The Official Word -- The End of Guardians of Order

I'm sure that this is old news by now out in the blogosphere, but here you go:

My gods, I have no idea where to begin.

Yes ... effective more-or-less immediately, Guardians Of Order has ceased operations.

First, an apology. I am terribly sorry that George Martin broke the news about our situation. That is certainly not how I wanted the information to be released, and I had thought that my frank conversation with him about A Game of Thrones-specific issues was in confidence. This is the second time now that someone other than me releases very important news about Guardians Of Order, which leaves me frantically trying to patch the holes. The polite and proper thing for me -- as President of the company -- to do would be to contact all of our creditors (which includes some great freelancers and industry associates) FIRST and explain the situation to them. I was working on that process when my efforts were derailed by one simple website post. So I am very sorry that someone else took it upon himself to release this information. It's not how I was proceeding to handle things.

But yes, the end result is the same. GoO is no longer.

This was a very sad decision that I had to make, but it wasn't really a difficult one when I took a long, hard look at the facts. The company simply accumulated too much debt, with little hope of paying it off within the next decade, and my recent plans to get the company back in shape didn't materialise. When I kept my emotions in check and simply analysed the facts of the company's financial forecast, the only course of action was very clear. There were a combination of factors that contributed to the ultimate inability of the company to maintain fiscal health (which I have outlined several times in other posts over the years) -- the extreme softening of the RPG sales market, the drastic shift in USD/CDN exchange rates, etc -- but external circumstances are not entirely to blame. Simply put, I did not have the business acumen to run the company profitably when the going got tough. I'm going to steal a John Nephew analogy for a brief explanation.

I've been driving down the gaming industry highway in my GoOmobile since 1997, with a coffee in the cup holder and a muffin on the passenger's seat. For many years of driving, the highway was a straight path with very little traffic on it. Consequently, if I swerved a little as I ate my breakfast while driving, it wasn't a big deal ... the situations on the road were very forgiving and it was easy to keep on driving. Unfortunately, when the road started getting very crowded around 2003 and started making many twists and turns, I didn't have the foresight to put down the coffee and muffin, place both hands firmly on the wheel, and pay very close attention to the road. I just kept on driving like before, assuming everything was the same. Ultimately, the GoOmobile swerved into the path of an incredibly powerful semi-truck called "Exchange Rate Fluxuation," causing a terrible wreck and writing off the vehicle.

I'm not making light of the situation, but I thought that John's analogy was a perfect fit. Running the company when things were peachy was easy, but I faltered when the going got tough. For my lack of knowledge and experience, I sincerely apologise to our many thousands of consumers and fans, our creditors and freelancers, and to my many friends who put their faith in my dream. I failed, and I'm sorry I couldn't do better.

So where does that leave things now? I don't have all the answers yet -- I was trying to line them up before making this announcement -- but here's what I can say at this time:

• BESM Third Edition is finished and ready for press. Another company will be publishing it and providing future support. It's the most elegant version of BESM and the Tri-Stat System that I have put together and am very proud of it. If you pre-ordered the book from us, more information will follow.
• Advanced d20 Magic is back from press and will be hitting stores in August. Customers who pre-ordered directly from us will be receiving their orders.
• We are still attempting to place the A Game of Thrones RPG with another company. Of course, this requires GRRM's approval and we are still working out details. AGOT is a fantastic game, and we will do our best to see it continued.
• All outstanding orders will be fulfilled. If we are unable to ship you the order for some reason, you will have the option of having a refund sent to you. We are no longer taking any orders directly from our web store.
• Our products will remain for sale as both print books and PDFs as long as the stores will carry them. We are arranging for our products to be transferred to another company. I have no information regarding their future publication.
• Our Tri-Stat/brand licenses remain in effect for as long as indicated in the contracts, and licensees may still publish products under the terms of such licenses. Obviously, the Magnum Opus imprint will cease to operate.
• Our creditors (which includes freelancers and friendly investors) will be contacted directly in the coming weeks. There is still much to do on this end, and I ask for your patience while we get things in order and communicate with you.

