You had what happened explained in very complete detail on the yahoo group list when this was first brought up.

You recieved apologies from the person who was responsible for it. You also recieved additional apologies from two others who were not even involved in what happened. Including myself.

You recieved offers almost immediately to use the material in site or product. One of those offers was from me. You ignored both offers in favor of continuing to abuse those who made the offer.

To be blunt, at this point I have to ask you just what *could* make you happy? My first born?

Right, that explains 4+ years of excuses and snubs... That's right, my suggestions for people to search the archives to see why I'm upset, like my work, fell on deaf ears.

I received apologies from 2 people, you and Ken. Not the person who the project was passed on to. He said he never got the doc. I posted it on the list, again, and haven't heard anything from anyone. I'm just making all of this up to cause problems. It's not like I've been promised a project or two or even a chance to aid the site in all of its incarnations far longer than d20's been out.

Right, I forgot, I didn't submit some of my core items as well as e-mail my master list as well as all the electronic letters in .doc formats....

That's a very good question. But to answer it would require the searching of the archives to see just how much I've had my work marginalized by the caretakers of the varous incarnations of the "official" PS websites well before this latest incident.

But what should I expect when I'm not a moderator of the list or part of the staff...Even though I was part of the staff at one point. But none of that seems to matter, same with the work I get asked.

I would say that what I want is for the caretakers of Planewalker to read the various archives and find out what you want from me and stop stringing me along. I'm tired of being told I can help only to be cast aside because I do things differently that what you've decided to go with. The part that's most annoying is that the "official" project has taken over 3 years to get off the ground and while I plod away designing my stuff and posting it on the PS mailing list so it's an option for people, it doesn't seem to matter, even though I kept working through the hiatuses.

I lost count of the number of times I asked to be notified when things were going to get started so I could help out. Even though I'm on PW-members, nothing was said to me. Using the guidelines that Brannon set up well before the post-d20 hiatus, I've been using WotC sources to build everything for eventual use. Lo and behold someone rolls out some pages of material and without any discussions as to what direction should the community proceed, something that a site manager created is the only source considered for the "official" material. No debate, no commentaries on possible tweaks or reconsiderations, just one choice for the community to accept from the website and all "official" material will be written exclusively from that point of view...

I don't see any egos involved, do you?

Yeah, I'm angry. I'm angry for a good reason, I have a very long memory and I do read the e-mails that go out. I weigh and measure everything for balance and keep most everything that's got potential for my game. I don't marginalize the works of others wholesale unless it's severely flawed and ill-conceived. Not only that, but when the 3e Planear Handbook get's released, hey, what do we see...prestige classes for factions, but not as the factions but as a niche within the factions, just like what I did.

No feats for factions, no templates to give the old 2e feel that made the setting cool, just info on the beliefs of a few factions - which Rhys stated emphatically we don't need, because all of us already know it - and a prestige class. Really, the heart and soul of Planescape in 3e for new players. Isn't that what we want, just the one source offered in 3e about Planescape's factions in game mechanics, but no real meat behind them?

"Some groups are so enamored of their own particular philosophies that they teach their members special kinds of prestigious abilities. These philosophical teachings and abilities can take a character in an entirely diffeent direction from that which she originally followed.

"Of course, only a fraction of those who join philosophical plane-inspired factions take a prestige class associated with that group. Moreovere, it is possible that a given faction could offer more than a single prestige class."

Planar Handbook, p 43

Hey, what do I know, right? It's not like I got a 300-page book to write by 8/1/05 on planes of existence and do-it-yourself cosmologies.

This is what I'm referring to. You remove the posts to a "safe" thread and don't respond to my questions.

What's worse, none of the "official" designers will address the issues of mechanics that I questioned.

To begin with, not everyone on the forums gets messages from the yahoo group pw_members, and not everyone who gets messages from that list has access to the group to read the archives. Actually, you received an apology from me rather quickly, the person who the project was passed on to. But in case you forgot,

Let me make this perfectly clear: Just because you have submitted work to this project does not mean it will be used, does not mean it will be considered, does not you will receive any reward (aside from credit, in the case that it is used). There are numerous people that have submitted work to the project, good work, that was eventually not used for one reason or another and now sits idle in the archives. That is why this incarnation of planewalker exists: to provide an outlet for people who have other ideas for Planescape and the planes in general. We are willing to host just about anything you request, provided you do so through the process that has been detailed to you.

