Paizo Jessica Price (ex Paizo employee) spills the beans

[SkidAce]

There is some controversy around this, particularly people wanting to salvage the ideas after WW2 in spite of theosophy being part of the soup of the Fascist scene, but you can find a bit more on this wiki:

Theosophical mysticism - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Thanks, I saw the origin of Theosophy was actually late 1800s.

Appreciate the info.

 

[Parmandur]

Thanks, I saw the origin of Theosophy was actually late 1800s.

Appreciate the info.

Yes, most of the components of Fascist thought were.

I don't at all imagine that Mona is a Fascist or a "Racist" in the hard sense of the term: but he has been playing with Racist ideas and symbolism as a side hobby around people who voiced discomfort with that, and tried to fit in weird 19th century "scientific racism" and mystical racism into the game for his own amusement over the objections of others. Not a good look.

 

[Justice and Rule]

 

[Hex08]

That was certainly long, and if true, tragic. However, maybe Twitter isn't the best place to post something of that length. May I'm just getting old but that was a chore to read.

-edited to add-

So I went back and am re-reading the posts (thanks @Ancalagon for making it easier) and I can't help but have an observation. While there are some crappy things going on specific to Paizo (if true) like not cleaning up for 7 years and other bad behaviors I can't help but note a lot of the things mentioned are of a more general nature. What I mean is that complaints like overworked staff, crap pay, internal politics and the like are true of most any job in corporate America. Everyone needs to chose their own battles but while you a heaping your rage on Paizo maybe look at your shopping habits as a whole (and I am no saint here). Do you shop at Amazon or Walmart? Are you buying food from a corporate grocery store or from your local farmers market? Where do you get your games from? I know that our options are really limited when it comes to some purchases but maybe bailing on Paizo isn't the best way to go. No longer purchasing from them will directly hurt front line staff and creative talent but massive letter writing campaigns and social media engagement may make management feel like their hands are being forced and bring about constructive change without directly impacting frontline workers.

I feel like I am a hair's breadth and another beer from going on a political tirade but this is all endemic of a bigger problem and maybe our rage needs to be pointed at bigger targets as well.

 

[TheSword]

Yes, most of the components of Fascist thought were.

I don't at all imagine that Mona is a Fascist or a "Racist" in the hard sense of the term: but he has been playing with Racist ideas and symbolism as a side hobby around people who voiced discomfort with that, and tried to fit in weird 19th century "scientific racism" and mystical racism into the game for his own amusement over the objections of others. Not a good look.

It’s worth noting that Mona denies anyone raised an objection to what he thought was an otherwise innocuous poster. Also that he found it interesting not that he believed it. Also that his editor had done the job of editors the world over and removed controversial elements that don’t add to the work.

 

[Ancalagon]

That was certainly long, and if true, tragic. However, maybe Twitter isn't the best place to post something of that length. May I'm just getting old but that was a chore to read.

Hello

I juuust edited the thread to add this easier to read link: Thread by @Delafina777 on Thread Reader App

and yeah, it's long.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

It’s…. More complicated than that.

As a whole Paizo has led the way in many ways. Paizo is also a collection of people some of who might have done things differently if it were up to them alone. Some it seems even tried.

Yeah, it certainly is. It seems that those operating at a lower paid levels are very different from those at the executive level.

Disappointing to hear that Lisa Stevens and Eric Mona are not the people I had thought they were though.

 

[Parmandur]

It’s worth noting that Mona denies anyone raised an objection to what he thought was an otherwise innocuous poster. Also that he found it interesting not that he believed it. Also that his editor had done the job of editors the world over and removed controversial elements that don’t add to the work.