Some people have inquired about my personal future, so I'll be brief. I am leaving the gaming industry. I need to concentrate on recovering financially from the collapse of the company and on rebuilding the strength of my family, which unfortunately suffered over the past couple of years. I am now working as a real estate sales representative in Guelph, and find the work a refreshing change of pace. My health is great, my family is very understanding, and I look forward to what the future will hold.

There are so many people to whom I am grateful for all their help, advice, and support over our 9-year run. Please forgive me if I forget anyone:

• my wonderful wife, Karen, for ... well ... everything
• my parents for always giving me their best wishes and telling me how proud they are of my accomplishments
• Adam Jury, who stuck with the company and with me until the end
• Jesse Scoble, for sharing so very many awesome experiences under the guise of "work"
• Jeff Mackintosh, for accepting that job offer initiated in the Columbus bar
• David Pulver, for putting BESM 2e on the map
• Ryan Dancey, for always being just a phone call away; sweet, dude
• John Zinser, for showing and mentoring me in the Hard Way
• Cindy Rice, for befriending this little guy in New York many years ago
• John and Michelle Nephew, for keen insight, support, and friendship
• Alex Fennel, for working with this fellow foreigner for several years
• Joe Saul, for always shooting straight and giving me the US perspective
• Erick Wujcik, for giving me the opportunity to carry the torch, even if I couldn't follow through
• Derek, who offered to help an old friend in need
• Andy, Todd, Jules, Lindsey, Ken, John, and Lowell for lending a helping hand
• Steve, for helping make deals happen
• The Hero Games crew, for making advertising a lot of fun
• Marcelo Figueroa, for his eternal offers of assistance; and of course
• our customers, fans, and supporters -- without whom running Guardians Of Order would have been impossible. You have my sincerest gratitude.

Hello and goodbye, as always.

Mark C. MacKinnon
President, Guardians Of Order, Inc.
Guelph, Ontario
July 31st, 2006

I guess we'll see what the next step is and who the mystery publisher is who will be taking over BESM. I am sort of hoping Mongoose, I'm not sure why of that but that's what I'm thinking/hoping. Maybe its because I would hope that Mongoose would open the system making it easier to support if you're 3rd party. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

I'm not going to put up a link to the GoO site because, who knows when it will go away now. Here is a link to a mega post that I strung together when the news of GoO's hardships first started to leak out. It may put some perspective on things.

Follow-up on "bad" gamers.

Here's a post from Levi Kornelsen's LJ. Levi's about the only theoretical person that I've encountered who I feel has anything worthwhile to contribute to the conversation.

He has some interesting things to say in this post. Makes me wonder where he's going with things.

Follow-up on "bad" gamers.

Okay, following up on 'The 'bad' gamers', a couple of posts back, I've got my own opinion. For those pointing to 'catpissmen', I left those out on purpose. Don't worry, we'll get to them later.

It's my opinion, based on my own experience, that people stick around in gaming and as gamers for a number of reasons that are not actually tied to playing RPGs. Some of these are neither good nor bad for the hobby - people that collect and read RPGs, people that just like tinkering with stuff, people with kids that just don't have time, and so on. I have no problem with these people; they've got a hobby that's strapped to mine at the hip. I also believe that we do have a few outright cranks; not so many as people like to say we do, but some.

Women put on disguises, pack pistols

If you can't use this as a hook for an adventure, you just aren't trying hard enough.

Women put on disguises, pack pistols

Gun-slinging females, some sporting fake beards, have conducted four stickups in Jasper County in the past 11 weeks in what investigators are calling an unusual, baffling crime spree.

The robberies started May 5 when a white woman wearing sunglasses, a cowboy hat and fake facial hair held up the Conoco gas station in the Brookshire Brothers' parking lot in Jasper, detectives said.

Jasper Police Detective Gerald Hall said the woman took $3,500 after she raised her shirt and flashed a handgun stuffed in the waistline of her pants.

