Paizo Update from Jeff Alvarez

Hi Jeff

Will there be any investigation/evaluation of the events leading up to Sara leaving the company? (Private, obviously but beyond the usual “we’re always looking at what we do and striving to do better”).

This is what I’d like to know as well.

I appreciate this update and hope the work continues.

Adding a mod post because it doesn't look like one was made. As per usual, please stay on topic to the discussion.

Second, trans people's existence, validity, and experiences are not up for debate on our forums. Period. There are plenty of places, unfortunately, where you can go to debate it, but this is not one of them.

Additionally, if my phrasing above was incorrect, please let me know! My PMs are turned off, but you can email customer.service@paizo.com.

Adding a mod post because it doesn't look like one was made. As per usual, please stay on topic to the discussion.

Second, trans people's existence, validity, and experiences are not up for debate on our forums. Period. There are plenty of places, unfortunately, where you can go to debate it, but this is not one of them.

Additionally, if my phrasing above was incorrect, please let me know! My PMs are turned off, but you can email customer.service@paizo.com.

Thank you.

Adding a mod post because it doesn't look like one was made. As per usual, please stay on topic to the discussion.

Second, trans people's existence, validity, and experiences are not up for debate on our forums. Period. There are plenty of places, unfortunately, where you can go to debate it, but this is not one of them.

Additionally, if my phrasing above was incorrect, please let me know! My PMs are turned off, but you can email customer.service@paizo.com.

Your phrasing is just fine as far as I can see, and I appreciate this message clarifying and reinforcing Paizo's values.

Paizo marketing and legal departments did a lovely job crafting this blog post for Alvarez to sign. They have deftly addressed specific claims of misfeasance without actually addressing the issues raised by those claims. It's especially egregious that they have "concerns that have been brought to our attention over the past week." Did you not hear them before?

Often, what is not said is far more meaningful than the actual words on the page. Let's take a look

Taking of responsibility, feelings of remorse
The OP daintily sidesteps responsibility, remorse, and a sincere apology.
There's nothing for me to quote, since there were no words said.

Trust
I see nothing in the statement that indicates that ethical behavior by the leadership is of any concern.
It is hard to trust senior management who, within the past year, accessed confidential customer data and posted on a public web page. It is hard to trust senior management who screenshot private conversations and show them to the poster's supervisor.

And yes, I'm using a pseudonym that is not obviously connected to my main posting account, although there's probably enough information bleed that someone with Admin credentials for the Paizo servers could make the connection. And again post private customer information for the world to see, in order to make a point in an internet argument.

It sounds like changes have been made (although, did it really take until 2017 to offer basic hygiene in the workplace?). I hope that, in addition to proclamations by the president, we also hear from employees how much better things are. And that we hear them in off-site channels, where it's clear that the person is not just showing solidarity with the boss on the company website.

By the way, there's a difference between gender identity and sexuality.

A person can be a, poly, bi, homo, hetero, and other kinds of sexual no matter what their gender identity. Trans or cis, who you are attracted to has nothing to do with your gender.

It is perfectly possible to be transphobic (gender) without being homophobic (sexuality).

See, as a blazing example familiar to almost all fantasy fans, J K Rowling.

I find it disheartening that Paizo was paying attention to gender in making room assignments and not paying attention to sexuality. If you want to 'protect' me from unwanted sexual advances, pay attention to who my roommate is attracted to, not how they identify their gender.

I find it even more disheartening that, when it was pointed out to them that this policy unfairly limited access to important industry cons, that the 'solution' was to limit all employees' access even further. If you don't increase your travel budget, then clearly, fewer employees staying in each room, means fewer employees even get to go to the con.

And obviously, senior management isn't who is left off the list.

Customer service doesn't answer their phones, they don't answer emails. As far as I can tell the only method of contact is to post in the CS forum and pray someone pays attention to you. And they're apparently getting rewarded for it.

Call me old-fashioned but I'd rather not air my business for everyone on the internet to see.

Customer service doesn't answer their phones, they don't answer emails. As far as I can tell the only method of contact is to post in the CS forum and pray someone pays attention to you. And they're apparently getting rewarded for it.

Call me old-fashioned but I'd rather not air my business for everyone on the internet to see.

For what it’s worth, I have customer service solve three separate unrelated issues of mine in the last month pretty promptly. I hope they can get to you.

