Whole thing? I wasn't aware of that. Thanks for the clarification.

Jason did not turn away AH's work. AH withdrew his work. AH and Jason have both stated that.

but at least they'll be judged on what they *have* produced, which is only fair. stuff that we can actually look at, and make a real judgement call regarding the quality. which is something we *can't* do if all we have are names.

certainly, it's much better than throwing them to the wolves.

There are many different viewpoints and people involved in and interested in this discussion. I could cite the ToS ad nauseam, but I simply ask that everyone to be civil please.

It seems like you're splitting some serious hairs here. I can understand you wanting to see CGL through, but you have to admit we have evidence of some bad stuff going down and the chances of everything breaking right for CGL at this point are slim. Even if they do right themselves, things aren't going to be the same for the game lines. Maybe BT will be more or less the same, but Shadowrun has lost some serious talent and will be going in a very different direction as Jason understands it.

Unfortunately I don't care much for BT, but Shadowrun is really the only roleplaying system and setting I care much at all for at the moment. A lot of that has been due to the folks who have moved on.

The freelancers retain the copyright of the originals if the contract is not completed, so aside from any trademark issues, I'm not sure that there's anything Catalyst can do to keep the authors from releasing all or some part of that material. That also means it's not Catalyst's material to release.

AH has stated that he is retaining the material he has done in hopes that Catalyst loses the license and he'll be able to sell the material to the next company.

Fair enough. It's their call, like Jason said.

Correct. I know I wouldn't want to be the one writing PACKS now only to have AH release his version later.

If Corp Guide does go to print without my material, I'll post my chapters online. They won't be canonical but...better than nothing.

Jason cut AH from the freelancer forum. That says to me that Jason was no longer interested in working with AH. It's true that AH then pulled his already submitted work, but it doesn't seem like Jason was interested in getting it back.

Probably better than the canon too, if the drafts you got are indeed as bad as you make them out to be. And not changed/edited to be up to snuff like some of the last books.
Probably adopted as canon by many a dumpshocker too, for exactly that reason.

I wasn't splitting anything. I was relating the account that Jen has stated, and of everyone who's posted on this thread, she's the one who'd have the best sense of what happened.



This has nothing to do with the post you were responding to, but yes, I agree. I think Battletech will come through this much better than Shadowrun will, based solely on knowing that the employees who have left Catalyst and freelancers who have publicly stated that they will no longer work for Catalyst had closer ties to Shadowrun than Battletech.

from what it sounded like, they were pretty much racing to see whether Jason was going to tell AH not to come back, or if AH was going to tell Jason to remove AH's work. AH only won by a little bit (its somewhere in this huge pile o' threads that Jason was writing up the e-mail to AH when AH wrote him about canceling contracts).

granted, i doubt Jason was going to cancel the contract to the extent that AH did, but yeah, it was pretty clear AH was at the very least not going to be welcome back for quite some time. which is a shame (like i've said, AH does really good work), but also a moot point apparently, since AH has a problem with catalyst that catalyst has no apparent intention to resolve. (though again, we don't know for sure what kind of repayment plan was worked out, nor do we know if Loren L Coleman will still be around after he's done paying back the money he took, but it does seem unlikely that he'd be going anywhere. certainly ketjak didn't sound too happy about the situation)

It was stated to the contrary.

Based on the account that both AH and Jason have given of the whole sequence of events, it's not surprising.

Re: Rotbart's comment: I must have missed that.

Sorry about that, I just didn't feel it was serving anything going line by line, post by post with you and that response I felt spoke to what we were talking about.

It seems you're pretty dead set on your take of the events, and that it is based on the same information I have. You're welcome to your interpretation, I just don't share it.

Expanding my horizons I went to the alter of Google and placed upon the alter a number of names and started reading what turned up.

It is amazing, what has been posted by people that are very vocal in this thread...elsewhere. I have gone from being apathetic to now being thoroughly vexed.

Soooooo...I am going to walk away now, have some dinner, maybe a couple beers, watch SGU (which everyone else should as well), relax and think happy thoughts.

At the time Jason and I spoke, he was willing to publish the work I had already submitted. However, I chose to terminate my contracts entirely, pulling my drafts. This was basically a clean break; neither one of us I think had any intention of crawling back at that time, and neither of us have that intention or expectation now. When it comes down to it, as loud as I may be, I'm only a single freelancer.

"Work with Loren or Quit"

After saying the guy ordered her to falsify financial documents.

__IS__ saying "Break the law (or put yourself in the position to be sued for falsifying documents) or leave"

She chose not to break the law.

