..and one factor contributing to Macris shrugging off giving up on our deal at the time that you know nothing about is that Macris knew he had broken previous agreements and guarantees repeatedly before that by, among other things, refusing to pay on time more than once.

Quote from: Zak S on December 15, 2024, 11:41:17 AM

Quote from: BadApple on December 15, 2024, 11:25:02 AM

Quote from: Zak S on December 15, 2024, 11:21:59 AM

Quote from: BadApple on December 15, 2024, 11:06:08 AMWhile Zak did manage to win a defamation case, it doesn't take away his public record of generally being unethical and amoral.  I can point to public statements he's made, some on this site, that support this assertion. 

Point away.

You took money for work and then refused to deliver.  You confirmed that you did this here in another thread.  Just because the victim in this issue chose not to pursue you over your breach of contract, you are not absolved of it. 

He (Alex Macris) did a bad thing, I chose to stop working with him. On moral and ethical grounds--he platformed a transphobic guy and I told him I didn't want to work with him any more.. 

I told the dude I wanted to quit working with him and he did not say "Oh you broke our contract I am going to take steps against you" (despite the fact he represented himself as a millionaire) he basically said "Oh well" and wrote it off.

He didn't represent this as any kind of issue until years later after he'd been public disgraced for working with Milo Yiannopolis and I pointed out that sucked.

There's lots of people who would back up all of that as me taking a principled stand. You might not agree with those principles because you don't care about trans people, but they are priciples.

You had the moral and ethical responsibility to return money you were paid if you chose to withdraw from the contract.  That's on you.

Funny you bring up the whole Milo thing because I looked into that.  You are misrepresenting things by withholding key facts to smear.  In fact, you dug that up for the purpose of smearing.  Based on things you posted, I believe you knew the truth and chose to smear anyway. 

Shame on you.

Ive been named as a participant in this thread.

There's really nothing nefarious going on. Zak had the idea to get his fans to communicate more & have a bit of a social media drive to connect everyone. To encourage that, the book is offered to those fans.

I'm not much for social media, but its prompted me to interact in a lot of places I normally wouldn't or wasn't aware of. Generally this has been good fun & I got some excellent RPG advice along the way.

Reports of a human bot-army are highly exaggerated 😂

I greatly appreciate Zaks art & his RPG content. Its among the best I think. But its hard to mention online due to the restrictions. So perhaps this will be a step to end that, its high time the witch hunt was over IMO.

Incidentally, I also appreciate Pundits work, Cults of Chaos sits on the shelf behind me.

Quote from: Riquez on December 15, 2024, 11:54:38 AMIve been named as a participant in this thread.

There's really nothing nefarious going on. Zak had the idea to get his fans to communicate more & have a bit of a social media drive to connect everyone. To encourage that, the book is offered to those fans.

I'm not much for social media, but its prompted me to interact in a lot of places I normally wouldn't or wasn't aware of. Generally this has been good fun & I got some excellent RPG advice along the way.

Reports of a human bot-army are highly exaggerated 😂

I greatly appreciate Zaks art & his RPG content. Its among the best I think. But its hard to mention online due to the restrictions. So perhaps this will be a step to end that, its high time the witch hunt was over IMO.

Incidentally, I also appreciate Pundits work, Cults of Chaos sits on the shelf behind me.

Read the OP and you'll see it certainly looks shady and Pundit was right in bringing it to the light. 

I am critical of some of the professional things I've seen out of Zak.  He did them publicly and therefore we have a right to discuss them publicly.  I don't want to crucify him, I just want him to make appropriate changes, make amends, and behave better.

I have looked at some of his works and I do agree that he has talent.  I try to take all such things on their own merit.   

We get it, you're a right wing tool.

People who aren't won't agree with you, ever, so there's no use scolding them about it.

Quote from: Riquez on December 15, 2024, 11:54:38 AMReports of a human bot-army are highly exaggerated

Exaggerated does not mean false and downplaying those reports is just as deceptive.

Quote from: Riquez on December 15, 2024, 11:54:38 AMIve been named as a participant in this thread.

There's really nothing nefarious going on. Zak had the idea to get his fans to communicate more & have a bit of a social media drive to connect everyone. To encourage that, the book is offered to those fans.

I'm not much for social media, but its prompted me to interact in a lot of places I normally wouldn't or wasn't aware of. Generally this has been good fun & I got some excellent RPG advice along the way.

