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All very true.

Dating back decades, because this pattern of delays, long delays, and then promising more books that ended up being delayed dates back well before my time playing Rifts in the mid 90's, I can't help but feel it's actually kind of intentional.

Hear me out.

Kevin is a dreamer. He dreams of releasing a dozen books in a year, of adding a giant pile to the pending catalog and knocking them off in short order as well. Actually completing the books is a necessary evil to pay bills, but also the entire end goal to have another notch or three on his belt for 'books with my name on them'. But the way I see it, I think the enthusiasm for a new idea (at least to him, obviously the primary franchise (and most of the secondary ones) are derivative as feth) is the real spark, all the hard work holds lesser appeal.

And I think he expects True PB Fans(tm) to respond the same way. Sure, some people bemoan Mechanoid Space or Beyond the Supernatural being years or a decade late or whatever, but they keep coming back, posting on their forums, Liking their Facebook statuses, buying Grab Bags, and all that ego stroking/stream of income that comes with them.

They struggle to get Rifters out on time, and they don't even write most of that material (yeah yeah, I'm sure Kevin gives most of it a once-over to make sure his name gets top billing), and that's effectively a small magazine. As Morgan has noted a few times, they get maybe 2 non-Rifters out a year, but talk about dozens of others at various stages of completion, and then add another half dozen new things for good measure.

Whether it's a sickness or ego run wild or something else (it's not an exhaustive list), I'm beginning to suspect that the spike of dopamine he gets from 'new' ideas and the expectation that the core PB diehards feel the same way might make those kinds of statements a Feature, Not a Bug, as it were.

The system working as intended! Something else to get the True Fans excited, even if it doesn't materialize for several years (if ever), but that initial oomph of interest and enthusiasm seeing them through the rest of the day.

I could be entirely wrong, maybe they really think this is a solid way to do business, but I can't imagine this is entirely coincidental. Like their baffling silence on RRT that is counter-productive at best, they seem to have found that niche and leaned into it, regardless of the fact that it leads to a pit filled with spiders and dirty syringes. That's the path they chose and they are dedicated to pushing with all their might to go that way, reality and consequences be damned.

Edit: Hell, I even recall 20'ish years ago seeing the same pattern and at the time it was kind of endearing, in a 'oh you guys' sort of way. Especially starting out, when there was a backlog of dozens upon dozens of books to buy to catch up, and they had a semi-steady stream of new content underway, so no big deal. But as the years went by, the pattern remained, and our collections filled out with everything we were remotely interested in, it grew ever more frustrating, and was certainly part of why we abandoned the system (though really, their intentional lack of balance and the extra legwork necessary to run or play the game was most of it, D&D 3E's (comparative) balance was a refreshing breath of air when we picked it up for that reason alone).

I wonder if he does truly still enjoy writing. Or has it become a chore for him, maybe feeling some burnout?

Forar has the most of it.

My read has always been that Kevin gets excited about new products, new talent and new creations very easily. When in "the zone" he can work 20 hour days on a project to see it done.

Or at least he used to be able to.

The problem is when a project starts not to meet his expectations and no longer justifies his excitement. That's when things start to drift.

evilsmurf wrote:
I wonder if he does truly still enjoy writing. Or has it become a chore for him, maybe feeling some burnout?

I think he likes the idea of writing. Like Forar said, it seems like it's the inspiration that gets his motor going. Actually completing a project, that's uninspired.

He's simultaneously working on multiple books, and not just in a writing one, layout of another, but constantly working on several at the same stage constantly. Seriously, open any PBWU over the last 3+ years, and there's a better than even chance that he refers to multiple books he's working on.

But Kevin has also damaged his own brand... Again.. not many Game shops want to carry any of his stuff because no one is asking for it.
Just a very few fan friends that can buy direct is all that is left. Just look at the article in news and rumors here on dakka dakka, GW is one of
best performing stock in 2017. Not the Palladium has stock, but the big difference is GW saw that they where on the wrong path and needed
to do something different. Palladium wants to be like GW but doing nothing to change. Oh ya.. they hired a business manager.

Most business managers I have dealt with in the past, they would deal with day to day company issues and resolve them. Little hard for Scott doing this since
everything being worked on is a few thousand miles away, plus I am sure Kevin not telling him everything he needs to know. We can clearly see this going on.
I personally think it is Scott that is designing the RTT bases in his spare time with a free online google sculpt program.. Just to show the kickstarter
is being worked on.

