Harassment At PaizoCon 2017

In our post-Harvey Weinstein world, more and more people in the various entertainment industries are coming forward with allegations of abuse and harassment, both sexual and psychological. The tabletop gaming industry isn't isolated from this wave of revelation as incidents surface, and will likely continue to surface about professionals, and fans, within the gaming communities.

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Stories of harassment within tabletop gaming, at conventions and stores, and even in local gaming groups are nothing new. That is probably the saddest fact of this whole thing: that despite stories being brought to light, not only does harassment continue to happen but the existence of it continues to be denied by some. This denial is one of the factors that allows abuse and harassment to continue within tabletop RPGs.

Allegations of improper behavior at the 2017 PaizoCon by Frog God Games CEO Bill Webb were brought to life by Pathfinder content creator Robert Brookes. Brookes was attending PaizoCon and has written for Paizo and Legendary Games, among others. In an incident involving alcohol, Webb allegedly sexually harassed another guest at the convention and when a staffer attempted to intervene and injury occurred with the staffer.

In a thread about harassment and abuse on gaming forum RPGNet, Frog God Games partner Matt Finch, creator of the Swords & Wizardry retroclone, confirmed that the incident with Webb occurred, and revealed some details about an internal investigation that the partners of Frog God Games conducted into the incident:

"I am Matt Finch, the partner of Frog God Games appointed by the partners to investigate a sexual harassment complaint filed against Mr. Webb at PaizoCon 2017. Mr. Webb was not consulted by the partners on this decision. Due to recent accusations made on Twitter by a third party, I will outline the aspects of the situation to the extent that they do not compromise the confidentiality of the person who filed the report, I will describe the nature of our internal investigation, and will also address the recently-raised tweets by Robert Brookes on his twitter feed. This report will not necessarily be updated; it stands for itself at the time of posting, based on the knowledge I currently have.

"First, it is correct that a complaint was filed with Paizo at PaizoCon against Bill. I was made aware of this by phone on the day it happened (I was not present at the convention). Frog God is aware of the identity of the person who made the complaint, because they spoke to three of our partners at the convention after the event. We have not been invited to share that person’s identity, and although we are not under legal obligation to protect that confidentiality we have elected to respect that person’s desire not to have the event brought into the spotlight.

"Gathering information in a situation like this is necessarily limited due to Paizo’s own confidentiality obligations. To assemble information, I spoke to the three partners who had talked with the person who filed the complaint, and obtained their accounts of what they were told. Secondhand accounts are not perfect, and I had to weigh that against the fact that an attorney making direct contact with someone who has filed such a report can be seen as a threat or intimidation, and weighing those two issues, I chose to rely on a comparison of the conversations between the individual and our partners, plus Paizo’s own resolution of the matter at the time, plus a necessarily-cautious review of Bill’s account. There has been contact between the person who filed the complaint and Frog God partners since the event, and I will provide a screenshot of one such communication with the name redacted. I believe the screenshot provides a great deal of clarification.

"Reducing the event to a level that will maintain confidentiality, my understanding based on my investigation was that Bill Webb took an action and engaged in speech that could be construed as a sexual advance or as gender-dismissive.

"In consequence of this finding, I and another senior partner of the company had a meeting with Mr. Webb about expectations, standards of behavior, and future protocol. We addressed that one’s lack of bad intentions does not excuse problematic behavior.

"Some people have asked that Mr. Webb acknowledge and apologize for the situation. Bill does deeply regret his actions, and understands that they were inappropriate and upsetting. I have told Mr. Webb not to contact the person directly, for the same reason that I have not done so myself: the potential for that contact to appear intimidating or threatening. However, at whatever time the person lets us know that a direct apology from Mr. Webb would be welcomed, that apology will be immediately forthcoming. Mr. Webb is also under instruction not to discuss this matter in public, in case peripheral details were to be inadvertently disclosed that might allow the identification of the person by another party. This is also the reason we chose to have me, as the investigating partner, write the public report, given that a report has become necessary in response to a recent description of the event on Twitter."

We reached out to Webb for comment upon this incident, and we were directed to the RPGNet post by Finch. This is the company's official statement on what happened at PaizoCon. Whether or not there will be further repercussions within Frog God Games due to this incident and Webb's actions remain to be seen.

Paizo CEO Lisa Stevens has released an official statement on the incident on the Paizo forums. When EN World reached out to Paizo for official comment, we were directed to this statement:

"My name is Lisa Stevens and I am the CEO and owner of Paizo Inc. Events of the past few weeks have compelled me to make this statement.