Paint it with white wash all you want but it is what it is. Act like they'd have let her stay if she refused to break the law with them, after knowing they were planning on doing it, if you like.

It's double talk. It's obfuscating the reality of the situation.

Its hard for me to see this in such a definitive way. I'v told an employee basically the same thing before. Not that in the restaurant industry questions of ethics come up very often. But I remember an employee disagreeing with a manager's decisions in such a passionate way that the only counsel I could make was to say that he should quit. Not because I agreed with the other manager, or I had some hang up with insubordination, a word that lots of managers like to throw around but I always thought was bullshit, I mean we're not in a military, but because I do not want to make anyone feel that he/she is compromising their principles.

Even as a supervisor you have to deal with situations on a personal level sometimes. If you ask yourself what you would do in that person's shoes, and the answer is: I would quit, then that is what you say.

Hard to believe that the guy walked out the door with over $700,000 in 5 years too but that's the information we have been given.

I'm still very much a newcomer to these boards and that tweeks me off something fierce.

That he did it and didn't pay the writers is the lemon juice in the wound.

Be careful, Doc; they've started unionizing the damsels in distress.

You're putting words in Jen's mouth, at this point. And you're assuming things about the law that are probably incorrect. Everyone with any experience whatsoever when it comes to LLC accounting is saying that 1) it's complicated, 2) co-mingling is common and 3) that the draws probably weren't illegal, especially not in the sense you're intimating (see e.g. MindAndPen's lengthy post about tax consequences and how overdraws are commonly rectified). Nonetheless, you persist in using a dangerous and pejorative word to describe what happened. You don't even use qualifiers like "possibly" or "potentially." And you go further, proceeding to draw conclusions about someone else's motivations based on your likely-false assertion of criminal acts.

Jen has explicitly and clearly stated that Randall Bills didn't ask her to do anything unethical. He said that she would have to continue working with Loren L. Coleman. Given that Coleman's an owner of the enterprise and that there was and is no clean way to remove him from management, absent his assent, what alternative was there? Making a realistic statement to an employee isn't tantamount to firing them. It sounds much more like Randall Bills said "Here's the situation, Loren's not going anywhere any time soon, and if you can't work with him after what's happened, I understand." That's giving the employee an out and suggesting you're going to write a nice letter of reference, if desired. It's not a force-out.

I don't mean to suggest that what happened was roses and rainbows or that Jen was faced with anything other than a very hard choice, but people have disagreements in work places every day. I disagree with my higher ups frequently. I try to convince them I'm right about things, but I don't always win. I sometimes end up having to do things I don't especially like, but I do them to the best of my ability and hope the next battle goes my way. It's just how the world works. Life's not always fair or fun.

Its hard to gauge the level of incompetence vs maliciousness given the only thing you've got to go on are words on a screen. But I've worked with owners that always had the most honorable and best intentions that never seem to pan out because they were basically dumb when it came to business. But then again I've worked with a guy that although he seemed very cool and charismatic just out right never meant to pay venders for product and could lie to your face with a smile and a laugh.

The world is full of enablers, the most dishonest shit in the world could have all the respect of his peers simply because he can show you a good time, has a boat, sky dives, and is building a bitching plane in his garage (being white helps too).

Several people are putting words into Jennifer Harding's mouth or spinning what she said on both sides. Here are some of the most relevant quotes:





So from these quotes, LLC asked for royalty reports to be falsified to Topps. Jennifer refused. Randall Bills knew that she had been asked to falsify reports. RB told Jennifer if she couldn't work under such conditions she should quit; so she did.

We probably won't get much more on this front because of this quote from Jennifer:

If only some of the people here would remember that last line. I respect your work Ancient. But considering what you've dealt with in the industry in terms of recent events, I'm not surprised you've been so vocal about a product that no one has any chance to refute you on until after it is published. But, it's sad to see you taking on some of the same attitudes (and encouraging the same ones from a vocal minority here) that Frank did. But you stated it best. You're only a single freelancer. The product that comes out should stand on its own merits, or lack thereof, not your opinions of it. It's sort of like doing a Book Club topic for a book that doesn't exist yet. I'd imagine you wouldn't have been very keen on someone doing that to your first draft of the Vice material, here on the forums. Let the fans decide for themselves.

Additionally, should people really be sending you drafts? Doesn't that break NDAs or something?

And you're talking about something different than I am.

I'm talking about the point where Coleman told her to lie on financials being sent up the chain to Topps. Which could put her in a position to be sued at least when it was found out or yes, breaking the law, depending on the laws in question.

