Harassment Policies: New Allegations Show More Work To Be Done

The specter of sexual harassment has once again risen up in tabletop gaming circles. Conventions are supposed to be places where gamers and geeks can be themselves and embrace their loves. Conventions need clear and well formulated harassment policies, and they need to enforce them. In this instance the allegations from multiple women have taken place at gaming conventions and gathering in different locations around the country. In one case, the harassment was took place over the course of years and spilled over into electronic formats.

View attachment 96985​

The alleged harasser in these cases was Sean Patrick Fannon, President of Evil Beagle Games, Brand Manager for Savage Rifts at Pinnacle Entertainment Group, as well as being a game designer and developer with a long history in the tabletop role-playing industry.

There is a long and untenable policy of harassment at conventions that stretches back to science fiction and fantasy fandom in the 1960s. Atlanta's Dragon*Con has been a lightning rod in the discussions about safety at geeky conventions after one of the convention's founders was arrested and pled guilty to three charges of molestation. We have also covered reports of harassment at conventions such as Paizo Con, and inappropriate or harassing behavior by notable industry figures. It is clear that clear harassment policies and firm enforcement of them is needed in spaces where members of our community gather, in order that attendees feel safe to go about their hobby. Some companies, such as Pelgrane Press, now refuse to attend conventions where a clear harassment policy is not available.

Several women have approached me to tell me about encounters with Fannon. Some of them asked not to be named, or to use their reports for background verification only. We also reached out to Sean Patrick Fannon for his comments, and he was willing to address the allegations.

The women that I spoke with had encounters with Fannon that went back to 2013 and 2014 but also happened as recently as the summer of 2017. Each of the locations were in different parts of the country, but all of them occurred when Fannon was a guest of the event.

The worse of the two incidents related to me happened at a convention in the Eastern part of the United States. In going back over texts and messages stretching back years the woman said that it "is frustrating [now] to read these things" because of the cajoling and almost bullying approach that Fannon would use in the messages. She said that Fannon approached her at the con suite of the convention, and after speaking with her for a bit and playing a game with a group in the suite he showed her explicit photos on his cellphone of him engaged in sex acts with a woman.

Fannon's ongoing harassment of this woman would occur both electronically and in person, when they would both be at the same event, and over the course of years he would continue to suggest that she should engage in sexual acts, either with him alone, or with another woman.

Fannon denies the nature of the event, saying "I will assert with confidence that at no time would such a sharing have occurred without my understanding explicit consent on the part of all parties. It may be that, somehow, a miscommunication or misunderstanding occurred; the chaos of a party or social gathering may have created a circumstance of all parties not understanding the same thing within such a discourse. Regardless, I would not have opened such a file and shared it without believing, sincerely, it was a welcome part of the discussion (and in pursuit of further, mutually-expressed intimate interest)."

The second woman, at a different gaming-related event in another part of the country, told of how Fannon, over the course of a day at the event, asked her on four different occasions for hugs, or physical contact with her. Each time she clearly said no to him. The first time she qualified her answer with a "I don't even know you," which prompted Fannon after he saw her for a second time to say "Well, you know me now." She said that because of the multiple attempts in a short period of time that Fannon's behavior felt predatory to her. Afterwards he also attempted to connect with her via Facebook.

Afterwards, this second woman contacted the group that organized the event to share what happened and they reached out to Fannon with their concerns towards his behavior. According to sources within the organization at the time, Fannon - as with the first example - described it to the organizers as a misunderstanding on the woman's part. When asked, he later clarified to us that the misunderstanding was on his own side, saying "Honestly, I should have gotten over myself right at the start, simply owned that I misunderstood, and apologized. In the end, that's what happened, and I walked away from that with a pretty profound sense of how to go forward with my thinking about the personal space of those I don't know or know only in passing."

Both women faced ongoing pressure from Fannon, with one woman the experiences going on for a number of years after the initial convention meeting. In both cases he attempted to continue contact via electronic means with varying degrees of success. A number of screen shots from electronic conversations with Fannon were shared with me by both women.