So Scott's next RTT update will be about how wonderful it is to be around family for Christmas, As business manager he should know it should be product related;
He should also realize this his 12th update with no real advancement of the project..

They still tell their customers to use "word of mouth" advertising for them.

One of the problems with that, of course, is that you have to build a positive reputation for people to spread the word you want.

Kevin is looking to be a superstar.
To find that next big idea that will bring him fame.

When he says he is excited and is getting a "charge" out of some project, he is trying to get the fan-base to voice their excitement.
If he can only hear crickets chirping, he quickly moves on to something else.
The "projects" that may not see the light of day is when the silence was deafening or he ran out of resources to complete it.
He may even hope we "forget" about some of them.

His business is largely to feed his ego and priority moves to whatever gets him attention, it is as simple as that.

Having seen and met the man......in addition to years upon years of his updates, murmurs, and podcast interviews.....he is an huge narcissist with a enormously inflated ego and notion of his importance/influence/legacy to the industry.

If you go to a show and nobody has heard of you after three decades in the business, then how could you possibly think you have any relevance or legacy?

 n815e wrote:
If you go to a show and nobody has heard of you after three decades in the business, then how could you possibly think you have any relevance or legacy?

I'd argue that plenty of folks have heard of Palladium after three decades in the business (specifically past tense since new players haven't heard of them and some older ones thought they long ago went out of business). They do have a long legacy in the industry as a major player in the late 80's to early/mid 90's but that legacy doesn't guarantee a future or even current relevance. What people are hearing now (and in my experience, for over a decade since the "Crisis of Treachery" panhandling) is largely negative and that legacy (including the more recent addition of screwing over 5,000+ dedicated Robotech customers) has soured. Palladium has consistently been a historical footnote in the industry due to their prior importance as a successful IP that failed to evolve yet brought up alot of nostalgia; that footnote however is now evolving into a cautionary tale about a lethal mix of arrogance, incompetence, and crowdfunding due to their ongoing failure(s) since RRPGT. They're the SEGA of tabletop gaming.

 warboss wrote:

 n815e wrote:
If you go to a show and nobody has heard of you after three decades in the business, then how could you possibly think you have any relevance or legacy?

I'd argue that plenty of folks have heard of Palladium after three decades in the business (specifically past tense since new players haven't heard of them and some older ones thought they long ago went out of business). They do have a long legacy in the industry as a major player in the late 80's to early/mid 90's but that legacy doesn't guarantee a future or even current relevance. What people are hearing now (and in my experience, for over a decade since the "Crisis of Treachery" panhandling) is largely negative and that legacy (including the more recent addition of screwing over 5,000+ dedicated Robotech customers) has soured. Palladium has consistently been a historical footnote in the industry due to their prior importance as a successful IP that failed to evolve yet brought up alot of nostalgia; that footnote however is now evolving into a cautionary tale about a lethal mix of arrogance, incompetence, and crowdfunding due to their ongoing failure(s) since RRPGT. They're the SEGA of tabletop gaming.

Warboss is right. I spent hundreds of hours in Palladium worlds in the 90s, from Rifts and TMNT to Beyond the Supernatural and Nightbane. (and plenty of crossover adventures due to the Megaverse book). They are like that band you loved in high school that had one minor radio hit, and now you are surprised to find are still trying to make it, doing dive bars and county fairs for just enough money to have dinner and limp along to the next gig.

About a year after Rifts was published, White Wolf (1991)came along and released "Vampire Masquerade" and then the open game license "D20" system (2000) pretty much signaled their end of relevance.
The problem with being a narcissist is you believe what you do is "perfect" and spend most of your time trying to convince others of your greatness.

 Talizvar wrote:
About a year after Rifts was published, White Wolf (1991)came along and released "Vampire Masquerade" and then the open game license "D20" system (2000) pretty much signaled their end of relevance.
The problem with being a narcissist is you believe what you do is "perfect" and spend most of your time trying to convince others of your greatness.

