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Sunday, February 19, 2017

Kickstarter - Robotech® RPG Tactics™ - How NOT to Announce the Suicide Attempt of one of your Freelancers



Holy shit.

So, it seems like the guy that was / is to release the Rifts Boardgame Kickstarter got a huge amount of flack for his comments on the Robotech® RPG Tactics™Kickstarter on Friday and made an attempt on his own life later that day. Thankfully, the attempt was unsuccessful and he is in treatment. Please put Carmen and his family in your prayers as they are in ours. Tell your family that you love them.

That is what this morning's update should have been. It wasn't. Instead, it's all about how awful the backers of the Robotech® RPG Tactics™are. It's all you fault! You nearly killed a man over a 3 year late project of toys!

Normally, I just give pieces or screenshots of updates, but this one I'm going to post in full. Its such a self serving pile of shit (and rightfully seen as such by 90% of the Kickstarter backers) that its generated more negative comments than one would expect where a member of our hobby nearly died.

Let's read how Kevin tried to capitalize on this tragedy, shall we?

Update #197   Feb 19 2017
A terrible day  110 Comments

In recent weeks, game designer Carmen Bellaire began talking online about the Rifts® board game he has been developing under license. His planned upcoming Kickstarter will launch it and his own company. 
On Friday morning he came here, to the RRT Kickstarter comments pages, and made what he had intended to be a post to drum up support from backers of our Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Kickstarter project. It didn’t go well, to say the least. 
Carmen’s awkward words might have seemed out of context and harsh. They were fueled by comments and accusations people had been directing at him here and elsewhere for a while now. Somehow, he thought he was helping by coming here to speak to people directly. 
I don’t know why Carmen Bellaire said what he said, in the way that he did. I know he has been pushing himself much too hard, and was emotionally drained and physically exhausted when he made those posts. That might explain some of it. He can also be the proverbial bull in the china shop, and has a bad habit of not choosing his words carefully. (its at this point I said to myself - we are building up to a suicide / suicide attempt)
A lot of his comments and observations about Robotech® RPG Tactics and Palladium Books were from an outsider’s perspective, and often incorrect or not clearly presented. Carmen’s viewpoint, like many of yours, is that of a concerned outsider looking in. 
He had not been around Palladium Books much the past 3-4 years, because he was busy creating games for his own fledgling company, Rogue Heroes LLC, which he has hopes to launch in spectacular fashion with the Rifts® Board Game as his first release. This would be done via a Kickstarter campaign in April, 2017. In addition to this endeavor, Carmen works a full-time, 9-5 job, as well as doing freelance game design for Upper Deck. A lot of work for Upper Deck. It is my understanding that the many games he has designed for that company have yet to see release, but they have been keeping him busy and several are in the pipeline for release. Doing board games right takes time. I’ve learned that the hard way. Carmen is also doing work for at least two other game companies under a veil of secrecy. He cannot speak about them or identify the companies due to NDAs and the wishes of those companies. I’m not even sure if I’m supposed to mention Upper Deck. I have been doing so rather shamelessly, because I’m very proud of my friend Carmen, and I figured the folks at Upper Deck will be okay with it coming from me. 
Carmen is a passionate person who feels things deeply. He has a heart of gold and a truly brilliant mind for games. The launch of Rogue Heroes LLC and the Rifts® Board Game is the culmination of his lifelong dream and a five or six year journey to make that dream a reality. He has made a lot of sacrifices, invested a lot of money, and worked his tail off to get here. He was excited beyond measure as he prepared to launch his Kickstarter for the game. And if it panned out, he had big plans for the future. 
Carmen and I have not talked about him “fixing” Wave Two, as he put it. We at Palladium, and many others, believe the RRT rules are solid. That while they could use some clarification, expansion and tweaking, they are really quite excellent and damn fun to play. What Carmen and I have talked about is Carmen’s hope and dream that if the Rifts® Board Game Kickstarter is a big success, he can quit his 9-5 job and dedicate himself exclusively to creating games. It is a lifelong dream I have heard about since the first day I met Carmen 12, 15 years ago. A dream he saw finally becoming a reality. A dream he has put his heart and soul into making come true. So no, Rogue Heroes, LLC is not a front or shell company for Palladium Books, as some have suggested; it is 100% Carmen Bellaire. 
His terrible opening post and further discussion about Robotech® RPG Tactics™ and Wave Two on the RRT Kickstarter board was fueled by his passion and hopes. If the Rifts® board game was a big success, and he really could quit his 9-5 job, he planned to help Palladium get RRT back on track, doing whatever he could to help. Carmen has all kinds of ideas for advanced RRT rules, new factions and new waves of product that we would love to see happen. But for the moment, he was still buried with other work commitments and needed to stay focused on the Rifts® board game and its Kickstarter.  
What Carmen was trying to say and why 
Carmen didn’t intend to challenge, threaten or blackmail anyone for support of his impending Rifts® board game Kickstarter. He was, in his own lame and awkward way, trying to say that his success with it would be good for the future of RRT, because he could be more involved and hopefully help make things happen faster in the future. He was trying to say, please don’t undermine his Rifts® Board Game Kickstarter, because his success would actually help RRT in the long run. 
