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Nuns with Guns posted:Beast is disturbing abuse apologia with very uncomfortable queer coding. I'm not going to get into an argument over whether that's true or not, because I don't really want to air my opinions on the game in any depth right now. Like, basically, I hate that an allegation of real-world rape is being used as fodder to critique a roleplaying game that many unconnected people worked on. That's hosed up, good sir or madam. Like, ascribing such a high level of malice to the core book of the game paints a lot of people with the same brush. I hope you understand why I think that's unfair.
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Oct 24, 2017 21:10
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The reason that people accused of crimes get all kinds of protection under the law - a right to an attorney, the right to not be forced to testify against yourself, the presumption of innocence with the burden of proof on the prosecution, etc. - is because of hundreds of years of developments in law that gradually recognized that the State is very, very powerful compared to the Individual. That imbalance of power leads to horrifying abuses when the individual has little or no recourse against accusations. However, the same principle obviously does not pertain in the courts of public opinion. While the mob is (in theory and usually but not always in practice) prevented by government from exacting mob justice, there is no legal principle - or, probably, practical approach - to preventing or limiting the ability of the majority to judge individuals and cause enormous or irreparable social and financial harm to them without recourse. Essentially, we're not allowed to lynch people, but people can totally be socially and economically ruined based entirely on reputation, and the protections that pertain in the legal system are not available to individuals socially. You do not get a lawyer (provided for free if you cannot afford one) to manage your social reputation; you do not get to face your accuser in court, and challenge the evidence presented against you; there is no fourth amendment right that gets improperly sourced evidence disallowed from use against you; there is no mens rea test of "state of mind" to consider as mitigating factors vs. the absolute question of whether a specific event did or did not occur; and there is no appeals process once judgement is passed. For practical reasons, that's all probably impossible to change. And the fact that none of those protections exist obviously cannot lead to people simply entirely dismissing the transgressions of others in our society. We all know or have known assholes; you could hardly go through life simply dismissing outright assholish behavior on the basis that the rear end in a top hat hasn't had his day in court to defend himself against those who call his behavior assholish. So instead, everyone - individually and collectively - has to try and deal with other people's transgressions as best they can. Even worse, there's a long and sordid history of entirely dismissing transgressions when the transgressor is popular - or male - or victimizing women sexually - or a combination of the above. And in particular we are seeing more and more that such transgressions, and dismissals, have been a pandemic within the RPG community for decades. We can see the same principles of protection of the individual at play when it comes to employment. It's recognized that most individuals need a job; that employers have hugely outsized power over individuals; and thus, employers must labor under various regulations and restrictions that limit their power. The labor right to organize was hard-fought and hard-won. Individuals have legal rights not to be sexually harrassed at work, OSHA nominally protects workers from having to work in excessively hazardous or negligent environments, there is a minimum wage, etc. Perhaps at some point the law needs to catch up to and recognize the influence and power of social groups, including social media. Should individuals for example have some kind of regulatory protection from being abused by the likes of Facebook, given its ubiquity and increasing influence over people's lives? Should someone for example have a right not to be banned from Facebook on the basis of religion, race, age, gender... given that being banned from Facebook can have a real and significant affect on one's ability to network, find work, engage with the public, etc? OK, but what about a game industry forum, and someone employed as a career within that industry? A person is accused of something unacceptable, even heinous. What do you do? On the one hand, it's important to use social tools to protect the vulnerable from abuses; you can't just ignore the presence of someone you suspect of being a danger. On the other hand, when we form groups, we gain power over individuals; the larger or more influential the group, the more imbalanced that power becomes. Just as with the government, although to a lesser degree, it's important as a general principle to be cautious with the use of power, in order to protect the innocent. But, given that the power of social groups to crush individuals is less than the power of the government to do so (the government can take everything you have, imprison you, and even kill you), by the same proportion, the caution needed to protect individuals from social groups is lessened. I'm getting to a point here: as a person nominally in charge of a social forum, you are not entirely absolved of responsibility for protecting individuals from groups. While you also have responsibility to protect individuals from abuse of others within your domain. Your responsibility is proportional to your power. Consider as a thought experiment: if you have an alleged victimizer within your group, is it acceptable to simply tell victims they are free to leave, if they don't want to be victimized? I think we can all agree that's unacceptable, at least in part because the victims lose something of value by being driven off. The forum is not inconsequential to the victim's lives. You cannot just brush off the accusation and permit future abuses. But if we agree that's the case, then we have to also accept that banning cannot be taken lightly. If someone is accused of transgression, clearly you have some level of responsibility to the person being accused, just as you do to victims. If being denied access to this community is significant for victims, then it's significant for everyone. Yet, you lack the tools and processes of the government; the investigative powers, the adversarial justice system, the appeals