Customer service doesn't answer their phones, they don't answer emails. As far as I can tell the only method of contact is to post in the CS forum and pray someone pays attention to you. And they're apparently getting rewarded for it.

Call me old-fashioned but I'd rather not air my business for everyone on the internet to see.

They don't answer their phones because they're not in the office. They will answer their emails, but it may take a little bit for that as they've been flooded this past week.

I have to say that, having read a number of posts on social media that allege some pretty disgusting behavior, I’m pretty sickened by it all.

I have to confess that I knew none of this until I saw this post today, and then I went looking to find what it was allow bout.

I don’t know which of the allegations are true - I suspect some are. Maybe they all are.

But I am greatly disappointed in Paizo, and members of the management that I know personally.

And as much as I love Pathfinder, I can’t in good conscience continue to support it or play it or GM it if, as alleged, a senior member of management had a swastika in his office. No. That’s a bridge too far for me.

And as the father of a transgender teen, I’m disappointed to hear the allegations of transphobia in the office.

And they honestly couldn’t have the office vacuumed for SEVEN years? Come on.

Someone help me make sense of all of this because I clearly misjudged a LOT of people.

And as much as I love Pathfinder, I can’t in good conscience continue to support it or play it or GM it if, as alleged, a senior member of management had a swastika in his office. No. That’s a bridge too far for me.

To defend Mona a bit here, it wasn't a swastika, but an iron cross and in a different context - part of a picture for some theosophical thing. Similarly, there was mention of a swastika (on FB maybe?), but it was one among a bunch of occult symbols, that otherwise had nothing to do with Nazis.

I don't think even Jessica was saying he was a Nazi, just that he ignored the impression it might make on other employees and dismissed concerns when they were brought up.

Paulyhedron wrote:

Fair, but do you work there? Not really seeing how you fit into all this.

Nope, just a long-time fan and subscriber (until last week) who has been dealing with my understanding of the corporate values not being what I thought they were.

This will probably be lost in the mix but I take this from Obama about the reality of change. Two Steps forward, one step back Skip to 17:30 to get my point.

Someone help me make sense of all of this because I clearly misjudged a LOT of people.

Mark, you have every right to be disappointed in Paizo for this, but I do want to say that this Nazi business has been grossly mischaracterized.

I released a public statement about it on Tuesday that should provide a bit more clarity. You can read it here.

I do not recall ever being told that the poster in my office offended anyone, and (as I said in the statement), I categorically apologize for not anticipating that it may have done so. It has not been on display for years.

There are a pile of problems floating around, some of which are not easily solved. But "Erik has a swastika in his office," something that has never been true (and was not even alleged), is not one of them.

And as much as I love Pathfinder, I can’t in good conscience continue to support it or play it or GM it if, as alleged, a senior member of management had a swastika in his office. No. That’s a bridge too far for me.

Mark, I don't think that was alleged.

The described and confirmed, poster of Saint Germain, had an iron cross, not a swastika, above it.

However, other art Mr. Mona had in an art collection he posted (on facebook?) had a swastika among its images and he took it down immediately when it was pointed out to him- an oversight, and one he has apologized for. Mr. Mona's statement couldn't be clearer about how he feels, and it is worth reading.

Although I wouldn't presume to tell anyone how these revelations should affect them, please be sure the initial gut punch doesn't preclude you from listening to multiple points of views about what happened during these events.

EDIT: And, Erik Ninja's me as I was trying to get my wording right.

Mark Stratton wrote:

And as much as I love Pathfinder, I can’t in good conscience continue to support it or play it or GM it if, as alleged, a senior member of management had a swastika in his office. No. That’s a bridge too far for me.

To defend Mona a bit here, it wasn't a swastika, but an iron cross and in a different context - part of a picture for some theosophical thing. Similarly, there was mention of a swastika (on FB maybe?), but it was one among a bunch of occult symbols, that otherwise had nothing to do with Nazis.

I don't think even Jessica was saying he was a Nazi, just that he ignored the impression it might make on other employees and dismissed concerns when they were brought up.

I thought I read it was both an Iron Cross *and* a swastika. But, in either case, if he just ignored their concerns, that doesn’t speak well of him.

Mark Stratton wrote:

Someone help me make sense of all of this because I clearly misjudged a LOT of people.