I know this is what he meant, because he called me Friday, early afternoon, very upset by the reaction of some people on the RRT boards. He apologized to me over and over again for upsetting people and fueling the vitriol when all he was trying to do was help. Help me. Help his upcoming Kickstarter. Help the fans. Help his family. Help everyone. And doing it by creating a fun Rifts® board game to be followed by many other games from his company, not just based on Palladium’s I.P., but many of his own brilliant ideas. 
I understand why people are upset about RRT. What I cannot understand is the absolute hate and bloodlust of some, to destroy us, when we are trying to deliver the game they backed. Even more puzzling is attacking and destroying anyone who is affiliated with Palladium even in the slightest way, and shouting down and condemning others who don’t agree with their point of view. 
What you need to know 
Carmen Bellaire has put his heart and soul, and every dime he has, into the creation of HIS company, Rogue Heroes LLC, and HIS Rifts® board game. I say “his” Rifts® game because while it is Palladium’s I.P., it is ALL Carmen’s genius, money and blood, sweat and tears. 
Vicious words of hate shocked and overwhelmed him.  
Twisting the truth and twisting his, admittedly poorly chosen words, cut him to pieces. Carmen was never an employee of Palladium. He was a freelancer who worked off site, like all of our freelancers. He submitted the occasional book or contribution to a product like RRT. Carmen has never deliberately held back from making RRT great. Carmen was not trying to blackmail you to support his game. All he wanted to do was help, and he saw the Rift® board game as his way to start doing that. He wanted you to understand this. That your support for his Kickstarter – or at least not trying to undermine it – would enable him to help you and RRT, because he would finally have the time to devote to it, if he could quit his day job. He even shared his dream of being able to do a lot more work on RRT, Wave Two and future RRT releases, among other things. Carmen had a lot of big dreams and good intentions.  
Crushed and shell-shocked by your heated words and promises to do everything in your power to ruin his Kickstarter, Carmen’s dreams were shattered. And why? Because he was friends with Kevin Siembieda and had done freelance work for Palladium Books off and on over the years. 
He took your words to heart. Carmen believed you hated him. Believed you would work to destroy everything he had spent years building for himself, his family and for you.  
In a telephone call on Friday, he had told me he had never experienced this kind of hate and venom. He was clearly reeling from it. He said it was beyond anything he could imagine. He apologized, saying that all he wanted to do was help. Instead he had ruined everything. 
A short time later, at 2:07 PM, Friday afternoon, Carmen emailed me to say how much I have meant to him. That he was sorry he ruined everything by posting on the RRT board and stirring up unfathomable hate. He felt there was no way to undo the damage he had done. That he had ruined any chance for a successful Rifts board game Kickstarter and the launch of his company. That he had let his family down and every single person who was working so hard to make the Rifts board game and his company a reality. “I can’t take it, man ... I am so so so sorry. Good bye.” 
Carmen tried to kill himself moments later. 
It is only by the grace of God that his wife, a nurse, entered the room in time, that Carmen is alive. He is in the hospital, but in a bad way. He is a mess. The fate of the board game, his company, his dreams ... and most importantly, his life, are unknown. His family and all of us who know and love him are still in shock and praying to God that he will be okay. 
Words can kill 
On Friday, words on this board – cruel, vicious, condemning words – successfully crushed a man’s hopes and dreams and sent him spiraling into despair. Those words pushed him to the point of trying to take his own life. I would hate to think anyone may take pride in that.  
I’m posting this, with the permission of Carmen’s family, because you need to know that words of hate, spite, cruelty and intolerance, pushed a good man – a husband – a father – a friend – to attempt suicide on Friday. A simple gaming geek like every one of us, Carmen worked hard to support his family, found joy in gaming, and dared to pour his heart into making his dream come true for the betterment of everyone. 
Please realize that your words and tone may hurt another person as much as a bullet to the heart. Please, try to stop and think about what you say. Remember that human beings are fragile creatures. Try to find compassion and support for others, not tear them down. Try not to assume the worst or cast your assumptions and accusations against someone who does not deserve them. Not everyone is a bad guy. Not everyone is an enemy to be hated, attacked and ridiculed. Words matter. Lives matter. Kindness and tolerance matter. Perhaps more than ever before. 
A friend asked me if Carmen will be okay. We don’t know. Carmen will be in the hospital for a while. We don’t know for how long. We don’t know if he will ever be the same. We don’t know whether he’ll return to game design and try to launch his company or the Rifts® board game in which he has invested everything. If not, that’s a tragedy of another sort, because Carmen has so much to offer. Before his suicide attempt, Carmen regarded game design as pure joy and tackled it with a childlike sense of wonder. All he wanted to do was to make games. After this, I don’t know.  
I’m afraid this is not my most eloquent post. I am still shaken. I’m scared for him. Terrified. And saddened beyond words. 
Please pray for Carmen’s swift recovery, emotionally and physically, and that Carmen is able to find the strength to once again follow his dreams and dare to try to make them come true. I want that not just for Carmen, but because he has a treasure trove of wonderful games locked in his imagination waiting to come out. Games that will bring joy and laughter to all of us. 
I hope and pray there is a happy ending coming. Our love to Carmen and his family.  
Kevin Siembieda
President, Palladium Books
Self serving? Deflecting? Capitalizing on a suicide attempt? All that and more. The backers see it for what it is.




