Outlaw Mess

[jongjungbu]

TDK,
Man, I understand. Ok. Maybe I don't, really. But I do sympathize, truly.
However, this doesn't mean your excellent stuff won't or shouldn't see the light of day! As I stated before, you could submit it to Fight On! and I think you should.
For your full-length stuff, you can format it and turn it into a pdf and upload it yourself to Lulu, or just offer them as pdfs. Either way.

T-K-D I'm sure your work will see light of day even if we put it up as a free PDF at Lulu or DriveThru!

I wholeheartedly agree with both machfront and Hogscape. Don't give up on all your great fanwork TKD, regardless of what happens to OP.

[machfront]

Crap.

I thought I had a massive pdf file that contained a lot of the old issues of Dungeon magazine, but I can't find it. I guess I dumped it during a hard drive house-cleaning.

I hope branderwydd returns and gives more details. Perhaps even a scan or two of some pages comparing the two.

I don't wish to raise more of a stink or drama, but if this author's adventure, and (for better or worse) property of WotC was stolen too, then, it's just plainly the right thing for it to be known as well.
We as a community that loves and supports this game, and gaming in general, can't sit idly by and let others find out what we may already have knowledge of. I know we aren't those kinds of people and it would be a pity if we appeared that way to folks who may, at some point wish to join us here and in the enjoyment and support of T&T in general.

This is not about being some knight in shining armor. It's just good, ol'-fashioned right, I guess.

To be brutally, brutally honest... a lot of us scratched our heads every once and a while about "that company" didn't we?
Didn't we wonder about some of that art?
Haven't many of us said at times how uncomfortable we were with certain actions or attitudes or practices over these years?

I think, though there was an soft undercurrent, many of us (and that most certainly includes my own rotten self) probably...didn't want to believe.
It's understandable. We had so little, if any support for our favorite game.

But, if we want and expect the game to survive, we should show that we'll not allow decay or betrayal or, indeed, disrespect of artistic endeavors of all stripes within our ranks.


Hey.

I smell soap. Do you smell soap?

[hrrrothgarrr]

Have an Exalt on me for this post.

I e-mailed Ken last night to order a copy of the Delver's Pack.

I told him that although "that company" had a lot of things offered for sale that I was interested in, until this mess is sorted out I just didn't feel I could order from James in good conscience.

I stand by that. I hope this turns out to be the fault of a crooked art agent, but even if so, a publisher should check his sources more carefully.

"that guy" has been "one of our own". He has done much to support the T&T community and keep T&T stuff available and in print. That is why I feel such a sense of betrayal. We haven't just lost T&T history and game materials, we have lost a fellow fan.

Dungeons and source material can find other outlets. But our reputation as a gaming community is not so easily restored. We have all heard the rumors and chosen to look the other way. I tried to give the benefit of the doubt, but it is becoming harder to ignore the elephant in the living room.

[Branderwydd /|\]

branderwydd, It's good to see you back around and posting. You've been MIA for quite some time. Too bad your return is under these circumstances.
What you report is....very disturbing. If one were to let that particular cat outta the bag (either on the RPG.net thread or elsewhere...) any shadow of doubt or 'maybe it is a case of naivete' would go right out the window. The crying for blood and gnashing of teeth would be legion.
As it is, I'm 50/50 on whether that should 'get out there'. Actually...perhaps I'm more like 70/30 in favor of it. Man. All the TSR stuff belongs to Wizards of the Coast now... and they would cast quite a dim view on that.
I wish I had to two products you mention so I could see for myself just how closely they resemble on another...

I mean, are you talking like, "wow, you can really see the similarities" or "Well. That's the same exact thing."?

yes, i've been MIA for a while. i have still been lurking, but between a job change and my computer doing stupid things that wouldn't let me log into many of my accounts for a long time, i haven't been able to be here. i hope i have that resolved now. anyway, it is kind of you to have noticed my absence.

to clarify your point, let me be clearer than my previous post - i am calling this blatant plagiarism. i did alert jacobs at paizo to this years ago when i first realized it. he said he'd look into it, but obviously nothing was done (but it was also around the time paizo lost their license, so he probably had bigger fish to fry). i also tried to bring it to others' attention here, but no one seemed too interested. i see a few posts down from my original post you ask me to validate this with some scans. allow me to go pull these two products and i will see what i can do about some scans. i will do so as quickly as i am able, but it may be a few hours to half a day, unless i can quickly locate them and do the scanning. watch this space!