And hiring people who will feed that self-delusion. Don't forget that, because it's important. In that warehouse in Westland, Michigan, he live in a bubble of his own creation, and the only people allowed in, are the people he hand selects to stroke his ego. Despite protestations that he doesn't hire people that will "blow smoke", that's usually followed by people blowing smoke ("You've redefined the genre!"). I'd be interested to hear of ANY sharp criticism from an employee/freelancer that Kevin has taken on board, and changed direction on, especially one where Kevin's conviction was firm, and where not changing his mind would have been the wrong thing to do.

The last caveat is because Kevin's said a couple of times that his vision/his idea/his plan was the correct one, and it was being convinced by others that lead to the latest problem, and if he'd been left to his original awesome idea, everything would have worked out perfectly. Because that wouldn't count against his narcissism for obvious reasons.

 Talizvar wrote:
About a year after Rifts was published, White Wolf (1991)came along and released "Vampire Masquerade" and then the open game license "D20" system (2000) pretty much signaled their end of relevance.
The problem with being a narcissist is you believe what you do is "perfect" and spend most of your time trying to convince others of your greatness.

I didn't like Vampire: The Masquerade as it quickly devolved into every party member trying to sleep with the one real girl who was willing to play with us. I cleverly got around this problem by playing Rifts, which no girl was willing to play.

Morgan Vening wrote:
I'd be interested to hear of ANY sharp criticism from an employee/freelancer that Kevin has taken on board, and changed direction on, especially one where Kevin's conviction was firm, and where not changing his mind would have been the wrong thing to do.

IIRC he said that people around him criticized the Robotech project because he was being too generous to backers. Apparently he really took that to heart and decided to not give us Wave 2 in any timely fashion.

 feeder wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:
About a year after Rifts was published, White Wolf (1991)came along and released "Vampire Masquerade" and then the open game license "D20" system (2000) pretty much signaled their end of relevance.
The problem with being a narcissist is you believe what you do is "perfect" and spend most of your time trying to convince others of your greatness.

I didn't like Vampire: The Masquerade as it quickly devolved into every party member trying to sleep with the one real girl who was willing to play with us. I cleverly got around this problem by playing Rifts, which no girl was willing to play.

Heh, funny you should say this, as my Rifts group started around 50/50 guys and gals. At our peak balance we had 3 women playing and 3 or 4 men, though 2 of the women lost interest in the game (RPGs in general) fairly swiftly.

And then yeah we swung in the entirely opposite direction and ended up with something like 1 woman and 7-10 guys playing, though luckily we kept the obnoxiousness you describe to a minimum.

When we took up D&D 3E we split into 2 groups with I think ~4 players and a DM apiece. That was kind of fun and interesting, as it eventually let us compare notes as to how we progressed through similar modules.

Oh yeah, having pre-written and balanced modules was SUPER CONVENIENT compared to GM'ing for Rifts, which was... challenging. Especially as groups grew in power (which wasn't handled nearly as elegantly as it is in 3E).

 feeder wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:
About a year after Rifts was published, White Wolf (1991)came along and released "Vampire Masquerade" and then the open game license "D20" system (2000) pretty much signaled their end of relevance.
The problem with being a narcissist is you believe what you do is "perfect" and spend most of your time trying to convince others of your greatness.

I didn't like Vampire: The Masquerade as it quickly devolved into every party member trying to sleep with the one real girl who was willing to play with us. I cleverly got around this problem by playing Rifts, which no girl was willing to play.

I went through some freak/goth phase so female players were rather plentiful for any Vampire role-play (1985 was when "The Vampire Lestat" was published by Anne Rice... I was 16 then).
It was live action enough going to "'Sanctuary: The Vampire Sex Bar" (Formerly known as "The Abyss") in Toronto when I turned of age to be able to go to those bars.

Palladium was never really "sexy" so tended to be a fairly hard-core nerd-base which I cannot exclude myself from.

I suspect that the number of people attending "Vampire Sex Bars" (in Toronto or otherwise) is a shocking minority of the population, let alone gamers, let alone RPG players. :-P

Funny, I know some people who used to go there, however. You might have crossed paths with one of them at some point (no idea if the timing lines up, more an idle musing). Small world.

 Forar wrote:
I suspect that the number of people attending "Vampire Sex Bars" (in Toronto or otherwise) is a shocking minority of the population, let alone gamers, let alone RPG players. :-P

Funny, I know some people who used to go there, however. You might have crossed paths with one of them at some point (no idea if the timing lines up, more an idle musing). Small world.

