Quote from: Lynn;569389[...] they were treating what looks like simply moving a business from New York to Arizona as a full on winding down of business.

That wasn't what happened.

The original FGU was dissolved by proclamation by the state of New York in 1991 for failing to pay their incorporation fees (basically an annual fee paid to the state for a corporation to exist as a legal entity independent of its proprietors).  Dee and Herman said that it was dissolved for failing to pay taxes, which is potentially libelous since it implies tax evasion (a crime).

Scott Bizar is currently operating as Fantasy Games Unlimited under a "doing business as" license, usually a way for sole proprietorships to fake looking like an independent corporation without actually being one.  Despite having the same name and sole proprietor, "Fantasy Games Unlimited" and "Scott Bizar d/b/a Fantasy Games Unlimited" are not the same company and there does not appear to be any continuity between the two.

TL;DR: Dee and Herman shot their mouths off about the fiddly details of FGU's business operations and it cost them their suit.

Quote from: daniel_ream;569394That wasn't what happened.

The original FGU was dissolved by proclamation by the state of New York in 1991 for failing to pay their incorporation fees (basically an annual fee paid to the state for a corporation to exist as a legal entity independent of its proprietors).  Dee and Herman said that it was dissolved for failing to pay taxes, which is potentially libelous since it implies tax evasion (a crime).

Scott Bizar is currently operating as Fantasy Games Unlimited under a "doing business as" license, usually a way for sole proprietorships to fake looking like an independent corporation without actually being one.  Despite having the same name and sole proprietor, "Fantasy Games Unlimited" and "Scott Bizar d/b/a Fantasy Games Unlimited" are not the same company and there does not appear to be any continuity between the two.

TL;DR: Dee and Herman shot their mouths off about the fiddly details of FGU's business operations and it cost them their suit.

That much I got.  What I don't get is how Bizar-dba gets to publish V&V content if the original legal entity FGU is gone (even if he owned both).

Quote from: Silverlion;569376Because lets be franks--its been almost dead for years and years, and its been propelled to activity thanks to Dee and Herman.

Quote from: Roll 3d6;569261It was only after Monkey House Games started printing their updated version that FGU started cranking up the presses again.  Also, .pdf sales have given new life to these older games.

These two statements are both incorrect. FGU was already in the process of releasing NEW material when MHG made their announcement. New products were already contracted out.

Quote from: jcfiala;569139I wasn't able to find any references online via google - where'd this happen?

I might have misspoke. I was aware of the required retraction and might have read too much into it at this point.

Quote from: daniel_ream;569394That wasn't what happened.

The original FGU was dissolved by proclamation by the state of New York in 1991 for failing to pay their incorporation fees (basically an annual fee paid to the state for a corporation to exist as a legal entity independent of its proprietors).  Dee and Herman said that it was dissolved for failing to pay taxes, which is potentially libelous since it implies tax evasion (a crime).

Scott Bizar is currently operating as Fantasy Games Unlimited under a "doing business as" license, usually a way for sole proprietorships to fake looking like an independent corporation without actually being one.  Despite having the same name and sole proprietor, "Fantasy Games Unlimited" and "Scott Bizar d/b/a Fantasy Games Unlimited" are not the same company and there does not appear to be any continuity between the two.

TL;DR: Dee and Herman shot their mouths off about the fiddly details of FGU's business operations and it cost them their suit.

Of course, a court in Arizona determined that there was continuity between the two as part of their judgement when they found Dee/Herman guilty of libel and unfair business practice. Whether or not that was the right decision is something time will tell, but that appears to be what the court ruled.

Quote from: Silverlion;569376Because lets be franks--its been almost dead for years and years, and its been propelled to activity thanks to Dee and Herman.

I thought the same thing myself. However, while no new product was coming out, there was still a very loyal group of people playing it. There is (and was for some time) a dedicated forum for the game, run by John Bua, who is the GM for the group I play V&V in. There was also Patric Rogers site (iirc, it was called Morpheus Unbound). These were mostly overlooked because many moved on to other games. But for those who still actively played it (one campaign has been going on for 20 years or more), the game wasn't considered dead.

I would have liked to have seen them get the rights back. However, they went about it the wrong way (likely at the advice of a lawyer who obviously gave them bad advice). Does it suck? Of course it does. However, unless they can win an appeal, I think they're not going to get the rights back. The crux of their case was judged to not be true by an Arizona court, so I suspect their own suit won't last much longer.

