Owen K.C. Stephens
Adventurer
Super Genius Games still exists, owned and operated by Hyrum Savage. Last I heard he was planning to work on DaD himself, though obviously that may have changed since I left.
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Pathfinder 1E Owen K.C. Stephens Joins Green Ronin as Pathfinder Developer!
- Thread starter Pramas
- Start date
Super Genius Games still exists, owned and operated by Hyrum Savage. Last I heard he was planning to work on DaD himself, though obviously that may have changed since I left.
darjr
I crit!
Apologies. I misunderstood and thought SGG was winding down. Jeese maybe I should have paid more attention.
Nikosandros
Golden Procrastinator
Given how little work was done on DaD before, I'm rather skeptical about its future now that SGG has been reduced to a single person. Quite frankly, I'm extremely disappointed about the way it has been handled and seeing the project basically abandoned by those who had committed to it at the time of the Kickstarter only reinforces this feeling.
Owen K.C. Stephens
Adventurer
I'm very sorry you feel abandoned. I'm not sure what I could have done to avoid that. I worked on DaD as hard as I could when I was part of SGG, but now that I'm not it's out of my hands.
The core Kickstarter deliverable was access to DaD for a number of months, and to the best of my knowledge everyone has had access to the core site. The stretch goals were supposed to be delivered by now, and they haven't been, and that is something I was working on when I was with SGG. A lot of the update to pathfinder has occurred, but certainly not all of it. A lot of the new art was put up but, again, not all of it. There's a finished Player's Guide I delivered to SGG before left, but obviously I can't say if it's gone up yet or not. I made the text of it directly available to everyone who asked for it. I manually reset expiration dates to ensure none expired despite their time being up exactly because not all the rewards had been delivered.
There's not a lot else I can do at this point. I worked on DaD as hard as I could while I worked for SGG, and now I don't. Hyrum can always get more people involved, though last I spoke to him about it his plan was to take over doing it himself. Unfortunately I'm not part of the company that owns it anymore, I never had access to the Kickstarter info directly (it was run on Hyrum's Kickstarter account, not a company account), and budget formed from the KS had money designated to take care of the remaining items.
I'd like to see DaD fulfill its potential too, but it's not my call how to handle it at this point. Obviously sometimes people leave companies before projects they worked on come to completion. I had things unfinished when I left WotC back in 2001 as well. Some came to fruition. Others didn't. I worked very hard on DaD when I was with SGG, and tried to make sure that people who had signed up for every pdf SGG made for a year got something new every month. I finished the Player's Guide, and did a lot of the Pathfinder updates myself. But no it wasn't done when I left, and I wish it had been. But it's not something I have the rights to anymore. If Hyrum wanted to hire me to keep working on it for SGG, that's a conversation I'd be happy to have.
The core Kickstarter deliverable was access to DaD for a number of months, and to the best of my knowledge everyone has had access to the core site. The stretch goals were supposed to be delivered by now, and they haven't been, and that is something I was working on when I was with SGG. A lot of the update to pathfinder has occurred, but certainly not all of it. A lot of the new art was put up but, again, not all of it. There's a finished Player's Guide I delivered to SGG before left, but obviously I can't say if it's gone up yet or not. I made the text of it directly available to everyone who asked for it. I manually reset expiration dates to ensure none expired despite their time being up exactly because not all the rewards had been delivered.
There's not a lot else I can do at this point. I worked on DaD as hard as I could while I worked for SGG, and now I don't. Hyrum can always get more people involved, though last I spoke to him about it his plan was to take over doing it himself. Unfortunately I'm not part of the company that owns it anymore, I never had access to the Kickstarter info directly (it was run on Hyrum's Kickstarter account, not a company account), and budget formed from the KS had money designated to take care of the remaining items.
