Paizo Leadership Team Update

There are no more words—what a mess.

I hadn't posted a comment to the leadership team's update yet, due to the storm that raged in this thread for so long (in itself a pretty bad mark for Paizo, but an issue that was thankfully, if belatedly, fixed).

I finally come here to write that comment today, and... Here I find this damning post by a former employee, a well-respected industry veteran.

Wow.

I have a couple of decades of experience in management roles. I have had my share of troubles and major mistakes along the way, so I'm by no means a shining example. I have the scars to show how difficult it is to manage people. That's why I want to be slow to condemn. But man, the list of big no-no's in Sean's report is something to behold. Some things can be blamed on pressure, stress, lack of money, and your typical communications snafus. But the attitude it reveals - that is inexcusable.

Back to the leadership team's update: Like many others on this thread, I find it disappointing in its lawyerly ways and cautiously worded apologies. It might have come across a little better if it hadn't taken so long to come up, but it took close to two months. It clearly was written under a great deal of constraints and limits. In short, it's not great, but I find that understandable. The reputational damage to Paizo will need a lot more work than this before it's even partly repaired.

My conclusion is that the formation of the UPW is a long overdue development. Hopefully, it will help, although it would be naive to expect any short-term solutions.

By the way, we're way, way outside of Apology Town now, and we've swerved waaay off the Promise to Do Better Freeway. We are current driving along the Total Leadership Rework Country Road, though we are pulling up near the At Least There's a Union Rest Stop.

In other words, there's literally nothing leadership can possibly do that can or should recover anyone's trust. Lisa Stevens, Vic Wertz, and Jeff Alvarez need to go. The other two new figures in leadership are kind of, well, I side-eye them because of who picked them, and because there were definitely more qualified figures in-house, but they haven't done anything wrong yet.

To be clear, I'm not calling for a change in leadership. I'm saying that I'm never going to trust Lisa, Vic, or Jeff, and I doubt many others will, either, so new leadership is probably a good idea if anyone up there's still looking after Paizo's long-term interests instead of their own. Overall, I'm considering UPW to be the only force in Paizo leadership I care about anymore. I'll probably go back to buying soon, but I hope Jeff, Lisa, and Vic understand how tenuous things are right now.

And I'll be emailing soon to say as much, as respectfully as possible, and I encourage others to do the same. Those three do not read the forums. :P

I want a pink hoodie. :(

I mean, I bought a blue. Blue's my color. But I'd buy a pink too. I need more femme warm weather options! ;D

I can neither confirm nor deny that I'd probably still work at Paizo if I had the chance just because it's been my dream job since I was literally 11, but I can also neither confirm nor deny that I would probably flip a table the second Lisa Stevens started playing a Dalek-Voice Screaming Rant at me and immediately get myself fired.

There was a point I'd have said that too, but that was before I'd had firsthand experience with how exhausting the TTRPG industry is from the freelancer side with people I love working with and who are super flexible. Once I clear the last couple of contracts on my plate, I'm bowing out for a good little while to avoid burnout. So I see SKR's post about a toxic workplace and it's a 100% no thank you, thank you very much from me.

Pretty damning, especially from someone like Sean. Not looking good for Paizo, but happy to see he found a good place with Monte Cook.

I'm wondering what will the "it's just some opinion from one former disgruntled employee, we must cherish the presumption of innocence the Western Civilization was built upon" folks say about this.

I'm wondering what will the "it's just some opinion from one former disgruntled employee, we must cherish the presumption of innocence the Western Civilization was built upon" folks say about this.

Already there's a very different response to these accusations, which is not SKR's fault, but people are taking it differently despite very similar accusations. And it's not because this is the second time we're hearing it.

Plus, most folks who say Western Civilization out loud eventually get banned for racism. So they won't say anything.

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:

I'm wondering what will the "it's just some opinion from one former disgruntled employee, we must cherish the presumption of innocence the Western Civilization was built upon" folks say about this.

Already there's a very different response to these accusations, which is not SKR's fault, but people are taking it differently despite very similar accusations. And it's not because this is the second time we're hearing it.

It's mostly because someone explaining why they left a company (voluntarily) instantly makes any accusations made about said company more credible than when someone is asked to leave.

When both individuals' stories line up so well, too, they combine and become greater than the sum of their parts.

Funny how folks trust the cis man and not the trans women.

Funny how folks trust the cis man and not the trans women.

I actually wasn't referring to Sara Marie in this case, but Jessica Price, which is what I though the others were talking about as well.