I was really looking forward to that color re-release of Death Duel with the Destroyers/Island of Doctor Apocalypse omnibus too.

Quote from: CRKrueger;569401That much I got.  What I don't get is how Bizar-dba gets to publish V&V content if the original legal entity FGU is gone (even if he owned both).

If you read what I quoted earlier in the thread, a court ruled that the NY FGU had fulfilled it's obligations before becoming the one in Arizona. I assume that means that all deals from the old FGU transferred to the new one.

Quote from: urbwar;569562Of course, a court in Arizona determined that there was continuity between the two as part of their judgement when they found Dee/Herman guilty of libel and unfair business practice. Whether or not that was the right decision is something time will tell, but that appears to be what the court ruled.

This.  The central issue of the suit was not the the legal status of FGU post-dissolution, but rather the charges against Dee and Herman.

IANAL, but it is entirely possible that even though there was no actual legal continuity between the two companies, the judge ruled that way as part of a ruling-in-the-plantiff's-favour decision. As it's a civil suit, the judge isn't so much bound by the truth as by making an equitable judgment.  So he could have said the legal equivalent of "well, the two companies weren't continuous, but you guys have been such right dicks about the whole thing that I'm ruling they were, just 'cause.  Nyah."

Quote from: daniel_ream;569573This.  The central issue of the suit was not the the legal status of FGU post-dissolution, but rather the charges against Dee and Herman.

True. But since this was the main part of their case against FGU, this judgement is going to affect that, because right or wrong, a judged ruled that their claims are wrong (at least, that's what I'm getting from what was written). It will be interesting to see how this judgement affect's their case against FGU

Anyway, enough talk of legal issues between FGU/MHG. Anyone else care to talk about the game itself?

It would be unfair to criticize it for being the things that it is - overcomplicated exception-laden D&D clone, etc. - because of its vintage. I have two issues with the system that keep me from enjoying it:  high Carrying Capacity characters have grossly inflated damage compared to other Powers/character types, and for a game based on the Silver Age of comic books the combat mechanics are likely to produce dead heroes and villains pretty frequently.  The pick-list superpower system means that all heroes/villains with a particular power will look the same.  Its age means it's not much more than a combat system, and so it doesn't support the standard comic book trope of having to out-think or outwit the villain; generally conflicts are last-man-standing slugfests.

The strength of V&V was always the art and character design.  The adventures were often either amateurish or just dungeon crawls with a supervillain lair substituting for a dungeon.  Worst are the "gamer porn" adventures, where the adventure is set at a comic book convention or in another dimension that's just like D&D.

There are notable exceptions.  I've run an expanded version of the Death Duel with the Destroyers/Island of Dr. Apocalypse duology more times than I can count in multiple superhero systems.  F.O.R.C.E. and Assassin are also good.  Ken Cliffe's work for the system is notable for its enthusiasm and faithfulness to the genre tropes, but generally needs editing to be usable.

Very good points Daniel. I definitely agree about how battles can turn into slugfests at times.

One of the things that got me back into playing it was our gm's extensive house rules (which can be found here).

Being able to use inventing points for power stunts and such has been helpful. It actually saved my character's life in our last adventure (he was caught in a massive explosion, but his battlesuit's ADR was down to about 10 pts, and between low power and hits he had taken would have died. The gm allowed me to attempt to use a device I had designed to modulate my light control attack to affect incorporeal beings to shift myself into the Astral Plane. Saved my life, but my armor was disintegrated in the blast. Now he has to spend to build a new suit. Guess it's a good thing he's rich!). I like some of the modifications he's made to powers as well, and I like the rules for rolling with damage (which I tend to forget at the table, hence my needing a copy of the House Rules handy at all times)

As I stated previously, my main enjoyment is how good I consider my gm to be. His world is very detailed (he has many posts with tidbits about the world on his forum), and I really like how he blends various things together. We've fought aliens (and alien supers), demons, mythos entities (one of which was the physical form of Cthulhu, which was only 1/3 of the total being, thank god!), in addition to mundane villains. In his world, there is a chance you can go insane; it almost happened to me once, but due to his Karma rules (where you spend xp for an opportunity to reroll certain failures), I was able to overcome the urge to go crazy.

Ok enough rambling about the campaign I'm in

Quote from: daniel_ream;569394That wasn't what happened.

