ESD loses Call of Cthulhu license

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HorusArisen said:
Except that’s not what’s happening from what’s been linked to so far. Can I keep using your house if I don’t pay you rent? How about I keep dodging you when you come to collect? Wait though I have performing pets so you can’t kick me out as I’m making money using your house as a pet theatre and I have to feed them...at your expense?

If someone shows me something to the contrary I’ll be all in criticising nuChaosium as we’re calling them. I’ll not knock a business behaving like a business though.
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Just because you can, doesn’t always mean you should.

I never disputed nuChaosium’s right to do so.

I just think it sounds an awful lot like this.

A very convenient “violation of license terms” clearing the path for their own plans.

It really is up to them how they run their business.

But ever since the fiasco linked above, they’re getting none from me.

Sorry if I’m not buying what MOB is shoveling. I find it rich that you are, after he couldn’t be arsed to address your questions a little over a year ago.
 
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... You know if the company that had control of one of my licenses in a country was bungling it and hadn't paid me, I'd probably be looking for a new licencor too.

Why exactly do people think "Chaosium was looking for a new licencor, so they are using the violation of terms to kick ESD out" rather than that "ESD was in violation of terms, so Chaosium was looking for a new licencor."

That cause and effect can go both ways. Idk. Even ESD admitted they hadn't paid all their royalties yet. It really feels like some people in this thread have an axe to grind with Chaosium, because the actual things being stated don't seem to support the tar and feathering they are attempting.
 
EmperorNorton said:
... You know if the company that had control of one of my licenses in a country was bungling it and hadn't paid me, I'd probably be looking for a new licencor too.

Why exactly do people think "Chaosium was looking for a new licencor, so they are using the violation of terms to kick ESD out" rather than that "ESD was in violation of terms, so Chaosium was looking for a new licencor."

That cause and effect can go both ways. Idk. Even ESD admitted they hadn't paid all their royalties yet. It really feels like some people in this thread have an axe to grind with Chaosium, because the actual things being stated don't seem to support the tar and feathering they are attempting.
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From what I can gather Chaosium pissed off some (a lot?) of Mythras fans when they didn’t renew the RQ license for The Design Mechanism folks and took back the Runequest IP and tied it back into Glorantha as a setting. Seems some of the Chaosium staff have been undiplomatic online about it although that is all second hand and even if true is not something I really care about. Toss in some typical Culture War nonsense and Edition Waring into the mix too I think.

So yeah, I think there is some axe grinding going on. My impression is that the original fans of RQ and Glorantha are happy with the changes, the Mythras fans are not.

The odd thing is I believe I came across the Design Mechanism guys online saying they didn’t have any hard feelings towards Chaosium. That may just be a public, and mature, posture but it does seem some of the fans are taking it all a lot more personally than the people actually involved.
 
Voros said:
From what I can gather Chaosium pissed off some (a lot?) of Mythras fans when they didn’t renew the RQ license for The Design Mechanism folks and took back the Runequest IP and tied it back into Glorantha as a setting. Seems some of the Chaosium staff have been undiplomatic online about it although that is all second hand and even if true is not something I really care about. Toss in some typical Culture War nonsense and Edition Waring into the mix too I think.

So yeah, I think there is some axe grinding going on. My impression is that the original fans of RQ and Glorantha are happy with the changes, the Mythras fans are not.

The odd thing is I believe I came across the Design Mechanism guys online saying they didn’t have any hard feelings towards Chaosium. That may just be a public, and mature, posture but it does seem some of the fans are taking it all a lot more personally than the people actually involved.
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It's definately true that the The Design Mechanism guys have been the quite the gentlemen in all this, they have not done much to fuel any fires and have often taken pains to put them out. While it has been a huge upheavel for them, in a sense I think they are also liberated to move the system in the direction they prefer.

