Robotech® RPG Tactics™-License lost, the end is near!

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**Swabby**

Yeah it is terrible rules writing. They are kind of notorious for that though.

**Alpharius**

Odd that he forgot to give an update on the Kickstarter during this...update on Kickstarter.

**Ctaylor**

Alpharius wrote:
Odd that he forgot to give an update on the Kickstarter during this...update on Kickstarter.

**Stormonu**

It's nice to know at Palladiumland that if something happens to someone, no one else is allowed to step in an cover for them. Most real workplaces I know of require cross-training and the ability to cover other people's tasks in case of emergency/sickness/vacation.

Would it have been so difficult for Wayne to post a notification there would be a delay in the update - or perhaps even do the update for him? I mean, he's just got to copy-pasta part of an old PBWU.

**jaymz**

Bahaha....Wayne actually DO something? Bahahaha

**CaptKaruthors**

JFC all the special characters I made are better than this crap. At least the characters I made are tied to canon somehow. Jack Archer, etc.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/dfk23r2w631k2ti/AACD_aR0HLqsTE97tX1G5QDba?dl=0

**warboss**

Capt, did you spell check your work? If so then you're one step ahead of Palladium's official "professional" card release.

**Genoside07**

Stormonu wrote:
It's nice to know at Palladiumland that if something happens to someone, no one else is allowed to step in an cover for them. Most real workplaces I know of require cross-training and the ability to cover other people's tasks in case of emergency/sickness/vacation.

Would it have been so difficult for Wayne to post a notification there would be a delay in the update - or perhaps even do the update for him? I mean, he's just got to copy-pasta part of an old PBWU.

Can you imagine an corporate improvement company reviewing Palladium games?? I am sure their first question after walking through the door is how are we going to get paid??

But the kickstarter was originally due in December 2013; Four years ago.. I am sure we will be saying the same thing this time next year..

Funny thing is the only "Releases" Robotech Tactics has gotten since its release has been digital and nothing to do with the actual things backers paid for.

By the way things are done, I really think Scott's job is paid with new palladium releases, because the work done is no more than a few hours a month at best.

**Swabby**

Remember this?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rrpgt/robotech-rpg-tacticstm/posts/1799282

**wilycoyote**

Careful Swabby, you know that Scott/Kevin will simply read this and reuse it in a few weeks time simply changing it to read 2018

Anyway enough of that, here is wishing everyone here a happy and prosperous New Year

**DEZOAT**

Swabby wrote:
Remember this?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rrpgt/robotech-rpg-tacticstm/posts/1799282

Hey that me who started this topic on facebook. Well it a look of what Kev was saying about Robotech Tactics Rpg for 2017 and now that 2017 is closing out. What have they to show for 2017 not damn thing at all. Oh by the way everyone have great Happy New Year and drink to much. Later

**Alpharius**

Swabby wrote:
Remember this?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rrpgt/robotech-rpg-tacticstm/posts/1799282

Yikes.

Update #196

Feb 3 2017

Robotech® RPG Tactics™ – 2017 release

I know it has taken a very long time to fulfill this Kickstarter, and for that I am very sorry. More sorry than some of you may be able to imagine. But we are dedicated to getting Wave 2 done and in your hands by the end of 2017. Not only that, but we want to make it amazing. Our Kickstarter backers and fans have waited so long for RRT Wave 2, that if we can make improvements we want to do so. We have been frustrated by many aspects of production that clash with what we know would make a superior product. Moreover, we want to offer organized play support, scenario books, and the next several Waves of RRT products. We have never given up on our dream to make Robotech® RPG Tactics™ amazing.

We are working on something exciting right now that, if it pans out, could change everything and help us bring you RRT Wave Two by the end of 2017. We want to bring Robotech® to life on the table top like never before, and we are working hard to make this happen.

We have not released details these many months because everything has been in motion, and still is. There have been times when we thought we had firm plans for moving forward, only to have something occur to change them – good or bad. Case in point, we had pretty much resigned ourselves to being unable to significantly lower the part count in the RRT game pieces. However, we are suddenly readdressing that as we explore new possibilities that have surfaced. In fact, I have spent most of the week on this very matter. We are working on all of this with the desire to bring you something great, not just crap it out to be done with it. We have big dreams for Robotech® on several fronts, and are trying to make them all happen. To that end we have had many positive and exciting conversations with Harmony Gold and other interested parties. I know it is a lot to ask, but please hang in there with us. We think we have something truly fun brewing.