processes. Most likely, all you have is testimony, and that testimony may be unchallenged or unchallengable. It's easy if someone posts something unacceptable: their post is evidence, and you can evaluate it. It's much much harder if it's an accusation of offsite behavior - perhaps in the past - with no newspaper accounts, no independent corroboration. You have to believe the victim, right? Disbelieving the victim has been a huge problem, a way of avoiding responsibility, and the experience of not being believed further traumatizes victims. But you also have to accept that, in theory, false or mistaken or incomplete accusations can happen, and you have some level of responsibility to those being accused, too. The balance should lean heavily towards protecting victims, but the protection of possible innocent people being accused can't be completely ignored, once we agree that being denied access to a forum is not a totally trivial outcome. I'm not playing devil's advocate, here, and I want to make it clear that I think that dude probably raped that girl, and that he probably belongs in jail, and that he probably should be banned from that forum, too. I'm only trying to address the broad discussion and couch it in terms open for discussion, since this is the "TG as an Industry" thread - we are talking all around the principles of what duty of care and standard processes do major players owe to forums posters, organized game participants, attendees at conferences, etc. I think it's important to evaluate those things with a view to the very difficult balance that has to be struck.
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Oct 24, 2017 21:12
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The Wyzard posted: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'd also like to point out that this is a big, nasty surprise to the rpg.net Staff. I'll be blunt - I don't know a thing about the other mods outside of the forum. I know maybe a handful of real names, have met or talked to some of the other mods on the phone maybe a handful of times over the course of the last decade and a half I've been a mod on there. We don't do background checks. There's no way for us to know anything about someone's real-life beyond what they tell us. So when this went down last Sunday night it was an INSTANT disaster. I went from "hey, I've got a few spare minutes, let's see what's up" to "holy poo poo" in about ten seconds. We've been trying to deal with this and do the right thing as best we can, and things are moving fast, but as Wyzard said, there are no good choices here. Cessna fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Oct 24, 2017 |
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Oct 24, 2017 21:12
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Mors Rattus posted: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. Here are my thoughts on the matter. That the victim is happy with how things were handled is good, that's always important to focus on first and foremost. That said, the victim also plans on simply never posting to RPGnet again, which is entirely their prerogative but it does raise the point of what about everybody else on the forum who now know that A). a now-former moderator and still-at-present game designer was accused of raping an underaged person and these accusations apparently have enough merit for the site owners to step in and make a statement regarding them and B). that he's still going to be allowed to post there. The mission statement for RPGnet for years now has been to create a welcoming environment that strives to be a place where people can feel comfortable without having to deal with abuse, harassment, bigotry, and general shittiness, and I'm not sure how to square that with allowing someone in Matt's shoes to continue to be a member of the community. "It was a long time ago" is one of those statements whose value depends on what exactly you're discussing. "Way back when, he said some inappropriate things to somebody at a convention, but since then he hasn't really done anything like that" is one thing, "way back when he had sex with a minor, even after they said no" is a way, way different sort of thing. And on top of that there's now the weird and potentially heinous intersection of RPGnet's "don't make attacks against game industry people" rules running up against the fact that one of them not only penned a game I would charitably describe as "controversial" but it's turned out that whoops, he's also done some pretty heinous poo poo, and you can see that this is already creating a hugely awkward situation for everybody involved. So I'm not really sure what value there is in openly declaring that Matt is welcome to remain a part of the RPGnet community at this point. Every interaction, every discussion about him or his work, is going to be colored by this from now on with people going through mental contortions to play the "separate the art from the artist" game and I feel like that goes directly against the goal of making the forums a welcoming place when everybody has to step on eggshells about the guy who did this stuff. I can appreciate that this is probably one of the shittiest things anybody on the current mod staff have ever had to deal with. As I said earlier, I do not envy anybody having to deal with either being the ones to have to craft a response to this or having to deal with the fact that someone they knew on a personal and professional basis has done something like this at any part of their lives. But if this matter is being treated with enough gravity to warrant demodding and an official statement from Shannon regarding the matter, and reading Shannon's statement while it doesn't go into any gritty details it certainly does read as though the accusations aren't being flatly refuted, then I feel like it would probably be better for all involved if RPGnet were to simply ban him rather than allow him to be a part of the community and send a message, however unintended, to other victims of abuse that even if they come forward with something, the person they come forward about might still get to hang around. Kai Tave fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Oct 24, 2017 |
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Oct 24, 2017 21:13
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Mors Rattus posted: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. A small correction; there are two accusers, or at the very least the primary accuser and a second individual/account who also stepped up to say that MacFarland was abusive. That second individual only posted twice in the rpg.net thread that I recall, but also later PM'd me directly.
