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Has James Maliszewski, the man behind the Grognardia blog, ever re-emerged from the Shadows?

I hear he pops up on the internet from time to time, but I've never seen a post or update from him myself.

I think the dude thoroughly cooked his rep, and isn't coming back, not under his real name, anyway.

It's ok "AnthonyRoberson," we forgive you, you can come back now...

Yeah, he just switched to Empire of the Petal Throne/Tékumel, with a much lower profile.  I'm not into that game/world all that much so I don't have links, but I'm sure there are aficionados who could point you towards where he posts.

He hasn't blogged at Grognardia in ages, but he's currently active in Tékumel fandom -- he produces the Excellent Travelling Volume and co-hosts the Hall of Blue Illumination podcast.  I have no idea how involved he is with other social media.

Quote from: nightlamp;1114211He hasn't blogged at Grognardia in ages, but he's currently active in Tékumel fandom -- he produces the Excellent Travelling Volume and co-hosts the Hall of Blue Illumination podcast.  I have no idea how involved he is with other social media.

Thanks very much for the information! I was just wondering. I was an early reader of his blog and wondered what became of him after the whole Dwimmermount fiasco.

I won't credit James for this, but I do actually really like Dwimmermount. I backed at Wilderness Philosopher and the dungeon tracker and vinyl map are both terrific game aids.

I really liked his site. I'm sad he disappeared.

I also heard that Dwimmermount is actually good after all the bad blood died down.

I have two issues of his Tékumel fanzines (they are up on DriveThruRPG (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/4008/Grognardia-Games)). They are still focused on the "fantastic realism" thing with a surfeit of the mundane, but at least the dungeon levels are better than the infamous rat room (or, in this case, a former dormitory from the Bédnjállá period swarming with 20 h'krú guarding 2000 káitars). They lack a wow factor, but they are basically decent, competent Barker homages.

He keeps trying to make a comeback but some of us make a point of trying to make sure people don't forget what he did.

It's great that fucking up will haunt him for the rest of his online life and that you'll never let him forget it. I hear that's what life is all about.

Quote from: bryce0lynch;1114947It's great that fucking up will haunt him for the rest of his online life and that you'll never let him forget it. I hear that's what life is all about.

Yeah, sucks that people don't trust you anymore after you lie and steal from them.

Quote from: Brad;1114951Yeah, sucks that people don't trust you anymore after you lie and steal from them.

What did he steal though? Thought he transferred all the KS funds to Autarch? Also my understanding is not that he lied, per se, but that he basically abandoned the KS after a few months.

Quote from: Theros;1114955What did he steal though? Thought he transferred all the KS funds to Autarch?

He transferred the 'leftover' funds, which apparently didn't amount to very much.

Quote from: bryce0lynch;1114947It's great that fucking up will haunt him for the rest of his online life and that you'll never let him forget it. I hear that's what life is all about.

I mean I don't think he ever did much to try and apologize and make it up to people in any meaningful way. Did he?

Meh. Forgive and forget. The hobby is better with him than without him.

Forgetting is foolish. Mazilewski. (?) has shown that he's not reliable, and anyone who trusts him with a kickstarter again is a moron.
I'm empathetic to the situation he was in, but his handling of it was bone-headed.

Quote from: Simlasa;1114961Meh. Forgive and forget. The hobby is better with him than without him.

I'm all for forgiving people once they've paid for their crime, or make a serious attempt to make it right.

He didn't. He just wants everything to go away and go back to the way it was. So fuck him and fuck his apologists.

What exactly did he do? Everyone keeps bringing it up but nobody actually says it.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1114986What exactly did he do? Everyone keeps bringing it up but nobody actually says it.

He ran a Kickstarter, spent the money, and ghosted his backers. The project was eventually saved, but the credit for that goes to Autarch not Maliszewski.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1114986What exactly did he do? Everyone keeps bringing it up but nobody actually says it.

He bailed on not one but two major projects that people were depending on him to fulfill: Dwimmermount, and Petty Gods. He repeatedly, publicly swore he was working hard on them and dedicated to finishing them, and then when it turned out he wasn't very good at completing projects and his life got hard he just up and walked away. No communication, no explanation, he just left.

Eventually, others picked up the ball for him and cleaned up his mess. And he never really apologized for it. He shrugged, made excuses, and left the field for a while.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1114986What exactly did he do? Everyone keeps bringing it up but nobody actually says it.

https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?24039-Backers-pissed-at-James-M-and-Dwimmermount

Quote from: Pat;1114985I'm all for forgiving people once they've paid for their crime, or make a serious attempt to make it right.