Diane Bulkeley was willing to come forward and speak on the record of her incidents with Fannon. Fannon made seemingly innocent, and yet inappropriate comments about her body and what he wanted to do with her. She is part of a charity organization that had Fannon as a guest. What happened to her was witnessed by another woman with whom I spoke about that weekend. As Bulkeley heard some things, and her witness others, their experiences are interwoven to describe what happened. Bulkeley described this first encounter at the hotel's elevators: "We were on the floor where our rooms were to go downstairs to the convention floor. I was wearing a tank top and shirt over it that showed my cleavage. He was staring at my chest and said how much he loved my shirt and that I should wear it more often as it makes him hot. For the record I can't help my cleavage is there." Bulkeley went on to describe her mental state towards this "Paying a lady a compliment is one thing, but when you make a direct comment about their chest we have a problem."

Later on in the same day, while unloading some boxes for the convention there was another incident with Fannon. Bulkeley described this: "Well, [the witness and her husband] had to move their stuff from a friends airplane hangar (we all use as storage for cars and stuff) to a storage until next to their house. Apparently Sean, while at the hanger, made grunt noises about my tank top (it was 80 outside) while Tammy was in the truck. I did not see it. But she told me about it. Then as we were unloading the truck at the new facility Sean kept looking down my shirt and saying I have a great view etc. Her husband said to him to knock it off. I rolled my eyes, gave him a glare and continued to work. I did go and put on my event day jacket (light weight jacket) to cover up a little."

The witness, who was in the truck with Fannon, said that he "kept leering down at Diane, glancing down her shirt and making suggestive sounds." The witness said that Fannon commented "'I'm liking the view from up here.'"

Bulkeley talked about how Fannon continued his behavior later on in a restaurant, having dinner with some of the guests of the event. Fannon made inappropriate comments about her body and embarrassed her in front of the other, making her feel uncomfortable throughout the dinner.

Bulkeley said that Fannon also at one point touched her hair without asking, and smelled it as well. "[Fannon] even would smell my long hair. He begged me to not cut it off at a charity function that was part of the weekend's event." She said that he also pressed his pelvis tightly against her body while hugging her. These incidents occurred at a convention during the summer of 2017.

Fannon denies these events. "The comments and actions attributed to me simply did not happen; I categorically and absolutely deny them in their entirety."

When asked for comment, and being informed that this story was being compiled Fannon commented "I do not recall any such circumstance in which the aftermath included a discourse whereby I was informed of distress, anger, or discomfort." He went on to say "The only time I recall having ever been counseled or otherwise spoken to about my behavior in such matters is the Gamers Giving/Total Escape Games situation discussed above. The leader of the organization at that time spoke to me specifically, asked me to be aware that it had been an issue, and requested I be aware of it in the future. It was then formally dropped, and that was the end of it until this time."

There were further reports; however, we have respected the wishes of those women who asked to remain anonymous for fear of online harassment. In researching this article, I talked to multiple women and other witnesses.

About future actions against the alleged behaviors he also said "It is easy, after all, to directly attack and excise obviously predatory and harassing behavior. It is much more difficult to point out and correct behavior that falls within more subtle presentations, and it's more difficult to get folks to see their actions as harmful when they had no intention to cause harm, based on their assumptions of what is and isn't appropriate. It's good for us to look at the core assumptions that lead to those behaviors and continue to challenge them. That's how real and lasting change within society is achieved."

Fannon's weekly column will no longer be running on E.N. World.

Have you suffered harassment at the hands of someone, industry insider or otherwise, at a gaming convention? If you would like to tell your story, you can reach out to me via social media about any alleged incidents. We can speak confidentially, but I will have to know the identity of anyone that I speak with.

