I write role playing games. I’ve taken a break over the past year because of improving my mental health after a bad run with my previous company, as well as improving my physical health so my disabilities leave something of me. However, I still have a project or three I need to complete, if only to say that I could do it on my own and with the people I’ve chosen to work with. TL;DR: I’ve been in the trenches.
So have the people discussed in the Slaying the Dragon, which is a history of the Dungeons and Dragons franchise from the moment Gary Gygax started to it, from its growth from his basement into what it became under Wizards of the Coast. It collects news stories, personal interviews, and observations regarding how the game became what it is today.
It’s fitting that I read this book during the WoTC monetization OGL nightmare. That need to keep creating projects so you can make money is what the makers of Advanced D&D have struggled with all along: from the early days of just putting out too much work and diluting their product lines and creating trading card games, to trying to find the spotlight in Hollywood. The same story plays out again and again: gamers are not business men, but we seem to have a need to control every aspect without seeking appropriate counsel from those in the know.
This book is required reading for anyone who is in or wants to be in the business of making games. I see many parallels to mistakes I have personally made or have been a party or witness to. Had I read this book? I would have known better. It reiterates, without saying it, that no matter the game or format, we all end with the same issues because it’s the people that severely underestimate what it means to interact with others and run the business side of creating those games.
Would I Read it Again?: Yep. I bought a copy specifically for highlighting and discussing if/when anyone else in my house bothered to read it.
Rating: 3.5. While the author’s voice makes an otherwise dry topic more interesting to read, it also has moments where the bias toward or against certain people is really obvious. At times, it could use a little more objectivity in the subject . Yes, only a fan could write this way, but they also need to separate themselves from the artists they love.
I recently left Mighty Narwhal Productions, a company I helped to found. While I initially said this departure was amicable, paying attention to the line that we don’t talk about Fight Club, later issues have made it so that it’s important that I speak about what occurred with one individual in particular— Jason Andrew— which included a hostile work environment, sexist behavior, abusive work practices, and encouraging xenophobia.
The first thing I need to do is apologize. I am not an innocent in the events I am about to describe. I took part in them, allowed them to happen, or remained quiet when I should have spoken up for others. I can say that I was bogged down in work or I just wanted to make sure the hard work of many people saw the light of day, but that’s trying to justify the means. My intentions don’t matter. The actions do. On that note, I am not claiming anything about the people I name here other than Jason. The information I provide about Jason comes from memory, opinions based on past experiences with him, and the physical documentation I have access to. Some of this information is hearsay from him.
The second thing I need to say is that Mighty Narwhal is not just Jason Andrew. I feel like he made it seem that way more than once, but I think that’s part of his need for attention and the spotlight. He was an idea man, but the fact that there were successful events or books at all is on the shoulders of everyone else around him. I believe he was poor planner at best and knows how to surround himself with capable people. In no way am I trying to make it seem like people should not support Mighty Narwhal; I do believe they should not support Jason being a part of the company.
I was initially introduced to writing for gaming through By Night Studios. I was asked to write a plot kit for their Vegas event as a “try out.” I completed the process, although my try outs kept getting extended into additional work. Even this process was fraught with things that bothered me, but I found it more important to focus on finally being able to write for games. While I was at the event, Jason told me multiple times that Ree Soesbee was a troublesome employee who was not producing work and acting like a diva. Therefore, they were trying out new people to replace her. I was told not to speak with her, while Jason spent the weekend discussing how badly she was doing. At one point, there was a situation where she was emotionally distressed, and he laughed about how he thought she was melting down.
In addition, I later found out I was pitted against another female (Laura Dasnoit). While I am unsure at who made the decision, I was informed they needed another female to replace Ree. Jason told me that Laura failed out of the project because she did not know how to take constructive criticism and she was complaining that he was too harsh.
While I was at By Night Studios, numerous other events occurred. Some of the same things occurred within Mighty Narwhal. I’m only listing a few of them, but there were more.
When I was first hired for BNS, Jason told me a story about how he would seed different versions of a story with different people. If he heard one of the versions of the story, he would knew who was talking about what and not hire that person as they could not be trusted to keep their mouth shut.
During a telephone call while developing Black Furies, one of the other writers told me that women don’t want to throw chops, they just want to dress up. I immediately spoke up that there are plenty of women who like to throw chops. I was angry at this statement, and mentioned it to mutual friends of the person and myself. Somehow, this made it back to Jason, and he asked me to sit down with him at Midwinter. What occurred was a conversation where I was told that Ree had previously accused the company of sexism, so Jason was very disturbed that I had spoken about the phone call to others. I was told I would learn to play nice and not talk about what happened at By Night. We don’t talk about Fight Club. He insinuated that doing otherwise would result in firing me as a freelancer.
He hired two of his sexual partners as freelancers for By Night; he later hired the same two people for Mighty Narwhal. He frequently complained that they turned in work late and that most of it was not good. In some of these cases, he would claim he was giving them one more chance and coaching them. They continued to turn in late work that did not meet standards, according to him. However, he kept them as freelancers and paid them. In the case of Mighty Narwhal, he paid one of them in advance of other freelancers on word count that I do not believe was even completed at the time.