Suuuure... you have some "friends" who used to go there... got it. I used to go to a goth club once a year for a friends birthday celebration and it was a nice change of pace.. except for the year that I threw up the fragrant and delicious blackberry vodka drink special in a car full of clove smokers wearing rose petal perfume. #thingsthatonlyhappenwhilegothclubbing

Time for me to introduce myself.

I'm a French Robotech fan ( and i should already apologize for my terrible English) or more exactly i used to be.
I discovered PB in the early 90's when i came across the Robotech rpg books (i still got them).
I was not a backer but I have been able to pre order RRT when it became available and received my core box just before Christmas in 2015.
I've been waiting wave 2 for a long time and finally i gave up.
I'm still painting my minis (almost done) and actually have not been able to play a single game (no players in my area).
I decided to at least collect most of the mecha from the show and did some research for 3d models available (Shapeways and others).
I even began to create my own models and will probably never play the game when i will have printed them all.
I have been reading this thread for months and the KS page as well.
It is quite entertaining in a way but this projet really sounds like a bad joke.

@princecorg: Welcome!
We may sound upset most of the time but any new person showing what looks like excellent progress in the hobby is to be thanked!

I am curious, after reading for a long time, what made you decide to post now?

I still enjoy the "idea" of Robotech and I have collected enough RRT models or 3D prints to keep me busy for quite some time.

Welcome to Dakka!

@Talizvar,
The answer is not a simple one, I think mostly because after reading you and the others I wanted to say "heh, you're right about this game being a lost cause but it remains the closest thing we have and yes, a lot of people found the will to maintain and enhance it even further.
A part of me found some comfort in reading this thread day after day and that gave me strength and motivation to carry on this project.
I was a teenager when i first watched Robotech on TV (in the late 80's) and the show was incredible! I have three sons now; the two older ones were introduced to Robotech last year and liked it a lot.
So may be I should just say 'hé guys, merci beaucoup !"

Welcome aboard mom ami.

Nothing says you cannot at least try to enjoy what you have. Hi for it. Some of us have found ways to do just that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here is a link to a site I technically still maintain. It should be of quite a bit of help to you.

http://robotech-rpg-tactics.wikia.com/wiki/Robotech_RPG_Tactics_Wiki

I'm thinking things might be getting a little bit desperate. Whether it's to clear out inventory, or to generate quick revenue, it's clear that something is happening. They keep referencing significant demand, but if demand was that significant, then they wouldn't need to offer it at clearance pricing.

For the fourth time in five weeks, for "one weekend only", RRT is at 50% off. Again. It's almost as bad as the excessive CGB extensions.

But don't you worry! "It is the Number One Anime on Crackle". Despite it not being on Crackle for several weeks (if not months) at least now. Seriously, if he's gonna keep cutting and pasting the majority of a 27+ page PBWU, updating the information seems like a reasonable request.

And with 10 business days remaining before Christmas, he's still thinking he can get the first Bestiary book finished, edited, formatted, printed, and shipped before the holiday. He's a bad parody of Bullwinkle at this point. "Hey Fan-Friends! Watch me pull a book out of my ass!"



Guess that makes Scott Rocky?

@princecorg: Awesome stuff, sir. Nicely done 3d models. And your paint jobs are anime perfection!

 Talizvar wrote:

It was live action enough going to "'Sanctuary: The Vampire Sex Bar" (Formerly known as "The Abyss") in Toronto when I turned of age to be able to go to those bars.

Heh, I knew some guys who tried to get in there with bandoleers full of wooden stakes. The bouncer had a sense of humor about it, but didn't let them in.

They have a lower threshold than other companies for defining significant.

Your miniatures look great princecorg! As do your 3D models.

@Ctaylor, @Soul Samurai.
Thanks a lot !
I wanted my Robotech armies to reflect the anime style. I still have some work to do in order to achieve that.
I will be working on others 3d models as i have started to print some of them.

This conversation has taken a turn I never anticipated. I just wanted to chime in and say that goth clubs and vampire the masquerade also ended my gaming groups involvement in palladium games.

Eventually it was all club nights, girls, and the occasional cyberpunk 2020 session but that is more or less how RPG culture died in my life.