"Arguing about Celestial Bliss Trick will be met with a thread-ban."
General Exalted Thread
"Arguing about Celestial Bliss Trick will be met with a thread-ban."
Eldagusto
Voivode of Neterkhertet
- Location
- The Bleak Shores of Never in the Land of Naught
Hilarious! I can't even remember which charm that is.
And Unbanshee, I feel you man. I gave Holden nigh infinite goodwill because I loved Ink Monkeys and his Work on 3rd ed and 2.5. But then it got complicated by the scandal. And then by Holden and Olivia Hill dogpiling Mark Reinhagen. And then Holden was just dwelling in pettiness and diving too deep into political echochamberism, and I was saddened and thought maybe he's lost. But personally I take the Exalted vs World of Darkness as a gift and it kind of rekindled the faith I had in him. I know he can be overbearing and offensive, and I hear toxic. But he is a fan of the gamelines and he is just human. I mean if you look at Olivia Hill she developed a lot of books and seemed to be invested in the games but the moment she got fired she burned bridges worse then Holden and ultimately isn't a fan of the games, unless she specifically created the game. Yet Holden was a fan of both the World of Darkness and Exalted. He's not a developer or author anymore, he's just an experienced fan with unique insight. And if he puts out Storytellers Vault supplements, no matter the Gameline, quite frankly in feel he will put a lot of the official crew to shame.
I don't want him being toxic and I would like him to be positive and constructive so I see this path as good.
I mean, to be fair, the dude then went on to write stuff that started a small International Incident with the government of Chechnya and got White Wolf shuttered, so maybe a bit of criticism was justified.
Okay, good.
Last edited:
Eldagusto
Voivode of Neterkhertet
- Location
- The Bleak Shores of Never in the Land of Naught
Wait he wrote that? I saw no evidence he wrote that, only that he justified it saying Vampires were using Apathy to help their smoke screen. I thought he no longer wrote for the books?
I think he wrote at least a part of that book, but which part is unclear. I thought the Chechnya part was all him given that he was living in the Caucuses at the time.
Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
That's WHY he no longer works for the books
Eldagusto
Voivode of Neterkhertet
- Location
- The Bleak Shores of Never in the Land of Naught
No I mean I thought he quite ages ago.
Ehh. I'm not for forced censorship. It may have been a bad section, maybe not I haven't read the book, but I'm not a fan of people telling me what's okay to consume, and that if I read this I may be corrupted. I know such things can be handled with greater care, like the Charnel Houses book. But this book was trying something a bit different and the World of Darkness isn't the Real World.
He was rehired for the new White Wolf imprint under Paradox.
Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
He was hired again to work on the line again.
The section was about vampires ruling Georgia and deliberately killing all the LGBT people as a distraction so no one discovers their rule.
Georgia is currently suspected of killing hundreds if not thousands of people for the crime of being LGBT.
Guess whose fanbase has a large number of LBGT fans who weren't happy?
Guess which government got massively offended by 'propaganda' to the point of it being an international incident.
Finally, guess which publishing company got gutted and half its management fired once their bosses saw the reaction.
Chechnya, not Georgia.
Eldagusto
Voivode of Neterkhertet
- Location
- The Bleak Shores of Never in the Land of Naught
I believe his sentiments were the Vampires weren't necessarily ordering the Chechen death camps, they were just allowing them to continue and allowing them to be leaked so they would detract from the idea Vampires have infiltrated the Government. I think he said they were not concerned with being judged for that, they were much more concerned about their conspiracies being revealed.
But yeah it's a touchy subject. Older editions tried to play things safer. Then NWOD went all free when Chuck Wendig wrote Abe Lincoln was Possessed by something Cthulhu stand in and the government assassinated him... and then all of a sudden they started loosening their standards, and everyone says V5 tries to be edgy with Vampire conspiracies all over the place.
But yeah it's a touchy subject. Older editions tried to play things safer. Then NWOD went all free when Chuck Wendig wrote Abe Lincoln was Possessed by something Cthulhu stand in and the government assassinated him... and then all of a sudden they started loosening their standards, and everyone says V5 tries to be edgy with Vampire conspiracies all over the place.
hls
War hamster
Made it in 17 days, start to release, too.
*notices that the Priest merit says Moonshadows get a discount, when it should be Midnights* ... Which is impressive, but also illustrative of why you generally let something like this bake a little longer than that. Damn.
