Dancey resigns as GAMA Treasurer

[Henry]

The guy is an Epic level jackass.

Let's curb the personal insults, please. We can have discussion of the issues without it.

Thank you, everyone.

 

[mythago]

That's really the worst thing about what he did

Well, no, the worst thing about what he (allegedly) did was that he broke into other people's e-mail to eavesdrop on confidential discussions for some kind of perceived advantage in an interpersonal dispute. Anyone knows that's foolish and probably illegal.

I don't know a thing about Ryan Dancey and have no opinion one way or another about what GAMA is doing. However, I do know that hearing a defense like "he's a good guy and they deserved it anyway and the ends justify the means" is not persuading anybody to give him a pass on this one.

(And really, geez, reading e-mail over a GAMA dispute? Get a life! Move out of your parents' basement! WTF?!)

 

[Melan]

[Off topic] Wow, so many banned RPGNetters here! [/Off topic]

Leohat: Dancey was pretty much the guy who devised the whole d20/open gaming deal and thus presented a workable solution for 3rd party support that didn't revolve around a long and resource-consuming approval process. If he had done just that, he would be canonized in a decade or two. He may still be, but this particular event will not help his case - it will definitely cast a shadow on his character. Because you just don't do that.

 

[Staffan]

Has Dancy ever done anything good for D&D?

Yes. Restoring TSR to functionality after WOTC bought it, for one thing. The OGL/d20 thing, for another.

He was part of the WotC group that sold out to Hasborg. Which of course led to WotC laying off or forcing out most, if not all, of their best writers.

I don't know if Ryan was a stockholder in WOTC at the time, but that's where the pressure to sell out came from (the stockholders, that is). They had invested money into WOTC when it was a wee startup, and found themselves sitting on stock that wasn't publically traded but on paper worth a whole lot. So, they told Peter Adkison to find some way of letting them turn their stock into cash, which meant either making WOTC publically traded, or selling out to some other corporation.

He was part of the group that completly screwed the pooch on the whole E/Mastertools thing. I seem to remember him saying something about weekly updates followed by about a year of complete silence.

As I recall, Ryan was the one brought in once the project was a near-failure after Fluid had spent a whole lot of time and money creating a mapper feature with sound effects and miniatures-like stuff and things like that, only to have Hasbro sell the electronic rights to D&D to Infogrames (now Atari), forcing them to scrap that part of the Mastertools project.

I'm pretty sure that he pretty much bailed on the whole Open Gaming Foundation thing. Unless I'm mistaken the SRD has not been updated in over a year.

The official site for the SRD is http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35 which was updated just a couple of months ago, with the expanded psionics rules and some divine stuff.

All that said, I'm pretty disappointed in him for hacking into a private mailing list which is an immensely ty thing to do, but he has done good stuff in the past.

 

[Cergorach]

I've heard some very nasty grumbling in the past about the folks that ran GAMA at the time, at the time i was very suprised and disappointed that such practices where possible within in the RPG/game indusrty. I have the sneakin' suspicion that Dancey's objective was to remove the current the then current GAMA administration by any means necessary. I can respect that, especially after he admitted it (without being forced i believe), it would have been so easy to remove all the evidence and just forget the whole incident...

I highly doubt that he's in a lot of legal trouble, i have the impression that this guy knows his legal options very well.

Do i respect him less because what he's done? Not really, if my guess is correct, i'll even respect him more. Does that mean others should think as i do? No, everyone is entitled to his own opinion...

 

[Rasyr]

That very nasty grumbling you heard? It is important to note that it ALL came from Dancey and his friends (from fixGAMA - many of which are on the current board now), and that they never had any shred of proof to back up those "grumblings" (although "unfounded accusations" would be a more correct way of referring to them, I think).

The press release only says that he told the board, it does not go into why he told them. Perhaps somebody found out and he confessed when confronted? Perhaps he told his friends on the board so that they could gloat and laugh over getting away with it? Perhaps there is some other reason. The point is that right now, we have no way of knowing.

There is also the fact that there is that delay of a month between the time he told the board, and the time of the press release. What happened during that month? Why did it take so long? Over on rpg.net, one poster speculated that somebody found out about it, and that there was a race to see who could put their spin on it. I don't know if it is true or not, the only ones who do know are the ones actually involved, and they have not given us any more information on the matter.

 

[Cergorach]

Rasyr, the nasty rumblings came from people i don't connect directly to Dancey, mostly because the person who told me is one of those self proclamed 'D20 haters'. It could of course be all from Dancey and friends, but to be honest, we have no way of verifying that.

