The Hobby Shop Dungeon Disaster

[Benoist]

I get that some people are waiting and nervous and have been burnt by Kickstarters before and whatnot. If I can answer some questions and alleviate some of the worries out there that's fine. I too am frustrated by how late we are in the process but it's also my responsibility to keep the communication going and let people know that yes, the money's there, we are working on it and have gone anywhere.

I don't know how the more negative rumors get started. I imagine some of them just come up because people try to think of various possibilities and our minds are naturally attracted to the worse case scenarios. Others could be the result of willful lies.

In any case. To be clear: (1) The house of Steve Davis was purchased with money raised before the Kickstarter and has nothing to do with our project, and (2) The money is still there and waiting in an account, ready to be used for the next phases beyond.

[Benoist]

I get that some people are waiting and are nervous and have been burnt by kickstarters before. If I can answer some questions and alleviate some of those worries that's fine. I too am frustrated by the lateness of our project and it's my responsibility to keep the communication going and let people know that yes, the money is still there, and yes, we are working on it and have not gone anywhere.

I don't know how the more negative rumors get started. I imagine some of them just come up because people try to think of various possibilities and our minds are naturally attracted to the worse-case scenarios.

In any case. To be clear again: (1) The house was not purchased with money from the KS at all, and (2) The money from the KS is still there ready to be used for the next phases, up to production.

[Gronan of Simmerya]

I don't know how the more negative rumors get started.

People are assholes.

[Spinachcat]

I love stretch goals BUT the creator has to have them planned in detail in advance.

Otherwise, its a clusterfuck.

Between this, RTT, and Kenzer & Company, I'm done with Kickstarter.

Ouch! You've picked the winners. You should stay on Kickstarter and post about whatever you decide to back...so we can all be warned!

[Opaopajr]

Hi Benoist! Good to hear from you again!

[Ulairi]

I love stretch goals BUT the creator has to have them planned in detail in advance.

Otherwise, its a clusterfuck.




Ouch! You've picked the winners. You should stay on Kickstarter and post about whatever you decide to back...so we can all be warned!

I'm the jinx. I also backed the 4th printing of DCC and now MCC and both were super late.

[Benoist]

Hi Benoist! Good to hear from you again!

Hey man, long time no see.

About stretch goals: I'd say that even when you think you know what kind of monumental task is a ahead of you working on a project like this, you really don't. Meaning, anyone who's not gone through doing this once doesn't know how exponentially complicated it gets. I can see how that can freak out some people who launch themselves into doing a KS like this, and once that's done they don't know what to do and freak out.

Talking for our project, for me and Ernie it means it just takes more time and attention to complete it. This means progressing methodically, one step at a time, to the finish line. We're doing just that.

[Merrill]

Hi there Silas.

Yes we are two years late and the writing phase is taking us way more time than anticipated. I was not forseeing the complication that would come from all the extra content unlocked and how that would complicate things exponentially. We are making our way through it and yes, the Marmoreal Tomb will be completed and delivered.

Now regarding the specific rumors you heard, they are both categorically false.

(1) Ernie didn't use any funds from the KS to get the house. It belonged to his cousin Steve Davis who passed in October 2014 in the first place. I'm forgetting the exact details of the purchase (just checked, Ernie raised the funds from his savings and collector items sold via Collector's Trove and Gary Con, all prior to the KS: the posts are still there on FB), but no, that had nothing to do with the moneys from the Kickstarter.

(2) We still have a large chunk of the funds raised and they are currently stored on an account earning a little interest over time. We actually got back some of the money we gave the IRS for taxes so no, the money isn't gone at all and ready to serve.

I am indeed giving periodic updates as to our progress and I'm here whenever people want to ask questions or talk about the project.

Last thing. I have not been saying "we are in the writing phase for two years", but since October. For the year and a half prior to that I was working out all the moving parts of the project up to this point. It is taking some time because this is not a run of the mill module. It has over 30 moving parts to begin with, connects with the Hobby Shop Dungeon and the world at large, presents a primer of said world along with all the components to run a sandbox for years. We're taking the time it takes to make it right, as we have said we would from the very beginning of the project.

Now there are a bunch of events and complications we could have never seen coming, like Ernie ending up at the hospital, me frontloading all the map work during that period as a result, those kinds of things, but the main element here is that the product ought to be the best it can be.

Once I'm done with the main module I'll make a general official update on the KS.

One last time I'll repeat, neither of the rumors you cite are true. I hope this puts these rumors to rest now.

Thanks for responding Benoist.

Let me be clear--this was not about criticizing you in any way. It is more about Ernie. The "rumors" on the street regarding this whole thing are that Ernie basically took a bunch of money, didn't write shit, and left you holding the bag. The idea is that Benoist is trying to salvage the kickstarter while his partner drinks and parties at conventions.

