|
I try very hard to be a good person, and would be proud to call myself a social justice warrior if I felt I did enough for the cause of social justice to earn that title. So I feel like poo poo even saying this, but I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of McFarland being permanently banned from RPGnet or fired from Onyx Path for this. Of course any claim of harassment or abuse should be taken seriously but I don't like the idea of permanently shunning someone from their community, taking away their livelihood, and labeling them a monster based on a single claim that we have no way to investigate. But we also need to consider the victim, and they should be made to feel as safe and comfortable as possible in the community, which we can't do if their abuser is present and tolerated. This whole thing is really complicated and awful. I do believe the claims against McFarland but unlike Mentzer or Morke or any of the other gross people the thread has been discussing, there's only one person speaking out at the moment and there's not really much we know about this incident, and I feel uncomfortable passing (my irrelevant, armchair) judgement under the circumstances. He should probably be fired for writing Beast though. He definitely did that, it's clearly documented, and he is unapologetic about his crime. EDIT: Why are all of my lovely posts snipes
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 15:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 18, 2024 02:22 |
|
|
dwarf74 posted:Ah man I had almost completely forgotten about Mythusmage. For a long time I had him confused with Steve "bloodymage" Willet, a chronically ill veteran and struggling would-be OSR publisher who died not quite two years ago.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 16:11
|
|
|
So I decided to contact the poster on rpgnet. She was the victim, and chose to word things that way because she thought it would be dismissed less quickly. She has been sharing info by PM if asked, and came to the thread because it was linked to her; she doesn't post on rpgnet normally. She is satisfied with how things were handled, but at least in part that is because she intends to go back to not posting on rpgnet. However, she noted that the admins consulted with her and asked about her feelings on their decisions at every step of the process. For further info, she gets email notifications of PMs, and she also gave me an email address, but asked that I not share that publically to avoid spam. I can give a transcript of her PM via...well, PM, she asked I share it privately if possible.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 16:11
|
|
|
Enola Gay-For-Pay posted:He should probably be fired for writing Beast though. He definitely did that, it's clearly documented, and he is unapologetic about his crime. That's the thing, though. At this point Beast is basically McFarland's self portrait. It was clear from the beginning that he self-identified with the Beasts, and heroes are his own personal antagonists. They're empowered to inflict their own vices on others, and in fact have to, but it's okay because other people are better off under them. And they're so cool and awesome that all of the other
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 16:27
|
|
|
The other thing is, especially with RPG.net's rules against attacking game designers, any conversation he's involved with from now on there will be the most hideously awkward at best thing. Edit: Oh hey someone who brought up Beast in the context of this got a permaban there. Yeah, screw that place. gourdcaptain fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Oct 24, 2017 |
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 17:03
|
|
|
gourdcaptain posted:The other thing is, especially with RPG.net's rules against attacking game designers, any conversation he's involved with from now on there will be the most hideously awkward at best thing. Saying that someone who has sexually abused a minor has sexually abused a minor isn't an attack, even under RPG.net's rules. Unless you bring it up as a reason he's wrong about mechanics or something really stupid like that, stating it factually isn't against the rules. I'd wish they'd just ban him to make a point, but nothing from their statement reads "Stop talking about this, it's handled".
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 17:13
|
|
|
thelazyblank posted:Saying that someone who has sexually abused a minor has sexually abused a minor isn't an attack, even under RPG.net's rules. Unless you bring it up as a reason he's wrong about mechanics or something really stupid like that, stating it factually isn't against the rules. Wyzard seems to be going with "I don't want people going through this book written by fifteen people trying to find which parts are the children of the poison you've diagnosed in one guy," which is probably the correct tack, given that you really can't expect to do that without commiting PAs on the other eleven people... ...it's probably hopeless, though. They aren't going to be able to get the stink off this one, fair or no.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 17:33
|
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:Wyzard seems to be going with "I don't want people going through this book written by fifteen people trying to find which parts are the children of the poison you've diagnosed in one guy," which is probably the correct tack, given that you really can't expect to do that without commiting PAs on the other eleven people... Yeah, and that they jumped to a permaban after one set of crossed posts with a mod when they won't do any non-voluntary actions against Matt McFarland is pretty awful looking to me at least.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 17:37
|
|
|
gourdcaptain posted:Yeah, and that they jumped to a permaban after one set of crossed posts with a mod when they won't do any non-voluntary actions against Matt McFarland is pretty awful looking to me at least. RPGnet is never going to make "taking action" against users for things in their personal lives into part of their job. That is a headache nobody wants. (Jumping straight to the permaban was probably a mistake, though.)
