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Found this on the PP site when I was reading the info on their forum outage.

http://privateerpress.com/company/careers/privateer-press-seeks-quartermaster

Privateer Press, Inc. (www.privateerpress.com) is an award-winning games publisher based in Bellevue, WA. Among our products are the acclaimed tabletop miniatures wargames WARMACHINE® and HORDES™ and the pre-painted miniatures battle game Monsterpocalypse®. We also publish the bimonthly No Quarter Magazine™ and the Formula P3™ hobby tool and paint range in addition to the other products in our catalog. We are focused on producing the finest gaming products on the market today as we continue to build and expand the richness of our games and settings. We are a growing game company in search of great people who are enthusiastic about producing engaging and enjoyable experiences and who can appreciate the inherent beauty of giant steam-powered robots and savage beasts smashing each other to pieces.

We are a hard-working crew who derive satisfaction from a job well done. We work in a fast-paced, results-driven environment, and we seek a highly motivated individual as Quartermaster, to lead and develop our volunteer program, the Press Gang.

Does anyone know if this is an additional Quartermaster, or is Jen leaving?

Jen is gone. PP continues to shed good people like fleas.

I really don't see how their release schedule is realistically manageable w/o serious difficulties (production, work burnout, even player burnout). Probably a factor.

Also, while miniatures games have never been high art (though there are some very artful ones out there), I swear I can't be the only one who feels that, recently*, PP has been very lowest common denominator in their art/fiction/marketing.

Too bad, Jen seemed like good people (never met her), and, given her enthusiasm, my guess is she wouldn't have quit for a better job, meaning one side probably was unhappy with the status quo, hopefully not her.

…also, she's the only non-white person I remember working there, which is a blow to diversity involved in their workplace, and no, I don't count "well, we hired a woman to check our grammar" as "involved" :/

*I'd say this is mostly a mkII thing, where the fiction has gone from downhill to GI-Joe, and they've had Andrea Uderzo (sp?) (cover art and caster art, mostly) draw glowy-background pics that make it look like the 80's threw up on them.

lord_blackfang wrote:Jen is gone. PP continues to shed good people like fleas.

Actually no, Jen is not gone, she has just assumed other functions inside the company, but hey, don't let something so unimportant as the actual truth keep you from posting stuff.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

spiralingcadaver wrote:I really don't see how their release schedule is realistically manageable w/o serious difficulties (production, work burnout, even player burnout). Probably a factor.

Also, while miniatures games have never been high art (though there are some very artful ones out there), I swear I can't be the only one who feels that, recently*, PP has been very lowest common denominator in their art/fiction/marketing.

Too bad, Jen seemed like good people (never met her), and, given her enthusiasm, my guess is she wouldn't have quit for a better job, meaning one side probably was unhappy with the status quo, hopefully not her.

…also, she's the only non-white person I remember working there, which is a blow to diversity involved in their workplace, and no, I don't count "well, we hired a woman to check our grammar" as "involved" :/

*I'd say this is mostly a mkII thing, where the fiction has gone from downhill to GI-Joe, and they've had Andrea Uderzo (sp?) (cover art and caster art, mostly) draw glowy-background pics that make it look like the 80's threw up on them.

Where is that facepalm icon when you need it... Oh, there it is:

…also, she's the only non-white person I remember working there, which is a blow to diversity involved in their workplace, and no, I don't count "well, we hired a woman to check our grammar" as "involved" :/

No business should push for diversity in the workplace. They should always hire the best applicant regardless of race/religion/nationality/etc. I would be insulted, as a minority hire, to find that I was hired to bolster a statistic, or to add diversity to a workplace, rather than being hired on the merits of my skill or knowledge.

Does PP still have a "we won't kill any miniature-game related characters off except for Cryxians" policy with their fluff? That was one of the issues that led to my burn out. The stories would lead up to these climatic battles and no one important would ever die off. Unless they were from Cryx because then they could just be resurrected. Now, I haven't read any book release since Legends but is that still the case?

re: phantomviper, thanks for the feedback, please write again some time.

re: augustus, I don't argue for affirmative action*, but I do believe that, especially in an arguably creative industry, diversity of background is healthy, and from what I can tell, PP is mostly crewed by white male nerds.

re: darkTraveller, yeah, they've still got the "no one dies" policy. You forgot, though, that the Harbinger died but was resurrected as an almost non-event.

