D&D General Critical Role Investigation Into Complaint

A couple of weeks ago, Critical Role was accused of commissioning work from one of their community members, but of not paying for that work. The company immediately undertook to investigate the claim, and made this statement, indicating that no work was commissioned or received from the person in question, and no such agreement was in place.

The person who made the complaint referred to online bullying within the Critical Role fandom.

The full announcement reads:

 PRESS RELEASE

---

A couple weeks ago, an individual made statements online claiming that he provided work for Critical Role without payment. Critical Role took these allegations seriously and immediately sought to investigate the situation. After an extensive investigation directed by outside counsel, it has been concluded that Critical Role never established, or intended to establish, any employment, independent contractor relationship, consulting arrangement or any other type of work-related contract with that member of the community.

This individual voluntarily reached out to Critical Role with concerns around his own experience with online bullying. Critical Role does not condone online bullying or harassment of any kind, and an employee within the company listened with the sole purpose of being an understanding ear. The correspondences on Discord reflect an empathetic dialogue with a concerned member of the community and not the providing of any professional services to Critical Role by this individual. Nothing in the communications established any professional, employment, or contractual relationship with Critical Role. After months of casual interaction, the individual made an inquiry to the Critical Role employee about possibly being engaged by Critical Role as a consultant to the company. Upon receiving this request, the Critical Role employee immediately and clearly declined the request.

The importance of helping cultivate and encourage positive and inclusive spaces for Critters has always been a huge priority for us well before this interaction. Although we understand that there is only so much we can control within unofficial online communities and platforms, Critical Role has been working on new policies to ensure that we’re clear with you about what we stand for, and more importantly, what we do not stand for. You’ll hear more about this in the coming months.

Thank you for your ongoing support. Harassment of any kind is unacceptable, so please be kind, and don’t forget to love each other.

Critical Role

 

[Mistwell]

Maybe its time to have an RPG controversies forum. Controversies & Conspiracies?

@Morrus ?

OHHHH. See that's much better than my suggestion in the Meta forum for a politics and gaming sub-forum! I like it. Good thought Mercurius!

 

[Mistwell]

I see people so frequently parrot this "no good ever comes from using social media" line and while part of me assumes it's just a glib flip response to how often stuff goes south in instances like these, the rest of me wonders if they actually legit mean it and, if so, why they feel that way?

Sure, social media can be a horrible mess, but a lot of good can and has come from it as well. And, as you mentioned, these forums are just another form of it. I assume some think because forums have been around longer than Twitter that somehow they don't count in that reduction? But... yeah.

I have a friend with zero social media usage. No accounts at all. And, he's a very social person who sees a lot of people and talks on the phone and texts to a lot of people.

And...he's the happiest person I know.

There are some studies on how social media is a net negative for the mental health of some people. I don't think it's all that weird for some people to believe, rightly, that no good comes from it for how they live.

 

[MarkB]

Forums are social media? I'm not gonna delve into the full ifs, and or buts about it, but given forums are user-generated content that you come in to peruse and interact with at your own leisure....

They don't have the same factors of re-propagation and instaneity that true social media does. A forum post doesn't just go out to your circle of friends, but nor is it likely to go viral and wind up being reposted on unrelated forums you've never heard of.

 

[teitan]

Social Media is an awful thing. Many conspiracy theories find their roots in social media, people’s lives have been ruined or it has been used by unscrupulous characters to ruin lives. By oversharing we have made ourselves targets for moments of stupidity that we discover we can’t take back and no matter how we may have changed since then someone will find it and will put it on display as if they are better than you. Call out and cancel culture is there to make people feel better about themselves and as we’ve started seeing, many people who followed the trend are now facing the burn as well whether justified or not. Alyssa Milano was recently accused of black face for a skit where she was parodying Snooki’s spray tan that was on TV during the hey day of Jersey Shore. James Gunn has tweets resurfaced mocking NAMBLA. It’s like everyone thinks they are Judge Dredd untitled they get judged themselves. Some things need to be called out like the identity of the men who tried to lynch the black man this past weekend in Indiana. Help is needed to get them prosecuted but if someone makes a lame joke ten years ago? Let it go.

 

[Zarithar]

I agree with the sentiment that "controversies" need their own separate space. I'm getting tired of seeing them. This is why I deleted my Twitter account. I just couldn't block people fast enough.

 

[Bolares]

If only more people could be as wise as Mike Mearls and realize that nothing good ever comes from posting on social media.

the last thing I would call Mearls is wise, even more so bout social media or emails....

 

[OblivionDrive]

I have a friend with zero social media usage. No accounts at all. And, he's a very social person who sees a lot of people and talks on the phone and texts to a lot of people.

And...he's the happiest person I know.

There are some studies on how social media is a net negative for the mental health of some people. I don't think it's all that weird for some people to believe, rightly, that no good comes from it for how they live.

Sure, there's something to be said for removing potential stressors from your life. I get that aspect of it, assuming you find the stress of social media to be more of a drawback than any benefits. It puts a lot of stressful stuff in front of your face that many folks (including myself) would rather not deal with. That's not my point. It's just the broad blanket statements that NOTHING good comes of it for anyone that I have issue with. Hence my wondering if it's just a flip snarky statement or something they truly believe.

I mean it's only tangentially related to the topic, really. Just more me musing out loud.

Social Media is an awful thing. Many conspiracy theories find their roots in social media, people’s lives have been ruined or it has been used by unscrupulous characters to ruin lives.

None of that was created by social media. All of it existed and happened well before the modern version of the internet was a thing. Social media just allows stuff to spread faster due to the speed of access but it's by no means the cause.

And in the same post you point out places where social media has been used for good. The men who killed Ahmaud Arbery didn't get arrested until the video of the moments leading up to it made it to social media and started making the rounds. The woman in the park with the dog who just tried to get Christian Cooper potentially killed by the police by making a false claim that he was threatening her life would have walked free if he hadn't recorded and uploaded the video to social media. Now she's facing charges.

People find their significant others on social media these days. Lifelong friends. Support and understanding from similar folks when their own home situations are dangerous or unsupportive. Yes, it can be used for bad purposes, but so can literally any tool. Erasing the good it's been responsible for is ridiculously reductive and short-sighted imo.

Anyway, we're getting off topic. Critical Role, yeah?

 

[Haldrik]

Forums are not social media. More like anti-social media.

I like forums.

Forums allow people to have a decent discussion on a particular topic − sometimes even a productive one.

Twitter is more like hundreds of different people, each playing a different song all at the same time.

Reddit ... I still have no clue how to navigate Reddit. I mean, I know there must be stuff in there that is relevant to me and high quality. But how would I go about finding it? And the way the comment ranking works, even if I find something neat, its hard to have a conversation about.

Yeah. Forums have benefits.

 

[Zarithar]

I've grown to hate Twitter in particular. IG and FB are not as bad. Reddit is pretty good from my perspective, and a good source for information if you are in the right subs.

 

[RangerWickett]

Maybe its time to have an RPG controversies forum. Controversies & Conspiracies?

@Morrus ?

Yo, why settle for a forum when you can have a whole campaign? We're doing a ZEITGEIST setting book later this year. Plenty of conspiracies in there. Not sure if it's controversial enough. I mean, people have pretty heated philosophical disagreements, and the intro adventure has someone trying to commit murder because they don't like an author's latest work. Does that count?