Important facts about the first V:EKN set in development

Dear V:TES Community:

There are certain developments related to the V:EKN Design Team which I feel obligated to explain to the V:TES community. After careful consideration, consultation, and deliberation, I have decided to post these statements out of my love for the game and out of respect for the global community of V:TES players. This post may be a bit long, so please bear with me. I feel that it is important to share with everyone some facts regarding events which have transpired and to encourage you to share them as well.

Most of you do not know me, so I will provide a bit of background first.

I have played V:TES since 1995 but did not seriously get involved until after Bloodlines was released in 2001. Clan Assamite is my favorite, and I have had the good fortune to earn a spot on The Lasombra’s Hall of Fame, with all my winning decks including at least one Assamite vampire. My local playgroup is in Berkeley, CA. I have only been able to participate in a couple large tournaments outside my home state of California since I am a busy father of three teenagers. I am a regular player and long-time admin on JOL (Jyhad OnLine). I have been an active poster on the Usenet group and the ThePathofBlood.com. Some of my more extensive card-related proposals have been archived on TheLasombra.com. As Internet traffic has migrated, I have focused my attention on VEKN.NET. Lastly, I have served as President of the board of directors for a State of California publicly funded Charter School servicing 800 students and have served as a board member for my local soccer club with over 1000 youth players.

The only way I can describe the situation is to present facts and events more or less chronologically. I apologize if it feels more like a list rather than a smooth narrative, but I believe this is a clearer and more objective way of presenting all the relevant information.

I was privileged to be invited to join the V:EKN Design Team in mid-2011. This was a great honor and I jumped at the chance to participate. The last half of 2011 was both fun and productive and the active team members cultivated a great working relationship. Working anonymously, we made tremendous progress in the early stages, and I was quite proud of the product we were developing.

Unfortunately, this favorable situation has taken a turn for the worse. I can no longer labor in silence when others have taken advantage of this formerly protective layer of secrecy.

The V:EKN Design Team suffers from a deep dysfunction. Attempts to address these problems have been repeatedly rebuffed. As far as I can see, all options to resolve things internally with the Inner Circle have been exhausted. This has allowed the root cause of the problem to persist and grow.

The main problem is the Design Team Leader.

While he is a good person and a V:TES player par excellence, his project management style, or lack thereof, has left the Design Team fractured and broken.

In July 2011, the V:EKN Chairman announced that the V:EKN would begin work on a new set for publication in a PDF format. He also announced the identity of the Design Team Leader at this time. While some members of the V:TES public voiced concerns about the legitimacy of such an enterprise, others were excited by the possibilities.

Design Team members started work in July 2011 on the V:EKN Design Forum and there was an extensive period of spirited brainstorming. However, the Design Team Leader was absent for most of this time. He was gone so long it appeared he abandoned his post. In fact, he was replaced by an Interim Design Team Leader in August, though this fact was not communicated openly.

This Interim Design Team Leader’s initiative, combined with the results of Ginés Quiñonero’s public poll on VEKN.NET, helped to coalesce the ideas for the set into three particular themes. The active Design Team members took these themes to heart and proceeded to focus the set based on the needs of the game of V:TES, drafts of cards which were created, and their own enthusiasm. The Inner Circle had charged us with these tasks and wanted us to emulate LSJ’s design philosophy and process as much as possible. We set to work on these themes and made significant progress.

Over the course of the next three months, three Design Team members stepped up in the midst of this leadership vacuum. They diligently pushed the project along developing a process of drafting, editing, and finalizing card texts in concert with the V:EKN Rules Director. They crafted the vast majority of the set which was distributed for Round 1 of playtest on January 5, 2012. Fully 34 of the 35 cards which were prepared for playtest originated from one of these three team members. The 35th card was an absent designer’s idea which was built upon. There was an enormous amount of analytical work done to consider canon, out of clan disciplines, titles, and capacities for the vampires based on existing Group 4/5 needs. Library cards, which functionally have a greater impact on game balance, underwent many draft iterations before even being sent to the Rules Director for consideration.

To provide some standard of reference for the relative amount of work done on the cards sent to Round 1 of playtest, consider the number of posts on the Design Team forum. There were over 1050 posts on VEKN.NET between July 27, 2011 and January 5, 2012 on the Round 1 playtest cards. This represents roughly 30 posts per card. Of those posts, 96.2% were attributable to any of the three primary designers or the Rules Director, who had to sign off on any card text prior to submission to playtest. Some 3.7% were attributable to other Design Team members who drifted in and out of the process. Of those 1050 posts, only one (1) was made by the Design Team Leader.