I'd like to see DaD fulfill its potential too, but it's not my call how to handle it at this point. Obviously sometimes people leave companies before projects they worked on come to completion. I had things unfinished when I left WotC back in 2001 as well. Some came to fruition. Others didn't. I worked very hard on DaD when I was with SGG, and tried to make sure that people who had signed up for every pdf SGG made for a year got something new every month. I finished the Player's Guide, and did a lot of the Pathfinder updates myself. But no it wasn't done when I left, and I wish it had been. But it's not something I have the rights to anymore. If Hyrum wanted to hire me to keep working on it for SGG, that's a conversation I'd be happy to have.
Question, Owen. I'm not trying to be picky here, so feel free to ignore me. Isn't it a little different, though, when the majority of the company leaves, forms another company consisting of those people, leaving the obligations in the hands of the one guy left? Could it not be equally described as you simply changing the company name and Hyrum leaving the company?
I hope that doesn't come across as too inquisitorial! I'm not having a go (though reading that back it looks a bit like I am); I'm just mildly curious.
Owen K.C. Stephens
Adventurer
Super Genius Games has an obligation to complete its Dungeonaday Kickstarter. Hyrum bought out myself and Stan, so he became the sole owner of SGG. We didn't take any of the resources budgeted to pay for the SGG work.
Why would what Stan and I do after we leave SGG have any impact on whether I should keep working on a project I am no longer owner of, can't profit from, and always worked on only through that company? I suppose if we went and started a competing adventure website it might be claimed we were taking away his ability to sell new subscriptions, but we are very much not doing that.
SGG was a legal entity before I came along. It remains a legal entity, in which someone else bought out my interest. That person also bought out another founding member. The main part of that buyout is pdfs I wrote and have only ever been paid royalties for. I'm not taking away anything SGG needs to finish DaD, and SGG's legal obligations don't change.
On a personal level, I'd like to see DaD do well. I spent a lot of time and effort on that sight, and I disliked leaving the project undone. But as I mentioned, when you leave a company you rarely don't leave things undone. I managed to take Warlords of the Apocalypse with me and most of the pdf lines I've built.
What I don't get is things like SGG's tax ID, legal framework, agreements with artists, publisher points (from OBS -- a kind of advertising currency where I must start over at 0), or any of DaD's assets. I leave behind the rights to the Tomb of Nibul, 20 encounters of the Battle of Brindenford, the new rules in the Player's Guide, the Runic Arcanulator, the Vault of Petitioners... all things I worked hard on and were not part of the buyout SGG gave me.
All of my DaD work remains with SGG. The ability to access the Kickstarter remains with Hyrum. What cash I received is less than a months royalties on the pdfs I wrote. I did not walk off and "leave SGG with the obligations." I left SGG with ownership of everything except the unrelated pdfs I wrote or developed personally. Nothing I have taken should leave Hyrum in any less of a position to finish DaD than SGG was in when I was part of the company.
I probably *could* insist SGG stop hosting on DaD the long list of pdfs the company no longer owns, but I have no intent of doing that. I *do* recommend people take the pdfs they want, because it was never the plan to have more than a year of pdfs up at once as there now are. We used to keep 8 weeks up at a time, and DaD might go back to that at any time. But as long as Hyrum wants to leave those in place for existing DaD members, I'm okay with that.
I personally emailed everyone I was working with to get individual problems solved to let them know I was leaving and how to contact Hyrum.
There are things in my career I'd have liked to see finished. d20 Spectaculars. Star Wars: Bases and Battlestations. EverQuest 2.0. Dungeonaday.com. But once I am no longer on those projects, I have to let their legal owners handle them from that point on.
Why would what Stan and I do after we leave SGG have any impact on whether I should keep working on a project I am no longer owner of, can't profit from, and always worked on only through that company? I suppose if we went and started a competing adventure website it might be claimed we were taking away his ability to sell new subscriptions, but we are very much not doing that.
SGG was a legal entity before I came along. It remains a legal entity, in which someone else bought out my interest. That person also bought out another founding member. The main part of that buyout is pdfs I wrote and have only ever been paid royalties for. I'm not taking away anything SGG needs to finish DaD, and SGG's legal obligations don't change.