Mark, you have every right to be disappointed in Paizo for this, but I do want to say that this Nazi business has been grossly mischaracterized.

I released a public statement about it on Tuesday that should provide a bit more clarity. You can read it here.

I do not recall ever being told that the poster in my office offended anyone, and (as I said in the statement), I categorically apologize for not anticipating that it may have done so. It has not been on display for years.

There are a pile of problems floating around, some of which are not easily solved. But "Erik has a swastika in his office," something that has never been true (and was not even alleged), is not one of them.

I appreciate this post, Erik, though I didn’t call you a Nazi, nor did any post I saw. But, thanks for the link to your response, which I of course will read.

I thought I read it was both an Iron Cross *and* a swastika. But, in either case, if he just ignored their concerns, that doesn’t speak well of him.

I am not saying that people did not have concerns.

I AM saying that I have ZERO memory of any such concerns ever being raised to me at the time, and last week was the first time I have ever been made aware that the image made anyone uncomfortable.

I appreciate this post, Erik, though I didn’t call you a Nazi, nor did any post I saw. But, thanks for the link to your response, which I of course will read.

No, you didn't, but somebody out there sure implied it.

Mark Stratton wrote:

I appreciate this post, Erik, though I didn’t call you a Nazi, nor did any post I saw. But, thanks for the link to your response, which I of course will read.

No, you didn't, but somebody out there sure implied it.

I read your response, and I very much appreciate it. Thanks for clearing that up.

Has it been said why Sara was fired?

They can't legally say why she was fired, that is a law designed to protect employees.

Well, I had a lengthy, carefully thought out comment on this earlier, but I guess it got obliterated in the mod sweep earlier despite my deliberately not engaging with the transphobic concern troll, so that's cool.

Anyway, I'm glad steps are being taken (and that some of the complaints have already been addressed), but they seem pretty minimal. I sincerely hope this is just a start, and they will be expanded upon later. I also think some public accountability is needed for the more serious allegations of abuse and transphobia.

Finally, I'm a little concerned by the focus on complaints from 3-4 years ago compared to the minimal space devoted to the issues that are clearly ongoing given recent departures.

Getting better, thank you. I appreciate hearing that some of the past complaints have since been acted upon, and others are in the process of being addressed.

If even half the negatives of the past week were true, it was far too many for me to be supporting with my "for fun" dollars and attention, especially with so many games out there begging for a chance. But I chose to hold off on canceling my sub in hopes that you would be able to live up to my and others' expectations. I see progress here, and I appreciate that.

I'm sorry to everyone involved that this reckoning had to happen so publicly. As many folks have noted, hurts like those alleged happen at many companies -- not that this makes them okay or tolerable. Some companies are able to acknowledge and address the problems before they become news, and that's painful enough for the humans involved. Doing it on stage is that much harder, and makes it that much more important that Paizo continue dedicating the time and resources needed to do right by its people.

Customer service doesn't answer their phones, they don't answer emails. As far as I can tell the only method of contact is to post in the CS forum and pray someone pays attention to you. And they're apparently getting rewarded for it.

Call me old-fashioned but I'd rather not air my business for everyone on the internet to see.

They do answer emails and typically answer the phones as well. Their mailbox is currently full, however, they've gone through a rapid change in structure due to the loss of two teammates. Give them time.

I'm being cautiously optimistic. Hopefully this doesn't repeat later on and turns out nothing changed

The change to hotel room policy is good… but not acknowledging that it was apparently used as a transphobic bludgeon is shameful.

On the contrary - Jeff's post outright denies that it was.

In the event that his denial is true, I feel kinda bad for him, because there's not really anything he could say one way or another that would convince anyone of that.

In the (seemingly more likely) event that his denial is false, yikes.

I've noted a mistake in the statement, but since we won't be able to edit it until tomorrow morning, I wanted to pop on tonight to correct it here in the comments as soon as I noticed it.

We held in-person anti-harassment training in 2018, but only instituted mandatory annual anti-harassment training in 2021. I apologize for writing that paragraph in a way that implied there had been continuous training since 2018. That enhanced program only started this year, but is annual going forward.

Again, sorry about the confusion.

I know people still have a lot of other things they'd like to hear from me, and I will do my best to get to those soon, but I wanted to address this item immediately.

