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Unbelievable. A lady who hasn't worked for Paizo for years takes advantage of an unfair dismissal (which unfortunately occurs in many private companies) and starts a series of posts accusing people like Erik Mona, Tonya, Jeff and Jason without any kind of proof. In the end this lady will be responsible for destroying a company that in my humble opinion has always been helping to defend the causes of minorities. Something that in the toxic environment of TTRPG is of extreme importance. If what this lady is saying is true, as a Latin Americam (Brazilian) I consider myself an idiot to have narrated Age of Worms, Kingmaker, Age of Ashes, Abomination Vaults and 14 PFS scenarios. All products of a company where the President is a Homophobe, the Publisher is a Nazi, and the Director of Game Design is a stalker of women.
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I left direct links to my allegations with proof and receipts. I get it, you love Paizo. I love Paizo's products. There is a subtle difference here, but it is real.
If the people behind the products are not treating their employees justly and you decide to continue casting doubt on allegations then you are no longer a part of the solution.
Feel free to look up thread at my post about Alvarez and then follow the links. Then let me know what you think about people posting allegations without proof.
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Unbelievable. A lady who hasn't worked for Paizo for years takes advantage of an unfair dismissal (which unfortunately occurs in many private companies) and starts a series of posts accusing people like Erik Mona, Tonya, Jeff and Jason without any kind of proof. In the end this lady will be responsible for destroying a company that in my humble opinion has always been helping to defend the causes of minorities. Something that in the toxic environment of TTRPG is of extreme importance. If what this lady is saying is true, as a Latin Americam (Brazilian) I consider myself an idiot to have narrated Age of Worms, Kingmaker, Age of Ashes, Abomination Vaults and 14 PFS scenarios. All products of a company where the President is a Homophobe, the Publisher is a Nazi, and the Director of Game Design is a stalker of women.
I see that you are flatly rejecting yesterdays suggestion of being patient and letting things unfold a bit so that we get a clearer picture of what has been going on.
If patience isn't your thing, and I get that, let's at least throttle back on the claims a bit. The twitter thread alleges that Jeff has made some homophobic comments, that Erik owns questionable art and didn't care if it offended anyone, and that Jason sends inappropriate photos and hits on all the female employees. These are serious allegations, but in your fervor you have ramped them up to their most extreme statements, which were never made by the poster.
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Arbitration is a terrible practice that hands almost all power to the employer. This isn't even a question. The only reason to support arbitration over anything else is if you think a business should be free to treat employees how you want no matter the levels of harm they inflict.
I took 3rd party as an outside investigation. If the investigation finds nothing wrong then I doubt the pitch forks will go back in the sheds.
Arbitration is better as it's kept between employees and employers imo. But the losing side of said Arbitration is free to start a fire on social media afterwards, so pitchforks and torches will be wielded with pride regardless.
Overall, either investigation or arbitration is a most likely a loss as long as the current mindset of social media exists
Maybe in your experience. As a card carrying member of two Unions over the last 30 years or so, I've seen arbitration get employees their jobs back with retro pay, restore seniority on a master list, change workplace policy. In one extreme case, it cleared someone of potential criminal charges, restored a reputation, and even recovered almost a year of lost wages.
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The vacuum accusation made me LOL.
Really? The idea that basic OSHA sanitation requirements aren't being met makes you laugh? Did you laugh harder when that was substantiated by the employee whose asthma was exacerbated by the uncleaned air return?
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Unbelievable. A lady who hasn't worked for Paizo for years takes advantage of an unfair dismissal (which unfortunately occurs in many private companies) and starts a series of posts accusing people like Erik Mona, Tonya, Jeff and Jason without any kind of proof. In the end this lady will be responsible for destroying a company that in my humble opinion has always been helping to defend the causes of minorities. Something that in the toxic environment of TTRPG is of extreme importance. If what this lady is saying is true, as a Latin Americam (Brazilian) I consider myself an idiot to have narrated Age of Worms, Kingmaker, Age of Ashes, Abomination Vaults and 14 PFS scenarios. All products of a company where the President is a Homophobe, the Publisher is a Nazi, and the Director of Game Design is a stalker of women.
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Hey. You seem to be really torn over this. A lot of us are there, too. I think it is worth noting that she never accused Mona of being a nazi. She said that he had some stuff in his work and office that was appropriated by nazis and made herself and others uncomfortable. Jessica is Jewish, so this is entirely understandable. The complaint was that he was unreceptive to feedback from employees. That is entirely consistent with the general complaint of poor management from the executive leadership.