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Oct 24, 2017 21:14
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Mors Rattus posted: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. Again, it's not about inventing them, it's about pathology. Sex crimes are pathological, meaning you get the same individual committing lots of incidences of similar crimes. You see it incredibly often when a high profile sex criminal gets busted- see people like Jerry Sandusky. This is straight out of basic sociology. I mean math-wise considering the victimhood rates (20-25% depending on study), and the rates of perpetrators (under 5% by similar studies) the crime has to be serial for the two to make sense together. I also honestly might not have brought it up except for seeing his profile showing he works as a speech pathologist for a public school system. Considering the accusation, that's a red flag if I've ever seen one. 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. I'd be more accepting of this attitude if it actually resulted in anything getting done. We just had a woman come forward about something less serious about a man in the RPG community with actual chat logs, and nothing's really getting done about it. He's still working and acting like he's a decent person, and she's getting slammed by the usual types and not believed. For an older crime that just passed off as he said/she said I don't expect any level of justice to be done here. And again it's hyper worrying since there's fairly good odds given his self-described profession McFarland works or worked with kids.
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Oct 24, 2017 21:14
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ban the dude and move on, jesus christ
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Oct 24, 2017 21:16
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I'm not a lawyer, but "don't feed the fire" is pretty much the best solution for someone embroiled in internet drama of any sort. Absent new bits of information, internet outrage burns out pretty fast, regardless of the legitimacy of what caused it. That said, yeah, I'd guess his bridges on RPG.net at least are pretty much permanently burned whether he's banned or not. I'm sure he can find a home in the groggier parts of the web if he really wants.
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Oct 24, 2017 21:16
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quote:I am profoundly uncomfortable with this being used as fodder for a reinterpretation of Beast as some kind of manifesto for real-world monstrousness That was the existing interpretation, though, or at least an existing interpretation. This just gives it substantially more subtext. Kurieg's critical write-up of Beast in F&F didn't come out of nowhere and it was published over a year ago, so it's pretty disingenuous to claim that people are only interpreting Beast as an abuse metaphor in light of the revelation that the lead author is a pedophile rapist. That was already happening.
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Oct 24, 2017 21:16
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The Wyzard posted:I'm not going to get into an argument over whether that's true or not, because I don't really want to air my opinions on the game in any depth right now. Like, basically, I hate that an allegation of real-world rape is being used as fodder to critique a roleplaying game that many unconnected people worked on. That's hosed up, good sir or madam. I'm not using Beast to psychoanaylze its creator. I'm saying and have previously said it's a lovely game even putting all this information to the side. So maybe quit using this place as your offsite shithouse and gently caress off? Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Oct 24, 2017 |
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Oct 24, 2017 21:17
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Kai Tave posted:And on top of that there's now the weird and potentially heinous intersection of RPGnet's "don't make attacks against game industry people" rules running up against the fact that one of them not only penned a game I would charitably describe as "controversial" but it's turned out that whoops, he's also done some pretty heinous poo poo, and you can see that this is already creating a hugely awkward situation for everybody involved. You are not wrong. The problem, more specifically, is not "separate the art from the artist." It's "separate the art from between one artist and a whole bunch of other artists who collaborated imperfectly on the same work." If Matt were the only person who worked on Beast, this would be a different question, even in the absence of the present allegation. RPZip posted:That was the existing interpretation, though, or at least an existing interpretation. This just gives it substantially more subtext. I'm pretty familiar with the controversy as it occurred during the Kickstarter and immediately in the aftermath. I'm not familiar with the article you're referencing, but several people have mentioned it so far. I'm likely not quite up to speed on the issue if its as definitive as its been implied to be. I suppose I should track it down and read it before I say anything else.
