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homullus posted:Ah, no, sorry. I meant that your post was the kind of thing that is helpful -- it provides information about what has happened. People who don't know about Zak, even in this thread, might have found your post informative. I don't want you to be banned. Ettin posted:Hey folks. Not asking the thread to be ~polite and civil~, but it could use a little chill.
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Jul 27, 2016 03:40
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Evil Mastermind posted:gently caress, I'm sorry. I just knee-jerked and blew up. I'm honestly sorry. No, it's really ok. It was abundantly clear to me that what I'd meant to say was not what you read.
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Jul 27, 2016 03:44
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Guilty Spork posted:So on the one hand I do think that everyone should strive to be better. But on the other hand practically everyone is already better than RPG Voldemort by virtue of not being someone who gives others justifiable panic attacks. There are a lot of people who would very much like to be able to just ignore him, but he won't let them because they get a swarm of harassment that just happens to coincide with every time he has a new book coming out. If you read the comments on that G+ post, there are people--disproportionately women--who are feeling afraid right now because there's yet another Zak Thing coming. There are legitimate issues with the story games crowd, especially when it comes to living up to the values they espouse, but not supporting a convention or walking out of an awards show are pretty small things compared to harassing people out of the industry entirely. Also "everyone should strive to be better" is easy advice to hand out when you can do so from the position of a savvy outsider dispensing nuggets of wisdom instead of someone who's had to regularly deal with the Zak S and Friends Show.
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Jul 27, 2016 03:48
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I have to admit the main reason I care about any sort of "divide" is because I want cool people of all kinds to play games with me. I want to play Feng Shui with the people I play D&D with and I want to play BRP with the people I play Apocalypse World with. And so on. I don't want to miss cool gaming because of goddamn systems beefs. But mitigating this, I think that the rift and the number of people who will refuse to play a game with someone they like because of systems gripes has been way way way way way overstated. I dunno, maybe I move in the right circles but a lot of this feels like tilting at windmills. Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Jul 27, 2016 |
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Jul 27, 2016 04:03
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I would never buy a Zak S product, and I think a number of people in the OSR are not nice people (and I think the current trend of people going ga-ga over The Black Hack is the antithesis of innovation), but I also don't go off on people for owning Vornheim, and I'm running playing and enjoying a campaign of AD&D 1e, and I try not to make assumptions of peoples' political beliefs based on what they play. I guess what I'm saying is I agree that Zak S is an asshat (to put it very mildly), that Mayfair Games guy is doing a "tolerate my intolerance" bit, and we shouldn't tone police just because people get so mad at Zak S that they can't elucidate their points "properly"
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Jul 27, 2016 04:12
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gradenko_2000 posted:I would never buy a Zak S product, and I think a number of people in the OSR are not nice people (and I think the current trend of people going ga-ga over The Black Hack is the antithesis of innovation), but I also don't go off on people for owning Vornheim, and I'm running playing and enjoying a campaign of AD&D 1e, and I try not to make assumptions of peoples' political beliefs based on what they play. Magpie Games, not Mayfair 
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Jul 27, 2016 04:14
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It's not like owning a copy of a Zak S product makes you a bad person. I own a shitload of Orson Scott Card books and I clocked 200 hours into Galactic Civilizations 2. That was before I knew the people behind them were lovely human beings. You can't know the story behind everything you buy (though I personally try to do my homework before I buy/endorse). If you keep supporting people like Zak S after you've been informed well then you're just lovely too.
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Jul 27, 2016 04:21
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Some people have the strength and/or privilege to be able to soldier on with their hobbies despite lovely people being involved. Sometimes they even call them out too. We should respect and help people who don't have that luxury.
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Jul 27, 2016 04:43
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I would like to remind everyone that Zack Smith does not just insult people. He actively encourages his minions to doxx the objects of his ire up to and including photos of one's place of residence and threatening phone calls. There is no loving grey area here. He is a disgusting mockery of a human being and no one should be patronized or corrected for opposing him no matter the language used.