Edit: Here's Carmen's original comment that set up the backlash (I highlighted the line many backers have seen as blackmail):

Hello Everyone

I am Carmen Bellaire, I have started my own gaming company called Rogue Heroes, and as most of you know I will be doing a Kickstarter for a board game based on the Rifts IP.

So first off, I am a backer of this project too just like you, and I’m in the same boat as all of you. I know that some of you are pissed off at Palladium Books over the MASSIVE delay of Wave 2 of this project. I am disgruntled about it too. It is something of a sore spot between me and Kevin from PB. I too wish he would finish Wave 2 or resolve the matter in some way. Unfortunately, I have NO control over his business or Palladium’s conduct of in regard to this Kickstarter project. Kevin is a friend of mine, the way any one-time co-worker is. I once wrote for him and helped with the RRT rules, but my professional involvement with this project ended there. I have NO influence over this Kickstarter currently. So why am I posting here and now?

Well, you guessed it – I am going to release my Kickstarter soon (a few months) and wanted to state my opinion on things here for all the disgruntled RRT backers before I do.

So why me and Rogue Heroes for the Rifts: Board Game. A few years ago when things were going good and Wave 1 was just releasing Kevin was thinking about doing a Rifts board game and was looking to either do it himself or sell the IP rights to someone who could. Ninja Division either didn’t want to do it or was not asked, I really do not know. But in talk with me about finding the misprints in the rulebook for RRT Kevin let it slip that the IP rights for the Rifts: Board Game were available. I had just sold my first board game to another company for a big chunk of money and asked my wife if she would let me risk it on getting the IP rights for the Rifts miniatures and board games. She said yes.

So I gather a group of guys I know and get to work on it. Time goes on I make more money on other board games for various people and learn a ton about the industry. We continue to slowly get sculpts and art done, with me paying for everything as I go and I start to hear problems in the RRT KS. I don’t know much at first but watch as things get steadily worse (in my opinion). I don’t know why it is happening and hear from Kevin that it will all be fixed soon. More time goes by………………a lot of time and it's now. I have a nearly completed board game and have paid an amount that outstrips and individual backer on this KS project and most groups of backers too! And I see what a cluster-F things have become.

While I do still have faith in Kevin to make things right in the end, I don’t know how long that will take. In the meantime, I have to get my Kickstarter going if I am going to meet my contractual obligations to Palladium Books and try to make back at least some of the money my wife let me invest in the Rifts: Board Game. So that leaves me hear talking to you all.

While it is true I don’t want a hoard of mad RRT backers slamming my Kickstarter out for blood, I know that Kickstarter itself will regulate that. It did on the Savage Rifts Kickstarter which I also backed. I want to be on your side. I would love to pull a white knight and fix all the things going wrong with this KS, but first I have to get my Kickstarter started and funded to prove to Palladium that Rogue Heroes can do get our own project done. As they say money talks and bullshit walks.
My hope for the future would be to take over the miniature and board game rights to all Palladium Books, including Robotech (and in this case Harmony Gold through PB), and do them right! Not to throw stones but the Ninja Division chose the wrong manufacturer for the RRT, they forgot to charge shipping on the Kickstarter and made some other errors (in my opinion), while they meant good, mistakes were made. These were then compounded by Palladium and amplified to the point we are at today.

