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Who needs the PDFs anyway? With few exceptions there is a glut of palladium RPG books out there on the secondary market.

I sold my copies a few years ago. I didn't want them anymore, and if you gave me the PDF's for free, I'd delete them. Heck, I'd even delete them if you PAID ME to download them. Go bankrupt already Palladium Books.

I don't think I've ever felt so strongly about wishing that something would wither and die, but man PB sure make that feeling boil to the top.

 megatrons2nd wrote:
I sold my copies a few years ago. I didn't want them anymore, and if you gave me the PDF's for free, I'd delete them. Heck, I'd even delete them if you PAID ME to download them. Go bankrupt already Palladium Books.
I don't think I've ever felt so strongly about wishing that something would wither and die, but man PB sure make that feeling boil to the top.

If only more people felt the same.
I agree completely.
Allowing PDFs is a serious change for them.
Must be scratching their heads on how SW-R Kickstarter made so much money on a "piracy rife" medium.
To see change of this nature means some motivation is out there, short on cash is the most logical.
I wonder if they are released scans as images so the text is non-searchable?
It would be the funny thing they would do.

I am sure the "big plans" all have to do with some kind of book.
The scenario book was pretty much done for them so it is within the threshold of consideration, to work on, edit and sleep on it, to eventually, release, send to printer to then receive, when finished, to stock.
Please may they run out of money "soon".

Finally actually broke down and crunched numbers. I know others have done it as well. However, based off of my pledge level plus the add ons, I have found that the Showdown would have given $810 worth of stuff, using the amounts on the campaign. My add ons were another $75. The average mark up was 65.2% over the listed items from the campaign to release. Unless they had a substantial mark up to make a profit on the Kickstarter, there is no money left.

$260-$810=$-550

My add ons wouldn't affect the loss per person.

The received items come to $410 pre mark up and $587.30 post mark up.

The outstanding items come to $400 pre mark up and $660.80 post mark up.
My personal outstanding items come to $475 pre mark up and $784.70 post mark up.

Palladium needs to learn how to do some math, because the project was a loss all the way around. They are out of money, and can not continue this project. They have horribly mismanaged their money, project, campaign, and the goodwill of it's customers.

Add a little sum of around $250k that Palladium will need to find to distribute Wave 2 if by some miracle it ever got produced.

Easy to see why a impoverished company like Palladium is NOT going to give us our new toys, but WILL lie through its teeth, to keep pusihng the nonesense that they are still working on it

While I don't disagree that Palladium have likely woefully mishandled the money, the way you've calculated things isn't the way things work.

Once setup has been paid for, a Battlecry would literally cost cents on the dollar. If a Core box cost more than $15 to produce, I'd be surprised. Quite possibly below $10. Add in another couple of dollars for the BC expansion, and a bit more for shipping from China to Michigan, and if a BC cost much more than $30 total, I'd be shocked.

When it comes to printing, both card but especially plastic, it's the initial setup and volume that's important. The cost to set up the printers, and manufacture the molds. As 6000+ Starter boxes were made for backers (allegedly ~17,000 ordered by PB), that cost gets defrayed across those. Counting back, let's say the average shipping on product is $20 out of each BC price. Cheaper for domestic, more expensive for internationals. That might seem too low for internationals, but they also paid extra. I know my packages that I was owed had $100 in shipping added).

So, that's $130 paid, - $30 production, - $20 intrinsic retail shipping = $80.

$80 x 6000 backer BC's = $480,000 for setup. Assuming all printed material and miscellaneous components (templates, dice, etc) count for two sprues worth of cost, and there are 10 actual sprues. That's $40,000 per sprue. Which is well above what PB should have spent.

So, if PB had done their job properly, they would have still made money (not much, but some) on each Battlecry they shipped. "But why Kickstart if thats the crappy return?" I've seen some argue. Because those setup costs are done and paid for. They make a modest profit on what they sold to backers. But for any excess material (retail copies), they're making reasonable bank through distribution, and mucho bank through their own webstore, or at conventions.