As far as I know there was no doubt given to Sara Marie's statements, where a lot of statements (including my own) in reference to Price's accusations were along the lines of "This sounds true but she is a notoriously unreliable source".

Crystal Frasier is who Keftiu was referring to, who did leave Paizo voluntarily and collaborated much of Price's testimony.

Boy, it's really... interesting that Paizo has driven away enough prominent women in the industry that it's hard to keep track of them all.

I'm wondering what will the "it's just some opinion from one former disgruntled employee, we must cherish the presumption of innocence the Western Civilization was built upon" folks say about this.

So nice of you to think of me. :)

I'm not a big fan of Sean, given that the one time I ever received a temporary ban (a week or so) it was from him personally about something gaming related. He was gone a few days later from Paizo, which of course had nothing to do with that. Like Storm Dragon said, Sean often came off pretty badly in the forums when he was still employed at Paizo.

That being said, this is very detailed account of things. And the evidence of wrongdoing is stacking up by now, with a multitude of former employees recounting their experiences. Diego posted his own small interjections at what I felt were very, let's say, strategic moments, i.e. just when things were simmering down and suddenly the outrage was inflamed by his revelations once again. So that made me more doubtful than I maybe should have been.

Now, with Sean joining in in such detail, things would have come down to an outright conspiracy against Paizo for there to be nothing to these accusations. I have to presume that there is probably a lot of veracity to at least part of the whole story, although with the reservation that there's always another side to a story and we are only hearing one of the sides here.

And the presumption of innocence still holds, only that the weight of evidence is now strongly inclined towards wrongdoing by Paizo.

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

Oh, so Sean K Reynolds made a statement. I'll quote some bits that seemed important to me in a moment.

Bad enough to warn people off from working for Paizo. That's brutal, and not the kind of thing you arrive at lightly.

Oh dear pretty much confirms a few things Ive suspected for a while. (Including Sean being thrown under the bus for a lot of things.)

TriOmegaZero wrote:

I'm honestly glad they never replied to my applications.

Same.

Also glad I wasn't the only one to experience that silence after applying. I kept reassuring myself it was just unprofessionalism and not that my resume and portfolio were trash. Maybe my efforts to protect my ego were more accurate than I thought.

I wonder if Lisa still gets paid a salary in her current position of "CEO that doesn't do anything" (which describes every CEO, but her especially given her described role).

Vic, Lisa, and Jeff need out of here and gone forever.

I wonder if Lisa still gets paid a salary in her current position of "CEO that doesn't do anything" (which describes every CEO, but her especially given her described role).

Vic, Lisa, and Jeff need out of here and gone forever.

Only way this happens is if the company gets sold or goes under. I doubt either of those will happen just because of how many customers keep their head in the sand in regards to working conditions of the companies they patronize.

This isn't just a Paizo issue, but I have no faith that Paizo is going to resolve the issues by the time my deadline comes around. Starting to contemplate my subscription situation daily.

Funny how folks trust the cis man and not the trans women.

I've probably lost track, but has there been any public statement of transphobia against Paizo by any trans woman EXCEPT for Crystal?

I certainly got the impression that Crystal was nearly universally believed. I certainly completely believed her.

The disturbing part about Sean's post was the fact that he'd written up a list of concerns years ago and they were treated like a joke by someone who is currently being non-responsive and absent.

THAT is pretty damning stuff.

It'd be like the regional president of our company coming to our store and reading aloud the lengthy negative feedback report our previous manager gave on the ethics and integrity issues facing middle management in our company and laughing at it.

And they wonder why workers don't want to work at poor paying jobs...

EDIT: pauljathorne: Some folks are taking the corroboration of notes as 'okay, there's a fire burning' when Crystal's notes were 'pull the fire alarm already'.

I can't help but read the same meaning there.

Really weird how when SKR lays out the same accusations as Jessica did, people are ready to believe those accusations, yet were all but calling Jessica a liar who they would never ever ever trust just a month ago. What is the difference here I wonder.

Really weird how when SKR lays out the same accusations as Jessica did, people are ready to believe those accusations, yet were all but calling Jessica a liar who they would never ever ever trust just a month ago. What is the difference here I wonder.

I don’t have a very high opinion of Jessica, based entirely on interactions I have personally witnessed between her and volunteers. But, none of that made me question her credibility - I assess those two things differently. I took her allegations as both serious and credible. And, as I type this, not one of her allegations has been refuted by a single person. Not one. Yes, one or two may have been defended as not entirely accurate, or were clarified, but she was, and is, still credible. I suspect, though, that there may be others who have either had or witnessed those types of interactions with her, and based on that, might use that as a means to question her credibility. I do not do so.