So where does that leave us, Rogue Heroes and the RRT backers I mean? Well, YOU as the other RRT backers have two choices. Either you can do everything in your power to try and kill the Rifts: Board Game OR you can allow me the chance to complete my Kickstarter in peace.

If you take option one, I will take all steps to prevent it, but calmly and by the rules. But I probably won’t ask for you to be banned unless you get too out of hand. But I believe you would be fighting an uphill battle anyway since all of Palladium loyal Rifts fans and many of the new Savage Rifts players REALLY want me to succeed. After all, Rifts hasn’t ever had really good miniatures, it had the old metal ones, but not the awesome figures we will be producing. And if you chose this route I will write you off, when Kevin asked me to help, as happened in the past on Wave 1, I will simply step away and let it burn. I am under no obligations to help with the RRT but I DO have the contacts and knowledge to help fix it.

Or you can take option two. I don’t ask anything from you, I don’t ask you to help or support me, or give me money or do anything at all. All I ask is please be decent individuals and give me room to succeed or fail on my own. And let those Rifts fans support me as they please. If you do this, basically do nothing, I will be all in for you. Even if my KS crashes and burns I will put my efforts into getting this shit straightened out!

While I cannot divert KS funds from a Rifts KS to the Robotech KS, or get anyone a refund. There is a lot I can do that will get things moving along again. I can help Palladium get the RIGHT manufacturer for Robotech and give them the advice and knowledge they are missing.

I have answered repeated questions on the Palladium forums about my project, including coming close to breaching my contract and NDA to be as honest and open as I can be. I want to show you that Rogue Heroes is different and that I can try and make a difference here. Which is also why I am posting here and will listen to the torrent of crap that will surely come of it.

After all, who else is helping? Contacting the FTC, or the Michigan Attorney General, or the Michigan BBB, or anyone else – who cares? According to Kickstarter they (PB) are doing their due diligence in working toward the goal of completing the project, as far as the law goes he has done nothing wrong (in my opinion, if I am wrong, invest in a lawyer). After all, it does say in the Kickstarter guidelines that the estimated delivery times are just that estimated, a project creator can take as much time as they require to complete the project as long as they work on it.

But in the end, it’s all up to you. Collectively you all have the opportunity to TRY and do some damage. Of course, you will be damaging Rogue Heroes, not Palladium, but it might make you feel better. Maybe? Remember, I already have the Rifts IP rights, Palladium got their money from me. Sure they will make some more money from my Kickstarter, but only AFTER I fulfill my rewards to ALL my backers! And you might blunt that a bit, but you will not be able to stop my Kickstarter. After all, my Kickstarter has nothing to do with Palladium and the folks at Kickstarter know it. As far as Kickstarter goes it’s no different that the Savage Rifts KS and that funded without a hitch.

I just felt that it was time that someone actually told you the lay of the land. Kickstarter is great, it’s F-ing awesome, but when things go wrong everyone needs to work together. It like all those with the loudest voice here thought they bought a product off a shelf, not backed a project. Things go wrong in all creative endeavors, then the creator gets things working again, or not. That's it.

Yea, I don’t want to battle with the RRT backers in order to complete my own KS, I am one of you after all. And you can call me a shill for Palladium if you want, call me a liar, call me whatever you want, but my Kickstarter will succeed. And when it does, do you want my next project to be straightening out the problems here. Or not? You decide.

Thanks for your time and attention

Carmen Bellaire
Rogue Heroes"

25 comments:

  1. Well, that's ugly. I've steered clear of Palladium for a while now, and this just makes me realize what a good choice that was.

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  2. As I commented yesterday on the first Post about RRT, this is the sort of thing that has been the responses of the RRT Team in recent months and years. This .. ALL of this Post are absolutely none of our business. You don't parade the mental illness of a supposed friend around while simultaneously making it apparent that your plan is in fact to distance yourself from him professionally and point out perceived shortcomings personally.

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  3. I don't know. I'm not invested in the kickstarter but that reminder that attacking someone out of the blue and threatening to ruin them can have real consequences? That commenters LITERALLY drove someone to attempt suicide? I think THAT should be the takeaway here.