The same person who made the comment about women throwing chops would frequently degrade my work, speak down to me, and ignore me in areas where I was a subject matter expert. Sometimes, this was followed up with them reskinning the same work and claiming it as their own. I complained about this process more than once, and Jason frequently told me that the most important thing was the team, and I should remain quiet in order to keep the peace. At one point, after that person (a white male) lectured me on how it was not whitewashing to let white people play indigenous people *in a game framed in cinema*, I spoke to Jason about the need to intervene. He told me he had spoken to the person and told them that they needed to understand sometimes women were more emotional and, essentially, couldn’t take frank discussion or feedback.
After By Night was sold, there was still unfinished work on Changeling the Dreaming. From what I can piece together, Jason was approached by the new owner and asked to complete the project. I was excluded because I had previously reached out to the company about the person above as well as another employee who had allegedly made racist statements. I was considered too opinionated or forthright. Jason said they didn’t know how to “handle” me. He said he wanted me to complete the project with him, but only if I could put aside my differences and let the past go. I told him him could be polite and professional, but I would not let go of previous problems for the sake of peace. Especially since I had not even received an apology over any of it. I completed the work with little assistance from Jason. After I turned this work in, Jason told me Shane Robinette (someone I previously refused to work for) was still in charge of By Night Studios and had only been taken off the paperwork for the sake of optics. He had this information in advance, from what I can tell, and withheld it. Or, it’s not right at all and just another way to hit back at By Night.
My time at By Night Studios and Mighty Narwhal overlapped significantly. While I’ve tried to keep the incidents with their relative companies, there are some situations that occurred within the domain of both.
Jason put down several of his writers, including April Douglas, Renee Ritchie, Jeffrey Fowler, Jimmy Reckitt, Aen (I could not find her last name), as well as some additional freelancers. He called one of them a dud, another a child, and claimed one was a C level writer. This came up again during the Kickstarter, as we trended on Twitter for our low pay rate. While Jeff and I attempted to find a solution, Jason made fun of the status of one of the Twitter personas because of their Go Fund Me, claimed he hired a bunch of noobs to give them a credit, and insinuated they didn’t deserve more pay, even saying that he and I wrote most of the book. Whenever he felt threatened, I felt his first line of approach was to attack those around him.
In my opinion, he continuously violated any boundary I set for him when it conflicted with his desires. Only a few examples are below.
When the partners found out he was hiring writers and artists without even running it past us first, we had an entire conversation about how he needed to run potential hires past us prior to making them an offer. He tried to tell us it wasn’t our business because he was the Creative Director. At some point, we came to an agreement that as a business, he was required to run new hires past us. He complied with this only a couple of times before continuing to hire anyone he wanted without asking. Jeff stated he had to pay someone he didn’t even know was writing for us. In addition, Jason reached out to people with problematic histories, and only after the fact did he tell us who they were. He had to be informed they were not appropriate freelancers or artists. These histories were easily found in a google search.
He asked for the passwords to all of the social media sites, including our web page, in case I was “hit by a bus.” I complied, telling him to not log into these accounts, post from them, or otherwise interact with them since I had to make sure we shared a consistent message and brand. Instead, whenever he offered social media ideas that I vetoed because they were not appropriate, he would log in anyway to make these posts. In addition, he logged into my personal account for the website, even after I told him it was my personal account, to stay out of it, and I would handle any transfers to Jeff. He changed all of the information in the account to his own. He did the same with the Kickstarter, responding to questions in what I considered a confusing manner as well as adding new tiers whenever he felt Jeff or I weren’t responding quickly enough. He also made changes to the web page despite having no idea how it even worked.
After being told not to touch documents in review, he would regularly change them, adding our taking out information after they were edited and were in the final pass. He did the same with folders in Dropbox while we were in layout. When he was asked not to move things around, he came back that he should be able to since (he thought) I wasn’t working in those folders. Even after I had given him clear direction, and Jeff had to reiterate it, he would still move things.
He asked me for art direction for the core book. I created a Google document that outlined our art needs and provided suggestions for those pieces. Instead, Jason ignored this document and ordered art based on what he wanted, which meant some chapters had no art, some chapters had multiple art pieces for the same page, and some things were just not usable for what we needed at all. Whenever I tried to make corrections based on layout, he would tell me it’s not what I asked for when the needs were clearly outlined, and then blame me for his confusion when I pointed back to the document.
He asked me to design the Monster section for the book. I created a system that removed Qualities from this specific type of NPC and specifically told Jason that it was for ease of use. He added them back in and said nothing about it until we were in review and layout. He did not discuss it with me during the process or to advise on why he changed them until it was too late to do anything about his changes.