Just because you were a part of the staff at one point does not mean you are now. Few people are. Aside from the web staff, only a handful of people have stayed with the project or otherwise been included in its continued development. Let me make this clear as well: This project owes you nothing. Ask and you shall receive. I do not want anything from you. Thank you for your continued dedication to the Planescape setting, but all positions have been filled. I apologize to you and every other contributor that has stuck by our side. Please know that we are happy to host any ideas that you have within the Planewalker database.
And in this, you are wrong. There were months of discussion about how to represent the factions in a group of one dozen to two dozen people that had been selected to work on that aspect of the project. Perhaps you were unaware that there were yahoo groups other than pw_members? Not everyone had access to it. And if you were in that group, then you know that it was not a decision made by any one person and you know the reasons why this system was ultimately chosen.

Regardless, the debate was endless, and eventually we had to make a decision. Of the systems on the table, there was a template and a belief system similiar to what you have described. In fact, I was a strong proponent for a template system till the end, but eventually worked with the concensus. Even when the project was "passed on to me", I did not seek to change the system and have no intention of doing so now.

At some point you have to pick a path and go with it. We did. I'm sorry if you don't approve, but in terms of "official" products, that's the path we are taking. We have always been open to the idea of presenting variant rules for how to deal with the factions, belief, and everything else within the official products. That is of the lowest priority, however. Feel free to continue discussing how to make this system better or put your system in the Planewalker database and discuss here. But remember, you have the right to speak, not the right to have everyone listen to you.

There's not enough information to come to that conclusion.

First, it's entirely possible that your work never left the pipeline, and so the people "in charge" may not have read you (quite in-depth and detailed) work. We know that you weren't chosen for the private panel, but this could have merely been due to an un-awareness of your standing, or due to it simply being full of still more qualified candidates.

I would assume, personally, that the reasoning behind your not being on the panel was legitimate until substantial evidence to the contrary comes forward. Innocent until proven guilty, etc. And either way, it's a moot point now, insofar as your material is available as a houserule and the official situation is unlikely to change.

Is there such a thing as a professional game designer?

Xan, everyone you've talked to here has been quite accomodating to your complaints, which, to be completely honest, are unfounded and amount to not much more than petty bitterness at having someone else's ideas selected for the official setting. That's official, not "official," because, like it or not, the PSCS uses rules that are different from what you would prefer, but is what this community will base its rules on. I wasn't selected to design the factions or how they are run, either. The point of a community is that some people design some parts of the setting, and others design other parts. I don't complain that I wasn't invited to share my views on parts of the setting in which I have an interest. There are certainly parts that I would prefer to be handled in a different way, but there are people in this community whose job it is to select the best option from all the available suggestions for each section of the PSCS, and whose goal is to make Planescape in 3.5 edition be cohesive, useful, faithful to the Planescape setting, and fun to play. If an idea you have isn't selected for any reason, the appropriate response is not to attack the community on at least four separate threads, as you have elected to do, but rather to move on and use the material you want in your own game. You've submitted your ideas to Planewalker, they're available in House Rules for the whole world to review, so they'll get exactly as much use as people want them to get.

Don't accuse Planewalker of "backroom politiking" because you don't get your way. At this point, your complaints aren't about your writing and material as much as they are about your opinions not being reciprocated. You make far too much out of what has happened. If your system wasn't implemented, it could have been for any number of valid reasons, but don't insult us all by claiming that you were individually singled out to recieve some kind of "political" (absurd) slight because we don't like templates for factions. Your complaints with this community are insulting and completely counterproductive. It isn't "years of snubbing and excuses" nor your "very long memory" but rather your petty grudge bearing and bitterness that prompt you to abuse this community and its members and leaders every time you speak. And it needs to stop.

Given the fact that no one has addressed the issues I've raised concerning game mechanics, yes.

To disagree still requires a response. But I did not ask yes or no questions. I asked very specific questions as to how certain elements of the Planescape campaign would be addressed mechanically in 3.5.

I never said anything about my own work beyond asking if I won a contract for an RPG book based off of the sample chapter I wrote. As far as professional quality beein needed, yes we do need it. Why do I feel so strongly about this? I have three reasons: John W. Mangrum, Andrew Cermak, and Andrew Wyatt. They wrote the Ravenloft 3.0 book for Sword & Sorcery Studios. Those names probably don't mean much to you, but their website should. They started out in a similar manner to this community. The biggest difference: they organized and stuck with their projects and had a standing operating procedure.

And I'll say it publically again, factions as prestige classes sucked then and they suck now because it reduces the factions to power-gaming.

Is that why more than 4 chapters have been released over the last 2-3 years?

Who said I was using my skills and status as a way to add weight to my way of doing things? I addressed several key issues as to why the system as it stands is essentially a bastardized version of Planescape. Why I'm using my skills is to illustrate a very valuable point. What I find so humorous, although it's sad at the same time, is that everyone's in an uproar over my questionings.

Didn't anyone pay attention to the results of the fantasy world sumbmission contest? Better yet, did anyone pay attention to the 5 questions that WotC specifically asked for in the beginning?