*I believe affirmative action has too narrow/specific criteria to do what it claims to do: I believe in helping people in poor socioeconomic conditions has all sorts of social and moral benefits; I don't believe that enforced minority hiring is the way to do this.

spiralingcadaver wrote:re: phantomviper, thanks for the feedback, please write again some time.

re: augustus, I don't argue for affirmative action*, but I do believe that, especially in an arguably creative industry, diversity of background is healthy, and from what I can tell, PP is mostly crewed by white male nerds.

re: darkTraveller, yeah, they've still got the "no one dies" policy. You forgot, though, that the Harbinger died but was resurrected as an almost non-event.

*I believe affirmative action has too narrow/specific criteria to do what it claims to do: I believe in helping people in poor socioeconomic conditions has all sorts of social and moral benefits; I don't believe that enforced minority hiring is the way to do this.

Well, seeing as the majority of this hobby is white male nerds, it's no surprise that a gaming company is made up of mostly white male nerds. There can still be a diverse background present, but PP seems to want people who are passionate about the hobby first and foremost, and if that is the case than their hiring pool would probably be mostly white male nerds. I hope they go for the most qualified person, regardless of race or sex.

And I've read your issues with PP's fluff, and while you think there's a downturn in quality I don't think so at all. They've always been very upfront about not killing characters and have stuck by their guns. Complaining that they're doing something they said they were going to do is rather asinine.

I'm not going to argue diversity any more, as I'm not interested in getting involved in politics on a gaming forum.

re: Downturn in quality: I know that's been stated numerous times, and my disappointment is independent of their lack of character kills. Explicitly avoiding killing characters is one thing (there are a number of more mainstream comics I can enjoy, despite no bigger characters dieing). However, I believe that the fiction has, over time, lost character and pushed models harder, which is why I'm disappointed with it.

To put it a different way, not killing characters doesn't make a bad story, but bad writing will.

DarkTraveler777 wrote:Does PP still have a "we won't kill any miniature-game related characters off except for Cryxians" policy with their fluff?

I believe that the High Reclaimer was killed off in Escalation (Only to rise again in Apotheosis).

Thanatos73, if that is true about PP stating they would never kill characters (I thought it was that they would never invalidate game pieces) it pulls all of the suspense and emotion out of the narrative. When you know the good-guys aren't going to die, and the bad guys will be back twirling their mustaches in the next episode, the story ceases to matter. It just becomes this episodic circle-jerk of peons getting blasted and melted in glorious detail while the heroes puff out their chests and pose for the camera. It really does become a bad action movie or 80's cartoon as far as content is concerned.

And PP has some decent writing and intriguing story-lines that just fizzle whenever a character is pulled back from the brink "just in the nick of time!" Barking about this on the internet is rather futile, but this is an element of PP's storytelling that people have had issues with for years. And some see it as a shortcoming of the company's chosen style of writing--regardless of how upfront about their policies the company may have been.

@spirialingcadaver, good call on the Harby. I forgot about Menoth and how they get the resurrection wave-of-the-hand also, what with their god being involved.

spiralingcadaver wrote:I'm not going to argue diversity any more, as I'm not interested in getting involved in politics on a gaming forum.

re: Downturn in quality: I know that's been stated numerous times, and my disappointment is independent of their lack of character kills. Explicitly avoiding killing characters is one thing (there are a number of more mainstream comics I can enjoy, despite no bigger characters dieing). However, I believe that the fiction has, over time, lost character and pushed models harder, which is why I'm disappointed with it.

To put it a different way, not killing characters doesn't make a bad story, but bad writing will.

I've been re-reading all the fluff from Prime MkI, up to Wrath and their writing has gotten much better. Stating that it's bad writing does not make it fact. Sure, it's not Shakespeare by any stretch but it's better then most scifi/fantasy material out there, especially gaming fiction.

I believe that the High Reclaimer was killed off in Escalation (Only to rise again in Apotheosis).

Actually, he walked into the afterlife and came back out. Harbinger died as did Deneghra but they were both brought back.

Darktraveler777: haha, wow, that's even harsher than I would say (and I've been pretty pissed at PP's writers and by extension company, after reading possibly the worst fiction I've ever read, from one of their most recent pieces), but very insightful.

Something I would add is, let's take a hypothetical: I as a (hypothetical) writer, claim to my audience that I will never have volcanoes in my book/periodical/whatever. Now, I've limited my own writing, limited my readers' expectation and, in the strange case that a volcano is relevant, appropriate, or just plain right, my options are to look dishonest (either not keeping my word or being deceitful) or to find something less good to use in its place. Obviously, now replace volcanoes with character deaths.

Thanatos: no, it isn't fact, but I think that their clunky but characterful writing back in Prime was still infinitely more enjoyable than their more recent stuff, which reads like a well written battle report.