At some point, I needed to to speak to one of our artists to create a cover for one of my projects. As I was handling the KS, layout, and reviews at the same time, I needed additional time for this. Jason decided to give art direction instead which in no way met the needs of the project. He later brought this late email back up to chastise me so often I personally commented I felt like Hillary Clinton and “but her emails.”
Many times when I expressed dissatisfaction with his actions, he would call me rude or tell me I was obviously angry. This was usually followed up without how I should be nicer or how kindness would get me much further. I felt I was not allowed to be frustrated by his actions without being attributed to emotional responses or me being thought of as mean. Whenever he was condescending, inappropriate, or hostile it was because he had other things going on that excused such behavior.
He suggested we hire a new partner because she had put in a lot of work at an event. He wanted to do this to reduce costs; he was not interested in paying her for her time. This is in accordance to how my departure was handled. I initially decided to leave after there was an incident with Jason’s past legal history. As part of “proving” his side of events, he sent me the court case. My reading of this case made me physically ill, as I believe the story he told was very different from what happened. Jeff convinced me to stay another six months; what I felt was verbal abuse and a hostile work environment made it better for me to leave earlier for my mental health.
I was one of the two primary writers of the book, per his own admission.
I handled social media, social media questions, PR for multiple incidents where Jason was called out for his past, graphical design, and the website.
I handled editing and back end reviews, including sensitivity reviews (I had to take a section about how cool nazi uniforms were from Punching Nazis, handle a section on Lovecraftian racism, and many other topics of that nature).
I was responsible for answering emails for the information mail box.
I handled numerous financial tasks for Jeff, including setting up Drive Thru after the KS because Jeff was having issues pulling a backer report or didn’t know how to send out complementary copies.
I had to take over answering questions in the Kickstarter after the pay controversy because Jeff was worried about his responses.
I did research on costs for things like add ons, new artists to approach, and additional needed staff— including an editor that Jason allegedly claimed credit for.
When our initial layout artist had to back out of the project, I did layout for the Core Book, the Extended Edition, and the GM Screen, coordinating the multiple style changes made while we were in this process and requesting the additional art when Jason failed to follow the art brief. I worked with the printer to get the book to them, including proofing the hard copy.
I created numerous art pieces for the Extended Edition because there was not enough art for it.
After all of this, after being life support for Jason’s dream, the initial offer to “buy” me out was $1000; I received this after almost three months after I stated my intent to leave. They claimed this was because I was not willing to let them have the Cassiopeia project— I didn’t trust Jason. The only reason I received the $2000 final offer they gave me was I previously locked Jason and Jeff out of the Social Media because I noticed Jason making misspelled and poorly worded posts, and I was still officially responsible for those accounts. In addition, while I did not discuss the reasons for my departure outside of my immediate family (who saw the years of nonsense I lived through), Jason saw fit to badmouth me to others. I did not trust him to not sabotage the social media as I felt he had already showed a lack of maturity and professionalism.
His final apology to me, after I had expressed that I felt he abused me for months, was that he was sorry I felt that way. These are the last words he’s spoken to me.
In any given situation, Jason never listened to what I said. I had to funnel most it through Jeff so Jason wouldn’t just outright ignore me or be hostile with me. Jeff was not usually met with the same belligerence.
The following statements are made in general, regardless of the situation, and include some opinion.
Jason has called people with mental health issues crazy or insane rather than addressing them as people. He has done this to discredit their statements against him.
Jason has, in fact, badmouthed every person, save one, I’ve seen him professionally interact with. He’s called his peers, such as Ric Connelly and Jason Carl, dumbasses and fuckups, making fun of one of them for having nothing anymore. He’s done the same with people who pulled his events out of the fire. He called one of the people who ran his Ravenswood discord server a whale who would spend a lot of money on us if we paid them a modicum of attention. Jeffrey is allegedly one of his closest friends, and he’s told us on phone calls that Jeff was incapable of doing even the smallest project that was placed in front of him. He’s said not just negative, but humiliating (in my opinion) things about his own romantic partners, such as his own wife could not be trusted to keep secrets so she didn’t get to know important stuff.
Jason is incapable of respecting others when it conflicts with what he wants. This includes speaking poorly of them, being hostile with them, or just outright ignoring him. When he decides he is right, which is most of the time, he is always right no matter the means he goes to for proving it.
There’s a lot more. There’s always a lot more. For some of this, I have physical documentation. Jason removed me from the Facebook stakeholders group and blocked me, but I don’t think he’s aware I can still access its history, and I downloaded a significant amount of it because I strongly felt he would spin this story to his favor. In addition, I have sole access to the Stakeholders email list we used to communicate. Other information came through in phone calls and in person meetings. In the case of the Midwinter “We Don’t Talk Fight Club” meeting, I have the information verifying that he asked me to it and some talk of what it was about.
I expect this might also cost me some of the reputation I’ve built up as a solid worker and good writer; it’s already cost me some relationships with people I truly like when I reached out to warn them of some of this behavior. A lot of the industry asks you to put your head down and shut up, and anything other than that is considered stirring up shit. However, at this point in my career, I’m more concerned with newer writers being subjected to the same things. Others will say that Jason has always been amiable to them, and I will say he is to your face and as long as you don’t seriously challenge him in any way. But, think about how he has talked about others in your presence and know he’s doing that about you as well.