These are broadly complex issues and what one person sees as harmless banter another sees as harassment. The key, as a manager and leader, is to take the feedback you receive, internalize it, and consistently/openly improve. Of course you are going to see complaints against the leadership. Hierarchies are pretty bad and tend to drive abuse. On top of that, the leadership in question is largely white and older. There's a lot of cultural prejudice that gets built up, even if on a person-to-person level you might be progressive and supportive.
Whether or not that Paizo leadership has done poorly (seems likely), they can't take the joy from you about those games you played. All the good stuff in them comes from the very people we are concerned about.
The question of whether or not to continue materially supporting the company is a deeply personal question and not one that has an easy answer. If you want to cancel your support, the business and employees may suffer. If you continue your support, the business and employees may suffer. Do what helps you sleep, while continuing to understand that Mona/JB/JJ/LS/Etc are not the victims. They are people with power who likely used said power, intentionally or not, to hurt the people who actually create the experiences you love.
As others have said: A lot of these devs have private patreons or other support mechanisms separate from Paizo. Several have a Kickstarter going for the Battlezoo Bestiary. You can absolutely support the creators without supporting Paizo-the-business.
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The twitter thread alleges that Jeff has made some homophobic comments, that Erik owns questionable art and didn't care if it offended anyone, and that Jason sends inappropriate photos and hits on all the female employees. These are serious allegations, but in your fervor you have ramped them up to their most extreme statements, which were never made by the poster.
I'm going to have the good faith to assume you haven't also read some of Crystal Frasier's accounts.
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Maybe in your experience. As a card carrying member of two Unions over the last 30 years or so, I've seen arbitration get employees their jobs back with retro pay, restore seniority on a master list, change workplace policy. In one extreme case, it cleared someone of potential criminal charges, restored a reputation, and even recovered almost a year of lost wages.
Paizo isn't a union shop. Encouraging and empowering their workers to unionize would be a good first step in demonstrating their willingness to progress. Union arbitration is better SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE IT IS COLLECTIVE AND NOT PERSONAL.
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All of that is poisoned now, if what Crystal said is true.The word “IF” is what I’d focus on here.We agree there. So I was stating how immensely dissatisfied I am with the fact that all responses thus far have completely ignored allegations about transphobic policies in the company.
You are correct that this private company owes no one anything, and all of the previously loyal customers currently "attacking" Paizo's management about this also do not owe this private company any support or money, especially if it turns out that we were duped about what kind of people run the company.
I guess I’m not sure what people are wanting concerning this. Do we expect them to just say “yes, we are transphobic.” Or, “no, we are not transphobic?”
I mean just 48 hours ago they were the company that supported these things more than most. Are just a few accusations all it takes for everyone to throw all that good will out of the window? Even if somehow it was proven that there is a person or group of people that are transphobic in the company is that enough to burn the whole thing down? And have it collapse in on even the champions still inside?
This is a company full of people and people aren’t perfect. When was the last time you worked somewhere where everyone was totally happy with the job and everyone they answered to? Why would Paizo be any different? This is why issues like this should be left in the private side of the business and those that take it to the public eye are looked at as unprofessional by me.
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Unbelievable. A lady who hasn't worked for Paizo for years takes advantage of an unfair dismissal (which unfortunately occurs in many private companies) and starts a series of posts accusing people like Erik Mona, Tonya, Jeff and Jason without any kind of proof. In the end this lady will be responsible for destroying a company that in my humble opinion has always been helping to defend the causes of minorities. Something that in the toxic environment of TTRPG is of extreme importance. If what this lady is saying is true, as a Latin Americam (Brazilian) I consider myself an idiot to have narrated Age of Worms, Kingmaker, Age of Ashes, Abomination Vaults and 14 PFS scenarios. All products of a company where the President is a Homophobe, the Publisher is a Nazi, and the Director of Game Design is a stalker of women.Learn to separate the art from the artist.
Please teach me how to separate things. For example I already spent weeks preparing the first SoT book. Perhaps the most exciting moment in my life as a GM. Being able to narrate an adventure that dialogues almost perfectly and responsibly with countless elements of my country's culture.
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Please teach me how to separate things. For example I already spent weeks preparing the first SoT book. Perhaps the most exciting moment in my life as a GM. Being able to narrate an adventure that dialogues almost perfectly and responsibly with countless elements of my country's culture.
The great thing about this is that you don't actually have to separate the artist from the art in this case, if that is even ever a thing you should want to do.
The people who produced SoT are largely PoC freelancers and several have talked at length about how proud they are of the adventure.
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I guess I’m not sure what people are wanting concerning this. Do we expect them to just say “yes, we are transphobic.” Or, “no, we are not transphobic?”
You know what? One of those would have been better than what Jeff wrote.
I didn't burn anything down, I'm just asking why a company known for inclusivity has responded to many allegations, just not the ones about transphobia. Me pointing to the fire that someone else set is not the same as burning something down.