'She was trying to look like a man,' Hall said.

Perhaps the robberies are raising the money for a laboratory in which to create an Alchymical Wedding, an ultimate union of man and woman into one form, one shape.

Or perhaps some new supervillain is on the scene...and this is the manner in which he or she forces their henchmen to dress...

Kerouac's original 'On the Road' will be published

As long as we're on the subject of the Beats, this is really good news to hear. The publication of something this will really put a lot of tools in the hands of scholars and provide the capability to really critically open up Kerouac's seminal work. From a literary viewpoint, I think that this is as important an event as when the expanded and unexpurgated version of Joyce's Ulysses was released about twenty years ago.

This is going to be a must have for me on its release, and it will go right next to my copy of the restored edition of William Burroughs' Naked Lunch. Great, great news for those interested in American literature and the Beats.

Kerouac's original 'On the Road' will be published

It's literary legend, how Jack Kerouac wrote his breakthrough novel On the Road in a three-week frenzy of creativity in spring 1951, typing the story without paragraphs or page breaks onto a 119-foot scroll of nearly translucent paper.

In fact, the Lowell native revised the book many times before it was published six years later, and while the scroll came to symbolize the spontaneity of the Beat Generation, the early, unedited version of the novel never reached the public.

Now, in time to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the novel's publication, the version of On the Road that Kerouac wrote on the scroll will be published next year in book form for the first time, said John Sampas of Lowell, the executor of the writer's literary estate and the brother of his third wife, Stella. It will include some sections that had been cut from the novel because of references to sex or drugs.

[via Boing Boing]

Guardians of Order - Closed

Well, I don't think that it is a surprise but it is still sad that it has come to pass. This is from George R.R. Martin's website. I think its a shame that the news didn't come from Mark officially, but it shouldn't be a big shock at this point.

I know that Mongoose has long been interested in Tri-Stat/BESM and that they have been talking to some of the Magnum Opus publishers. Only time will tell. For fans of BESM and the Tri-Stat systems, I hope that this will mean a happy ending.

News -- George R.R. Martin

I regret to announce that Guardians of Order, the Canadian games company that issued the GAME OF THRONES role-playing game last fall, is closing its doors and going out of business.

Although the GoO website remains open and there is some fan activity on the message boards there, it would appear that orders are no longer being fulfilled and emails to Guardians itself are going unaswered. The company's office has been vacated, and the company phone has been disconnected, When I finally reached GoO's owner and president Mark MacKinnon last week, he confirmed what many had come to suspect -- that he is shutting down operations. MacKinnon is presently attempting to place some of GoO's games with other companies.

I am not privy to all of the details of how and why Guardians is going under, but I do know the company's finances were very badly affected by the decline in the value of the American dollar against the Canadian dollar. Most of GoO's sales were in the United States, so a weaker dollar meant less money coming in. The massive and gorgeous GAME OF THRONES role-playing book, four years in the making, was finally released last November (for details, see the news stories in my archives) and appears to have sold quite well, but its success proved too little and too late to save Guardians of Order.

I am presently attempting to work out some sort of settlement with Guardians that would allow the RPG to continue with another company, but at this writing the future of the game (if any) remains unresolved.

Ironically, this announcement comes just as the GAME OF THRONES RPG has been nominated for four 'ENie' awards as one of the best games of 2005. The game has been nominated in the categories of Best Production Values, Best d20/ OGL Product, Best Product, and Best Game. If you're a fan of the game and would like to cast a ballot, voting is open until July 30 at http://www.enworld.org/ennies/voting.php

Blogs really aren't supposed to be edited (well, if you are in the Rebecca Blood school of blogging) but I decided to link to this thread on the Mongoose Publishing forums which may cast some light on who might end up with some of the pieces of Guardians of Order. Although if you haven't figured out who I'm talking about by now I would be greatly shocked and surprised.

I return you now to your regularly scheduled Dorkland!

Windmills of My Mind

Another windmill
Originally uploaded by Dylan Reece.