Again, I am not innocent. Coming from a LARP background, I have my fair share of shit talking. I have always tried to treat people relatively well and be forthright with them, but I’ve failed at that a lot more than I like. I involved myself with things that were not in alignment with what I want, at least, to be my values. I’m in the process of making amends for that, because it wasn’t fair to people like Ree, April, Renee, Jeff, or pretty much anyone I interacted with that I partook in that kind of BS. That said, someone who doesn’t see the wrong in that, who shows what I believe are sexist and threatening behaviors and doesn’t even attempt to hold themselves accountable, shouldn’t be at the head of a company like Mighty Narwhal either.
“I don’t know why they gave it to her rather than me. She can’t even write.”
“This free content is BS. Why would they even release it?”
“Why did they let that group have that?”
“They just want my money. That’s the only reason they create new things.”
Everyone, at some point in time, either prioritized their desires at the cost of someone else or questioned why they didn’t get something when someone else did. The thought that we are owed something in return for our time, resources, or money, drives us to negative emotions, outbursts, and abusive behavior both in person and on the internet.
Entitlement is defined as the sense that a person is deserving or entitled to special benefits. Psychology Today states a sense of entitlement is the unrealistic, unmerited, or inappropriate expectation of favorable living conditions and favorable treatment at the hands of others. It also states that this sense of being owed is an enduring personality trait, characterized by the belief that one deserves preferences and resources that others do not.
Basically, a sense of entitlement is about narcissism and personal beliefs that you, above any one else, deserve something.
In geek culture, this comes up frequently. We deserve another season of a show. We deserve to know why someone made a business decision. We deserve a discount. We deserve the best free content. We deserve more. For every product released into the wild, there is at least one comment complaining about it and asking the company to personally cater to their desires.
Entitlement is often tied to ” the customer is always right.” Most people see themselves as the customer– the one deserving of something. They pay for something by contributing their time or resources. They spent 2 hours at the table role playing, so they deserve a customized experience. They paid $60 for a game, and it’s missing features they want. They contributed to a Kickstarter or acted as a cheerleader for an artist they loved, but they weren’t personally acknowledged. They spent money to join a club, and it owes them an experience. By seeing ourselves as a customer and someone who is spending, we use the statement to justify why we are entitled to talk trash and act unprofessionally in public settings.
The problem is, the statement of “the customer is always right” is taken out of context. While we used it in early marketing to ensure the customer always got what they wanted, many realized this was an untenable situation. It was first modified to advise that they were right until it was absolutely clear they were wrong. Another later modification stated the customer was right in matters of their own taste– companies couldn’t tell them what to like or purchase. We remember the earliest phrase, without understanding that we learned more about marketing and customer satisfaction in the last 100 years.
For geeks, it remains a motto, even if its hidden deep in our frontal lobe. We use it to downplay others in our games and elevate our desires above all else. We empower ourselves in believing that we are right and we need to take control because it is owed to us.
One example of this is edition wars. Whenever a gaming company decides to update their catalog with a new edition, people go to war over what is better. We believe the company is responsible for not only continuing the product they love but the new one product as well. The fans feel as though they own the work and product, and therefore they are owed work by the people creating it. Furthermore, they complain the company is only out for the money and demonize that authors, editors, and artists deserve to be paid for their work. None of those people are living high in their yacht, yet they get called heinous names for being creators. We abuse the very people who create the things we love because they aren’t doing it to our specifications.
Another example happened in the Mind’s Eye Society, a live action role playing group for World of Darkness products. After a particularly long stint of encouraging everyone to say yes, to the point of ignoring problematic behavior, actions, and outbursts, the group locked down their previous “Year of Yes.” Members were outraged when they realized the standards changed, and while that decision occurred years ago, it disempowered the group’s officials so badly that saying “No” is still a death wish. It not only openly subjects the person to abuse, but often means they are voted out or removed in favor of someone who serves the members’ sense of entitlement.
Studies show that entitlement is tied to a feeling of being disappointed or mistreated. When we’re children, we believe the world owes us after a beat down. We’re supposed to grow out of it, but for some, we remember the feeling of hurt and wanting someone to give us something. As adults, when something doesn’t meet our expectations of what we want from it, we call on those old resources and feelings, using them fuel our sense that someone has wronged us and we deserve more. Those old reserves and coping mechanisms are just that, however. They are things we should have grown out of.
Our skewed sense of reciprocity makes us feel like we are the ones who are still owed. Our sense of entitlement destroys our relationships with others, breaks apart gaming groups, and forces the companies who produce the things we love to spend their time in the mire rather than creating good products based on constructive feedback. It’s a cycle– one where no one really gets what they want.
How do we change it?