The problem came with the stretch goals (there's at least another 8+ sprues to be made*). And because of mismanagement, they're going to have to do another round of retail shipping. And it's alleged (but not proven), that they spent backer funds on retail product (the extra 11K boxes I mentioned earlier) that they have had trouble shifting at regular prices. And it doesn't help that costs have increased annually for shipping and production at a rate that far outpaces anything but the riskiest of investment regarding any unspent capital.
* This does NOT count the sprues of product outside a BattleCry, like the Monster or the YF-4 as that uses a different set of math.

So, the initial project wasn't doomed to failure on the original numbers, and could quite possibly have made PB a tidy sum AND given backers what they were owed.

However, with PB's mismanagement of production, mishandling of time, mishandling of shipping, and allegedly mishandling of overstock, even if there is money unspent, the amount needed to complete the project is likely impossible to produce without PB going heavily into debt, and definitely not enough to issue refunds. And that's why backers are in this limbo of promises as Kevin tries to figure a way out, without going bankrupt.

At least Carmen appears to have been smart enough to have formed a separate LLC for his project. Assuming it funds, he can pay himself back all the money he's currently invested (which is apparently high 5 figures), after which if it goes pear shaped, he can just walk away. Kevin, trying to capitalize on his company's name, doesn't have that option as he directly tied RRT to his own business. So that's why he'll be screwed if the project "fails". Fails in a legal definition, I mean. We know it's failed in a commercial, public relations, and principled way.

Morgan Vening wrote:
While I don't disagree that Palladium have likely woefully mishandled the money, the way you've calculated things isn't the way things work.

Once setup has been paid for, a Battlecry would literally cost cents on the dollar. If a Core box cost more than $15 to produce, I'd be surprised. Quite possibly below $10. Add in another couple of dollars for the BC expansion, and a bit more for shipping from China to Michigan, and if a BC cost much more than $30 total, I'd be shocked.

When it comes to printing, both card but especially plastic, it's the initial setup and volume that's important. The cost to set up the printers, and manufacture the molds. As 6000+ Starter boxes were made for backers (allegedly ~17,000 ordered by PB), that cost gets defrayed across those. Counting back, let's say the average shipping on product is $20 out of each BC price. Cheaper for domestic, more expensive for internationals. That might seem too low for internationals, but they also paid extra. I know my packages that I was owed had $100 in shipping added).

So, that's $130 paid, - $30 production, - $20 intrinsic retail shipping = $80.

$80 x 6000 backer BC's = $480,000 for setup. Assuming all printed material and miscellaneous components (templates, dice, etc) count for two sprues worth of cost, and there are 10 actual sprues. That's $40,000 per sprue. Which is well above what PB should have spent.

So, if PB had done their job properly, they would have still made money (not much, but some) on each Battlecry they shipped. "But why Kickstart if thats the crappy return?" I've seen some argue. Because those setup costs are done and paid for. They make a modest profit on what they sold to backers. But for any excess material (retail copies), they're making reasonable bank through distribution, and mucho bank through their own webstore, or at conventions.

The problem came with the stretch goals (there's at least another 8+ sprues to be made*). And because of mismanagement, they're going to have to do another round of retail shipping. And it's alleged (but not proven), that they spent backer funds on retail product (the extra 11K boxes I mentioned earlier) that they have had trouble shifting at regular prices. And it doesn't help that costs have increased annually for shipping and production at a rate that far outpaces anything but the riskiest of investment regarding any unspent capital.
* This does NOT count the sprues of product outside a BattleCry, like the Monster or the YF-4 as that uses a different set of math.

So, the initial project wasn't doomed to failure on the original numbers, and could quite possibly have made PB a tidy sum AND given backers what they were owed.