I'd like to slip in here and call everyone's attention to the fact that this thread no longer has to do with producing a better ps3e project. To be blunt, Xan, this is a laundry list of your gripes with aspects of the project that have already been decided and established by the community. Responses to your "complaints" (for lack of a better word) have ceased to be patient and everyone posting on this thread (myself included) seems to be worked up and frustrated. Personally, I've reached my breaking point and want to inform you that no one is impressed by your claims to grammatical infallibility, your ability to drop names of other people in game designing, or any other products that you may or may not have "secured the contract" for. This is a site for discussing Planescape, especially the ps3e project, and if you're not going to be a productive part of the community, you're not part of it. I don't mean that you always have to agree with everyone, I think your submissions to the Planewalker database of your alternatives (the scalable templates and madness rules for instance) were fine home rules to submit. But to regularly write purposefully abrasive posts and to carry on such a condescending tone is unacceptable and insulting to those who want to use planewalker as more than a place to flex egos. If you have such a problem with the organization of this site, an organization which no one but you has serious problems with, then it might be worthwhile for you to find a more agreeable match for your writings.

Allow me to say this in simple English without any five-dollar words: Communities like planewalker don't work when there are overbearing people who can't accept anyone's opinions but their own. That means you, Xan, the one who has been pushing his agenda on-and-off for years without compromising.

Let me make this perfectly blunt to you. This site will never grow beyond a small dying core of people if you continue this track. You will kill interest in Planescape as a viable line if you do not focus on making a statistical representation of the factions, both pre- and post-FW.

Let's address the points one at a time, just to show you how closed-minded you are because Planescape is now "yours" to do with as you please.

The folks over at www.kargatane.com spent seven years painstakingly keeping Ravenloft going as a viable campaign by adhering to a strict set of guidelines for not just quality of product produced, but for what would be accepted as material to be considered for Kargatane's canonization.

It took seven years of dedication to preserve the quality of the material from just being fan-based stuff that eveyone-and-their-dog submitted to be on par with what TSR and WotC had produced for the setting. SEVEN YEARS! And, where is the setting now? It's back in print with the core writers of the Kargatane at the healm.

Why am I so pissed? This community has disintergrated into cliques since the release of Faction War. Everyone has gone their own way while a few people tried some three times to get the setting organized without any guiding doctrine for keeping operations running. I developed some simple ideas for addressing the questions of converting the setting to the new edition. You don't seem to like the way I did things, that's fine. What it doesn't free this community from is addressing the material statistically.

Yes, I am unwilling to compromize on some very key issues. It is not the means by which the mechanics are built that bothers me. It's the lack of creating them for outsiders to enter the community and dazzle us with their own creations based on a solid system. They're not going to be interested if they don't know on paper how everything's supposed to work in Planescape without the stats there. Does that mean that you have to use the stats to play the game? Of course not. However, if you want to see Planescape grow, you must do this. Not for the sake of placating me or anyone else, but in order to encourage others to join the community that played Torment or heard about Planescape, but didn't have the chance to buy the books.

All of the work needed to create a solid system must start from a basic mechanic. This is the principle upon which d20 is designed. Every setting for d20 published by WotC, with the exception of Greyhawk, is not only based on the d20 mechanic, but it adds its own unique rule to the setting. In the case of Forgotten Realms, there are three: regions, spellfire, and the shadow weave. They are game mechanics. They are also detailed statisticaly as to how they function.

Oriental Adventures has three unique mechanics: humans belong to a clan or are considered clanless (a mechanic that has an impact), taint, and ancestral feats.

Wheel of Time has madness ratings, spells that can be cast with differing levels for effects, and uses the regional system.

Ghostwalk allows you to play spectral characters, has feats for such apparitions, and rules for crossing from life to death and back again.

Dragonlance has the three moons, which do penalize wizards as they did in 2nd edition. It also has draconians as PCs and the Mystic.

Ebberon uses action points, has the artificer, and an unstable outer planar cosmology that orbits the prime. However, even the planes have orbital periods and statistical connotations.

Planescape's unique traits in 2e were the faction abilities and their drawbacks. What is the unique mechanic in 3e?

Now, I turn my attention to the Fantasy Setting Submission Template that Ebberon had applied to it....

1. Core Ethos Sentence. What is the core themes that make this setting unique?

2. The heroes of the setting asks who's the most important people of that world. In Planescape, such figures aren't truly heroes to you and I, but to those who share their beliefs, they are their champions.

3. To achieve their goals, what do the various heroes do or use? The factions draw upon the powers created by their deep beliefs. Thus, the heroes of Planescape use the power of their philosophies to manifest changes in the cosmology.