This does open up the question of: At what point do conventions become responsible for the actions of their guest, when they are not more closely scrutinizing the backgrounds of those guests? One woman, who is a convention organizer, with whom I spoke for the background of this story told me that word gets around, in the world of comic conventions, when guests and creators cause problems. Apparently this is not yet the case in the world of tabletop role-playing game conventions, because there are a growing number of publishers and designers who have been outed for various types of harassing behavior, but are still being invited to be guest, and in some cases even guests of honor, at gaming conventions around the country. The message that this sends to women who game is pretty clear.

More conventions are rolling out harassment policies for guests and attendees of their conventions. Not only does this help to protect attendees from bad behavior, but it can also help to protect conventions from bad actors within the various communities that gather at our conventions. As incidents of physical and sexual harassment are becoming more visible, it becomes more and more clear that something needs to be done.

additional editorial contributions by Morrus

 

[Doug McCrae]

When you remove intent from the equation, all things can be racist/sexist/ableist/etcist.

Intent always matters.

I certainly don't consider every work to be racist. An example of one that isn't is Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, because, going against the grain of the rest of the film it contains one major white character who is good and one major black character who is evil. But these things are rarely clearcut and always open to further argument - that's the nature of artistic interpretation. It's okay to offer critiques of art from a wide variety of standpoints, and a variety of thresholds as to what counts as discrimination.

Another example - Lord of the Rings (the novel) is, imo, mildly sexist because it offers no female protagonists and several male protagonists. But otoh it does a good job of presenting a wide variety of female characters both good and evil, Galadriel and Eowyn possess many admirable qualities, and there is even what I would consider to be a feminist viewpoint when Eowyn argues with Theoden that she should be allowed to fight.

Authorial intent isn't necessary for this analysis. And how would we ever determine it anyway? We can't see into the author's mind. All we have are texts, and other forms of communication.

 

[Catulle]

Intent/outcome dichotomy, as ever. Without an inquisitorial or adversarial system for sifting things through in a formal setting, which a con is neither able nor required to provide, we rely on outcome-focused approaches, as we should if the intent is to alter behavior over the longer term.

 

[Riley37]

2 - One can be sexist against men.

Take this with grain of salt and Protection Versus Pedantry: Some people use some words differently than others. As you use the word, women can be sexist. As some others use the word, no, because of a fine distinction, which I will try to explain briefly.

Some people distinguish between unfair, hateful prejudices which have support from police and judges, versus unfair, hateful prejudices which do not. In that usage, a white person who calls the police because a black person was holding a BB gun, in a store, in the aisle where the store sells BB guns, in an "open carry" state, is practicing racism; the caller has the unfair, hateful prejudice, AND the person (accurately) expects the police to show up and kill the black person. Meanwhile, a black person who calls the cops to report an "armed and dangerous" white person, in the same aisle of the same store, is ALSO acting on hateful, unfair *prejudice*, but the outcome is not *racism*, because the outcome will be different. (I don't know exactly what those cops would have done, if the caller had been black and the guy with the BB gun had been white. RIP John Crawford III.)

I lack authority on your usage; I also lack authority on whether you pronounce .gif as "jiff". FYI, if someone says "Women can't be sexist!", the "prejudice" versus "prejudice plus power" theory is probably the rationale.

Intent always matters.

Sometimes outcome matters even more. As an example: Fannon. He didn't have the *intent* to make anyone uncomfortable; he intended some consensual happysexyfun. That wasn't always the outcome. Some cons may take active measures to prevent repetitions of the actual outcome.

Caliburne101 has good intentions. Some of us have some doubts about the likely outcomes of the way he'll act on those intentions. I consider those doubts reasonable, until and unless Caliburne101 gives a better articulation of his "Identify Friend or Foe" process and his de-escalation methods.

In situations other than gaming conventions, there have been disjunctions between intention and outcome with much higher stakes. Those Soviet technicians *intended* a check of the safety systems of the reactor at Chernobyl...

It's terrible that your local gaming store has such terrible people/person going there. Hopefully the individual was dealt with?

