With or without Mentzer, Dragonsfoot tends to maximise the drama in any situation. Moderation for civility always ends up that way. You don't stop a pot from boiling over by putting a lid on it.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1077107With or without Mentzer, Dragonsfoot tends to maximise the drama in any situation. Moderation for civility always ends up that way. You don't stop a pot from boiling over by putting a lid on it.

Interesting point. My biggest problem with DF were the threads that were derailed by ideologues who insisted it was their way or the highway from a rules standpoint. Like it never crossed their mind someone could arbitrate the game differently AND STILL HAVE FUN. I got a week ban or something for daring to insinuate someone was a fucktard for insisting I was wrong about some insignificant detail of the rules. That's when I quit. So, yeah, your comments hit home.

Here goes my yearly post on the RPG Site. So sad that it can't be about a friendlier topic.

So, I met Frank once, in the early 2010s, at a small convention in Europe. Because I was already involved with the management of a few community websites back then, because most of the people I met there were also well-known members of the oldschool community, because the con was fairly small, and because we frankly hit it off pretty well, I got to hang out with Frank on several occasions over these three or four days.

My impression of him in person couldn't have been more positive: He was laid back, patient, classy, and educated. The way you imagine a friendly older gentleman to be like. If at all, the one thing about Frank that could be said to not be entirely positive was that he had at least the same fun, if not more, to talk about non-nerdy topics as he had about talking about D&D. To me, that was pretty great, because it made him "a person" to me, not an ultimately interchangeable RPG dictionary.


Frank was in the process of founding his "Eldritch Enterprises" (I think that was the name) back then, a small company that was supposed to publish his and other TSR-era writers' work on an "indie" basis. If you've never heard of that company, then it's because the project, essentially, was a failure: The company released some 15-something PDF modules, yes - but none of them were particularly noteworthy to larger audiences. Also, the lack of marketing and the company's limited financial capability to provide state-of-the-art illustrations, maps, and layout design contributed to it basically going in and out of the industry without anyone taking notice. That's the worst way for an entrepreneurial endeavor to go down - not as a failure, but as a footnote.

The reason I am mentioning this is not to shame Frank even more, but because it will highlight something to the public that I think is being critically overlooked, in the middle this shameful series of events:

Nobody I talked to about Eldritch Enterprises, online and offline, was surprised that the company quickly went out of business - because it generally will take you five minutes of talking to Frank to figure out that he is not an entrepreneur fit for the modern internet-based published industry. He simply is not. He is not, in the sense that I myself shouldn't aspire to become a Formula One race car driver, or in the sense that your ten-year-old son shouldn't perform clinical surgery on you: It might look easy, and it might be fun at first; but it will end very badly.

That's not a snide against Frank,though, not at all. Just let it sink in: Whatever his background in game design and other business ventures, he lacks the skill and the education to run a successful gaming company according to 21st-century business standards. And everybody fucking knew.

There is something to be said to make the aforementioned "friendly older gentleman" the CEO of your company, or to take his money knowing full-well what to expect. Let's say it, for a change: It's irresponsible and and unethical, and it should be severely punished, so we all can make sure that the remaining elders of our hobby, be it Frank, or RJK, or anybody else, are, at the very least, left alone.


...But of course nobody says that.

Instead, somebody had the not-so-brilliant idea to have Frank do the viral marketing for "Empyrea", and send him back to DF. (A community that he had theatrically left two or three years earlier over some completely avoidable melodrama.) - Now, now, maybe Frank made this bad decision by himself, maybe he talked to nobody else before he posted his weird and indefensible tirades on DF. Maybe that's how it went.
- Or maybe the gentlemen who were actually in charge of business and marketing - you can look up their names here - could have been so diligent as to do what they were paid for: To put his name in Google, for starters! And, consequently devise a marketing strategy that didn't attract controversy.

Again, these guys were supposedly doing this for actual money, somehow, and it's not like the RPG crowdfunding scene would have been "undiscovered country" by 2017: They should have controlled the viral marketing, not Frank. Frank, ideally, should have been invisible during the entire production process, by any professional standards. - But they didn't do that. Why?!


The same thing, now, two years later: Frank's recent statements on Facebook, and a hole dug just deep enough that he'll never make it out of it again.

If he has any friends left in this world, who the hell advised him to write this by himself?! - Pay a lawyer, pay a publicist; it's still cheaper than a month of unforced internet drama. Because it takes no time to question the appropriateness of Luke Gygax' public disinvitation, as it takes no time outing Jessica Price as a questionable character of, at this point, memetic proportions. - Unless, of course, you write your statement on your laptop, on the table in your kitchen, blinded by your own indignation.

...But, of course, apparently nobody said that, either.


So, what are we left with? - One of the elders of our hobby disintegrates before our eyes.

I am not to going to engage in the usual, convenient whataboutism, and ask whether Frank is really paying the fee for Bill Webb, Zak S, and others.
I am not going to deny that Frank has acted stupidly, that he has acted like a fucking idiot, even.

