Empyrea for C&C

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DMMike
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Re: Empyrea for C&C

Post by DMMike »

Its not just the gaming community. As an online teacher, I caught a student cheating on a test and he returned the favor by calling me a "cyberbully" and someone who "doesn't understand the needs of the disabled community" (he had ADHD). :P


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Snoring Rock
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Re: Empyrea for C&C

Post by Snoring Rock »

[quote="DMMike"]Its not just the gaming community. As an online teacher, I caught a student cheating on a test and he returned the favor by calling me a "cyberbully" and someone who "doesn't understand the needs of the disabled community" (he had ADHD). :P


The world is on fire. Where does this victim mentality come from?

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maximus
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Re: Empyrea for C&C

Post by maximus »

Rigon wrote:I might pick it up at some point. I do love reading settings.

R-
I'm with you. If nothing else it could be a great read.

All the drama surrounding this is why I shy away from social media. Everyone is a keyboard tough guy, the only person with all the answers, or has an ax to grind. Ain't nobody got time for that...

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spudeus
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Re: Empyrea for C&C

Post by spudeus »

24 hour news & social media does empower the court of public opinion to try, convict and sentence someone on flimsy evidence. I admit fallibility on this - I was really starting to think badly of FM without all the facts (which I suppose we'll never have).

On Empyrea , I am curious to see it as it's been run pretty much continuously for 40 years - I figure it must be a deep, rich setting, but we didn't really get a good picture in the defunct KS. Like many, I'm really confused as to where this 'magic' funding came from. Did Mentzer just look at the total value of his personal assets and say 'Empyrea is go'?

serleran
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Re: Empyrea for C&C

Post by serleran »

If it appears and I can get it, I will. Mostly because I liked what I have seen of it, from the AOL days and the "prospectus" I got a few years back.

C&C has had its own "fun" with that previously and yet here are people still enjoying it.

Fizz
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Re: Empyrea for C&C

Post by Fizz »

So i've been trying to catch up on all this FM and DF stuff. What the hell happened?

-Fizz

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Buttmonkey
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Re: Empyrea for C&C

Post by Buttmonkey »

Fizz wrote:So i've been trying to catch up on all this FM and DF stuff. What the hell happened?

-Fizz
Here's my take on it. I was a player in Frank's home game, so I am no doubt biased. I am also going on memory since I believe his Q&A threads have been deleted. I have not discussed any of the DF issues with Frank, so I do not speak for him.

Frank felt disrespected by one or more posters at DF. One of them, in particular, posted content implying BECMI was childish/for kids. I think that rubbed Frank the wrong way. Frank allegedly sent PMs to this person aggressively telling him off. At some point thereafter, Frank was fed up and left Dragonsfoot permanently. Until he was getting ready to launch the Empyrea kickstarter. He posted about it at DF and invited the members to make amends and contribute to the content of the game world. The wording was very high handed and offended many of the DF posters. The poster he had particular problems with posted in the thread. Those posts set Frank off. Personally, I don't think those particular posts were at all offensive, but Frank viewed them as offensive, probably based on his history with this poster. Frank allegedly sent even more aggressive PMs to this poster telling the poster to basically piss off (the PM was profane (very not-Frank-like), mocked the poster's intelligence in terms of D&D stats (very un-Frank-like), and threatened litigation (IIRC)). The poster then released the PMs to Tenkar's Tavern and (I believe) the Knights & Knaves Alehouse. Frank denied sending at least the most aggressive PM. The mods looked into the metadata and the metadata reportedly showed all of the PMs were sent from Frank's IP address. Frank continued to claim he did not send at least the nastiest PM. He did not try to explain the matching IP addresses, simply stating he is not a computer expert and isn't qualified to speculate as to what happened. Was it him? Did someone hack the metadata? Did someone in his IP vicinity get access to his DF account and post PMs in his name without his knowledge? There is no way to know for sure. For reasons including violations of DF's terms of use in the nasty PM(s), the moderators at DF banned Frank from DF. Frank responded by asking that his Q&A threads be deleted. The moderators honored that request.

A great deal more detail can no doubt be provided, but that is the gist of it. The whole thing was ugly and unfortunate.

I read the PMs and have a very hard time believing Frank wrote the nastiest of the PMs. It did not read like his writing/voice. Anything is possible and maybe Frank is a different person from behind his keyboard than in person. The matching IP addresses are certainly damning. It's a sad situation. All I can say is that if Frank is the person I know him to be based on years of interaction, then he did not write the PM. In that case, an unlikely explanation must be true. I don't expect people who don't know Frank to accept that.
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Re: Empyrea for C&C

Post by Treebore »

I don't know Frank nearly as well as you do. I've talked to him in person for maybe a total of 15 minutes. Still find it hard to believe he would say the things he is accused of. The only thing I can think of was that maybe he was under an exceptional amount of stress from unknown sources.