Hi, I'm a trans person. When I see stuff like this, it makes me feel like a company doesn't see me as a person. I don't do business with companies like that unless I am required to, and I do not need to give Paizo another cent of my time or another good word: I can't foresee that changing without at least a response to this nonsense.
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As for the Erik Mona/Iron Cross thing... Doesn't bother me unless he had an actual swastika up. Both my parents are Israeli, I speak Hebrew and can read/write it (rusty AF with the latter). I've lost family to the Holocaust as well, etc.
I've never read anything unprofessional about him but I've also never met him or worked for him. I also have a few biker pals that sport an iron cross on their hog or truck who are pretty respectful of everyone. There are also a legion of rednecks (for lack of a more diplomatic term) not too far from me that also sport the occasional iron cross among other things questionable too. I largely ignore them.
The twitter thread alleges that Jeff has made some homophobic comments, that Erik owns questionable art and didn't care if it offended anyone, and that Jason sends inappropriate photos and hits on all the female employees. These are serious allegations, but in your fervor you have ramped them up to their most extreme statements, which were never made by the poster.I'm going to have the good faith to assume you haven't also read some of Crystal Frasier's accounts.
I have read Crystal's accounts - they aren't directly leveled at Jeff nor are they the charges mentioned in kayman's post.
I was making sure in my response to take the three specific charges that kayman was referencing and scale them back to the specific charges that were actually made by Jessica in the thread.
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All of that is poisoned now, if what Crystal said is true.The word “IF” is what I’d focus on here.We agree there. So I was stating how immensely dissatisfied I am with the fact that all responses thus far have completely ignored allegations about transphobic policies in the company.
You are correct that this private company owes no one anything, and all of the previously loyal customers currently "attacking" Paizo's management about this also do not owe this private company any support or money, especially if it turns out that we were duped about what kind of people run the company.
I guess I’m not sure what people are wanting concerning this. Do we expect them to just say “yes, we are transphobic.” Or, “no, we are not transphobic?”
I mean just 48 hours ago they were the company that supported these things more than most. Are just a few accusations all it takes for everyone to throw all that good will out of the window? Even if somehow it was proven that there is a person or group of people that are transphobic in the company is that enough to burn the whole thing down? And have it collapse in on even the champions still inside?
This is a company full of people and people aren’t perfect. When was the last time you worked somewhere where everyone was totally happy with the job and everyone they answered to? Why would Paizo be any different? This is why issues like this should be left in the private side of the business and those that take it to the public eye are looked at as unprofessional by me.
Two things can be true. The first is that as a creative force, Paizo has been remarkably inclusive of trans people, dating back to Anevia Tirabade and as recently as the Knights of Lastwall. This is a concentrated effort by the creative forces in the company to include this going forward.
At the same time, the company itself could be mistreating the actual trans employees, which is what is alleged to have happened. Crystal detailed a lot of this, and as someone who has dealt firsthand with this kind of discrimination, I'm going to believe the victim. You don't have to, but trust me when I say a company can claim to be inclusive and make broad public gestures of such, and be rotten on the inside.
What I would like is them to address those specific allegations, and to address whether it has ever been the policy that trans women are only allowed to room with other trans women, and therefore not allowed to go to cons that are not hosted by Paizo.
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Unbelievable. A lady who hasn't worked for Paizo for years takes advantage of an unfair dismissal (which unfortunately occurs in many private companies) and starts a series of posts accusing people like Erik Mona, Tonya, Jeff and Jason without any kind of proof. In the end this lady will be responsible for destroying a company that in my humble opinion has always been helping to defend the causes of minorities. Something that in the toxic environment of TTRPG is of extreme importance. If what this lady is saying is true, as a Latin Americam (Brazilian) I consider myself an idiot to have narrated Age of Worms, Kingmaker, Age of Ashes, Abomination Vaults and 14 PFS scenarios. All products of a company where the President is a Homophobe, the Publisher is a Nazi, and the Director of Game Design is a stalker of women.
I have no idea about Jeff (but there seems to be a lot of dirt on him), but Erik is definitely not a nazi and Jessica is very harsh on Jason. Even if what she says is true, she presents it in a very bad way. I agree that sending unwanted dick pics is gross, but we don't know if it's true. As to her other accusation, Jason is a single (or was, no idea about his current status and it doesn't even matter) and there is nothing wrong with flirting with female coworkers. Jessica didn't state that he touched his coworkers in an inappropriate way or molest them. There was no sexual assault as far as we know. And there is nothing wrong with flirting with coworkers even if it seems desperate to Jessica. A lot of men meet their future partners in work.
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I guess I’m not sure what people are wanting concerning this. Do we expect them to just say “yes, we are transphobic.” Or, “no, we are not transphobic?”You know what? One of those would have been better than what Jeff wrote.