I doubt there's any way he could pay for it or 'make it right'. He won't find support for another Kickstarter.
So what's the harm in letting things go and not dogging the guy to his grave over it?
Humans seem to have run dry on any form of forgiveness lately.

Quote from: Simlasa;1114995I doubt there's any way he could pay for it or 'make it right'. He won't find support for another Kickstarter.
So what's the harm in letting things go and not dogging the guy to his grave over it?
Humans seem to have run dry on any form of forgiveness lately.

That is the complete opposite of everything that's true. Humans have an abundance of forgiveness, especially in the RPG industry.  Which is barely an industry, and that's half the point. It's really a hobby, a great connected network of people, where some of the more dedicated work and publish because they want to, because they need to. We know that because we know they're not going to get rich. They probably won't even make a living wage. They do it out of love, and that's the fuel for that feeling of fellowship. Then double that dose of sympathy, and willingness to forgive, because we're also talking about crowd-funding. Because that's the whole point of the concept, at least back in the day of Dwimmercatastrophe: Helping someone and going along for the ride as they fulfill their dream.

If deadlines slip, nobody even blinks. Those dates that are hard and fast in nearly every other facet of the commercial world are so flexible that nobody even starts to worry until a project is years past due. And if the project creator underestimates costs, or overpromises, people are also abundantly forgiving. We all know that it can be a rough path from a concept or a promise to a final product, especially since you're not just acting as an author. To fulfill a project, you also need to be an art director, a project manager, a social maven, and dozen of other roles. If shipping was underestimated, many people voluntarily contribute more money. If certain goals have to be cut back, people understand. Even if projects fail and don't deliver, people are willing to write it off, as long as they get a half-decent explanation, the creator at least tries to provide something, and most of all, they're not abandoned.

Can you imagine that happening at Walmart? Or even a corner store? It's a cornucopia, a nearly-unlimited reservoir of good will.

But then you have some people who fuck that up for everyone else. People who make promises, and renege. Who don't explain what happened, who don't make a good faith effort to get their backers what they can, and who vanish of the face of the internet.

Bad actors ruin the concept for everyone, and apologists like you aid and abet them in destroying one of the absolute best things about the hobby.

You're right! FUCK HIM!
Let's track him down and set him on fire... in front of his children (does he have children? If not, maybe we can find some children to watch!)!!!
Maybe we could rape his dog in front of him before we strike the match (does he have a dog? If not, maybe we could find a dog that looks like the dog he had as a kid!)!!!

Yep, this is much more fun!

Quote from: Simlasa;1115001You're right! FUCK HIM!

Until he apologizes to his backers and does something to make amends, that's exactly what he's gonna get.

If he blogged a sincere apology and gave all his backers some free PDFs, he'd be forgiven enough to return to Grognardia and even Kickstarter. He clearly has fans who want him to get back on the horse, but until he steps up and does a mea culpa, he's gonna be blacklisted hard.

Quote from: Simlasa;1115001You're right! FUCK HIM!
Let's track him down and set him on fire... in front of his children (does he have children? If not, maybe we can find some children to watch!)!!!
Maybe we could rape his dog in front of him before we strike the match (does he have a dog? If not, maybe we could find a dog that looks like the dog he had as a kid!)!!!

Yep, this is much more fun!

Pats right though. Letting stuff like this slide "because hes one of us!" is damaging to honest designers and honest kickstarters. And people with a track record of trouble really should not be given the benefit of a doubt unless someone else has them on a really tight leash. And even then one should be wary.

Game Salute has made a business of this and continues to rip off backers on KS and ever further make things harder fro other games. Now we have Golden Bell pulling even worse underhanded stunts. There is an ever growing list of games these two companies have messed with and the increasingly convoluted trail of dummy fronts they put up to try and sucker backers. Should we all just shrug and go "oh well its gaming and we should forgive them."? No less than two former artist friends and players turned out to be a long running scam artists who have walked off with thousands of dollars in commission money.  One of whom who pulls sob story routines then half the time just decides he wont work on a project. The other keeps changing his name to lure in the unsuspecting. And on and on. Superdudes? Walked off with all the preorder money and started his own financing business. Chevalier skipped town with a quarter of a million funding for a game and if we hadnt hounded him and done investigation uncovering that he was spending it all on a new house and movie making equipment he likely would have gotten away with it. So you believe if he offered to "help" with another game we should just all go, "Yeah sure!"?