On a personal level, I'd like to see DaD do well. I spent a lot of time and effort on that sight, and I disliked leaving the project undone. But as I mentioned, when you leave a company you rarely don't leave things undone. I managed to take Warlords of the Apocalypse with me and most of the pdf lines I've built.
What I don't get is things like SGG's tax ID, legal framework, agreements with artists, publisher points (from OBS -- a kind of advertising currency where I must start over at 0), or any of DaD's assets. I leave behind the rights to the Tomb of Nibul, 20 encounters of the Battle of Brindenford, the new rules in the Player's Guide, the Runic Arcanulator, the Vault of Petitioners... all things I worked hard on and were not part of the buyout SGG gave me.
All of my DaD work remains with SGG. The ability to access the Kickstarter remains with Hyrum. What cash I received is less than a months royalties on the pdfs I wrote. I did not walk off and "leave SGG with the obligations." I left SGG with ownership of everything except the unrelated pdfs I wrote or developed personally. Nothing I have taken should leave Hyrum in any less of a position to finish DaD than SGG was in when I was part of the company.
I probably *could* insist SGG stop hosting on DaD the long list of pdfs the company no longer owns, but I have no intent of doing that. I *do* recommend people take the pdfs they want, because it was never the plan to have more than a year of pdfs up at once as there now are. We used to keep 8 weeks up at a time, and DaD might go back to that at any time. But as long as Hyrum wants to leave those in place for existing DaD members, I'm okay with that.
I personally emailed everyone I was working with to get individual problems solved to let them know I was leaving and how to contact Hyrum.
There are things in my career I'd have liked to see finished. d20 Spectaculars. Star Wars: Bases and Battlestations. EverQuest 2.0. Dungeonaday.com. But once I am no longer on those projects, I have to let their legal owners handle them from that point on.
Well, that's kinda what my question was. We (probably rightly) aren't privvy to the decisions you guys made, so folks are just kinda guessing - and explanations like this really help! Take it as a compliment that they want to know! Much better than leaving SGG and being met with a resounding silence.
Owen K.C. Stephens
Adventurer
Fair enough.
And despite you being really clear you weren't meaning to have a go at me, my response came off as kinda snarky and unprofessional. I did not mean it to sound as annoyed as I think it did, and I apologize. It's been a hectic couple of weeks, and I let it get to me.
Certainly I value both the venue you give creators to be able to talk to fans, patrons, and fellow gamers and the questions you ask to spread information you think your readers want.
And you're right, people caring what I do is MUCH better than the sound of crickets. It's just a bit odd to see things like examiner.com articles and other publisher's blogs speculating about why I took what feels to me like just another step in my career. But I do see that the inside view and outside view might look quite different.
And despite you being really clear you weren't meaning to have a go at me, my response came off as kinda snarky and unprofessional. I did not mean it to sound as annoyed as I think it did, and I apologize. It's been a hectic couple of weeks, and I let it get to me.
Certainly I value both the venue you give creators to be able to talk to fans, patrons, and fellow gamers and the questions you ask to spread information you think your readers want.
And you're right, people caring what I do is MUCH better than the sound of crickets. It's just a bit odd to see things like examiner.com articles and other publisher's blogs speculating about why I took what feels to me like just another step in my career. But I do see that the inside view and outside view might look quite different.
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Owen K.C. Stephens
Adventurer
The Advanced Bestiary is all templates. Each template is presented by itself (so you can add it to any appropriate monster), AND with an example monster having had it applied already (so you can use it immediately).
So one of the reasons it's always been so popular is that it multiples the number of options a GM has, rather than just add to it. You can use the Advanced Bestiary templates to make other monsters more interesting -- and in fact Paizo has done just that with lots of their adventures.
But the templates are currently designed for 3.x OGL rules, and all the art is B&W. We'd like to update everything to be 100% Pf compatible and, if we can, get new color art for it.
