If KS would ever get off his ass, get with the times, and do a revision of the Palladium rules system, then I'd have no problem donating money. As it is, most of his products turn out to be vapourware, the system is shit, and KS himself already has begged for money how many times since the last "Crisis of Treachery?" Notice the Cthulhutech guys had way worse shit happen to them three times in a freaking row and I haven't seen them begging.

KS is not a professional, and Palladium is not a professionally run company. It's books are amateur productions that aren't playtested and horribly written. Most people like that get by selling pdfs on RPGnow, I see no reason why Palladium shouldn't as well. He needs to either step up and finally turn Palladium into a real company, or suck it up that the times when that kind of crap could make money in print are over.

Oh, and he should stop being such a whiny bitch about fan sites. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

Quote from: greylond;514016Heh, I quote a cliche, "If it's stupid and it works, It isn't Stupid."

Yeah, but I think if he goes to the well too many times, it will stop working.  There are people on other forums who donated before who said they aren't going to do it this time.

So I dont think his tactics are going to work forever

Quote from: VectorSigma;513947Like any other setup, it's genius if it works.

$12K, on the other hand, seems freaking huge.

I dunno.  Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea used kickstarter to raise $13K for its initial print run.  And if you're going "Astonishing Who?", then you see my point.  (The kickstarter page says "North Wind Adventures is a small press publisher that is just getting started...")

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;514059I dunno.  Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea used kickstarter to raise $13K for its initial print run.  And if you're going "Astonishing Who?", then you see my point.  (The kickstarter page says "North Wind Adventures is a small press publisher that is just getting started...")

"... selling PDFs and POD products."

If they had a damn bit of sense at all, they would be wrapping the marketing and initial sales into the same line item instead of the nightmare of trying to get a print run together.

Ah yes, Palladium's 3rd Annual Going Out of Business Sale.  

JG

Kevin must've figured out that begging fans for money doesn't look as bad if you promise to give them something back for their trouble.

I don't know. I have enough trouble as it is chipping in on crowdsourcing projects, and I'd never, ever give Palladium a single dollar for this, because for over 10 years now every Rifts book has been an utter crapfest (I haven't bought a Rifts book for a while now, but I've seen quite a few).

Also, "In Memoriam" credit? WTF, Kevin Siembieda. :confused:

Now, if they hired someone who knows something about game design, to do a comprehensive clean-up and streamlining (NOT a complete rewrite, mind you) of the Palladium engine, including rebalancing the tech and the character classes, and released a honest-to-God Rifts 2e, I might be tempted to reach for my wallet.

Quote from: The Butcher;514118Kevin must've figured out that begging fans for money doesn't look as bad if you promise to give them something back for their trouble.

I don't know. I have enough trouble as it is chipping in on crowdsourcing projects, and I'd never, ever give Palladium a single dollar for this, because for over 10 years now every Rifts book has been an utter crapfest (I haven't bought a Rifts book for a while now, but I've seen quite a few).

Also, "In Memoriam" credit? WTF, Kevin Siembieda. :confused:

Now, if they hired someone who knows something about game design, to do a comprehensive clean-up and streamlining (NOT a complete rewrite, mind you) of the Palladium engine, including rebalancing the tech and the character classes, and released a honest-to-God Rifts 2e, I might be tempted to reach for my wallet.

This.  A thousand times, that Siembieda will hear us.

And if not, he'll die in ten years or so.  Then we will inherit the Rifts.

If you look on ebay right now, (at least in the UK) old editions of D&D all sell. The 1st ed stuff seems very popular, 2e less so. BECMI and the older Basic books seem to have been sprinkled with 'magic fairy dust of old book selling, +2, +4 vs geeks' and go for silly money. In contrast Palladium books hardly get bids on them, even with 99p start. Not worth the paper they are printed on?

I'd say if the company wants to stay in business, they need someone else doing the writing and the fella in charge needs to do a better job of running the company, rather than hoping the die hard fans stuck with mountains of unsellable, value-less books keep dipping into their pockets. It worked this time, and the cap in hand approach has worked previously it seems, but for how long will fans keep a poorly run company with an archaic game system alive?

It's all a bit sad really.

Wow. Just wow.

