Quote from: Phillip;847542Livin in the USA, anyhow -- might be different in Singapore or someplace.

A little different: prostitution is legal, chewing gum is for personal use only, the punishment for spitting on the sidewalk includes caning, street food vendors are regularly inspected and licensed, and the chicken rice and pepper crab are great. Sadly, like Sweden, alcohol is highly taxed.

Quote from: saskganesh;845168Contributions are investments, and investments unfortunately sometimes go south.

You can argue about whether or not a Kickstarter qualifies as a preorder (although it virtually always does), but there's no rational way to define it as an "investment". An investment gives you ownership. Kickstarter's terms of service make it literally impossible to give the backers ownership.

Quote from: Daztur;845151Ya that's why I like Patreon, if you're going to pay out money to people it's a lot safer and less stressful to get a steady stream of small stuff where you get to see regularly exactly what you're paying for.

I get a surprising stream of e-mails and comments in response to my Patreon asking why I have it set up to charge per creation instead of just a flat fee each month.

"I'd really like to give you the same amount of money every month, regardless of how much you produce or don't produce. Wouldn't you like to do it that way?"

No. No, I would not.

Quote from: danskmacabre;845429I've never supported a KS, largely coz of the Horror stories I've heard of and seen.

The horror stories are the very tiny minority of Kickstarters.

I've backed 48 kickstarters. 30 have completed successfully. 6 have partially completed (and are continuing to deliver rewards). 9 aren't due to delivery yet. 2 are late, but seeing regular updates.

Only one has been and out-and-out fraud, and that was the "Rebuilding EN World" kickstarter.

Quote from: JamesV;847337What a shame. It's pretty obvious that the Blackburns aren't fools, they are decent. Whitman took that decency and squandered it just as much as he squandered all that money.

Damn.

Well, they could be both.

Look, I'm surprised that Ken Whitman is still around, and I was very surprised that the Blackburns were giving him the time of day, much less the chance to play with their IP.  That was foolish, no two ways about it.  Ken Whitman had a bad reputation 20 years ago, and nothing he's done in the interim has done anything to repair that.

Quote from: DMK;847641Well, they could be both.

Look, I'm surprised that Ken Whitman is still around, and I was very surprised that the Blackburns were giving him the time of day, much less the chance to play with their IP.  That was foolish, no two ways about it.  Ken Whitman had a bad reputation 20 years ago, and nothing he's done in the interim has done anything to repair that.

Aye that. I've explained why we gave Ken a second chance else where. I'll just paste that same reply here since I don't have anything to add to it.

The short answer, yes, I should have known better. I've always believed in second chances if I see evidence of a change heart. My wife and I truly thought we had. Her blog above (mentioned above) probably says it better than I ever could but here's my reply...

Quote"Just a quick comment — someone pointed out Dyson Logos' comments. Specifically about my knowing of Ken's reputation prior to this kickstarter. Yes - guilty as charged. Years ago during the RapidPro thing I read a lot of things about Ken/Rapid Pro and his not delivering on product.

Couple of things in the 7/8 years since. Ken went away. Ken came back personally apologizing to several folks in the industry (including myself - though he'd never personally wronged me to my knowledge) and armed with a story about how he had been undiagnosed ADHD which destroyed his marriage and many many friendships. Ken claimed he'd been on meds, getting counseling and that he was keenly interested in rebuilding his rep, making amends and becomgin a 'new man'. I know I'm not the only gaming industry type to be approached with this Ken 2.0.

Anyway Ken invited me and my wife down to Kentucky in 2013 to watch the shoot of Brothers Barbarian Season 2. I had seen BB1 on youtube and knew Ken had pulled that one together. I was impressed by the number of people who managed to bring together to knock out these projects. And I quite enjoyed BB season 1. While on set I met a LOT of people who were hard working, professional and just all around great people. I'm still friends with many of them today. I also got to know Larry Elmore and some of the actors who would later work on KODTLAS. Ken was the center of it all.

Long story short, I left that shoot thinking Ken had changed. He was producing something. I really thought that perhaps he had finally found his niche — making quirkly little film projects. What he was doing was fun and exiting in fact.

Fast forward a bit, when Ken approached us about KODTLAS my first response was that it was going to be a hard sell to my partners. They knew of his reptuation a bit. And we weren't sure he could pull it off. So Ken went out and did a proof of concept piece based on an obscure two page KODT strip (where Brian and Weird Pete are talking in the game store). It was perfect but the casting was dead on and we saw the potential. Looked like Ken had a great feel/appreciation of the property.

He'd completed two seasons of Brother Barbarian (though we didn't know at the time he would never deliver finished/edited episodes of BB2) so it appeared he might actually know what he was doing. So we granted him a license and he proceeded with his kickstarter.

Yes, I was taken in. So were the actors involved, the cinematographer, the crew and virtually everyone else Ken worked with. Unless you've met Ken personally or hung around with him it's hard to explain the charm/charisma this guy has. I've known people who have fallen for his 'new man' routine many times over the years. It's an ability he has.

At GenCon this year while I manned the booth I was shocked as person after person came up with "Ken screwed me too" stories. I'm not really proud of the fact I was duped by this guy. Nor am I happy that others gave him money based on our granting him a license."

Jolly, it's decent of you to come to our little corner of the internet and explain your position.

To my mind, the saddest thing is that so many of us desperately want what he's offering.  For my part, Spinward Traveller would have been dream come true.  But I didn't back it because I remembered Ken from Traveller 4th edition.  Though, admittedly Marc's gotten money from me since then, even though T4 was much more what I wanted than T5 is and I still blame him for T4 because his name was on the cover.

What Ken really needs is a business manager who controls his salary.  Because I'm convinced of the man's ability to pitch and push for the creation of things, it's his follow through and his tendency to try to shift the blame onto his victims that sucks.

I don't remember if anyone remembers when he came here explaining the failure of T4 and schilling his new Rapid POD business here a few years back.

Jolly! Don't be hard on yourself. Ken is typical low budget Hollywood.

I was duped by his kind after college, and after some hard knocks, you develop a feel for his breed of scum...but there are hundreds of stories around Tinseltown of guys like Ken who scam studio execs and major producers who have been around the block far too many times to have been fooled. Not just crapping on IPs, but stories of guys walking away with tons of cash. And its odd because some of these scumbags actually have real credits and real achievements mixed in with their scams.

Charisma is weird, and there is an aura effect when you see competent people trust someone, so it makes sense to trust them as well.

Live and learn. When (not if) a real studio or real producer comes knocking at your door to talk about KoDT, the Ken debacle will actually help you deal with Hollyweird because you will be more wary (and sadly more jaded).

Ken is a gazebo...and we know what do with gazebos!