Eldagusto
Voivode of Neterkhertet
- Location
- The Bleak Shores of Never in the Land of Naught
I haven't read it thoroughly all the way yet but I am surprised at the lack of grammar or misspelling for a project like this. Seriously I know writing it in 17 days is miraculous but I always finding editing to be a grind so I'm doubly impress. If we had a donated art budget this would be polished class.
hls
War hamster
It was done mostly because I've been wanting to do it since 2012.
No, not exactly. I dragged out Arms and other books because my mother died and I had to take on the sole burden for caring for my invalid, senile father and it sent me into a year of extremely deep depression that tanked my productivity through the floor. I was fired because the books got backed up too far, which is fine, because, you know, they were indeed massively backed up and it was their prerogative to try going with someone else.
I aired Rich's dirty laundry after that because he refused to pay me the KS bonus on the EX3 corebook, anything at all for editing Miracles, anything for developing Tomb of Dreams, and because he'd owed me an author copy of W20 for five years by that point and had flat-out told me he would not furnish it despite being obligated to by contract.
The "coaching" in question is an assertion that I coached a rape survivor on how to post angry about sexual abuse within the hobby, something she'd been doing on RPGnet for years before I met her. I know you probably heard about that secondhand and didn't know any of the details but you might want to be aware of what you're repeating.
That's true. I pretty much finished doing all the damage I was inclined to a while ago, though.
I appreciate the kind words, but I only did half a chapter of Changeling 20th. A lot of very talented authors were responsible for that book coming out as well as it did and I was only a small part of it.
We never got a signed confession or anything, but every other author on the book yelled "not it" and it's very, very much in Mark's writing voice.
I have the fortune to usually produce really, really clean first drafts, and had some proofreaders help comb it. Been noticing little errors ever since it came out, though.
hls
War hamster
(I don't intend to bring any controversy here and would like that to be my first and last word on the Great Industry-Leveling Twitter Beef of 2017/2018, and I do apologize for even acknowledging it to that degree, but the RPGnet thing chaps my ass something fierce. The excuse they came up with to get rid of me was grotesque beyond words.)
Dare I suck the fun out of a product made by a man who tacitly turned a blind eye and put women at risk so a friend of his could get his rocks off. Sometimes having a clean conscience means choosing which media you opt to consume based on the shitheadedness of the person writing it. Deplatforming them, refusing to let them promote the idea they're not a terrible person simply because they made a thing you liked once. Maybe you'd do well to think critically about why you place entertainment over the wellbeing of others.
It doesn't matter if it says right on the tin in Holden's handwriting, "this is the ploy to get you to Like me again," because ultimately, that's what he is doing and the reason why this exists at all. Its him going out of his way, ingratiating himself into the fandom and the public eye with White Wolf/Onyx Path again, presenting the front of A Just Plumb Good Content Creator, aw shucks gee wilikers. Men like him want you to forget what they did wrong and who got hurt, remind you of the Good Old Days when he was The Favorite and Everything Was Made Special Just for You, make you wonder what and why you could have Ever got rid of him, because look at all these great things he's doing! Nothing suspect here, just making some games! Don't you like Fun? Enabling Sexual Harassment isn't fun, why would we ever want to talk about that?
If he had any sense about how this was going to be received, he should have stayed gone instead of trying to dance over the rubble of this burnt bridge. Get another hobby, like a normal person.
I'm not going to bother refuting the rest of the ongoing concern-trolling horseshit you and Eldagusto have been on about, because it's obvious you two got your toy and everything prior til now justifies that. And I gotta say, that's an awful way to live.
Fastest thing you've written that wasn't a non-apology.
Eldagusto
Voivode of Neterkhertet
- Location
- The Bleak Shores of Never in the Land of Naught
Holden this forum is the Last Redoubt for some Exalted fans as they Ban virtually everyone on the Onyxpath Forums. Like Sanctaphrax here should not have been banned, they didn't like his attitude concerning Craft Mechanics and advocating for a home brew. I don't think you will be banned here but I am pretty new. If Only Missmaddy would post here.
But I don't really know why you were banned from RPG.net? It was at the same time you were banned from the Onyxpath forums right? Wasn't it having to do with that dog something article about V5? I think I heard it was a preemptive ban due to Twitter drama and they Banned Olivia at the same time I think. I don't really go to RPg.net anymore it's only drama.
If I may ask, didn't you and Plague of Hats bury the Hatchet? I missed that initial fallout but I seem to recall a year or two after he expressed regret and some sort of let bygones be bygones sentiment. I don't know the history of that as I think it happened when I was off the forums for a year due to health issues.