Yep, this is sooooo much more fun.

All I want to say to those calling others bad people my question them have you been ripped off by James Maliszewski, Mark Macgibbon of Guardians of Order infamy or other similar shady crooked dishonest rpg designers or companies. No then get off your moral high horse, stop pointing fingers and people chest and wagging said fingers going "bad evil people". Me too I would do the same if I never lost money to such people. I never did I do know two who lost money to Mark.

i would not even piss on both if they were on fire. I show them the exact amount of respect, compassion and sympathy which they keep showing their victims which is none. Which is why such amoral, sociopathic scum keep coming back into the hobby. Due to misguided apologist gamers.

Thing is, if James ever returned to Grognardia, he would quickly regain an audience. In this time probably an even bigger one than at the tail end of 4E, when he stopped blogging.

I certainly know I would read him again. However, I didn't back the KS, so I'm not a disgruntled investor.

Quote from: sureshot;1115017...i would not even piss on both if they were on fire. I show them the exact amount of respect, compassion and sympathy which they keep showing their victims which is none.

In this we agree, 100%. James has ensured that I'll never buy any game or gaming supplement from him, no matter how well written. One of the tenets, the foundation that makes our hobby a good one, is that the GM treats every player at the table with respect, and strives to be an impartial referee. As a GM and an author, if you take someone else's money for a game or game supplement, you should deliver that. Not doing so is theft, plain and simple. With traditional companies, the company is on the hook and must first produce the supplement to be sold.

Kickstarter changed this business model, Now authors can collect all of the money in advance, and have no actual obligation to deliver the product. This is one of the reasons I don't use Kickstarter as a game designer. They have actually never provided a level playing field, either for game publishers, or especially for the consumers. Yes we have gotten to see some great games and supplements from Kickstarter, These publishers could have literally done it themselves using their own website though, and developed their own customer base. This takes a lot of work to do, having your own client base makes you very strong. Paizo is an example of this. It takes dedication and commitment though.

 
lately James has been cozying up to the Tekumel crowd, runs games, and is part of a podcast or something, but I don't travel in his circles and don't plan to.

Another Kickstarter with funds mismanagement problems that I'm not at all happy about is the original Judges Guild Wilderlands Kickstarter sponsored by Bob Jr. In this particular case, they completely missed accurately forecasting both the actual cost to publish, as well as the cost of designing, casting, and shipping miniatures that were offered as pledge level rewards. Since then, there have been two additional Kickstarters, the CSIO Kickstarter which raised an additional $85K, with all of the original map art that was actually delivered by Rob Conley, but the guide itself and CSIO map still has not shipped in print to the buyers, Bob Bledsaw III and IV are working on getting that delivered albeit it slowly, and the Goodman Games reprints Kickstarter which raised $115k and has been successfully delivered. Some of the profits from this was supposed to go to fulfilling the original Wilderlands Kickstarter and the CSIO Kickstarter, but delivery has still not been made. About a month ago Bob Jr. had this to say in an update;

Our current situation: All proceeds that have come in from the Frog God Tegel Manor ks, earlier this year has been spent on the Campaign Maps (which are not finished - 3 remaining) and City State artwork, as originally agreed to in 2014. We are still in process of building funds for printing and shipping of the Books, which have been revised. As there is a totally new version for Pathfinder, and the CS version will need adjustments for that, I am open to suggestions (comments to jgww@comcast.net). I will try to answer all questions in a timely manner. Originally, I had placed a hold on all upcoming Guild products, pending this ks completion, but this seems to have hamstrung our efforts to build funds quite a lot, so I have permitted Aaron Bledsaw (my fourth son) to begin releasing those so that the funds will profit this project also. Another major project, which was to sweep away the problems here fell through (not of the Guild's fault) but just did not come to completion. These are projects that have been on hold since 2016, but unless I get more funds here, the wait will continue. Further, I have continued to ship the miniatures to the backers who ordered them as I can. To save money, I have not attended any cons this year, and have done much to cut expenses. Slow progress, yes, but I have not given up. Much has been added to the City State, using draft materials, and other unfinished works by Bob Sr., which I know will bring much joy. I wish this was over, and I hope you all know that I am doing what I can here. I close by thanking you all again for your support and loyalty to the Guild. If I can be of help in some other way, I would be glad to hear from you at the above email. -  Sincerely, Bob II

It's been like seven years since the original Kickstarter, and five since the CSIO followup. And still backers are waiting for published books. The only difference I'm seeing between James and the Bledsaws, is that the Bledsaws are still at least working at fulfilling the original orders, whereas James simply gave up. This is a credit to them, but I do wish they had been better at forecasting the actual costs of publishing and distribution.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;1115018Thing is, if James ever returned to Grognardia, he would quickly regain an audience. In this time probably an even bigger one than at the tail end of 4E, when he stopped blogging.