I spoke up at the time, both as a player and in character (was playing a paladin at the time). Afterwards, I told the DM that I would not be back, and I specified what behavior was the dealbreaker. The DM apologized. What that DM does from then on, with that player, I leave in his hands. (shrug)

'Eeyore' came in high school when I turned horribly cynical and fatalist for several years ("No point in coming in out of the rain, just gonna get wet again tomorrow").

I have a fondness for Eeyore, in that he seems to suffer from severe chronic depression or something similar, and yet none of his friends ever tell him to be cheerful. Maybe they should encourage him to ask a psychiatrist about medication (maybe SSRIs), exercise and cognitive-behavioral therapy, but at least they don't ask him "have you tried enjoying life?" as if that were some magical solution.

See how removing intent and context can change everything?

I'd say what's happened so far, is not *removing* intent and context, but *revealing* it. When you mentioned that you had volunteered for security work at cons, yeah, that caused a major shift on my assessment of you. I'm still not saying that we'd get along well at a game table, but if I were trying to de-escalate a confrontation at a con, and I called for help, I'd want you there.

 

[Particle_Man]

I'd tell you to not be a jerk, but you're well past that mark with your first line.

1. Caliburn did make it clear what he felt was appropriate to call out.
2. Caliburn did not make it clear how exactly he was going to be able to do that in a con setting full of distractions.
3. I called BS, simply because it's difficult to do, hence why there's a problem to solve and he's not the Jesus Christ of miraculous harassment policing; or he'd not be posting here.

Nuff said, no one thinks that false positives are more important than actual harassment, but it's really hard to argue against the obvious fact that pointing at harassment without context is a bad idea that causes more false positives and hurts more people than it helps.

Harder still when you coach it in terms of violence. Assuming that was not internet tough guy smack talk, I find it odd that violence would be your go to response. You probably know that there are other ways to defend yourself against accusations and getting yourself kicked out of a con, and possibly jailed, seems like a poor one, since it would mark you as a person that gets violent when verbally accused, which would also not be a good person to have at a con if we are talking about people (other than your immediate family) feeling safe at cons.

Why would you go to violence rather than use your words to defend yourself? Why not allow your wife to use her words to defend you? That would, if you are falsely accused, be a far better way to oppose an on site accuser, and would not get you kicked out or jailed. You could also call con security to talk to that accuser.

In fact, I am not yet sure that you and Caliburn would be that far apart on what behaviour should be called out. How about you give a specific example of saucy banter with your wife that you would engage in at a con and then Caliburn can state, perhaps after some sorting out of details and context, what response he would give to that specific behaviour. I mean, as long as you are both here we might as well see if you actually have a disagreement here.

 

[Riley37]

I will quote a translation of Martin Niemoller. You can all read it, contemplate it, and do your own research on the implications.

On one hand, I would love for anyone who is not yet aware of Niemoller's poem, to consider how closely it applies to their present situation.

On another hand, let's scale our arguments to the stakes at hand*. Heather Heyer lived and died by Niemoller's principles. She has my respect as a fallen hero. GenCon is not "Unite the Right". Not yet, anyways. Kobold Boots explicitly said that he saw immediate threat to anyone's life, as grounds for immediate action. Let's take him at his word, on that point, when we discuss appropriate responses to lower-stakes threats than the Holocaust.

On a third hand, EN World has a "fine people on both sides" policy. Some of the people posting in this thread may be Republicans; others Democrats; there may be a few Libertarians among us; there may be members of the Conservative Party of Canada, or the Labour party in Britain, or perhaps the Greens. It's also possible that some of us are among the 400ish members of the National Socialist Movement in the USA, and/or the Nationalist Party of Canada. (Nor let us omit our South African participants, if any belong to the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging!)

EN World welcomes gamers of all political backgrounds, so long as we follow the rules of the house. Anti-fascism is not a consensus expectation here. Neither is feminism, nor women's suffrage, nor abolitionism.