4. Threats, conflicts & villains. What in the setting constitutes a threat, a conflict, and who are the primary villains? In Planescape, anyone who doesn't share you beliefs can become a threat. Conflicts abound throughout the setting from a war of words, to a war of weapons. Villains aren't necessarily evil in Planescape. Thus, it is not easy to define what makes someone a villain until they oppose you.

5. The nature of magic is affected how in the setting? For Planescape, it depends on the location. Each plane, and indeed each realm, can have very different effects on magic not encountered elsewhere. The Outlands have a concentric disruption effect on all powers, magical and psionic alike.

6. What makes this setting unique is it's emphasis on belief. How do you represent this emphasis to allow new players to understand the importance of this issue? Where's the statistical illustration to emphasize the point?

It has been nearly seven years since the last Planescape pen-and-paper product was published. What have we accomplished as a community in that time?

Ok - that begs a question then. *Why* do you consider factions the only options? Or to be more exact in the question: Why do you consider that the normal player will desire to play factions and *only* factions? And don't simply say because the current ones are powergamer paradises - that's descriptive, but nothing resembling a proof of concept.

So, boiling down the arguement a bit... (I post short messages because my brain has a small RAM cache.)

In essence, you believe that if someone gains abilities from their beliefs there should be a formalized way to remove those beliefs if the player does not perform properly?

It took a damn long time for that to become apparent in your messages here, so I'm confirming that I have it right.

The problem with your posts in the past is that you cloud them with other topics or with emotion. It obscures your message.

So, given the following as true:

What game mechanic do you apply for paladins in your games?

I agree - I like seeing someone play paladin of Sharess for example - talk about a way to turn the idea on it's head.

But. Then. Isn't the above an example of rule 0? You judge when someone has slipped enough, their powers fade until they return to the path or abandon it. That form of mechanism closely resembles how faction belief (or in this case, faction non-belief) is intended to be handled under the PSCS. It's familar to new players, and it's relatively simple to enforce.

If it's good enough for paladins, why is it not good enough for our faction classes and feats?

Paladin of Sharess? Lancalot comes to mind.

You still haven't shown me how the drawbacks to faction beliefs are manifested. What are the problems created by their convictions?

The reason why you analogy fails is that even members of the factions do not agree with one another on some of the finer points of their beliefs. Paladins can't argue what it means to be lawful good in the same fashion. Not only that, but faction membership does not place restrictions on alignment the way being a paladin or a cleric does.

You're not going to hem me in, if that's what you're thinking.

Factions give benefits. There are no drawbacks associated with the system that's considered "official." Paladins have their drawbacks built in. They're paladins! Just by their actions, they attract enemies. There are many people who dislike them because of who they are. In some nations, they may very well be considered outlaws and therefore suffer Diplomacy checks and other similar penalties.

Paladins can't hide who they are. Faction memebers can. Unless they belong to a group that doesn't believe in lying, faction members have less restrictions than paladins. As a faction member, I can lie, cheat, steal, and kill so long as it doesn't violate my philosophy. In fact, I may even be allowed to kill if the victim opposes my beliefs. Factions allow rationalization, which is why they're fractious. Lawful good paladins are not afforded the same freedoms, although two LG paladins could still be enemies due to their national identities.

You're trying to hem me in and force me to take a side in your either/or position. That's a logical fallacy. There is no either/or answer here. And you still have not shown statistically how the factions are penalized for their beliefs.

Either/or tactics are not methods of persuasion, they are methods of coersion.

And that's simply rhetoric playing on the audience reaction, as opposed to either of the other two 'pillars' of rhetoric.

You have stated contradictory beliefs. Both cannot be in existance unless you lie, change your mind *very* quickly, or simply did not realize that you were contradicting yourself. In either case, it's only fair and rational to realize that you have contradicted yourself - and pick one or the other.

Look at your own arguements, you use the same tactics - though with a good deal more emotion to them.

From chapter 4 of the PSCS

" Some faction feats represent the training that comes from being in that faction, while others represent the belief manifested by that faction’s principles."

Do clerics have the same restrictions in terms of needing to belong to an organization for their domain choices?

Soo... Your saying since we are not perfect then we automatically have to listen to you?

Don't you find that a little excessive?

But you say you want more severe penalties associated with it. Original Planescape didn't really have these, only vague and unenforceable roleplaying requirements like "Sensates cannot refuse an offer that could lead to new experiences" or "Mercykillers must always obey the law" and so why should Planewalker invent new ones? Since when is belief "not only power, but equal and corresponding weakness in exact proportion to the strength derived so as to make all belief equal"?

Planewalker's system works better because (a) it can be taken further than the old edition's faction powers could, since it doesn't have to be such minor advantages and (b) it doesn't require crippling the character as he gains increased powers; he pays for his abilities in feat slots, not in weaknesses.