'Everything Is a Story' Inside Wyrmwood Gaming's Narcissistic Funhouse

[Snarf Zagyg]

 

[billd91]

That is a fairly damning picture painted of them. I certainly won't be supporting them going forward. So much for the dice tower I picked up from them last Origins. I could totally sand off the logo and re-stain it, but I'd still know where I got the thing.

See, this would be the problem of sanding off their logo. It only really matters if your stuff makes a lot of public appearances and you don't want to advertise their product. If you're just using it at home, you know whom you got it from, you've already paid for it, you're hiding nothing. You might as well just use it for its utility value - they can gain no more support from you than they already got before you knew how terrible their leadership is. This way you don't let the product of the workers who made it under less than safe, ideal conditions go to waste.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

See, this would be the problem of sanding off their logo. It only really matters if your stuff makes a lot of public appearances and you don't want to advertise their product. If you're just using it at home, you know whom you got it from, you've already paid for it, you're hiding nothing. You might as well just use it for its utility value - they can gain no more support from you than they already got before you knew how terrible their leadership is. This way you don't let the product of the workers who made it under less than safe, ideal conditions go to waste.

I'd pay an ethical place to sand it (see this link in Umbran's post) -

'Everything Is a Story' Inside Wyrmwood Gaming's Narcissistic Funhouse

https://gizmodo.com/wyrmwood-gaming-doug-costello-bobby-downey-1850237181 Curiouser and curiouser. We had very minor dealings with this company a few years ago. Tried to buy some gourmet dice from them. They never shipped the dice we bought and after a few emails, stopped replying to us. We...

www.enworld.org

And then donate an equal amount to a worthwhile local charity. It's a win-win, and you'll feel better.

 

[Emberashh]

This is also still an ongoing issue. For all we know Wyrmwood might actually undergo some real changes for the better in the wake of this.

No reason to burn your own Nikes just yet.

 

[Umbran]

This is not actually good at all. Its "easier" for a critical reader, but causes more problems than it solves.

I don't think it does.

The non-critical reader can't tell the difference between opinion and fact, and allowing ourselves to just give into blurring all lines between them is whats contributing to (if not partially causal to) the extreme degradation of public discourse not just in the US but worldwide.

A non-critical reader also can't tell the difference between a "fact" and a slant, prevarication, or outright lie. They simply consume all points given to them that "feel right". Perhaps the most effective way to mislead a non-critical reader is to give them "dry facts" that are actually misleadingly slanted or outright lies, and let them think they are drawing their own conclusion from "facts".

If you challenge the author's take on things, the reader (broadly) doesn't have any particular investment in it. If you challenge the reader's take on the matter, you are challenging the reader, and they will tend to resist, and defend themselves, despite other evidence.

And, I repeat, there actually are very few "dry facts" in human events. Human events are... moist. Squishy. Full of conflicting perspectives, interpretations, and motivations. Making the author's personal perspective obvious is therefore giving the reader more information to work with, rather than confusing the issue.

In the end here, you don't seem to dispute her facts. You don't say you disagree with her conclusions/opinions. You only disagree with the presence of those conclusions.

And, in the end, if your strongest critique isn't about the factual content of the piece, I am not terribly concerned.

 

[Umbran]

See, this would be the problem of sanding off their logo. It only really matters if your stuff makes a lot of public appearances and you don't want to advertise their product. If you're just using it at home, you know whom you got it from, you've already paid for it, you're hiding nothing.

I mean, do you leave the symbols of groups whose behavior you find repugnant around in your home? If so... you do you. But I don't know that you get to tell others the value of removing those symbols to them.

Broadly, symbols matter to humans. There is a symbolic action to getting the branding removed. The object may still be a reminder of the organization's behavior, but it can also be a reminder of your rejection of that behavior. As far as symbols go, that's not too shabby.

Next time I'm near a hardware store, I'm going to get a couple grades of paper for my random orbit sander...