I both believe that Price (who is Jewish, incidentally) and others raised objections, and that Mona doesn't remember that they did, probably because it went in one ear and out another. Compatible truths. Entertaining harmful ideas for amusement, particularly in a work environment, is almost as bad as being gung ho for them: and ignoring coworkers and subordinates discomfort is...not good.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I kinda feel like Erik Mona is being given a bit of a free pass by many people. Price stated that he was basically the best of the worst in regards to management. However, Erik's reddit post doesn't address the fact that he sat on his hands and did nothing when people under him raised issues like not being able to breathe properly and then towed the company line when push came to shove. At the very best, that's not great.

He had a painting containing an iron cross in his office and supposedly didn't think that was inappropriate because no one mentioned it to him? Price also stated that Mona wanted to keep a mental illness mechanic in because it would only be 3-4 years because that sort of thing would be politically incorrect to do, so they needed to milk it while they could.

Either he was ridiculously oblivious, or he wasn't oblivious and just didn't care about how others may feel about that. Neither of those paint him in a good light for mine.

I don't know, maybe it's because I held him in quite high regard before this, which has made me even more disappointed that the Wizard of Oz is not at all what I thought he was once the curtain was pulled back.

 

[Galandris]

Importantly: delivering incontrovertible physical evidence of misbehavior to Person Z's boss is more likely to result in firings and policy changes than just the Internet flamethrower running on hot emotion.

Actually, I see the risk as more with collateral damage: delivering evidence of misbehaviour to a boss could indeed result in a change, if not, a proper legal action will at least punish the culprits if not initiate changes, while an outright boycott could make the company fold/make a few layoffs, punishing equally the culprit and everyone working with them (including other victims of the health hazard who simply couldn't quit their job easily, and perhaps not including the responsible persons). I don't see the latter as a desirable outcome. It could, of course, happen in court (if the public interest of protecting employees health is judged to outweigh the private interest of employees to stay in their jobs, because the problem is widespread within the company and there is no other solution than closing it down) but at least the court will do a significant inquiry, including reviewing evidence we won't easily have access to, and trying to determine individual responsabilities, before concluding to such an extreme measure.

 

[!DWolf]

So I normally wouldn’t touch stuff like this, and it’s probably a bad idea posting this, but I figured this might be helpful to others who, like me, can’t figure out twitter. It is my intent to present the allegations concisely and without comment and I apologize for any errors in advance as I am not fluent in twitter and am only human:

Allegations by Jessica Price who worked at Paizo from 2013 to 2017 (as far as I can tell):
(Note: that Jessica Price says that certain information about Tonya Woldridge is secondhand from devs that worked with her, to indicate that I will place the word secondhand in parentheses before the line item, this does not mean that they are not true or that other items are not secondhand)

Paizo in General/Unnamed Executives

1. Paizo fired two of their senior customer service people (Sara and Diego) for being to willing to push back at abusive management. This was clarified: only one was fired (Sara) and the other (Diego) resigned in support.
2. Creative staff was required to be active on Paizo forums. Executives were offended by the staff requesting a block function on the forums, despite there being multiple user created hacks to implement the function, and screamed at employees for pushing back against abusive customers.
3. One of the lead programmers (at Paizo?) gets royalties off of the forum website software which is why they refuse to implement a block function.
4. Paizo is going to make a Gen Con 2021 announcements about new ways to exploit players.
5. Paizo once wrote in a negative item in a performance review that Jessica Price more of an advocate for employees than the company.
6. Paizo attempts to hide employee turnover by promoting/moving people internally or hiring people they know instead of posting job adds.
7. Jessica Price and Wes created a blind employment test for developers to reduce bias when hiring. After Jessica Price and Wes left the company, the design team no longer used the test. Instead they preferred to hire internally.
8. Paizo hired some freelancers as full employees, but told them they had to move to Washington state for tax reasons despite having other employees that lived outside of Washington state.
9. Paizo attempted to stop personal brand-building of younger employees and said that they could not go to any cons unless the company sent them. Trans employees were also excluded from going to conventions because of the policy of having people stay two to a room and the company being unwilling to room a transwoman and a ciswoman in the same room.
10. Women were demoted for being to troublesome.
11. Paizo’s building was extremely dusty and it was causing breathing problems for employees. When asked about it by Jessica Price, Erik Mona said the janitor (it is unclear whether this is an employee or a contractor) had a bad back and doesn’t vacuum and the place hadn’t been vacuumed in seven years. Erik sent them to Jeff Alvarez who was in charge of the facilities. Jeff told them they didn’t have the budget to have it professionally cleaned so Jessica Price and one of the developers came in on a weekend with a vacuum and a carpet shampooer and attempted to clean the place themselves, but managed to somehow break both the vacuum and the shampooer. They went back to Erik Mona and asked for him to buy an industrial/heavy duty vacuum cleaner. He responded that their insurance did not cover employees cleaning the building (presumably using such machinery and not wiping up spills and such like). Jessica Price and a bunch of other developers then emailed HR/finance guy to force them to find money to clean the building because the other executives were unresponsive.

