The Tome of Psionics...?

[Alzrius]

I was looking at the website of Fred Perry, a favorite comic artist of mine, and noticed that his latest work had the header "Tome of Psionics."

Curious, I checked out the art, and after looking through the site, found several pieces of artwork by him that are supposedly for this book, dated March 19th, March 28th, and May 1st of this year. Apparently, these are all pieces being commissioned by the book's author, Chad Hale.

However, Mr. Hale made several comments below each pic, and judging from the tone of several of them, this seems like his own bizarre pipe dream. Here's a few quotes from Mr. Hale that made me dubious about his project:

This art will grace the G.M.'s chapter of the "tome of psionics- an alternative psionics system" for D&D 3.5

This is my big book project. I will purchase an offical license from WOTC to make this book offical D&D 3.5 content.

"purchase an offical license from WOTC"? You don't "purchase" the D&D license from WotC. To the best of my knowledge, WotC doesn't buy unsolicited works from freelancers, but get freelancers to work on the projects they develop in-house. Of course, perhaps Mr. Hale realized this later, as future posts indicate he's talking to other companies.

I am speaking with a number of D&D companies right now: third party, liscenced and the official...I want this to be "official D&d" as much as possible. I mean, hey why not? they have a tome of magic that features alternate acrane magic systems, the complete arcane introduced the warlock, and the core book I- has the sorcerer class... so why not a "tome of psionics- an alternative psionics system"?

You just know that *EVERYBODY* wants a legitimate psionics system!

Well, I already thought we had a "legitimate" psionics system, and I'm not sure that "everyone" wants another one. Of course, how murky he seems on the difference between D&D and other d20 companies is also disturbing. He seems to be only somewhat aware of how the industry works.

Perviously, I had mentioned I was going to start advertising in the magazines: Dungeon and Dragon. well, those magazines are going to end in
september. I was planning on a october/november advertisement period...Now it looks like I will have to investigate advertising through the replacement for those periodicals- a lil' something Paizo.com calls "Pathfinder".

Apparently he hadn't heard that Pathfinder is a book, not a magazine, and it won't have advertising in it.

But what upset me most was this quote:

Did you make sure to check out the books
Hyperconscious and Mindscapes by Malhavoc Press? Because theyre in the exact same niche as you are.
That said this piece of art is a real winner.
The details on that big stone face are great.
And I do still of course look forward to seeing your product Chad.

I do know of those books... I also know something else. the 3.0 psionics hand book was plagurized directly from the core book I. the wizard class and magic spell Names where changed and power points where used instead of spell slots, because the designer felt that it yould be "too Hard" to write a psionics book and he knew magic. of course the above is not an exact quote from the D&D website "Author interview" but it is close enough.

Bruce cordell published mindscapes and other such booklets through malhavoc press (*he and monte have been freinds since grade school.) as "CORRECTIONS and PATCHES" designed to *fix* 3.0 psionics- the majority of the content came from the wizards of the coast message boards, and malhavoc message boards...He claimed credit and a paycheck...

for stuff he knowingly stole! of course, it's been a few years so nothing can be proven and most messages and content have been deleted to hide the crime.

You can trust that my book has nothing to do with "fixxing" the current versions of D&D psionics 3.0 nor 3.5 my book is fully compatible with the D&D game but it is quite different. I DID DO THE "HARD WORK", instead of playing poke'men at conventions...

Okay, now I'm ticked. So he's claiming that the 3.0 PsiHB was plagiarized from the 3.0 PHB, and the 3.0 psionic Malhavoc books were stolen from content on the WotC and Malhavoc message boards? This isn't just insanity, but it's a serious (not to mention groundless) accusation. And that's to say nothing of the arrogance this guy is displaying here (which seems quite unfounded, if spelling is any guideline). In all honesty, if this book ever even came out I'm not sure I'd buy it just because the above accusations are rather insulting to some authors that I really admire.

Anyway, I just wanted to make you guys aware of this.

EDIT: I've cross-posted this over at the WotC and Malhavoc message boards.

 

[Infernal Teddy]

Be he mad?

 

[Psion]

Well crap. Sounds like the book is a turd in the making. (My first clue was "alternate").

I like the art at least...

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

Matter of taste I would imagine: I don't like anime style art in my D&D or fantasy D20 products.

As for the accusations of the producer of this product...its awfully convenient that his so-called evidence doesn't exist anymore or was conspiratorially deleted.

 

[Ulric]

Hey, more power to him.

I hope he pulls it off.

 

[Piratecat]

I like the art -- but those posts show a woefully incorrect knowledge of the development of the Psionics Handbook.

 

[PrinceXaxor]

Would be interesting to dig around the 'net for other stuff by Mr. Hale.

 

[Bacris]

While I definitely think the 3.0 Psi handbook wasn't very well done, I find it very disturbing to see a gentleman who plans to publish a psionics replacement system posting libel about a competing author... That's a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Maybe I'm off my rocker, but Bruce worked for WotC... WotC owned the player's handbook... so both have the same copyright holder. Ergo, kind of hard to plagiarize yourself... In addition, the wizard AND psion are open content anyway - and the psion had a crazy amount of flavor / options that were nothing like the wizard.

And Hyperconscious is 3.5, not 3.0.

This guy has his facts all from outer space.

 

[Graf]

Thanks for links to great art. Has he done any projects consistently? It seemed like the art on the site was from a bunch of different random things...

And psionics stuff was insane enough to be funny.

 

[coyote6]

Hmm, insult WotC employees & thus WotC, and then plan on "purchasing" a license to make it "official D&D"? Umm, yeah, there's a certain apparent inability to grasp the idea of consequences that doesn't make me sanguine about quality game mechanics.