Planescape Manual of the Planes for 5e on DMSGuild

WhatLiesBeyond said:

During the layout of the book, Andrew established himself in the credits as “Project Lead” despite nobody on the team agreeing to this positioning.

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Matt, how many times do I have to repeat - do not ever speak for me.

Andrew was the Project Lead.

Throughout the entire process, he did all of the work a Project Lead would do. I 100% agree to the positioning that he was Project Lead. I only agreed to work on this specifically because he was the Project Lead and had a solid track history of successful DMs Guild products.

At no point during all of the months we worked on the project did I see you do anything other than being another contributing writer. If you did other stuff behind the scenes or in private conversations, great. But I never saw any indication of you managing, coordinating, organizing, or doing anything other than as another member of the team making suggestions and adding to the word count.

Something that I made sure of when reaching out to contributors on this book was that our team had a solid body of Planescape knowledge. Ken Marable, Loki Williams, and Afroakuma were ideal team members

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Although you don't explicitly state it, the framing of this implies you reached out to me. Andrew is the one who recruited me for the project. I never met you until after I joined the project.

I have reason to believe that some of Andrew’s attempts at changes and orders were not made in good faith and were in fact attempts to demoralize team members or assert control.

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I'm sorry, I had to comment on this with: LOL!!!

That's hilarious! Sorry, I couldn't resist.

He is a 5e strickler, end of story. Yes, it was a pain sometimes, and silly other times, but it was a creative difference, that's all. They happen on group projects all the time. It is hilarious to think that it was some nefarious, calculated, psychological attack to demoralize us.

Myself, Fro, and numerous other contributors on the book agree that the best course of action, given that the book as originally published is ready for a physical release, is to make the current draft available as print-on-demand and agree that no further content modifications are necessary.

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Did you contact me? I have talked with Andrew about his plans for a print release. I am fine with his plans as I last heard them. I am not ok with your plans, so this contributor is not among the vague, unnamed "numerous other contributors". Please stop implying that more of us support your efforts by making vague, unspecific references to us.

Using what assets we are able to obtain and reverse-engineer, we are now currently working on a Print Edition of Manual of the Planes 5e which will be released on its own product page in the coming months.

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Since you are concerned about copyright, do you have my permission to publish my copyrighted material? I do not recall ever granting you authority to publish my work. I only agreed to Andrew publishing it, again given his successful track record with similar products on DMs Guild.

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I had honestly wished I was done talking about this publicly, but you are again insinuating or even outright stating that I agree to things that I vehemently disagree with. Please, please if you continue to speak publicly about this make it clear that it is your opinion only (or if someone specifically gave you authority to speak for them, but I have my doubts). You do not speak for the entire team. I, for one, deeply disagree with your opinion of the situation, but it is not worth my time to do a point-by-point refutation of the various inaccuracies other than the above where it directly affects me or implies that I agree to things that I do not.

If you want to keep on your fight with Andrew in public and not have me reply, simply stop stating or implying that I agree to things that I do not. That's the only thing that keeps drawing me back in. You need to make the case on your own without implying we all agree with you. If you can't do that, you might want to rethink things.

kenmarable said:

Matt, how many times do I have to repeat - do not ever speak for me.

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I wasn't speaking for you here. That said, there were other members of the team who preferred to remain anonymous who read the entire document and approved of everything within.

kenmarable said:

Andrew was the Project Lead.

Throughout the entire process, he did all of the work a Project Lead would do. I 100% agree to the positioning that he was Project Lead. I only agreed to work on this specifically because he was the Project Lead and had a solid track history of successful DMs Guild products.

At no point during all of the months we worked on the project did I see you do anything other than being another contributing writer. If you did other stuff behind the scenes or in private conversations, great. But I never saw any indication of you managing, coordinating, organizing, or doing anything other than as another member of the team making suggestions and adding to the word count.

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The sheer number of team issues that I was seeking to mediate and resolve in personal chats dwarfs any writing contributions I made by a factor of at least three to one, and I have the chat logs to prove it.