Many of the old RQ2 fans are pretty happy with RQG, but there are also many who wanted some of the ideas from the recent editions to make it into the game, I among them. However Glorantha itself wins us over, as the setting is done so well in the current productions, not only aethetically but also practically, as the setting really has a direct impact on the character. Bringing some of the Pendragon rules into it was also a good idea, that appealed to many fans.

But there certainly has been some forum argey bargey at times, I guess this happens with any situation that people get passionate about.
 
The Butcher said:
Just because you can, doesn’t always mean you should.

I never disputed nuChaosium’s right to do so.

I just think it sounds an awful lot like this.

A very convenient “violation of license terms” clearing the path for their own plans.

It really is up to them how they run their business.

But ever since the fiasco linked above, they’re getting none from me.

Sorry if I’m not buying what MOB is shoveling. I find it rich that you are, after he couldn’t be arsed to address your questions a little over a year ago.
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I’m not his biggest fan but if being a dickhole was an issue I’d probably not buy a lot of stuff from a variety of people. Look at Alphetar publishing for example. Personally I think not going for Loz and Pete stopped a good product, RQG, from being amazing. Ultimately I’m happy because Design Mechanism is the best thing in RPGs today.

The way I’m looking at it is that they weren’t getting paid why should they let someone keep using their licence.

I will give you that based on the way they treated Pete and Loz I’d normally be giving them stink eye but from what’s being posted and elsewhere EDS are clearly not fulfilling their obligations.

Show me otherwise and you can hand me a torch and pitchfork.
 
Voros said:
From what I can gather Chaosium pissed off some (a lot?) of Mythras fans when they didn’t renew the RQ license for The Design Mechanism folks and took back the Runequest IP and tied it back into Glorantha as a setting
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Tied in that is that there was a Runequest 6 product in the pipeline with some manuscripts printed (I don’t have one, but as I understand it was not finished) and apparently the TDM folks were not hitting their revenue targets and Chaosium did not communicate this to TDM. So I think what folks are getting at is that there are parallels.

Primary difference here is that ESD didn’t have a product published at all, and hadn’t paid any royalties at all. Granted, I’ve not read any ESD things about this, so just Chaosium’s word, but I got nothing that says there is another story.
 
Simlasa said:
I was never a Glorantha fan so I'm guessing his name passed me by. I've only taken notice of him since the changeover and his online persona has rubbed me wrong at just about every turn.
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I can't say as I find him particularly impressive or persuasive in his postings either.
 
Bilharzia said:
I'm quite soured on Chaosium largely because of what happened with RQ6 but the communication style doesn't help, I don't think in terms of being respectful or not but I know who people are and what they've done. A while ago on the Chaosium discord I tried to inform a couple of posters about TDM and Mythras because they described Mythras as a fantasy heart breaker ripping off RuneQuest by cloning it as Mythras.
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While I can't find anything wrong with Chaosium's actions in this case, the Chaosium team certainly has worked hard at dividing at the BRP fanbase. They made me lose all interest in hanging out at BRP Central, which I used to enjoy. My personal issues with members of the Chaosium staff aren't going to lead me to make baseless theories that they are violating their contracts with licensees though.
AsenRG said:
OK, that at least seems to confirm the CRKrueger CRKrueger theory.
But it's still speculation at best, just a speculation with higher odds of being true:smile:.
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I can't really buy that logic. "Clearly they planned it along as they have another licensee lined up!" ESD crowfunded this project almost two years ago. They got the money all upfront. If they haven't paid the IP holder yet, when were they planning to do it?
CRKrueger said:
Hey, how about that. They want the license back and Hey! Whaddya know, the people who have it are in violation...weird how that seems to happen Every.Single.Time.
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Yeah. And once again, the licensee, to my knowledge, hasn't claimed that Chaosium is lying. I was personally disappointed when TDM lost the RuneQuest license too, but it was never disputed by TDM that they didn't make their agreed targets. I also haven't seen anyone present even an accusation from a credible source that Chaosium is lying about ESD not paying their royalties, let alone evidence.

