Open Letter to Jeff Kuta - From the IC

The following is for consumption by everyone but is directed to Jeff Kuta.


I offered to post this letter because I am the furthest removed from the "process". There is nothing earth-shattering here and no great revelation. Each point is supportable. While the IC does not always agree about everything, we are in agreement about this topic. (The IC member who is also a design team member recused himself from the writing of this letter.)

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A decision was made that the V:EKN should create a small and conservative set. New cards to fill needs and plug holes… A set that would establish that we are capable of providing our players with cards they can enjoy well into the future.


We, the Inner Circle, chose experienced players from different horizons and playgroups
to be the "Design Team" and then we chose the “Design Team Leader” to achieve the creation of this set, under his direction.

The Design Team Leader was mostly absent until shortly before the first round of playtesting. Your team worked hard, without a leader, and produced good results but lacked guidance in terms of general direction.

When the Team Leader returned to lead, you refused to follow him.

You drafted a letter/ a petition - to the Inner Circle asking that we remove the Design Team Leader's authority over your subset of the Team. You further recommended a "Co-Leader" scenario where you would be working with one subset team - and the Design Team Leader would be concentrating on a separate future set with a 4th member of the Design Team. Thus splitting the Design Team into two independent teams.

You called the Design Team Leader on the telephone in an attempt to come to an agreement with him about your Team ideas - You told him you would send your petition to the Inner Circle regardless of his response, and that if he did not agree with your motions in the petition that "...bad things would happen."

Shortly after the Inner Circle received your petition via Email - and, in order to come to a consensus on how to respond, we met via SKYPE to discuss the matter. Included in this meeting was the Inner Circle member who is also on the Design Team.

The Inner Circle was asked - by you - to lead in this matter, and that is what we did.

We said we felt strongly that the Design Team Leader was still best equipped to guide this set to completion, and that we really wanted you to do your best to get through it with him. We asked that the members of the entire Design Team, including the Leader, cooperate, discuss, and come to a consensus on cards that could be presented to playtesters for round 2.

The Design Team Leader did as we asked as evidenced by the fact that he has been posting, asking for feedback from the team, and attempting to participate in the process every single day since the SKYPE meeting.

Removing yourself from the equation, refusing to participate, and eventually jeopardizing the work of the Design Team, indicated to us that you were unwilling to accept the decision that you asked for, and that dismissing the Design Team Leader was the only way you would move forward.

We have never, until your public post, considered dismissing anyone. We are volunteers! You are not the only one with vision, love for this game, and amazing card ideas. You were chosen before others who would have loved to participate.

Volunteering for work to help maintain our game has only one true reward – we get to play V:TES! When we remember that, it becomes easier to find new ways and new reasons to get along. The reward allows us to dig deep, not take things personally and get the work done.

I’m sorry we have not been able to find a way to work together.
I can assure you this process - and everyone who contributed to it - is being examined from every angle. We are all wanting the process to improve.


Robyn Tatu
V:EKN Volunteer

Dear Robyn, IC’s, fellows NC’s, Princes and players

I don’t know if this set ends upon completion or not. But I hope that we all have learned an important lesson here.

We are not White-Wolf, we don’t need to duplicate LSJ and White-Wolfs way of doing things. While I can understand that the IC wanted to start out that way, since we knew non others, I hope that everyone in the process would revaluate this again.

I have beforehand, in a more closed forum, asked for better information and better communication, because that is, in my perspective the only way for us to sustain and keep our game alive.

The V:EKN is only what the players make it, before the V:EKN was backed up by white-wolf and vice versa which gave V:EKN and V:EKN sanctioned tournaments their legitimacy.

Now we only have each other. I strongly believe, and these recent events have only got my belief stronger that secrecy is a bad idea.

I would hope that the IC’s and the organizers of the EC, NAC, AAC, SAC, AC (have I forgotten anything) make more information public and accessibly.

I am not talking about an e.g. democracy driven process but an open process. I believe that there is a big difference between the two.

I understand that some would like that the set just suddenly popped out of nowhere and all the cards would be all new. But I believe that the pros with an open process contra cons here.

In an open process we have a great resource in the community. We, the players, would have known that there was problems with a missing Design Team Leader. We could ask our princes and NC’s what is happening, and they could ask the IC’s.

The designers, the NC’s, the Princes and IC’s would be accountable for the work we are doing. We would be able to react faster and be more agile as an organisation. One player would quick be able to take on the role as team leader, NC, Prince, IC, whatever, if the team leader is a way for along period of time, because he would have been able to follow the process.

No one would end up writing “open letters” because they got mad, because everything would be open.

So dear, Robyn, Eric, Ginés, Robert, Pascal and Johannes, I know all of you. I know that you are great and intelligent people who love the game. But please do consider if the game and v:ekn would be better of with doing things the v:ekn way, the player way, instead of the enclosed white-wolf way.

/Jesper
-NC, Denmark

For me it is counter productive to enforce as a leader person who lost the authority in the team. It is nearly an insult to the people who did his job, spent their own time on the project to say that they are wrong and a guy who did his job bad and wronged them will have the last word.

The following points are worth repeating.

1. The Design Team Leader was absent for almost 6 months leading up to the beginning of Round 1 of playtest.

2. The V:EKN Chairman replaced the Design Team Leader with an Interim Design Team Leader, whose work actually shaped the direction of the set.

3. The Inner Circle recognized the problems of the Design Team Leader’s prolonged absence, considered promoting a co-lead, but ultimately did nothing.

4. On multiple occasions, the Chairman emphasized that the Design Team Leader title was a meaningless and empty title, and that the position probably wasn’t needed. He also stated that the Design Team Leader would not be making unilateral decisions.

5. When the Design Team Leader returned, he panicked and resorted to heavy-handed tactics. The Chairman has specifically admitted to this.

6. I attempted to reach out to the Design Team Lead again, but he significantly misinterpreted the two-hour phone call, panicked again, and completely overreacted to misperceived “threats.”

7. A petition signed by the three primary designers was sent to the Inner Circle, and as a result a Production Manager to provide oversight was installed, which was supposed to be a strong rebuke of the Design Team Lead.

8. The Design Team Lead bypassed the consensus model that he and the Production Manager had proposed, disenfranchising the other Design Team members.

9. Several Design Team members protested this abuse of process. The Chairperson temporarily suspended work on the new set, but the Inner Circle dismissed and refused to acknowledge the valid process concerns raised.

10. After exhausting all internal options, I publicly posted. Members of the Inner Circle publicly responded in an emotional manner. And even the latest official response still does not address the underlying process problems.