More than that, Andrew putting himself as the Project Lead in the credits was certainly a shock to several other team members.

kenmarable said:

Although you don't explicitly state it, the framing of this implies you reached out to me. Andrew is the one who recruited me for the project. I never met you until after I joined the project.

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It's true that Andrew did reach out to you on the project.

kenmarable said:

I'm sorry, I had to comment on this with: LOL!!!

That's hilarious! Sorry, I couldn't resist.

He is a 5e strickler, end of story. Yes, it was a pain sometimes, and silly other times, but it was a creative difference, that's all. They happen on group projects all the time. It is hilarious to think that it was some nefarious, calculated, psychological attack to demoralize us.

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I spoke to others who worked with Andrew in the past, and they have confirmed that his behavior here follows a trend of gaslighting and manipulation seen in previous all-5e team work.

kenmarable said:

Did you contact me? I have talked with Andrew about his plans for a print release. I am fine with his plans as I last heard them. I am not ok with your plans, so this contributor is not among the vague, unnamed "numerous other contributors". Please stop implying that more of us support your efforts by making vague, unspecific references to us.

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Multiple people on the team have specifically requested to remain anonymous, but I have text logs of them supporting this motion. I'd be happy to share them if you wish.

kenmarable said:

Since you are concerned about copyright, do you have my permission to publish my copyrighted material? I do not recall ever granting you authority to publish my work. I only agreed to Andrew publishing it, again given his successful track record with similar products on DMs Guild.

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I verified with my lawyer that collective ownership means that any of us can publish the work contained within the book. If you want to publish your own version, be my guest.

I will weigh in on this once and once only, as I am deeply frustrated with everything happening.

kenmarable said:

Andrew was the Project Lead.

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I assume WhatLiesBeyond meant that there was no written contract delegating authority to Andrew Welker to make creative decisions unilaterally, dictate promotion and press activity, or add and remove people from the project and project spaces. The first essentially happened due to, as you pointed out, Welker being more familiar with 5E design conventions. The last seems to have emerged from his de facto power to do so.

kenmarable said:

At no point during all of the months we worked on the project did I see you do anything other than being another contributing writer. If you did other stuff behind the scenes or in private conversations, great. But I never saw any indication of you managing, coordinating, organizing, or doing anything other than as another member of the team making suggestions and adding to the word count.

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I can confirm that WhatLiesBeyond was engaging in coordination of my work and prioritization right up through the planned update material and regularly representing at least my own creative concerns in discussions with Welker, where I felt unsuccessful in communicating with him.

kenmarable said:

He is a 5e strickler, end of story. Yes, it was a pain sometimes, and silly other times, but it was a creative difference, that's all. They happen on group projects all the time. It is hilarious to think that it was some nefarious, calculated, psychological attack to demoralize us.

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I won't speak to intentions, but I will say that during the update process his approach to collaboration shifted to the point that I felt the need to ask him multiple times if he actually wanted me to remain with the project. Ultimately, of course, matters reached the point where I felt we could no longer move forward together productively, and I stepped away from the planned update as a result.

kenmarable said:

Please stop implying that more of us support your efforts by making vague, unspecific references to us.

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Having tried to negotiate to get this book to POD, I can say that everyone I spoke to, other than Welker, expressed that they would be comfortable moving forward with a POD of existing content as a reasonable solution, if not their first choice. There was one collaborator I did not hear from. Again, to be very clear, I'm not saying that everyone was 100% on board with taking the existing book and making it POD and calling that the best outcome - as you yourself indicated, you have heard Welker's plans for going to POD and are satisfied with them.

Now that things have escalated to this point, it's time for me to walk away for good. As I posted previously, the completed material I was prepared to contribute to the update is now publicly available should anyone want to see it. I don't know if I will try to publish professionally again given how this situation turned. I will say I respect the Baator out of Ken as a writer, collaborator, and frankly person; anyone who likes planar material should check out his other work. I, too, hope that my involvement in all of this now stands at an end.

I have received additional correspondences from Andrew Welker regarding the last several posts I have made, and he is planning to remove all of mine and Afroakuma's credits from his Manual of the Planes 5e page in retaliation for my posting. He is also making legal threats which my lawyer has assured me are baseless.