"My company will never condone any sexual harassment or assault against any of our employees, male or female. We will never condone any sexual harassment or assault against any of our customers on paizo.com or at sanctioned organized play activities. Whenever I hear any allegations of sexual harassment or assault related to Paizo’s activities, I always immediately drop whatever I'm doing and I make getting to the bottom of these issues my top priority. We have banned people from paizo.com. We have banned people from participating in our organized play activities. We have stopped doing business with individuals. And we will continue to do so.
"As a woman and a survivor of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape, I know what it is like to be on the receiving end of these attacks. I know what it is like to feel the shame, the terror, how it changes your life forever. And because of this, I will never stand for my company to condone this behavior.

"Paizo’s employees are encouraged to come forward with any allegations of sexual harassment or assault and let a manager know as soon as possible. If criminal activities have taken place, they are encouraged to report it to the police and take legal action against the perpetrator. We have asked our employees to not engage in explosive and angry dialogue on paizo.com. We want our website to be a place where our customers feel safe and among friends. If there is problem on paizo.com, then our community team will handle it and, where appropriate, ban the perpetrator.

"In closing, you have my word that I have zero tolerance for sexual harassment and assault, and the same is true of Paizo. Please be aware that we treat these issues with tremendous sensitivity, and only disclose the specifics and resolutions of any such incidents on a need-to-know basis, even within Paizo or with our legal counsel. We do not and will not discuss these matters publicly. Every instance that I am aware of has been thoroughly investigated, and appropriate actions have been taken or are in the process of being taken. You have my word on this."

Unrelated to the PaizoCon incident, Brookes also revealed an incident of harassment within the Pathfinder Society organized play program. When a volunteer staffer reported this incident, their supervisor informed them that an NDA they had signed to be part of the program would not allow her to discuss this incident. Paizo has not officially commented on this incident or commented on whether or not there is an investigation into it.

If tabletop role-playing games are truly going to be an inclusive, we have to be better about not just reporting incidents of abuse and harassment but being dedicated to creating spaces that are safe and free of harassment of our fellow gamers. We also need to shine a spotlight onto the incidents of harassment that occur, it is the responsibility of journalists, bloggers and gamers to do this and let people know that their actions will come to light and that they will be held responsible. It is also important to not just talk about those parts of the gaming communities that we don't agree with, but to also bring to light the improper actions of those companies and communities with whom we do agree, because unless every act of harassment is revealed there will be no change within our communities.

Remember that EN World is an inclusive community.

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[Guang]

Continuing to financially support harassers is making a choice.

Deciding to boycott a harasser is generous and morally good, even bordering on heroic, depending on what you're going without. Not boycotting does not make someone in the wrong, though. An extreme unrelated example: If you jump in front of a bullet to save someone's life, you are unequivocally a hero. If you don't decide to take a bullet for someone else, however, you have nothing to be ashamed of.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I apologize that I misunderstood, but I have a few key concerns still:

1) Any act of contrition on Webb's part, in order to justify at least me (and really, I can only speak for myself), will need an acknowledgment that at worst alcohol exacerbated his issues in treating women at conventions, not that it created or caused it. Anything else (e.g; "it wasn't me, it was the alcohol", "I shouldn't have been drinking", "anyone who knows the real me blah blah") is a dodge, a lame excuse that distracts from the real issue. Alcohol didn't make him harass a woman, it just made him that much more likely to do so.

2) Should such contrition actually be forthcoming, and we've seen signs of an actual change in attitudes and behaviors, I'd gladly have a change of heart myself.

3) One last note: I'm far more concerned for the lives and livelihoods of the women who have been or who would be targets of Webb or any other known or serial sexual harassers in the industry than I am about the livelihoods of said harassers. It is people like Webb who drive a lot of women out of the industry (see also: the tech industry). And it's their behavior that makes us, as consumers, necessarily have to choose whose livelihoods we want to continue to support. There's no sitting on the fence on this one, either. Continuing to financially support harassers is making a choice.

Agreed with 1 & 2.

But I think you’re missing my point with 3, namely that if the punishment of the offender is too severe, not only do we indirectly risk punishing those who may be innocent (here, his family & employees, if any), we also may stress the offender to relapse- possibly at an escalated level- regardless of how sincere the repentance for the acts that rightfully incurred the punishment.

Excessive punishment of Webb may also factor negatively into the mental calculus of unknown offenders who may genuinely wish to change. Instead of repentance, there is continued inappropriate behavior.

Both of these last 2 concerns are for potential future victims.

 

[Sunseeker]

Deciding to boycott a harasser is generous and morally good, even bordering on heroic, depending on what you're going without. Not boycotting does not make someone in the wrong, though. An extreme unrelated example: If you jump in front of a bullet to save someone's life, you are unequivocally a hero. If you don't decide to take a bullet for someone else, however, you have nothing to be ashamed of.