However, with PB's mismanagement of production, mishandling of time, mishandling of shipping, and allegedly mishandling of overstock, even if there is money unspent, the amount needed to complete the project is likely impossible to produce without PB going heavily into debt, and definitely not enough to issue refunds. And that's why backers are in this limbo of promises as Kevin tries to figure a way out, without going bankrupt.

At least Carmen appears to have been smart enough to have formed a separate LLC for his project. Assuming it funds, he can pay himself back all the money he's currently invested (which is apparently high 5 figures), after which if it goes pear shaped, he can just walk away. Kevin, trying to capitalize on his company's name, doesn't have that option as he directly tied RRT to his own business. So that's why he'll be screwed if the project "fails". Fails in a legal definition, I mean. We know it's failed in a commercial, public relations, and principled way.

The more I read here on this forum the more I keep banging my head again't the wall. .Thank Morgan Vening for the information. Now the problem is where do the backer go from here?

DEZOAT wrote:
The more I read here on this forum the more I keep banging my head again't the wall. .Thank Morgan Vening for the information. Now the problem is where do the backer go from here?

Sadly, short of government department intervention (and I see that as unlikely in the current political climate), or a large class action lawsuit (even less likely), the only remaining action is trying to convince either PB (least likely option) or Kickstarter (arguably the most likely*) that the project is a failure, and the requirements of failure in that situation be enacted.

* Note, that's still not a big chance. It's like saying you're most likely to be killed by a lightning strike (1:10M) than you are to be killed by a falling coconut (1:250M). While the former is more likely, the chance of either, is effectively zero.

Basically, the choices available to you are limited to the following.
- Accept the money is gone, give up, and move on with your life.
- Spend a lot of money, time and energy trying to fight, and likely get nothing back.
- Remain angry, demand answers/resolution/restitution.
- Be a constant thorn, and mock or annoy Palladium as a means of not letting them just be able to walk away from fething this up.

It's pretty clear which option I've chosen. I think it's better for your health than the third, and better for your wallet than the second. But if you can manage the first, and are OK with leaving it up to karma than doing it yourself, that's arguably the best choice for a backer.

Morgan Vening wrote:

DEZOAT wrote:
The more I read here on this forum the more I keep banging my head again't the wall. .Thank Morgan Vening for the information. Now the problem is where do the backer go from here?

Sadly, short of government department intervention (and I see that as unlikely in the current political climate), or a large class action lawsuit (even less likely), the only remaining action is trying to convince either PB (least likely option) or Kickstarter (arguably the most likely*) that the project is a failure, and the requirements of failure in that situation be enacted.

* Note, that's still not a big chance. It's like saying you're most likely to be killed by a lightning strike (1:10M) than you are to be killed by a falling coconut (1:250M). While the former is more likely, the chance of either, is effectively zero.

Basically, the choices available to you are limited to the following.
- Accept the money is gone, give up, and move on with your life.
- Spend a lot of money, time and energy trying to fight, and likely get nothing back.
- Remain angry, demand answers/resolution/restitution.
- Be a constant thorn, and mock or annoy Palladium as a means of not letting them just be able to walk away from fething this up.

It's pretty clear which option I've chosen. I think it's better for your health than the third, and better for your wallet than the second. But if you can manage the first, and are OK with leaving it up to karma than doing it yourself, that's arguably the best choice for a backer.

I know what you mean. My choice is to Be a constant thorn, and mock or annoy Palladium as a means of not letting them just be able to walk away from fething this up. That what left on PB facebook for the last update.

Morgan Vening - you bring up a VERY good point!

Really, Kevin is most likely desperately trying to avoid bankruptcy, even though at this point it is inevitable.

He can't complete his obligations here, but as long as he's 'working on it', and there are no pending legal tidal waves of destruction, he can play out the string for a while longer.

As he nears 'retirement' age (is he...already there?), he'll finally realize the game is up, declare bankruptcy, and that will be that.

And there's probably no where near enough actual assets left in "Palladium" to do anyone any good.

Because if you leave something boiling for this long?