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Oct 24, 2017 21:23
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The Wyzard posted:You are not wrong. Matt was the project lead, right? Like Beast was his baby, so to speak. It sucks for the other people as unfair as it might be, but Matt is the figurehead for Beast. He's the guy who got to decide what did and didn't go in the book even if he isn't the one who wrote literally every word of it, and the fact that you can find a tonal difference between Beast and later works that reference Beasts absent Matt's direction suggests that his influence is a tangible part of the overall project.
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Oct 24, 2017 21:34
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The Wyzard posted:You are not wrong. http://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/kurieg/beast-the-primordial/ Here's a link to it. It goes in depth to the differences of the game over the course of its development due to leak of an early playtest draft that was where the initial controversy came from, and a critical examination of what did and did not change after revision. http://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/kurieg/beast-night-horrors-conquering-heroes/ Here's the second book printed for Beast, one where McFarland did not have a direct managerial role in the creation of its content, and Kurieg notes how different the game's content is tonally seemingly as a result of that. I realize that this is a huge lovely situation for you guys, and fully agree that there were plenty of people who worked on Beast that were upstanding people doing their best with what they had (hell, I know a few myself), but, as someone who has been involved with critical discussion of Beast for about as long as is possible, I'm going to chip in my agreement that the initial draft, which was already deeply uncomfortable to read as someone with a history of abuse in my life, takes on a much more quietly horrifying weight in this new light.
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Oct 24, 2017 21:34
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The Wyzard posted:I'm likely not quite up to speed on the issue if its as definitive as its been implied to be. I suppose I should track it down and read it before I say anything else. Please do.
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Oct 24, 2017 21:35
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Kai Tave posted:Matt was the project lead, right? Like Beast was his baby, so to speak. It sucks for the other people as unfair as it might be, but Matt is the figurehead for Beast. He's the guy who got to decide what did and didn't go in the book even if he isn't the one who wrote literally every word of it, and the fact that you can find a tonal difference between Beast and later works that reference Beasts absent Matt's direction suggests that his influence is a tangible part of the overall project. No argument.
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Oct 24, 2017 21:39
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Upon reflection, I also realize a lot of my opinion of Beast is poisoned due to an early game of Beast run by Matt that he recapped on RPGNet, the alarming parts of which are posted here, and the actual original thread is here. As I noted at the time, the Makara player in particular is more or less a carbon copy of the abusive figure in my personal history, and this is treated by Matt as a normal and perfectly in-line-with-tone way to play the Beast equivalent of Joe Average.
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Oct 24, 2017 21:42
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I've never been involved in RPGnet drama and only registered an account there when someone here pointed out the Ctech guys were doing a Q&A so I could ask why they made so many bad decisions. I haven't used it since. I have no context for Beast drama surrounding that website beyond what floated over here. I can assure you that Unfortunate Implications fall off the game by the bushel with even a cursory reading. This has been the case since long before this recent news broke.
Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Oct 24, 2017 |
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Oct 24, 2017 21:47
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The Wyzard posted:No argument. I'm not attacking the individual writers of the game. I'm attacking the game as a concept. It's themes, it's tone, and it's characters. There's nothing that should have gone into that book without Matt or his Wife signing off on it. So yes I feel justified in rejudging the tone of the game in light of recent events. My opinion of Matt has changed. My opinion on the book's writing and composition have not, and my review of the book stands. My only regrets are the hours I spent defending Matt as a writer and a person because "Demon was good, obviously Beast is an aberration." The time I spent begging and pleading with him to fix Beast's flaws in advance of it's final release. He printed the game he wanted to print.