I saw this picture on Flickr and it reminded me of the time machine windmill from the Arcadia storyline in Grant Morrison's The Invisibles. This picture makes me want to construct an adventure around a windmill time machine. I don't think that I would go to the French Revolution to recruit DeSade though, but I'm not sure where I would take the story.

I loved The Invisibles. I admit that it got off to a bit of a rocky start. The original storyline with Dane being recruited into the group just didn't get it started for me, but the Arcadia story rocked on toast. If you haven't read it, you should really pick up the early trade collections and get an idea for the story. In hind sight, it was pretty ahead of its time, which is why I think that it almost was cancelled. It is also head and shoulders above The Filth. As great as Morrison's writing can be when its on...it can be just as bad sometimes when he's off.

But then I don't expect creators to be one hundred percent consistent in their creativity. Its a bit naive to think otherwise.

Meanwhile, back at gaming. As much as I loved The Invisibles, I just don't see it an RPG. The very things that made the comic cool would fall apart when subjected to the overly anal scrutiny of a licensed RPG. That's not to say that elements of the comic and its stories can not be utilized, far from it. I think that the metafictional elements of the story in particular could really enliven an RPG (with the right group for it, of course). This is the thing that tripped up R. Talsorian's Dreampark RPG for a lot of people, at least through my experiences with groups and running the game for a few slots at a con, they couldn't grok the metafictional elements of the game. Sure, they could handle playing a character but a lot of them tripped over playing a character who was playing a character. Maybe it was just too many layers involved.

Perhaps a game where the players have characters who are aware of their being players would be the way to go. I think that something like this would be easy enough to implement in pretty much any system. It would pretty much just be a matter of bringing the table talk down to the character level, and I think that there are a number of gamers out ther already doing this...as the handful of D&D games that I have experienced have evidenced.

But, there you go. A picture of a windmill on flickr send me thinking of The Invisibles, which takes me down to thinking of what I can implement in my games. This might be an interesting experiment to bring into my Tri-Stat super-heroes game. I'll have to bring it up to the players tomorrow.

Oh, I Am Wounded!!

From here:

Comment by Meister Cockstrike — July 29, 2006 @ 1:00 am

Oh yeah, "cjh". Cute, even better.

"Hey, this one guy’s blog post reminds me of X. I really hate X. All participants of X are pretentious whiny gasbags. F***ing makes me sick, that X. X folks are always putting us down, the way they say "we don’t get it". X totally pisses me off"
(psssst: This Blog is Not X, Doesn’t Say X, has NOTHING to do with X, so nice f***ing tangent that has nothing to do with f***ing anything)

I am tired of the preening. I am tired of the self-aggrandizing attacks against those who "Don’t get it."

Nice, gasbag. Keep banging that drum about X. When you come to your senses after you’re done jerking off, might want to read this journal post again, and how like he says nothing that you’re implying. No "don’t get it's", no "you’re deluding yourselves", none of that s***.

Way to build a strawman out of his own baggage.

BTW, this is the same guy who keeps jamming up craft threads on RPGNet, saying "I’m a *great* GM. I don’t need advice or rules to help me run my games, and therefore nobody else should either". Whatever.

There’s nothing to read over there; If I want to watch people see s***, then go off on that sh** because it "reminds them of X, and I f***ing hate X", I’ll go to f****ing Stormfront and read the real retards do it with style.

Yeah, I guess that I did misunderstand the comparison to one of the most important literary movements of American literature. You are so right, "Meister Cockstrike," I should have just realized that it was something humbly submitted. Nice and classy way to "refute" a comment by the way do the words ad hominem mean anything at all to you? Probably not. Not a big shock that the "method" used by this "movement" that prides itself on its intellect would be profanity and dick jokes. If you can't refute the claims then attack the person making them. Of course, in this country at least, it is a method that has been institutionalized into people by our political leadership. Its still pretty sad to see something like this coming from a "grown up." It must be that brain damage that gamers are suffering from.