DarkTraveler777 wrote:Thanatos73, if that is true about PP stating they would never kill characters (I thought it was that they would never invalidate game pieces) it pulls all of the suspense and emotion out of the narrative. When you know the good-guys aren't going to die, and the bad guys will be back twirling their mustaches in the next episode, the story ceases to matter. It just becomes this episodic circle-jerk of peons getting blasted and melted in glorious detail while the heroes puff out their chests and pose for the camera. It really does become a bad action movie or 80's cartoon as far as content is concerned.

And PP has some decent writing and intriguing story-lines that just fizzle whenever a character is pulled back from the brink "just in the nick of time!" Barking about this on the internet is rather futile, but this is an element of PP's storytelling that people have had issues with for years. And some see it as a shortcoming of the company's chosen style of writing--regardless of how upfront about their policies the company may have been.

@spirialingcadaver, good call on the Harby. I forgot about Menoth and how they get the resurrection wave-of-the-hand also, what with their god being involved.

I'm not a fan of plot armor myself, but PP gets around that lack of suspense with world events, IMHO. Cygnar has lost big chunks of territory, one of the Iron Kingdoms fell to Khador, an entire race was enslaved by a dragon, who then killed another one to become more powerful, and civil wars or at the very least infighting are on the horizon with several factions.

And several gods or beings with godlike powers are involved in their setting, and none of them pass out resurrection very easily. The Harbinger was a special case, what with that being Menoth's plan and her being his mouthpiece on Caen. In the IKRPG, resurrection is very, very frowned upon. At any rate, I can see why people would have issues with PP's fluff, but to say it's been on the downturn recently just seems odd to me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

spiralingcadaver wrote:Darktraveler777: haha, wow, that's even harsher than I would say (and I've been pretty pissed at PP's writers and by extension company, after reading possibly the worst fiction I've ever read, from one of their most recent pieces), but very insightful.

Something I would add is, let's take a hypothetical: I as a (hypothetical) writer, claim to my audience that I will never have volcanoes in my book/periodical/whatever. Now, I've limited my own writing, limited my readers' expectation and, in the strange case that a volcano is relevant, appropriate, or just plain right, my options are to look dishonest (either not keeping my word or being deceitful) or to find something less good to use in its place. Obviously, now replace volcanoes with character deaths.

Thanatos: no, it isn't fact, but I think that their clunky but characterful writing back in Prime was still infinitely more enjoyable than their more recent stuff, which reads like a well written battle report.

But back in prime they put the spell effects in writing the same way, and described the battles in the same way. I just read my black and white Prime Mk I three weeks ago, and it read like their current books. Well, minus the Iron Lich talking in pseudo Old English and Stryker being much more friendly with Haley. It just didn't read all that different to me.

Regardless, I think we've derailed the thread enough as is, and I don't think we'll agree on the point anyway.

Bottom line is the fluff is there to make the product ( miniatures and wargame) more complete. I Imagine if they started killing some chars the people who buy their minis and play those chars would feel very pissed, so yeah I can live with fluff limitations.

As for people commenting the workers colors at PP, get a life. Who cares about these kind of things... The artwork is PROFESSIONAL ( not a common thing on many companies) The minis are hit and miss the paint jobs are awesome, the articles etc community is very well built... so in the end I have a positive overall image of PP. But even if they sucked big time in all departments I think that making judgmental comments about workers race is really degrading and you really should buy a thinking hat before posting that kind of content...

Thanatos73, elaborating a bit, I find that the PP writers' writing (technique) continued to improve until around Apotheosis or Superiority, however, their choices of what to focus on and where the narrative is going started to decrease in quality, starting around the time of Evolution or Legends, to the point where, in one of the more painful parts of Wrath, they introduce Runewood's character by how his model looks: that isn't character, that's selling a model.

If the entire setting were written at the quality (of subject matter and narrative) of Apotheosis and Superiority, PP would have probably won me over indefinitely. I'm not expecting brilliant, but I feel that they can do better, because they have.

...all, of course, IMHO.

spiralingcadaver wrote:I really don't see how their release schedule is realistically manageable w/o serious difficulties (production, work burnout, even player burnout). Probably a factor.

That's why I stopped. Though with my very small gaming group maybe I'll get them to restart. Those rules really are tops...

NAVARRO wrote:Bottom line is the fluff is there to make the product ( miniatures and wargame) more complete. I Imagine if they started killing some chars the people who buy their minis and play those chars would feel very pissed, so yeah I can live with fluff limitations.

As for people commenting the workers colors at PP, get a life. Who cares about these kind of things... The artwork is PROFESSIONAL ( not a common thing on many companies) The minis are hit and miss the paint jobs are awesome, the articles etc community is very well built... so in the end I have a positive overall image of PP. But even if they sucked big time in all departments I think that making judgmental comments about workers race is really degrading and you really should buy a thinking hat before posting that kind of content...