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Oct 24, 2017 21:54
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The rpg.net solution seems like it's a valiant attempt to resolve the issue without passing judgement, but what needs to be done is to pass judgement. The mods should decide whether or not they think he did it and act accordingly. If what mods have said is true and they believe the victim, what benefit is there to the community to maintain an unreformed sexual predator in its midst? Their vocalized position and their response doesn't match up, though I understand the situation is horrible all around.
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Oct 24, 2017 21:58
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Daeren posted:Upon reflection, I also realize a lot of my opinion of Beast is poisoned due to an early game of Beast run by Matt that he recapped on RPGNet, the alarming parts of which are posted here, and the actual original thread is here. The only thing I can ever actually remember about Beast is the villainous Hero who is a teenage girl in a coma who had the temerity to fight off her rapist, but I think this playtest might stick in my brain too, yeah.
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Oct 24, 2017 22:02
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rkajdi posted:
Hold on, hold on. 1) Where are you getting this idea about a student being involved? I haven't seen that accusation anywhere and I'm a bit more familiar with this situation than most for various reasons. I don't think the accuser said anything about that, and I don't think you're doing her any favors if this is a telephone game thing where the allegations are getting altered by other people. The accuser was very careful in the language choice and I don't think it's a good idea to mangle that. I don't think Matt _had_ any students back then. 2) 18 years ago, not 15. It's a little difference, but again, kinda important to get these things right. One of the worst things other people can do is misrepresent what an accuser has said, for a lot of obvious reasons. 3) There's a whole discussion on respecting victim wishes in the thread over there, but I just want to say that you wouldn't be doing the victim any favors by reporting this without her permission. You could very well just pull her into a hellish collision with what our society has the nerve to refer to as a "justice" system. As for other potential victims, that's an unrelated subject. But "sex crimes are serial crimes" is one of those dangerous television myths that experts contest, along with "people who have been abused are going to become abusers" and stuff like that. Spreading that myth has a very good chance of actually harming victims because people start expecting moustache-twirling serial rapists and refuse to consider that someone who is not committing rapes now could have done it in the past. Whereas thats the opposite of the standard case, and one of the big reasons that so many women don't speak up; because they were raped by someone who didn't repeat it, and thus people are going to say, "oh, but he's so nice, I can't believe he goes around raping people." (EDIT2: Serial sex crimes do happen, but it's not the standard like television makes it out to be, and there's no way for an outside observer to determine if any single instance is part of a pattern or not. It's about as destructive as the idea that the average rapist is some menacing stranger, which used to be the standard television representation.) The implicit inverse of what you're saying about Matt here is that if he's not raping minors now, then the victim was a liar, because sex crimes are serial crimes. Are you really, really sure you want to go off half-cocked on something that could _destroy the victim's life_ if other people wade into things without all the facts? Trusting the victim doesn't just mean believing their statements about the event. It also means paying attention to their wishes, because they understand the situation better than random strangers on the internet. EDIT: I just want to specify I'm not pulling this out of thin air. I don't want to say too much and risk outting survivors I know, but suffice to say, this is something I've discussed quite often. And I understand the "let's go show this to the world and get some good ol' fashioned JUSTICE for these victims, by golly" instinct. But it doesn't work like that in real life. You go out talking like that, getting facts wrong, going off without consulting with the victim, and you stand a good risk of making their lives infinitely worse and silencing other survivors who don't want well-meaning "heroes" trying to "help" them in similar ways. Look, most women have dealt with stuff like this. There's reasons why we've got certain habits of handling these things certain ways, because we know what happens if the wrong people get involved. I know you're trying to help the victim and prevent theoretical future victims, but you're not helping. Especially not by stating easily disproven claims about the situation, which can undermine what the victim actually said happened. And I'm just dealing with the moral and social factors. When we get into legal stuff, and how easy it is to mess up a legal case, that's even more complex. So please, please don't do the first thing that comes to mind without studying how these things actually work out. If the victim asks you, presumably a random stranger on the internet, to help her out in this way, that'd be different. But right now, I don't think there's a lot of rape survivors who are hoping, "gee, I hope random uninvolved people go jumping into this without all the facts and go after my rapist in ways that will make everything worse." EDIT AGAIN: Also, if we're going to deal with rape culture, if we're going to really try to help the victims, maybe one thing would be not to use internet filters regarding "surprise sex." I have no idea why anybody here thought that was a good idea, but maybe now that we're all actually talking about this and trying to help victims, somebody could reconsider whether that's something you still want on your forums. I'm an outsider and I'm not trying to tell you how to run your site, but I'm just bringing that up. Zeea fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Oct 24, 2017 |
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Oct 24, 2017 22:04
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I don't think it's going to be possible to not recontextualize Beast in the light of the new revelations, simply because of how personal Beast seemed to be for Matt during the Kickstarter and his responses to other people about it. This was absolutely the game he wanted to make, he oversaw the work by all other writers, he was extremely defensive about anything brought up about it on forums. Yes, other writers were involved. But the captain of that ship was Matt McFarland, and the course was charted by Matt McFarland, and it is absolute crap to say that he does not hold the lion's share of responsibility for what it is and was. We certainly would credit him with it were it good, so it is entirely fair to do so when it's bad.