To me, all Sean’s note does is just add more detail to the type of environment that Jessica described - she talked about how bad an environment Paizo is, and Sean’s note just gives more examples of that.

So, to me, he isn’t offering a different set of allegations - rather, I just see him as providing more detail to Jessica’s already credible allegations.

I was happy to not mention her anymore, but as you insist (and I'm only speaking for myself here):

What is the difference here I wonder.

Well, I've seen her toxic behavior while she was posting on these boards. I've seen her fabricating lies about why she got fired from Arena.net. I've seen her basically throw dirt at every former employer. So I've just not a single reason to believe anything she says just because she says it.

Never seen SKR behave like that. Never seen Crystal behave like that. I've just no reason to not believe them when they say something. And it was because of Crystal that I was willing to consider the allegations as serious in the first place.

So it has nothing to do with sex, gender or anything like that. My opinion about your trustworthiness is strictly based on how I see you act as a person.

I mean, I remember when the thing about her being fired happened. It did happen as she described. Basically every person I followed in the industry was talking about how deranged it was for a company to fire someone because Reddit asked them to (which also happened not soon after with Riot firing a commentator).

But more importantly, literally none of that has anything to do with what she said about Paizo, especially since most has been corroborated.

I was happy to not mention her anymore, but as you insist (and I'm only speaking for myself here):

Cori Marie wrote:

What is the difference here I wonder.

Well, I've seen her toxic behavior while she was posting on these boards. I've seen her fabricating lies about why she got fired from Arena.net. I've seen her basically throw dirt at every former employer. So I've just not a single reason to believe anything she says just because she says it.

Never seen SKR behave like that. Never seen Crystal behave like that. I've just no reason to not believe them when they say something. And it was because of Crystal that I was willing to consider the allegations as serious in the first place.

So it has nothing to do with sex, gender or anything like that. My opinion about your trustworthiness is strictly based on how I see you act as a person.

"Toxic" behavior of having the audacity to not let people dismiss and talk down to her. I remember several similar interactions that happened with SKR, but those get glossed over. Perhaps the employees you view as toxic are that way because the environment they're in is itself toxic.

"Toxic" behavior of having the audacity to not let people dismiss and talk down to her. I remember several similar interactions that happened with SKR, but those get glossed over. Perhaps the employees you view as toxic are that way because the environment they're in is itself toxic.

I can’t speak to the other allegations of toxic behavior, but I can tell that what I witnessed had nothing to do with her “having the audacity to not let people dismiss or talk down to her.” It was entirely related to volunteers asking for materials they had been assured they would get, and the delivery of those materials were time sensitive. Her treatment of them in regards to their requests for those materials which were necessary to perform their volunteer roles was absolutely unconscionable. No one was trying to dismiss or talk down to her - they were trying to find out when they were going to get the materials they were promised.

So, please understand that there can be, and is, legitimate criticism of Jessica Price. But, as I said above, I don’t let that impact my ability judge her credibility. She can be a credible person, even if she’s also rude and argumentative at times, or “toxic” as others have described her.

Just going to say. Someone can be disagreeable, and right at the same time.

I don't have to personally like someone to believe what they are saying. Especially when many others have corroborated what is told. The people being accused either admit fault and proclaim to be working to be better or ignore the allegations altogether. In the case of Alvarez the denial was laughable and the time it takes for him to admit fault and proclaim that 'something' ambiguous is being done to make sure 'he himself' is held accountable to 'himself and his higher standards' is laughable.

I've just removed a post. Please, please, please do not curse on the forums. I know we have a profanity filter that censors things, but that is mainly to catch the worst of it. Thank you!

Perhaps the employees you view as toxic are that way because the environment they're in is itself toxic.

I view exactly one (ex-)employee this way. Everyone else working (or having worked/suffered) in the same environment I don't. So I still think it's the person.

I’ve spent a while contemplating why Sean’s comments are so damning, and I think it’s the corroboration of the little details. Crystal corroborated some very specific parts of Jessica’s thread, and when Sara Marie alluded to Jessica having exaggerated her complaints, I mostly focused on the stuff Crystal posted. But when Sean listed out that even the stuff that some people denied were true (like Jeff calling workers slurs), it became more real somehow.

I sent an email about the cursing issue, by the way. Apparently the way they're handling it now is that basically, it doesn't matter if the filter catches it--all cursing is strictly against the rules. So the "trying to get around the filter" part of the forum guidelines should be ignored, basically.