I've seen your work and it is excellent

I haven't been to conventions like Garycon, nor have I met Ernie, but I have heard things and have seen things on social media. The guy has had multiple gofundme campaigns to give him cash to replace items lost in a fire back in early 2013, to pay medical bills, etc. There have even been adventure modules and products put out by other people with the proceeds going to him. There was a charity auction at Garycon that went on for years, and while the attendees thought the money was going to charity, it was actually going to Ernie. It was a running joke that the auctions were part of Ernie's salary.

All in all, including the Marmoreal KS, gamers have given Ernie like $160,000+ since 2012. He has not delivered product, and hasn't even said thank you to 99.9% of those gamers.

Where does a person's self-respect have to be to continuously beg for money on the Internet? There are a lot of people in this world that really do need help, he isn't one of them, especially if he can dip into savings, sell a few things, and then buy a house! Dude begs for cash saying he can't pay his medical bills, is going to starve, etc., and then months later goes and buys expensive real estate. Seriously?

And yes, everything in Wisconsin is expensive. It isn't Alabama. A modest house will set you back a minimum 250k

[Benoist]

Thanks for responding Benoist.

No worries Silas. Glad I can clear some things up.

Let me be clear--this was not about criticizing you in any way. It is more about Ernie. The "rumors" on the street regarding this whole thing are that Ernie basically took a bunch of money, didn't write shit, and left you holding the bag. The idea is that Benoist is trying to salvage the kickstarter while his partner drinks and parties at conventions.

That is fundamentally misunderstanding my partnership and relationship with Ernest, and underestimates me as a person. I'm not the kind of person who will hold the bag for someone who doesn't do anything. Ernest and I have both done years of work on this, and will go on with it after the Tomb is done.

This is not the first time I see this kind of thought, in all fairness. It's as if, if you form a partnership with someone with a big name, there's this thing that kicks in into people's minds, where the guy with no name is either the slave writer or ghost writer in the relationship, OR he's the mastermind just "using the name" for his own benefit.

Both of these extremes do not speak of my relationship with Ernie at all. We are friends and partners. We both have each other's backs and that's how we roll.

I've seen your work and it is excellent

It's always motivating to know that people appreciate what we do. I appreciate the compliment.

I haven't been to conventions like Garycon, nor have I met Ernie, but I have heard things and have seen things on social media. The guy has had multiple gofundme campaigns to give him cash to replace items lost in a fire back in early 2013, to pay medical bills, etc. There have even been adventure modules and products put out by other people with the proceeds going to him. There was a charity auction at Garycon that went on for years, and while the attendees thought the money was going to charity, it was actually going to Ernie. It was a running joke that the auctions were part of Ernie's salary.

All in all, including the Marmoreal KS, gamers have given Ernie like $160,000+ since 2012. He has not delivered product, and hasn't even said thank you to 99.9% of those gamers.

A lot of context is missing here, and that kind of mixes up a lot of things separated in time. Let me see if I can decompose that and clarify. First, the fire happened, and Ernie lost a lot of his possessions. Then, he ended up in the hospital after a heart attack and was told in no uncertain terms he would die if he didn't get his house in order. Funds were raised to address each of these issues separately as they unfolded.

Then we have Steve, Ernie's cousin, dying in October 2014, and the house he lived in Lake Geneva was then purchased using funds raised selling collectors and other stuff in its aftermath, up to the auction at Gary Con. You can check FB, the posts are still there. That's months before the kickstarter and no funds raised during the kickstarter of July-August 2015 were used towards the house.

I really wish you could go to Gary Con this week end and meet Ernie there. I think you'd come out of it with a different appraisal of the man. He isn't a weakling, or an ungrateful person. Quite the opposite really. He is one of the most supportive, fiercely loyal, thankful person I know. I think that if you pay attention you can see that from the way he always tries to uplift people and support them, give them shoutouts etc in his social media interactions.

Where does a person's self-respect have to be to continuously beg for money on the Internet? There are a lot of people in this world that really do need help, he isn't one of them, especially if he can dip into savings, sell a few things, and then buy a house! Dude begs for cash saying he can't pay his medical bills, is going to starve, etc., and then months later goes and buys expensive real estate. Seriously?

And yes, everything in Wisconsin is expensive. It isn't Alabama. A modest house will set you back a minimum 250k

No funds from the kickstarter were involved in purchasing the house. I hope this is clear now.

As for one's self-respect, I think your mental picture of who Ernie is or what he's like is not accurate. Up until recently Ernie had it tough, in no small part because of his father and his ex-wife (with whom he still had a privileged relationship) dying one after the other. These weren't the only events, along with the fire and everything else, and it all came to a head when he was hospitalized a second time and was told in no uncertain terms by the doctors: "if you keep up your current lifestyle, you'll be dead in six months."

This is when Ernie changed his life around.

On the KS side of things, when he ended up in the hospital and turned his life around, I frontloaded all the work I could do on my own which should originally have been spaced out and incremental. I did all the extra maps based on our concepts immediately and it took me months to get there. Then I got hit by a pneumonia that lasted three months. Then I got better, finished the maps, got back with Ernest to have him with me on the extra maps I had figured out in the meantime and have his input on every single area and key of the maps, which made some extensive changes along the way. I recorded this message and a section of our revision sessions here on YouTube.