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Oct 24, 2017 22:11
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As someone who moderated a different site, this problem is endemic because moderators are usually volunteers. Outside of the scope of the forum/community and its rules, it's difficult to see yourself as the one in a position to pass judgement. It also feels way out of scope for what you signed up for - "Who the gently caress am I that I should be making this decision?" A lot of site owners tend to think that way too, even when they shouldn't. There's a big disconnect to the size and influence of these communities and the hobbyist volunteer systems that run them, and there's often not money to professionalize the moderation and administration. People are literally doing this in their spare time and none of them have been given training on how to do deal with stuff like this, and there's no support infrastructure to lean on. On the flip side, these decisions do impact tens of thousands of people, including other victims of harassment and abuse. At core a lot of these things boil down to the institutions that are supposed to deal with these issues failing, and it getting shoved off onto organizations that are fundamentally not equipped to handle them, at which point those organizations gently caress it up. That doesn't mean the moderation/administrators team at RPG.net shouldn't be criticized or their decision called into question, or that they shouldn't be called out for making bad choices or enabling more harm. But really fixing these problems needs to involve a fundamental rethink about how these communities are set up and that's not an easy conversation either.
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Oct 24, 2017 22:14
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Comrade Gorbash posted:That doesn't mean the moderation/administrators team at RPG.net shouldn't be criticized or their decision called into question, or that they shouldn't be called out for making bad choices or enabling more harm. But really fixing these problems needs to involve a fundamental rethink about how these communities are set up and that's not an easy conversation either. The mods and admins (that is, the volunteers) had little or nothing to do with the resolution here. We found out about the situation at the same time everyone else did. We - I - immediately said "we are NOT prepared to deal with this," contacted the site owner, and he made the decision on how to handle it. Because as you said, I did NOT sign up for this. Edit: And there's no way I would sign up for that. I help out at a gaming site. I didn't sign up to be a cop, or a judge, or an attorney, or a crisis counselor. I try to do a good job, but that sort of thing is way too much to reasonably expect. Cessna fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Oct 24, 2017 |
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Oct 24, 2017 22:25
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You ever seen Rosemary's Baby or Jeeper's Creepers? The former's a story of abuse and victimization, that really understands how horrifying it is to be a woman living in a society that disbelieves women. It was made by a rapist. The latter was made by a pedophile, and, hoo boy, it shows. While Jeepers is just... awkward, Rosemary's Baby gets cast in a new, incredibly discomforting light with the knowledge that it was directed by a serial predator. Likewise, Beast, which people on this forum had issue with independent of the abuse allegations, now becomes a really uncomfortable thing in that context, and also, a giant flashing warning sign. Like, Onyx Path really, really should have exercised thematic quality control, because it's really looking like they gave an accused rapist creative control over an RPG that has overt themes of abuse apologia. It's not "Beast was bad, McFarland's probably a rapist for it," or point-scoring, but rather, the culture of RPGs is one where we're giving abusers enormous platforms without necessary critical oversight. Abuse victims in this forum and others have testified to how deeply uncomfortable Beast's content made them, even to the point of no longer feeling that Onyx Path was a company that was mindful of their condition, or that their products were safe to buy. Learning that there may be an actual abuser behind the abuse apologia should outrage those people (who had to justify, even apologize for, their visceral discomfort with the content). There's two, distinct and equally valid, reactions I see to this. The first is the "Yikes" factor, the Rosemary's Baby equivalent, where this knowledge recontextualizes what we've previously seen and now we can't unsee it--any attempt to separate the art and the artist now has to be forced, and will probably ring hollow. The material becomes disgusting where it was earlier discomforting. The second is the Jeepers Creepers reaction, where we have to ask why there's a culture where these blinking warning signs were aggressively dismissed and ignored, in spite of the fact that there was fire behind the smoke.