Coleman's BLATANT theft is something different.



Actually no. They've agreed that 1) It's Complicated. 2) Co-mingling is BLOODY INSANE and about as stupid a move you could possibly do, and the fact they did showed dangerous levels of incomitance at the very best and at worst opened them up to huge levels of damage. Which. Have turned out to be true. and 3) The fact remains he took money that wasn't 'his and only his' even though way that it's set up. Hince why there's such a huge hub ub about it and his ability to take out money has been yanked. You're mis representing the actions that have been described over 100s of pages and 1000s of replies.





Which word is dangerous? When I call Coleman a Dbag for being a theif? The information and proof presented in this speculation thread and the 5 before it are vastly more than I require to reach said conclusion. I do not qualify it with possibly or potentially, because I think he did it. he's been accused of doing it. Proof has come forth. From multiple vectors, and the company itself is admitting to the problems (Albit in carefuly worded press releases)). The doubletalk is just that. Doubletalk trying to cover ass.



No. Coleman did. You're again acting like it never happened by avoiding the fact that ONE of them DID ask her to do it. And again avoiding the fact if you put your name WILLINGLY on financial paperwork you know to be lies, is fraudulent in SOME way, manner or form. I'm not a lawyer, but I know breakin the law when I see it. I wouldn't have singed those papers either. Hide it by 'RANDAL' didn't tell her to.COLEMAN did, like they wern't __BOTH__ above her in the company. It's trying to cloud the facts by splitting hairs.




Honestly? Really? What option is there?

How about going "No jen. Noone's going to ask you to falsify documents to Topps. Noone's going to make you put yourself out on a limb to cover his theft. He was not right to ask you. Infact. I'm going to go have a talk with him because that sort of stuff can get us in legal problems and endangers the entire company and is very douchebaggery of a thing to try and do."

How about that option? How about telling her "You don't have to do anything legaly or moraly suspect and if you choose not to, noone's going to fire you"

Instead she got "Work with him or quit"

Which in the __Real world__ Translates to "Do what you're told or find a new job"




Giving them the option to break the law, or quit if they don't like it, is exactly tantamount to firing them if they don't do what you say.



After being told that the guy ordered an employee to falsify documents, I think that's a bit guildin' the lilly right there. I don't think it was that sweet and nioce with suggestions of nice letters of reference and sugar on top.



Disagreements? Yes. Being told to falsify financial documents or if you can't handel that, quit, is quite different. She could very likely sue them herself for that, but seems really nice and has found a new job. I don't know her. Just what I've seen on here. She seems sweet.



Do your higher ups ask you to put your name on fraudulent financial reports to cover their theft and pass them up the chain in your company?

You're acting like her boss told her she couldn't wear jeans on casual Friday. It's not the same thing as a 'disagreement'. There could be legal action taken there. Possible criminal charges. (( not a lawyer, but I know better than to do THAT)).

Check. Fire's a-blazin' again.

It was a cheap shot. I was (and remain) fairly angry about the draft, and about Jason's earlier comments and, really the general degeneration of our relationship over the last few weeks has taken its toll. We were never friends but we at least managed to be mostly civil. In hindsight, I shouldn't have mentioned it at all - but a part of me at least hopes that if I am wrong and Catalyst does print Corp Guide, maybe he'll have polished the draft more by then.


It's been mentioned before, but at the time I left the NDA situation was such that any freelancer who'd been writing for six months didn't have an NDA on file. Someone told me the filing system was literally that Loren would throw any mail without a check into it into the back seat of his car, unopened, and then toss is out when it reached critical mass. I'm not sure how true that is, or what the NDA situation is with the freelancers now. Sharing a draft with a non-freelancer would be breaking an NDA if it existed, yeah.

Since it is a private company, I guess we don't know how many owners of InMediaRes there are, and their percent ownership. But I do wonder, why aren't the other owners furious about the co-mingling of funds?

AH has an established history of writing well-received Shadowrun material and in quantity. It is incorrect to call it hubris when he talks from a position of knowing about quality writing.

someone in that owners pool is angry, I'm pretty sure of that. Who else could be leaking info to Trollman and company?

The way I've 'read it' though these threads, is that there's a small number of owners, and that due to the way it's set up, they're kinda all on the hook, and can't get rid of one, if he fought it, with out getting rid of all, and with the money's 'missing', everyone would be taking a loss, and if full admittance of crime was disclosed, that they may all be, in some way, responsible.

