I'm backing this one and looking forward to it.  

I have the previous hardcover edition.  It's an interesting reference, but a four volume set?  Maybe...

I won't support this project due to issues with the author but I would be curious as to how many images from the Tome of Treasures or Acaeum show up in the book.

Mars wrote in Designers & Dragons:I won't support this project due to issues with the author but I would be curious as to how many images from the Tome of Treasures or Acaeum show up in the book.

Personal of Philosophical? Just curious, you don't hear that very often.

Blackmoor wrote in Designers & Dragons:I am waiting to see it released, kick starter is getting kinda overloaded these days.  I have never heard of the author before, he does not ship international (what??)  and the book will no doubt be half the asking price on amazon.

I am interested as noted above, and have read the 121 page freebie which I thought was laid out well,  but also am hesitant to pledge. The pledge for the 4 volume set is a little steep especially since hardback isn't confirmed yet and Amazon will certainly beat the price IF it is funded of course. I'm also disappointed in the lack of footnotes or references.

A little bird told me that if you back for $1 you receive a .pdf of the 400-page book 1, detailing the companies of the 1970s.  

cabala wrote in Designers & Dragons:

Mars wrote in Designers & Dragons:I won't support this project due to issues with the author but I would be curious as to how many images from the Tome of Treasures or Acaeum show up in the book.

Personal of Philosophical? Just curious, you don't hear that very often.

Agreed:  I'm curious about your thoughts/concerns as well, Mark.  I've known Shannon for years, and helped with fact-checking a number of entries in the earlier version of the book.  

I wasn't aware that the Acaeum or Tome were being used as uncredited sources for illustrations, however.  That would suck, and seems like something Scott would want to take up with Fred Hicks of Evil Hat (who seem to be, in general, the good guys in the industry---they seem to live Google's "Do No Evil" motto rather than simply stating that's their motto ).  

Blackmoor wrote in Designers & Dragons:I am waiting to see it released, kick starter is getting kinda overloaded these days.  I have never heard of the author before, he does not ship international (what??)  and the book will no doubt be half the asking price on amazon.

I am interested as noted above, and have read the 121 page freebie which I thought was laid out well,  but also am hesitant to pledge. The pledge for the 4 volume set is a little steep especially since hardback isn't confirmed yet and Amazon will certainly beat the price IF it is funded of course. I'm also disappointed in the lack of footnotes or references.[/quote]

End notes/foot notes would be a fabulous addition to the book.  It's a shame we're not likely to get that (unless that's where many of the additional pages of content are going?).

I wasn't aware that hardcovers were an option, when I looked over the KS---everything sounded like all paperbacks to me.  Did I simply miss it, or was it added later, perhaps?

I went back through some threads from a couple years ago since this seemed so familiar, but I couldn't quite figure out what was going on/if there was indeed an issue. Were there parts of the research not being attributed correctly (for instance, referencing ToT or Acaeum)? Was the problem back then that the book wasn't edited well through Mongoose?

Since this thread came back up, I'll tell my tale.  Yes, its mainly because of his behaviour with Tome of Treasures.

Tome of Treasures, is a not-for-profit webpage where individuals upload information and images with the knowledge that their efforts will be used as a resource people can use for free and that their efforts will not be used by someone else to make money on.

RPG.net is a for-profit enterprise, they have a trademark, claim copyright, file business taxes, etc.  They also are building a similar type of catalog with images and information similar to Tome of Treasures.

It was noticed that RPG.net was creating new item listings and taking the images from Tome of Treasures to use on RPG.net and essentially through their "all rights reserved" claiming the images are property of RPG.net or the individuals that uploaded them to RPG.net.  There were about 6 members of RPG.net that were doing this.  Back then, if you created a new item or uploaded an image you would get a certain number of RPG.net points and the system tracked everything the users did.  You could look at all the images that a particular user uploaded and the items that they created.  There were lists of the top uploaders or item contributors, etc.  So you could easily look at these lists an see who was actively contributing and uploading stuff.  Once you found an image that was taken from ToT, you could also see what else that user had uploaded and contributed.  I believe it was somewhere in the 100+ range of number of images taken and the biggest offender was Shannon Appelcline.

When it was brought to the attention of RPG.net they made a number of statements such as all information and images on ToT are public domain (because everything on the internet is PD?) and they are taking images of products which is legal, etc.  The problem with this being that everything on RPG.net is either claimed as property of RPG.net or the individuals that uploaded them.  And the RPG.net philosophy for profit basically goes against the mission statement of ToT.

Its fine to have these debates and some resolution in the end but what really sticks out in my mind is how it got handled afterwards.  A thread was created on the RPG.net forum where a bunch of the "discussion" took place (I think there are some threads here too).  However, when it was somewhat resolved and RPG.net agreed to remove the copied images, they deleted the thread (not simply locking it but removing it completely from their forum) - it reflected badly on RPG.net so they removed it.  At the same time, they also removed the feature from their website to look at what image uploads and contributions a user made.  They then told us to go through their catalog and create a list of the images they took and we wanted removed.  It would have been a fairly simple task to go through the previously public lists of contributions (listed by date) that the 6 users made and say yes this is from ToT or no it isn't but instead they essentially made it as difficult as possible for us to track down what was taken and they hid who the users were that copied the images.  Their antics at the end was very shady.  I think we made an attempt to go through the whole RPG.net catalog to create a list but we never went back to double check all those images were removed and it is difficult to say we got them all.  Every once in while, when I am looking at a couple items, I think that image was taken from ToT so I'm sure there are still a few and why I'd be curious how many images that make it into the books ultimately came from ToT.

I personally didn't appreciate their attitude when this all happened or how they tried to defend that taking images from a non-profit webpage and using them on their for-profit webpage was okay (and then also claiming ownership of the images).  And then how it was handled at the end to get the images removed.

It's a pity really. The great not for profit efforts by members here really changed the whole hobby in my view. But the big commercial sites have eclipsed us ... RPG.net and rpggeek for example ... I think there latter generated more information in a couple of months, then we did in a couple of years ... and sourced in the same way as described above.

I think a lot of newcomers to the hobby, probably don't even find our sites anymore. That Kickstarter is wildly successful. I think it's over $100k and 1300% ... and so much of the research which has become public domain and will be used in the books, must come for the efforts of folks at places like the Acaeum.

We should probably band together and do a Kickstarter one day, just to outline the contribution sites like the Acaeum and ToT have made to the hobby. We're just all getting too old and overworked to make the time!