Outlaw Mess

[mgtremaine]

Nov 20, 2009 15:42:49 GMT -5 quoghmyre said:

This just makes me sick.

I hear ya! It's really reached the point of WTF? was this guy thinking. I'm not interested in any benefit of the doubt I think he has been walking in a gray area for a long time and it's caught up with him. I think anyone who got ripped of is entitled to their pound of flesh from him. I think the Djinn's Power issue should be brought into the light. This needs to be a cautionary tale of how not to do things. But my more cynical side thinks that OP will probably make through unless some really big fish decide to make his life a nightmare.

He has a lot of product but I have to admit I only bought 2 books from him ever [actually from Nobleknight so it was a trade in] The Elemental Dungeon and History of Trollworld. The rest was too hard to judge the quality of and there was a lot of mixed reviews on some stuff so I just could not bring myself to do it. PDF's make it a lot more tempting because the cost goes down and you can often get a few pages of preview. The Outlaw-Press site was terrible for getting to know the product. I hope that anyone who has had material produced by OP will be sure to get it back into production via lulu and/or rpgnow as we try to look to the future.

That's pretty much all I got to say on this. Now I'm back to key the map I just drew for Room 23 of OHOH.

-Mike

[ragnorakk]

Glad you're getting some work done! - every time I look at this I get sucked into it for hours.

I've got nothing against Mr. "that guy". But things are still up for sale at "that company" and other places. Though the license has been revoked, T&T 7.5 is still up for sale. I'm not interested in airing issues with OP in public out of a sense of vendetta or somesuch - but I am certainly interested in contributing as much fact to the corpus of public information available.

People can choose to run their businesses as they wish - people can also choose to do with information as they wish. I'm staying in the RPGnet conversation, because (if nothing else), taking the position of 'voice of reason' to prevent misinformation is important. But also because the whole thing pisses me off.

[hrrrothgarrr]

Has the license in point of fact been revoked?

7.5 is still up for sale because it is produced an published by Firey Dragon. "that company" is reselling it, the same as your FLGS.

I believe "that company" was told to stop selling material with unauthorized art and so they have.

[machfront]

Don't know.
Last time it was mentioned I believe the words were that they "may have to" pull the license. Ken and Rick did make him pull T&T stuff with the stolen art, though. But he was doing that already.

Someone from Fiery Dragon posted on the thread at RPG.net earlier today and they were deeply miffed. The person stated that they'd no longer work with "that company" (something that was sort of gently shoved on them by way of Ken). They seem to be highly embarrassed to have the reprints of the OP stuff in 7.5 and the Delver's Pack and also mentioned that though "that guy" told them they could reprint the stuff in total, that they couldn't have the rights to the art so they'd have to do their own.
Irony.

[jongjungbu]

Wow. I actually got a little chuckle out of that about them doing their own art, machfront. I don't what to say about it, but that is indeed something...so I felt compelled to post anything just for the wow factor.

[korgoth]

I think it bears mentioning that "that company" may also have been guilty of stealing Mazes & Minotaurs and selling it, without permission from the IP holders. You can read about it here, in this lovely thread on Dragonsfoot:

www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=31923

Sadly the designer, Olivier, got permanently run off from Dragonsfoot by cyber-communists. The whole thing was handled by the DF mods with their usual level of competence and rationality.

Anyway, artists are not the only people who have been allegedly ripped off by "that company".

All the facts are not in yet... but I think T&T is way too cool to be associated with Outlaw and their apparent gross criminality.

[Boozer]

Hi all - I've been watching these events unfold this week and keeping an eye on developments. Now I hear that I am also being dragged through the mud.

I have pulled all products from my website that do not feature art specially purchased by myself through either Simon Tranter or Jeff Freels. I may pull the Tavern Shop all together.

As much as I dislike all this mess, I will still continue to write solos & modules for T&T and have just completed a 6-level GM dungeon that "that guy" will publish. It is completely original and I have drawn all the maps myself, Simon Tranter has done the art and Jeff Freels will do the interior art.