There seems to be a great deal of gray area. But from what they've said themselves, procedure has been put into place to cockblock the guy from doing it again. How effective that procedure is, I don't know. Could be you need full owner agreement to withdraw, or two or more or something. Don't really know. But we DO know that it's not as it used to be. And that the 'co-mingled' funds are supposed to be paid back.

They're probably very furious, but kinda over a barrel. If they kick him out the company dissolves. Or they can retain him and lock him in a closet with a clock, in the hopes of recouping the collective loss.

They SEEM to be not only keeping him but letting him represent the company, wich (( in my personal opinion)) Is not going to garner them the results they think it will.

Well, it's good we know he's the only person in history to ever write quality material, and in the future as well.

I'm David A Hill Jr. I'm one of the hacks (or monkeys, or whatever it is we're being called now,) that's currently writing for Shadowrun. I've put work in on about a half dozen books. None of which are in publication yet. I'm not writing filler information for things Ancient History revoked copyright on.

I've done quite a bit of work for White Wolf on Vampire the Requiem, Werewolf the Forsaken, World of Darkness and Hunter the Vigil. I put in some work on Green Ronin's Dragon Age line. I've got a little material out there for Pathfinder from Paizo. I have a lot of other material out there, including a few articles for places like The Escapist. I'm a long-time Shadowrun fan (I want to say I started playing in 1995? I think? That's give or take a year.) I've also done work on a few books for Eclipse Phase. I run an independent publishing company called Machine Age Productions. We're releasing our first full game in the next couple of months. I have an Ennie for my past RPG work. I do game design panels at about twelve conventions a year, I was recently featured on the front pages of Kotaku and The Escapist for my design panel.

On Jason: Jason's a good guy. Great work ethic. Great attitude. Bright. He's caught some details in my work that really helped make it shine. I like that in a developer. However, he didn't originally hire me. John Dunn gave me my first work with Catalyst. So while I can't attest to the quality of my writing, Jason wasn't the first Shadowrun developer that thought I was capable of writing for the line. And Shadowrun's certainly not the extent of my game design/writing credits. Does Jason's vision for Shadowrun match everyone else's? Nah. But I like what he's doing. He has a very fresh perspective. It's actually been far more positive and enriching working with him than with my past experience on the line, I won't hesitate to say. Not only that, but I can say from my experience with his writing that I'd work with him writing under my flag as a developer and publisher.

I'm not really in a position to comment on what's going on. Basically: I've done work. I'd like to get paid for that work. It's not a small amount of work, it's not a small amount of money. While I understand that some people are cool with abandoning their contracts, I really don't have that luxury. I have kids to feed and a mortgage to pay. I have opinions and views on this whole thing, but I'm more concerned with finding resolution before I make any concrete decisions and burn any bridges. I'd like to see the company I have numerous contracts with get things sorted out and pay me. If the license goes to another company, then I have to shop my work with them. I'm a writer by profession, selling previously commissioned work is not something I'd like to spend my time doing. I will if I have to, but I'd prefer to be writing.

And suggesting that it needed polishing couldn't have been accomplished via a PM or email? Considering the relationship you mentioned, maybe not. But maybe indirectly through suggestions through the person who sent it to you? I can understand it when the product is out, it's fair game for all then. It just seems a bit unnecessary to go after a product that neither the writers or fans of it can even defend or talk about. But that's personal opinion and probably something we'll just have to disagree on.

As for the NDA thing, well, I'd imagine that could have been explained without what seems to be you getting another shot off, but either way, it sounds rather bad. Whatever the situation is in the future, if CGL is involved, the freelancer/contract issues and what seems to be a lack of organization needs to be addressed pronto.

Well stated, sir. Welcome to the line. I'm familiar with some of your past work, and I'm glad to hear you're on board.

I appreciate you coming forward and I look forward to checking out your work.

No he's not.



Falsifying reports gets you in legal hot water and can get you in jail..



Yes he did. He said 'obey unethical orders or leave' Saying 'obey unethical orders' is asking someone to do something unethical.

Hi, not taking any sides here in the recent fracas, I just wanted to ask you, and anyone else hoping that the InMediaRes loses the license, what makes you believe there there will be another company? If it happened it would mean that Battletech and Shadowrun would have both been on the sinking ships of FASA, FanPro, and Catalyst Game Labs. Don't you think it would be more likely that Pen and Paper versions of both games would just die a sad little death, only to continue on in Mechwarrior games and crappy FPS spin-offs?

Seriously, I don't think either game can survive another transfer.

Shadowrun is quite healthy outside the US – and those publishers don't want it gone.