EDIT: Moved my petty griping about the new-but-always-been-this-way enforcement policy to my own petty thread.

I’ve spent a while contemplating why Sean’s comments are so damning, and I think it’s the corroboration of the little details. Crystal corroborated some very specific parts of Jessica’s thread, and when Sara Marie alluded to Jessica having exaggerated her complaints, I mostly focused on the stuff Crystal posted. But when Sean listed out that even the stuff that some people denied were true (like Jeff calling workers slurs), it became more real somehow.

To be clear, he didn't actually hear Jeff calling workers slurs. He says he believes Jessica Price and Crystal Marie when they say that Jeff did so. It's more a character witness. I still see no reason not to believe Jessica Price or Crystal Marie, neither of whom have ever come close to lying about specific details like that, but the character witness does seem to be enough for some people.

See, I didn’t realize Crystal corroborated the slurs thing. My b. I admit I also misread Sean as having firsthand experience with it. But yeah, with every person that repeats the same thing makes it more and more real, and at this point we’re up to like…5 with identical concerns/anecdotes?

Oh, so Sean K Reynolds made a statement. I'll quote some bits that seemed important to me in a moment.

I wonder how many more nails this particular coffin lid will need. It had already been looking pretty nailed by my lights.

Recording yourself yelling at someone so you can play it back to them a second time seems like the type of thing you'd see in a parody of dysfunctional management. So does reading out employee complaints for laughs.

Really weird how when SKR lays out the same accusations as Jessica did, people are ready to believe those accusations, yet were all but calling Jessica a liar who they would never ever ever trust just a month ago. What is the difference here I wonder.

My distrust of Jessica Price was ignited by Sara Marie labeling her a clout chaser and hijacking Sara's story to air grievances. Some collaborated, some not—[See Owen's take].

However, given the chaos of all this, I am only sure of one thing from now on: Lisa, Vic, and Jeff is the fuel for the current situation, and until they're entirely out of the picture, nothing can be fixed.

I wonder if you guys realize calling for the owners to be out can very well wind up with the people who have the means to walk away can just take their ball and walk away from the game.

I have faith in the Union working in good faith with existing management.

Whoever is writing leaderships PR releases though should probably stop. I think the initials are likely JA, but it is just an assumption on my part considering how tone deaf they have been the entire time.

Read the room.

Do better Paizo.

You are doing Abysmally.

Sounds to me like if real changes are going to be made that are going to exact the kind of accountability that is being called for then some plan is going to have to be cooked up where the collective majority ownership stakes in the company are going to have to be purchased from the current two to four heads of the company. Them being the managers and also the owners make it complicated for them to be actually step down/retire... after all, the owner of a company cannot be fired from their position as an owner or someone with power/influence in the company.

Is it a pipedream to think about the idea of the community, the unionized staff, and investors to come together to purchase those majority shares so as to restructure the whole company as a democratic worker-owned cooperative? Is there an affluent enough group of existing staff (and perhaps freelancers) that can afford the millions to tens of millions of USD it would cost to buy up the ownership?

Sounds to me like if real changes are going to be made that are going to exact the kind of accountability that is being called for then some plan is going to have to be cooked up where the collective majority ownership stakes in the company are going to have to be purchased from the current two to four heads of the company. Them being the managers and also the owners make it complicated for them to be actually step down/retire... after all, the owner of a company cannot be fired from their position as an owner or someone with power/influence in the company.

Is it a pipedream to think about the idea of the community, the unionized staff, and investors to come together to purchase those majority shares so as to restructure the whole company as a democratic worker-owned cooperative? Is there an affluent enough group of existing staff (and perhaps freelancers) that can afford the millions to tens of millions of USD it would cost to buy up the ownership?

Not given the low pay rates we've heard of from Paizo.

Calls to oust the leadership team are unlikely to be useful, imo. First, as several have said, they're unrealistic. On top of that, it's not clear how that would solve the existing problems. Finally, this makes implicit assumptions that things can't possibly get worse under new management, and that there's nothing to lose. Experience says otherwise.

Themetricsystem wrote:

Sounds to me like if real changes are going to be made that are going to exact the kind of accountability that is being called for then some plan is going to have to be cooked up where the collective majority ownership stakes in the company are going to have to be purchased from the current two to four heads of the company. Them being the managers and also the owners make it complicated for them to be actually step down/retire... after all, the owner of a company cannot be fired from their position as an owner or someone with power/influence in the company.