*Kobold Boots, you might be surprised to hear me say so. I see a continuum, from the example I mentioned, to other lethal forms of toxic machismo, such what happened to Shana Fisher in Santa Fe, to men who merely threaten (verbally or otherwise) when women turn them down, to men who push, push and keep pushing when a woman's first answer isn't yes. If you don't see that continuum, then we disagree. Call me out all you want; I stand my ground, I'll double down. (shrug) That said, I'm happy to turn the topic back, again and again, to behavior at cons.

On that point: Has anyone at a con ever responded to romantic rejection with a threat of violence?

 

[evileeyore]

Take this with grain of salt and Protection Versus Pedantry: Some people use some words differently than others.

Oh, I know. I said it that way to see if Hussar believes that women can never be sexist.

I lack authority on your usage; I also lack authority on whether you pronounce .gif as "jiff".

Serious Answer - hard g.

Comedy Answer - 'Jiffy'. Or "What is this 'jif' heresy!"

FYI, if someone says "Women can't be sexist!", the "prejudice" versus "prejudice plus power" theory is probably the rationale.

So women and minorities can never be the ones in power?

Sometimes outcome matters even more.

Outcome always matters more. But that doesn't mean 'always ignore intent'. Ignoring intent (ala Death Of The Author) is tied very strongly into the modern politics of post-modern decontructionism... and that's about as far down that train of thought this thread needs. So I try to inject some reality into discussions where I think it applies.

As an example: Fannon. He didn't have the *intent* to make anyone uncomfortable; he intended some consensual happysexyfun. That wasn't always the outcome.

Correct, and it's his intentions that are informing (some) people as to whether they want to go 'easy' on him over it or not. Counterpoint Harvey Weinstein whose intent was equally clear...

Some cons may take active measures to prevent repetitions of the actual outcome.

Which is reasonable. The main thrust of this thread after all is the argument as to what might be construed as 'reasonable' active measures.

I'm still not saying that we'd get along well at a game table...

I'm sure we'd be fine at a gaming table and utter enemies at a political rally.

 

[Riley37]

So women and minorities can never be the ones in power?

I'm not making an essentialist claim; I'm suggesting situationalist usage of certain words. Drow women, in the Drow homeland, hold most positions of power, and therefore can be sexist!

Minorities can hold power, and often do. White people are a minority of the seven billion humans, yet in many nations, including mine, white people often dominate police departments, judiciaries, and other such institutions. Even where white people are *locally* a minority, such as South Africa, apartheid was effectively a white supremacist regime. See also: Norman rule in Saxon England.

If you were using "minorities" as a euphemism for "nonwhite," or if you were projecting 1950s USA demographic ratios as if they applied globally, then consider the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. I don't know how it was to be white in the Sphere. It was generally an advantage to be Japanese, relative to Han, Korean, or Filipino.

"I am a Roman citizen" (civis Romanus sum) was a claim of social advantage and legal status, in many lands, for many years. I don't know how the phenotypes of the Romans compared to other phenotypes across the Empire; it's an oddly unmentioned topic, at least in books published in the USA. Anyways, if you're trying to catch me interpreting all of human history, according to the ephemera of my native continent and century, then "go fish".

Which is reasonable. The main thrust of this thread after all is the argument as to what might be construed as 'reasonable' active measures.

I consider that an optimistic view of the thread, since the intent of taking active measures to discourage or deter harassment isn't exactly consensus among the participants. But it might be a useful outcome.

I'm sure we'd be fine at a gaming table and utter enemies at a political rally.

See you at Unite the Right II, then. If, at that event, it turns out that we're on the same side, then I won't care much about our positions on lesser issues. Orwell found common cause with Churchill, when that became absolutely necessary.

 

[LordEntrails]

All well and good except for one flaw in your reasoning..
...
My higher responsibility is to my family because that is the social contract I have. I'm not going to save the Jews (again, your horrible and completely inappropriate example, just to make the point.)

Ethics and Ideals are great as guideposts but you can't live your life by them unless you only care about yourself (irony)

Here is another fine example of the challenge of forum based discussions; the desire for some to assume absolutes in the statements or positions of others. I never said or implied in absolutes, or that obligations to my family or other social contracts are not part of my ideals or impact of 'doing what's right."

