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I hear ya. I kinda feel the same. I just made a long post on the HG FB and I guess it was to long or they don't take kindly to asking for a rush on approvals. I don't see my post there. All I asked was if they would speak to Kev about better quality updates.

One thing that bugs me about this PB bs, is that they send CnD orders for made up rules. I mean look at all the 40k fan sites with their alternate rules. Imagine if we couldn't have are ItEN or other sites for alternate ways of playing GW games. It would suck. I hope when the TT crowd starts messing with the rules, there won't be silly stories about site after site getting shut down. I don't think that would go well here.

I tried looking up stuff for the robo RPG and at first I thought I was having tech problems with the page loading and then I realized the 4 options available were it. Wonder what's going to happen now that the TT crowd is involved with PB. After all we'er a loud bunch.lol

 Cypher-xv wrote:

I tried looking up stuff for the robo RPG and at first I thought I was having tech problems with the page loading and then I realized the 4 options available were it. Wonder what's going to happen now that the TT crowd is involved with PB. After all we'er a loud bunch.lol

I've heard comments that Kevin Siembada pretty much says that when he runs a game, he ignores most of the rule (for his own game, that he published and often wrote) which is annoying but workable-ish for an RPG, but not really how a tabletop needs to run.

Yeah, I've heard that too, including reports from the Fanfare folks who just played this past weekend.

Sort of torn on stuff like that. Yes, a good GM sometimes has to bend the rules (especially during a convention one-off campaign with 8 players, where keeping the pace up is more important than 100% rules accuracy), but on the other hand he's the primary author and He Whom All Rules And Books Must Go Before, so if there are rules that he's regularly tweaking or ignoring for the sake of pacing or fun... he's kind of in the perfect place to do something about it.

I'm not sure if I've lamented this here (or if it's been a while), but I'm kind of appalled by communities that are so insular and resistant to critique that they curry such a cult-like following. Giving and receiving constructive criticism are good skills to have, and as a business it shouldn't be seen as a slight to simply suggest that it might be possible to revise things to be better. I mean, I give critique of things I love all the time; it shouldn't be that difficult to separate the "OMG SQUEEEEEEE!" fanboy/fangirl within from the rational "but while I'm squee'ing, there are a few things that I think could do with another round of revision..." side.

Yeah, this weekend I made my weekly foray into the official palladium boards and found some interesting comments. One guy apparently was comparing the palladium RPG to famous works of art and proclaiming that Paizo should beg palladium to use their system and two others (who apparently volunteer/work for palladium) were proclaiming that Kevin S's ignoring of his own rules for the sake of game pacing somehow proves the superiority of the system. Major house ruling on the fly for the sake of game pacing (as long as it is done WITH the agreement of most players) is the mark of a good GM and has no reflection on the quality of the rules system.

Anyone can take any RPG out there and simply ignore things... ignoring what is written doesn't prove anything about what is written. You can run an RPG game with rock paper scissors and replace scissors with DODGEBALL! but that doesn't mean it's a good RPG system even if the players have fun during a one off session. It's the mark of a good system when you can play it RAW and it both mechanically works and you have a good time.

If I wanted to be really snarky, I'd take all these reports of Kevin ignoring rules for the sake of pacing/expediency and say that apparently he agrees that the system is garbage but the setting is awesome.

There are a couple of folks on those forums who simply *loathe* that stance whenever it shows up.

Hrm, might have to be my opening volley if things start to slide really badly and the apologists come out in full force.

Again.

If ignores his own rules I'm not surprised he ignores the community at large. All this shows is that he's being hypocritical. The system can't handle apperantly certain situations. What does he do ignore his own rules. Does anyone know if the FFG crew do this all the time? I doubt it happens as much as it does in games using the PB system.

I noticed similar comments about the art. Honestly I don't see the big deal. Much of it has a Saturday morning cartoon look to it. At least kawamorri and crew illustrate the valks in a more realistic looking fashion. That's all personal preference tho.