- But I think we all should ask why apparently nobody cared to save him from all those unforced errors.
A community needs to take care of its icons, and the oldschool community has clearly failed Frank.

Quote from: Rafael;1077152A community needs to take care of its icons, and the oldschool community has clearly failed Frank.

I don't think the "oldschool community" as a whole has a duty to do more than give him a fair shake. Which he got from Dragonsfoot mods - more than fair I'd say. And I think most of us have been pretty charitable to Frank overall - there's definitely a "more in sorrow" vibe. Even EOTB who was directly targeted by him doesn't seem to bear him much animus. We just wish he would own up and apologise for being a jerk, rather than this computer hacked/unauthorised access malarkey. However I do agree the people (supposedly) in charge of 'Business' for the Empyrea project may well have let him down.

IMO Empyrea always looked wildly over ambitious, a disaster waiting to happen. It may have been for the best it got shut down early. I worry this was basically Frank's foolishness being exploited by people he was paying to help him.

Quote from: S'mon;1077154I don't think the "oldschool community" as a whole has a duty to do more than give him a fair shake. Which he got from Dragonsfoot mods - more than fair I'd say. And I think most of us have been pretty charitable to Frank overall - there's definitely a "more in sorrow" vibe. Even EOTB who was directly targeted by him doesn't seem to bear him much animus. We just wish he would own up and apologise for being a jerk, rather than this computer hacked/unauthorised access malarkey.

Absolutely. Let's not misunderstand one another: There is no way to excuse Frank's behavior in '17. It defies imagination that he could be so careless and stupid, both from a private and from a business perspective.

I have been an outspoken critic of DF's way of moderation in the past; I was one of the people who stopped posting there after Frank left the first time, back in '13, and I still think I was right about doing so, then. However, the admin squad did nothing wrong there when they handled the situation in '17, and EOTB's comments didn't seem out of line to me either, especially in reference to "Castle Zagyg". In fact, behind the scenes, this spurned some overdue reconciliation between many of us who fancy themselves "shepherds of the hobby": We might disagree on some things from time to time, but this wasn't one of those occasions.

I also agree that Frank might have been lucky the community didn't take this even more to heart: After all, he was at GaryCon in '18, and, until he himself retired from them as well, he kept a considerable audience in other online fora than on DF.

The problem was that this happened in the first place - from the doomed KS to the online drama. The whole "Empyrea" project should never ever have gone public the way it did, and with the general tone that it did. But that's not Frank's responsibility alone; that the responsibility of the people who handled the practical side of the project for him, and did a miserable job.

QuoteIMO Empyrea always looked wildly over ambitious, a disaster waiting to happen. It may have been for the best it got shut down early. I worry this was basically Frank's foolishness being exploited by people he was paying to help him.

Precisely. But what does this tell us? - No market research was done, no marketing strategy was devised, no goals, no timetable, no realistic vision for the project was formed. I am simply not buying the narrative that Frank, a retired baker, really was so foolhardy that it would border on severe schizophrenia, and overruled all more sensible suggestions by the actual industry professionals that were supposed to advice him. Again, using Ockham's razor, the only valid conclusion seems to be that those people probably simply didn't care to do their job.

I missed the drama, back then, but I didn't miss the fallout: People were not angry with Frank; people were confused, for the most part. Because it - again - simply defies imagination that somebody could bring a project that might have been a safe sale to this point of FUBAR.

Quote from: Rafael;1077162Again, using Ockham's razor, the only valid conclusion seems to be that those people probably simply didn't care to do their job.

My suspicion would be that they took his money and justified it as "Oh, he's an experienced Industry Professional, he knows what he's doing." This is pretty easy to do - I can certainly recall times I've allowed my boss to screw things up and not tried to stop him/her, thinking "Oh, s/he surely must know better than me!" - even though I had a strong gut feeling things were not going to go well.

Quote from: S'mon;1077163My suspicion would be that they took his money and justified it as "Oh, he's an experienced Industry Professional, he knows what he's doing." This is pretty easy to do - I can certainly recall times I've allowed my boss to screw things up and not tried to stop him/her, thinking "Oh, s/he surely must know better than me!" - even though I had a strong gut feeling things were not going to go well.

I get where you're coming from, but I don't think this diminishes the amount of professional negligence that was committed here:

Chris Wiese, former vice prez of GAMA.
Kevin Wilson - not the one of "Spycraft" fame, but a prolific blogger who runs a "leadership consulting business", among other things.
Mike Myler, EnWorld contributor, podcaster, blogger, and project manager for a number of bigger and smaller indie publishing projects.

And all three of those, with their stellar backgrounds, are going to tell us that they had no idea what they were getting into? That they had no pulse on the weaknesses, and on the threats to this particular project - back when everyone else could tell that it would be doomed from the start?