But it's a new year. Your infamous in a lot of places a keep hearing, but not really at leper levels of pariahdom, just someone people knows drama happened around. But a new year brings hope and hopefully peace. After all you stole the Ball Dropping from me because I discovered Exalted Vs World of Darkness after I got home from work and couldn't put it down, even though I'm trying to read the New Dragonblooded PDF and I'm supposed have finished Anna Karenina, and read my Hellboy and Doctor Strange Comics that are like two months over due at the Library!
- Location
- Ottawa
So, do you have any hard evidence backing your side of the story?
Because with all due respect, I'm not inclined to take your word for it.
Writing things on Patreon in the hopes that people will give you money is not a ploy. It's just work. There's nothing particularly nefarious here beyond the bare facts of who Holden is.
This accusation is completely unreasonable and, I'm quite confident, untrue.
hls
War hamster
If by that you mean "confronted said friend about his behavior once I became aware it was a problem," then yes, sure. I was not exactly able to fire or officially censure him in any way, as a developer has no authority over fellow developers. That would have been up to our boss, who instead decided to toss the problem into my lap and tell me to solve it.
Hey, we agree on something. You're under no obligation to like me, or, for that matter, feel safe around me, and certainly not to consume any art by anyone you have ethical issues with.
I could raise Rich Thomas's parents, grandparents, and childhood pets from the dead and he would not hate me one tiny bit less. I could not possibly give less of a shit about any of that.
hls
War hamster
Several admins were OPP people at the time, and one of them was Matt McFarland's wife. They banned me under Rule 10: "No specific rule violated, we just don't want you here."
No. OPP axed me in October 2017. RPGnet was months later.
No, they banned Olivia later. I got banned prior to the Dog with Dice thing.
I haven't spoken to him in years, I dunno how he feels about me. I've got no beef with him.
My apologies to your library overdue fees
Well hey, you showed a modicum of professionalism and human empathy when suddenly the issue became inconvenient, that's sure great for you. Not for anyone else in the situation, but I'm sure you feel pretty validated by how you got forced to be a decent person.
Good thing he did, how many years of revisions would it have taken you to fix that problem, do you think? Maybe you'd have to scrap it, start over.
- Location
- Ottawa
If I knew nothing about the situation, I would find this to be a pretty convincing excuse!
That was probably part of it, but the main problem was that I called out Rich for his crappy treatment of his writers.
Here's the explanation on RPGnet.
Fun fact: of the two times I've been banned from a web forum, one was for sticking up for Holden (and company) and one was for criticising him (and company). I don't regret either time, but to be honest I was kind of asking for it.
Eldagusto
Voivode of Neterkhertet
- Location
- The Bleak Shores of Never in the Land of Naught
Are we some religious colony in the new world? Do we shun people forever? Holden isn't Morke. Morke made his own choices, and he made people uncomfortable and he hurt people. Perhaps Holden could have done more, but Jesus I don't think Holden should be forced to bare some sort of eternal Cross. Did he literally break any laws? I think he turned a blind eye to harassment. Do you think he literally learned nothing after the dirty Laundry was Aired?
He was shunned, people know his dirty laundry. Now let's move on.
I feel sorry for the ladies that had to deal with their experiences writing or working for the team. I read that one ladies whose appendix exploded and I felt bad for her. She has the right to hold a grudge. You have a right not to like someone.
But context with Holden having to deal with medical emergencies with Family, Friends, and Pets nonstop, he misjudged some situations and he wanted to have faith in one of his best Friends and it didn't work out.
But Jesus man I don't want to stone him or Morke. What's the point of Prison if you want to just Crucify everyone regardless of offense or severity.
Let him build a gesture of contrition. If he acts bad then remember it. But what do you want him to do crawl under a rock and die?
People aren't allowed to change or heal or evolve? Are we really going to spit on a gesture of good Faith?
If you don't like him ignore him then. But don't try to blacklist him, and then complain when it's your turn to be blacklisted.
hls
War hamster
I have an entire email string where Matt McFarland investigated my claims about not having gotten a Werewolf 20th Anniversary author copy, and found out that only Ethan Skemp and I think one other person, maybe Eddy Webb, had gotten theirs, and that everyone else had also been stiffed and that I was not the only person who'd chased Rich around on the topic until they got sick of it and gave up.
Beyond that, I am not sure how a person proves that someone has never sent them a check. I'm not terribly interested in going over it again, in any case.
edit: After McFarland created that huge paper trail with a dozen or so authors CCed in, I did finally get that book, five years late.
Last edited: