguignol;624584ASE is worth your time and money, though. Good stuff in there.

I second that opinion. It IS good stuff, IF you like gonzo sci-fi-ish dungeoneering (and I do).

Also, the maps are really well done in terms of flow and agency, especially for the large levels.

Exploderwizard · February 04, 2013, 08:56:42 AM

Quote from: Settembrini;624395But more importantly: the SUPER LAME musings about Dwimmermount to begin with! Everyone who paid for it got what he deserved.

For the record, I had very little familiarity with J. Mal. prior to the kickstarter. I hadn't read his blog, or kept up on his other projects. I just stumbled on a KS for a megadungeon and thought it would be a neat book to read through.

So not every backer was a JMal fanboi that hung on his every word. I had heard good things about AKS and backed the project for more than a pdf because Autarch was running it. I believed that even if the product was kind of lame and lackluster, that I would still be getting it.

So no, I don't think getting a draft pdf for $66.00 is getting what I deserve. I deserve a printed hardback copy of a crappy megadungeon which was all I was expecting in the first place.

Settembrini · February 04, 2013, 09:36:54 AM

Quote from: Exploderwizard;624721So not every backer was a JMal fanboi that hung on his every word. I had heard good things about AKS and backed the project for more than a pdf because Autarch was running it. I believed that even if the product was kind of lame and lackluster, that I would still be getting it.

So no, I don't think getting a draft pdf for $66.00 is getting what I deserve. I deserve a printed hardback copy of a crappy megadungeon which was all I was expecting in the first place.

Apologies sent towards you! But then IRWS argumented strongly about that angle: Autarch was trustworthy and he blames them for accepting a very unfavourable contract with Jamal.

RPGPundit · February 04, 2013, 03:21:38 PM

Quote from: Cadriel;624234As part of the OSR - I'm sort of relieved. James had a stature in the OSR, and his blog was a "central" point in it to such a degree, and in retrospect it wasn't really merited at all. Now he's blown that credibility and all the good will that go along with it. I think it's better for the old school community in the long run not to have a Grognardia as some sort of gatekeeper or "blog of record" or whatever it was that James's blog was acting as.

On this I agree; the dude was something of a wanker, who decided, after years of not liking old-school that he would like old-school, and like St. Paul at Damascus, he felt that now he, and not everyone who'd been part of the old-school gaming thing all along, should be the one to determine what the Word From On High is.

So yes, I think its excellent that he's been shown for the incompetent dilettante that he always was.
But I do feel bad for Autarch... to think, they could have been publishing Arrows of Indra right now, instead of being in this mess; if only they hadn't backed the wrong blogging celeb!
Ah well, Autarch's loss will be Bedrock's gain.

RPGPundit

Black Vulmea · February 04, 2013, 03:27:12 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit;624812On this I agree; the dude was something of a wanker, who decided, after years of not liking old-school that he would like old-school, and like St. Paul at Damascus, he felt that now he, and not everyone who'd been part of the old-school gaming thing all along, should be the one to determine what the Word From On High is.

There's no zealot quite like a convert.