There are business contracts involved, and there are courts in which breach of contracts can be addressed. If Chaosium is breaking all these contracts on their personal whim, I'd expect TDM and/or ESD to take action. It's not like Chaosium, the IP holder, is some corporate juggernaut that can walk over all in its path.

I get some of people's frustrations with Chaosium, but making up whole cloth stories about them violating contracts isn't cool. If someone has even a claim by ESD of Chaosium cheating them, it might be worth discussing, but currently, it just comes off as baseless rumor-mongering.
 
Comparisons between what's happening between SD and Chaosium with what happened with RQ6 and TDM certainly don't do TDM any favours so I'm not sure why they are being made. The fact that I've gone cool on Chaosium's productions doesn't mean I'm angry that they ran over my dog. No one at Chaosium harmed my dog. I don't have a dog. But they did waste a year's worth of TDM's working time which went into Adventures in Glorantha which went into a private bin. Could I ask those people PMing me about the PDF for that to stop doing so, I don't have a copy of it.
 
Bilharzia said:
But they did waste a year's worth of TDM's working time which went into Adventures in Glorantha which went into a private bin.
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That seems more the concern of the fellows at TDM who have accepted it and moved on.

I’m more excited to see them working on Lyonnesse now than RQ anyway. Let’s have more new content coming to the table.
 
Voros said:
That seems more the concern of the fellows at TDM who have accepted it and moved on.

I’m more excited to see them working on Lyonnesse now than RQ anyway. Let’s have more new content coming to the table.
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As for me, Mythras is worth a dozen RuneQuest: Gloranthas as I have no interest in their setting and mythology, and all these Mythras books (Britain, Rome, Constantinople, where is my Greece?) look right up my alley. I'd say it worked out great for me. :hehe:
 
Baulderstone said:
I was personally disappointed when TDM lost the RuneQuest license too, but it was never disputed by TDM that they didn't make their agreed targets.
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The Design Mechanism were messed around. I think I've seen Pete Nash react online with some incredulity towards the notion that they didn't meet agreed targets, while I think it may have been unprofessional to make the charge in public. The Design Mechanism were at a disadvantage anyway, by not having the sort of distribution channels that Chaosium have to get products into retail.

When TDM took it upon themselves to obtain the RuneQuest license, Moon Design (as they were) showed little interest in it (not helping to promote a crowdfunded campaign, for example), and prefering to focus on HeroQuest as the de facto Glorantha RPG. However, they still threw out instructions from on high. TDM were asked to change plans - postponing certain projects (like Mythic Greece) to make way for a Gloranthan supplement, only to be told that their work was to be ditched after it was created. TDM were asked to reformat their rules, to be be able to suit a 300-350 page format - which they did, only to have the license revoked anyway.

As a customer, it was also messing around with us too. And it grates when Chaosium reps try to revise history in suggesting that the editions released by Mongoose/TDM never happened when they, themselves could have easily prevented them from actually ever happening if they'd actually showed any interest, whatsoever, when the RQ license first returned to Greg Stafford in the mid 2000s.

Ultimately, the split could be best described as 'creative differences' - whereby Chaosium basically didn't want to make a generic system as a game, but The Design Mechanism did. That's fair enough, as is running a business as you see fit. However, there were better ways they could have gone about it. I guess this thread is the residue of that point.

But still, I'm running a Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign, waiting to receive a copy of RuneQuest: Glorantha, overjoyed that Pendragon has returned to it's original home, and hopeful we'll ever see a new edition of Stormbringer. In short, I'm not dwelling on the past. It's better than what happened over at White Wolf….
 
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Dumarest said:
As for me, Mythras is worth a dozen RuneQuest: Gloranthas as I have no interest in their setting and mythology, and all these Mythras books (Britain, Rome, Constantinople, where is my Greece?) look right up my alley. I'd say it worked out great for me. :hehe:
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I quite like Glorantha as a setting, although I do like the Mythras material I have I wouldn’t want to use it to run Glorantha.