I certainly know I would read him again. However, I didn't back the KS, so I'm not a disgruntled investor.

I didn't back him, and I wouldn't read his gaming publications. You can be the best game designer in the world, but if you are going to steal from people, especially gamers, you won't be designing any games for me.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1115021I didn't back him, and I wouldn't read his gaming publications. You can be the best game designer in the world, but if you are going to steal from people, you won't be designing any games for me.

He ran a blog. Other than the Cursed Chateau, I never read any of his gaming products. Too vanilla in a bad way.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1114964Forgetting is foolish. Mazilewski. (?) has shown that he's not reliable, and anyone who trusts him with a kickstarter again is a moron.
I'm empathetic to the situation he was in, but his handling of it was bone-headed.

Rat, Mistwel and Spina are close to my own opinion.

Dude fucked up. He should have owned it. Until he owns it he will be dogged by it and even after he'll get shit.

But his fuck up is a very human fuck up. All he has to do is be honest. He got in over his head and procrastinated and doubt snowballed. That's not a bad person and being embarrassed by it is normal. Contrast that to actual fraud, where the people have no intention of delivering. That shits harder to forgive.

I worked with James in the past doing cartography including the outdoor maps in Dwimmermount. I also helped Autarch in a minor capacity mainly by making the final versions of the maps I submitted earlier. I also put out the idea, which was adopted, that the text and cartography of Dwimmermount be made open content. Figured for all the trouble this caused the hobby, folks should get something more than just finished work.

I am with Bryce on this. The remaining issue is James taking public responsibility He has the forum as Grognardia undoubtedly still gets hundreds if not thousands of views a day. Even with that, nobody will trust him with a kickstarter again.

This issue continues to be aggravated by his semi-public behavior. For example posting on Google+ but limiting them to specific circles*. Writing articles for website like Black Gate that are peripherally connected to the mainstream hobby. Either one of these would not be an issue except for he hasn't apologized or explained his actions during the kickstarter.

When it all said and done there is no reason why he can't be a one man band and release whatever interests him without the wardogs of the internet hounding him. His fuck up was definitely the kind caused by somebody who got in over their head and wasn't able to cope.

Unlike another kickstarter screw up I was involved with fixing where virtually nothing was done and half of the money dissipated.

*Even Before the kickstarter screwup, James was subjected to persistent attacks beyond straightforward criticism. However a public post can be made with comments and other forms of feedback disabled. So that isn't an excuse not to write an explanation.

As for James being a thief, I refer to this post.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/autarch/dwimmermount/posts/434984


To be clear this doesn't absolve James of criticism, his actions (inactions?) cost Autarch plenty to see this project to completion. It just being a scammer and stealing from backers is not one of them.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;1115018Thing is, if James ever returned to Grognardia, he would quickly regain an audience. In this time probably an even bigger one than at the tail end of 4E, when he stopped blogging.

I certainly know I would read him again. However, I didn't back the KS, so I'm not a disgruntled investor.

I think if he cleaned up his act and made amends then sure. But instead he has in the past doubled down and just made things needlessly worse for himself. Its like with Gamezone and HQ25. All they had to do was just admit that the stretch goals meant that there was no way they could make the initial deadline. That and stop tinkering with the rules at the proberbeial 12th hour, over and over and over. And antagonizing backers on top pf that. Now they are facing court in Barcelona and it all may come crashing down on them.

Self inflicted wounds.

Quote from: estar;1115033When it all said and done there is no reason why he can't be a one man band and release whatever interests him without the wardogs of the internet hounding him. His fuck up was definitely the kind caused by somebody who got in over their head and wasn't able to cope.

I think it is how he handled this rather than the money issue that cause him the real damage. Gamers can be absurdly forgiving when it comes to money. But treat them poorly, insult them, ignore them, threaten them, or any other bad behavior certain designers have committed and you can end up with grudges that haunt you a long long time.