I didn't burn anything down, I'm just asking why a company known for inclusivity has responded to many allegations, just not the ones about transphobia. Me pointing to the fire that someone else set is not the same as burning something down.
Hi, I'm a trans person. When I see stuff like this, it makes me feel like a company doesn't see me as a person. I don't do business with companies like that unless I am required to, and I do not need to give Paizo another cent of my time or another good word: I can't foresee that changing without at least a response to this nonsense.
“From the day the company opened back in 2002 all the way to the present, POC and LGBTQIA+ contributors and staff have been a critical part of our creative and business operations, and our company has been at the forefront of these issues in the work we publish and the values we espouse.”
This is as good as it’s going to get. I’m not sure what else could be said. Expecting something more from a business statement is probably pretty close to expecting a brick wall to fall over if you blow on it.
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I guess I’m not sure what people are wanting concerning this. Do we expect them to just say “yes, we are transphobic.” Or, “no, we are not transphobic?”You know what? One of those would have been better than what Jeff wrote.
I didn't burn anything down, I'm just asking why a company known for inclusivity has responded to many allegations, just not the ones about transphobia. Me pointing to the fire that someone else set is not the same as burning something down.
Hi, I'm a trans person. When I see stuff like this, it makes me feel like a company doesn't see me as a person. I don't do business with companies like that unless I am required to, and I do not need to give Paizo another cent of my time or another good word: I can't foresee that changing without at least a response to this nonsense.
“From the day the company opened back in 2002 all the way to the present, POC and LGBTQIA+ contributors and staff have been a critical part of our creative and business operations, and our company has been at the forefront of these issues in the work we publish and the values we espouse.”
This is as good as it’s going to get. I’m not sure what else could be said. Expecting something more from a business statement is probably pretty close to expecting a brick wall to fall over if you blow on it.
I didn't say I was optimistic. I'm feeling really bad about this, and I very much would like to like Paizo. It's in their court now though.
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Unbelievable. A lady who hasn't worked for Paizo for years takes advantage of an unfair dismissal (which unfortunately occurs in many private companies) and starts a series of posts accusing people like Erik Mona, Tonya, Jeff and Jason without any kind of proof. In the end this lady will be responsible for destroying a company that in my humble opinion has always been helping to defend the causes of minorities. Something that in the toxic environment of TTRPG is of extreme importance. If what this lady is saying is true, as a Latin Americam (Brazilian) I consider myself an idiot to have narrated Age of Worms, Kingmaker, Age of Ashes, Abomination Vaults and 14 PFS scenarios. All products of a company where the President is a Homophobe, the Publisher is a Nazi, and the Director of Game Design is a stalker of women.I see that you are flatly rejecting yesterdays suggestion of being patient and letting things unfold a bit so that we get a clearer picture of what has been going on.
If patience isn't your thing, and I get that, let's at least throttle back on the claims a bit. The twitter thread alleges that Jeff has made some homophobic comments, that Erik owns questionable art and didn't care if it offended anyone, and that Jason sends inappropriate photos and hits on all the female employees. These are serious allegations, but in your fervor you have ramped them up to their most extreme statements, which were never made by the poster.
You're asking me to be patient, ok maybe I'm being rushed into my statments . But isn't it the least bit strange that the same lady who made these accusations works as a consultant in the company that competes directly with Paizo?
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Joshua, slow down. I'm etching runes into your gear as fast as I can.
:)
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You're asking me to be patient, ok maybe I'm being rushed into my statments . But isn't it the least bit strange that the same lady who made these accusations works as a consultant in the company that competes directly with Paizo?
No, it isn't. She was making statements about her time when she worked at Paizo - the fact that she now works for WOTC is just evidence that the RPG industry is very small and there aren't a lot of places to go after leaving one. These aren't massive production studios with thousands of staffers. This doesn't bring up the possibility that WoTC is trying to sabotage Paizo.
A former employee spilled the tea once the last person who she thought might get in trouble if she did had finally left the company.
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I hate when I'm right, but this is exactly what I predicted: Jessica being a part of this story means we're about to have a American left wing vs. right wing battle instead of discussing the firing of Sara, Diego's resignation and the issues and allegations brought up by Anybody But Jessica.
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I hate when I'm right, but this is exactly what I predicted: Jessica being a part of this story means we're about to have a American left wing vs. right wing battle instead of discussing the firing of Sara, Diego's resignation and the issues and allegations brought up by Anybody But Jessica.
Yes but without Jessica's tweets the oxygen never would have gotten to this story - it would have just been something talked about amongst us forum posters and absolutely nothing would have come of it - just like the time Jeff doxxed a poster for complaining.