[machfront]

branderwydd,
In the interim I've seen that Vince Garcia, the author of the original adventure as you noted, is credited in/on the "that company" adventure, or am I misinformed?

[Branderwydd /|\]

i found the module and the dungeon issue. "that guy" is the only name on the cover, but garcia is listed inside: 'Written, Designed, and Published by James L. "that guy" II and Vince Garcia". "Edited by: Mike Hill".

inside the OP module are four pictures rendered by Daniel R. Horne, used in entirety or in a cropped or modified version. "that guy" lists "Daniel Horne" as one of the artists inside the front cover.

the issue, however, is that "that guy" just added the names as an afterthought or to pretend to have consent. again, jacobs himself told me directly that once sold to dungeon magazine, all text and artwork belonged to TSR and now WOTC. neither the text nor the artwork could have been legally obtained to use in the OP module. "that guy" did not work with either garcia or horne to collaborate on this: he just stole the adventure and tweaked it to T&T, adding their names in the hope that anyone who looked closely enough would assume he had consent of the original author and artist.

it is a direct word-for-word ripoff from start to finish except where changes were made to make it fit T&T mechanics and the setting of "that guy"'s game world.

i'm not trying to stir up any trouble for hogscape, who i believe knows i respect him and admire his work, but i have to ask: since you edited this hogscape, did you have any idea it was ripped off from an old dungeon magazine, or were you just sent the file to edit and then sent it back to "that guy"?

[lostheretic]

Machfront,

Yep, I complained about M&M.
Yep, I complained when some guy's work was put in DD without permission.
Yep, I did wonder about that artwork.
Yep, I was frustrated with the recent Gristlegrim incident.

This guy dug his own hobbit hole and I don't think it will reflect on the T&T community in the future. No worries guys, we'll find a new avenue to take our game.

[machfront]

That does seem pretty bad.
There's still room for doubt, however. I mean...it's possible, however unlikely, that at least Vince Garcia was involved. It's his material. Of course, were that the case, it would be Mr. Garcia that would have to explain things to WotC.
Still, I find that unlikely. I've seen the name Vince Garcia a good deal, and it's always been associated with D&D (articles, adventures, etc.).

But Daniel Horne art? Yeah. Not bloody likely that was legit.

[machfront]

Nov 20, 2009 0:06:29 GMT -5 lostheretic said:

No worries guys, we'll find a new avenue to take our game.

That's the spirit! ;D

[machfront]

Just wanted to say that I've let it be known what little we know concerning the "Djinni" solos issue put forth by branderwydd on the RPG.net thread.

Main reason I did this is because, as I'm sure you've noticed, we've added a number of new members in the last two days and the "guests" have been a larger and more consistent number than I've ever seen in the three and a half years I've been here.
Folks are coming by, and rightly so, and I'm sure none of us wish for it to look as though we condone "that company"' alleged actions and/or that we're trying to remain insular an' "hush-hush", dig?

[koraq]

Nov 20, 2009 0:10:54 GMT -5 machfront said:

Nov 20, 2009 0:06:29 GMT -5 lostheretic said:

No worries guys, we'll find a new avenue to take our game.

That's the spirit! ;D

Which is why I started this: trollbridge.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1168 thread.

Let's get together and create something positive from this bad experience!!

[hrrrothgarrr]

James says that he plans for "that company" to rise again, without the dodgy artwork.

I would be glad to see any of the material he published remain in print and available. I do think it is also worth while to pursue other avenues of publishing and sharing T&T materials.

If other game systems have very active fanbases, why should T&T be any different? We have always been smaller, but I think we are the more creative for that.

[jongjungbu]

Yeah hopefully that's the case. My latest mini-solo No Rest for the Weary at War is still pending "that company" coming back to life. It would have been cool to see it in print in Hobbit Hole.

[koraq]

James have spoken out at last? Where?

[hrrrothgarrr]

I don't know that James has spoken out publicly. I emailed him with a couple of questions, not directly related to the controversy, and in his reply he mentioned that he planned on update the OP website with material for sale in the next couple of weeks.

He didn't say anything specific about the controversy.