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Jul 27, 2016 04:55
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I've avoided talking about Zak Smith for a long while because I don't want to appear as obsessed with him as he is with everyone who refuses to suck up to him. I also don't want to give Zak exactly what he wants by doing what Mark Diaz Truman is doing: making the conversation about him. My last interaction with him was some weird thing where he tried to label me a "serial harrasser" quoting a SA post wherein I agreed with another post criticizing him. I responded with a post saying something along the lines of "So what's your criteria for calling someone a terrorist? Littering?" and then I ignored him. I can afford to do that because I'm not trying to work in the tabletop business, and I'm not one of the women or transpeople he targets with the Call Me An Ally Or Else tactic. For those who don't "get" what the gently caress is wrong with Zak, he's a narcissist. He doesn't want to have conversations, let alone debates--he wants a crowd of admirers listening to him talk about how awesome he is, forever. When someone has the temerity to disagree with him, he quickly becomes obnoxious, and it only gets worse from there, to the point where he encourages his followers to doxx and stalk people. This Truman idiot wringing his hands and talking about how we're all in the wrong for not trying to fix Zak by being endlessly perfectly nice and civil to him...is an idiot, I don't think I need to explain that to anyone in this thread. Obviously he doesn't know or care about the people who've been hurt by this. But I'd like to point out that equating a community rejecting a toxic individual like Zak to a "two minute hate" is, if I recall correctly, an old tactic that Tarnowski liked to pull out whenever he wanted to say that maybe the storygamers are the real bigots, ever think about that?! It's disgusting. As far as I can tell the Storygame vs. Simulation war is a struggle that exists largely in the mind of Tarnowski and perhaps a very small minority of RPG forums posters. Granted, if someone thinks that I'm part of a "Cultural Marxist Hipster Pseudo-Activist" because I play Monsterhearts, I'm probably going to assume they're a kooky right-winger in turn...because who the gently caress else would take what I just said seriously? Likewise, this whole "Well you're not being civil and it's our collective responsibility to make him behave or force him out" line of argument is just...nonsense. Utter nonsense. And a losing proposition, because if that was actually happening, Zak and Friends could claim he's being persecuted. So yeah, here we have a pathetic pearl-clutching dupe who missed his calling as an inside-the-Beltway pundit, throwing around imaginary controversies for the benefit of perhaps the worst person in the hobby. Cui bono?
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Jul 27, 2016 05:23
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Cards on the table, I don't have a dog in any part of this hobby on the "industry" side, I'm not creating or publishing anything, pretty much my involvement with tradgaming as a hobby these days is posting poo poo to Something Awful and increasingly infrequent bouts of X-Wing and board games and the occasional PbP. I've also never been harassed, doxxed (that I'm aware of), or otherwise driven away from the internet or the hobby, so in general I don't have it that bad compared to a lot of folks. That said I know that at least at one point Zak and his girlfriend had my name on some conspiracy corkboard of Known Elfgame Terrorists based on the fact that when I used to moderate RPGnet's forums I made fun of him. I mean I think that's what it must be because I wasn't the one to ban him. Nothing has ever come of this, I doubt anything ever will, but it's actually a little weird and disconcerting to know that a crazy dude with his own dedicated fanbase built on his opinions about D&D was holding me up as some kind of public enemy. My opinion of Zak would be the same even if this wasn't the case because c'mon, the guy is blatantly an rear end in a top hat, but I'm certainly not inclined to think that maybe this Mark Diaz Truman guy has a point when he's trying to paint Zak's critics as the ones promulgating some Orwellian hatefest.
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Jul 27, 2016 05:32
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Serf posted:It's not like owning a copy of a Zak S product makes you a bad person. I own a shitload of Orson Scott Card books and I clocked 200 hours into Galactic Civilizations 2. That was before I knew the people behind them were lovely human beings. You can't know the story behind everything you buy (though I personally try to do my homework before I buy/endorse). Also how is it that Zak S became a major "person" in the OSR world? He wrote a single supplement to an aggressively mediocre OSR system with gross art. Like if he had made one of the biggies like Adventurer, Conqueror, King, OSRIC, Castle and Crusades, or Labyrinth Lords I could see people talking about him, but he didn't. Is "runs a blog" really all it takes to be big in the RPG community?
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Jul 27, 2016 06:27
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Terrible Opinions posted:What did the Galactic Civ people do? He also had that show D&D With Pornstars on the Escapist (maybe still does, I haven't checked) which was pretty popular for a while.
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Jul 27, 2016 06:29
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Terrible Opinions posted:What did the Galactic Civ people do?
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Jul 27, 2016 06:40
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I miss Mikan, and that's really all I should say on the matter.
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Jul 27, 2016 06:40
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Terrible Opinions posted:What did the Galactic Civ people do? Gamergaters.
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Jul 27, 2016 06:43
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Terrible Opinions posted:What did the Galactic Civ people do? And that's without getting into the bees. Or the *gates.
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Jul 27, 2016 06:43
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Chaotic Neutral posted:Brad Wardell, Stardock CEO, is a sociopathic libertarian (but I repeat myself) who essentially believes his employees are his property. No no, please get into the bees. The bees were amazing, next-level sociopathy and also just completely baffling.
