Quote from: Arkansan;1145307Woah, I'd be interested to know more about that.

Seriously put this in a video RPGPundit and provide evidence.

Quote from: Mistwell;1145247OK I am sold. I need to watch more of these videos.

You really should gloryhammer is good fun

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1145233Yeah Mork Borg is a coffee table book.

Confirmed. It is mostly a black metal art book with a gaming theme. As a supplement, it would run around 24-28 typewritten pages, but it is a full book thanks to the magic of modern layout. It earns some points for genre emulation.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1145252I wouldn't take Pundit's summary at face value--he has a serious grudge against Maliszewski for some reason, and may not be the most objective witness.

He ran off with almost $50,000, and was never punished and never provided restitution to those he harmed. The inability to recognize and exclude a bad actor like Maliszewski is a classic example of the geek social fallacies at play.

Quote from: Melan;1145331Confirmed. It is mostly a black metal art book with a gaming theme. As a supplement, it would run around 24-28 typewritten pages, but it is a full book thanks to the magic of modern layout. It earns some points for genre emulation.

30 to 35 pages it has 15,000 words.

Quote from: Pat;1145346He ran off with almost $50,000, and was never punished and never provided restitution to those he harmed. The inability to recognize and exclude a bad actor like Maliszewski is a classic example of the geek social fallacies at play.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/autarch/dwimmermount/posts/434984

It doesn't excuse his behavior however neither it is a case where the creator "ran off" with the money.

Quote from: Pat;1145346He ran off with almost $50,000, and was never punished and never provided restitution to those he harmed. The inability to recognize and exclude a bad actor like Maliszewski is a classic example of the geek social fallacies at play.

When you talk about people being harmed, are you referring to the people who contributed to the kickstarter campaign, or to people who contributed art or content?

If the latter group, yeah. He should absolutely make some effort to set things right. However, I'd be hard pressed to pin the blame for "harm" done to campaign contributors when, by definition, joining any campaign in KS is a risk to the money involved. It is absolutely not an investment platform. People collectively need to get that through their collective heads. Some percentage of any given set of projects is absolutely going to go sideways and produce exactly nothing. You make peace with that before clicking the "give money" buttons. Nobody really has any business whatsoever dropping money into a KS campaign if the money involved isn't 100% disposable, or for which the loss of said money is going to be considered "harmful".

Quote from: estar;1145352https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/autarch/dwimmermount/posts/434984

It doesn't excuse his behavior however neither it is a case where the creator "ran off" with the money.

I'm aware of that post, but you'll notice it doesn't mention how much of the money was passed to Autarch. If he returned it all, minus reasonable (and documented) expenses, I wouldn't have a problem with that. People screw up, and even established writers get over their heads trying to manage a KSer, because writing on spec is very different from project management, playing art director, handling logistics and accounting, doing PR and providing technical support, and all the other tasks that are required to bring a project to successful fruition. But we don't have that, we just have a bland statement, from someone who isn't Maliszewski, that they received an unspecified amount of cash.

"Run off" seems perfectly appropriate.

Quote from: SavageSchemer;1145353... joining any campaign in KS is a risk to the money involved. It is absolutely not an investment platform. ...

You're seriously arguing that "investment platforms" are risk free? I don't think you grasp the concept.

A KS isn't an investment, as people often claim. Investments are high risk -- and high reward. You give money to a startup, and they give you equity. You might lose it all, but you might get rich. The Dwimmermount KS is just a product. There's no upside beyond what was promised. And that's a key word, "promised". The creator made a commitment to deliver something, in this case a megadungeon. And he failed. He actively deceived people about the state of the project before he took their money, and then ghosted them. A product was eventually delivered, but it came from a third party, who undertook the burden on their own.

Kickstarters fail, but how they fail matters. If someone screwed up, that's fine. It happens. But they owe their backers several things. First, don't vanish. Yes, when things go bad, you'll get a lot of criticism. Deal with it. They gave you money, and supported your wild idea when nobody else would. At the very least, you owe it to them to stay in touch and provide updates. Two, there should be an accounting. You need to explain where the money went, and why the backers aren't getting their product. Third, you need to explain what you can do. No art? Just a PDF? Something. A sincere apology may be a good idea as well, but honestly I don't care about that.

We need to hold KS project creators to this very minimal standard. Maliszewski is a bad actor. He has not made amends.

Quote from: Pat;1145354I'm aware of that post, but you'll notice it doesn't mention how much of the money was passed to Autarch. If he returned it all, minus reasonable (and documented) expenses, I wouldn't have a problem with that. People screw up, and even established writers get over their heads trying to manage a KSer, because writing on spec is very different from project management, playing art director, handling logistics and accounting, doing PR and providing technical support, and all the other tasks that are required to bring a project to successful fruition. But we don't have that, we just have a bland statement, from someone who isn't Maliszewski, that they received an unspecified amount of cash.

"Run off" seems perfectly appropriate.


You're seriously arguing that "investment platforms" are risk free? I don't think you grasp the concept.