Just like Forar I noticed the fanboiesm of the PB crowd. On their forums and the ks comments section. Apperantly PB can do no wrong. At least next time the PB apologist jump on Forar or anyone else for calling a spade a spade at least we can show that it's not all unicorns and rainbows with those links. Try linking those links at the PB forums.lol

I think the way PB treats freelancers is terrible. Aren't the ND freelancing for PB?

 Forar wrote:

Sort of torn on stuff like that. Yes, a good GM sometimes has to bend the rules (especially during a convention one-off campaign with 8 players, where keeping the pace up is more important than 100% rules accuracy), but on the other hand he's the primary author and He Whom All Rules And Books Must Go Before, so if there are rules that he's regularly tweaking or ignoring for the sake of pacing or fun... he's kind of in the perfect place to do something about it.

My personal rule when GMing is to keep any book look-ups to a minimum.

OTOH a big complaint when a player is I don't like it when my character is made to do X, the GM is aware that I'm good at X, and I find out that X is now Y and I'm totally useless. Not fun.

 Forar wrote:

I'm not sure if I've lamented this here (or if it's been a while), but I'm kind of appalled by communities that are so insular and resistant to critique that they curry such a cult-like following. Giving and receiving constructive criticism are good skills to have, and as a business it shouldn't be seen as a slight to simply suggest that it might be possible to revise things to be better. I mean, I give critique of things I love all the time; it shouldn't be that difficult to separate the "OMG SQUEEEEEEE!" fanboy/fangirl within from the rational "but while I'm squee'ing, there are a few things that I think could do with another round of revision..." side.

Yeah, echo chambers are bad. My personal guidelines for running any sort of forum is to try to only silence people who aren't being productive, btu complaints are totally valid and need to be allowed. Deleting negative comments doesn't help things.

After reading about how quick PB are to shut down fan sites. You mean to tell me if I come up with conversions for using other mecha in my games of RRT I'll get a CaD letter? Ridiculous.

Tread lightly Mike.

And on the Palladium forums I hear a lot of echoes. It's almost like there is no substance there. Just a bunch of resounding walls.

 Cypher-xv wrote:
After reading about how quick PB are to shut down fan sites. You mean to tell me if I come up with conversions for using other mecha in my games of RRT I'll get a CaD letter? Ridiculous.

Tread lightly Mike.

Pretty much. They supposedly *CURRENTLY* don't mind you creating material wholey within the megaverse but they don't want you using any other source of inspiration. If you come up with stats for using Gundams or Heavy Gears in Robotech Tactics you'll probably get a letter. Hell, they're likely so full of themselves and their twisted perversion of IP rights that they'd try to get you to stop using your robotech minis in other games if you came up with stats for them.

I was told in an email when I asked them to make counters that they would not but that mine were cool to use. I was just prohibited from sharing them.

Even though I think they are still on my google drive. I need to get around to remedying that.

 Balance wrote:
My personal rule when GMing is to keep any book look-ups to a minimum.

OTOH a big complaint when a player is I don't like it when my character is made to do X, the GM is aware that I'm good at X, and I find out that X is now Y and I'm totally useless. Not fun.

***snip***

Yeah, echo chambers are bad. My personal guidelines for running any sort of forum is to try to only silence people who aren't being productive, btu complaints are totally valid and need to be allowed. Deleting negative comments doesn't help things.

No issues with the DP9 policing and I've posted a fair amount of criticism over the years. I also agree with the first part. House rules can be a fun or even necessary addition to an RPG ruleset and I've used plenty in my day (like streamlining player turns when all 8 players in an rpg campaign show up instead of the usual 2-3 no shows). They should however be discussed and hopefully agreed upon ahead of time. That's not much of an issue with convention one-off games because most players are amenable to trying new things with characters that they haven't invested time into developing themselves. That's not however the case with minis games as they're a simple social agreement usually between two players to follow a certain framework for a joint activity. Unfortunately, palladium's typical framework is more like a partly collapsed barn on a far off farm that has yet to be condemned. I don't want to have to carry a page of work arounds that has to be agreed upon in order for Robotech Tactics to work as written. With Palladium, I'm likely to need to do that and come up with it on my own as they neither publish game mechanics that work nor do they feel the need to fix or clarify them. Hopefully they won't muck around too much with the rules.