The active Design Team members achieved consensus regarding the direction of the set. Input from all inactive design team members was wanted and appreciated, though scarcely offered, and ample time to participate was given. All cards received full sign-off from the Rules Director. The active Design Team members prepared both of the Designer’s Diaries which were published for the V:TES community. Art Direction was proceeding along smoothly, with one active Design Team member securing the services of several professional V:TES artists to voluntarily do artwork for a dozen cards. The same active Design Team member took personal initiative to jump-start the process to get the PDFs for the set created by working with a known V:TES player and software design guru.

In December 2011, the Design Team Leader briefly returned and then disappeared from the V:EKN forums yet again. At this time, there was discussion among the V:EKN Inner Circle about how to resolve the problem of the Design Team Leader's chronic absenteeism, including the possibility of appointing another person as an official Co-Leader. For political reasons, no action was taken.

I feel it is also pertinent to point out a recurring pattern of behavior by the Design Team Leader. From my point of view, his recent time as United States National Coordinator has been unusual because other volunteers have done the actual organization of premier national events. Additionally, it is my understanding that he was expected to contribute heavily to the official V:TES Strategy Guide back in 2005, but he failed to meet most of his obligations so others had to provide much of that content before publication.

Prior to the return of the Design Team Leader, the set was on a great trajectory to be completed in the first half of 2012. To summarize, over this three to four month period, three primary designers and the Rules Director, along with substantial help from art direction and a software design guru, developed and smoothly executed a consensus driven decision model to refine and hone the set. This was all done in the absence of the Design Team Leader and without objection from the V:EKN Inner Circle, who were regularly kept up-to-date. Conservatively, the three active Design Team members and Rules Director had invested over 1000 total hours on various aspects of the project and were the driving force behind the progress that was achieved.

At this point in time, a series of events transpired which have created a lot of unnecessary chaos. In my opinion, in a professionally run organization, none of the following situations would have occurred. Good work would have been rewarded and acknowledged, while poor habits would not have been tolerated.

At the beginning of January 2012, the Design Team Leader returned, seemingly not of his own volition, but only when he learned that the active Design Team had already completed the vast majority of the work necessary to start playtest. When he returned, he and the V:EKN Chairman said that he wanted to work with the existing Design Team. However, in reality, his actions made it appear that he was attempting to seize control of the process by alienating those who had already done the work which he had been expected to do.

The Design Team Leader repeatedly accused the three primary designers of “rushing” the process, when in fact almost four months of significant back and forth discussion had occurred to refine the set prior to Round 1 of playtest. It seemed rushed to him because he did not participate at all during the previous card creation, selection, vetting, and honing process.

The Design Team Leader has not demonstrated the ability to manage a project and treat his fellow team members in a professional way. He has not demonstrated the initiative to lead the project and proactively start each new and necessary step. His multiple prolonged absences and poor work ethic have undermined the trust of the primary designers of the set. He has repeatedly fractured the Design Team, causing unnecessary tension and stress. On multiple occasions, the primary set designers have attempted to reach out personally to the Design Team leader. Those efforts have not been reciprocated.

Even though the set had already gone through months of shaping and scrutiny, the Design Team Leader has been acting as if in a preliminary brainstorming mode the entire time. Mentally, he has not gone through the critical vetting process of narrowing down concepts into a well-honed and themed set.

The Design Team Leader tried to heavy-handedly impose his will on the process rather than achieve a good working relationship with the primary designers. This has caused significant strife among the Design Team. Extraneous themes have been introduced by the Design Team Leader apparently as a way to wedge his cards into the process without consideration for the set synergy as a whole. The Design Team Leader’s management style has resulted in significant delays to both the art and playtest processes.

In fact, because of these actions, the primary designers petitioned the Inner Circle for changes at the beginning of February 2012. The primary designers were most concerned about the Design Team Leader’s lack of leadership qualities and poor management style. While willing to collaborate with that individual as equals, they did not appreciate being bossed around while doing all the work, particularly from someone who had been chronically absent and non-participatory. Recognizing inherent problems to the organizational structure and the working environment, they asked to have the Design Team be split into two concurrent development teams so each could go forward and energy would not be spent on infighting. Separating these responsibilities between two groups would promote positive action toward completion of the set.

