Yup. How about you put up a brief synopsis of what's wrong with what the new writers have written. You don't have to go into detail, just "Bob Smith-Inaccurate, poor writing, can't conjugate verbs correctly"

I think there is a big misconception about who actually supports Loren Coleman.

Ken, please. Bobby already apologized for commenting on a draft that has yet to be published. There was an uproar over it, and Bobby has admitted he was wrong. Asking him to do so, again, is not particularly professional.

I figured KC meant that AH should criticize some extant work that has already been published.

Outside of Spells and Chrome (which was written well over a year ago), nothing has been published that hasn't been primarily written by the core freelancers. The last printed products were Vice (started when Peter Taylor was line developer) and Midnight (again, started when Peter Taylor was line developer).

I'm not talking about Hardy's writing, I'm talking about all the other writers he's insulted, myself included. He apparently has read our other stuff, I'd like to see what is so terrible about the collective bunch of us.

If you really want me to kvetch about something, there's Jason's 500-word intro fiction in Vice (p.173). I fought with him about that one. Hell, I rewrote it at one point, though he didn't accept that version. It's just...bad. Ignores the normal intro fiction conventions, bland as hell, a really stupid plot point, and that's if you can bother to wade through the prose. It has all the downsides to a corporate meeting (sitting around talking instead of doing anything) run by idiots that don't know what they're doing ("We need to show we're tough on crime!" "Let's target shadowrunners!" "Right!").

[/edit]

I'm gonna answer this one as a PM.

Well I reckon it would have gone better with Sticks in it, maybe he and Ryan Mercury could duke it out..

The first intro fiction with devgrrll and Pistons is nearly as bad - who wrote that?

One thing that I have found over the years is that Writers tend to not like Other Writer's style or content, especially if they feel they can write it better... It does not mean that the Other's writing is bad, but that it is just not up to someone else's personal standards...

I can honestly say that the writing for 4th Edition has been very, very good, at least in my opinion, and I have yet to find any thing written by the contributors (whether they be Freelancers or not) that I have found lacking... Yes, I like some authors better than others, but that does not mean that I think that the work of those I do not prefer is bad, for any of it.

Taste's Differ... Not everyone will have the same opinion...

Just Sayin'

Keep the Faith

That would be me.

Ah, that little… gem. Funny how it manages to completely ignore the kanon from Seattle 2072 (p. 194) in the very frist line – that is, KE specifically hiring former LS veterans… for rookie conditions.

Believe it or not, but I can picture lots of people who are going to love it. No matter how stupid it is to go after runners instead of tertiary gangs – because it makes the life of a runner oh so much more… noir.

Agreed - I inadvertently made it about Bobby and I, when it has no bearing on the situation at hand. I've apologized to him in PM, and I'll do it here publicly. How he chooses to respond is his choice.


no, I specifically said those SR freelancers who withheld copyright. Guys like Bobby, Jay Levine etc etc who have their own issues with IMR; I have no issue with. And it wasn't a case of painting the others in a negative light - it was a case of disagreeing with their actions. I'm largely ambivalent about the people in question (largely as I have no idea who they are - and if I really cared, it would not be hard to find out), but as stated, I disagreed with their actions. I gave my reasons earlier. Note: I also have no problems with those guys withholding copyright - that's their choice and right; I just disagree with the way they did it.


that's your choice. Not going to try and change your mind either way


Let me make it clear - I'm representing myself here, and assumed the nom de plume I did to establish my bona fides when making comments. As far as I know, there's no feeling of "poor pitiful us" on the BT side of things, as it's not even really mentioned, either officially on unofficially. Which to be honest is frustrating, but demonstrates the faith, whether misplaced or not, that the BT core group has in Herb, Ben and Randall.


That's your prerogative. In my experience, the only time there's any sort of "attitude" from anyone on the BT side of things is when people try to propose their own stuff to the developers, despite repeatedly being told not to. Then again, BT has existed in near enough it's current form for 25 years. The Line Developer has a number of standard answers for frequently asked questions and you know what Standard Answer #1 is? "If it works for your game - whatever you want it to be". Games are meant to be fun <shrug>

Okay, then. Let's talk SR fiction in detail. What is it y'all want to see in a 500 piece of intro fiction? What makes it good (or bad) in your mind?

What rules of thumb do you judge these vignettes by?

This is not a sarcastic question, BTW. I am truly interested because 500 words limits are a witch (change first letter) to write a decent story in. I'm used to higher word counts and being able to have an actual plot and plot resolution.

500 words? We get a bigger word count for that in a single TRO!

Since tropes are pretty much unavoidable anyway:
Kanon compliance. Basic logical consistency. And relevance to the following chapter.

In SR intro fictions, we're generally supposed to have at least one shadowtalker and have it be relevant to the section. Those are pretty basic requirements. Personally I liked writing 500 word intro fictions, even if they are challenging.