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Jul 27, 2016 06:46
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Roland Jones posted:No no, please get into the bees. The bees were amazing, next-level sociopathy and also just completely baffling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPc9Z2Dn94U
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Jul 27, 2016 06:49
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Asimo posted:I miss Mikan, and that's really all I should say on the matter. i will never forgive mikan, because she chose to go to a jpop concert instead of GM my game one week.
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Jul 27, 2016 06:50
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Chaotic Neutral posted:Brad Wardell, Stardock CEO, is a sociopathic libertarian (but I repeat myself) who essentially believes his employees are his property. Holy poo poo.
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Jul 27, 2016 06:51
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Terrible Opinions posted:What did the Galactic Civ people do? Terrible Opinions posted:Also how is it that Zak S became a major "person" in the OSR world? He wrote a single supplement to an aggressively mediocre OSR system with gross art. Like if he had made one of the biggies like Adventurer, Conqueror, King, OSRIC, Castle and Crusades, or Labyrinth Lords I could see people talking about him, but he didn't. Is "runs a blog" really all it takes to be big in the RPG community? Becoming a "major person" in the OSR world isn't really that hard though, considering their standards. Getting published at all means you're A Thing in the community. One his Zak's schticks early on was rejecting the concept of "game design" as a thing people should practice - those were some of the earliest slapfights he got into.
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Jul 27, 2016 06:51
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Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Aug 25, 2016 |
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Jul 27, 2016 06:53
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potatocubed posted:Gamergaters. Chaotic Neutral posted:Brad Wardell, Stardock CEO, is a sociopathic libertarian (but I repeat myself) who essentially believes his employees are his property.
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Jul 27, 2016 06:56
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Lightning Lord posted:He's really loud and so are his followers. I see more discussion about DCC, S&W or Black Hack than I do about anything he does. Then again I pretty much don't pay attention to LotFP stuff, so maybe I'm wrong. Plus he also won an ENnie (or more, I can't remember), and he got tapped by Mike Mearls to consult on 5E, etc. That's the thing about Zak, it's not just him blowing his own horn, other people seem perfectly happy to keep giving him positive exposure and publicity.
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Jul 27, 2016 07:08
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Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Aug 25, 2016 |
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Jul 27, 2016 07:11
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Mearls likes him, from what I gathered; some of the former's comments made me think he's friends with Zak to some extent, and he tried to cover for him during the outrage at him being a part of the 5e team, trying to defend his character and deny that he harassed people even as Zak was actively harassing people. Mearls is a lovely human being too, though, so this really shouldn't be a surprise.
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Jul 27, 2016 07:14
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Lightning Lord posted:I honestly forgot about all that. Personally, Mearls tapping him to consult shows me how out of touch he is. Sure, point is that Zak actually has a list of accomplishments to his name that explains his degree of fame in OSR circles. He's had a popular webseries, regularly posts to social media with an accumulated fanbase, he's won at least one ENnie and maybe more, and is a credited consultant on the latest edition of D&D. How many other OSR luminaries are out there who can boast the same? The Pundit, for example, while also being a credited D&D Next consultant has to the best of my knowledge won no awards for the games he's published, has not hosted and starred in a webseries about playing D&D with pornstars, and for the longest time used to use Xanga as his social media outlet of choice.
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Jul 27, 2016 07:21
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gradenko_2000 posted:Brad Wardell, Stardock's CEO, is a libertarian that was sued for sexual harassment I've interacted with him a few times not that long ago. He told me that they settled and she dropped the suit, which officially certified him as not a sexual harasser.
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Jul 27, 2016 07:22
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Kai Tave posted:The Pundit [...] for the longest time used to use Xanga as his social media outlet of choice.  What an incredible discovery to have made!
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Jul 27, 2016 07:24
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Lightning Lord posted:I honestly forgot about all that. Personally, Mearls tapping him to consult shows me how out of touch he is. Roland Jones posted:Mearls likes him, from what I gathered; some of the former's comments made me think he's friends with Zak to some extent, and he tried to cover for him during the outrage at him being a part of the 5e team, trying to defend his character and deny that he harassed people even as Zak was actively harassing people. Remember, Mearls' response to a convention inviting a bunch of indie guests and specifically trying to bring in minorities was to comment offhand that they must just be a bunch of nobodies. The list of guests included Mike Pondsmith.
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Jul 27, 2016 07:44
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Lightning Lord posted:The problem is a lot of the conflict around him is behind the scenes, so it's hard for some people not directly involved to parse it. That's why I think the likes of Sarah Horrocks or Natalie Reed, who said Zak "was one of the few times an accusation of transphobia has no substance", but who I still think is a valuable voice regarding transgender people in comics, defend him. Yeah; Natalie Reed was asked to evaluate something, and her conclusion was that since she was unable to find any evidence of transphobia, there probably was no transphobia. Which is a perfectly reasonable response, even she arrived at the wrong conclusion. Evil Mastermind posted:Z caused Mikan to leave the hobby and the loving internet because she made games and had opinions that Z didn't agree with. So it was her fault that she got targeted; if she didn't do stuff Z didn't like she wouldn't have got harassed? I'm a transwoman with pretentions of one day publishing an RPG and this whole course of events just terrifies me to the bones.