Additionally, I suspected the latecomers would want to have some of their card ideas represented, and even proposed reserving several card slots for their ideas and offering to help them hone their raw ideas as we had been doing for the previous several months. To address these concerns, the Inner Circle conducted a meeting via Skype on February 5th. Unfortunately, this petition request was denied. As part of this same meeting, the card set size was reconfirmed at exactly 35 cards, no more, no less.

It has recently come to my attention, that just prior to the Inner Circle meeting, the Design Team Leader tried to have the three primary designers removed from the Design Team. Fortunately, that request was not supported by a majority of the Inner Circle. However, the team was henceforth irrevocably broken.

To their credit, the Inner Circle did see it fit to appoint a well-respected third party and acting Inner Circle member to join the Design Team as Production Manager. This person was charged with helping to clarify the process and making sure the Design Team Leader would be held accountable. The V:EKN Chairperson believed that being monitored by a third party would be a strong rebuke of the Design Team Leader. The Production Manager quickly made some significant efforts to try to ease tensions among team members. Several deadlines and milestones were set and ground rules were established that all future discussion was to occur on the forum. However, the Design Team Leader persisted to cause trouble by ignoring these guidelines.

As I predicted, the Inner Circle’s decision to disallow two distinct card design teams, both under their auspices, has caused the project to implode. By mandating that the set size not increase despite the return of two absentee designers, the Inner Circle implicitly set up a “zero sum game” where new cards could only be added if others were cut. This situation minimized any incentives for designers to help with cards which they felt were inappropriate for the set and, in fact, encouraged antagonistic behavior. Furthermore, the Design Team Leader and the other oft-absent designer flooded the Design Forum with an inordinate number of underdeveloped ideas with the expectation that the three primary designers would spend significant time fixing them. In their own words, those two were just “spitballing” and waiting to see what would stick. Even the Production Manager commented on the sheer number of unnecessary new card threads.

In response, the primary designers intentionally avoided participation in discussion of most new rudimentary card proposals. There was no reason to put hard work into cards which did not fit the understood themes for the set, and even less reason to invest time and energy to help out those who stood to benefit at our expense, particularly those who had demonstrated they were irresponsible several times previously.

The Design Team Leader was next given a golden opportunity to make things right among the team members. He and the Production Manager proposed a new consensus-driven process which was supposed to guide card selection for Round 2 of playtest. Unfortunately, that consensus driven process was ultimately not adhered to by the Design Team Leader.

The three primary designers met all of the Production Manager’s internally published deadlines, while the Design Team Leader and the V:EKN Chairperson did not. Many new cards which the Design Team Leader had proposed were being crammed into the next round of playtest without due process. In contravention of established practice, the new card texts he proposed were still unfinished drafts when they were approved for Round 2 by the V:EKN Chairman. The Design Team Leader attempted to include cards which had not been approved by the Rules Director and to make functional changes which had not been discussed by any other members of the Design Team. The Design Team Leader expediently ignored his own process in order to circumvent full consideration for consensus by the entire team. And, in conjunction with the V:EKN Chairman, he unilaterally decided on the contents of the cards for Round 2, flouting the previous themes, and pushing cards through quickly without thorough, proper vetting. He disenfranchised the rest of the Design Team by working behind their backs, precluding them from providing input or even discussing the issues. Other Design Team members internally voiced their unequivocal opposition to these actions which are contrary to the processes which had been agreed upon.

As a result, the V:EKN Chairman temporarily suspended development of the set on February 23, 2012 and called for the Inner Circle to think about how to proceed. In a spirit of cooperation, one of the primary Design Team members, who is also an Inner Circle member, wrote to the V:EKN Chairman with some suggestions. The Chairman did not respond and as of this post has still not yet responded. Instead, on February 27, 2012, the Chairman sent an email saying that the Inner Circle “had developed a new plan for going forward” and that the “statement represents the unanimous decision of the Inner Circle.” Apparently this was done through a series of Inner Circle e-mails that specifically excluded the aforementioned Inner Circle member, though it did include other Inner Circle members involved to varying degrees in the Design Team. This is especially egregious since the issue of concern was about violations of due process within the Design Team. By specifically excluding a single individual from the Inner Circle discussion, the V:EKN Chairman compounded the problem with a more serious violation of protocol.