Relevant to the section, I get. And I do like the challenge too, but I recall reading a lot of intro fiction that doesn't have a shadowtalker in it. Was that just the earlier stuff, then?

Not much room for plot in 500 words, so I tended not to focus much on that. I usually focused on describing a scene that I thought was representative of the material in the chapter.

I've written two of those 500 word intro fiction pieces in SR4, the Ares orbital station piece before the Astral Space and the Metaplanes section of Street Magic and the Ma'fan high-rise cat burglar piece at the start of the Hong Kong write-up in Runner Havens.

Those 500 word pieces are certainly challenging, I agree with that.

It's a guideline. Relevance is more important, particularly if you're illustrating an important scene. It used to be emphasized more.

Relevance,canon consistency and some punch. I'm not saying meta-plot changing themes but my favorite vignettes have been ones that aren't just generic scenes but touch on a subject that might highlight some history or greater theme. Its the latter that I go back to read over a few times. SR4A had a few of these. (although to be fair the sr4a stories had more then 500 words)

What do you think the possibility is of CGL or another publisher replacing the fiction with Exalted-style (in function not in art) comics at the start of each chapter? A picture is worth a 1000 words after all...

I would not vote for that, and after all, you would only get half of a picture at that point...

Keep the Faith

That's an interesting topic as I've be writing intro fiction for the German translation of the first two Denver Missions. I'll have to take some points into consideration when we'll translate more missions.

From what little I know about the RPG industry, it would probably cost more money than paying someone to write 500 words.

My bets had been on Jennifer Harding. Anyway, didn't like the characters, didn't like the setting, didn't like the overall story. But that's my gripe with both shadowtalk characters overall.

From here:




EDIT: It boggles my mind that the (old) login info for the FTP site has been out in the open all this time.

It was cannibalized from an earlier story. Lotta times, we're rushed to writewritewrite and then it sits and rots in the devbox for months before it gets to proofing.

I really really enjoyed the story you cannibalized it from, but I would say that it lost something in being condensed. But that's the way things go - I had more than one occasion where I was asked for a 500 word story and given an hour turn around time... only to see the project get parked for months afterwards.

That's what happens when there's just no money to print. (Although I will say that the delays as things went through the process were often wretched all around; rush rush rush... siiiiiiiiit.... rush rush rush.... siiiiiit... etc).

No need to try to blame Jason Hardy again - I don't care how much time passed between writing and proofreading and possibly re-writing, I simply don't like the characters and the particular setting of the intro fiction.

What officially sanctioned characters (see the ST list) do you like, then?

Double post, meh.

I wasn't blaming Jason for that one. Hell, aside from that bit of shitty intro fiction I pointed out earlier, Jason has almost nothing to do with Vice.

[/edit]It's the nature of the beast that is Catalyst. The system of writing and developing books has been screwed up for a long time. Jason's just the latest inheritor of that, and I don't hold accountable for that. I blame him for only those things he has done, or chooses not to do.

It took me some time to muscle through this mess and all I can say is wow.

I work in an industry that revolves around outsourced help. 'Freelancers' if you will. After reading thru this mess, I don't understand how people like ancient history or frank trollmen expect to ever find work again after the way they've behaved. No, after the way they are behaving even months after the fact.

It is admirable to quit a job on allegedly moral grounds, though that seems to be more of a catalyst in this situation than an honest to god reason. It is impressive to defend your fellows who did the same thing. It is questionable to air the dirty laundry in such a public manner when legal options were available. It is however outright unprofessional to 'blow the whistle' on a company. It is completely cowardly to do it through a third party. And it is career suicide to do all of these things while constantly and consistently badmouthing fellow writers, tenaciously attack anyone who questions their motives, try to burn down fan sites despite them tolerating this inexcusable behavior, accuse people who either don't buy it or frown upon the way you go about things as 'loving' or 'defending' the 'enemy,' and otherwise act the way people like this ancient history and frank trollmen have been acting. Trying to do it under the guise of the little guy fighting back against the cruel machinations of THE MAN is just poreing salt into their self inflicted wounds.

And this ignores the equally suicidal move to not only do those things but also attempt to burn down a company and allegedly take part in some over the top scheme to steal a commercial license from them by doing so. Especially when the heart of the matter, regardless of how you try to hide and obfuscate it, is that you are just upset about not getting paid.

Unfreakingbelievable.

I sincerely hope these people have other skills available with which to earn a living because I cant image any roleplaying company ever hiring them after behaving this way. Even if some company is foolish enuf to hire them again, I for one will seriously consider NOT buying a single product they work on for the very same reasons they reputably started the wole mess. Morale grounds.

You're going to open up every roleplaying game book you'll consider buying, look at the credits, and compare all the names there against a list you're going to carry around in your pocket? And do this every single time based on "moral grounds"? Riiiight.