I wish someone who went to the detroit convention had taken pictures as I'm curious if the unit/model cards used there were any different from gencon. If they weren't different, it begs the question of just what they hell they've been doing for the past 10 weeks during those supposed 16 hours a day 7days a week work weeks. If they are different, I'd really like to know what changes they've been making both in response to the KS comments and feedback they've gotten at cons and their own site. I've got my own list of potential issues that I contacted them about on multiple venues that I'm curious to see if any were addressed.

 warboss wrote:

 Balance wrote:
My personal rule when GMing is to keep any book look-ups to a minimum.

OTOH a big complaint when a player is I don't like it when my character is made to do X, the GM is aware that I'm good at X, and I find out that X is now Y and I'm totally useless. Not fun.

***snip***

Yeah, echo chambers are bad. My personal guidelines for running any sort of forum is to try to only silence people who aren't being productive, btu complaints are totally valid and need to be allowed. Deleting negative comments doesn't help things.

No issues with the DP9 policing and I've posted a fair amount of criticism over the years. I also agree with the first part. House rules can be a fun or even necessary addition to an RPG ruleset and I've used plenty in my day (like streamlining player turns when all 8 players in an rpg campaign show up instead of the usual 2-3 no shows). They should however be discussed and hopefully agreed upon ahead of time. That's not much of an issue with convention one-off games because most players are amenable to trying new things with characters that they haven't invested time into developing themselves. That's not however the case with minis games as they're a simple social agreement usually between two players to follow a certain framework for a joint activity. Unfortunately, palladium's typical framework is more like a partly collapsed barn on a far off farm that has yet to be condemned. I don't want to have to carry a page of work arounds that has to be agreed upon in order for Robotech Tactics to work as written. With Palladium, I'm likely to need to do that and come up with it on my own as they neither publish game mechanics that work nor do they feel the need to fix or clarify them. Hopefully they won't muck around too much with the rules.

I wish someone who went to the detroit convention had taken pictures as I'm curious if the unit/model cards used there were any different from gencon. If they weren't different, it begs the question of just what they hell they've been doing for the past 10 weeks during those supposed 16 hours a day 7days a week work weeks. If they are different, I'd really like to know what changes they've been making both in response to the KS comments and feedback they've gotten at cons and their own site. I've got my own list of potential issues that I contacted them about on multiple venues that I'm curious to see if any were addressed.

Shoot, I'd be happy with the stats from another unit or two and a bit more on the rules.

 warboss wrote:

 Cypher-xv wrote:
After reading about how quick PB are to shut down fan sites. You mean to tell me if I come up with conversions for using other mecha in my games of RRT I'll get a CaD letter? Ridiculous.

Tread lightly Mike.

Pretty much. They supposedly *CURRENTLY* don't mind you creating material wholey within the megaverse but they don't want you using any other source of inspiration. If you come up with stats for using Gundams or Heavy Gears in Robotech Tactics you'll probably get a letter. Hell, they're likely so full of themselves and their twisted perversion of IP rights that they'd try to get you to stop using your robotech minis in other games if you came up with stats for them.

I hope they don't do that. Many of the backers bought in to use them for BT. Even GW doesn't go around policing people's games. If this is the route PB takes then I don't see the rest of their ks projects taking off. Why bother when you can't do what you want with your own minis.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
I don't like the idea of a GAME company acting like the community Gestapo.

Well, people will of course be free to use RRT figures as proxies in other systems however they like. If you're using someone else's rules but those figures, they should thank you for your purchase and that's the end of that.

Inserting other figures/product lines into RRT, however, I can see being another concern, and more importantly, would tie in nicely with the game being a direct descendant of the RPG. Use copyright/trade mark terms all over the place and I imagine it becomes easier if one feels the need to get litigious over something.