That update was from Kevin...

**DEZOAT**

YEP!! Alpharius that is from Kev. When I read it Feb of 2017 I new it was bunch horse crap and that 2017 is closing out I was right in thinking that was horse crap.

**Merijeek**

wilycoyote wrote:
Careful Swabby, you know that Scott/Kevin will simply read this and reuse it in a few weeks time simply changing it to read 2018

Anyway enough of that, here is wishing everyone here a happy and prosperous New Year

I don't know about that. There's a better than even chance that Kevin doesn't know how to actually copy and paste.

I suspect that he actually retypes it. Every time.

**n815e**

Looking forward to wave 2 in 2018!

**Ctaylor**

Oh, yeah, 2018 will be the Year of Robotech® RPG Tactics™!

Well, maybe 2019... actually, 2020 is looking pretty good.

**Genoside07**

In retrospect as many mentioned over the coarse of 2017; I really think the 2017 plan for Robotech Tactics wave 2 was to have an amazing Rifts Kickstarter,
they could push off for a few years.

Then take the profits from it to finish paying for wave 2, since all the funds already gathered for it was either overspent or misspent.
Hoping for profits again for new products of Robotech Tactics at retail they could pay for the Rifts Kickstarter products to be produced.

With that kind of pressure on someone to succeed .. it could cause what ended up happening...

**Stormonu**

I'm quite certain they had NO plans to redirect the money from Rifts back towards RRT.

While they've shown a level of incompetence exceeding the government standard, they're apparently smart enough to know not to sink any additional funds into this sinking ship.

The Rifts KS funds went into publish the Atlanteans book, pure and simple.

**n815e**

There seemed to have been plans to use Rifts KS to manufacture wave 2. Whether it was to fund it or to produce them together to save on production and shipping.
Kevin was pushing Carmen to get the project launched earlier than Carmen wanted. Whether for an influx of cash or to get concurrent production going or whatever.

**Forar**

Plus, frankly, I don't think it costs them hundreds of thousands of dollars to do a book run. There was the chatter so very long ago assuming that NG-2 allowed them to finish NG-1, and perhaps *some* funds went into Atlanteans or some other elements, but I doubt that sum was the difference between finishing wave 2 and not finishing wave 2.

HOWEVER, funds redirected to a book (or books), keeping the lights on, spent on making and overstocking wave one on a hedged bet that it'd sell enough to make the money back and then some, paying for people and services and prototypes, I CAN imagine it being nibbled away, bit by bit, over the last 4.5 years.

I don't think they can afford to fund wave two, but I don't think any single element was the cause, I think they all were the cause in varying amounts. No easy AH HA! IT WAS THAT THING to declare, just an easy bank of money to draw from a little at a time until suddenly there's pocket change left (or maybe more, but likely not the hundreds of thousands it'd presumably cost to make, let alone ship, wave two).

**n815e**

I think that "ah ha" moment came when they abandoned the plan that the kickstarter costs were calculated on and went with whatever else.

**Stormonu**

Sorry, the "Rifts KS" I was referring to was the Savage Worlds one (run successfully) by another company (that I trust far more than PB) - if that wasn't clear.

Truthfully, I expect the royalties they received went towards bills - including Kevin's broken arm, and to fund the one or two books they pushed out this year - probably the Disavowed moreso than Atlanteans. But that Atlanteans was given the faux leather/gold filligree treatment I'm pretty sure that wasn't funded by Christmas Grab bags or poker cards.

In the end, I'm fairly certain that none of the money this year went into the sinking Titantic that was RRT. I'd be shocked if there was even actual thought of putting it aside for RRT. In my mind, if Kevin were to actually try and refund the bankrupt RRT fund, he'd do it in a one fell swoop sort of way, instead of drips and dregs.

**evilsmurf**

So what is happening with the rifts board game?

**princecorg**

I wish you a happy new year !
We all know that it will be a really HAPPY year as 2018 is ( or should become) the year of RTT !

**Talizvar**

Happy new year all.

Well RRT got a bit more of my money, kinda not really.
Getting a bunch of models in the mail that "completes" the game for me.
It cost a fair bit but I now have a form of closure.
I will be poking PB for fun but at least it will be from a happier place.

Robotech will still be a fond memory and I can now work on them with some measure of happiness.
Something about missing pieces of anything drive me a bit crazy.