Probably not helped either by the sheer frequency KS designers use some emotional turmoil as an excuse for delays sometimes spanning years. Or in one or two cases, a decade. The sympathy well has been bled dry for an increasing number of KS backers with the misfortune to end up backing one of these.

I agree than an explanation of the why things went wrong would help. Though after so long and no real statement its just allowed feelings to fester and making this ever more difficult.

Last year a designer I'd helped playtest his game for ran a KS, the second for him. Afterwards there was a delay, then more delay and silence. Finally he came forward and let everyone know the delay was due to having to change printer companies and the new factory needing all the files in a different format.

Things like these is why I never want to do hobby for money. Once you start charging, you have a responsiblity to getting the products out there, dealing with customers, all that jazz.
More power to those who choose that route, but it's not an endeavor for those who are ill prepared. And the gaggle of amateurs on Kickstarter really drive that home.

Quote from: estar;1115036As for James being a thief, I refer to this post.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/autarch/dwimmermount/posts/434984


To be clear this doesn't absolve James of criticism, his actions (inactions?) cost Autarch plenty to see this project to completion. It just being a scammer and stealing from backers is not one of them.

So, he is entitled then to the profits for mismanaging this project so badly? From what I understand he had some rather pressing medical and other bills at the time, unrelated to gaming, and that he used some of the Kickstarter funds for that before seeing the Kickstarter completed. Was I misinformed?

Quote from: GameDaddy;1115049So, he is entitled then to the profits for mismanaging this project so badly? From what I understand he had some rather pressing medical and other bills at the time, unrelated to gaming, and that he used some of the Kickstarter funds for that before seeing the Kickstarter completed. Was I misinformed?

I am not privy to those details you will have to ask one of the folks at Autarch.

What I do know that a substantial portion of the Kickstarter funds were turned over. And because he was no longer participating meant Autarch incurred additional costs both real and opportunity. It wasn't the same as what I experienced dealing with the Judges Guild kickstarter where after a certain point the money just disappeared.

Both cases are not ones where the creator never did anything from the get go or immediately started spending the KS cash on irrelevant items. Both started with the creators intending on following their plans then spectacularly crashing on a subsequent turn. Then compounding the issue by walking away from the wreckage without an explanation.

Unlike certain individuals who never bother moving off the start line or immediately take a left turn and drive out of the stadium.

If he used some of the kickstarter funds for personal use in this particular instance it was a minor issue compared to the issue of him not doing the work. Again you will need to ask one of the Autarch folks for a definitive answer on the finances.

Quote from: Omega;1115040I think it is how he handled this rather than the money issue that cause him the real damage.

I concur.

The only thing I will add that with open content license, print on demand, inexpensive stock art and PDF distribution means that the fallback isn't nothing. There are always options. Hobbyists are starting to know this. Thus finding excuses for nothing being produced rightfully unacceptable.

James and I had worked together for over a year when he published a series of columns called "Days of High Adventure" for my old website, The Escapist. He was always timely and professional and we thought well of each other. I was the one who approached him to do a Dwimmermount Kickstarter. Autarch was riding high on the success of ACKS, megadungeons were hot, Grognardia was the #1 blog in the OSR, and Kickstarter was still a new business model -- the most important difference being that back then, it was quite common to Kickstart a product that *would* be written, rather than to Kickstart a product that had already been written and needed art and layout. When we set up the Kickstarter, I erred in estimating the timeline to completion for the product, as I thought Dwimmermount was more developed than it was. We also get overzealous in our expectation of what could be delivered as bonus goals.

Worse, when I wrote the contract between Autarch and James, I structured it badly in that Autarch had taken the money and had the liability to the backers but transferred all the funds to James. This was simply bad business judgment on my part justified by what I expected to be a big hit coming out of a smooth and reliable process of development and launch.

Working with Tavis Allison as project manager, James completed approximately half of the book and spent approximately half of the funding. At that point, a confluence of events occurred. First, as the book fell behind schedule, critics began to unleash a firestorm on James, blasting the quality of the work, his skill as a designer, and his position in the OSR. Second, James suffered a serious of personal family and medical misfortunes that would have been difficult for anyone to handle. The combination of the two led James to retreat from the project. For a time, he retreated from all communication, which put Autarch in a very awkward situation: We had a liability to deliver books to over 1,000 people but we had neither money, nor a finished product, nor even the right to proceed without James.