The same goes for all the other rumours, we just don't know what's going on or even the real motivation behind these actions. But Dancey came through for us in the past (OGL/D20, some insight into WotC, etc.) so unless someone comes along with some pretty damning evidence i'm giving Dancey the benefit of the doubt, he's earned it from my POV.

To be honest, why do we care? GAMA is one of those institutions that has very little direct impact on the regular gamers...

 

[Rasyr]

Rumors - true, we have no idea what all is going on behind the scenes. Please note, however, that your posts are treating those "grumblings" as if they were true. You are not giving the old board the same "benefit of doubt" that you are wanting to give Dancey. There is no proof as to whether those grumblings are true or not.

Dancey's actions in regards to the "penetration" (the press release's word) of the GAMA Board's mailing list - that is not a rumor, that is established fact as Dancey has admitted to doing it. As to its legality, go look up and read the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. According to that, what he did was a criminal act. Whether or not he will go to jail for it is another matter entirely, but it IS a possibility.

As to Dancey's past public actions - I would say that there is some arguement about whether or not the OGL/d20 licenses are good for the gaming industry in the long run. EN World lists over 1600 d20 products on its publishers pages. There are a number of good products on that list, but there is also a lot of duplication of products (how books on Dragon's does one need?) and there are just as many, if not more, crappy products on that list than there are good ones. The phenomena of the OGL/d20 licenses and its merits/flaws could fill a thread many times the size of this one, I think, and so I won't even attempt to get into it here.

One thing that can be seen from Dancey's statements and proposals is that he tends to want to favor bigger companies over smaller ones, and give preferential and special treatment to those larger companies, rather than treating all companies fairly. This is shown to good effect by his Origins Awards proposals where he wanted to add products to the post-nomination lists based on sales, rather than on quality (something I argued vehemently against).

As for why we should care about GAMA - No, GAMA does not have a "direct" effect on gamers, but it does have a sizable "indirect" effect through the GAMA Trade Show (which showcases new products to retailers and distributors, which in turn affects what products your FLGS will carry), and through Origins, the second largest gaming convention in the US.

 

[Nisarg]

That very nasty grumbling you heard? It is important to note that it ALL came from Dancey and his friends (from fixGAMA - many of which are on the current board now), and that they never had any shred of proof to back up those "grumblings" (although "unfounded accusations" would be a more correct way of referring to them, I think).

The press release only says that he told the board, it does not go into why he told them. Perhaps somebody found out and he confessed when confronted? Perhaps he told his friends on the board so that they could gloat and laugh over getting away with it? Perhaps there is some other reason. The point is that right now, we have no way of knowing.

There is also the fact that there is that delay of a month between the time he told the board, and the time of the press release. What happened during that month? Why did it take so long? Over on rpg.net, one poster speculated that somebody found out about it, and that there was a race to see who could put their spin on it. I don't know if it is true or not, the only ones who do know are the ones actually involved, and they have not given us any more information on the matter.

Rasyr, for someone who is constantly admitting he "doesn't know" what really happened, you certainly go out of your way to pick possible examples that make Ryan look bad. Let me guess: you have something against the guy and always have, and now you're part of the group that are pissing their pants with joy to see Ryan have to resign?

I wouldn't be too happy just yet. There are lots of other "possibilities" we "don't know" the truth about:
Its possible Ryan had planned ALL of this all along, to discredit GAMA completely and make room for starting a new industry association of his own design, or that he came to that conclusion as soon as he found that GAMA's problems were unfixeable. Granted, he'd have to be a total genius to have thought that far ahead, but then again he IS a total genius.
Its also possible that Ryan simply admitted what happened of his own free will, because he was personally willing to break the rules for the sake of assuring victory for his cause, but honorable enough to take full responsibility for having broken the rules afterwards. The month long delay was just to make sure the board had time to establish itself and get crucial changes going.

Like you said, we don't know what happened.

Nisarg

 

[Prince of Happiness]

Ok. I have to take a moment and go on anti-Dancy rant.

{rant on}

He was part of the WotC group that sold out to Hasborg. Which of course led to WotC laying off or forcing out most, if not all, of their best writers.
...
...
...
Not that anyone outside the Northwest knows or cares but wasn't Dancy the one that told Norwestcon to get stuffed and started a con the weekend before to draw off Norwestcon members?
Now, he hacks in to private mailing list.

He'll promise the moon and the stars but never delivers on anything.

The guy is an Epic level jackass.

{rant off}

Jeez! I only had vague ideas about Dancey, but that Hasbro deal was disastrous to a good (and hot) friend of mine who got laid off after the acquisition...and so THAT'S where that con came from. Thanks, man, for doing your part in making sure that Norwescon doesn't get any bigger than a regional con. :\

Edited to snip the personal grrr.