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 17:51
|
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:Wyzard seems to be going with "I don't want people going through this book written by fifteen people trying to find which parts are the children of the poison you've diagnosed in one guy," which is probably the correct tack, given that you really can't expect to do that without commiting PAs on the other eleven people... Right, but Matt was the lead designer, his wife was the editor. He came up with the themes and made sure they stayed there through 3 revisions despite playtesters and kickstarter backers telling him that this poo poo was problematic as hell. You can see in the books that are more far removed from his influence, that Beasts are portrayed as the actual monsters, or at least lying to themselves. Conquering Heroes has a bunch of heroes who are actually heroic, and who were put on their current path by horrible beasts. (of course, two of the four symapthetic heroes are also gay, so... that weird coding is there, by that same token though another one eats ghosts and has bloody soul shits)
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 17:52
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:even before all the weird poo poo about him and Morke playing chicken with Rich Thomas over Exalted came out.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 18:40
|
|
|
When there's no more room in Hell, Grog.txt will walk the Earth.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 19:37
|
|
|
Sigh
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 19:43
|
|
|
Warthur posted:Is there a quick summary of that? That's a slice of Exalted drama I somehow missed. There are screenshots of chats I never looked closely at from some poo poo-stirring "exposé", but from what I recall Holden and John held further work on the line hostage until they were paid for work they felt had been used without payment. Which isn't at all unreasonable if that's actually what was going on, because even the best parts of this industry are barely okay in their treatment of freelancers. Nevertheless it was still pretty rich coming from them, considering the tens or hundreds of thousands of unpaid wordcount they are peripherally and directly responsible for encouraging writers to shovel at WW/OP.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 19:45
|
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:Wyzard seems to be going with "I don't want people going through this book written by fifteen people trying to find which parts are the children of the poison you've diagnosed in one guy," which is probably the correct tack, given that you really can't expect to do that without commiting PAs on the other eleven people... Yeah, I'm pretty sure we're not getting Beast 2nd Ed any time soon.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 19:48
|
|
|
Enola Gay-For-Pay posted:I try very hard to be a good person, and would be proud to call myself a social justice warrior if I felt I did enough for the cause of social justice to earn that title. So I feel like poo poo even saying this, but I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of McFarland being permanently banned from RPGnet or fired from Onyx Path for this. Of course any claim of harassment or abuse should be taken seriously but I don't like the idea of permanently shunning someone from their community, taking away their livelihood, and labeling them a monster based on a single claim that we have no way to investigate. But we also need to consider the victim, and they should be made to feel as safe and comfortable as possible in the community, which we can't do if their abuser is present and tolerated. I'm not going to morn the death of a career for a guy who, for years, got away with raping a 15 year old even once.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 19:52
|
|
|
Enola Gay-For-Pay posted:I try very hard to be a good person, and would be proud to call myself a social justice warrior if I felt I did enough for the cause of social justice to earn that title. So I feel like poo poo even saying this, but I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of McFarland being permanently banned from RPGnet or fired from Onyx Path for this. Of course any claim of harassment or abuse should be taken seriously but I don't like the idea of permanently shunning someone from their community, taking away their livelihood, and labeling them a monster based on a single claim that we have no way to investigate. But we also need to consider the victim, and they should be made to feel as safe and comfortable as possible in the community, which we can't do if their abuser is present and tolerated. Considering the crime being accused here is sexual assault against a minor (also note that sex crimes tend to be very serial) and gaming is full of young people, the proper answer here is to sever ties and force the dude out of the industry. Ideally, the full answer involves him being placed in prison for several years and a listing on the sex offender registry with all the implications that entails. It ensures he has minimal contact with any potential future victims, and if you're at all interested in retribution a few years in prison helps reduce someone's lifespan quite a bit. It's rather mindblowing that there's even a discussion on this. If Metzner is a bad guy for skeeving on a woman and trying to wreck her career when she's not interested (FYI , it is an awful thing), a man who takes advantage of his minor student and actually has sex with her is orders of magnitude worse and requires a worse response. The crime being 15 years old only really means one thing to me, and that's the sad fact there are a bunch more victims out there who haven't come forward yet. Again, sex crimes are serial crimes, and sex crimes against minors even more so. The fact that the guy has a job working with special needs children is mortifying, since that's the exact position you want to ensure rapists stay out of. I legit have half a mind to report it to his employer myself, if only to help protect any current victims and shine enough of a spotlight so that previous victims can get some help or some level of justice. EDIT: 15 years ago, not 25. rkajdi fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Oct 24, 2017 |