I used to criticize Kevin a lot for his wacky shennanigans but I stopped paying attention so much after my Rifts campaign ended.

I still like Palladium's various game lines, and I think Kevin has a lot of good ideas, but the systems need work and I usually find him to be rather insane as a businessman. He's like part sleazy used car salesman and part carnival barker but mixed with a dose of pathos.

That said, he continually amazes me with his ability to actually keep his business going despite his craptacular business dealings so I give him credit - he's managed to build up a good company and keep it going far, far longer than a lot of people.

So, kudos to him as he appears to have made his goal!


But I still think he's nuts...  

Quote from: APN;514238If you look on ebay right now, (at least in the UK) old editions of D&D all sell. The 1st ed stuff seems very popular, 2e less so. BECMI and the older Basic books seem to have been sprinkled with 'magic fairy dust of old book selling, +2, +4 vs geeks' and go for silly money. In contrast Palladium books hardly get bids on them, even with 99p start. Not worth the paper they are printed on?

Not a fair comparison, methinks, since most of the books going for sale on eBay are still in print. A decent chunk of Palladium's catalog is 20+ years old, or "new" editions which are pretty damn close to the older ones. Not to mention Palladium's stuff being fairly accessible price-wise, compared to, say, D&D 4e, or Pathfinder, or the Warhammer 40,000 RPGs.

Except, with Kickstarter my funds are guaranteed. If the project does not fund, I'm not charged. It's backed by Amazon.

Also, Kickstarter is a slightly interested yet neutral 3rd party. It's almost like holding our money in escrow. The system is the same for everyone pitching a project.

What would have happened when the project didn't fund?

The page was hand rolled and manually updated?

How do you know the funding was actually achieved?

This approach is hokey IMHO. Why not just use Kickstarter?

Quote from: StormBringer;514062"... selling PDFs and POD products."

If they had a damn bit of sense at all, they would be wrapping the marketing and initial sales into the same line item instead of the nightmare of trying to get a print run together.

The fact that RPG publishers beyond a handful of the big guys are even bothering with anything but POD at this point continues to baffle me.

It's not like there's a lot of shelf space going around for RPGs anyway, and besides. you can still get distribution through POD channels as I understand it.  

Your tiny press RPG about steampunk duck people is never gonna be on the shelf at Barnes and Noble.  Stop wasting my money and yours trying to do traditional print when you could be doing it POD practically cost-free and thus have a chance of surviving to give me Quackpunk 1811 2nd Edition.

Quote from: trechriron;514368Except, with Kickstarter my funds are guaranteed. If the project does not fund, I'm not charged. It's backed by Amazon.

Well, the funds are guaranteed in the sense that they'll give them back if the funding target isn't met.  And it's not like there aren't still plenty of obsessive Rifts fans out there who were guaranteed to pony up.

There is zero guarantee of the actual product delivering though.  That's left as a "not my problem, talk to the seller."  

And given it's Palladium . . . well maybe they just couldn't get Kickstarter to approve with their record.  Remember that every project there gets vetted first before it's approved for post.  

More likely though, it's just Kevin's usual mindless greed refusing to let anyone else have a hand in things.

Quote from: J Arcane;514471The fact that RPG publishers beyond a handful of the big guys are even bothering with anything but POD at this point continues to baffle me.

It's not like there's a lot of shelf space going around for RPGs anyway, and besides. you can still get distribution through POD channels as I understand it.  

Exactly.  The small print folks are not going to revive the brick and mortar stores, as much as I hate to see them in decline.  The smaller hobby shops have even less room to take risks than B&N, assuming the distributors decided to take a chance on 'Tax Break Games' in the first place.

QuoteYour tiny press RPG about steampunk duck people is never gonna be on the shelf at Barnes and Noble.  Stop wasting my money and yours trying to do traditional print when you could be doing it POD practically cost-free and thus have a chance of surviving to give me Quackpunk 1811 2nd Edition.

Ok, now I want to play Quackpunk 1811.

Yeah, J you're gonna have to write Quackpunk 1811 now.  That demands to be done.

Another vote for QuackPunk 1811.  I'm particularly enamored of the timeline - it's more Napoleonic than Victorian, which is super-keen.

I'm imagining more like Carl Barks ducks than Runequest ducks, though.