At this point, there is nothing else to do but continue work on the print edition and ignore him. In the unlikely event he ever releases his fourth draft and our credit/content is removed, those of you who want it will all likely have the physical copies on your shelves.

Expect additional details on the extra book containing our rescinded content in the coming weeks.

afroakuma said:

Now that things have escalated to this point, it's time for me to walk away for good. As I posted previously, the completed material I was prepared to contribute to the update is now publicly available should anyone want to see it. I don't know if I will try to publish professionally again given how this situation turned. I will say I respect the Baator out of Ken as a writer, collaborator, and frankly person; anyone who likes planar material should check out his other work. I, too, hope that my involvement in all of this now stands at an end.

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That's really too nice, and you definitely have my respect as well.

Oh, but I think you missed this link to your content. (It's worth sending people that way, so I'll post it again.) People should dig around to find more of your amazing work as well!

Despite all of the drama that happened, I am still extremely proud of the book we all put together. In my (checks notes) 22 years off-and-on of RPG writing, how this all fell apart is absolutely an anomaly. Even when there were bumps and creative differences, none of my other projects ever wound up like this. So I hope you don't take it as a sign of the industry as a whole. But either way, the book we made is still out there and awesome (and hopefully in POD one way or another soon!) Whether it's still on public forums or elsewhere, I can't wait to see more of your ideas and work, and Matt's as well. (I disagree with him as noted here and elsewhere, but I still respect and enjoy his work. It's great stuff!)

Hi, Andrew here. There's a lot you've claimed or concluded here in the last few days that's provably wrong. I sent those "additional correspondences" an hour before you started making your "last several posts," and I had no idea you were going to make them. I plan to remove your credits from the update because on June 13 your lawyer told me that's what you guys wanted. He did not correct that impression after my June 18, July 1, July 8, or July 14 emails referencing my ready willingness to comply with that particular request. Yesterday, you posted in this forum that you "do not wish to be associated with any materials within this revision." If you have changed your mind since that post, please let your lawyer know so he can tell me.

QL Games said:

Hi, Andrew here. There's a lot you've claimed or concluded here in the last few days that's provably wrong. I sent those "additional correspondences" an hour before you started making your "last several posts," and I had no idea you were going to make them. I plan to remove your credits from the update because on June 13 your lawyer told me that's what you guys wanted. He did not correct that impression after my June 18, July 1, July 8, or July 14 emails referencing my ready willingness to comply with that particular request. Yesterday, you posted in this forum that you "do not wish to be associated with any materials within this revision." If you have changed your mind since that post, please let your lawyer know so he can tell me.

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I said that you were likely to remove them, not that I wanted them in whatever you are still set on creating. Go right ahead and take us off the credits, for all the good that you think it may do.

As I said, we're moving forward without any more expectation or need for your cooperation.

Hello everyone! I would like to give another update

Andrew Welker has recently updated Manual of the Planes 5e while stating that he intends for this revised version to be the print version. Having reviewed it, I have noticed several changes which include
-drastic reorganization of my written sections in the Material Plane
-changes to sections I wrote on other planes (moving the realm of an Ethereal deity to the Far Realm being one of the more egregious).
-new quotes that contain backhanded insults directed at myself and Afroakuma (namely the Prisoner of Elysium)
-an unrelated but bizarrely racist description of Anubis that simultaneously strips him of any Egyptian connections while also feeding into the "describe black people's skin using food" gimmick.

I would like to let everyone know that, in light of these changes, I am continuing to move forward with my own print copy of Manual of the Planes 5e which will be available soon on DMsGuild. It will contain the original and unaltered text that many of you have already purchased and read, and rest assured I will take better care in describing African gods than Welker seemed to.

We are in the final chapter and I expect that DMsGuild will have it fully approved by the end of the month. Should Welker release his own version before we do, I will personally ensure that our print version is sold at a lower price than his.

Wishing you all the best
Matt

Will the book have a different title or a specific link so that way we are making sure to buy the proper version that isn't altered?

Weiley31 said:

Will the book have a different title or a specific link so that way we are making sure to buy the proper version that isn't altered?

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I will make sure that it does