    Was it tacky or self-serving for the above announcement to be made? perhaps? But people in that kickstarter were very involved in his friend's near death and I think calling them out for that, making them aware of what they've done, that is important.

    I note that the post doesn't attempt to use this as an excuse for things being late, or as an excuse for fulfillment to take even longer. It offers no excuses, just condemnation that I feel is pretty well deserved.

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    1. The takeaway is that Kevin is a miserable human being and needs to STFU. I read the thread and nothing on there is anything worse than would have been said when the board game kickstarter was launched anyway, so the dude in question did not have the mental or physical fortitude to complete a kickstarter even under the best of conditions....best to find out now before people have wasted more money on unfundable Palladium Kickstarters. No one is giving a cent to that company or anything associated with it in the near future (if ever) and the clumsy attempt to blackmail/extort money for a kickstarter that would have undoubtedly failed anyway deserved the exact strong condemnation it received. Oh, and the actions of Kevin S LITERALLY drove his own "friend" to suicide, because he is the one who set the table here for this drama...

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    2. You might have a point if all KS (weird to talk about somebody with my initials in the third person) was doing was calling out the worst of the commenters. Instead, he also aired a lot of his "friend's" dirty laundry and tried to use it as a hammer to shame people out of commenting on issues with his own project.

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    3. Bob, if you had read the comments, it would be clear to you that backer involvement in the discussion played no role in Carmen's actions.

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  4. I can only repost the same response I made on the RRT Facebook group:

    I wouldn't wish Carmen's situation on anyone and I hope he pulls through, gets back on his feet and finds happiness. However, emotionally sound people do not attempt to end their life because of mean things written by strangers on the internet, nor for that matter do they try to launch a major project by picking a fight with the people who's support (or at least compliance) they need to succeed. Moreover, trying to pin the tragic choices of this well-meaning but clearly mentally ill man on the fan base comes off to me at best as the lashing out of another emotionally unstable person and at worse as a cheap attempt to exploit the tragedy to divert attention from long standing grievances and problems(something Kevin did before with the "crisis of Treachery" where he exploited the discovery of another mentally unstable Palladium staff member's embezzlement to excuse millions in losses due to years of mismanagement and failure to deliver products).

    Again, I hope for the best for Carmen, but the real lesson here is that the Palladium crew need to to step away from their f&^%ing keyboards and start routing all communication exclusively through a mature and stable adult who can put an end to the prevailing chaos with regular, honest and concise communications so as to avoid more provocation of the community and exposure of the mentally ill to situations they are not prepared for.

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  5. This is an update that did not need to be posted. This is something that never should have seen the light of the internets. There is no place for this on a kickstarter page, this is revenge by KS plain and simple. This is his fault, his money, his project, his failure to complete and manage a project and his ultimate responsibility. He gave Carmen the green light to post that message, he allowed that project to move forward, if KS did not have the foresight to see that this kickstarter was already boiling over to the point of lashing at out at anyone who would've posted anything besides "Project Shipped!" then he better fire the PR guy who told him that posting a Suicide Notice was a good idea.

    KS is nothing but an emotional, egotistical, sociopath who believes he can do no wrong. He's done an amazing job for Palladium bringing it back from the brink of disaster but it's his own inability to shine the light of clarity back at himself to see what a hindrance his day to day management style is causing the projects.


    I wish Carmen the best, all the support he can get, and a speedy recovery. KS needs to take the blame for all of this which he never will.

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  6. It might be important to note that before Carmen came to the KS to talk about his upcoming KS he had floated a discussion on PB's forum got negativity and cold responses there and then decided to go into the KS comments.
    http://palladium-megaverse.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=104

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    1. Dumb. Savage Rifts did everything in their power to distance themselves from Palladium and succeeded. This guy did the exact opposite and went off the deep end.

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    2. No they didn't. They mentioned Palladium Games often and with reverence

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    3. They mention PB in passing. Pinnacle never went nuts deep into claiming PB and KS had control over them. There was money changing hands and pinnacle went on their forums to recruit people but pinnacle did everything to keep KS' hands off the final product.

      Pinnacle revered the source material highly, rifts is awesome , pinnacle made sure to claim their kickstarter was their own business and PB had dick all to do with them fullfilling their goals.

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    4. I'll second that. SW Rifts managed to pay homage to the original while making it very much its own thing. Savage Rifts will live on long after KS and Palladium tank.

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  7. I hope Mr. Bellaire gets the help he needs.