Got a few more FFG SW X-wing models so the collection is complete, those alliance bombers are huge!
Playing SW Battlefront 2 for the first time, loving it very much.
I am a happy SW fanboy.
So THIS childhood "fond memory" has continued into the present and mean something to my kids.
Heck, I was playing on the same team as my eldest son in SWBF2 and I felt like I was playing the Han Solo to his Luke Skywalker (getting shot a couple times i thought he was being Kylo).
We had played paint ball the other day on opposite teams: "The dodge is strong in that one".

I look at this new year as a year of not putting up with company BS.(I will spare you my rant unless you are interested)

Spoiler:

I am still not liking my experiences with on-line / mail order compared to bricks and mortar sales.

Benefit of the doubt has been burned from my soul with companies that sell product.
Give me what I ask for as a working product, I will accept nothing less.

So I wish you all a happy year with no consumer problems.

**Seawolf**

Forar wrote:
Plus, frankly, I don't think it costs them hundreds of thousands of dollars to do a book run. There was the chatter so very long ago assuming that NG-2 allowed them to finish NG-1, and perhaps *some* funds went into Atlanteans or some other elements, but I doubt that sum was the difference between finishing wave 2 and not finishing wave 2.

If memory serves, just before this Kickstarter came into fruition, Kevin was supposedly 'betrayed' by a former partner/employee/mushroom though exact figures were never truly mentioned. He had lamented that without the help of the PB fan base there wouldn't be a company. Some sort of anniversary/special edition book was created at a rather idiotic price was offered to help Kevin recoup some of the lost funds that were supposedly stolen from him. Additionally he made reference to this in an RRT Update that said if this Kickstarter is successful, it would ease some of the financial issues he was supposedly facing. Not to beat a dead horse made into tartar... but it does sound to me like the money specifically for this Kickstarter was not used entirely for this Kickstarter. Without seeing Palladiums' financials on the Kickstarter, we'll never know more than what is said after the fact.

Forar wrote:
HOWEVER, funds redirected to a book (or books), keeping the lights on, spent on making and overstocking wave one on a hedged bet that it'd sell enough to make the money back and then some, paying for people and services and prototypes, I CAN imagine it being nibbled away, bit by bit, over the last 4.5 years.

So can I... but since this is a privately held company and the owner clearly has no intention of being transparent... we'll never know. He has said that none of the funds were used inappropriately but his word says otherwise. The less said about his reputation (or what little, if any, remains) the better.

Forar wrote:
I don't think they can afford to fund wave two, but I don't think any single element was the cause, I think they all were the cause in varying amounts. No easy AH HA! IT WAS THAT THING to declare, just an easy bank of money to draw from a little at a time until suddenly there's pocket change left (or maybe more, but likely not the hundreds of thousands it'd presumably cost to make, let alone ship, wave two).

Forar, I think there is enough circumstantial evidence built over the course of this Kickstarter to draw upon that would lead me to believe that its a perfect storm of incompetence and hubris of Kevin Siembieda. At the end of the day when everything is said and done on this matter, it falls on Kevin Siembieda's huge egotistical and narcissistic shoulders. He won't accept the responsibility for bad decision making, he won't admit he abused the backers' trust (Gak, this is the same needle-noggin' that blamed the same backers for Carmen Belleair's attempted suicide for crying out loud), he won't admit he will do nothing to finish the project, and he won't admit he failed. Simple as that.

**Alpharius**

I think we actually did learn the amount in "cash" that was stolen during The Crisis® of Threachery™ - and it didn't seem like it was that much?

"Only" $16K or something like that?

And wasn't the culprit caught, and forced to pay it back?

And not sure if the Fridge Artwork was also part of The Crisis® of Threachery™ though - and estimates of their value was, let's just say, great exaggerated.

**Morgan Vening**

Stormonu wrote:
Truthfully, I expect the royalties they received went towards bills - including Kevin's broken arm, and to fund the one or two books they pushed out this year - probably the Disavowed moreso than Atlanteans. But that Atlanteans was given the faux leather/gold filligree treatment I'm pretty sure that wasn't funded by Christmas Grab bags or poker cards.

I agree with nearly everything else you wrote int your post, except this.