The original FGU was dissolved by proclamation by the state of New York in 1991 for failing to pay their incorporation fees (basically an annual fee paid to the state for a corporation to exist as a legal entity independent of its proprietors).  Dee and Herman said that it was dissolved for failing to pay taxes, which is potentially libelous since it implies tax evasion (a crime).

Scott Bizar is currently operating as Fantasy Games Unlimited under a "doing business as" license, usually a way for sole proprietorships to fake looking like an independent corporation without actually being one.  Despite having the same name and sole proprietor, "Fantasy Games Unlimited" and "Scott Bizar d/b/a Fantasy Games Unlimited" are not the same company and there does not appear to be any continuity between the two.

TL;DR: Dee and Herman shot their mouths off about the fiddly details of FGU's business operations and it cost them their suit.

Before a lot of misinformation gets out in this forum too:

FGU was in good standing in New York before it purposely stopped doing business there: It allowed itself to stop  doing business there. It's assets belong to the primary shareholder, Bizar. He kept up the obligations of the corporation and continued to do business legally in Arizona, where he paid all fees and taxes necessary since 1987. All his contracts contiued to be legal and in full force.

FGU installs the copyright on behalf of all its creators, including Jeff and Jack. Dee and Herman own the copyright to the likenesses and the work which allows them to be paid royalties. They are not supposed to use those likenesses in a competing product (including Living Legends).They do not own the MARK which is demonstrated by use and formed because of a recognized business USE. It doesn't matter that Dee or Herman wrote the rules or drew pictures in this regard, FGU created the MARK and the BRAND.

MHG did NOT start the V&V revival, that again would be FGU in 2009 by allowing Woodrum to use the mark to test the water and contracting Woodrum and Satter in December 2009 and February 2010, respectively to release new paid products.
MHG did not even begin operation until May 2010, and that 2.1 fiasco was nothing more than the Revised edition with art from Living Legends and Jeff Dee's sketchbook thrown together in a PDF that didn't even have a completed back cover until July 2010.

I understand being fans of the creative team, but this is not a creator's rights issue. This is about publishing and trademark law, not copyright law.

The heap of evidence referred to by MHG in their statement was due to be turned in on June 22nd, 2012. Witnesses, expert testimony, documents, etc... They turned in nothing.
It's almost over now, and the game is what is supposed to be important here. No more slamming FGU. We didn't do anything wrong and there was no devious plot to steal this from MHG, rather the evidence points the other way.
I'd like to think the game can go on without any more bickering.

If anyone has anything positive to say about things we're releasing, I'm all for it.

Quote from: daniel_ream;569394The original FGU was dissolved by proclamation by the state of New York in 1991 for failing to pay their incorporation fees (basically an annual fee paid to the state for a corporation to exist as a legal entity independent of its proprietors).  Dee and Herman said that it was dissolved for failing to pay taxes, which is potentially libelous since it implies tax evasion (a crime).

Scott Bizar is currently operating as Fantasy Games Unlimited under a "doing business as" license, usually a way for sole proprietorships to fake looking like an independent corporation without actually being one.  Despite having the same name and sole proprietor, "Fantasy Games Unlimited" and "Scott Bizar d/b/a Fantasy Games Unlimited" are not the same company and there does not appear to be any continuity between the two.

DBA / Sole proprietorship is a legitimate form of business (I wouldn't do it that way, but it is). Changing from one type of business to another also doesn't qualify as disolving/winding down/etc. That happens all the time, again, usually for tax purposes or simplification of management.

Was there any actual continuity between that 1991 fee issue and the formation of the company in Arizona? There's no reason to pay a fee if you are leaving the state. If they were relatively close in time, then there shouldn't have been an issue - or was it something crazy, like several years later?

Quote from: AlabasterKnight;569711...He kept up the obligations of the corporation and continued to do business legally in Arizona, where he paid all fees and taxes necessary since 1987. All his contracts contiued to be legal and in full force.

Okay, that answered my question. That does look like continuity to me.

Quote from: Silverlion;569376I wish personally that they'd realize it work best if Dee and Herman had the writes and would willing sub-license them for supplements to Bizar. Because lets be franks--its been almost dead for years and years, and its been propelled to activity thanks to Dee and Herman.

I wish personally, people would realize that Scott is the publisher and Jeff and Jack's participation would have had the same impact had they agreed to simply return.
Let's be more frank; had Dee accepted Scott's offer take the keys to the car and drive it anywhere he wanted to take it... to come back and promote the game in March/April of 2010 ....
instead of running out to form MHG to spite him, we'd have a robust revival with all hands on deck.