Now, I have all the material we worked out with Ernest up to this point and I am finishing the writing on the main module. I've always been the secretary and the one who shaped the final texts in our partnership, and that is no different from what we did for Gygax Magazine prior. Once I'm done with this, we will review the final text together one last time, and we will move on to last areas of the expansions we need to take a look at together (I'm thinking the Mellifluous Shrine and Hiveworld of Ur-Shamath here specifically), and then I'm going to finalize the text on those too.

This phase of writing here is just one part of the whole where I happen to do the heavy lifting. I would have done it even if there had been no stay in the hospital and whatnot. It's just that if those events had not happened, the work would have been spread out, we would have done a map, worked on it together, I would have finalized the writing, we would have checked the result together, and then moved on to another map. That didn't happen that way and I'm now doing it by whole chunks instead. I think this is why this leads to some sort of confusion leading some to believe "I'm left hanging" or something. This isn't accurate at all.

Once we're done with this we'll move on together with the last steps, production, fulfillment, and we'll go on from there. Ernie's got my back, and I have his.

[Headless]

Thats a drag.

Life man.  

Good to see you are pushing through.

[Benoist]

Thats a drag.

Life man.  

Good to see you are pushing through.

Thanks man. Those kinds of curve balls I could have done without, that's for sure.

Now all things considered, things are looking up in multiple ways. We keep chucking at it and there's no dearth of material to work from, we're not lost or confused, we have a clear path towards the end game, so that's good. On the extra plus side, Ernie completely turned his life around and is in a new relationship now and he's never been more alive than right now, which is totally awesome.

So really, it sucks that I had to frontload the maps, then work on the whole of the text at once right now, but since that gave room to Ernie to get out of the hospital and turn his life around with the results we're seeing now, I'd do it all over again if I had to choose. It frustrates backers and it frustrates me, but it was the right thing to do at the time.

Now to get the project done and finish this.

[Gronan of Simmerya]

Thanks for responding Benoist.

Let me be clear--this was not about criticizing you in any way. It is more about Ernie. The "rumors" on the street regarding this whole thing are that Ernie basically took a bunch of money, didn't write shit, and left you holding the bag. The idea is that Benoist is trying to salvage the kickstarter while his partner drinks and parties at conventions.

I've seen your work and it is excellent

I haven't been to conventions like Garycon, nor have I met Ernie, but I have heard things and have seen things on social media. The guy has had multiple gofundme campaigns to give him cash to replace items lost in a fire back in early 2013, to pay medical bills, etc. There have even been adventure modules and products put out by other people with the proceeds going to him. There was a charity auction at Garycon that went on for years, and while the attendees thought the money was going to charity, it was actually going to Ernie. It was a running joke that the auctions were part of Ernie's salary.

All in all, including the Marmoreal KS, gamers have given Ernie like $160,000+ since 2012. He has not delivered product, and hasn't even said thank you to 99.9% of those gamers.

Where does a person's self-respect have to be to continuously beg for money on the Internet? There are a lot of people in this world that really do need help, he isn't one of them, especially if he can dip into savings, sell a few things, and then buy a house! Dude begs for cash saying he can't pay his medical bills, is going to starve, etc., and then months later goes and buys expensive real estate. Seriously?

And yes, everything in Wisconsin is expensive. It isn't Alabama. A modest house will set you back a minimum 250k

Fuck you.  You're a shitdribbling rumormonger.  There isn't a single word of truth in anything you write, including real estate prices.

[Haffrung]

Hobbyists rejoice that technology has enabled us to topple the authority of the 'gatekeeping' publishers and let everyone become a creator and an entrepreneur. Problem is, those gatekeepers served a useful function to the customer - institutional experience with getting projects created and delivered, and a strong self-interest in only hiring people who have demonstrated they can meet deadlines. Turns out most of us don't have the temperament or discipline to be professionals when it comes to our hobbies. Backing a Kickstarter is like hiring a guy you knew from high school who has no experience in the trades to build a back deck and fence for you - it's a gesture of almost willful naivete.

[Motorskills]

Hey everyone, remember when people tried to tear me a new one for predicting this? Remember when they said I was a big meanie for criticizing Benoist for dragging out Ernie as a "token Gygax" for him to wave around to use  name recognition for public attention that he otherwise didn't deserve?

Remember that?

Fuck all of you. I was right yet again.

Are you still standing by this, in light of Benoist's posts here?

[Spinachcat]

Benoist, thank you for posting!

For everyone else, check out Benoist's Twin Tankard maps!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1709227718/ernest-gary-gygax-jrs-marmoreal-tomb-campaign-star/posts/1913150

It's always best to assume fraud and maleficence in the absence of any evidence! :rolleyes:

It's all about speed and efficiency!

shitdribbling rumormonger.

I am so gonna steal that!!!