Is it a pipedream to think about the idea of the community, the unionized staff, and investors to come together to purchase those majority shares so as to restructure the whole company as a democratic worker-owned cooperative? Is there an affluent enough group of existing staff (and perhaps freelancers) that can afford the millions to tens of millions of USD it would cost to buy up the ownership?

Not given the low pay rates we've heard of from Paizo.

That's the problem with that approach. Ownership won't pay employees enough to buy them out.

Community might be able, but then not sure that actually helps. Shareholder driven companies are not really easier to run…… and then do you actually want to pay that money to the people who seem to be responsible for the mess?

Dont suppose there is a link to the article Sean mentions in his blog post?

This looks like it.

"Toxic" behavior of having the audacity to not let people dismiss and talk down to her. I remember several similar interactions that happened with SKR, but those get glossed over. Perhaps the employees you view as toxic are that way because the environment they're in is itself toxic.

The main difference is one employee (Jessica Price) carried that toxicity with her to every other workplace she's gone too, and the other (SKR) did not, which suggests the toxicity is intrinsic to one and extrinsic to the other.

I was one of the biggest SKR haters on these boards back in the day, trust me. The feeling was mutual; I have several emails (and one PM on the boards) sent to my private account that prove it.

If he wasn't a very obviously different person these days, or at least exceptionally better able to keep up appearances for the sake of work (which all things being equal, would indicate a higher level of professionalism than Price in this regard if nothing else), I'd still be on that hate train.

This is appalling.

I've believed Crystal's take on everything; I've always had tremendous respect for the quality of her work, breadth of knowledge and interpersonal skills. Where she corroborated others' allegations, I took notice because she said so. And I parred back on my subscriptions partly because of what she'd said and I was no longer confident Paizo actually lived the values I thought we shared.

Yet even with all of that, yes, SKR's take says a lot to me. There are serious problems at the top. While I actually think hiring a law firm to do an assessment is a good step (this is my professional background so I see it differently than some others), there will only be positive results from that if senior management is willing to implement them. I may well be late to the party on this, but I'm not seeing a capacity to enact meaningful change after what sounds like years of mistreatment and indifference.

I want to support the staff and the union, so I'll continue to monitor and see what happens, but I'll be canceling the last of my subscriptions.

Just... Wow. I really don't know how else to express the depth of my disappointment.

I'm pretty floored by Sean's article, and paints a pretty damning picture of Jeff Alvarez, Lisa Stevens, and Erik Mona. That's wildly unacceptable behavior listed there. The specific first-hand accounts of Lisa's behavior in particular should be enough to fire her.

I'm particularly sensitive to “That sounds like we shouldn’t be telling you how well the company is doing.” since I've experienced that as well, and WOW is that not an ok response to asking about bonus transparency. I would easily turn heel and leave the company if they had the gall to think that was ok.

And just as I was starting to feel better about Paizo again. I actively want less books after hearing about how taken advantage of all the salaried employees were. I absolutely want to specifically hear about that being improved since Sean left. At bare minimum, I hope the union will fix that.

And yes, I'm just focusing my comments on this new article, because I've already commented and voiced heavy support for the previous criticisms.

I opened up a critical priority ticket to resolve the issue whereby new aliases/organized play characters will have their base names autogenerated from a user's full name, leaking that information unless the user manually adjusts it.

Obviously this behavior is entirely unacceptable, and I will personally ensure we expedite and push the fix as quickly as we possibly can.

Hey everyone.

I know this thread has moved on a bit, but I just wanted to follow up on this and inform everyone that today we deployed a fix for this issue, as well as a similar change to make volunteer posts in the Organized Play forums use avatar names rather than the volunteers' names.

Lovely! Thanks, Brian, and everyone else involved! We really appreciate it. Incredible response time. <3

Hey everyone.

I know this thread has moved on a bit, but I just wanted to follow up on this and inform everyone that today we deployed a fix for this issue, as well as a similar change to make volunteer posts in the Organized Play forums use avatar names rather than the volunteers' names.

Thank you Brian! It's a small but important step, much appreciated.

Brian Bauman wrote:

I opened up a critical priority ticket to resolve the issue whereby new aliases/organized play characters will have their base names autogenerated from a user's full name, leaking that information unless the user manually adjusts it.

Obviously this behavior is entirely unacceptable, and I will personally ensure we expedite and push the fix as quickly as we possibly can.

Hey everyone.

I know this thread has moved on a bit, but I just wanted to follow up on this and inform everyone that today we deployed a fix for this issue, as well as a similar change to make volunteer posts in the Organized Play forums use avatar names rather than the volunteers' names.

Thank you, Brian.