Erik Mona

1. Jeff Alvarez and Erik Mona were in competition to see who would run Paizo when the owners (Lisa Stevens and Vic Wertz) retired.
2. Erik Mona had company funded trips to New York. While on one of these trips he bought a $3000 Varvatos suit which he bragged about to employees who made half of what it took to live in the expensive Seattle area.
3. Jessica Price insisted to Mona that he had more power than he thought he did. He disagreed.
4. Mona is into Victorian Occultism and (by implication) a nazi/white supremacist: he posted a picture a Victorian era occult book to his facebook page that had a swastika and he did not want to hear about how the symbol made the employees feel.
5. He was interested in Theosophy and got a big portrait of Saint Germaine (a Theosophy religious figure) and put it in his office. There was an iron cross on the painting. People asked him not to have it in his office, but he ignored them and hung it above his desk.
6. He was very into Manasaputras and wanted them to represent each race but it was taken out in editing.
7. When it was brought up that female developers were offered lower starting salaries and were starting with assistant titles despite running entire production lines said they might not hire any more woman if they are going to complain all the time.
8. Erik Mona, while drunk at a convention, admitted to Jessica Price that Paizo had borrowed money from the Mob.
9. Eric Mona said that in approximately 3 to 4 years it would be to politically incorrect to do madness mechanics in books and so they should include it (instead of an alternate mechanic) while they could.

Lisa Stevens

1. Lisa Stevens insisted that employee’s not complain about anything, especially wages, and felt that they should be honored to be working for Paizo.
2. Lisa Stevens thought that things weren’t shipping on time not because Paizo was understaffed but because some employees were slacking. She referred to the employees that were slacking as “cancer”.
3. Jeff Alvarez offered advice at pre-convention meetings that every employee attended saying to try and avoid putting themselves in situations where they may be harassed or assaulted. Lisa Stevens would then immediately say that they are at the convention to make sure that the attendees have a good time. This was intended (by both Jeff and Lisa) to convey being harassed/assaulted was part of the job.

Vic Wertz

1. Vic Wertz put a manager in the hospital during a violet rage (it is implied that he directly beat an employee).

Jason Bulhaman

1. Jason Bulhaman hit on every woman in the creative department who was not in a relationship.
2. Bulmahn propositioned Jessica Price. When she turned him down he, in retaliation, instructed his department to stop communicating with Jessica Price. Jessica Price learned this when she, along with Erik Mona, talked to the team while Bulmahn was out of town.
3. Jason Bulmahn sent unsolicited pictures of his penis to other woman working in the tabletop gaming industry. Jessica Price was not sent these pictures.