I listened to an interview with the RQG crew on Grognard Files and they seemed upfront about disagreeing with the direction the game took with RQ3 and later editions. Which I think is a reasonable position.

I like the idea of returning to RQ2 as a base for a Glorantha game, I think that is actually the right decision to revive the game, attract old RQ fans and new players. Not too different from what they did with 5e D&D which is obviously the model. Now Mythras fans know what 4e fans felt like. :clown:

In terms of how it was actually handled, that is all insider baseball we’d have little knowledge of in the pre-internet days. Businesses are going to be businesses. Wherever there is money and ego at stake there will be disagreements and drama.

What I think this and the WW/Onyx Path drama shows is that licensing a game out to an outside company is ultimately a bad idea as when you decide you want to take the IP back it creates bad blood. Ironically, or perhaps not due to the internet’s role as a dramamachine, in both cases the bad blood seems more stirred up in the fanbase than between the designers and companies, at least publically.
 
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What Chaosium did to TDM, TDM had first done to Alephtar Games.

Business is business.

Personally, I still buy PDFs from all the main D100 games companies, Alephtar Games, TDM, Chaosium, D101 Games, Cakebread & Walton and Mongoose. All I am interested in is the supplements and various rules sets. I leave the bitching and moaning and scoring points to other people.
 
soltakss said:
What Chaosium did to TDM, TDM had first done to Alephtar Games.
....
I leave the bitching and moaning and scoring points to other people.
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::cough::
Well it's a good thing you explained that otherwise no one would know what you're talking about.
 
Pub? Kind of seems more like a Victorian Tea Circle the way people start clutching their pearls the second someone has a disagreement. Maybe you should invest in some mirrors and stay inside so you'll always have a group of people around who agree with you.
 
Voros said:
From what I can gather Chaosium pissed off some (a lot?) of Mythras fans when they didn’t renew the RQ license for The Design Mechanism folks and took back the Runequest IP and tied it back into Glorantha as a setting. Seems some of the Chaosium staff have been undiplomatic online about it although that is all second hand and even if true is not something I really care about. Toss in some typical Culture War nonsense and Edition Waring into the mix too I think...
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I'm not sure how "Chaosium staff" could be "undiplomatic online" but for that behaviour nonetheless to be "second hand" (knowledge). If it's 'online' -- for all to see -- how is it 'second hand'? It's as 'first hand' as it gets!

And I don't understand the reference to "typical Culture War nonsense". What does that mean? I wasn't aware of any 'Culture War' issues -- it was an old-fashioned back stab (IMO).

(Some context: I used to game in Loz's group and helped play test some RQ6 material. I was excited for TDM with respect to the direction that RQ seemed to be going in 2015 -- until the sudden decision by Chaosium. So I'm not exactly objective on this issue. But IME, MOB is a terrible person with whom to interact. Some of his comments to me -- both public and private -- were unhinged. E.g., partially in response to this blog post MOB publicly called me some very nasty things at another forum....)
 
Trippy said:
The Design Mechanism were messed around. I think I've seen Pete Nash react online with some incredulity towards the notion that they didn't meet agreed targets, while I think it may have been unprofessional to make the charge in public. The Design Mechanism were at a disadvantage anyway, by not having the sort of distribution channels that Chaosium have to get products into retail.

When TDM took it upon themselves to obtain the RuneQuest license, Moon Design (as they were) showed little interest in it (not helping to promote a crowdfunded campaign, for example), and prefering to focus on HeroQuest as the de facto Glorantha RPG. However, they still threw out instructions from on high. TDM were asked to change plans - postponing certain projects (like Mythic Greece) to make way for a Gloranthan supplement, only to be told that their work was to be ditched after it was created. TDM were asked to reformat their rules, to be be able to suit a 300-350 page format - which they did, only to have the license revoked anyway.

As a customer, it was also messing around with us too. And it grates when Chaosium reps try to revise history in suggesting that the editions released by Mongoose/TDM never happened when they, themselves could have easily prevented them from actually ever happening if they'd actually showed any interest, whatsoever, when the RQ license first returned to Greg Stafford in the mid 2000s.