You probably meant "aside from that bit of intro fiction that doesn't suit my personal taste"

Such an interesting interpretation so full of nonsense. Sure, breaking the Samurai-to-death corporate codex in this multi-billion Dollar industry, where professionalism and confidentiality is everything, will definately bring those traitors to the guillotine...

If something were being written that I thought was damaging to the game, e.g. a writer unfamiliar with the setting or who simply had stupid ideas (e.g. our classic Unicorn Division) and I opposed that, this would be a creative difference I suppose, but it wouldn't be self-interest, it would be the interest of the game and the community around it that I had at heart. Unless you're going to argue that caring about other things is gratifying to oneself and therefore is ultimately self-interest, in which case the term "self-interest" is meaningless because you are defining everything as such.



What matters is whether or not it is true. There seems to be a number of people here who regard openly criticising and objecting to someone's behaviour as a wrong thing to do, regardless of whether or not that behaviour should be criticized and objected to.

Also, do you think it is appropriate to mingle your mod duties with taking sides in this discussion?

It wasn't very good mechanically if it comes to that. Too much exposition of broad basic items of interest to people who we're supposed to believe do these things for a living. They don't sound believable. Granted they are just meeting for the first time, at least two of them, but the dialog is too mechanical. Jason may have been going for that rapid fire noir style of discourse, but it doesn't hit that mark either. Instead of a shadowy group of influential officials with an agenda to take down my characters, the group sounds like a boring cabal of powerless nuisances who need to open their meeting by explaining their collective job in the broadest terms possible. Like they have no idea what they are doing. They come across like they barely understand the mechanics of what we are told it is their job to do as they explain they're job to us. At least, I think that's what Jason means by "People to hold meetings to talk about the people who did actual work."

An interrogation scene with a runner brought in on a simple wrap like ID fraud and then charged with all sorts of crimes to frame them and make the department look good would have been much better and spoken more to the section. It would have also avoided the bit of framing exposition the piece opened with (and the canon error in it) while bringing the focus back down to a street level were it becomes relevant. If we're getting a bit of fiction that high up the food chain I want a megacorp CEO, dragon or immortal elf in it, not some middle managers.

Jason's stuff has been strange for me to read now that I'm looking for it. Most of it is good mechanically, this example not withstanding. But I'm not familiar with the world his characters live in, even though I recognize the logos and street signs.

I don't know anything about Exalted, but I certainly don't want comics appearing in my Shadowrun books. I'd be hugely against this.

K.

I only see this to be a problem if he was abusing his modliness to uphold his POV. Since I've seen no sign of that, I have no problem with him expressing his opinion on the matter.

Not that my opinion matters in the slightest since I am neither mod nor long-time poster here. @=)

I still think it's self-interest because creative differences are very subjective. I've tangled with writers and developers who I thought were working on a "dumb idea", but they didn't feel that way. Their vision of the game was different than mine.

Taking a side in this argument, means it would be very wise to give up any position as moderator over it.

Naturally, IMO. But something to consider seriously if you take your position seriously.

K.

Self-interest is about who benefits. If I care about the Shadowrun game (which I do) and I were a writer trying to persuade a Line Developer not to add, I don't know, flying Unicorns to the setting and making the setting stupid, then I don't think it's appropriate to call that "self-interest". It's not what people mean by the term.

K.

I'd take you more seriously (though not a lot) if you did not, among your ranting, consider competing for a license as "scheming to steal". That's not really professional.

It does fit in the "oh, those evil, evil freelancers, wanting to get paid, and even denouncing our non-paying business practise openly, instead of letting themselves be exploited as they should" song you're playing.

Wow. 150 for a full page illustration whereas it sounds like CGL/other would pay about $10-20 for a 500 word story. Okay, yeah never happening.

As far as whistle-blowing goes I don't see how that can be a detriment to someone. I work in the financial industry and we sure could use more whistleblowers. Chances are if someone rejects you as a hire because you are a whistleblower then you probably don't want to work for them based on ethics anyway. Implies they have something to hide.

Hey all... long time lurker, first time poster!

So, I'm a BattleTech freelancer. Thought you all might like another point of view. I won't speak for my peers, but I'm getting a hoot out of watching several of you call me names and claim that I'm supporting an evil empire by not running for the door months ago. I wish it were that simple...

Here's the deal: I have the greatest respect for the SR freelancers who pulled their copyrights because of ethical issues, such as not getting paid. They were entirely within their rights and I don't have a bad thing to say about them. It's just not something I can do, because I need every penny I'm owed. Which is why I've continued to write for Catalyst, in the interim--because that offers me the best chance of recovering the monies owed me.