Because Disavowed still hasn't been released. It's still "in production", just like it has been for a year plus. The second book PB released this year was Dark Designs. I know it's confusing, what with so many books due for imminent release. Bestiary 1 is hoped to deliver in time for Christmas (

). Disavowed is due January. As is Bestiary 2. Sovietski due February. And a Dead Reign book due in March. And I didn't pull this schedule from mid-year or something. These are all listed release dates in the last real PBWU (the December 21st PBWU was a textual stroking of Kevin's ..... ego), December 13th. He thinks just over three months out, he'll have 5 books complete.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Seawolf wrote:
So can I... but since this is a privately held company and the owner clearly has no intention of being transparent... we'll never know. He has said that none of the funds were used inappropriately but his word says otherwise. The less said about his reputation (or what little, if any, remains) the better.

Actually, he never said funds weren't used inappropriately. He was quite explicit in what he didn't spend the money on (houses, boats, vacations), but he never explicitly said money hadn't been misappropriated for other business expenses, like printing Northern Gun, or paying operating costs in disproportion to effort spent on Kickstarter fulfillment (like paying a disproportionate share of rent/utilities/wages from KS funds, compared to work on that project as opposed other projects and boondoggles). It was painfully obvious that he was dodging the most important question, of did Palladium spend Kickstarter funds on retail stock. Because of course they did.

**warboss**

Seawolf wrote:
If memory serves, just before this Kickstarter came into fruition, Kevin was supposedly 'betrayed' by a former partner/employee/mushroom though exact figures were never truly mentioned. He had lamented that without the help of the PB fan base there wouldn't be a company. Some sort of anniversary/special edition book was created at a rather idiotic price was offered to help Kevin recoup some of the lost funds that were supposedly stolen from him. Additionally he made reference to this in an RRT Update that said if this Kickstarter is successful, it would ease some of the financial issues he was supposedly facing. Not to beat a dead horse made into tartar... but it does sound to me like the money specifically for this Kickstarter was not used entirely for this Kickstarter. Without seeing Palladiums' financials on the Kickstarter, we'll never know more than what is said after the fact.

The "Crisis of Treachery" was seven years prior to the kickstarter. While I don't doubt that it caused immediate financial hardship, the rot was present long before and has continued to spread slowly since (as evidenced by them only coming out with 2 books a year for the past couple of years). The Robotech Kickstarter was likely a financial course of antibiotics to temporarily treat the systemic signs and symptoms of the gangrene but the definitive treatment, amputation of the rotten limbs/staff, never happened.

https://icv2.com/articles/games/view/8540/palladium-goes-public-crisis-treachery

Forar, I think there is enough circumstantial evidence built over the course of this Kickstarter to draw upon that would lead me to believe that its a perfect storm of incompetence and hubris of Kevin Siembieda. At the end of the day when everything is said and done on this matter, it falls on Kevin Siembieda's huge egotistical and narcissistic shoulders. He won't accept the reposinibility for bad decision making, he won't admit he abused the backers' trust (Gak, this is the same needle-noggin' that blamed the same backers for Carmen Belleair's suicide fro crying out loud), he won't admit he will do nothing to finish the project, and he won't admit he failed. Simple as that.

I don't recall seeing Forar ever argue otherwise beyond softening the same blow to simply be allowed to continue posting on the Palladium forums without getting banned.

**Morgan Vening**

Alpharius wrote:
I think we actually did learn the amount in "cash" that was stolen during The Crisis® of Threachery™ - and it didn't seem like it was that much?

"Only" $16K or something like that?

And wasn't the culprit caught, and forced to pay it back?

And not sure if the Fridge Artwork was also part of The Crisis® of Threachery™ though - and estimates of their value was, let's just say, great exaggerated.

According to Wiki, Kevin claimed 850K-1.5M. That he had a 650K variation indicates he's f'n clueless. 10% differential? Fair enough. A more than 70% variation? Yeah, wishful thinking.

The judge awarded a settlement of 47K. Or barely 5.5% of the minimum "claimed" value. Kevin complains he had to take it, or get nothing, and he needed to keep the company afloat. Which appears to be utter crap. Why? Because most reports seem to say that most of the theft/embezzlement wasn't cash. It was stock and collectibles. Still bad, not arguing it. But not something that is liquid capital for operating expenses, and therefore not necessary to keep the company afloat via donations. The collectibles are a distraction, and the stock issue at BEST, is a timeframe one that could have been solved by PB running a pre-order for reprint of any items that had low stock levels as a result ("We've only got 14 copies of Rifts Book 17. We'll do a print run if we can get 200 pre-orders").

It's possible the situation was worse than being reported, but I've come to accept that Kevin Siembeda is innately full of crap. It's what he gets for dissembling for at least 4.5 years (since I've been listening), and probably the entirety of his career.