Fluff can be more compelling than a way of pushing a product.

I never made a judgment about a specific group, just saying that a homogeneous group often doesn't make the most interesting results, and I think that PP is pretty homogenous and could be better. For instance, disregarding socioeconomics, having a professional (prose( writer on staff would probably have yielded a more compelling narrative (and no, publishing your own work or having your friends publish it isn't the same as getting a book published). Diversity in any regard is healthy: They're primarily approaching their product as gamers, so they make a good game, but they could have made other aspects better.

PhantomViper wrote:

lord_blackfang wrote:Jen is gone. PP continues to shed good people like fleas.

Actually no, Jen is not gone, she has just assumed other functions inside the company, but hey, don't let something so unimportant as the actual truth keep you from posting stuff.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

spiralingcadaver wrote:I really don't see how their release schedule is realistically manageable w/o serious difficulties (production, work burnout, even player burnout). Probably a factor.

Also, while miniatures games have never been high art (though there are some very artful ones out there), I swear I can't be the only one who feels that, recently*, PP has been very lowest common denominator in their art/fiction/marketing.

Too bad, Jen seemed like good people (never met her), and, given her enthusiasm, my guess is she wouldn't have quit for a better job, meaning one side probably was unhappy with the status quo, hopefully not her.

…also, she's the only non-white person I remember working there, which is a blow to diversity involved in their workplace, and no, I don't count "well, we hired a woman to check our grammar" as "involved" :/

*I'd say this is mostly a mkII thing, where the fiction has gone from downhill to GI-Joe, and they've had Andrea Uderzo (sp?) (cover art and caster art, mostly) draw glowy-background pics that make it look like the 80's threw up on them.

Where is that facepalm icon when you need it... Oh, there it is:

Phantomviper: PP's white knight

spiralingcadaver wrote:

NAVARRO wrote:Bottom line is the fluff is there to make the product ( miniatures and wargame) more complete. I Imagine if they started killing some chars the people who buy their minis and play those chars would feel very pissed, so yeah I can live with fluff limitations.

As for people commenting the workers colors at PP, get a life. Who cares about these kind of things... The artwork is PROFESSIONAL ( not a common thing on many companies) The minis are hit and miss the paint jobs are awesome, the articles etc community is very well built... so in the end I have a positive overall image of PP. But even if they sucked big time in all departments I think that making judgmental comments about workers race is really degrading and you really should buy a thinking hat before posting that kind of content...

Fluff can be more compelling than a way of pushing a product.

I never made a judgment about a specific group, just saying that a homogeneous group often doesn't make the most interesting results, and I think that PP is pretty homogenous and could be better. For instance, disregarding socioeconomics, having a professional (prose( writer on staff would probably have yielded a more compelling narrative (and no, publishing your own work or having your friends publish it isn't the same as getting a book published). Diversity in any regard is healthy: They're primarily approaching their product as gamers, so they make a good game, but they could have made other aspects better.

To assume that diversity in itself brings something to a group or that a homogeneous group can't make the most interesting results, is saying that there are differences among diverse groups. I tend to think that any group can bring the same things to the table. I find the whole "diversity" movement to be condescending toward people of all types, as it assumes that certain groups have advantages/disadvantages over others, where I tend to think that we are all equal.

Jen was promoted to I believe the Events Cordinator. And I love PPs fluff. Been borrowing all the army books I can to read it all.

augustus5 wrote:

spiralingcadaver wrote:

NAVARRO wrote:Bottom line is the fluff is there to make the product ( miniatures and wargame) more complete. I Imagine if they started killing some chars the people who buy their minis and play those chars would feel very pissed, so yeah I can live with fluff limitations.

As for people commenting the workers colors at PP, get a life. Who cares about these kind of things... The artwork is PROFESSIONAL ( not a common thing on many companies) The minis are hit and miss the paint jobs are awesome, the articles etc community is very well built... so in the end I have a positive overall image of PP. But even if they sucked big time in all departments I think that making judgmental comments about workers race is really degrading and you really should buy a thinking hat before posting that kind of content...

Fluff can be more compelling than a way of pushing a product.

I never made a judgment about a specific group, just saying that a homogeneous group often doesn't make the most interesting results, and I think that PP is pretty homogenous and could be better. For instance, disregarding socioeconomics, having a professional (prose( writer on staff would probably have yielded a more compelling narrative (and no, publishing your own work or having your friends publish it isn't the same as getting a book published). Diversity in any regard is healthy: They're primarily approaching their product as gamers, so they make a good game, but they could have made other aspects better.

