Paizo Expands Leadership Team

Thank you Mike for that response. Appreciate it and look forward to seeing forward motion on the issues that have cropped up recently!

Thanks for the response, Mike.

Keep up the good work and don't let this cesspool of a comment section degrade your feelings of accomplishment, your achievements and experience speak for themselves, and the same goes for Jim. Neither of you deserves to be mired in or demoralized by this bunk.

I appreciate the response Mike, I still think its kinda shady though that while someone like Diego was denied any chance of a promotion, someone who hasn't been with the company for a full year got to become an executive. This isn't targeted at you of course, but rather the circumstances surrounding this whole situation do not sit well with me and it raises some further concerns with management as a whole

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Berhagen wrote:

Most stuff you write I can get behind, but RPGs not being mainly white men? Really?

Yes, really.

My gaming group is a rotation of about a dozen and a half people, none of which are white men, and when they play with other groups they're in, those are also not groups where white men are the majority. My partner's normal gaming circle features two white men out of about eight regular players.

All anecdotal, of course, but there's a handful of data points for you.

I'm happy to toss in more data points.

I have freelanced for multiple not-Paizo books where I was the only white cis male. Most of my writing colleagues have been women.

If you are convinced that your position is the "right" one, or at least better than the alternatives, you should not be afraid of nor try to stifle other voices as they just provide you the opportunity to share your vision with a wider audience and demonstrate why your perceptive is the better one. In public discourse, it is NEVER good to silence a voice even if you are disgusted by what they say. Rule #1—freedom of expression. When in doubt, refer to rule #1.

Yoshua,

People are speaking from their own pain and experience. I am following all of it and looking at how to address concerns.

Lonesomechunk,

Totally understand your position and take none of the concerns personally. At the same time I recognize the proof is in actions from here. Thanks both for the kindness and caring enough about the company and the products to have concerns. You matter.

[things] remain unchanged

If a person wanted to find something to complain about, this could be the basis for thinking that despite the recent PR meltdown, Paizo is moving forward, business as usual. YMMV

Thank you for your responses, Mike.

Also I forgot to mention in my earlier post, but I appreciate you mentioning your commitment to diversity Mike, and your acknowledgement that actions speak louder than words. I think I speak for many of us when I say that I would like to see some action, as many of us aren't sure we can place our trust in paizo in its current state.

Thank you for taking the time to respond and communicate, I appreciate it

Mike, seeing as you are the beneficiary of the same system that told a long time employee that he did not need a promotion, and you get to work from home many states away, while others are forced to go into offices that took years to be cleaned, well, you see why some might be hesitant to take what you are saying as gospel.

Apparently, the news haven’t gotten all the way up to Lisa: This is absolutely *not* the leadership expansion anyone was hoping to see, quite on the contrary, it is quite exactly the opposite. And I am quite sure, they know.

keftiu wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Berhagen wrote:

Most stuff you write I can get behind, but RPGs not being mainly white men? Really?

Yes, really.

My gaming group is a rotation of about a dozen and a half people, none of which are white men, and when they play with other groups they're in, those are also not groups where white men are the majority. My partner's normal gaming circle features two white men out of about eight regular players.

All anecdotal, of course, but there's a handful of data points for you.

I'm happy to toss in more data points.

I have freelanced for multiple not-Paizo books where I was the only white cis male. Most of my writing colleagues have been women.

Which is good to hear. But then executives reflect people with many years of experience, so it would reflect the diversity of 30 years ago more likely than that of current writers.

Before diversity is truly implemented and rises through an organisation can take a while (of course that would assume internal growth and promotions are possible……).

Yeah, I'm not a fan of the bending of the rules going on or really much of anything surrounding this situation. It's very concerning

Congratulations Mike! Thanks for your answers!

Yawar

Lonesomechunk,

Trust is earned. And I expect you speak for a great many people. This is as it always has been and always will be. Again, thank you.

Cori asking people to tone down their bad behaviour is not telling people to be silent about transphobia. It’s asking people to be less rude and insulting. Two different things imo. Feel free to keep being it up. If one is rude about it it does not excuse their bad behaviour no matter how good the cause (not saying you are).

Support Transpeople rights does not not mean one gets a free pass on criticism or bad behaviour imo.

So asking posters to be less rude on the forum equals ignoring the current issues. Said no one ever including myself.

One can ask Paizo to be held accountable and not be rude in doing so and other posters but by all means keep up with the bad behaviour in trying to be right.

One can also be "rude" while demanding for accountability and change and seeking improvement and it does not invalidate their concerns or their points. Being on the moral high ground means little when there is active Injustice at play

No rights have ever been given by asking politely for them.

I get concerned whenever people start talking about “POC” vs “White”, and the amount of melanin in others skin.

My (very large) family is Mexican. Some of us are dark enough that we’ve been thought of as black, some of us are so light skinned we’ve been thought of as white. Does that mean the darker family members are POC while the lighter ones are not?
I’ve had similar conversations with an African American family that has the same “Melanin” issues.

Do people need to start carrying around DNA backgrounds or pictures of their parents to address the people who immediately raise these flags?

I’ve been hired at places that seems to hire only white people so they can show that they’re diverse (and, yes, I have been told that is exactly why I was hired).
I’ve also been denied jobs because they were looking to make their staff more “diverse” and I didn’t look “brown enough” (one told me that to my face, the other was whispered to me by a cousin who worked there).

Accepted by groups of white kids until they learned my name (except for the one group who thought I was Russian).
Rejected by groups of Latino kids until they learned my name (and was usually then treated as some kind of mascot with nicknames like “Snowball” or “Blanco”).

This was 30 years and more ago. I had hoped that this kind of knee-jerk judgment based on looks would have mellowed out with time, but it seems to have gotten worse.

I don’t like - and neither do my darker skinned family members - being accepted or rejected simply because of the melanin content of our skin. We want to be judged on who we are as people and the skill-set we bring to the table.

Peace out,

Gregorio Munoz III
The White Mexican