    I don't really have skin in this game, but I find Mr. Siembeida's need to write these sorts of screeds to be self-serving, manipulative, and wildly unprofessional. For one thing, if he actually cared about Mr. Bellaire's health and wellbeing, he should have led with that. Instead he opted to save it for a dramatic reveal after a lengthy build-up. Bravo the showmanship, I suppose, but this move reveals that he is much less interested in the life he claims to champion than in ham-handedly twisting the guts of the audience.

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    1. I disagree. That's just his personality.

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    2. Then he needs to work on that before he fixes his horrible rhetoric.

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    3. From what I see, Mr. Siembeida's setting up at least 3 moves ahead with this update to capitalize on his "friend's" suicide attempt:
      1) Impact absorption- Backers might mellow down their attempts to make Palladium work for their Kickstarter money, just in case Mr. Siembieda commits suicide as well; this will have 2 obvious positive effects for Palladium-
      a. Palladium can now do whatever they want for an indefinite amount of time with all the Kickstarter funds from RRT without fear that there would be a nasty backlash like before.
      b. Non-backers reading the comments sections will see all the nice and polite post-suicide remarks and think that Palladium is doing a fine job placating the backers despite a huge delay and total absence of communications.
      2) Deflection- With the absence of Mr. Bellaire, Mr. Siembieda could put the blame on backers for putting Mr. Bellaire out of action when he thinks of some excuses to delay the game farther so that he may hold on to those KS funds longer.
      i.e. "Carmen was the key person for ironing out this rule, which he promised to fix 1 day before he attempted suicide. Now he can't and it's your fault, not mine!"
      3) Cancellation- His last few paragraphs already stated that everyone (including HIMSELF) can be hurt by words to the point of mental breakdown/suicide. If pressure from backers to make Palladium Books work to churn out RRT, Mr. Siembieda can just fold up the company, use those KS funds to buy himself a nice seaside villa and retire nicely to "recover" from all those terrible nasty comments in KS while saying, "It's your fault" once again.

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  8. As a commentator in the kickstarter and quoted above it's sad that Carmen came to that state. I've said multiple times that the right thing for Siembieda to do would be to refund Carmen any money vested into the Rifts IP and allow him a break of contractual obligations in light of the situation as it developed. As is, this is Kevin's reverse attempt to now shame rather than threatening backers into silence. I'd call backers commenting towards Carmen's attempt to extort backers into silence acerbic at worst far from the kind of fuel that would send any but the most fragile of souls into a suicidal depression. If anything Kevin's update has completely destroyed any prospects for Carmen's future work in the gaming industry. The Bellaire family should be looking into bringing lawsuit against Kevin for ruining Carmen's professional career prospects by posting this shameful 'update' as Kevin calls it.

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    1. He can recover from this, it's possible. I've worked with more than one person in the past who had mental health issues, and if they get proper treatment/therapy it is quite possible for them to migrate into good careers and good habits. That said....having stuff like this linger on the internet is never good, and that can be problematic for some employers, so from that angle Kevin really needs to rethink how he treats his friends and staff.

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    2. Excellent point, Nicholas. Hadn't thought of that angle.

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  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  10. A couple comments:

    First, the internet is the wrong place for therapy but it is apparently a good place to find warning signs of mental health issues, as demonstrated above.

    Second, I can forgive young backers, but old dudes like me who have seen Palladium grow from inception to its current state should be well aware of the fact that KS is this way, and has demonstrated so in countless venues, books and posts over the years. I know nothing of Carmen, but perhaps the combination of events was inevitable (KS, Kickstarter gone wrong, troubled free lance who posts aggressively, angry crowd responds, catalyst/tipping point hit). When you have friends and relatives with suicide risks, sometimes its actually best if they have that trigger and survive, as it can lead to much needed help.

    But third: even more recent Palladium fans should know that the history of the company is to announce a product and if you are very lucky it might finally show two decades later. I don't understand why anyone would back this project with full understanding that even outside of the Kickstarter environment the Palladium track record is abyssmal.

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    1. Well, we were basically lied to by Palladium. They assured potential backers that Ninja Division was doing all the heavy lifting and Palladium was only doing the licensing portion. I was skeptical of Palladium but figured Ninja Division would see it through and limit the amount of damage Siembieda could do. Oh how wrong I was about that.

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  11. Scroll down. You're not going to believe what's coming April/May. : https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/8580/651554.page

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  12. And here we go...
    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rogueheroes/rifts-board-game?ref=category_newest

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