 

[Umbran]

Very cool and effective to just let someone threadcrap a discussion into the ground while scolding others for pushing back on the threadcrapping.

Mod note:
We have a post reporting function. If you think a post is a problem, we expect you to use it rather than get snarky in the thread.

If you escalate conflict, red text is apt to come your way. So please don't.

 

[Umbran]

If theres more to actually say about that Im sure you could just say it and get a conversation going.

Mod Note:
There already was a conversation going, before you started this line of discussion. If you aren't going to be a constructive part of it, maybe it is time for you to disengage.

 

[Emberashh]

Perhaps the most effective way to mislead a non-critical reader is to give them "dry facts" that are actually misleadingly slanted or outright lies, and let them think they are drawing their own conclusion from "facts".

But then we're no longer talking about the same thing are we? Theres a lot of nuance here and I see little reason to deal in absolutes.

Making the author's personal perspective obvious is therefore giving the reader more information to work with, rather than confusing the issue.

I contend that a journalist's writing should be nothing more than a proverbial plate on which information is passed on to the reader, and not a proverbial bread bowl that was not disclosed up front, with ingredients no one asked for.

There shouldn't be any confusion in the first place, and I think you're overstating the impact implicit, unintentioned bias would have. Manufactured Consent is an issue, no doubt, but thats a distinct step above (really, multiple steps) merely reporting the facts, and comes from more angles than just one journalist writing in a way that undermines her own intentions.

This is why its important to digest a healthy variety of sources when learning about some bit of news. (And why, as it happened, I didn't immediately jump on the outrage train when the OGL debacle first started. I more or less abandoned 5e and started writing my own game literally the next day as corroborations came to light)

I mean, do you leave the symbols of groups whose behavior you find repugnant around in your home? If so... you do you. But I don't know that you get to tell others the value of removing those symbols to them.

Broadly, symbols matter to humans. There is a symbolic action to getting the branding removed. The object may still be a reminder of the organization's behavior, but it can also be a reminder of your rejection of that behavior. As far as symbols go, that's not too shabby.

Next time I'm near a hardware store, I'm going to get a couple grades of paper for my random orbit sander...

I think its more that not everyone is going to be that comfortable with permanently modifying their very expensive fancy wood baubles, so it can be worthwhile to temper the desire to try and make a statement that might not be heard by anyone, least of all the people in the wrong.

That being said, I saw on Reddit that there was a woodworker who was making the mod for like a $20 or a service swap. I imagine you could find a local woodworker who'd give you a decent price to do the same, or might even do it for free given what it is.

 

[Malmuria]

The non-critical reader can't tell the difference between opinion and fact, and allowing ourselves to just give into blurring all lines between them is whats contributing to (if not partially causal to) the extreme degradation of public discourse not just in the US but worldwide.

I don't think journalists shouldn't be giving their own opinions on the things they report, but it needs to be segregated and treated differently.

The primary material that Codega is working with here are interviews with Wyrmwood employees relating their experiences. The role of the journalist in this case is not only to conduct these interviews but to contextualize their comments, which Codega does by placing them within a timeline and grouping them into categories (comments about sexual harassment, worker exploitation, the wyrmlife reality show, etc) to give readers a picture of what's going on behind the scenes. It's up to the editor(s) to review this process to make sure the article meets journalistic standards. There's also the problem that there is a power imbalance here, and Wyrmwood as a company and its executives have their own platforms, while the employees speaking out are either ex-employees or speaking anonymously. Even here, they offered Wyrmwood execs a chance to respond, but they chose not to:

Doug Costello declined to respond to these allegations via phone or email; he invited io9 to visit one of the company’s shops, but we were unable due to time constraints. io9 offered to interview any representative of the company as an alternative; Costello declined to pass the offer along. The only current executive of Wyrmwood Gaming who spoke to io9 on the record for this article was Bas Antoine, head of HR.

On the whole, I don't think this article is in the same category as cable opinion shows or clickbait articles.