Jeff Alvarez

1. Jeff Alvarez and Erik Mona were in competition to see who would run Paizo when the owners (Lisa Stevens and Vic Wertz) retired.
2. Jeff gave inappropriate gifts (a makeup compact with a naked medusa and a greeting card with a vibrator) to an unnamed senior woman who was either a full-time employee or a contractor, in order to bully her into quitting.
3. Jeff offered advice at pre-convention meetings that every employee attended saying to try and avoid putting themselves in situations where they may be harassed or assaulted. Lisa Stevens would then immediately say that they are at the convention to make sure that the attendees have a good time. This was intended (by both Jeff and Lisa) to convey being harassed/assaulted was part of the job.
4. Jeff appointed Tonya Woldridge above the head of the Customer Service department because Jeff thought that the CS head challenged him to much.

Tonya Woldridge

1. Tonya attended creative department meetings despite not being part of the creative department. While there she acted like the organized play developers reported to her.
2. Tonya was invited to a private online support group for women in the tabletop rpg industry. While there she took screenshots of members venting about Erik Mona and shared them with him.
3. (secondhand) Tonya protected abusive organized play volunteers because of her personal relationships with them.
4. (secondhand) Tonya insisted she needed an assistant, then created a bunch of work for herself to justify needing an assistant. In doing so she dragged a lot of organized play developers into meetings without agendas.
5. (secondhand) She actively opposed and attempted to quash paizo’s diversity blogs. An employee of color did it anyways. She then attempted to claim credit for it. Then she insisted on editing the diversity blog, adding items that were ‘tone-deaf’, but actual editors removed her edits before they went live.
6. (secondhand) She was promoted, by Jeff Alvarez, above the head of the CS department because Jeff thought that the CS head challenged him to much.
7. (secondhand) Tonya attempted to force employees to return to the office before it was safe because she feared that because the workers were not being directly supervised, they were being unproductive. This is despite Customer Service, while working from home, managing to get through it’s backlog. To accomplish this she lied to management about Customer Service staff being okay with returning to the workplace, despite them saying they were not ready to return to the workplace.
8. (secondhand) One of the employees pushed to do a Juneteenth blog, but Tonya told them that they couldn’t take a day away from pride month. The employee then complained to an unnamed marketing guy who said “well maybe we don’t want to be positioned as that company.”
9. (secondhand) Tonya criticized a non-manager in the Customer Service department about having a lax management style.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Thanks @!DWolf. Your efforts are very much appreciated.

 

[Blape]

Not outright contradicting someone is not the same as corroboration and being willing to offer corroboration isn’t corroboration. We have no idea which of the dozen or so accusations have weight, or which are just opinion.

Also on a personal note I don’t have strong opinions on Paizo’s management team… how can I, I haven’t worked with them. They may be Dark Lords of the Sith for all I know. In which case I hope they change their ways. I have a fond nostalgia for Paizo from the dark days of 4e, and I’ve always seen the writing as being fairly progressive. That said Im not a fan boy, haven’t really used the Paizon forums for 5 or 6 years and haven’t bought a product since 5e.

I just take issue with the largely unregulated, unaccountable dismantling of people and business via social media.

Good to see Jessica made a correction though. She didn’t apologize for giving incorrect information though, as many people may not see that correction… as I wouldn’t have, unless I was given the link. I get the impression that contrition or considering the other side is not high up on her priority list.

[Edit: In fairness, it appears some grudging backhanded recognition has appeared about early editorial decision in the first year. Otherwise it’s a pretty brutal character assassination of every exec at Paizo. It will be interesting to see how they respond to it.]

What a hero.

 

[Blape]

Not outright contradicting someone is not the same as corroboration and being willing to offer corroboration isn’t corroboration. We have no idea which of the dozen or so accusations have weight, or which are just opinion.

Also on a personal note I don’t have strong opinions on Paizo’s management team… how can I, I haven’t worked with them. They may be Dark Lords of the Sith for all I know. In which case I hope they change their ways. I have a fond nostalgia for Paizo from the dark days of 4e, and I’ve always seen the writing as being fairly progressive. That said Im not a fan boy, haven’t really used the Paizon forums for 5 or 6 years and haven’t bought a product since 5e.