Naah.

I have no personal beef with those guys; I don't know them. But this needs to be called out: Frank suggests that he payed them. I want to see what he was billed for.

Quote from: Rafael;1077168I get where you're coming from, but I don't think this diminishes the amount of professional negligence that was committed here:

Chris Wiese, former vice prez of GAMA.
Kevin Wilson - not the one of "Spycraft" fame, but a prolific blogger who runs a "leadership consulting business", among other things.
Mike Myler, EnWorld contributor, podcaster, blogger, and project manager for a number of bigger and smaller indie publishing projects.

And all three of those, with their stellar backgrounds, are going to tell us that they had no idea what they were getting into? That they had no pulse on the weaknesses, and on the threats to this particular project - back when everyone else could tell that it would be doomed from the start?


Naah.

I have no personal beef with those guys; I don't know them. But this needs to be called out: Frank suggests that he payed them. I want to see what he was billed for.

I expect you are probably right. Of course they may have just been names on a page. There were an awful lot of famous names listed in the Empyrea Kickstarter.

That's a theoretical possibility as well, of course. But then, why should Frank lie about the two no-name bloggers, at least? Why has none of the allegedly affected spoken out on this until now?

"Empyrea" is essentially Frank's "life's work" as a game designer, and the setting is well known to already exist in writing; it's not like he would have had any difficulty publishing it under other circumstances. As a reviewer said somewhere else, if the Kickstarter had been set up differently, this had the potential of being a genre success. - The campaign itself didn't go particularly badly, either; just not even near the vicinity of what Frank wanted to bring in. ...Which again begs the question of who the hell advised him to try and make 250k in advances for a product whose production costs would lie between 15 and 20k.

Of course, if we postulate that Frank might simply be a nutcase, we can relegate just about everything to his supposed poor judgment. But, again, why would that be appropriate? Despite his beef with Dragonsfoot, Frank was a universally respected, even "beloved" member of the oldschool community until the events of 2017.

Quote from: Rafael;1077173Which again begs the question of who the hell advised him to try and make 250k in advances for a product whose production costs would lie between 15 and 20k.

Of course, if we postulate that Frank might simply be a nutcase, we can relegate just about everything to his supposed poor judgment.

I'm not sure he needs to be a literal nutcase to make this error. He may have seen how much Monte Cook raked in and decided he wanted in on those sweet sweet KS megabucks!

Quote from: S'mon;1077154I don't think the "oldschool community" as a whole has a duty to do more than give him a fair shake.

Ostracism for a bit of private ranting (with provocation) is a fair shake? This isn't a community, it's The Hunger Games.

Quote from: mightybrain;1077179Ostracism for a bit of private ranting (with provocation) is a fair shake? This isn't a community, it's The Hunger Games.

He sent EOTB a threatening and very unpleasant PM on Dragonsfoot.

EOTB can be annoying. I understand Mentzer being annoyed. I have myself been annoyed by EOTB. I hold no brief for EOTB. What Mentzer did was more than sufficient to warrant a forum ban.

Again, this is where everybody has to agree - Frank did not act smartly in the way he behaved on DF. However, the error lies in him going there, in the first place. With the turbulent backstory he had with that community at that point already, having "ragequit" DF on an earlier occasion - how come this wasn't handled by Myler, or anyone else actually employed for marketing purposes?

If Frank hadn't posted in that thread, no problem at all. A bit of minor internet banter, and a lot of pretty legit criticism, but no world-shattering drama.

Quote from: SHARK;1075619Greetings!

I've read Frank's exchanges with Price. Price is an SJW nutjob. Having said that, Mentzer seems to also be socially retarded. Why is a man in his 60's for God's sake even involving himself in stupid conversations on Facebook and Twitter with women half his age? Why is he acting like a jackass to other people? I just do not understand why this guy, an old school game developer, senior gaming statesman, assumed to be married--why does he fail to enjoy a pleasant, gracious time in dignified semi-retirement? It's like Mentzer feels some obsessive need to vault himself into the public square, eager to court drama and controversy at every turn.

I just don't understand some of these people who, heretofore, have built up a great reputation and legacy, and yet, seem all too eager to piss all over it and have so much of what they have spent decades developing, erode and vanish virtually overnight. I can only imagine what his wife and family must be saying to him. Wow, you know?

It's still sad to see him declared persona non grata at such an event as prestigious as GaryCon. How embarassing, you know?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

He did say he is married: https://www.facebook.com/frank.mentzer/posts/2166010183478721

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1077083I don't know about Dragon's Foot or what posts Frank Mentzer was responding to there, but I don't think that 'someone responded from my computer' is very convincing.  While that type of thing COULD happen, the only people that should be able to access your computer are people you trust.

Just last month over on BGG we had a designer mysteriously vanish in mid design, and he deleted his account and all posts.
Just recent he returned and claims that this was done from his work computer by a spiteful co-worker.