It all evaporates away...

@Alpharius,

You couple that with the fact that Kevin has structured Palladium in such a way that without him, it's dead regardless. It appears he's the one that does everything but menial crap. He writes. He edits. He sources. He directs art. He promotes. He has the final say on anything and everything. And yes, that is his prerogative. Wayne and Alex's jobs appear to be doing the crap he doesn't want to do, protecting him from the haterz, and blowing smoke up Kevin's ass about how awesome Kevin is. Seriously, I can't think of a thing either of those two have been given the lead on, other than Wayne managing the Rifter. And I'd bet what I'm owed by Palladium that Kevin still oversees everything in that regard.

But it means that even if there wasn't this threat of bankruptcy in play, Palladium Books likely wouldn't last more than a year or so past the departure of Kevin from the company. They might be able to hold out a little longer in selling backstock, but as a company capable of actually producing new product (even at the anemic rate that they currently do), I think that'd be about it.

And as we know with the constant touting of "30+ years in the industry", legacy is important to Kevin. Meaning he may stay with the company until either he's incapable of continuing, or the company is. As for retirement, he's just turned 61. So if he chooses that route, according to Google, he can retire in just over 11 months at 75%. Though the longer he can drag it out, up to another 5 years, at age 66, he moves towards 100%. So that's also a possible tactic. As PB appears to be Incorporated, I believe that means he isn't personally liable for any debts beyond assets held.

So I don't immediately dismiss the possibility of a "Peace! Out!" mic drop in the first week of April next year. That's definitely achievable. Alex should be fine, being Kevin's contemporary (and older by at least 3 months). But Wayne better get his resume in order, because else he's screwed. Hope he learnt some actual tradecraft and marketable skills.

Unless Kevin has his own succession plans for Wayne.

Morgan Vening wrote:


And as we know with the constant touting of "30+ years in the industry", legacy is important to Kevin. Meaning he may stay with the company until either he's incapable of continuing, or the company is. As for retirement, he's just turned 61. So if he chooses that route, according to Google, he can retire in just over 11 months at 75%. Though the longer he can drag it out, up to another 5 years, at age 66, he moves towards 100%. So that's also a possible tactic. As PB appears to be Incorporated, I believe that means he isn't personally liable for any debts beyond assets held.

If PB were at some point to go into bankruptcy, I have a feeling the investigation that would follow would turn up several instances of Kevin intermingling his personal funds and PB's (moreso him throwing money into the sinking ship than taking out, but questionable enough someone could ram a lawsuit down his throat, if they felt vindictive enough). I suspect this would be reason alone that Kev will never willingly retire from his post, no matter how bad things get at PB.

And I'm pretty sure its only going to get worse as the years flit on by as we wait.

The other thing strange is why Kevin would even tell the public what his print count was on things...
I know of any other companies that do that... Games Workshop have limited runs but they normally
don't say how many..
When the Rift Cards came out, Kevin told the world they only had 150 of them printed.. that is at the
level of someone working out of their basement; not a globally known company with thirty years experience.

I looked at my backing and RTT was the highest money amount that I spent on any kickstarter and most
was add on items. We are already into May and still no real dates... There is no RTT, Kevin will continue
to say he is working on it.. (Legal reason I'm sure) and will either go bankrupt or die before it will ever be
released.

Kevin is all about over-flaunting any actual work that is done for his company, it's all just puffery, because if he ACTUALLY does any work, for his company these days, that's an AMAZING accomplishment.

It's like that bad employee who never does any work, but if he does you'll hear about it for days, if not weeks afterward - and exactly how grueling that average half-day's worth of work was.

However, other companies have sometimes stated their print run numbers; I forget if it was for 3E or 4E D&D, for example, that WotC announced their initial print run of 100,000 <EDIT: Sorry, I dropped a "0"> PHB's sold out at release - and they were having to do a second print run.