I doubt you are actually advocating absolutes either, but it seems you would side with your family over the greater good. You feel that your social obligation to your family exceeds your social obligation to society. In a zombie apocalypse you would kill other non-zombies in a bid to keep your family safe. (Example used to help describe what I'm trying to say, NOT to actually imply what your actions might be or the value of such an example.)

Such views are fine. My views are different from what I understand yours to be. If my brother threatened through illegal or immoral means the lives of thousands, I would step in to stop them, even though I have a social obligation to protect him.

So, if you feel protecting your family and not exposing yourself to an extremely small risk of violence by interjecting yourself in the "business of others" that is fine. But then it is .... disingenous ? for you to argue that you are concerned with harassment of others at cons? And we you, or your family member ever to be the victim, you really wouldn't have much right to complain if their were a dozen observers watching while your family member is harassed, beaten or worse. Because you wouldn't have done the same to help someone else. Or am I wrong in what you are saying?

On one hand, I would love for anyone who is not yet aware of Niemoller's poem, to consider how closely it applies to their present situation.

On another hand, let's scale our arguments to the stakes at hand*. Heather Heyer lived and died by Niemoller's principles. She has my respect as a fallen hero. GenCon is not "Unite the Right". Not yet, anyways. ...

I will say, that at the beginning, when "they came for the communists" it was not a particularly life or death situation (yes their was violence that resulted in death, but that was more, imo, about standards of the time). It is never is 'serious' at the beginning.

Am I saying that harassment at a con will lead to the Holocaust or similar? No. In their own ways, hundreds and thousands of years of violence, denigration and second class human status is just as horrendous as the death of millions within a few years. Both are horrible, and both should be considered unacceptable.

I think the scale is relevant. But not particularly important. My main point was not about the Holocaust, it is that if you (Kobold Boots specifically) believe it is more important to stay uninvolved, then when something bad happens to you or one you care about, then you better not expect anyone else to help out. Not if their is the slightest bit of danger to the helper/observer.

Such a place, without courage, is not a place I wish to live in.

 

[Morrus]

I'd tell you to not be a jerk, but you're well past that mark with your first line.

When you're down to calling people names, it's time to leave the thread, please.

 

[Maxperson]

Notice the amount of pushback a simple observation like this has caused? No one said, "Hey, that EGG, he was a raging racist and sexist who was trying to advance white power and males uber alles with the drow!" No, instead people were discussing, in fairly reasonable terms, how depictions of the drow reflected a lot of baggage- racial and sexist baggage.

If the drow race was designed with no real world race in mind, but rather with day/night, good/evil concept in mind, then no racial baggage exists inherent in drow. Someone can come up, look at the race, and believe that there is some racial connection, but that doesn't reflect any baggage in drow. It reflects the beliefs and perceptions of the person looking at the drow race.

To give you an example- a retired BigWig is a mediator. Towards the end of the mediation, he needs a copy made of some documents. Instead of asking any of the attorneys present, he leaves the room, and goes into the office of a younger female attorney and asks her to make copies. Does that mean he's an evil person? A raging misogynist? No, of course not. What it does mean is that he shares basic societal assumptions that aren't correct- that men do the work, and that women (especially in certain professions) support the men. And while this particular event isn't super-harmful in and of itself, imagine the toll of these events on this young women's career, over time, each piling on to the next. This wasn't some Mad Men flashback, by the way, this was this year.

Why does it have to mean that? Why can't it mean that he wants to get back to working on the mediation while the copies are made, which requires those inside? What if the mediation has gone long, which often happens, and the paralegals and other office staff are gone? The female attorney might be the only one who can help them.

It seems from the last sentence that this was a real example that you witnessed, so I'm sure you have more information than you shared here. But what if it wasn't that and instead it was an alternative reason like my questions above suggest could possibly be the case, and she incorrectly assumed that it was a misogynistic request? At what point do allow or disallow misperceptions to control what we do?