Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Cripes! If I'm reading things right that Gorgonmilk fellow just got Michael Moorcock to make a Petty Gods submission. Result.

Wheggi wrote:James M. wasn't really all that relevant except to the sycophantic desperately looking for a teat to suckle on. Don't know why everyone that was throwing him under the bus before is now all "yay Dwimmermount is going to be released. Well played James and that other guy!" It's just baffling.

- Wheggi

To be fair, James did have a lot of blog readers, and was apparently talented enough to get several interviews with people, and write for both The Escapist and WoTC themselves.

I don't think everybody was throwing him under a bus. He has some anti-fans who will continue to tirade against him, as well as fans who were very concerned and were willing to wait forever.

The biggest criticism was that he disappeared for over three months without any updates or communication and it got to the point where his publishing partner was left holding the bag and people were wondering if he disappeared and took the money with him. That's probably why you see the reversal of opinions. It's like what TRP said, reasonable delays and communication go a long way.

in a flush of naivete and excitement I backed Dwimmermount at what I think now was too high a level. Having watched the project turn into a train wreck, my observations are these.

1. I was a fool not to inquire more closely into the status of the manuscript before I backed. I imagined (Wrongly) that the thing was done, and that it had benefitted from lots of home campaign play testing (wrong again). That is, I imagined that this project was something like what many of us do - build our dungeons organically in the home campaign and then share them once they've acquired a certain reputation or solidity (if even in our own minds).

2. As a result of point 1, I have mixed feelings about Dwimmermount going forward. I will be happy to get a copy of the final product, if only to justify the money I spent. But I have severe doubts that it will be anything I will want to play, or perhaps even read. Why? Because it's being written quickly for publication, and to fulfill what is now a cockup. That doesn't inspire me with confidence that the dungeon will be anything organically coherent or necessarily interesting. I will be pleased to be proven wrong, but I kind of doubt it.

3. As for future Kickstarters, this fiasco has only made me cautious about how I approach KS. Like others, I don't blame Autarch or KS. [in fact Tavis has been a stand-up guy who has worked his ass off to make this right]. I blame myself for being naive (point 1 above) and I blame JM for not being able to be honest to himself about his own abilities, interest-level and time-table. So, if Axemental, for instance, were to offer a KS, I'd be interested ... but I'd want to be assured of a couple of facts: first, that the manuscript was complete, and was merely waiting art and/or layout; second, that the designer had spent some time playtesting his/her idea, so that it wasn't just a 'cool idea' but something that would have actual practical value to me. I guess something like peer review is what I'd want to hear about [and for some publishers, like FGG or Bill Barsh, their own reputation for prior publication might satisfy that requirement].

I ran a fairly successful KS campaign for my AS&SH game (about 1/4th the money as raised by Dwimmermount). I started the KS campaign in December 2011, and only after my manuscripts were complete (including play-testing/review of the materials). KS of course has you estimate delivery, so March 2012 seemed reasonable at the time. I was wrong. Final edits, layout, and issues with home office equipment, box manufacture delays, and other sundries pushed my project's release date back to late July 2012. Each set of the game was hand-assembled, which stretched the delivery to September 2012 for some customers. It's not an easy undertaking, and I can sympathize with well-meaning projects that suffer setbacks.

@ghul

You didn't intentionally obfuscate the progress of your ms as Autarch & JMal did re:Dwimmermount.
You didn't disappear with a pile of cash, and leave people wondering what the heck happened. You provided updates and reassurances of delivery.

Since we are talking fundamentally of craftmen's projects here, it is reasonable to expect delays. The Dwimmermount fiasco on the other hand, well. It was more than a delay. It was a systemic failure to address responsibilities, with a US partner (Autarch) who fucked up on the basic contract not guaranteeing exits for them in case the project went south, and who did all the heavy lifting in terms of communication with the backers. And when comes the time to make good, JM doesn't actually apologize, or address the backers on the kickstarter page, or through his blog at all. He posts one more excuse on his corner of the G+ echo chamber, states matter-of-factly that he quits, and asks the 900+ people who follow his posts to not disseminate this information.