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Jul 27, 2016 08:06
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Just going to drop this here, don't mind me... ANY MEANS NECESSARY
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Jul 27, 2016 08:20
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LatwPIAT posted:Yeah; Natalie Reed was asked to evaluate something, and her conclusion was that since she was unable to find any evidence of transphobia, there probably was no transphobia. Which is a perfectly reasonable response, even she arrived at the wrong conclusion. I dunno, that seems pretty garbage to me, disbelieving victims alleging harassment and all. It'd be like looking at that G+ comment thread and seeing all those women talking about how terrified they are, but concluding that since you haven't personally seen any misogyny or harassment from Zak, those things don't exist and all the people accusing him of it are faking it. That's about how "reasonable" that seems to me. Edit: Also she must not have looked hard because Zak's said transphobic stuff publicly in more than one place if I recall correctly, so. Roland Jones fucked around with this message at 08:30 on Jul 27, 2016 |
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Jul 27, 2016 08:27
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Also the idea that walking out of an ENies award ceremony is a betrayal of the OSR community is laughable. Fact is, the OSR community is either more than Zak (in which case objections to Zak is not a betrayal of the OSR community) or the OSR community is so intrinsically tied to Zak that the OSR community and Zak can be treated as the same thing. And if the OSR and Zak can be treated as the same thing, then the OSR community must also be held responsible for Zak S. actions. In which case the OSR community should be treated as transphobic and actively toxic, and we are right to treat anyone claiming to like OSR as if they're approving of transphobia and harassment. Of course, the OSR community is more than Zak S. so I'm not going to label every person who enjoys early D&D clones as someone who thinks I'm a second-class citizen. But when Magpie Games claims that walking out of an ENies award ceremony because a known transphobic harasser was given an award is somehow an attack on the community, well, then Magpie Games are are at best ignorant and at worst saying that harassment and transphobia is perfectly OK. And that I'm not OK with. Roland Jones posted:I dunno, that seems pretty garbage to me, disbelieving victims alleging harassment and all. It'd be like looking at that G+ comment thread and seeing all those women talking about how terrified they are, but concluding that since you haven't personally seen any misogyny or harassment from Zak, those things don't exist and all the people accusing him of it are faking it. That's about how "reasonable" that seems to me. I think it wasn't about disbelieving victims of harassment; it was something about something Zak had said here on SA that some people viewed as transphobic - not specifically targeting anyone, just kind of generically saying bad things about trans people - and trans person Natalie Reed looked at it and said "Nah, probably not transphobic.". I can't even recall if it happened before or after Zak and his girlfriend's attacks on Mikan became publically known. LatwPIAT fucked around with this message at 08:49 on Jul 27, 2016 |
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Jul 27, 2016 08:45
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LatwPIAT posted:I think it wasn't about disbelieving victims of harassment; it was something about something Zak had said here on SA that some people viewed as transphobic - not specifically targeting anyone, just kind of generically saying bad things about trans people - and trans person Natalie Reed looked at it and said "Nah, probably not transphobic.". I can't even recall if it happened before or after Zak and his girlfriend's attacks on Mikan became publically known. Mm, fair enough, I suppose. I saw people in that comment thread from that G+ thing earlier unironically saying that Zak's totally not transphobic even as they also pointed out how people were ignoring the claims of harassment from women there and all, so that got me irate on this subject, and not knowing the context this sounded related or at least similar. I am still livid that the people in that comment thread can throw trans people under the bus so easily there though, in order to defend an abuser that they themselves are alleging abuse from. Just, what the hell.
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Jul 27, 2016 08:56
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Even if Zak did nothing else wrong (hahhahaha) running Mikan out of the industry is a loving crime.
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Jul 27, 2016 09:52
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It's also rather disappointing that you've got people like Monte Cook EDIT: I am very wrong on the latter. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 10:46 on Jul 27, 2016 |
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Jul 27, 2016 09:56
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A big problem is that, since a lot of victims get silenced under a barrage of doxxing, Zak isn't really as well known as a shithead of his caliber should. I am pretty out of the industry as a whole, but it took me a long while to pierce together what did he do from the grognards thread.
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Jul 27, 2016 09:59
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Magpie can suck it. Also, Rob is one of the nicest people I've met.
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Jul 27, 2016 10:04
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