I just take issue with the largely unregulated, unaccountable dismantling of people and business via social media.

Good to see Jessica made a correction though. She didn’t apologize for giving incorrect information though, as many people may not see that correction… as I wouldn’t have, unless I was given the link. I get the impression that contrition or considering the other side is not high up on her priority list.

[Edit: In fairness, it appears some grudging backhanded recognition has appeared about early editorial decision in the first year. Otherwise it’s a pretty brutal character assassination of every exec at Paizo. It will be interesting to see how they respond to it.]

Youre a real hero. I'm glad someone is willing to stand up for the big guy until we know the little guy is right.

 

[!DWolf]

So as a cleaning professional I have an opinion on the dust story. Assuming that the janitor was an employee of Paizo and the conversations from years ago are being reproduced correctly, why didn’t anyone get them a vacuum they could use with their bad back so they can actually do their job?

 

[TheSword]

Youre a real hero. I'm glad someone is willing to stand up for the big guy until we know the little guy is right.

I’m not standing up for anyone. I’m reminding people that before we throw Erik Mona on the fire and light it, that he has denied the allegations and as far as we know it is his word against another’s, regarding some pretty heinous accusations.

It has been insinuated that he’s a white supremacist, a racist and - let’s go the whole hog - a Nazi. Based on the opinion of a single person. Would you be happy if an ex employee made those allegations against you at any time, let alone five years after they left?

 

[Olaf the Stout]

So as a cleaning professional I have an opinion on the dust story. Assuming that the janitor was an employee of Paizo and the conversations from years ago are being reproduced correctly, why didn’t anyone get them a vacuum they could use with their bad back so they can actually do their job?

Whoa now, enough with the crazy ideas. You don't want the management to think you're gunning for their jobs with lateral thinking like that.

Next you'll be telling me that it's not normal for staff to have asthma attacks due to the amount of dust inside a building.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I’m not standing up for anyone. I’m reminding people that before we throw Erik Mona on the fire and light it, that he has denied the allegations and as far as we know Jessica Price is the only one making them regarding some pretty heinous accusations.

It has been insinuated that he’s a white supremacist a racist and - let’s go the whole hog - a Nazi. Based on the opinion of a single person. Would you be happy if an ex employee made those allegations against you at any time, let alone five years after they left?

Actually, didn't he confirm that the painting in question was on display in his office. That's the opposite of denial. He only denied that staff were uncomfortable about an iron cross hanging in their boss's office.

 

[Galandris]

Actually, didn't he confirm that the painting in question was on display in his office. That's the opposite of denial. He only denied that staff were uncomfortable about an iron cross hanging in their boss's office.

As far as I understand his answer, he denied, citing the fact that the picture was anterior to the Nazi regime, any link between the picture and Nazi ideology. The symbol on the picture is still the current symbol of the Bundeswehr, and I don't think anyone thinks the current German military and government is rooting for the Nazis. It has been associated with German military forces since the beginning of the 19th century, and its continued use through the Nazi era and up to the current day doesn't make it automatically a Nazi symbol. So he didn't deny the presence of a cross but its association and meaning.

 

[TheSword]

Actually, didn't he confirm that the painting in question was on display in his office. That's the opposite of denial. He only denied that staff were uncomfortable about an iron cross hanging in their boss's office.

He explained the reason for his interest in St Germain. Which considering he’s a fantasy games writer it isn’t exactly a crazy idea to think he’d be interested in figures like St Germain, Francis Bacon, and the Tuetonic Knights/Knights Templar.

It’s also worth noting that the Iron cross was the country’s highest medal of honour long before Hitler came to power. Context in this regard does matter. In my experience Germans have been extremely sensitive to post war glorification of Nazism. Yet the cross is still in active use. Not all things German are wrong because they’ve been coopted by white supremacists. Context does matter, and in the poster the context was clear.

Edit: Ninja’d