You know what, let's cut Mark some slack here.

In fact, everyone in the thread please cut some slack toward each other.

I have had great times and great conversations with Mark at conventions, and know he cares passionately about Pathfinder and Pathfinder Society. His feelings about this stuff are his to process, and I respect that. If emotions run high, it's because he genuinely cares deeply about Pathfinder.

He's not trying to make himself feel important. He is concerned because Pathfinder is important to him.

That's the one thing all of you share. Please keep that in mind, even when disagreeing with each other.

Thanks.

Since this seems to be the new main thread for talking about this, I'll just jump in here to say that I have seen suggestions in the previous threads for talking about this that Paizo should move to a less expensive area. Now, I don't know enough about the situation to know if this would actually help anything, but I DO know about the following relevant practical matter: IF Paizo is going to go to the trouble to move, THEN it would be good to move to somewhere that doesn't have carpets. If you don't have carpets, you will save a lot of money on carpet cleaning, and from personal experience, if you don't have carpets, you will be noticeably healthier.

Just wanted to say: keep up the great work Paizo!

I for one am also happy with this latest message from Jeff. As a proud customer of your company, after reading all of the complied twitter threads, messages and whatnot (helpfully compiled by the reddit community), I am very happy to see that the vast majority of the wild and gross accusations seem to have been completely unfounded, as I suspected they would be.
Whatever room for improvements is left in the areas that have been pointed out, I am confident you will take advantage of moving forward.

Thank you, and please keep producing some of the best ttrpgs in existence, you are doing a great job!

the vast majority of the wild and gross accusations seem to have been completely unfounded

This is not true.

Jeff's statement is a small step in a good direction, but I'm not gonna restart my subs and throw more money at Paizo unless I see some substantial, major changes. These take time, sure, so I'll hang around and look out for them.

Worst thing that can happen is Paizo going under and some serious company buying the rights to Paizo IP and hopefully hiring the actual talent behind the products. Who knows, maybe that would be WotC, thus reuniting Wes, Lyz and few others with Pathfinder?

Jeff's statement is a small step in a good direction, but I'm not gonna restart my subs and throw more money at Paizo unless I see some substantial, major changes. These take time, sure, so I'll hang around and look out for them.

Worst thing that can happen is Paizo going under and some serious company buying the rights to Paizo IP and hopefully hiring the actual talent behind the products. Who knows, maybe that would be WotC, thus reuniting Wes, Lyz and few others with Pathfinder?

Not to diminish the issues being discussed, but if you want Pathfinder run by an ethical company, I would not be choosing WoTC

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:

Jeff's statement is a small step in a good direction, but I'm not gonna restart my subs and throw more money at Paizo unless I see some substantial, major changes. These take time, sure, so I'll hang around and look out for them.

Worst thing that can happen is Paizo going under and some serious company buying the rights to Paizo IP and hopefully hiring the actual talent behind the products. Who knows, maybe that would be WotC, thus reuniting Wes, Lyz and few others with Pathfinder?

Not to diminish the issues being discussed, but if you want Pathfinder run by an ethical company, I would not be choosing WoTC

They pay people money that lets them live in Seattle, that's rather ethical.

This is a more than reasonable response. The training, survey, and heightened sensitivity towards transphobia should be more than enough to correct the hostile environment, which does NOT seem widespread to begin (notably, most Paizo employees are as shocked and horrified as us).

I've been at a company that had a hostile culture similar to this and we instituted similar policies. Additionally, we created a liason team between managers and the employees (I was one such employee). It solved our culture problem within a year or two, requiring that management took it seriously.

I tend to stick with reform over punishment when referencing accountability and this is a big step in the right direction.

Elegos wrote:

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:

Jeff's statement is a small step in a good direction, but I'm not gonna restart my subs and throw more money at Paizo unless I see some substantial, major changes. These take time, sure, so I'll hang around and look out for them.

Worst thing that can happen is Paizo going under and some serious company buying the rights to Paizo IP and hopefully hiring the actual talent behind the products. Who knows, maybe that would be WotC, thus reuniting Wes, Lyz and few others with Pathfinder?

Not to diminish the issues being discussed, but if you want Pathfinder run by an ethical company, I would not be choosing WoTC

They pay people money that lets them live in Seattle, that's rather ethical.

