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<blockquote data-quote="piper909" data-source="post: 9640928" data-attributes="member: 7052169">Other highlights from that era -- getting to visit Forrest Brown's Martian Metals business, it was located in the rural Hill Country fringes northwest of Austin proper (at that time), seemed very slapdash, centered in old wood buildings from some abandoned farming settlement I want to say. I was not surprised to hear later that it burned down, it seemed to be in a vulnerable spot for wildfires.&nbsp; Forrest once hosted a massed Fantasy battle in his house's garage and that inspired me to write my own massed Fantasy rules a few years later (unpublished, alas), using a couple of his combat mechanics that I liked very much. I see on the web a reproduction of the surprise April 1, 1982 memo that Howard presented to Norm and me basically saying that our jobs were ending and we would henceforth only be paid for piecework, which was in effect a big reduction in salary as well as totally unpredictable. (Separately, he also placed ads in some local high school newspapers looking for playtesters and other piecework labor on the cheap!)&nbsp; This came as a bolt out of the blue. I told him, &quot;I can't live on this,&quot; and set to work looking up other possibilities. Luckily there were other ex-TSR guys out there and Lawrence Schick got me an interview at Coleco, where he had gone to just months previously. Paul/Jennell Jaquays was assembling a new games division for the ColecoVision and other systems and products.&nbsp; Howard really blindsided us and I had no contact with him after completing our two-week severance period.&nbsp; That was a low-down deed and I wasn't surprised when the company folded its tent the following year.&nbsp; It seemed that Howard gave in to his cheap-ass instincts and maybe thought he could keep his profit margin high by cutting production costs.&nbsp; We saw how well that turned out. I don't think Metagaming was in financial straits -- but I don't know for sure -- I think he just got tired of role-playing being a game publisher for whatever reason.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="piper909, post: 9640928, member: 7052169"] Other highlights from that era -- getting to visit Forrest Brown's Martian Metals business, it was located in the rural Hill Country fringes northwest of Austin proper (at that time), seemed very slapdash, centered in old wood buildings from some abandoned farming settlement I want to say. I was not surprised to hear later that it burned down, it seemed to be in a vulnerable spot for wildfires. Forrest once hosted a massed Fantasy battle in his house's garage and that inspired me to write my own massed Fantasy rules a few years later (unpublished, alas), using a couple of his combat mechanics that I liked very much. I see on the web a reproduction of the surprise April 1, 1982 memo that Howard presented to Norm and me basically saying that our jobs were ending and we would henceforth only be paid for piecework, which was in effect a big reduction in salary as well as totally unpredictable. (Separately, he also placed ads in some local high school newspapers looking for playtesters and other piecework labor on the cheap!) This came as a bolt out of the blue. I told him, "I can't live on this," and set to work looking up other possibilities. Luckily there were other ex-TSR guys out there and Lawrence Schick got me an interview at Coleco, where he had gone to just months previously. Paul/Jennell Jaquays was assembling a new games division for the ColecoVision and other systems and products. Howard really blindsided us and I had no contact with him after completing our two-week severance period. That was a low-down deed and I wasn't surprised when the company folded its tent the following year. It seemed that Howard gave in to his cheap-ass instincts and maybe thought he could keep his profit margin high by cutting production costs. We saw how well that turned out. I don't think Metagaming was in financial straits -- but I don't know for sure -- I think he just got tired of role-playing being a game publisher for whatever reason. [/QUOTE]

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