Well, like I said in my comments to the post that started all of this, I have the IPs of people who have commented (whether they left a name or not) so I'm pretty sure that I know who posted this. Personally, between the pointless profanity (which I edited because I really don't think that there is a point behind it) and the adolecsent "humor" of someone posting as "Meister Cockstrike," I don't really think that I have to even attempt to discredit this "commentator." Thank you for showing how your great revolutionary and intellectual movement responds to others.

Again the strawman comes up and once again I will comment on it. I will say that I do love the fact that he uses the fallacy that because the post that ignited all of thi doesn't say the things that I never claimed it said that the rest of what I said must therefore be wrong. Wow. If that's the best that you guys can do, I am really not impressed. Of course when a movement's vanguard operative hides behind a name like "Meister Cockstrike" I guess that I shouldn't be surprised.

As to the personal attack regarding [Craft] threads on RPG.net, I call BS on that. Demonstrate where I have said a single thing like that in one of those threads. Unlike some I never presume to push what I need or want in a game onto others, and I would never make a comment to the effect of "I don't need rules for X so they shouldn't be in games." What? I don't even understand a viewpoint like that, let alone attempt to enforce one. Of course I put a comment like the one that "Meister Cockstrike" has attempted to attribute to me in the same category as those who say "This game devotes more pages to combat than to social activities, so it is a combat game." Um, what? But regardless, this is just the sort of thing to be expect from these people and they wonder why people lose interest in a "movement" that is defended by people with as mature of name as "Meister Cockstrike." Indeed, quiet lame and really quite sad for that person. I pity the person who thinks that they have to act like a 14-year old in order to get the attention that they so desperately crave. It must be a sad life to be so dependant upon the attentions of others.

Regretfully, I find myself agreeing with the RPGPundit about the wounded personalities in this "movement." Again, though, the only word that I can come up with to sum this up is sad. It is sad that people invest so much of their identity in a game that they feel that they have to act this way over them. Ironically, these same people look with disdain upon the brain damaged and those whom they call the socially inept in our hobby. Ironic and more than slightly amusing.

Look, if you feel so invested that you have to mindlessly attack...have at it. It is obviously that important to you, and I wouldn't want to take away from you anything that defines who you are so strongly. If you think that I am losing sleep over these comments, or indeed even spending the time when I am away from this blog in contemplation of them...well you're wrong on that account. Keep in mind that your "opinions," such as they are, have no impact upon me. I just don't care. Of course now one of the amateur psychologists will be saying, "Of course he cares...look at all of the time and effort he has expended." Thinking that just means that you don't get it, do you? I don't care because I know that your "opinions" are wrong and are coming from some sort of weird, broken perspective and because of that they don't really matter. When people can create a discussion that doesn't have to do with resorting to name-calling, using puerile names like "Meister Cockstrike" (which sounds like something out of Beavis and Butthead or one of the lamer moments of one of Kevin Smith's movies), or ridiculous claims like those silly brain damage ones then perhaps your opinions can matter. Up until then, no dice.

Of course this isn't some battle between the traditional and those who think they are "revolutionary." I can sum up my feelings fairly simply: whatever.

Oh, and by the way...Jeff...you owe me a drink for all of this.

Fantasy writer Gemmell dies at 57

While I've never actually read his books, I know that he has a big following. I figured someone reading the blog might be interested in his passing. Besides, its a pleasant diversion from the evils of indie gaming.

Fantasy writer Gemmell dies at 57

Fantasy novelist David Gemmell, best known for stories such as Legend and Waylander, has died at the age of 57.

Gemmell had heart bypass surgery two weeks ago and appeared to be making a good recovery, according to his publisher Transworld.

Regardless of whether or not you are a fan, he will be missed.

Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads! (a rant)

I thought that this was a pretty good post of Jeff's and it seems to me to be in theme with my posting of yesterday. This might be a topic that I'm going to be stuck on in my blogging for a bit.

