D&D Celebrity Satine Phoenix & Husband Jamison Stone Accused Of Abuse Towards Freelancers

D&D influencer Satine Phoenix, and her husband Jamison Stone, who run tabletop gaming company Apotheosis Studios, have been accused of abusive behavior towards freelancers and contracted workers. Satine Phoenix is a well-known D&D personality and creator, and was the D&D Community Manager for about a year back in 2018. Both she and Stone have appeared in many events and streaming shows, and...

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D&D influencer Satine Phoenix, and her husband Jamison Stone, who run tabletop gaming company Apotheosis Studios, have been accused of abusive behavior towards freelancers and contracted workers.

Satine Phoenix is a well-known D&D personality and creator, and was the D&D Community Manager for about a year back in 2018. Both she and Stone have appeared in many events and streaming shows, and have worked with WotC, Geek & Sundry, and other companies. Recently their Kickstarter campaign Sirens: Battle of the Bards raised over $300,000. At GaryCon, a US gaming convention, the couple held a public wedding.

sirens.jpg

Accusations were initially leveled last week against Stone by tattooist Chad Rowe, who tweeted about the abusive way in which Stone, as his client at the time, treated him. The artist was "insulted, berated, and talked down to as if I was a lesser person". Other reports started to roll in as people shared similar experiences, with people revealing how they had been bullied by them, and how the pair frequently portrayed themselves as 'better' than those they worked with. At the time of writing there have been many such reports including one from voice actress and designer Liisa Lee who was subjected to underhanded business practices by Phoenix and her then partner Ruty Rutenberg. Others indicated difficulties in getting paid for work done for Stone and Phoenix or their company.

Lysa Penrose reported on problematic interactions while Phoenix worked at WotC, who was the primary point of contact regarding a report of abuse. Penrose reports that Phoenix failed to pass on the reports of abuse, and continued to publicly associate with the abuser.

Jamison Stone has since resigned as CEO of Apotheosis Studios (though the pair do own the company) and issued a long apology which has been widely criticized. Phoenix released a statement about a week later. Screenshots leaked from a private channel indicate that they have adopted a strategy of shifting the blame onto Stone, so that Phoenix's public image remain intact, with Stone writing “I also am ensuring behind the scenes ... we shield Satine as much as physically possible from damage.”

D&D In A Castle, which is an event which hosts D&D games run by professional DMs in a weekend break in a castle, has dropped the pair from its lineup, as has Jasper's Game Day, an organization which works to prevent suicides. Origins Game Fair, at which the couple are celebrity guests, removed Stone from its guest list, but not Phoenix, stating that "staff assessed that there was no immediate risk of physical harm".

According to ComicBook.com. former collaborator of Phoenix, Ruty Rutenberg, is suing Phoenix, alleging misappropriation of $40,000 of stream network Maze Arcana's money.
 

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Bedrockgames

I post in the voice of Christopher Walken
Abuse victims have been suffering permanent impacts for time immemorial. Our legal/court systems are ineffective at curbing such abuse. What you see on social media is the predictable and understandable result of allowing the injustice to persist.

In waggling your finger at social media, you miss the root cause of the issue - the abuse. Address that, and the social media issue will be resolved. Meanwhile, telling victims and their friends and allies to shut up and sit down, without doing something material to protect them, is not a good look.

You are putting words in my mouth Umbran.
 

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Bedrockgames

I post in the voice of Christopher Walken
Abuse victims have been suffering permanent impacts for time immemorial. Our legal/court systems are ineffective at curbing such abuse. What you see on social media is the predictable and understandable result of allowing the injustice to persist.

I just want to make a point here about this. No one is defending abuse. I am certainly not doing so. I am defending being compassionate, empathetic and deliberative. But our legal court system in the US, is based on taking pains to prevent innocent people from being punished for crimes they didn't commit. And it still happens that innocent people go to prison. There are very good reasons for wanting to make sure our system avoids that. There are plenty of examples throughout our history of the legal system destroying peoples lives when they didn't deserve it. That means you will have people who commit all kinds of crimes not face justice. Not just abuse, but murder, drug trafficking, theft, and more. Because we don't want innocent people going to prison. The standards of evidence are intentionally set high to avoid this. But I don't think the solution is to let twitter mobs decide what happens to people who are accused but not found guilty. I am not saying there shouldn't be conversations, I am just saying we should be very wary of normalizing this kind of extrajudicial justice, when large groups of people acting in haste, are not well equipped to mete out justice in a way that doesn't also harm innocent people. It shouldn't justify that just as it shouldn't justify vigilante justice. I live in a high crime area and I see plenty of criminals go unpunished. That doesn't mean I want people to take to the streets and enact street justice (because I've also seen how sideways that can go and hurt people who are entirely innocent). But wanting to make sure innocent people don't go to prison, doesn't mean I support murder and drug trafficking, or that I want victims of crime to shut up.
 

