That being said, I really don’t want to continue to dwell on the negative. I contacted Steve Long and Ben Seeman and informed them of what transpired. I’ll give them a week or so and see how they respond. I expect there to be no response at all, actually, but honor demands that I give them the opportunity to make amends. I am trying to keep an open mind until then.

I think it is shameful that Dan is allowed to basically bait people into ban-worthy behavior through his own rudeness, and then ban then.

After that it seems like the entire company views that person as one of the ‘enemy’, or a ‘troublemaker’, as opposed to just someone who had the nerve to treat Dan they same way they were treated by him.

I can’t understand it.

Either Dan must be a dear personal friend of everyone at DOJ, or he must be a major investor, or he must have them over a barrel due to some type of agreement concerning hosting the boards or developing Hero Designer.

Whatever the case is, letting him interact directly with customers, which is what those who post on the Hero Boards generally are, is a mistake.

KA.

It’s just so unprofessional. That’s what really baffles me. Running a successful business is difficult: running a business honorably and with dignity is not (although it is rare). Then again, Steve Long himself treated me with a pointed lack of respect last year when I offered to do some work for them (for free), so maybe I should not be surprised. (I have never talked about that incident, frankly because I think it makes Steve Long and “DOJ dba Hero Games” look bad. But now I am thinking that it may have been one point on a curve rather than an isolated incident.)

It’s just so … disappointing.

There was a big blowup among a group of Hero Board posters that were close at one time and then had a falling out. Complaints were lodged against one member of the group due to things they were saying on another message board, and the contents of those posts, on another board, caused them to be banned from the Hero Boards.

So don’t doubt that it is possible, although it is not necessarily probable.

I was annoyed enough about your banning to seek out your website, since there was no point responding to the thread. I don’t know what the relationship between Dan Simon and the rest of the Hero crew is, but it used to bother me every time I saw him drive away another customer with his attitude, and I used to wonder why they allowed it. It no longer bothers me, because I finally realized that DOJ is NOT the Hero System, Steve Long is NOT the Hero System, WE the FANS are the Hero System.

The Hero system was alive before they took over, even if no new products were being created, and it will hopefully exist long after they are gone.

The best part about Hero is, once you have the main rulebook, including the 4th Ed. rulebook, if you prefer, you can do everything else yourself. Unlike a lot of systems, there is no need to buy anything else.

Which means that I can go on playing Hero without buying another thing from DOJ. And at this point that may very well be the case.

I have had my share of unprovoked run-ins with Dan Simon.

One of the most ridiculous was concerning the absence of the Personal/Universal option when choosing a Focus in Hero Designer.

The whole thing started when a new player asked if it was possible to create a Focus that only the owner could use. I did not have my copy of the 5th Ed. rules with me, but I did have Hero Designer on the PC I was using, so I did a quick check.

When I found Focus: Applicability missing from HD, I began to wonder if it had been eliminated in 5th Ed. I posted a question in the Rules forum, and Steve assured me that it was still part of the game, so I very politely asked Dan why it wasn’t included.

His first response was polite, but didn’t really make any sense.

It was basically: Focus Applicability has not been used in any published write-up, so it doesn’t need to be part of Hero Designer.

When I pressed the point, he became predictably rude, and then shut down the thread. (This was in the days before Dan was a Moderator, which is probably why I wasn’t banned for heresy.)

I sent a very reasonable letter to Steve Long about the situation and never received a reply.

Anyway, I am not saying that you have never rubbed anyone the wrong way, but I didn’t see anything in that thread that was ban-worthy.

Most likely one of the hyper-sensitive made a complaint which Dan then used as an excuse to ban you.

I am sure that it will happen to me one day.

Some day, when the remnants of DOJ are sitting around wondering what happened to their company, and why they no longer have any fans, they will hopefully think back to this sort of thing.

Allowing someone to ‘bait and ban’ is no way to maintain a fanbase.

Having such a strong web presence is a two-edged sword.

When new players come to the message boards and have their questions answered by Steve Long himself, it gives them a feeling of closeness to the company.

But that also makes them feel like the way they are treated on the boards is a direct reflection of how the company ‘feels’ about them.

If anyone walked into a brick and mortar store and received the kind of tongue-lashing that Simon dishes out, or if they were ‘thrown out’ of the store for some minor infraction, they would never shop there again.

No matter how much everyone may deny it, Dan Simon is a very visible part of DOJ’s public persona, and the way he behaves can and does alienate customers.

If I own a store and hire an independent firm to provide security, and those guards proceed to belittle, harass, and insult my customers, I can shout to high heaven that they: “Don’t directly work for me!” all day long.

But that won’t stop those customers from leaving and never coming back.

Everyone else I have dealt with at DOJ has seemed perfectly reasonable, but it is impossible not to judge them by what they allow Dan Simon to do.

KA.

P.S. If/when someone from DOJ sees this post, I will probably be banned too. But, if preserving Dan’s ego is more important than retaining customers, then that is their decision.

Incidentally, after I got banned my curiosity got the better of me and I’ve since gone back and read the rest of that thread. I didn’t know anything about Dan’s “official” warning until after he banned me, and he knows/knew that. But as with the situation when I pointed out the obvious with regard to Kara/Fred Bittick, reality doesn’t matter on the Hero boards. People believe lies because that’s what they want to believe.