 Genoside07 wrote:
The other thing strange is why Kevin would even tell the public what his print count was on things...
I know of any other companies that do that... Games Workshop have limited runs but they normally
don't say how many..
When the Rift Cards came out, Kevin told the world they only had 150 of them printed.. that is at the
level of someone working out of their basement; not a globally known company with thirty years experience.

I looked at my backing and RTT was the highest money amount that I spent on any kickstarter and most
was add on items. We are already into May and still no real dates... There is no RTT, Kevin will continue
to say he is working on it.. (Legal reason I'm sure) and will either go bankrupt or die before it will ever be
released.

actually giving numbers is a poor man's selling pitch, to drive fervor for the product and increase sales with people wanting to get the item before it sells out.

Asterios wrote:
actually giving numbers is a poor man's selling pitch, to drive fervor for the product and increase sales with people wanting to get the item before it sells out.

Yep. The problem is, PB can't even do that right. The numbers given were incredibly low (for a publisher), and it still took several weeks (months?) and at least one convention appearance to sell out the initial print run.

It's why people question PB's financials when it comes to income. I remember someone mentioning that one released book was in the <1000 range, and another was not much more than a thousand (1200?). At 1000 books, at $20 per book, best case scenario (yes, I know it could be much lower margins), gives PB up to $40,000 in income per year from new product at their current 2 books per year rate. Add another 10K from the four rifters, and that's $50K. That's minimum wage for 3 employees in Michigan (and PB have 5 on their company profile). That doesn't take into account taxes, overheads, utilities, convention attendances, or anything else.

So everything else is back catalog for either existing customers (who seem fervent, but are likely to either have most of, or shrink via natural entropy) or new customers (and it's been mentioned that outreach appears to be both small and unemphasized).

As Stormonu pointed out, it worked for D&D as a marketing statement. The number was only released after they'd already sold out, both to show it's popularity, and to explain any delays in further reprint. Whereas PB mention it to gin up support and interest that they just don't appear to be able to get. I wonder why that is. I mean, when I think of PB, I can't help but think of how engaged they are with the gaming public at large.

Some great ideas for PB scenarios, I might as well throw my 2 cents in as well:

Kevin is all about attention and so having minions is important, they are more ego support and scut work so having a staff is important to him.

He would go well past retirement with PB if he could, it is critical for him to feel important.

I agree that financials could very well be an intermingled mess, I have seen a few small businesses with less strange owners treat the till as their personal bank account.

Now to go bankrupt? You would have to be owing money to someone that would hold you accountable like a bank (not like us... ).
He would not want a bankruptcy audit going through, critically going over the books.
I am pretty sure from PB's past history they would not get a loan so would have been running out of pocket.
All I could see happening is the inability to pay the few wages remaining and whatever is owed to their warehouse: any liens remaining, property tax and utilities.
Worst case would be closing their doors but Kevin retains the company even if running out of an office in his house: it still carries-on.

He could while away his time tormenting contracted staff, flogging his IP, publishing the Rifter, sending it out to Drive-thru RPG and waiting for the avalanche of fan-mail saying how awesome he is, maybe even sign-on with Harmony Gold as a consultant for years to come.

Unless Kevin has developed some very expensive personal habits and found less reputable places to run up a large debt, I do not see bankruptcy being a viable choice.
If the government decides to take a run at him THEN it would be the first choice to get them off his back.

let's face it kevin is not going anywhere soon. He (at least to himself) is Palladium and it his his entire raison d'etre. Outside PB ihe is just another rpg player but as the leading light of his own company he can bask in his daily sense of importance.

If his mails are to be believed he works an outrageous amount of hours and that space in his day would be hard to fill. Of course he could freelance , but I cannot see the editor/arbiter of what is great, submitting to another's critisism

So I believe he will be there till he drops and as such it does not bode well for us getting anything different from PB, but the patronising platitudes of the last few years.

Just got an email from PB through DriveThruRPG for the "Robotech® Ghost Ship Adventure Sourcebook, 1988 Edition" PDF.