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Oct 24, 2017 22:29
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By the way, I do sorta know the victim. We're not close friends or anything, but we've had conversations in the past. Not about this subject, obviously. My point is, she's a real person to me and not just somebody on some forum somewhere. And I'm REALLY worried about her well-being at this point and don't want her suddenly getting bombarded by a bunch of assholes around where she lives going, "What do you mean, you were raped 15 years ago by one of your teachers? You weren't even in school back then! You're lying for attention!" Because that's exactly what's going to happen if a bunch of folks who don't even know what she actually said go telling people she might know in real life about accusations that she didn't actually make, then tie her name to it. She's not posting stuff herself under her real name, but if you blunder around handling this wrong, that information could come out. So please, PLEASE use some common sense.
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Oct 24, 2017 22:34
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Leperflesh posted:The reason that people accused of crimes get all kinds of protection under the law - a right to an attorney, the right to not be forced to testify against yourself, the presumption of innocence with the burden of proof on the prosecution, etc. - is because of hundreds of years of developments in law that gradually recognized that the State is very, very powerful compared to the Individual. That imbalance of power leads to horrifying abuses when the individual has little or no recourse against accusations. I just want to say that I really appreciate this post. It helps me to internally clarify a lot of my own thoughts on this subject and states a lot of what I was trying to say in a more comprehensive way. Basically, every aspect of every part of this sucks for everyone. I feel terrible for that woman, I feel terrible for the RPGnet admins having to deal with this, and I feel terrible that the consequences of this for McFarland are so removed from the actual incident. Cool Dad fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Oct 24, 2017 |
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Oct 24, 2017 22:51
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Leperflesh posted:The reason that people accused of crimes get all kinds of protection under the law - a right to an attorney, the right to not be forced to testify against yourself, the presumption of innocence with the burden of proof on the prosecution, etc. - is because of hundreds of years of developments in law that gradually recognized that the State is very, very powerful compared to the Individual. That imbalance of power leads to horrifying abuses when the individual has little or no recourse against accusations. Unless you're a Marxoteen, of course. Also did anyone from RPG.net NOT show up in the last few hours?
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Oct 24, 2017 23:06
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Arivia posted:Unless you're a Marxoteen, of course. A pretty solid majority of us didn't. I think it's just me, Cessna, & Zeea. Rand & Kai are already in the thread, but I don't think they count as "from RPGnet" at this point, in the sense you mean it.
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Oct 24, 2017 23:13
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The Wyzard posted:A pretty solid majority of us didn't. Yes, we have been cursed and blessed by those two for years. Also Ettin, of course.
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Oct 24, 2017 23:15
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Arivia posted:Unless you're a Marxoteen, of course. Don't tell anyone but I'm a Shannon Applecline alt
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Oct 24, 2017 23:15
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Nuns with Guns posted:Don't tell anyone but I'm a Shannon Applecline alt I'm his roommate, the one who forgot to log out...
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Oct 24, 2017 23:15
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Nuns with Guns posted:Don't tell anyone but I'm a Shannon Applecline alt Damned marxoteens, breaking down the standards of sockpuppets held sacred by America!
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Oct 24, 2017 23:16
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Arivia posted:Yes, we have been cursed and blessed by those two for years. Also Ettin, of course. Oh, yeah, Ettin's been a double-agent for years.
