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I hear about Frank & K and the tomes they made, all around the Internet. People get into huge flame wars over the stuff they apparently created. The debate seems to boil down to people arguing over whether "balance" means "compatible with the source material" or "equivalent inter-class combat output".

I was trying to find out what all the fuss was all about by going to the source and reading their words for myself, but I cannot find any original source. I can't find a single post on a forum or blog by Frank Trollman, and I have no idea who K is to even search for his name. There are plenty of sites which compile their work, but they all explicitly state that they did not create that content.

Who are these guys? Is there anywhere I can read their words in their original form?

JAMalcolmson
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  • With respect to balance: although Frank & K get cited for all sorts of things, the "balance means intra-party balance" point is more associated with JaronK's tiers. – fectin Feb 19 '17 at 17:50

2 Answers2

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Frank is Frank Trollman, a long time grognard who has been banned from many of the major RPG forums out there and has been posting on an independent gaming forum, The Gaming Den, where he is an active poster. But he has been active at one point or another on every major forum, if you can't find posts by him you're not looking very hard. He was super active in uncovering the extremely questionable business dealings at Catalyst Games (resulting in getting banned from Dumpshock in 2010) and was very active at rpg.net before getting banned. He was also very active in the WotC forums before being engaged in a series of "Frank vs Sage" threads that got him banned from there as well around 2008.

K is Keith Kaczmarek.

mxyzplk
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  • Is there anything noteworthy about Keith Kaczmarek with regards to this stuff? (You know better than I whatever phenomenon the question's probing into.) – doppelgreener Feb 19 '17 at 13:48
  • Keith did the majority of the writing and editing of the Tomes. He has a BA in Literature from UCSC, while Frank went from UCSC to Charles University in Prague for his Doctor of Medicine. Life gets in the way, hence, no further collaboration. Keith is far more tactful. I think Frank knows what tact is. – Crissa Kentavr Mar 24 '20 at 01:42
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After five seconds of googling, I give you The Gaming Den:

Post with list of Frank & K posts

Hypothetical PDF of all posts which no longer seems accessible...

...but Wayback Machine to the rescue

K is apparently "Keith", according to the PDF.

Azuaron
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