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...

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.

criticalrole.jpg

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
 

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TimmyHowl

First Post
Hiring outside counsel costs significant money and is typically only undertaken in the face of quantifiable litigation risks.

They could well have outside council on retainer and at an agreed rate; paying a couple of grand to have a contemporaneous report into the accusations is very useful and the peace of mind makes it worthwile
 

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SkidAce

Legend
Supporter
Yep. I apparently can't say any more than that without getting a warning, so...yeah. Agreed. The accuser shouldn't be getting harassed on twitter by rabid stans. Rabid stans are bad and they should feel bad, as it were.

But also, anyone who knew this person's history knew how this would conclude, because it was obvious that they were full of crap.
What is a "stan"?
 




He is silent, no posting anything, he was moved around, is he even doing any new designer/developer work? I don't know.
Btw, I'am actually curious, how decision-making and design process works at Wizards. Few years ago, when I got back to 5e, I was under an impression that its Crawford/Perkins/Mearls game with everyone else playing support, now I have no idea who is calling shots.
If only more people could be as wise as Mike Mearls and realize that nothing good ever comes from posting on social media.
 



"Wise" is a funny word for "Would be so called out". Plus, uh, in posting on a forum, you're posting in social media

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.
 


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