doctorbadwolf

Heretic of The Seventh Circle
I just want to make a point here about this. No one is defending abuse. I am certainly not doing so. I am defending being compassionate, empathetic and deliberative. But our legal court system in the US, is based on taking pains to prevent innocent people from being punished for crimes they didn't commit. And it still happens that innocent people go to prison. There are very good reasons for wanting to make sure our system avoids that. There are plenty of examples throughout our history of the legal system destroying peoples lives when they didn't deserve it. That means you will have people who commit all kinds of crimes not face justice. Not just abuse, but murder, drug trafficking, theft, and more. Because we don't want innocent people going to prison. The standards of evidence are intentionally set high to avoid this. But I don't think the solution is to let twitter mobs decide what happens to people who are accused but not found guilty. I am not saying there shouldn't be conversations, I am just saying we should be very wary of normalizing this kind of extrajudicial justice, when large groups of people acting in haste, are not well equipped to mete out justice in a way that doesn't also harm innocent people. It shouldn't justify that just as it shouldn't justify vigilante justice. I live in a high crime area and I see plenty of criminals go unpunished. That doesn't mean I want people to take to the streets and enact street justice (because I've also seen how sideways that can go and hurt people who are entirely innocent).
Stop mischaracterising what is happening. Street justice does not refer to people sharing stories of abuse and others stepping away from the abusers as a result.

“Street justice” is using violence in place of judicial justice or litigation.

“Extrajudicial justice” would be the same sort of thing.

If someone gets kicked out of a few bars for abusing patrons while there to perform, it isn’t either of those things to not allow them to play at your bar.
 


Bedrockgames

I post in the voice of Christopher Walken
Stop mischaracterising what is happening. Street justice does not refer to people sharing stories of abuse and others stepping away from the abusers as a result.

“Street justice” is using violence in place of judicial justice or litigation.

“Extrajudicial justice” would be the same sort of thing.

If someone gets kicked out of a few bars for abusing patrons while there to perform, it isn’t either of those things to not allow them to play at your bar.

I never said street justice equaled that, and I stated several times, I am not saying people need to stop sharing stories. I said we should not normalize using twitter as an extrajudicial platform for for justice in response to a poster who said was being used that way because the courts were inadequate. People lose their job over blowouts on twitter, people have trouble finding work when they become pariahs on social media. When these things happen, and when they've happened in the gaming community, I find the rush to cruelty and to judgement a little alarming. I think that is a fair reaction.

I have no problem kicking people out of venues if they misbehave. I do have a problem with the permanence, intensity, and recklessness of cancelation campaigns that happen twitter.

As far as this particular case is concerned, I haven't weighed in because I found it too time consuming once I started delving into. My only concern in this specific case is that apology video seems concerning to me in terms of what state she is in, as she clearly expresses a lack of hope for future employment. While there may be issues at hand that need to be rectified in some way, I do think cautioning people against dogpiling or being cruel (even if they think she deserves it) is warranted because we should all have some empathy for someone in the state she appears to be in the end of the video (and again that isn't to say she didn't do anything: on that front I don't know).
 

Bedrockgames

I post in the voice of Christopher Walken
There's no compassion for the abused, no empathy for those that suffer, and no deliberation when it comes to the fact that both Jamison and Satine have admitted they harmed people

Everyone deserves empathy and compassion. I think people who were abused (and again in this case I haven't dug deep enough to weigh in intelligently on whether that is the case) they deserve compassion. If people haven't been paid, then they deserve compensation. That I am fine with. What I am not fine with, is people saying you have to join in on hating someone or excluding someone.
 

Charlaquin

Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
I just want to make a point here about this. No one is defending abuse. I am certainly not doing so. I am defending being compassionate, empathetic and deliberative. But our legal court system in the US, is based on taking pains to prevent innocent people from being punished for crimes they didn't commit. And it still happens that innocent people go to prison. There are very good reasons for wanting to make sure our system avoids that. There are plenty of examples throughout our history of the legal system destroying peoples lives when they didn't deserve it. That means you will have people who commit all kinds of crimes not face justice. Not just abuse, but murder, drug trafficking, theft, and more. Because we don't want innocent people going to prison. The standards of evidence are intentionally set high to avoid this. But I don't think the solution is to let twitter mobs decide what happens to people who are accused but not found guilty. I am not saying there shouldn't be conversations, I am just saying we should be very wary of normalizing this kind of extrajudicial justice, when large groups of people acting in haste, are not well equipped to mete out justice in a way that doesn't also harm innocent people. It shouldn't justify that just as it shouldn't justify vigilante justice. I live in a high crime area and I see plenty of criminals go unpunished. That doesn't mean I want people to take to the streets and enact street justice (because I've also seen how sideways that can go and hurt people who are entirely innocent). But wanting to make sure innocent people don't go to prison, doesn't mean I support murder and drug trafficking, or that I want victims of crime to shut up.
What Justice do you think is being meted out? Some people were abusive jerks and because they were charismatic and had good connections, it didn’t come out for quite a while. Now it has come out, and people are deciding not to associate or do business with them. That’s not Justice being meted out, that’s just completely normal social dynamics.
 