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Oct 24, 2017 23:16
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*rushes in, breathless* i heard there was a dictatorship of the teen going on here and i want swear fealty to the marxoteens
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Oct 24, 2017 23:19
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The Wyzard posted: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. The two things I have seen people suggesting, both of which seem much more credible and each of which is entirely compatible with the other, are that: a) Beast may on some level reflect some sort of abuser's self-justification from the point of view of Matt. Yes, whatever happened we are told happened 18 years ago - but we've also been told that Matt's been batting around the concept for over a decade before the original pitch was made so there isn't as much of a gulf of time there as has been made out to be. And regardless of how long ago you may have done something you feel guilt over, the psychological impulse to self-justify is a strong one - I suspect most abusers who do it don't even consciously realise that it's what they are doing. That isn't the same thing as a "manifesto for real-world monstrousness"; it's not a conscious and overt declaration that abuse is great. But at the same time can you put your hand on your heart and say that, had Matt done what he is accused of, his feelings about that would play no part, conscious and deliberate or unconscious and inadvertent, in a subsequent project he oversaw with strong abuse themes? I can't. b) Even if you discount a) wholly, absolutely, and entirely, authorial intent is not magic. Regardless of the thinking behind Beast, we are now in a world where these accusations against Matt has been made and at least a segment of the Beast audience has been made aware of them. That knowledge can affect people's perception of the game even if what happened had absolutely nothing to do with the development of Beast, in the same way it's become unavoidably and inadvertently creepy to hear the various pop music classics Phil Spector produced knowing that the dude went on to kill someone. I know in the conversation over on RPG.net people have tried to minimise Matt's role in the project, talking up the number of authors involved and talking about how as a developer he had all sorts of external and internal considerations to take into account of, but regardless of whether or not he really had an auteur-like level of control over the project (and I can fully expect he probably didn't), a) he was still in a position to leave his fingerprints all over it, and b) he was still given a sort of auteur-like reception whenever he talked about it publicly. If you asked on the RPG.net forums "Who's the one person I should make a point of talking to about Beast?" before this all came out, odds are most people would have answered "Matt". Backtracking by hyping the number of other hands involved is shutting the door after the horse has bolted to a large extent.
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Oct 24, 2017 23:30
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I can't help but feel a bit of schadenfreude as I was permabanned from rpg.net for saying Beast was bad. ...I'm still bitter. Edit: Thinking about it, it's not a good way to feel about this at all, but gently caress it, I'm venting. MonsieurChoc fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Oct 24, 2017 |
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Oct 24, 2017 23:33
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Precambrian posted:The second is the Jeepers Creepers reaction, where we have to ask why there's a culture where these blinking warning signs were aggressively dismissed and ignored, in spite of the fact that there was fire behind the smoke.
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Oct 24, 2017 23:47
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Hey folks. This already got posted in more detail but don't helldump/internet detective people.
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Oct 25, 2017 00:01
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| # ? Jun 8, 2024 17:00 |
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MonsieurChoc posted:I can't help but feel a bit of schadenfreude as I was permabanned from rpg.net for saying Beast was bad. Many years ago RPG.net had a reputation for being a vile, toxic place where game developers dared not thread because they'd be skinned alive by people angry with what they'd written. So to foster a more positive community where developers could come and talk about things, they banned all attacks on anyone involved in the industry. Which did get developers coming back, but the flip side was that a lot of anger and invective comes from a legitimate place. I can understand wanting to suppress the lynch mobs of runaway anger that you can get on a forum (I moderate one, after all) but on RPG.net it often feels quite stifling of legitimate criticism, especially when that comes from a place of legitimate anger. It's feels like a tone argument writ large. Someone wrote a book that encourages traumatizing your players and gives its players a metaphorical reach-around for child abuse? Well, you can criticize it, but only if you can keep your temper about it! Add to this RPG.net's inconsistent , heavy-handed, and opaque moderation (the only way to get any kind of suspension or ban reviewed is to send an email to an administrator, and asking questions about a ban is like playing Russian roulette with further punishment) that has let moderators get away with insults that regular users never would have, and the impression you can get as a user is quite off-putting. (And like... the optics of having, what,
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Oct 25, 2017 00:04
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