Recognition: The first step is recognizing when we transition from disappointment to entitlement. Disappointment in something is a valid feeling, often immediate upon seeing or experiencing something that doesn’t meet our expectations. We are allowed to be disappointed. However, when that disappointment boils down and becomes entitlement, we go from a valid emotion to an unjustified action. The facts of the situation don’t match what we are asking from it.
Examination: Once you identify that moment, you need to examine what it is you want. This takes some time. You’re separating out different emotions of disappointment, sadness, and anger, so it’s not immediate. This generally means stay off the internet and social media until you can sort it out. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that we are truly entitled to nothing. When we pay for something, we pay for an experience, but we’re not paying for our personalized experience. Nothing can be everything.
Breaking Down Reciprocity: The third step is understanding and dissecting how you view reciprocity. In case of entitlement, we view the transaction as one that favors ourselves– we want more in order to reach equilibrium. We believe if we do not receive that, we are free to seek it, no matter our means. However, reciprocity doesn’t work that way. If you go on the attack because your favorite game didn’t get a character out on time or something jumped the shark on your favorite TV show, you show that you are willing to engage only in negative feedback. Studies show that you break the cycle of entitlement by engaging people as you want to be treated. Constructive feedback creates a circle of trust where you still might not get what you want, but you can get off the hamster wheel and actually move forward with either accepting it or letting it go.
Entitlement is a form of narcissism. We think we are the most important thing, and our desires outweigh another’s autonomy or comfort. Our respect is skewed to ourselves. While self respect is a needed trait, it always has to be in balance with the respect we afford others. If respect is too much to ask, it goes back to treating people how you want to be treated. When you break the cycle a sense of entitlement builds upon– deserving, outburst, argument, anger– you have the ability to actually make progress; engage creators, peers, and others in your group in positive feedback; and change the things you love.
Did you hear they cheated in that killbox? Pathfinder players are just discount D&D wannabes. Oh, something terrible happened? That’s why I play this game instead. Someone make you mad? Who do I have to kill?
We communicate through the internet and social media. Gaming, in general, is a geographically diverse group spanning across countries, continents, and cultures. It brings people together under the banner of a common love of bring completely joyous dorks. The social media we use connects us to the rest of that world, but it’s also a newsletter that’s cultivated to our interests and concerns, showing us what we want to see. As a result, it becomes an echo chamber supporting the worst of clique politics in games.
In our Dehumanization article, we talked about how humans naturally “Other” people who do not fit into neat categories closely associated with their own cultural views, values, and beliefs. It’s an instinct older than our love of dice, RPS, or gaming pads—something we consciously must think about and dissect if we want to prevent it. As a part of this process, especially with the use of Social Media, we also participate in something called Ingroup Bias or Favoritism; these biases divide us into “Us vs Them” and facilitate our agreement with those in our immediate groups.
We cultivate our communication with social media. We choose who to communicate with, who to follow, and who to watch. While some of these relationships develop in the meat world, more of them occur when we connect with someone over a similar opinion in a conversation, or when we find something they say so intriguing we want to know more about them. We determine what we want to see and hear by choosing to include people who interest us in our social media feeds.
In gaming, this means we surround ourselves with people who agree with us on any number of our geeky passions. A situation might be complex; composed of people acting out based on any number of emotions; and difficult to break down into 140 characters or a FB message, yet people do it every day to a crowd of followers. The reason is simple—we feel good when people validate us, especially in a hobby filled with conflicts between individuals. However, while we do that, we also encourage dysfunction between our ingroup and their outgroup, building walls with the words of our supporters.
There are several problems with the current incarnation of Social Media in gaming:
Avatars
Almost universally, our Social Media is a brand and the personas we present are avatars. That’s not to say that real information and feelings don’t leak into social media—they do—but we can and do put on a different face when interacting through it. We only let people see what we want to. Sometimes, we do that to get approval or validation. Sometimes, we do it because we want them to see us as Edgelord McGillacuddy. In every case, we do it to obtain a form of attention, and we have to think and plan what we say and present prior to posting. This is a luxury most face-to-face interactions don’t have. Even if we believe we act in a genuine, heartfelt manner, we are always someone else on Social Media.
Branding
Advertising has long capitalized on brands, because humans love identifiers which help us catalog our thoughts and experiences. Brand loyalty is a thing for a reason, and we do the exact same thing for people. We see the image they built, thus it’s easier for us to throw out or never consider information which conflicts with that brand. A person might be a hard-nosed Storyteller who always does the right thing—at least as far as you are concerned—so it’s easier to disbelieve any piece of information that indicates maybe they did something shady. People build cults of personality on social media, and we are often the worshipers, striking down anyone who dares to contradict those images.
White Knights
When we find out pieces of information that conflict with our ideas of someone, it causes cognitive dissonance. We usually have three options when that happens: throwing the information out and disregarding it, fighting it, or accepting it. Most people, on social media, get caught in the first two.