Ultimately, the split could be best described as 'creative differences' - whereby Chaosium basically didn't want to make a generic system as a game, but The Design Mechanism did. That's fair enough, as is running a business as you see fit. However, there were better ways they could have gone about it. I guess this thread is the residue of that point.

But still, I'm running a Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign, waiting to receive a copy of RuneQuest: Glorantha, overjoyed that Pendragon has returned to it's original home, and hopeful we'll ever see a new edition of Stormbringer. In short, I'm not dwelling on the past. It's better than what happened over at White Wolf….
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Decent summary, but you left out the part where Chaosium showed little to no interest in RuneQuest until they saw the interest TDM was getting...and the subsequent money they made over the reprint of RuneQuest 2, which outperformed their expectations.

I don't really blame them for realizing that for the unanointed, HeroQuest will always be a lower selling system than a properly done RuneQuest. I don't even blame them if they maybe were butthurt that more people liked RuneQuest without Glorantha than wanted Ducks, Baboons, and Walktopi. Still doesn't excuse what they did.
 
CRKrueger said:
Changing the focus of a thread from the intent of the original poster, how...purple of you.

If you're gonna decide to shut down things you don't want to hear, why not just have the fucking balls to close the goddamn thread?
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There's clearly discussion to be had here but the OP, and original title, doesn't even make sense. I'm following this thread and can't really understand anyone interpreting Chaosium's response to EDS as making an ass of themselves.
 
under_score said:
There's clearly discussion to be had here but the OP, and original title, doesn't even make sense. I'm following this thread and can't really understand anyone interpreting Chaosium's response to EDS as making an ass of themselves.
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So naturally then the people that do know what they're talking about should be quiet to prevent your confusion instead of you just, you know, not reading the thread if it upsets you. :weep:
Gotcha.
 
CRKrueger said:
So naturally then the people that do know what they're talking about should be quiet to prevent your confusion instead of you just, you know, not reading the thread if it upsets you. :weep:
Gotcha.
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I'm not upset but now I'm not sure what you're talking about. Who are the people that know what they're talking about in this context.
 
CRKrueger said:
Pub? Kind of seems more like a Victorian Tea Circle the way people start clutching their pearls the second someone has a disagreement. Maybe you should invest in some mirrors and stay inside so you'll always have a group of people around who agree with you.
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Just because you got called on your bullshit and can't back any of it up is no reason to fault us. Can you point to anything anywhere that suggest that ESD was actually paying royalties and Chaosium robbed them, or were you just engaging in baseless stirring?

You can compare us to RPG.net all you like, but nobody is silencing you. We are just asking you to back up your snide gossip. You are the one that is wilting at people disagreeing with you. I have my problems with some of the people at Chaosium, so I would be happy for you to prove you case, but I'm not just going to believe any random Internet scuttlebutt simply because I already have an issue with someone.

Also, Merry Christmas everyone!
 
CRKrueger said:
Changing the focus of a thread from the intent of the original poster, how...purple of you.

If you're gonna decide to shut down things you don't want to hear, why not just have the fucking balls to close the goddamn thread?
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Nothing’s been deleted. Thread is still here. No one’s been banned.

If you want a completely unmoderated forum, you’d probably better go make it yourself. And then prove yourself a hypocrite the instant something YOU don’t like comes up.
 
CRKrueger said:
Changing the focus of a thread from the intent of the original poster, how...purple of you.

If you're gonna decide to shut down things you don't want to hear, why not just have the fucking balls to close the goddamn thread?
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If you are still posting in this thread, it’s not “shut down”.
 
The mods here try to do what's best for the Pub. I thought it was in the best interests of the thread to change the title to get more discussion out of the thread. That's not a slam against Butcher (who has always been a great member here) for creating the thread title or anyone's discussion in the thread (of which is plentiful and very informative). If you have a complaint against our moderation, please share your thoughts in the community forum. Thank you.
 
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