Reports of a human bot-army are highly exaggerated 😂

I greatly appreciate Zaks art & his RPG content. Its among the best I think. But its hard to mention online due to the restrictions. So perhaps this will be a step to end that, its high time the witch hunt was over IMO.

Incidentally, I also appreciate Pundits work, Cults of Chaos sits on the shelf behind me.

You spoke well here Riquez.
This sentiment is shared.

Encouraging and building an active community of people who are positively interacting in the forums.

Instead of allowing trolls to chase people away from the forums with their malicious attitude.

It is refreshing.

Let's hope we can build on this momentum into 2025.

Life is too short to be bitter and nasty or put into the defensive in web forums.

I'd rather be playing d&d than entanglements with hostile elements.

As for products, I saw some of Zak's, they're good. I did not see Pundits, I'm not even sure who Pundit is yet, I have been out of social media for a long time because of relationships children and work.

If pundit is the guy who has targeted me with hostility here for no reason beyond his own projected insecurity,  I will be telling people about it.

EDIT: nope, it was blue-wave who called me a sleeper and Chris who called me a sockpuppet. Clearly I am neither.

double post

Again, this started because the front page has people falsely claiming people who want the book have to "say nice things about me" or the work.

That's just straight up false and nobody has stood up and said "Yup, I was wrong, I am taking responsibility for that, I apologize to everyone who might've been misled".

There's no magic piece of rhetoric where dodging that is ok.

Heres's another image from the book:

Am thinking about what can be done to bring peace between these polarised an entrenched camps.

Something relevant from the RPG industry to use as a blueprint which everyone can recognise as valid and useful.

To focus on the things we all share in common instead of to focus on 'this is why you deserve to have hate dumped on you in my opinion' which is dehumanising.

On the basis someone asked why u don't post rpg related things, I will do.

There was a game called Vampire the Masquerade.
A movie was made which stole a significant amount from that game.
I learned this from a documentary about the history of the game.
The game producers, not the original people who invented it, the corporation who owned it, decided to sue the movie producers for not crediting them or asking permission to use their very obviously stolen ideas.
The argument was 'these ideas exist in the public domain so you can't own them' was responded to by 'yes only because of VtM existing did they enter the publics awareness' followed by 'how did you hear from these ideas to begin with?'
The movie producers said; 'we played VtM and we love it.'
So a pause for consideration.
Then something beautiful and magical happened.
'Hey instead of suing us, do you guys wanna come and game with us?' Said the movie producers.
'Well, maybe.' Said the VtM owners. And then; 'hell yes, can you imagine living in a world where that is even possible?'
The details of that game session are not on public record.
Everybody set aside their differences for a number of hours.
Everybody made friends.
This is true RPG history.

What can you learn from this ?

THIS IS A DIRECT CHALLENGE TO ALL ANTAGONISTIC PARTIES

Quote from: GnosticGoblin on December 15, 2024, 12:40:19 PMWhat can you learn from this ?

I learned that you have trouble grouping sentences together into paragraphs. Was that the lesson?

Quote from: BadApple on December 15, 2024, 12:05:06 PMRead the OP and you'll see it certainly looks shady and Pundit was right in bringing it to the light. 

I am critical of some of the professional things I've seen out of Zak.  He did them publicly and therefore we have a right to discuss them publicly.  I don't want to crucify him, I just want him to make appropriate changes, make amends, and behave better.

I have looked at some of his works and I do agree that he has talent.  I try to take all such things on their own merit. 

Indeed the OP was inevitable. It wasn't exactly hidden.
The warnings about "hostile" are just because there's a high risk of getting booted if you mention Zak.

To this forums credit, at least you guys are more tolerant of discussion.
Other places you will get hate mail if you so much as mention him.

It may or may not be shady, fucked if I know. I'm sure Zack can see how it might look shady, surely you can see that people might think that you're doing shady shit?

GnosticGoblin has a weirdly legalistic approach to their posts the reminds me of somebody.

Quote from: Garry G on December 15, 2024, 12:48:34 PMIt may or may not be shady, fucked if I know.

Well there's an easy way to know:

Read it.

QuoteI'm sure Zack can see how it might look shady, surely you can see that people might think that you're doing shady shit?

That separates the intelligent from the unintelligent:

The person who actually looks at the text and sees if the thing is in there is smart and the person who goes on vibes isn't.

Everything unusual looks suspicious to stupid people.

Here's more from the book:

I'm not feeling engaged by your marketing strategy of calling people stupid.