I don't know the inner workings of Frog God Games, how many people work there, what their contribution to the functioning of the company is, etc... If it's literally just him, then yeah, boycott products of the offender. But lets say for example (since again, I don't know who, how many, or what kind of workers FGG may have) that Bill is pretty much "CEO" he meets with teams, talks about his ideas, but on the whole he largely guides the company. Boycotting FGG's work isn't going to cut into Bill in this case. It's going to cut into the writers, the staff, the editors and all of those people first before Bill feels the squeeze.

Beyond that, boycotting FGG for Bill's actions is like giving up chocolate or beer for Lent. You don't need chocolate. There are plenty of alternative sweets, there are plenty of alternative alcohols. You're not really "sacrificing" for the greater good.

People who boycott get the same response from me as people who don't: "okay."

 

[Mouseferatu]

How do you know he hasn't made an honest change in his life and the way he treats women? I don't know the guy. This went down in May right? So he's had months to seek counseling, make life changes, etc. How do you know?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but if one is seeking to atone for something committed in public, something that is part of a publicly recognized pattern of problematic behavior in the industry, something that the public is calling you out/boycotting you for?

Then the steps you are taking to change your behavior also have to be public.

I'm sorry if that violates someone's idea of the privacy they're entitled to, but this isn't just about Bill changing his behavior. It's about making people feel safe around Bill, and ensuring to our satisfaction--"us," in this case, being the audience and community with which he interacts--that it won't happen again. That requires public contrition and public evidence of change.

 

[evilref]

Why? Because he, as a human being, needs to be able to work to provide for himself & his family. Blackballing him for life even after his repentance could be a significant stressor that leads to even worse behavior.

If you go to a restaurant and have a experience, bad food, long wait, bad service, etc. Do you go 'well, i'll keep coming back in case they get better', or do you stop going. Maybe, maybe if you read how they've turned it around, with multiple people saying that it's better now, you go back.

But that's not happened here. Months after the incident, having said nothing, they put out a deliberately antagonistic social media post, and a dismissive, do-nothing attempt at a justification.

Those aren't the actions of a company, or an individual, that gives a damn at all.

 

[evilref]

How do you know he hasn't made an honest change in his life and the way he treats women? I don't know the guy. This went down in May right? So he's had months to seek counseling, make life changes, etc. How do you know?

The fact he said nothing, despite it being made public months after the event. The fact his company put out a ridiculous press announcement in which the sum total of his censure was 'In consequence of this finding, I and another senior partner of the company had a meeting with Mr. Webb about expectations, standards of behavior, and future protocol. We addressed that one’s lack of bad intentions does not excuse problematic behavior.'

The fact his company 'coincidentally' put out an inflammatory social media post and photo, which just so happened to directly refer to the incident on the day it went viral. (note, I don't think it's a coincidence, nor do many people, you can make your own mind up)

So, no, in no way has he shown any 'honest change in his life and how he treats women', in fact he and his company have shown the direct opposite.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I didn't say he had repented. I see no evidence of it.

But if he does...

 

[Eltab]

Webb being a part-owner of the company makes it harder but not impossible to pressure him from within the company.
Warren Buffet, Mitt Romney (from his days with Bain Capital) and Peter Lynch (former manager of Fidelity's Magellan investment fund) have all pointed out in print that you can get rid of even a full-owner who is destroying his company.

I'd expect to see something from the following:
- Webb will not be attending public functions on the Company's behalf until further notice. (This action is the absolute minimum.)
- Webb will be going to detox/whatever to deal with the alcohol factor
- The other partners will buy out Webb's share of ownership and make him an employee. This gives more leverage over him in future.
- Written apology from Webb to victim. If victim agrees, apology will be made public.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Exactly. I'd expect 1,2 & 4 in a big, high profile company trying to avoid backlash. 3 would be rare. They'd be more likely to just fire/buyout a contract, even one with a golden parachute. But buyouts in small businesses are a bit rarer because of the legal requirements for paying fair market value running into the issue of liquidity of the business or the owners.

 

[Gradine]

How do you know he hasn't made an honest change in his life and the way he treats women? I don't know the guy. This went down in May right? So he's had months to seek counseling, make life changes, etc. How do you know?

By talking about taking steps to transform himself as part of a public apology, for starters. Did I miss this? It's possible I missed this.

P.S. If the drunk "you" is the real "you" then we are all rather primitive. I suppose it's an argument for the inherent depravity of all humanity. However, no real insight would thus be established about the unique deficiencies of any one person.

I think it instead speaks to how powerfully socialization constricts and inhibits our behaviors. To get Freudian, drunk you is your Id, free of the shackles of your Superego. Neurologically speaking, alcohol basically hands the keys of your body over to the "primitive" parts of the brain. Clearly that means that drunk you is going to do the things that you know better not to do. But it still means that you're going to do the things you want to do. That's essentially the point that I'm making.