I mean, no matter how you look at it, there's a real communication breakdown here. No need to go into hyperboles of "thieving" and "JM is a crook" or whatnot. JM just failed to address his responsibilities, was a tourist who had no idea whatsoever what he was undertaking when he started this whole thing, and now walks into the sunset, wanting nothing more to do with people he still deems are unfair to him and "only care about him as a writer". We don't know how much of the money has been used and is thereby not given back to Autarch to complete the actual project people sponsored (and the latest update on the kickstarter seems to indicate not all the moneys were restituted, since, paraphrasing, "enough" remains to complete the project). I don't think at this point it matters much for those of us who wanted to learn something out of this fiasco, however.

The lessons are pretty clear to me:

(1) Don't overhype your product.
(2) Have a finished manuscript BEFORE you ask for funds.
(3) Keep the communication channels open at all times; explain everything you're doing once the project is funded.
(4) Maintain a collaborative tone, talking to your backers as partners and friends, as equals, not from on high with them waiting on you to get your act together.

That's pretty much it, as far as I'm concerned.

Gospel.

Benoist wrote: The lessons are pretty clear to me:

(1) Don't overhype your product.
(2) Have a finished manuscript BEFORE you ask for funds.
(3) Keep the communication channels open at all times; explain everything you're doing once the project is funded.
(4) Maintain a collaborative tone, talking to your backers as partners and friends, as equals, not from on high with them waiting on you to get your act together.

Ben wins the thread. He states what should be common practice for all publishers succinctly and politely.

Jay, what prize do we have for Ben?

KS backers are more like shareholders than customers.

PapersAndPaychecks wrote:KS backers are more like shareholders than customers.

I think that's a bad analogy. Shareholders have a lot more say and pull on a corporate endeavor. Guys like Carl Ichan can come in and buy and sell (and ruin) a company, and a lot of shareholders can work adverse to a customer's needs and the original company's mission statement. And KS don't get any co-ownership or financial equity from it. Plus, with KS, the backers don't have a right to dictate terms or get a 100% transparency review. The fact that KS exists is because public stock offerings, venture capital, even angel investments all have strings attached. One of the reason KS projects are getting so much attention is that they are backing things that have at least some significant fan-base that traditional backing feels is too small to be worth their investment.

Kickstarter uses the term pledge, so I kind of see it like US Public Television, you pledge to support the project and you get gifts for certain levels.

PapersAndPaychecks wrote:KS backers are more like shareholders than customers.

Sure, KS allows you to push that amount of risk off on to your backers, but to self-publish in our hobby it is completely unnecessary to do so.

"Unnecessary" is certainly right if you're publishing a book. If I was publishing a boxed set that included dice and minis and a fold-out map, then I think I would use Kickstarter. For example, I've thought of producing decks of "spell-cards" for OSRIC where each spell is summarised on a poker deck-sized card that the player can literally place on the table when casting----or, say, OSRIC GM screens. If I ever did any of these things I think I'd use Kickstarter for it. (The main reason I haven't done these things is because I see them as things that XRP or Black Blade or Usherwood could do.)

I also think I'd treat my Kickstarter backers like business investors.

Kickstarter is a great way to gauge interest in a serious publication. If you are going to spend $500 on art for a module you want to know you can at least break even and make that back. When you have a bunch of money pledged you can know that before going to print, and moreover may find yourself with a bigger art budget than you had initially imagined. No question it is a great system, as long as you do not take the money before you have written the manuscript! We used to have a word for that before Kickstarter, I believe it was "vapourware"!

Benoist wrote:(1) Don't overhype your product.
(2) Have a finished manuscript BEFORE you ask for funds.
(3) Keep the communication channels open at all times; explain everything you're doing once the project is funded.
(4) Maintain a collaborative tone, talking to your backers as partners and friends, as equals, not from on high with them waiting on you to get your act together.

Words of wisdom.

And now we can get back to the real real issue with Dwimmermount: 30'x30' rooms with 4000 cp and 12 giant rats in them.

The thing with kickstarter and indiegogo (Barrowmaze) is that you must anticipate problems and thereby extend all your deadlines to compensate. Don't paint yourself into a corner, but rather give yourself a couple months of flexibility. Shit will happen -- so plan on it.