Then again, this all assumes that the RRT rules are good/fun enough that people bother adopting things on a broader scale anyway. As usual, nobody will care if some guy stats up 800 different Gundam for he and his buddies to use in his basement. If he compiles it all into a pdf and starts selling it, however, I could see that being an issue.

Even trickier, I suspect, will be the people who come up with stats for figures that aren't covered under the RRT license but do exist in Robotech/Macross/DYRL/Macross Hyper Super Duper Tournament Fighter Edition/etc. The things everyone was so disappointed to not have a model for in the actual game. You just know that fans will immediately begin stat'ing those things up as soon as the rules get out, at which point it'll be a giant game of internet wide whack-a-mole.

And the harder they fight, the more C&D letters they send, and the later this is delivered, the harder they'll have to fight to bring people onboard for the next campaign, assuming there is one.

I don't know about you guys, but some of this bull is worth holding their feet to the fire over the next time they ask for a couple million in advance on a no-interest (10% haircut aside) loan.

If that happens I can imagine that turning me away from PB altogether. What happened to the fanboies that wanted to talk about RRT? I bet the minute one of the links in this thread were to be posted on the ks comments section, that's when they come out.

From the latest "murmur" (more on that later);

Even the Weekly Update won't get posted till Friday. I'm only half-way through writing it and I need to leave for home. There is a lot of news and things to talk about this Update.

How much effort can it take? Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, adjust a few time references, open thesaurus, use "wacky mad-lib" style update generator, post to internet. Gotta be a 10 minute detail, tops. :-P

But as an aside, and this is something that's been bothering me for a while... does anyone else find it a bit weird that the company big chief has his own "this is what I ate for breakfast, this is the last movie I saw, man I'm glad I'm walking around the block more" section of the forums? Like... does anyone really care?

I love what Gabe Newell has done to revitalize PC gaming, I really don't give a gak how much he's liking this current bunch of grapefruit they're having with breakfast these days or that he's super glad to finally have finished reading *insert novel here*.

With recognition that my long running nitpick streak may simply have me ranting at nothing these days.

Forar, I have no doubt that some of the people who post on PB's forums would gladly crowdfund the production of collected poop on a stick from the palladium parking lot if it were labelled OfficialTM PalladiumTM Dog BoyTM DroppingsTM. They'd likely also run to the Gencon booth to get the popsicle stick signed by the genius who brought such a gift to the market!

In his defense, it's his forum and if he wants to give you more info on his last colonoscopy or the effectiveness of his current Type II Diabetes treatment regiment (both seriously covered in the past year in more detail than the current status of the over $1,000,000 kickstarter), that's his choice. Our choice is to never fund anything of his again. I'm reserving my judgement for when I receive the final product but the path towards that product is reminding me month after month why I stopped supporting palladium on any regular basis long ago.

Guys, I'm no PB or KS fanboy, and I didn't go in as hard as many of you did, but I'm still in it for a bit over $400. "We might deliver in October" BS aside, and even bearing that December isn't going to happen. - And if they Miss December, we're really looking at March/April for our stuff to arrive in the US and then get sent out to us, as all of the relevant bits of China to us seem to shut down for all of February.

So, useless, bs and excuse-filled updates aside, a three-four month delay (assuming we get the stuff in March-April) is pretty much par for the course for this sort of thing, and actually better than a lot of campaigns.

I mean, the bar is pretty fething low at this point, but there we are...

Folks are getting anxious again over at the ks comms section. Seems like thier just as tired of the same BS that has gotten PB thru the years. Kevin needs to understand with us mini wargamer types were a little different from some of our RPG only brethren. Will he adapt? Probably not until there's enough criticism at cons and the PB open house and such. Because the way he tells it only a super duper tiny group is dissatisfied.

I think Kev and PB in general might be in for a rude awaking. At least GW doesn't send the game police after you for trying out different ways of playing with your stuff and sharing it.

 Forar wrote:

But as an aside, and this is something that's been bothering me for a while... does anyone else find it a bit weird that the company big chief has his own "this is what I ate for breakfast, this is the last movie I saw, man I'm glad I'm walking around the block more" section of the forums? Like... does anyone really care?