To assume that diversity in itself brings something to a group or that a homogeneous group can't make the most interesting results, is saying that there are differences among diverse groups. I tend to think that any group can bring the same things to the table. I find the whole "diversity" movement to be condescending toward people of all types, as it assumes that certain groups have advantages/disadvantages over others, where I tend to think that we are all equal.

Exactly and assuming X racial group is inept to provide a good product is indeed a judgmental behavior.

"Fluff can be more compelling than a way of pushing a product."

Fluff can be compelling without killing the product.

As for the comment that PP only makes a good game and nothing else is also blind as hell... as a professional illustrator I can tell you their illustrations and artwork and concept art is very high by professional standarts... you may think its the 80's style and I may tell you are wrong

CT GAMER wrote:
Phantomviper: PP's white knight

Not really, I just don't like people stating obvious lies just to denigrate the image of a company that I like.

As for my , I've really grown to dislike all the PC bs that goes around in western society nowadays, I'm just not as articulate in English as augustus5 is and should probably have cropped spiralingcadaver quote to just the part that I was replying to. I have no qualms with his opinion about PPs fiction, since I've always thought it to be below par since the B&W edition of prime (see what I did there? I actively criticized PP about something ).

spiralingcadaver wrote:

NAVARRO wrote:Bottom line is the fluff is there to make the product ( miniatures and wargame) more complete. I Imagine if they started killing some chars the people who buy their minis and play those chars would feel very pissed, so yeah I can live with fluff limitations.

As for people commenting the workers colors at PP, get a life. Who cares about these kind of things... The artwork is PROFESSIONAL ( not a common thing on many companies) The minis are hit and miss the paint jobs are awesome, the articles etc community is very well built... so in the end I have a positive overall image of PP. But even if they sucked big time in all departments I think that making judgmental comments about workers race is really degrading and you really should buy a thinking hat before posting that kind of content...

Fluff can be more compelling than a way of pushing a product.

I never made a judgment about a specific group, just saying that a homogeneous group often doesn't make the most interesting results, and I think that PP is pretty homogenous and could be better. For instance, disregarding socioeconomics, having a professional (prose( writer on staff would probably have yielded a more compelling narrative (and no, publishing your own work or having your friends publish it isn't the same as getting a book published). Diversity in any regard is healthy: They're primarily approaching their product as gamers, so they make a good game, but they could have made other aspects better.

Straw man is made of Straw.

Background diversity is good when it comes to writing, however. You tend to write what you know, so the more voices you have, the more likely you are to tap into something that others have not heard before. New stories, fresh stories, worlds unseen. However, such a background is not limited to race, and individuals are not equal and all have different capacities.

That being said, if I was willing to relocate to WA I might check in on this...

By it's definition, a homogeneous group will produce similar or like ideas with little creative variation or diversity--else they would not be homogeneous....

In a creative environment, be it solving work related issues or writing fiction, the more creative variation thrown around kick off meetings----the better the result. A good book on the subject;

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8353.html

And as one more aside--I saw earlier someone tying race to diversity. While culture and race may coincide in variation(s)--cultural diversity does not equate into racial diversity. That diversity may manifest in sexual orientation, gender, geographical differences, age, etc etc. You can bring unique cultural background perspective to a group while sharing their race (Or not). Since we humans tend to cluster to like groups--it's only natural that many times diversity does manifest in racial differences...



On topic, good on PP---it appears they've promoted someone that did well at her job and are bringing on new help.

AgeOfEgos wrote:By it's definition, a homogeneous group will produce similar or like ideas with little creative variation or diversity--else they would not be homogeneous...

To be pedantic, the definition of a homogenous group says nothing about what that group produces, merely its composition.

To be utterly clear, Quartermaster Jen is still with Privateer Press working on Organized Play (iirc).

So back on topic. They are hiring a new Quartermaster.

I apologize. There seems to have been a miscommunication between me and my local pressganger on this topic.

Hi, back, and admitting that the diversity comment was incorrect (yes, backing down on a forum is possible).

I'm mostly sick of seeing a sea of white male (typically a bit pudgy) faces in the gaming world.

Independent of this, I find PP's writing and illustration (and by extension, perspective on their world) to lack nuance of emotion and narrative, and attributed this to a lack of diversity (race has nothing to do with it, but another perspective in writing, I believe, would have helped their writing immensely).

No, they're not directly related, and I'm backing down about that. No, I don't hate the company and want to start a flame war (some of the best rules and minis around). However, yes, I think that they could and should do better creative work to back up their game than they do.