Getting back in touch and sorting it out took a while, but ultimately James made it possible for us to finish the book. I completed the last half of the product and we shipped it, about 2 years late. Overall, Autarch lost $20,000 on the product. I do think Dwimmermount ultimately came out as an excellent product and am proud that we finished it. I wish it hadn't come out so late and with such a damaged brand, because I don't think it's ever gotten the love it deserved since.

Thanks for sharing that.

Quote from: bryce0lynch;1114947It's great that fucking up will haunt him for the rest of his online life and that you'll never let him forget it. I hear that's what life is all about.

And this is why you should post anonymously, boys and girls!

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1115101And this is why you should post anonymously, boys and girls!

...or not, in case you happen to be doing the right thing like Alexander did! It's good to know actually what happened firsthand and whom to hold accountable for what. For example, if I had known previously that "Autarch" was Alexander, and that it was he who had made, at great personal sacrifice, the effort to ensure that Dwimmermount was completed and distributed as promised, I would have been much more likely to pick up that copy of Adventurer, Conqueror, King at GaryCon the year before last when he handed me a copy at his booth, just to help him recoup his costs. Just as I won't support game designers that take money without permission from others, I'll go out of my way to support game designers, and publishers that do help other gamers. I'll be seeing you in March, my friend, and will bring some extra cash to pickup ACKS and a few other supplements to help you recoup your previously unplanned expenses. Wish I would have known the actual details about this earlier, Thank You for sharing.

Rob, Thanks for letting us know about Bob Jr. Unlike with James, where I knew some of the background details, I had no idea what actually occurred with the Judges Guild Kickstarter, and am not happy to hear that substantial funds vanished. I suspect something similar happened to Bob Jr., as the funds from the JG Kickstarter probably became available just exactly at the time that extra expenses were incurred in the form of bills. I do know Bob Bledsaw Sr. is turning over in his grave over this one, and if he were still here now he would likely be cruising through the household looking to lay an ass-whooping on his wayward son along with anyone else who might have been misguiding him.  

That said, obtaining publishing services on credit, probably wasn't the best idea for the original Judges Guild. This was, of course, totally manageable, but only right up until the time that TSR pulled the D&D license from Judges Guild. After that popular support for Judges Guild products declined as TSR quit focusing exclusively on publishing D&D rules, and began publishing adventure supplements and campaign settings, that were directly competing with the offerings of JG.

Also Rob, if the comment about "...not getting off the starting line" were in any way directed towards me, for say, ...not helping Bob Bledsaw, Know this now. He explicitly gave me permission to write adventures and additional supplements set in the Wilderlands back in 2004, and I did help him, by explaining to him the actual details and implications of using the d20 license in republishing the Wilderlands campaign setting. Even in 2004 he was the kind of guy who believed that a real man kept his word, and that he could do a business deal on a verbal agreement. He was the kind of guy that believed everyone who could publish gaming supplements should as the successes of one game publisher boosted the others, and this was based on his direct experience publishing in the early days of the D&D boom. In 2007 everything I told him back in 2004 came to pass, as WOTC pulled the original d20 license, forcing all of their publishers to accept a new, much more restrictive deal, and this forced a great number of d20 publishers to close their doors, because of the added expense of rebranding to accommodate a new gaming license. This also affected Necromancer Games, (and Bob Sr.) in that they could no longer reprint any of the d20 Judges Guild games and supplements that they had republished between 2004 and 2007.

Interestingly at his funeral, there were some in attendance of his memorial that believed I was there with the express purpose of trying to capitalize on his demise, and there was nothing at all to that. I attended solely to pay homage to his lifetime of contributing to my well-being in the form of the games and supplements he had published over the years that kept me focused on being creative, and out of the trouble that so many of my peers fell victim to being out on the streets. One good thing did come of my attendance, in that I ended up meeting Bill Owens, as we both stayed in the same Hotel in Decatur. I consider him a good friend now, and he lives in South America, I think just outside of Buenos Aires, and owns an Olive Grove there. He still games too, but mostly wargames.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1115120Also Rob, if the comment about "...not getting off the starting line" were in any way directed towards me

No it wasn't directed at you. It was me characterizing the two main kinds of fradulant kickstarters. The first where the creator has no intention of delievering and the second where the creator starts by spending funds on unrelated expenses. Neither were the case with the Dwimmermount KS or the CSIO KS. I apologize for any misunderstanding.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1115120Rob, Thanks for letting us know about Bob Jr.