This flagrant disregard by the V:EKN Inner Circle Chairman toward due process and another one Inner Circle member calls into question the integrity of the entire unelected body which has faced legitimacy questions in the past. As a result of these actions, it has become clear to me that the V:EKN does not value the contributions I or my colleagues have made toward the new set.

It saddens me that this process has become so derailed in the past two months. My dedicated colleagues and I have explored all feasible internal routes to collaboratively address this situation, but have only been met with opposition. There was a great opportunity here, but lack of clarity, poor oversight, negligence and petty infighting have ruined that which was once so promising.

I still believe this set has the potential to be a significant milestone in the history of V:TES and its future direction. Unfortunately, I have serious concerns about the unethical violations of process and the abrupt change of direction for the set. I am concerned this jeopardizes the quality of the set and the integrity and reputation of the V:EKN. Since the V:TES community has a vested interest in the success of this project, I feel that you have the right to know about these issues and how problematic they have become.

Jeff Kuta
Vallejo, CA

* This document has been publicly posted to VEKN.NET, rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad, and BoardGameGeek.com and may be freely redistributed.

johannes wrote:

Public mudslinging?

Mudslinging? It seems like quite a well-written, detailed piece from here.

johannes wrote:

You have set my new personal record for "how low can you go". No comment needed.

I'm pretty sure that you will need to comment on the concerns raised.

A well-respected person following all possible processes and feeling pressured to go public? Not just something people will ignore because you tell them to.

I deeply appreciate the fact that worries are publically expressed. Hiding that kind of stuff tend to make thing worse more than anything else. Not that it mean I blindly believe everything on the post.

Johannes, if you believe the original post being a load of lies, you would be a lot more convincing by actually pointing inconsistencies or inacurracies.

Jeff wrote:

At this point in time, a series of events transpired which have created a lot of unnecessary chaos. In my opinion, in a professionally run organization, none of the following situations would have occurred. Good work would have been rewarded and acknowledged, while poor habits would not have been tolerated.

This passage made me smile. I don't know whether you never worked in a private firm or I need to immediatly find a new job, because I never, ever see a "professionaly run organization" like that

Very hard to comment anything about this post because I know absolutely nothing of developing of new set and how it is done. Also it doesn't me make feel so good about whole progress with these kind of posts.

But really problem for me is total secretly of developing new set. There are many mentions Inner Circle etc in the post. I have no idea what Inner Circle is and what it does. Neither has majority of players. I feel this set is designed for and by Inner Circle and not for normal players. There could be some designer blog or even more interviews in Cause & Effect show.

I hope design team would use community more. Blog or even a design one card competition would go long way. I really want to make Vtes community better and there should be topics thinking of that.

EDIT
I think Jeffs post is good even whatever value it holds

johannes wrote:

Public mudslinging? You have set my new personal record for "how low can you go". No comment needed.

I don't know anything about the events Jeff describes. I don't know the people involved, and I can't say anything about the validity of his claims.

But, even to me, it's clear that his post is careful and deliberate. It's not something slapped together and sent in the heat of anger. It's clearly an attempt to solve a problem, not to add to it.

I got the clear impression that making this post, for Jeff, was a last resort, after many other approaches to solve the problem had failed. Whether there were other avenues that should have been pursued before this post was made, I don't know, but I think it's clear that Jeff feels there weren't, and it seems like he's put a lot of thought into that. Even if one were to disagree, I think it should be done respectfully.

Jeff doesn't insult anyone. He doesn't call people names. He doesn't swear. He's very clearly trying to be part of the solution.

Based on all of this, Johannes, I have to say that I disagree with EVERYTHING you say in your reply.

- Public mudslinging? That pretty clearly isn't the intent.

- Talking about your personal record for low behavior? I feel like you're exaggerating here. I've seen more unpleasant and disrespectful posts in the deck building forum.

- No comment needed? If this prominent and respected a member of the game's community has a serious enough issue that he produces a post this long and detailed about it, I think some comment is definitely needed!

Please, folks, whatever you think about this, take the high road. Think before you post. Agreeing or disagreeing is fine, but don't be dismissive or disrespectful. Be part of the solution, not part of the dysfunction.