Apparently because I downloaded some of the Wave 2 cards early on, that entitles PB to throw spam at me for an almost 30yr old book I have zero interest in.

Keep fething that chicken, Palladium. Cause I ain't buying your crap. Neither literally or figuratively.

As far as I know as far as staff...

It is Kevin, Wayne, and Alex. Chuck is an artist, I doubt he's on the fulltime but he does go to conventions and so forth and also seems to be taking over some of Alex's duties (or way last time I called) JR, may still work with distributing/warehouse, but I'm not sure this is on a fulltime basis. The profile pages on their site (submission guidelines/everything actually) is about 12 years overdue for an update. I doubt if Palladium has very many subscribers to the Rifter anymore likely around 500-1k. And closer to 500. They probably run off 800 or so and those that don't sell get mixed for Christmas Grab Bags etc. So to me (an entirely conjecture/opinion) if they clear more than 5k a year, I'd be surprised.

If Kevin would close the building and run everything out of his garage... (and had done so 10 years ago) he'd likely be a rich man...

I was reading over the comments and noticed that a bunch of them must have been pulled. The count is now 98784 where as just yesterday I'm pretty certain it was over 98,800 because I was thinking how close it was to 99k and so following 100k. Just a thought...

I don't' post here often (obviously) but on the eve of the RBG Kickstarter camping, I hope that the commentary there doesn't go south, and if you're thinking otherwise, I humbly implore you to consider otherwise.

I didn't back like many of you so technically I have no dog in the fight. I was ahead of the curve in that regard, having experience writing for the Rifter (and how that went) and watching the other crowdsources they did prior. I even encouraged my friends to not back the project, based on the reasons of my experience.

However, as a person who has struggled with clinical depression (and I think Carmen fits that description based on his comments) I hope that things over there will not only remain civil, but members of this forum should advocate for a certain amount of civility... Has Palladium Books or KS shown it... No, but that's par for the coarse with them and lets not be them.

In the very least, take a moment before you hit post. Please.

Morgan Vening wrote:
Just got an email from PB through DriveThruRPG for the "Robotech® Ghost Ship Adventure Sourcebook, 1988 Edition" PDF.
Apparently because I downloaded some of the Wave 2 cards early on, that entitles PB to throw spam at me for an almost 30yr old book I have zero interest in.
Keep fething that chicken, Palladium. Cause I ain't buying your crap. Neither literally or figuratively.

Got the same spam.
Your external voice sounds suspiciously like my internal one.

WithintheDungeon wrote:
As far as I know as far as staff...

It is Kevin, Wayne, and Alex. Chuck is an artist, I doubt he's on the fulltime but he does go to conventions and so forth and also seems to be taking over some of Alex's duties (or way last time I called) JR, may still work with distributing/warehouse, but I'm not sure this is on a fulltime basis. The profile pages on their site (submission guidelines/everything actually) is about 12 years overdue for an update. I doubt if Palladium has very many subscribers to the Rifter anymore likely around 500-1k. And closer to 500. They probably run off 800 or so and those that don't sell get mixed for Christmas Grab Bags etc. So to me (an entirely conjecture/opinion) if they clear more than 5k a year, I'd be surprised.

If Kevin would close the building and run everything out of his garage... (and had done so 10 years ago) he'd likely be a rich man...

I was reading over the comments and noticed that a bunch of them must have been pulled. The count is now 98784 where as just yesterday I'm pretty certain it was over 98,800 because I was thinking how close it was to 99k and so following 100k. Just a thought...

I don't' post here often (obviously) but on the eve of the RBG Kickstarter camping, I hope that the commentary there doesn't go south, and if you're thinking otherwise, I humbly implore you to consider otherwise.

I didn't back like many of you so technically I have no dog in the fight. I was ahead of the curve in that regard, having experience writing for the Rifter (and how that went) and watching the other crowdsources they did prior. I even encouraged my friends to not back the project, based on the reasons of my experience.