I love what Gabe Newell has done to revitalize PC gaming, I really don't give a gak how much he's liking this current bunch of grapefruit they're having with breakfast these days or that he's super glad to finally have finished reading *insert novel here*.

I think if you've got a 'face of the company' that does interesting stuff, that's great and worth posting to maintain interest. If it's just boring updates "wrote a bit today. had to fix grammar on page 22" that's not so good. Steve Jackson's recent tragedy (his house was destroyed by the flooding in Texas) will probably be a major event on his company's newsletter, which sends out some sort of update every day. SJG has several 'vocies' for the newsletter, so if Steve Jackson is having a quiet day someone else can fill in.

I had not heard about SJ. I hope he an his family are ok.

As for what I ate for breakfast stuff... I could care less. Today or tomorrow is the next update and hopefully it's not anymore cut an past BS telling us that we'll love it. >_<

To be clear, it's not like it drives me into a frenzy of violence and destruction.

Just... it's a bit weird. Like someone has a journal and feels the need to post pages of it on Facebook. And that someone is the boss of the company. I just don't see why anyone would bother posting about the mundane stuff in the background so often.

But as I said, I recognize that it might just be nitpiking. It's not like I'll be sending them nasty mail about how little I care about their daily jog or whatever.

However, as stated elsewhere, if this is another cut and paste...

PB/ND raised over 1m, you'd think PB or the ninjas would set aside a small budget to hire more people to help out. It's silly that PB sometimes depends on fanboies to help for free getting their product out of the warehouse. It's very unprofessional and it's a cause of concern if that's how PB plans to have our minis handled. Since it's free help an its fanboies doing the work, it's not like Kevin will be cracking the whip and I doubt the fanboies are in the best of shape to pack or load our stuff. So I imagine sluggish activity at the PB warehouse.

Where are you seeing this?

Do... do they seriously have volunteer workers fulfilling sales, or am I misreading you?

 Forar wrote:
Where are you seeing this?

Do... do they seriously have volunteer workers fulfilling sales, or am I misreading you?

IIRC they have posted in the past for fans to come and help them with big physical projects like moving to their current location from their old location. I don't pretend to have any knowledge about what they'll do when the Robotech stuff comes in next year (hopefully) but I'd guess that the sheer volume of boxes/minis will dwarf anything that they're currently handling.

That's were I got my info from. The PB post. So imagine fanboies who were in college in the 80's hauling axx to pack our stuff.

 warboss wrote:

IIRC they have posted in the past for fans to come and help them with big physical projects like moving to their current location from their old location. I don't pretend to have any knowledge about what they'll do when the Robotech stuff comes in next year (hopefully) but I'd guess that the sheer volume of boxes/minis will dwarf anything that they're currently handling.

Doesn't Palladium have a Big Huge Warehouse? Which means they're going to want to sue it, so getting the produced minis in and shipping them out themselves, instead of working with a fulfillment/logistics subcontractor, I guess. As big as this deal seems to be, I wonder if not getting outside help could lead to a costing more than subbing it out.

I just want to see if we get a real update or another cut n past job. I got $10 on the latter.

 Balance wrote:

 warboss wrote:

IIRC they have posted in the past for fans to come and help them with big physical projects like moving to their current location from their old location. I don't pretend to have any knowledge about what they'll do when the Robotech stuff comes in next year (hopefully) but I'd guess that the sheer volume of boxes/minis will dwarf anything that they're currently handling.

Doesn't Palladium have a Big Huge Warehouse? Which means they're going to want to sue it, so getting the produced minis in and shipping them out themselves, instead of working with a fulfillment/logistics subcontractor, I guess. As big as this deal seems to be, I wonder if not getting outside help could lead to a costing more than subbing it out.

I've never been to one of their open houses but when they moved a few years back it was to a smaller location from the details they gave in their posts. They had an open call for fans willing to come help with the move since this was at the height of their financial troubles. There isn't anything wrong with that btw if the fans are willing but it does increase the likelihood of them doing it again despite being flush with money this time around.