People throw information out because it doesn’t agree with their vision of a person. Bob might be a complete gentleman, but Susan claims he grabbed her ass without consent. However, you throw that information out because Bob is your friend, you’ve never witnessed him grab an ass, and he most certainly hasn’t done it to you. So, you invalidate the experiences of Susan and her in-group. She feels invalidated over a serious issue, and this is the source of most people complaining about their groups “ignoring” important information. They don’t find it vital or credible enough, based on their knowledge, to take action. It’s forgotten.
If they don’t throw the information out, they fight against it. We’ve all seen, or been part of, a flame war. We all went through Gamergate, where people rapidly revealed information information and readers fell on either side. People feel like it is their responsibility to “save” the person targeted within their in-group, trying to preserve their reputation or mitigate hurt feelings. Fighting often continues because both sides feel righteous in their arguments. A person feels good when they get to take on the mantle of a cause or another person. We feel good about it, and this feeling helps us associate hurting the outgroup with a pleasurable experience. So, we keep doing it. No one can fight the dopamine.
Misinformation
Nobody likes to be wrong. We don’t like to have our information wrong, to think we’ve done something wrong, or to have our opinions about someone invalidated. Avoiding the feeling of being wrong motivates us to do some heinous shit to one another, and it’s easy to believe information that proves us right. If someone complains about the harassment issues in the local boffer larp or at a particular game store, but it’s a game or company we invested our time, emotion, and finances in, it stokes a need to disbelieve that information. Furthermore, if someone says a thing we agree with, it hits all of those happy pleasure centers of our brain; we are likely to believe it without ever analyzing it. How many times do we fact check a meme we disagree with? How many times do we skip that step when sharing something inline with our beliefs? We do the same thing with information about our games and our environments, among friends, because our hindbrain considers social media as relatively low stakes. Misinformation spreads as a result, and since we neither care to independently confirm or deny these actions, we become part of the problem.
Most of this seems insanely hard to combat. Not only is ingroup bias supported by cognitive function, but it’s also an outlet our brain doesn’t immediately interpret as high threat? It can get dopamine and not have to risk life and limb, while already doing something easy? How do we fight our basic urges and interact responsibly with one another when we’re designed to be lean, mean, social media asshole machines?
Recognize it: The first step is to recognize you already created your in-group and you personally receive affirmation by using social media. Everyone wants to be validated. Being upset and ranting to our friends is an age-old tradition. Places like FB and Twitter not only provide us friends though—they provide an audience that already feels connection with us and doesn’t often criticize our experiences. Sometimes, just realizing what you do before you commit to being a keyboard warrior means you can sit down and examine your experience prior to submitting it to others.
As a reader, you can also recognize moments that need sympathy, empathy, or more active support. Sometimes, people just need to bitch about something and feel like someone is listening—they don’t need that information to go any further or be acted upon in anyway. Sometimes, they need someone to tank something for them, but rarely do they need you to jump someone. Every raid boss has a strategy, even if that strategy is simply not to fucking engage it. If the issue needs to make its way out of social media because of its severity, social media attacks won’t resolve it anyway.
Evaluate: Evaluate your in-group the same way you review the actions of the outgroup. Hold everyone to the same standards and values. If someone says one of your friends stepped out-of-line and harassed someone, don’t come back with “they’re a really good person to me.” A person can be a member of your group and a close friend, but still be an asshole to others. You’re not responsible for cheerleading them when they screw up. You’re not responsible for defending their reputation. Holding your friends accountable for their actions and asking them if they need help doesn’t make you a lesser person or unloyal, bad friend. Even if you don’t consider open and honest accountability as a part of your friendship, remember that as part of your in-group, what they do directly reflects on you and your values. Bob might be a perfect gentleman and honorable friend in your presence, but his willingness to be downright nasty to people on the internet reflects your compliance with acting as an accomplice or silent bystander. If you think someone is an asshole when they do it to you, don’t be the one to shrug it off when you do it or see your friend do it.
In that moment that cognitive dissonance sets in, don’t simply disregard or fight the information that competes against your worldview. A technique from Dialectal Behavioral Therapy (DBT) asks you to list all the facts. While all emotions are valid, not all actions are justified. At first, you’ll include opinions, because we naturally have a hard time separating our emotions from the incident. However, this method puts distance between the moment the dissonance sets in and you react on social media. Once you get all of the facts together and remove your feelings from them, you find out whether or not your response is justified. Then you get a better idea of when and how to offer sympathy, empathy, or action. There’s no need to threaten someone with an internet bat or attack someone you perceive as the perpetrator when someone really only needs a “This sucks and I am here for you.”
Integrate: For serious issues, this is less likely. Don’t try to befriend rapists or neo-nazis to get their point of view. We don’t let trash have the podium or any of our emotional resources. Refer to some of the techniques in the Harassment post to help you out with this.