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 19:58
|
|
|
I saw that red text title and knew the post was going to be spicy and boy howdy it was.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 20:02
|
|
|
rkajdi posted:Considering the crime being accused here is sexual assault against a minor (also note that sex crimes tend to be very serial) and gaming is full of young people, the proper answer here is to sever ties and force the dude out of the industry. Ideally, the full answer involves him being placed in prison for several years and a listing on the sex offender registry with all the implications that entails. It ensures he has minimal contact with any potential future victims, and if you're at all interested in retribution a few years in prison helps reduce someone's lifespan quite a bit. You uh, sure seem to know a lot more specific details about this situation than I do. EDITEDIT: Decided this was really a post of its own. Cool Dad fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Oct 24, 2017 |
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 20:04
|
|
|
Arivia posted:I saw that red text title and knew the post was going to be spicy and boy howdy it was. Yeah, I got it arguing with Marxoteens in D&D. I don't have a high tolerance for sex criminals, and an adult who sleeps with a minor is the definition of a sex criminal. This is serious poo poo and is entirely unrelated to whatever RPG work the guy has done, good or bad. And again, lots of the gaming community is younger people, and it's worrying that we have a dude with this serious an accusation against him having any kind of access to children. Enola Gay-For-Pay posted:You uh, sure seem to know a lot more specific details about this situation than I do. I don't. All the information I have is between what was posted by the victim and a simple search to find the guy's RPGGeek page (literal first link) since I didn't know who he was ahead of time. Last sentence has him as a special pathologist for a school district. I'm specifically not doxxing him, but it's troubling as hell.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 20:19
|
|
|
rkajdi posted:a man who takes advantage of his minor student I'm going to regret asking this, but: Do you have any source or basis for the claim that the victim was a student of his?
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 20:20
|
|
|
“Marxoteens.” Okay sure buddy right.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 20:21
|
|
|
The Wyzard posted:I'm going to regret asking this, but: I thought it was in the claim on RPGNet. If I misread that, I'm wrong on that. I would also argue it's the least important part of what I understood the crime to be.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 20:23
|
|
|
Nuns with Guns posted:I'm not going to morn the death of a career for a guy who, for years, got away with raping a 15 year old even once. At least twice, according to her initial claim.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 20:25
|
|
|
rkajdi posted:I thought it was in the claim on RPGNet. If I misread that, I'm wrong on that. I would also argue it's the least important part of what I understood the crime to be. I don't know how it affects any "objective" reading of how important the claim is, but...well, I think it would matter. I'm not trying to attack your credibility or nitpick you, but if the victim is claiming to have been one of his students, and I either somehow missed that on RPGnet, or it's come out elsewhere? I would want to know. Thank you for your response.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 20:25
|
|
|
The thing that bothers me about this situation is that I always want to absolutely believe and support victims of sexual assault and harassment and to always err on the side of caution, but I am also uncomfortable with the idea that a single claim of wrongdoing can and should, without investigation, cost someone their job and reputation. In McFarland's specific case, however, I think his accuser is absolutely telling the truth and that his silence is utterly damning, and if she even vaguely contemplates pressing charges he should be accountable to the full extent of the law.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 20:26
|
|
|
I believe the accuser entirely; however, I am not about to invent nonexistent accusers for potential additional crimes that may or may not have happened. There is one accuser. That's all we have, unless someone else comes forward. The accuser has said nothing about being his student; you can PM her if you want to find out more without inventing stuff she didn't say. She is also happy with how the situation's been handled, and I've satisfied myself with that. I do not want Onyx Path - or anyone - to hire McFarland for future work, and I do not intend to buy anything he works on. I wouldn't be mad if RPGnet banned him, but I'm not gonna be mad that they didn't, either, if the guy's victim isn't.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 20:36