If you haven't already, you really need to check out Jeff's blog. He's got the good stuff.

Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads! (a rant)

Then what on earth makes you think that roleplaying games will ever be as popular as they were in the 80's?!?

Let's get this out on the table: D&D was a fad in the mid-eighties. Nothing more, nothing less. Like any other fad a handful of social misfits continued to hold it near and dear to their hearts long after the rest of the world stopped caring. You and I are those rejects. And our beloved hobby will almost assuredly never reach the heights it did back in the day. Just get over it, please! Don't attempt to position RPGs in the mainstream. They were already there and the mainstream world moved on.

Monkey Do, Monkey See

Probably the most aptly named blog in the entire world.

Monkey Do, Monkey See

We’re making something good, you dig? It’s like the fucking Beats (with less serious drug problems) or Parisian Bohemians circa 1890. We’re making something new, something that changes the way people see. We’re making art and the art is good.

Ok. This is going to piss people off but I don't care. This has to be the most retarded comment about gaming that I have ever read or heard. Frankly I would feel that way regardless of whether or not it was about game designers and games that I like or not.

Comments like this make me weep for the educational system in our country, the state of ignorance of literature and the arts that makes people think that comments like this one are cool. Like I said, this is going to piss people off but I don't care. See, the cool thing about this is the fact that this is my playground and I can talk however I want.

This is similar to my encounter with some art school students at a local art festival. It turns out that they said they were doing Outsider Art.

Wikipedia on "Outsider Art"

Here's a relevant passage:

While Dubuffet's term is quite specific, the English term "Outsider Art" is often applied more broadly, to include certain self-taught or Naïve art makers who were never institutionalized. Typically, those labeled as Outsider Artists have little or no contact with the institutions of the mainstream art world and they often employ unique materials or fabrication techniques. Much Outsider Art illustrates extreme mental states, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds. Since 2000 the EUWARD, the European Award for painting and graphic arts by mentally handicapped artists, is providing this art with an international forum.

Outsider Art has emerged as a successful art marketing category (an annual Outsider Art Fair has taken place in New York since 1992); thus the term is sometimes misapplied as a catch-all marketing label for art created by people outside the "art world" mainstream, regardless of their circumstances or the content of their work.

The bolded part was emphasized by me. See, Outsider Art isn't something that one does it is something that one is. In my mind, one of the foremost Outsider Artists would have been Harvey Darger.

Wikipedia on Harvey Darger

See, kind of like being an outsider being revolutionary isn't something that one wakes up in the morning and decides to do. Sure, if you're Picasso or Tristan Tzara or Dali or a handful of those people who were the true Geniuses (deserving of being capitalized) of our world. Did those people talk about how they were revoltionizing the art world? Well, Picasso might have but then despite the Jonathan Richman song he was a pretty big asshole.

So, yeah, this sort of attitude pisses me off. It has pretty much always pissed me off and it will always piss me off. I am sure that if this little rant gets out into the big bad world (which I seriously doubt because I have no delusions about the limits of my audience...although from the sales figures that I have seen this blog has had more unique visitors than many of those revolutionary games have sold copies of) I will be besieged by the holy warriors and proslytizers who will seek to defend the faith from barbarian insurgents. I don't care.

I am tired of the preening. I am tired of the self-aggrandizing attacks against those who "Don't get it." I am tired of the charges of brain damage and being unable to do something as simple as tell a story. You know what? The last time that I tried I was able to tell challenging and engaging stories during my games sessions without the aid of mechanical "innovations" that actually take a gamer by the hand and force them to tell the kinds of "stories" that their designers think are cool. I am tired of people being told that the way that they game is "a myth" or that they are somehow "deluding themselves." I am tired of the whole bloody thing.

It is truly sad that people think that the only way that they can make themselves "cool" is to deride others and/or puff themselves up and prance about like silly little fops, or children who have touched their genitals for the first time and thought that they are doing something revolutionary...something that no has every done before.

I think that is all, that that is enough on the topic for now. Comment at your own risk.