As for the IP address, you can check mine, but it isn't mine. I go through a VPN. You would get their IP, not mine. So if Frank and I were to send anything via the internet, and we were signed into the same VPN server, you would get the same IP. Now my VPN is supposed to randomize these numbers (or maybe its what server I go through each time I sign in), but supposedly others do not. They have static IP's for their servers. Of course I can change the IP by manually selecting a different server in another part of the USA or even another country. So the IP thing is not concrete evidence, unless you know Frank doesn't use a VPN service like I do.
Since its 20,000 I suggest "Captain Nemo" as his title. Beyond the obvious connection, he is one who sails on his own terms and ignores those he doesn't agree with...confident in his journey and goals.
Sounds obvious to me! -Gm Michael

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Fizz
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Re: Empyrea for C&C

Post by Fizz »

Wow- all that does sound rather messy and unfortunate.

Now was all this connected to the Kickstarter? I thought i read somewhere that this incident caused it to go offline, but it's now back, is that correct? It sounds intriguing so i hope it goes forward.

-Fizz

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Buttmonkey
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Re: Empyrea for C&C

Post by Buttmonkey »

Fizz wrote:Wow- all that does sound rather messy and unfortunate.

Now was all this connected to the Kickstarter? I thought i read somewhere that this incident caused it to go offline, but it's now back, is that correct? It sounds intriguing so i hope it goes forward.

-Fizz
The DF incident didn't seem to have much to do with the kickstarter being shut down. That was mostly due to not structuring the funding goal and stretch goals well. The kickstarter also didn't do a good job (at least initially) of explaining what exactly the game world is and why someone would want to play/run it (IMO). It did a good job of showing great designers were involved, though. When it became clear it wouldn't fund as-is, they shut it down to relaunch with a better funding goal and stretch goal approach. In the middle of that revision process, the #MeToo movement hit and a woman game designer Frank interacted with publicly accused him of acting improperly a few years ago. The allegations were actually shared on social media back in the day, but she republished them now. The complaints included him sending a flirtatious email that she did not appreciate and a debate about whether he said appropriate things concerning whether a groping victim who froze during the groping would benefit from therapy/counseling (the anti-Frank faction asserted he was Satan because freezing is a normal (and not mentally ill) response to being assaulted; the pro-Frank interpretation seemed to be that he was saying the woman went through something bad, was unable to stand up for herself in the moment (less than ideal, but I don't think he was saying it was wrong or a mentally ill response), and might benefit from therapy to deal with the trauma). She also accused him of threatening to have her black balled as a game designer in retaliation for her outing him. Looking at the message he sent, I think he was just saying publicly attacking him was not a good way to encourage him to work with her personally, but the anti-Franks didn't see it that way. Frank did apologize for the flirtatious email, but denied sending/doing some things she alleged that she failed to document. Things exploded from there. You can find links to the specific allegations at Tenkar's Tavern or the Gnome Stew site. Once again, it was all ugly as hell. The explosion seemed to take place mostly on Facebook from what I saw, but I stopped following it all at some point. The kickstarter was pulled altogether in the wake of the controversy. Frank has written that he has obtained traditional funding and will not be crowd-sourcing the setting. Publication plans are on hold while something (I'm not clear exactly what) is investigated.
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spudeus
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Re: Empyrea for C&C

Post by spudeus »

All the public drama aside, it certainly became clear that the original $250k kickstarter didn't have enough momentum to succeed. Yet, it seemed the announced, revised kickstarter with a more modest goal of c. $90,000 would have been a success. But then Frank cancelled those plans. :? I would personally put these acts in the realm of self-inflicted wounds, damaging public confidence in any future Empyrea publishing enterprises, but I suppose there were reasons (which may or may not have been the result of the social media broo-haha).

Fizz
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Re: Empyrea for C&C

Post by Fizz »

Geesh, really is a mess isn't it?

Thank you for your even-handedness in your descriptions, Buttmonkey. So many people nowadays fall into the "us vs them" paradigm, with no compromise or subtlety of argument; that if you're on the wrong side, you're as bad as Hitler; absurdist argument. So i appreciate how you've explained everything for both sides and didn't fall into any absolutist position.


-Fizz

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