|
|
|
Arivia posted:“Marxoteens.” Okay sure buddy right. Considering they're folks attacking the Democrats from the political left, I don't see any other term for them. I also don't see what it has to do with one of the bog standard "Maybe it's false/Let's hear his side" kind of MRAish responses that always seems to come out when a woman brings forward an allegation of rape. That's the point Enola Gay-For-Pay brought that I'm responding to. Again, this is serious poo poo and is basically as tangentially involved with RPG stuff as the NeoGAF thing is with video games. Acting like McFarland should be dropped for making even as lovely a game Beast is instead of being a rapist is just impossible for me to comprehend. It's worth discussing Matt McFarland for the same reason I brought up the Metzner stuff here originally. The nerd community in general has been a victim of the nerd social fallacy, and that's let a bunch of creepers like Metzner and worse into the community. I want to clean house on sexual harassers and sex criminals, and I don't honestly see a lot of reasonable counter-arguments to the position. I do see a lot of cowardice from people in power about doing the right thing and booting them, and it's actively helping to make the community a worse place. rkajdi fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Oct 24, 2017 |
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 20:39
|
|
|
rkajdi posted:Considering they're folks attacking the Democrats from the political left, I don't see any other term for them. As an European, the democrats are pretty loving right-wing.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 20:41
|
|
|
where can i join the marxoteens
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 20:42
|
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:RPGnet is never going to make "taking action" against users for things in their personal lives into part of their job. That is a headache nobody wants. Maybe. We're trying to do the best we can in a tough situation, and maybe we're too quick on the trigger as a result. How about if you (the one who got banned) send an appeal (admin.rpgnet@gmail.com) after things have settled down a bit?
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 20:42
|
|
|
how is it even possible,,, to attack the democrats,,, from the left. they are the furthest left of any poltical organization on god's green earth.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 20:43
|
|
|
My question is... why would McFarland even want to post on RPG.net after this? How can he show his face there anymore?
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 20:46
|
|
|
I don't know. I'd expect him to say something, silence just makes everyone assume the worst.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 20:52
|
|
|
Enola Gay-For-Pay posted:his silence is utterly damning I disagree with this entirely. Even if her accusations are totally fabricated, Matt would have to be batshit crazy to come out and make a statement. I think it's easy, when one spends a lot of time on the internet and internet forums, to overestimate their importance in the grand scheme of things. I doubt that even 5% of the people who purchased Beast, for example, have ever partaken of any of the forum shouting about its various problems (which are real, although sometimes overstated.) The accusations against Matt could have repercussions rather beyond whether he keeps posting on big purple. Silence is his best friend right now. Source: I am a lawyer. Matt is playing grown-up games now, and they don't involve exploding d10s.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 20:53
|
|
|
Enola Gay-For-Pay posted:The thing that bothers me about this situation is that I always want to absolutely believe and support victims of sexual assault and harassment and to always err on the side of caution, but I am also uncomfortable with the idea that a single claim of wrongdoing can and should, without investigation, cost someone their job and reputation. It doesn't seem appropriate to what-if about a situation where an innocent person's life is destroyed by false accusations when the accused here seems to have quietly owned up to it and quickly withdrawn from public spheres. If he's gone quiet to prepare a statement carefully addressing the issue well there's not much to do besides wait. Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Oct 24, 2017 |
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 20:57
|
|
|
Nuns with Guns posted:It doesn't seem appropriate to what-if about a situation where an innocent person's life is destroyed by false accusations when the accused here seems to have quietly owned up to it and quickly withdrawn from public spheres. Like the actual lawyer said, immediately clamming up is the only sane option in this situation and it would be inappropriate to read entire novels out of it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 21:00
|
|
|