However, as a person who has struggled with clinical depression (and I think Carmen fits that description based on his comments) I hope that things over there will not only remain civil, but members of this forum should advocate for a certain amount of civility... Has Palladium Books or KS shown it... No, but that's par for the coarse with them and lets not be them.

In the very least, take a moment before you hit post. Please.

well just out of curiousity are you aware that the building PB is in does not have Kevin's name on the lease? no it has Wayne's.

Asterios wrote:
well just out of curiousity are you aware that the building PB is in does not have Kevin's name on the lease? no it has Wayne's.

Only a couple reasons why the big boss guy would not be on the lease.
Gives a whole different view on the Wayne/Kev relationship as well.
Okay, looks like old Kevin is in a great position to walk away if need-be than I thought other than the assets in the warehouse.

I really have to stop talking about PB, their business weirdness just hurts the head.

@Asterios That is strange...

How do you know that (some sort of real-estate search or somethin' or rather) got a link?

Back when they first had their crisis, aside from all the donors Kevin also mentioned 'investors' he borrowed money from to keep palladium open.

Anyone know if all these investors have now been paid back? I think one of them was the mum of one of the staff.

Paid back? Surely Kevin believed it a gift...

I've seen mention that there have been times when the staff was "asked" to continue working despite Kevin's lack of ability to pay them. I imagine that regularly continues to this day.

Also have heard that he has more than welched on a few of his freelancers, as well. I doubt he's changed his ways in that regard.

Sure would promote extensive use of amateurs, I am sure it would just "fire up" Kev's editing and rewriting skills to squeak in another writing credit.

Well... For the record I was paid for what published. I did have to ask (more than twice) however, to get paid, and not until I flamed out (of their forum) did I get paid... I'm still not proud of that. The amount was a bit short, but it was close.

I've noticed some things which appeared later, (in book publications) which are very similar to some of the things I wrote and were edited out of my original submissions. Steve C. Trustam, said the same (I think) in the epic Bill Coffin thread, but really once you sign that contract your really unprotected... As far as the NDA goes (I actually didn't sign the last one...) So all of the above is of coarse in regards to that last NDA (lol) and submission I didn't sign. Seriously though, would Palladium really try and sue me over the amount, I doubt it and its the same reason I don't follow my own pursuits in regards to the company.

What always gets me curious is wondering how much crap their other freelancers put up with to see their stuff in print... If my limited experience is an indicator, it can't be good.

WithintheDungeon wrote:
Well... For the record I was paid for what published. I did have to ask (more than twice) however, to get paid, and not until I flamed out (of their forum) did I get paid... I'm still not proud of that. The amount was a bit short, but it was close.

I've noticed some things which appeared later, (in book publications) which are very similar to some of the things I wrote and were edited out of my original submissions. Steve C. Trustam, said the same (I think) in the epic Bill Coffin thread, but really once you sign that contract your really unprotected... As far as the NDA goes (I actually didn't sign the last one...) So all of the above is of coarse in regards to that last NDA (lol) and submission I didn't sign. Seriously though, would Palladium really try and sue me over the amount, I doubt it and its the same reason I don't follow my own pursuits in regards to the company.

What always gets me curious is wondering how much crap their other freelancers put up with to see their stuff in print... If my limited experience is an indicator, it can't be good.

Having been in contact with a number of the freelancers over the years, and somewhat to this day, the vast majority of them have never been published anywhere else and once they were published elsewhere , iirc, never submitted to PB again after that. For them getting published by PB was their only goal by and large.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

WithintheDungeon wrote:
As far as I know as far as staff...

It is Kevin, Wayne, and Alex. Chuck is an artist, I doubt he's on the fulltime but he does go to conventions and so forth and also seems to be taking over some of Alex's duties (or way last time I called) JR, may still work with distributing/warehouse, but I'm not sure this is on a fulltime basis.