However, for disagreements over hundreds of other issues, sometimes fact checking involves asking the people involved, even if they’re people you consider “Other”. Keep in mind, most of the time you don’t know anything about them in a personal sense—just their personas, avatars, and brands—and your formed all of those things by interacting with others. For example, more people are incompetent rather than malicious. They just want to live their lives. If they do something shitty to you, it isn’t because they made it their life’s mission to personally hurt *you*. Maybe they want to make themselves feel better about a choice they made, defend their friend, or justify a cause. Most times, people just do things which immediately make them feel better and you get to be an unfortunate bystander. While you are perfectly within your rights to be angry and make actions based on that, analyze the factors involved so you can jump of the wheel and find a resolution that makes you less angry in the long-term.
And, maybe, they are just a jerk. Of all the things that social media can be, it’s never a good form of conflict resolution, no matter how good it feels to get immediate affirmation from it or righteous fury out in the open.
Be Wrong: Being wrong is not a sin. We’re often wrong about the people we think we know and those we don’t. Your friends can cheat and the outgroup can be upset about it. You can recently realize that Bob, your best friend in the world, has always been a serial harasser. You could have a history of saying things you now regret– I’ve said some super cringey things in the past that now me would just flip their shit about. While some people want to show you just how wrong you were, a lot can be said for admitting your faults, the terribleness of past choices, or the flaws in previously held opinions. Almost everyone you wronged just wants to know you are genuinely trying to be better.
Social media isn’t bad. It’s a communication tool, like any other. However, it creates these intangible societies of Us vs Them which we fortify with instincts and misdirected social needs, turning it into a method not only to build up misconceptions, but to fuel conflict. If there is one thing we’ve never quite done, it’s adequately and satisfyingly solve a conflict through social media.
She’s just a life support system for a great pair of tits. Those guys really need their heads caved in. I really hate it when some guy tries to pretend to be a girl. Who cares if they doxxed him? His book was shit.
“Them.” “That bunch.” “Those people.”
While we discuss a lot of other issues during this series, dehumanization is the root of all of them. We have all heard phrases like that at a game, whether demonizing organizers, tearing apart clubs, or turning on fellow players. At some point, everyone, even the best player or the most patient GM, does the same.
Dehumanization is a natural part of othering someone and the initial step that acts as justification for additional actions. While Merriam-Webster defines dehumanization as “depriving someone or something of human qualities, personality, or dignity,” it’s also more than that in many ways– attributing maliciousness instead of any number of other possible explanations in a negatively charged situation, applying bias across entire groups based on a personal beliefs or experiences, or attacking someone based on rumors or other unverified information. Before any Facebook flamewar, before any disparaging meme, before any Twitter doxxing thread, someone in the process decides the target is other and stops attributing traits of humanity to them, either to other them into a group unassociated with the attacker or make themselves feel better about what they are doing in the process.
As noted before, there isn’t a lot of study into games that aren’t part of the video game group (something, perhaps, we should correct), so much of our data has to come from studies of dehumanization in general or dehumanization in video games. Based on that information, researchers found that dehumanization starts with words, proceeds to images, and ends in actions, a process almost anyone who has been on victimized end of things recognizes. A topic long in debate is whether violent video games make their players participants in violence, and while most find the answer is emphatically no, they do find that those games encourage the dehumanization of those within the events. For example, someone who plays violent war games based on real events loses sight of the very real people involved in the conflict.
For other games, especially those with character/player versus character/player, this is also true: we lose sight of the people on the other side of the conflict. We enjoy the “violence” against them and stop ascribing to them the very same traits we value in ourselves. We get that hit of dopamine from an accomplishment, failing to recognize that it comes at the cost of another person. That process fuels antagonistic relationships, painful interactions, and has fallout that extends far beyond some “butthurt feelings,” including perpetuating the cycle.
Dehumanization affects both the perpetrator and the victim. Most studies focus on the psychology of the perpetrator. After all, they possess the mindset that most obviously needs to be addressed. Other than the obvious traits of aggressiveness and bias that come from this behavior, more subtle effects also occur. Perpetrators of dehumanization both morally and ethically disengage from their environments, justifying additional steps that are outside of the accepted Code of Conduct or acceptable gaming etiquette. Furthermore, they lose their ability to critically analyze and interpret the events around them as the perpetrator is abstracting a person rather than addressing specific problems. After all, if you’re assured of your own intelligence, why would you believe anyone else might have a point? For example, it’s difficult to critically evaluate a situation and determine what is going on and what is the root cause if you’re blaming it on Bob being a jerk. Maybe Bob is a jerk, but maybe he has a point somewhere in all of that or there is something in the rules, person, or group that fuels the behavior or lets it go unaddressed. For the victims, studies from Bastian and Haslem in 2011 reflect that victims feel sadness and anger. Not only are these feelings related to poor group interactions in games, but they also lead to further victimization as the target becomes the perpetrator. We create a culture where no one is a person, just an idea of one.
How do we address it? This isn’t as easy as taking a class, as it requires addressing a basic human instinct to other people. That means we have to think about things in a way where we might not necessarily feel great about some of our most fundamental ways of dealing with one another.