I have a lot of ethical problems with the business model of magic the gathering (the randomized booster packs and the regular rotating of sets creates an environment that is very similar to the F2P MMO lootbox model). I much prefer the model that android netrunner used (Expansion packs where none of the content was randomized - you knew exactly what cards you where buying every time, and you didn't have to be using the latest cards to run a legal deck).

The commander and modern formats theoretically at least give you a way to play without having decks built out of the latest sets, but in practice decks for those formats can be very expensive to build.

Elegos wrote:

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:

Jeff's statement is a small step in a good direction, but I'm not gonna restart my subs and throw more money at Paizo unless I see some substantial, major changes. These take time, sure, so I'll hang around and look out for them.

Worst thing that can happen is Paizo going under and some serious company buying the rights to Paizo IP and hopefully hiring the actual talent behind the products. Who knows, maybe that would be WotC, thus reuniting Wes, Lyz and few others with Pathfinder?

Not to diminish the issues being discussed, but if you want Pathfinder run by an ethical company, I would not be choosing WoTC

They pay people money that lets them live in Seattle, that's rather ethical.

A lot of employees and writers have basically had similar complaints directed towards WoTC in regards to safety and racism. In fact if anything a lot of claims towards WoTC is worst because at worst in some because of oblivious malice in Paizo's case.

To all the "They can't respond because legally..." comments, they really, really can. It begins with two words. "We're sorry."

"We're sorry so many people have cause to feel we haven't lived up to the standards we aim for, sorry that we may have lost your trust through our actions or inactions, sorry that we didn't do better."

Thats how you start, no legalese or concerns about contracts or employee firings. Just ownership, acceptance that you need to do better, followed by actual actions over time proving your commitment to it.

Ownership of what? Say sorry for what? I don't want an apology for something as inane as "We're sorry this made you feel bad." because that's a non-apology. Currently, we have no idea why Sara was fired. There's no guarantee it was a wrongful termination... Hell, it's not even likely that it's a wrongful termination.

At this point people are basically just screaming for blood and unreasonable action taken by Paizo and I feel bad for people working there.

Addressing specific concerns that were brought up as soon as he is able is commendable by Jeff. MANY of the concerns that were mentioned were brought up here showing the specific things that were done to address the original complaints. MANY of them were addressed years prior around the time that those issues were brought up. To that it sounds to me like Paizo is honestly listening to their employees and doing what they can. That's all I would really ask of an employer.

Regarding Sara's firing... It very likely was justified. With all of the commotion brought up about it I can almost guarantee that there will be a review with MANY additional eyes on it. If an issue is identified by those people reviewing it then they may take additional action to prevent that same issue from occurring again, up to and including offering her job back IF it is warranted. It is however unlikely that Paizo was in the wrong here.

Regarding Transparency in the firing... We are not going to get answers on this. It might be frustrating to some people but Paizo is LEGALLY REQUIRED to not discuss anything about this with the public. The best that you might get, and that's only IF the internal review identifies an issue is for a promise that changes were made to prevent similar situations from occurring in the future.

Regarding Wages... So long as the company is meeting or beating state and federal minimum wages they are in the clear here. While it would be AMAZING for them to give raises to all of their employees that are below a certain standard it is not required. It's also extremely likely that they as a company are unable to do this with their budget. Publishing companies are notoriously tight margins and unless Paizo is reporting "Record returns year over year" and pocketing billions or more in profit then they should have no real requirement to make any real adjustments.

Regarding Unionization... People have been shouting about this like it's some sort of miracle cure to everyone's issues. I have zero issues with Paizo employees if they want to unionize and so long as Paizo doesn't interfere with the employees as required by state and federal laws (Which, I'm sure that they aren't, or we would see some lawsuits about it already).. I don't have an issue with Paizo on this either.

People don’t resign in protest over justified firings.

Actually, they do.

When your boss you love is fired by a boss you don't and you look at the road ahead and all you see is discomfort and pain, quitting is a solid solution.

Regarding the "in protest" portion, Diego may feel that the firing was unwarranted. He may feel that the person doing the firing is unqualified for the job they were given. He may feel like Sara M and her crew were doing everything humanly possible to handle whatever the issues were that led up to the termination. He also, like us, may not have all the facts.

None of that means the firing was unjustified.