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

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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

 

[jgsugden]

If we cover every contractual/business dispute between companies related to D&D and individuals, we're going to be discussing a lot of boring things.

It sounds like a misunderstanding, likely caused by vagueness in a mutual discussion, which is not terribly uncommon. I'd be surprised if that were not the case.

 

[wingsandsword]

If we cover every contractual/business dispute between companies related to D&D and individuals, we're going to be discussing a lot of boring things.

It sounds like a misunderstanding, likely caused by vagueness in a mutual discussion, which is not terribly uncommon. I'd be surprised if that were not the case.

If the claims got a lot of attention online then yeah, they might feel the need to publicly address the complaint AND get it announced on forums where they know the show is popular and discussed at.

. . .and over the last 20 years or so, ENWorld has covered lots of fairly small disputes and incidents between gamers and game-related companies, so this is pretty par-for-the-course.

 

[Windjammer]

It sounds like a misunderstanding, likely caused by vagueness in a mutual discussion, which is not terribly uncommon. I'd be surprised if that were not the case.

I'd not be surprised either. On the other hand, this is an industry where informal offers to do "free" and uncredited freelance work abounds and is abused left and right. Calling it out for what it is is - when it happens (not sure it did here)* - may help others in the long run to be free of this abuse.

On the road there, you face the question of whether you're willing to risk false positives or prefer false negatives. The former risks hurting publishers, the latter risks hurting freelancers. Not sure which way is equitable overall.

*Edit - though this gives me pause:

After an extensive investigation directed by outside counsel,

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

 

[wingsandsword]

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

Depending on the exact nature of the complaints made, and if the person making the complaints had retained counsel, they might have felt they needed to do this.

If the complainant had hired an attorney, even if just to dash off a letter, they might have felt the need for a CYA, or they could have seen the expense of counsel as being necessary for their image. . .if this scandal threatened to destroy their public image and ruin the company, they could have wanted to make absolutely sure there was nothing to these complaints (or if there was, to settle them quickly).

 

[jasper]

People until you have a written contract in hand, don't do any work on a project.

 

[Morrus]

People until you have a written contract in hand, don't do any work on a project.

Well, the suggestion here is that they didn’t do any work on a project.

 

[OblivionDrive]

There is so much I want to say in response to posts on here but I really don’t need to weigh in here on this thread with backroom stories about the reputation of this person in question. Best just to let CR’s statement stand for itself.

Suffice it to say, I’m glad this is over and done with. And to Wingsandsword, they most definitely mean CR in regards to hiring council. The other party involved in this most definitely did not hire any council, nor would they have even if they had the means.

 

[Sunsword]

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 or -related contract with that member of the community.​

I think having counsel involved indicates how seriously they know something like this is in the cancel culture era. Additionally, I think they have to do that in the case of slander. Finally, I think they are good people who don't want to treat someone poorly or set the accuser up for online bullying from their fanbase. I mean Matt apologized for writing Wildemount instead of Greyhawk some other classic D&D setting. I think they take this seriously because they have careers outside of CR and they have heavily invested in CR. In fact, CR and D&D are a very symbiotic entity now.

 

[Seramus]

I would never want a critter not paid for legitimate work. On the flip side, this is the kind of thing that pushes start up companies into being increasingly defensive and standoffish.