Your response might be: "But you're being stupid--they're never going to pay you." And you might be right, as neither you nor I has any factual idea what's going on behind closed doors at IMR. But the options are 1.) withdraw copyrights, thereby denying CGL a plausible income stream, 2.) terminate contracts, thereby both denying CGL a plausible income stream AND writing off any owed monies I have, or 3.) keep writing in the hopes that giving CGL every opportunity to sell product might get me paid. Someday. Whatever your beliefs about what's going on at IMR, if you're a freelancer with BT/SR contracts, it boils down to those three options. There aren't any others.

Options 1 and 2 are--for certain--ruinous to me financially. Option 3 might be ruinous to me financially, but it also might get me paid. Since writing off the monies owed is not an option, Option 3 is my only choice.

Am I pleased that I've not been paid on time? Of course not. Am I pleased that the reason I've not been paid on time is shoddy bookkeeping on part of the leadership of the company? Of course not. Am I pleased that I'm continuing to write, despite having a fair chance of not ever seeing a dime? Of course not. There is nothing pleasing about the situation. Not. One. Thing.

If I had the financial security to stand by my morals and walk away, I would have done so months ago. Since I do not, the only option available to me is to do everything in my power to see that IMR brings in funds sufficient to pay my outstanding contracts. I'm not motivated by love of the game or loyalty to a specific person. I'm motivated by my bills. I can't tell the electric company I won't be paying my June electric bill because I terminated my contracts over moral issues.

I have three options, and two of those options are guaranteed to not get me paid. Even if the odds are 1 in 100 (and I just made that number up, don't try to read anything into it) I'm going with the chance for money.

Regards...

ps.--someone will point out the fourth option: simply not take any more contracts until I'm paid up. Which is a fair option, but doesn't get me paid any faster. I'm an active person--I'd rather increase the likelihood of getting paid, and thereby increase the amount I'll eventually get paid, than sit and watch my bills go unpaid while I'm waiting. At least the writing distracts me from the collections agencies...

It's been said before...the squeaky wheel gets the grease. I don't know the details of your situation, Dacoit, and I do hope you get paid, but bitter experience tells me that sometimes it takes more than waiting quietly, or even waiting and bitching vehemently, to get paid. Because while it makes all kinds of sense to pay out the few hundred or few thousand dollars they owe you, Catalyst does not have a good track record of doing so. Freelancer payments have been ignored, delayed, and pushed to the side for "more immediate concerns" more times than I can recall. It's not right, but sitting there writing isn't going to get you paid any sooner, especially once someone else has withheld copyrights. Those people are the ones that get paid first, because their actions have made it a priority to get paid first. If CGL had kept on top of things, that wouldn't be the case, but that's how it is.

Shoddy Bookkeeping is forgetting to record a debit card transaction. I wouldn't call walking into the bank, withdrawing $30,000 in cash to pay a home-builder contractor, while freelancers, printers, loans, and taxes go unpaid... shoddy bookkeeping. Especially not when it happens repeated. Over several years. By one person.

If you are okay with accepting that you haven't been paid, at least accept the reason for it.

Note that option one does have the result of getting paid. Ignoring freelancers, for the moment - printers and contractors (not authors/artists) have also used the same method with CGL and gotten paid. Just saying...

so, because he's a moderator, he should be expected to become a robot without an opinion and no right to speak his mind? unless it's interfering with his responsibilities as a moderator, i really can't see a problem. you don't seem to have any problem with the moderators having an opinion in other threads, why should they be obligated to shut up in this one?



and this just goes to what i've pointed out several times before. there are many aspects to justice, and while i might agree that justice would involve the guilty being punished, my concept of justice sure as hang doesn't involve the innocent being harmed by the consequences of the actions of the guilty.

if keeping loren l coleman around increases the odds of the other owners getting their money back, and the freelancers getting paid, then so be it. if it doesn't work out, you can always sue/press charges against loren l coleman later, but it's not so easy to set things right by going after the person through the legal system. consider the palladium books situation, where kevin accepted a tiny fraction of the stolen money as a settlement, because he realised that revenge wasn't going to improve the situation any, and he wasn't going to get the money back by suing.

i just think it's silly to say "the moral thing to do is to tear apart the company in a legal battle to get vengeance on loren l coleman", when quite frankly loren l coleman is not the only person who would be hurt by that action. truth be told, taking that course would likely harm the very same people that loren l coleman harmed in essentially the same way that loren l coleman harmed those people.

so randall bills is left with a pretty crappy situation... he can take what some are claiming is the only moral action, and destroy the company (thereby making sure the other members of the LLC, and the freelancers, and the employees, and pretty much everyone involved other than the lawyers be left with the consequences of loren l coleman's actions), or he can do his best to keep the company afloat, which includes keeping loren l coleman at least somewhat involved in the company. neither one is particularly a great option, but to claim that he (or any of the other people who have been accused of supporting loren's actions) is a horrible human being for not seeking immediate vengeance on loren is to blind yourself to the whole situation.