Bedrockgames

I post in the voice of Christopher Walken
“Extrajudicial justice” would be the same sort of thing.

What i mean by extrajudicial is social media achieving court like outcomes through social and cultural pressure. So getting someone fired from their job because of a whisper campaign or something. Or getting someone blacklisted from an industry, or in extreme cases, tarring their reputation so badly they can't even get a job at McDonalds because the controversy comes up anytime they are google searched. The problem with twitter is it is like a game of telephone. In some cases there is merit to claims. But in others it just starts out as a spat, and it grows and things get distorted. So you can have people being accused of doing things that not only they didn't do, but they weren't even originally accused of doing (it just grows into something else over time, or a bad actor or two slip in or distort what is being said about someone). People commit suicide over these kinds of things. It is not minor.
 

Bedrockgames

I post in the voice of Christopher Walken
What Justice do you think is being meted out? Some people were abusive jerks and because they were charismatic and had good connections, it didn’t come out for quite a while. Now it has come out, and people are deciding not to associate or do business with them. That’s not Justice being meted out, that’s just completely normal social dynamics.

In that exchange with Umbran I was speaking broadly about twitter being used to mete out justice. Like I said, I can't really weigh in on this case, beyond what I said about being concerned after seeing the apology video, because I just found it too deep to delve into when I tried following the links.

But I would argue what we are seeing play out in general on social media isn't normal social dynamics. It is stuff that has started to happen in the past 5 years or so. What you are seeing now, and I am not saying that is happening in this particular instance, is people being canceled from events, losing jobs, etc for much more minor transgressions (sometimes just having the wrong opinion on something). And it has broader impact and lasts forever. And you are seeing often get affixed with labels that aren't even true. Or aren't the whole story, and that impacts their ability to live and work. I think this is pretty obvious to anyone who has been paying attention to the hobby space for the past decade that this shift has happened.

I don't see any of what I've seen in the past few years on social media in the hobby as normal

Also in this particular instance. If people were abusive jerks, its fair for folks to be angry about that. But what I can say is, what troubles me is some of the cruelty I am seeing in places. I am not saying anyone is blameless or that there shouldn't' be conquesquences. But we are seeing a person's life be destroyed in real time, and I have trouble not seeing the tragedy in that. It is certainly not something I want to cheer on.

And even here clearly there is a justice being meted out. You specificity it in your post "people are deciding not to associate or do business". So these people are losing work opportunities, being removed from paid events, etc. I am not saying that should or shouldn't happen, but it is an outcome of twitter being used in this way. If you don't think the person should work int he hobby, fair enough. But for how long? Forever? Do you think they should still even be able work at all in other industries? Should they be barred from creative fields? Should they not be allowed to work in service jobs? Do you think every employer should turn them away? Where should the limit of people deciding not to associate with or do business with them fall? What is the most just outcome? I ask because I feel in these kinds of storms, twitter doesn't do a great job of setting the limits of that outcome and clearly it is an outcome. Something substantive is coming of all this. Which is why I am wary of twitter as an instrument of justice (and against doesn't mean people didn't do things that were bad or that there shouldn't be consequences).
 
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Charlaquin

Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
In that exchange with Umbran I was speaking broadly about twitter being used to mete out justice. Like I said, I can't really weigh in on this case, beyond what I said about being concerned after seeing the apology video, because I just found it too deep to delve into when I tried following the links.

But I would argue what we are seeing play out in general on social media isn't normal social dynamics. It is stuff that has started to happen in the past 5 years or so. What you are seeing now, and I am not saying that is happening in this particular instance, is people being canceled from events, losing jobs, etc for much more minor transgressions (sometimes just having the wrong opinion on something). And it has broader impact and lasts forever. And you are seeing often get affixed with labels that aren't even true. Or aren't the whole story, and that impacts their ability to live and work. I think this is pretty obvious to anyone who has been paying attention to the hobby space for the past decade that this shift has happened.

I don't see any of what I've seen in the past few years on social media in the hobby as normal
“Cancel culture” is two distinct phenomena: one is people choosing not to associate or do business with people for various reasons, usually related to having been accused of some behavior, or having publicly expressed some view that the party ceasing association… doesn’t want to associate with… and the other is cyber bullying. The latter is definitely a serious problem with social media that needs addressing. The former is definitely just normal social dynamics.
 

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