Michael Gear's page

Dear Paizo Fans,

First off let me apologize for my long absence from the Internet. I don’t use it for anything beyond work email these days and I am about as far out of the electronic loop as is humanly possible – my own fault, and my undoing on many levels.

I deeply apologize for the debacle that was Sinister Adventures – I can honestly say there has been nothing in my life I regret more than attempting to run my own publishing company. I have done severe damage to my own finances over the past several years, ruined my reputation as a game designer, and transformed a hobby that used to be the most enjoyable part of my life into my own personal mire of misery and shame. But most importantly I have alienated a host of lovely people who love RPGS. I used to take great joy in communicating with my former fans, and felt a growing camaraderie with several of the people who enjoyed my work, or even hated my work, but just downright enjoyed this great hobby. I let those people down, betrayed them, and damaged their enthusiasm for the game, not to mention lost the hard-earned money they entrusted to me through pre-orders.

I dealt with the avalanche of problems Sinister experienced ineptly to say the least. The failure of this company combined with crushing stress from my 90 hour-a-week day job of the last three years shook the foundation of my sense of self. This led to a downward spiral of alcoholism and depression.

My recent move back to Hawaii has restored a great deal of the vitality and psychological well-being I lost over the last few years and I am finally in a place to take serious action against the start-up gaming company that has become my personal nemesis.

I have lost over $15,000 personally on this endeavor through my gross ineptitude as a publisher. I paid for a great deal of top quality art, web design and other start up costs and then as problems arose that siphoned off more funds, I found the company wallowing in destitution. As the problems piled up, I eventually lost any ability to deal with them and kept attempting to tell myself I would “get around to it soon” once I was able to save up more funds and free up more time. I grappled with the idea of bankruptcy, but didn’t want to end up not giving those who trusted me their money back.

Fortunately I have been able to shift some funds around recently and replenish Sinister’s coffers enough to get everyone their money back. To ensure this happens in a timely fashion I will not trust my own dire worthlessness with the task. Instead the heroic Lou is once again stepping up to bat.

Through the invaluable assistance of Louis Agresta – one of the truest friends a man could ask for – I am now in a position to refund all and sundry for their pre-orders to Sinister. Lou has very kindly offered to assist me yet again, this time pooling through my mangled attempts at record keeping to ensure all of you who have not yet been refunded get your money returned.

Lou has posted instructions and details above.

Now allow me to move off my own dire failures as a businessman and human being and move on to a more salient point.

Paizo Publishing is a true gem - A company full of caring individuals who are entirely the opposite of Sinister Adventures. They care deeply about their fans, their authors, and the hobby. From my close contact with them for years, first as a rabid fan and aspiring writer, then as a go-to freelancer, then as a brief employee I have a unique view of the fine people of Paizo inside and out. They are compassionate, professional, creative, enthusiastic, and possessed of a deep well of forgiveness and generosity. They don’t just uphold high standards of how companies should operate – they set the standards as far as I’m concerned.

It hurts me deeply that their remarkable feat of kindness and an attempt to rehabilitate the degenerate hobbyist and writer I have become over the last few years could result in any sort of backlash. These fine upstanding people pour their love, blood and sweat into their company daily.

To those of you hurt by the Sinister fiasco: I implore you to keep the sights of your (righteous) anger focused entirely on me. I will happily give ample opportunity for those of you slighted (or worse) by my mistakes and failures a chance to redress the wrongs you suffered at Sinister (and my) hands. I will gladly listen to your anger, apologize, and try to make amends as best I can at Paizocon. I will attempt to run games for those of you who suffered from Sinister’s flop, languishing in limbo while awaiting news or refunds from me.

I humbly apologize for the long and resounding silence and for thinking I could get things back on the rails.

Thank you for your time and patience. Please follow the instructions and details Lou posted above on how to FINALLY get your money back.

Yours,

Nicolas Logue

I have mixed feelings about the properties changing hands without pre-orders being fully honoured. How do I prove that I haven't received a refund? etc. Also, its very early here but I keep having flashbacks about bona fide purchasers and equity and such wrt to accepting property you know people probably have a claim against.

But I've been marking exams all Christmas so I'm in an Issue spotting frame of mind

Fire as She Bears was never offered for sale and no pre-orders exist; so, Rite Publishing and the esteemed mister Russel are not involved in any pre-order mess.

For the KUG? Well, its sort of like this: Nick stated he was going to put out Razor Coast then shut down. My information indicates this property would never be published, ever.

Nick told me he believes he returned all the pre-order money for this product. I believe he believes that. I'm not in a position to assess the quality of his record keeping.

Since this is a not-for-profit venture on my part, I plan to give anyone who simply tells me they made a pre-order a free PDF of the product. Period. Honor system. Could lots of people "rip me off"? Sure. Do I care? No. So there is no need for anyone to prove anything to me about a refund. You tell me you made a pre-order and didn't receive a refund, I give you a pdf. No questions.

You want the print version? The price will be whatever my cost was to produce the book -- so it doesn't include Nick's art, etc. - not a red cent more. For costs that vary by the number of units sold, I'll apportion them across a low number of units on a per unit basis. Not sure what that number of units will be, but I'll publish it in advance.

My goal is to price the print volume more cheaply than the early price, at the same time that the size of the book has tripled. By not making a profit, I hope to set the price such that a person who pre-ordered and then also buys the new POD book receives a book at a combined reasonable price. Not sure if that made sense, so here's an example:

If my new KUG book is worth paying $20 for at market, and the pre-order price for Nick's version was $11, then I plan to try my best to hit no more $9 for the new book (if per unit cost is $8, then its $8). That way if a pre-order person buys both, they still receive solid value for their money -- despite buying twice. Will I succeed at this attempt? No idea yet. Does this plan make sound, for-profit business sense? Nope. Not a lick. And not the point.

Side note: those numbers above are not the prices, just an example. I simply don't know what the price will be yet.

Will I be totally transparent along the way and try to provide people an independent means to verify what I'm doing? Sure will. Maybe access to whatever invoice the POD of choice gives me? Not sure yet, but I will try to figure it out as I go.

A game changer will be if Nick provides me with his paypal records and, in the event he is mistaken, any money he took for the KUG. Then I can simply honor the pre-orders.

I'm willing to pour time and sweat into this. I'm willing to call in favors, and I'm even willing to lay out some of my own money -- despite having neither an ethical or legal obligation of any sort to do so -- because I think the creative value is there and the sweating writers at least deserve their audience. I'm also haunted by the lack of creative closure. However, I'm not willing to create an open funnel into my wallet and take a bath for trying to pitch in.

Here's the alternative: I'll give this back and people can keep chasing Nick. If that emerges as a consensus on this thread, I can absolutely go that route. The absolute worst darn thing would be to further anger or disappoint the very fans and good Paizoans I'm hoping to please!

I hope that plan (such as it is) makes sense. If there are logical flaws in the approach or any issue that occurs to any of you, please share. I'm very open to whatever helps me get this right.

PS The difference between versions (the original Nick took pre-orders for and the one I plan to put out) will simply be more material by the same authors. A lot more.

PPS This will definitely be an art-lite book, but if anyone knows a cartographer good with Astrosynthesis or space mapping in general, please let me know :)

Though it should probably have a bar in it.

That way we wouldn't have to stop the games at midnight...

So, who has to get 'disappeared' for PFS to get The Sagamore Ballroom? WotC doesn't look like they need all that space anymore.

They should just build another gigantic ballroom in the convention center and name it the Hall of Gear! Though it should probably have a bar in it. The Sagamore Ballroom is missing a bar.