The issue arose with the grandson Robert Bledsaw III not the son Robert Bledsaw II.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1115120Unlike with James, where I knew some of the background details, I had no idea what actually occurred with the Judges Guild Kickstarter, and am not happy to hear that substantial funds vanished. I suspect something similar happened to Bob Jr., as the funds from the JG Kickstarter probably became available just exactly at the time that extra expenses were incurred in the form of bills.

 The sequence of events was
 
 

• The kickstarter was successful
• Christina and myself started on the maps.
• Nine of the 18 maps were drawn and proofed.
• The PDFs of both version of the nine were made avalible
• A print run of poster of Map 1 CSIO was done and delievered
• The bills came in for the miniature stretch goals
• There wasn't enough money to complete the remaining nine maps or to pay anybody to continue work on the CSIO guidebook.

 
 Then silence
 
 Then two years ago Bob III dad Bob II (the son of Bob Bledsaw of Judges Guild) took over. Around that time I got permission from both to distribute my CSIO map that I drew on my own time. I had intended to offer it to Judges Guild as part of the CSIO book but unlike the Wilderlands maps there was no contract.
 
 Afterwards Robert Bledsaw II (the son) got a true picture of the finances (which was near zero) and began to redirect all Judges Guild revenue to build up enough to get the guidebook written and printed.
 
 The response to my CSIO map and how I distributed it to the KS Backers was favorable enough that I proposed that I finish the 18 maps of the Wilderlands and distribute them the same way. In addition I ask and received permission to redo the original guidebooks as I was making them avaliable to the general public and needed the setting to make the maps appealing.
 
 The project was feasible because back when I did the first nine maps, I drew them as one giant map of the Wilderlands. There about a half-dozen further steps to crop out what needed for the individual maps but other than that the last maps were done. So I could focus on writing the guidebooks which took two years to complete all four.

Currently theere still isn't enough money to finish and print the CSIO guidebook however Robert Bledsaw II (the son) is releasing other Judges Guild products on DriveThruRPG to bring in revenue. It is highly likely there are other projects in the works as well. I am not privy those details or sought to learn about them.
 

Quote from: GameDaddy;1115120This also affected Necromancer Games, (and Bob Sr.) in that they could no longer reprint any of the d20 Judges Guild games and supplements that they had republished between 2004 and 2007.

I realize this is blunt but that is not accurate. What Wizards pulled was the d20 Trademark license and the accompanying mark. To comply involves a cover change. However as trival that may sound, the big issue was that in the mind of the hobby 4e was the new hotness and 3.5e was old news. That is until the hobby acutally got to use and play 4e and Paizo was able to step in with Pathfinder.

In any case the edition change to 4e and Pathfinder meant that products like the Boxed Set and the CSIO book were no longer appealing. Especially for traditional distributors. They still can be sold 'as is' with the cover change to remove the trademark. And still are in PDF form on DriveThruRPG.

As a side note the edition change that fouled up CSIO and the boxed set was the change from 3.0 to 3.5. That resulted in a lot of work that delayed the project.

This is because the d20 System Reference Document still remains to be used. Something I took advantage of in making the new guidebooks so I could hew closely to the original JG material. Everything I used was either original to Judges Guild or found in the d20 SRD. In some cases I had to put in subsistutes. For example I used the Aboleth instead of the Morkoth. Came up with the Suecuva instead of the Su-Monster. Made the Ethereal Cat instead of Displacer Beasts.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1115120at his funeral,

That was a sad day when I learned he passed. I wasn't able to go but I did send the family a custom made condolence card.  

Quote from: GameDaddy;1115120I attended solely to pay homage to his lifetime of contributing to my well-being in the form of the games and supplements he had published over the years that kept me focused on being creative, and out of the trouble that so many of my peers fell victim to being out on the streets. One good thing did come of my attendance, in that I ended up meeting Bill Owens, as we both stayed in the same Hotel in Decatur. I consider him a good friend now, and he lives in South America, I think just outside of Buenos Aires, and owns an Olive Grove there. He still games too, but mostly wargames.

Thanks for sharing that and the other details in your post. For me, Bob Sr's work is one of the foundational inspirations for my own material. I owe him a huge debt. His son (Robert Bledsaw II) is great to work with. I appreciate him letting me work on the guidebooks. It was a huge privlege.