Actually Chuck is an employee and Julius does in fact still "run" the warehouse (though we all know full well that Kevin cannot keep his hands off any aspect of this company so "run" likely means if something goes wrong it is immediately his fault). Kathy is also employed to some degree as she deals with billing and bookkeeping last I heard.

Now if he actually pays them at least minimum wage.....and IF they all get paid for 40 hours a week (though they all apparently work 90 hours a week or more according to Kevin's "updates'), then that is just shy of 75k a year to them in wages. They are yet to put out an actual new book this year and there is no way in fracking hell the two Rifters made a quarter of that in profit to cover the first quarter of wages let alone anything else. Add to that the indications of "printer delays" they have had since last fall....issues they never seemed to have before when every book that went to the printer was back and being shipped within two weeks like clockwork for the previous 20 years....then yeah their financial MUST a fracking mess.

In the very least, take a moment before you hit post. Please.

I agree with this sentiment but truth be told the "incident" that caused Carmen's alleged suicide attempt (and at the moment I did not doubt it occurred though but frankly we only have Carmen and Kevin's word for it unless his wife or others have factually confirmed it to the world in person, or were there, then their "proof" is nothing but hearsay at best...and I am starting to have my doubts) the comments on the RRT Kickstarter page were not some ravenous rants directed at Carmen but rather tame basically calling him out on a few things, and in my case calling him out about some of his revisionist history of things he himself said to me and backed up by another who had it said to him as well. Were there comments made that said people would be going to the Rifts KS comments to basically call him out there as well? Yes. BUt there were no raving lunatic rants by any stretch and even those that MIGHT fit only started appearing after Carmen himself escalated things. So while I agree with your sentiment, and we should always try to be civil, then one tends to stop being civil when one gets treated uncivilly.

Latest PBWU is up.

Three full pages of advertising for gRifts to start it out, ending with a link to the Rogue Heroes FB page, which hasn't had a new post in over a week. Kickstarter is due to start 3pm Monday.

Then a full page ad for a Chaos Earth sale.

Then another full page of "Here's the stuff that's coming out". Including announcing that Garden of the Gods due out March or April. Oops, someone did a cut and paste from the wrong document. And four books actively listed as "In Production". None of which are listed as "At the Printers".

Finally, on about the sixth page, the RRT blurb.

UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™ and other books wrote:The Kickstarter for the Rifts® board game may be what’s getting a lot of attention at the moment, but Robotech® RPG Tactics™ is NOT forgotten, and it will see plenty of news and attention in the months ahead. We have a lot of plans for RRT Wave 2 and beyond that we are busy putting into place. Meanwhile, more of the original Robotech® RPG books from the 1980s and 1990s are being made available as PDF editions on DriveThruRPG.com every week. Robotech® and RRT are never out of our thoughts.

So basically, a vague admission of where the focus is, and promises that it's still being worked on, while we know gRifts and at least two books due out this month, but sure, RRT is never forgotten. Likely in an "I've got a boil on my ass" fashion. Because we know it's only an inconvenience at this point. It's not a cut and paste of last week, but there are a lot of similarities, and the same final end sentence.

And his Closing Thoughts.

Closing Thoughts wrote:I hope Rick Grimes isn’t lurking anywhere nearby, because I feel (and probably look) like one of the walking dead. There have been a lot of very long work days these past several weeks as we work on many exciting projects. I’m sure the birthday party tonight will get my blood pumping. We are celebrating the birthdays of Wayne Smith, Julius Rosenstein and myself, all of whom had birthdays over the last 34 days. I will say that seeing the video for the Rifts® Board Game Kickstarter got my heart pounding. Great stuff. That’s all for the moment. Spread the word about the Kickstarter and enjoy this week’s spring sale.

Worked on many projects. Still can't say word one about the most popular project they've had in a decade plus. Whatever.

I give this Update . I considered one more for the egregious gRifts promotion, but I was actually kinda underwhelmed at how comparatively mediocre it was.