Well, there still is some good news in this. The fact that Loren Coleman was able to co-mingle funds and make draws close to a million dollars is horrible, but it tells us that CGL has been making that much money in the first place, so I'd think (and hope) the Shadowrun franchise should be profitable enough for someone else to step up should CGL go down.

Paranoia Mode kicked into Overdrive.

"Anyone care to explain?"

Might that have something to do with the drafts AH mentioned?

I imagine they're tired of people airing dirty laundry and adding fuel to things that they're already scrambling to try and fix?

Honestly, its a bad situation, and despite our insatiable curiosity here, not really our business other than knowing there are some problems, some people weren't paid, and they're working on it.

We've plenty reason not to believe them when they feed us lies..

However they really have no obligation to us to let us at that info, and a lot of reason to try and get us to stop.

( I do not like what has happened, at all, but I'm one of those people who thinks the folks who stalk celebrities need to back the heck off for instance, and I really -don't- care who Tiger Woods is sleeping with.)

It's stupid easy.

One person has authority to actually cut & print checks/draws, but doesn't have the authority to sign them.

Another person *NOT RELATED* to the person cutting & printing checks has authority to sign them.

Every place I've worked at, one of the owners has the signing authority, and the check cutting is handled by someone else entirely. The owner doesn't have direct access to the money, and the accountant doesn't have authority to directly handle the money.

Checks get cut in batches, and are signed off on. Easy peasy. I currently work for a multi-million dollar company with probably 100+ different corporations held under the umbrella, and three people cut every single check, on time, every week. Hell I usually get my paycheck a couple days in advance of when it's due.

People go to college and get degrees to set this stuff up. It's not alchemy. It's also not very difficult to do. You just have to *want* to do it.

At this point if Catalyst was going to continue to exist, it'd be worth laying out a few grand to bring in an outside expert to set up the money flow pipeline. In fact, this should have been done months and months ago when the "transgression" first was realized.

My accountant charged 2k to set up the money side of a business I ran a few years ago, and at the end of that I had accounts, procedures, and the whole shooting match set up. At this point someone could slap down an AmEx card and be done with it. It'd be a good investment. But that's only if you intend to see Catalyst survive this debacle. It's one of the reasons why I don't see Catalyst and IMR having much of a future with Shadowrun/Battletech. The company isn't behaving like an entity concerned with continued existence. It's taking no long term solutions according to public releases and scuttlebutt, but only short-to-mid term patch jobs.

I know how much it sucks being a grunt and watching the ship sink around you. I've been through 3 different companies going tits-up, one of which went down almost exactly like it looks like the way Catalyst is going down.

Fair enough point, but that needs to happen early on or not at all. This has all the appearances of a clusterf*ck of epic proportions.

If they wanted to keep a tight lid on this, they would have sent out new NDAs to all the freelancers specifically stating that no commentary on the current mess was to be discussed. Anyone writing for shadowrun understands the mess that bad PR can create.

The Freelancer board, should it be shut down, should have been weeks ago when it became apparent that a lot of leaks were happening. This seems like someone took too close of a shot at Jason and he got upset and shut it down.

This whole thing is turning into a dick-waving competition, and it's hard to feel sympathy for anyone when faced with a 21-wang salute.

Now that is an eminently sig-able quote.

If people with no experience in writing can comment on the books (doesn't take an Oscar candidate to tell a movie sucks), why shouldn't AH?

Quick comment on the freelancer forums--a few weeks ago the password to the forums was changed, and as part of the process of giving out the new password I asked people if they had sent in NDAs, and if they hadn't, to send new NDAs in. The fact that a non-final draft leaked out (and some other things) indicated pretty clearly that leaks were still happening, so for the time being I decided to use other channels to communicate with freelancers.

It has nothing to do with people taking shots at me. People can like what I write, people can not like what I write, and that's fine. I've been writing a long time, and I can accept criticism. But it is unfair to writers working on Shadowrun to ask them to put their drafts into a forum that is supposed to be private but is not. Writing in a shared world is generally a collaborative process, and it's valuable to have a chance to put up drafts that you know are imperfect so that you can get input from the other freelancers. The fact that imperfect drafts could be sent out to people who were not on the boards would inevitably (and understandably, in my view) make freelancers gun shy about posting drafts there, and that would hurt the working process. So I came up with a new process that would allow information to be shared.

Also, there are other reasons for keeping drafts private, including keeping a lid of what we are working on. If I don't believe the forums can support that kind of confidentiality, then the forums become a less useful tool. I tried to boost confidentiality one way, and it seemed not to work. So I'm trying another way.

Jason H.