Again if I seem blunt it not personal. When it comes to these things, you say what needs to be said and no more.

Why isn't Judges Guild kicking ass in the 5e era?

Quote from: Simlasa;1114961Meh. Forgive and forget. The hobby is better with him than without him.

No, it's not. Even before he cheated gamers out of thousands of dollars with a "years long megadungeon" that never really existed, he was already a pretentious douchebag.

Quote from: amacris;1115066James and I had worked together for over a year when he published a series of columns called "Days of High Adventure" for my old website, The Escapist. He was always timely and professional and we thought well of each other. I was the one who approached him to do a Dwimmermount Kickstarter. Autarch was riding high on the success of ACKS, megadungeons were hot, Grognardia was the #1 blog in the OSR, and Kickstarter was still a new business model -- the most important difference being that back then, it was quite common to Kickstart a product that *would* be written, rather than to Kickstart a product that had already been written and needed art and layout. When we set up the Kickstarter, I erred in estimating the timeline to completion for the product, as I thought Dwimmermount was more developed than it was. We also get overzealous in our expectation of what could be delivered as bonus goals.

Worse, when I wrote the contract between Autarch and James, I structured it badly in that Autarch had taken the money and had the liability to the backers but transferred all the funds to James. This was simply bad business judgment on my part justified by what I expected to be a big hit coming out of a smooth and reliable process of development and launch.

Working with Tavis Allison as project manager, James completed approximately half of the book and spent approximately half of the funding. At that point, a confluence of events occurred. First, as the book fell behind schedule, critics began to unleash a firestorm on James, blasting the quality of the work, his skill as a designer, and his position in the OSR. Second, James suffered a serious of personal family and medical misfortunes that would have been difficult for anyone to handle. The combination of the two led James to retreat from the project. For a time, he retreated from all communication, which put Autarch in a very awkward situation: We had a liability to deliver books to over 1,000 people but we had neither money, nor a finished product, nor even the right to proceed without James.

Getting back in touch and sorting it out took a while, but ultimately James made it possible for us to finish the book. I completed the last half of the product and we shipped it, about 2 years late. Overall, Autarch lost $20,000 on the product. I do think Dwimmermount ultimately came out as an excellent product and am proud that we finished it. I wish it hadn't come out so late and with such a damaged brand, because I don't think it's ever gotten the love it deserved since.

I think absolutely no one blames you guys for what happened. Though as you point out you did make some errors in judgment in terms of how you set things up with JMal. At the same time, reading between the lines, it seems pretty clear he deceived you as much as he did everyone else about his "years long campaign" and "megadungeon from actual play" that didn't actually exist.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1115101And this is why you should post anonymously, boys and girls!

That's not relevant one way or the other. No one was doxxing him, it's his ONLINE personality that will not be allowed to pretend his misdeeds never happened.  He could start a whole new career under an alt, but of course he doesn't want to do that because what he wants to do is to make a comeback trading on his name and the fools who were his previous fanboys that bought into all his garbage, and thus keep his name recognition.

The exact same thing would be happening if no one knew his real name.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1115891it seems pretty clear he deceived you as much as he did everyone else about his "years long campaign" and "megadungeon from actual play" that didn't actually exist.

I never got the impression from his blog that he had been running Dwimmermount very long, or that it was very developed - he started it while blogging and was running it and developing it at the same time, same as Gygax with Greyhawk, or Arneson with Blackmoor. He seems to have given people the impression he had a fully written megadungeon ready to ship, but he never actually said that AFICT. But he had been running it for a couple years prior to the Kickstarter so there was some material he'd developed for play.

He's back. (http://hobbsnfriends.com/2019/12/03/57-james-maliszewski/)

Quote from: Jager Fury;1115900He's back. (http://hobbsnfriends.com/2019/12/03/57-james-maliszewski/)

32:55 is when they talk about Glimmermount.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;1115018Thing is, if James ever returned to Grognardia, he would quickly regain an audience. In this time probably an even bigger one than at the tail end of 4E, when he stopped blogging.

I certainly know I would read him again. However, I didn't back the KS, so I'm not a disgruntled investor.

I was a big fan of Grognardia and it really introduced me to the OSR, but his dogmatic reverence of Gygax really wore on me in the the blogs latter days.

I got lucky and didn't get burned, but it's foolish, IMO, to simply forgive and forget.

Yeah, his blog was interesting and I wish he would take it up again.  He just needs to stay away from kickstarter.