What a mess....

[machfront]

Howdy, Boozer!

I don't think you're being dragged through the mud (if you're referring to the RPG.net thread). There was just the one fellow who didn't know who you are and assumed too much. Don't sweat it.

If you pulled anything on your site that was actually done by you, I hope you replace the art you seem to be concerned about and slap 'em back up there.
I sincerely hope you don't pull the Shop done. I mean...why?

[quoghmyre]

I'm getting through the grief cycle

Maybe this is a good thing, too many eggs in one basket and all that. In this day and age there's no need for just a select few to have all the rewards.

While Ken and Rick may choose to do nothing and let Mr "that guy" sort out his "mess", I think this is a good lesson and we should follow Boozers lead and make independent, high quality T&T material. There are lots of opportunities opening up.

There are always going to be people who think they can reap the rewards of an others labour, but eventually the light of day dawns. This is a new day and a new beginning.

[Boozer]

Hi there Mach - Yeah you are right that would be pointless. I'll keep it as it is for now. I've been considering giving the site a bit of a revamp anyway, just can't find the time!

Yeah I think now whatever "that guy" releases people will wonder where the art has come from. I sincerely hope he manages to sort this mess out as he is a good friend of mine.

Hope this doesn't affect Hobbit Hole - that is a class production. The last edition, that luckily had wonderful covers by my mate Simon Tranter, was fantastic.

[machfront]

Oh, and by the way, I just went back to the thread and stepped in your corner concerning the misunderstanding put forth by that one poster on the subject of your new forthcoming adventure.

[Boozer]

Oh nice one, thanks Mach! I'll pop by and take a peek. Much appreciated dude.

Funnily enough the adventure is called ' Vaults of the Lich Lord' (singular) so dunno why it appears at 'Liche Lords'.

I just went to OP site and it gone...

[Boozer]

Oh, no it hasn't, it's there, sorry!

[mgtremaine]

So the OP store at RPGnow is empty good thing we grabbed what we wanted right. Based on that timing I sent my email to Rick it hopes of pointing out the possible Silver lining in this. I'll copy it here just so we know we tried right....

Rick,

I wanted to drop you an email of support and encouragement for Tunnels and Trolls products. During the recent events with "that company" we, the fans over at Trollbridge, noticed something that we though merited pointing out. The PDF-RPGnow market is perhaps the largest single venue that T&T products can enter. The way Outlaw-Press handled it’s releases, 2-3 per day every day, kept the products and the company in the spotlight on the front page. The downside for Outlaw-Press was that it exposed the art issue to people who knew what they were seeing. But the fact remains that the PDF’s generated sales and attention something that the publishers website and LuLu storefront could not do. That alone is very interesting and I would encourage you to consider releasing PDF products in the same way, that is staggered over as many days as possible to keep Flying Buffalo products displayed on the entry pages.

The second point I wanted to bring up was the hope that the PDF products that belong to Flying Buffalo get transferred to your RPGnow store. Specifically I’m talking about Tunnels and Trolls 4th Edition, Sorcerer’s Apprentice #1, Uncle Ugly’s Underground Doom, and any other product that I’m missing. I assume Monsters! Monsters! and Tunnels & Trolls 1st Edition and Ken’s property but perhaps something could be worked out. What we saw and what excited us was the interesting that these products were generating. We know that sales were good and perhaps you could get better data directly from Outlaw-Press to see if it would be worth you while. Mostly we want to support and preserve the game we love.

As always with Sincerity,

Mike Tremaine

[Added - I gave you an Exalt Boozer because you rock! ]

[jongjungbu]

Aha! Boozer is here! I certainly am with the majority that I didn't see any wrongdoing by you Boozer or with Hobgoblin Tavern products. I do hope you re-open the store too. With OP questionable, there are still some of your solos and materials I've yet to acquire. Hopefully the ones I have been thinking about but didn't jump on don't have any problems with legitimacy.