Players 'distressed' by gang-rape role-playing game

Riley37 said:

You say that as if this is a phenomenon which only happens as a result of social media.

Did you hear about that time some professionals in the Hollywood film industry got fired, because of public pressure related to their off-the-job political activity, long before the Internet existed?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_blacklist

Click to expand...

Doh. I saying it is worst now.

jasper said:

To be more on point
Will a con a have a civil liability, if they take to various social media platforms and Announce Jasper was ban from helping the con due to what happen a Con A. IF they ban the wrong Jasper.

Click to expand...

This has nothing to do with this case.
In most cases, a con would just refuse to sanction the participation and not go social about it. Nobody wants to bring up risks and negatives in their promotions.

This seems to be hunting for a way to tie some social media mob bad agenda to this case and topic.

jasper said:

Read the freaky blog. from the blog.
******
What we don’t need is people spreading wild rumour and supposition, consider that I’ve had more than twenty people contact me, both at the show and afterwards, saying that they’d splashed the name of the GM out there, so as to make sure that they could never do it again…
*****
Twelve of those people had the wrong name…
So 12 out of the 20+ people HAD the WRONG NAME. So we have up to 12 GMS who have been slandered. Again What happens when a Con uses BAD SOURCE information to Ban a GM. And announces the ban.

Click to expand...

No, we have 12 uses of the wrong name. There is nothing so far that sts they named other GMs. It could have been typos, incomplete names or anything.

This conclusion seemed driven by agenda not derived from what was said.

In the transcript of the interview, Kevin Rolfe says he told the players that their characters woke up in the back of a van, naked, and handcuffed to each other. I infer, from Rolfe's account, that he then *immediately* had men with guns appear, expel the PCs from the van, and tell the PCs to run.

Among the many things Rolfe did wrong, here's one: in a convention game, a scene in which the PCs become unclothed, by *any* cause other than their volition and action. I would not go there, and cannot recommend going there, in a convention game. Consider all the times that a villain has captured the Justice League, removed Batman's utility belt, and left them in a deathtrap. In how many of those scenes has the villain stripped the League members naked, and handcuffed them together? (Other than erotic fan-fiction, which has purposes AFAIK incompatible with UK Expo.)

Here's another: pacing and player agency.

if he had given the players a few minutes of in-game time, and perhaps many minutes terms of table time, to role-play what the PCs did and said upon waking up, then the PCs (and they players) might have compared notes, they might have figured out what knocked them out, and they might have figured out why they were naked. They might have tried various methods to get free of the handcuffs. They might have tried to get out of the van, or they might have tried to drive away in the van, or some of them tried the former while others tried the latter. They might have tried to improvise some clothing from the upholstery of the van. And so on.

Even if the GM ruled that all such attempts failed, at least the players would have narrative control over the pacing of how their characters responded *to the circumstances in which they awoke*, and to *each other*, without the further complication of men with guns telling them to run away.

Bad DM. No biscuit.

jasper said:

Read the freaky blog. from the blog.
******
What we don’t need is people spreading wild rumour and supposition, consider that I’ve had more than twenty people contact me, both at the show and afterwards, saying that they’d splashed the name of the GM out there, so as to make sure that they could never do it again…
*****
Twelve of those people had the wrong name…
So 12 out of the 20+ people HAD the WRONG NAME. So we have up to 12 GMS who have been slandered. Again What happens when a Con uses BAD SOURCE information to Ban a GM. And announces the ban.

Click to expand...

I read the blog. It's not freaky. And the con isn't responsible for the actions of others outside of their venue.

If I tell you that a friend of mine did something creepy, and then you go and post about it on the internet, that's not the con's responsibility. There's no civil liability issue here. The con isn't responsible for controlling these people or what they do outside of the con.

You can't on the one hand say the con shouldn't encourage punishment outside of their venue, and then on the other hand say that the con should be responsible for what people do outside of their venue.

Thirdly, the "freaky blog" points out these are "people" not folks in charge of the con. The con didn't rely on bad information, it HAD good information. It was other people who had bad information and ran with it.

If the con, it’s agents or employees released incorrect info regarding something like this, they might be civilly liable. If it was other attendees or anyone not associated with the con in an official administrative or logistical (security) position, then they’re not, barring special circumstances.

jasper said:

Again What happens when a Con uses BAD SOURCE information to Ban a GM. And announces the ban.

Click to expand...

Yes, if the con uses bad information, and then publicly announces an incorrect conclusion, yes they are at some risk of liability.

But, that's huge IF. That isn't what happened here. This is a hypothetical boogeyman of a scenario.

Upthread I mentioned, as does the blog post, *the con investigates* when there's a reported issue. They don't take word on the internet at face value - they go and talk to people who were present at the time.

So, really, stop worrying about the convention doing something wrong based on bad information. They double check things. They have policies and procedures specifically to prevent them from doing what you are worried about here.

Matthew Tyler-Jones said:

John Dodd, in charge of RPGs at UKGE, and other expos, and the investigator in this case, has written this Blog Post, I hope the last word on the matter:
http://millionwordman.blogspot.com/2019/06/on-inappropriate-content-in-games-and.html

Click to expand...

This needs to be read by everyone and disseminated as widely as possible.

This is 100% how a con should react and deal with this sort of situation. Well done them.

jasper said:

You are firing a dude for something which did not happen at his place of work, did not involve his work business. Sorry Mr. Hussar here is box of stuff, the bobby will walk you to personel to pick up your last paycheck. The Boss saw you moon the winning side at last night's Super bowl. There is a reason some places do not allow a morality clause in your employment contract/ hr polices.

Click to expand...

What are you talking about? I'm talking about what actually happened. GM at a con went totally off the rails and got fired from being a GM at the con.

Sorry if that wasn't clear enough.

jasper said:

Read the freaky blog. from the blog.
******
What we don’t need is people spreading wild rumour and supposition, consider that I’ve had more than twenty people contact me, both at the show and afterwards, saying that they’d splashed the name of the GM out there, so as to make sure that they could never do it again…
*****
Twelve of those people had the wrong name…
So 12 out of the 20+ people HAD the WRONG NAME. So we have up to 12 GMS who have been slandered. Again What happens when a Con uses BAD SOURCE information to Ban a GM. And announces the ban.

Click to expand...

If that happens, that con might have something to answer for. But why are you going on about this? It’s completely irrelevant. No con has incorrectly banned a GM for something he didn’t do and slander his name.