A KS isn't an investment, as people often claim. Investments are high risk -- and high reward. You give money to a startup, and they give you equity. You might lose it all, but you might get rich. The Dwimmermount KS is just a product. There's no upside beyond what was promised. And that's a key word, "promised". The creator made a commitment to deliver something, in this case a megadungeon. And he failed. He actively deceived people about the state of the project before he took their money, and then ghosted them. A product was eventually delivered, but it came from a third party, who undertook the burden on their own.

Kickstarters fail, but how they fail matters. If someone screwed up, that's fine. It happens. But they owe their backers several things. First, don't vanish. Yes, when things go bad, you'll get a lot of criticism. Deal with it. They gave you money, and supported your wild idea when nobody else would. At the very least, you owe it to them to stay in touch and provide updates. Two, there should be an accounting. You need to explain where the money went, and why the backers aren't getting their product. Third, you need to explain what you can do. No art? Just a PDF? Something. A sincere apology may be a good idea as well, but honestly I don't care about that.

We need to hold KS project creators to this very minimal standard. Maliszewski is a bad actor. He has not made amends.

All your points are fine points. And I'm certainly not arguing that investment platforms are "risk free". I never made that claim. I'm arguing against the idiotic claim that "harm" was done. If anybody, anywhere, is arguing JM did harm by not delivering on his project, then said persons are fucking fools. Full stop. The blame for any harm done is on the contributor.

Quote from: SavageSchemer;1145355All your points are fine points. And I'm certainly not arguing that investment platforms are "risk free". I never made that claim. I'm arguing against the idiotic claim that "harm" was done. If anybody, anywhere, is arguing JM did harm by not delivering on his project, then said persons are fucking fools. Full stop. The blame for any harm done is on the contributor.

I assumed the "risk free" implication was due to a poorly phrased pair of sentences.

But harm was definitely done. If someone steals from you, or reneges on a contract, that's harm. This should be indisputable.

Quote from: Pat;1145346He ran off with almost $50,000, and was never punished and never provided restitution to those he harmed. The inability to recognize and exclude a bad actor like Maliszewski is a classic example of the geek social fallacies at play.

   The Kickstarter went badly, but I haven't followed it enough to know if it was malice or incompetence. But Pundit seems just as concerned with 'exposing' Maliszewski as a heretic and false priest of the OSReligion.

Quote from: Pat;1145354I'm aware of that post, but you'll notice it doesn't mention how much of the money was passed to Autarch. If he returned it all, minus reasonable (and documented) expenses, I wouldn't have a problem with that.

That what happened, I worked with Autarch on the cartography and they included me in some of their discussions. However to be clear it was a major hassle for all concerned especially Tavis and Alexander the two principles behind Autarch.

Quote from: Pat;1145354we just have a bland statement, from someone who isn't Maliszewski, that they received an unspecified amount of cash.

And I am speaking as somebody who was privy to some of the discussions particularly the period of time when they were trying to setup the logistics of getting the project completed after James

Quote from: Pat;1145354"Run off" seems perfectly appropriate.

What you call consequence free resulted in the following

1) He lost profits and fees from the main kickstarter funds
2) He lost ongoing sales from Dwimmermount itself
3) Dwimmermount was made open content under the Open Game License.
4) His reputation is trashed regards to Kickstarter projects.
5) His ability to do anything with classic D&D commercially also has severe limitations.

Speaking as a person who dealt with this and with the Judges Guild fiasco, equating what happened to the level of Gareth-Michael Skarka of Far West and the Judges Guild CSIO kickstarter is inaccurate and inflammatory.  The situation that James is in is one where if he want to publish commercially again for classic D&D then he will have to prove himself every step of the way.. With each step having  a project done and ready to be bought. Even then it is unlikely any anybody will trust him with managing something on the scale of the Dwimmermount project ever again.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1145359The Kickstarter went badly, but I haven't followed it enough to know if it was malice or incompetence. But Pundit seems just as concerned with 'exposing' Maliszewski as a heretic and false priest of the OSReligion.

It wasn't malice. He promised too much, and got in over his head. Which, as I mentioned a couple of posts ago, is understandable. Bringing a Kickstarter to completion requires a whole set of skills, because you're basically taking on the role of an entire publishing house.

The problem is how he handled it. You don't just ghost people you backed you to the tune of $50K just because the criticism is making you uncomfortable, and then expect to be accepted back into the community.

Quote from: estar;1145360That what happened,

It wasn't shared with his backers, which the absolute minimum standard of accountability.

Though that wasn't the responsibility of Autarch, anyway. They're blameless, and deserve kudos for going far beyond the call of duty.

Quote from: estar;1145360What you call consequence free

I never said that. In fact, making sure there are consequences to his behavior is the whole point of having these discussions. He hasn't made amends, so we have a responsibility to ensure people are warned that he's a bad actor.

Quote from: SavageSchemer;1145353Nobody really has any business whatsoever dropping money into a KS campaign if the money involved isn't 100% disposable, or for which the loss of said money is going to be considered "harmful".

All money spent on gaming is disposable. That doesn't mean that if I buy a $50 game at a game store and come home to find the box empty that I wasn't harmed in any way.