The Wyzard posted:I think it's easy, when one spends a lot of time on the internet and internet forums, to overestimate their importance in the grand scheme of things. I doubt that even 5% of the people who purchased Beast, for example, have ever partaken of any of the forum shouting about its various problems (which are real, although sometimes overstated.) The accusations against Matt could have repercussions rather beyond whether he keeps posting on big purple. Silence is his best friend right now. Rich regularly talks about how one of the biggest problems Onyx Path has is letting people know they even exist, and so far as I'm aware Beast has hardly any presence in brick and mortar stores; people who go for Beast are going to be a tiny subset of the market, to wit: People who are into RPGs... ...who like WoD/CoD... ...who are aware of Onyx Path's existence and current activities... ...who buy via DriveThru... ...and who dig down into the mid-to-lower tier CoD lines rather than sticking to the big guns. I would characterise those as tending to be hardcore gamers who are aware of Beast thanks to generally keeping their finger on the post, and therefore correspondingly much more likely to be aware of forum drama. I suspect outside of the limited demographic I outlined above there barely anyone has even *heard* of Beast. It's not so much made a splash as it's sunk without trace.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 21:03
|
|
|
The Wyzard posted:I doubt that even 5% of the people who purchased Beast, for example, have ever partaken of any of the forum shouting about its various problems (which are real, although sometimes overstated.) Beast is disturbing abuse apologia with very uncomfortable queer coding. Rand Brittain posted:Like the actual lawyer said, immediately clamming up is the only sane option in this situation and it would be inappropriate to read entire novels out of it. The actual lawyer posted while I was busy typing on my phone. E- and either way it seems inappropriate to handwring at this time about an injustice done to a man's reputation because we don't have both sides of the story Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Oct 24, 2017 |
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 21:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 18, 2024 02:22 |
|
|
I haven't posted here in a while, but I got pointed at this thread because of the fiasco. I'm not going to reveal any backstage goodies or the like, but I do feel free to be more conversational about things when I'm off-site and not wearing the admin hat. Nothing I say here is in any kind of official capacity, and doesn't represent the views of SKOTOS, RPGnet, or any other mod. 100% honestly, I have no idea if we did the objectively right thing or not. Every single choice we have been presented with is in some way wrong. If there's substance to the accusations against Matt (It's probably best if I don't discuss what my personal opinions on that might be, for a variety of reasons that the clever among you can work out) then we probably are making the site more uncomfortable for abuse victims. That is demographically a Iot of people. I am aware that this particular accuser is a real human being and not just a troll who sprang out of the tubes, and I have no reason to believe she is motivated to make things up. I suppose I should start saying "victim" instead of "accuser." That said, we are absolutely the target of trolls and malcontents from time to time, and I would bet one hundred American dollars that there will be trolls accusing one or more other staff members of sexual misconduct or rape within the next month or so. That is going to happen, just to see what we do, and also to set us up as villains when we don't act on them. But that's not what this accusation is. But I am also pretty confident, again purely on a personal level, that Matt today would not do the poo poo that Matt of many years ago is accused of doing. That doesn't mean any victims should shut up; it doesn't mean we shouldn't hear their stories, it doesn't mean the things that happened to them magically ceased to have happened. It just complicates what those of us in 2017 feel is the morally correct response. If there are...gently caress, I pray to the Godless universe this doesn't come up...if there are other victims out there, I hope they come forward. That would change the calculus. A lot. Again, I'm sure the clever among you can figure things out without me drawing you a picture. (For the record, for those of you who think the morally correct response is that Matt goes to jail...well, I'm not here to argue about that. I'm not a cop and I haven't finished building the cells in my basement yet, so that one is out of my hands. Subtext: Please stop acting like the staff of RPGnet should inflict real-world or professional consequences on him. We don't have that kind of pull.) I would also GUESS that we are not actually going to see Matt posting a whole lot in the near future. Maybe I'm wrong. That doesn't mean we're stealth-banning him, I just don't believe, from what I know of him, that he's the kind of guy to stroll blithely through a room where he was just accused of being a rapist. I would bet he's going to keep his head down for a while. I would GUESS this is going to have implications for OPP. I don't know what those are, and I doubt anybody else does, but I bet this is eating up a share of Rich Thomas' CPU cycles even as we speak. I am profoundly uncomfortable with this being used as fodder for a reinterpretation of Beast as some kind of manifesto for real-world monstrousness. There are people who worked on that book that I know to be of unimpeachable moral character and good intentions. It...did not come out right, let's put it that way. I hate seeing all the writers get dragged through the mud because of a project that simply wasn't up to the quality of Demon, which is a loving gem of a game, and doesn't get enough love. I guess I wish I saw more people out there talking about games they love and fewer people carrying a grudge against a game they don't like, albeit for reasons that are not mere nonsense.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 21:05
|
|