Social Intelligence: This doesn’t come easily to most people, especially gamers who often exist on the fringes of society, as it is a learned behavior. However, if you find yourself continually on the receiving or perpetrating end of dehumanization, practicing this skill can teach you how to communicate in a socially intelligent way. Even if you create a script for these types of interactions at the beginning, you’re one step further than you were. Research different methods to improve social intelligence and find one that works for you.
Communicate: Once you feel comfortable with social intelligence, communicate with the person in question. If you are on the receiving end, this can feel intimidating, especially after the person has treated you in a way that devalues your humanity. However, some people don’t even realize their actions are harmful. Even if they are aware of it, they’re convinced they are in the right. You aren’t going to get through to some people. That’s okay and it’s not on you. If you realize you’re the one causing the problem, analyze what happened and led you there while empathetically communicating with the person you harmed. It’s okay to be in the wrong– we’re all imperfect and everyone else in the world has been in your shoes.
Break Obedience: While we’ll get into this much more in the next article, you are not your group. You are a person capable of making your own moral and ethical choices when dealing with another person. Most of us might be a bit eclectic in our favorite philosophies, but reference those if you want to check yourself against something.
Be Empathetic: If someone brings something up to you or is hurt by something you did, don’t immediately fire back. It’s easy to think you’d be okay in the same situation, but put yourself in that person’s shoes and think about how you would genuinely feel if someone did to you what you are doing to them. No one is okay with being doxxed, called names, or put down. No one. They might tank the abusive, dehumanizing behavior and not provide you a response, but they aren’t okay with it. You aren’t either.
By reducing others to something less than human it makes it easy to hate on their preferred play style, the way they built their character, or even the player directly. The worst part, though, is that we’ve all done it. It’s an instinct, and a primal fear buried in our hind brains. “Other” is scary. “Other” is bad. In gaming, this is toxic and contributes to environments no one wants to be in.
We’re not saying everyone has to get along. Expecting people to “respect one another” is also a fallacy– no one is going to accomplish it and nor should they. We don’t have to stay in games with people we don’t like. No one has to enjoy a game as it is presented, and there are certainly problematic issues and people in gaming we all need to call out and stomp down before they mutate our hobbies into a hellish landscape for everyone. Some people are just assholes, but by feeding them and their problems, we ensure they never go away. What we do need to do is ask ourselves, “Is this moral or ethical? Would I appreciate this if someone did it to me?” and if the answer to either question is no, full stop. Be the person in gaming you want to game with.
“They only got that job because they blew the guy that hired them.”; “God, I wish I could have some of that ass.”; “Do you know where the ST for this game is? Oh, you? I mean the head ST.”; “Let me show you how to do a real rotation.”; “I’m sure you don’t really understand the mechanics.”.
That is a very small selection of what players in games I’ve participated in said directly to me or about me while I was in earshot. I’ve written professionally since my early 20s. I’ve written games for a little over five years now, with several published works under my belt. I’ve run successful games of over 200 people and continue to organize one of the most successful LARPs at GenCon every year. I’ve run panels in Berlin and written educational resources. My post-grad work specifically focuses in games, their issues, and how we address those issues with educational and technological resources. My BA is in Communications focusing on social media and my M. Ed thesis was on Harassment/Discrimination/Hostility. This is my field of expertise. People still ask my male colleagues questions about my work.
While that’s just a smattering of my personal experiences, I’ve witnessed PoC excluded from a conversation about their own work and success, as was the case with Chris Spivey and his incredible writing/production on Harlem Unbound. I’ve seen conversations where they were told they don’t understand their own experiences or the nature of racism, or someone tells them to calm down and look at issues “rationally” when faced with instances of discrimination: their characters are too outspoken, they don’t listen to authority, or they talk too much about oppression. I’ve been in conversations about how good a LARP is, “where we don’t permit harassment” while also having that same person identify a player as the “the big tittied one” or “the one banging the GM”. “Fag” and “Retard” are the most common insults thrown out in video games, over everything from a missed call to a team wipe. Marginalized creators and players regularly cancel events out of fear for their livelihoods or lives, and they are told hundreds of times over they pander to Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) when they create or play with concepts that aren’t white, able-bodied, male, and straight. In a similar vein, no conversation about games is complete without someone talking about giving in to SJWs and how they didn’t need to make a character black/female/LGBQT+/disabled.
Research into some of the issues in gaming is a relatively new field. I performed small-sample size surveys and interview about gaming and issues. In almost all of the surveys, people mentioned being a victim of, or witnessing, harassment and discrimination. The interviews supported this as well. Thankfully, we do have more knowledge about what occurs in video games and can use that peer research as a basis for some of what we might expect to find in all games. Researchers Wai Tang and Jesse Fox determined in a 2016 study that players who allowed gender, race, or ethnicity to leak into networked game play were subsequently targeted for harassment. Emily Mathew found that over 75% of the female population experienced some form of harassment or hostility in a 2012 study. One study that summarizes most of these issues, from an inter-sectional viewpoint, was done by Gabriela Richard and Kishonna Leah Gray- Denson: Gendered Play, Racialized Reality: Black Cyberfeminism, Inclusive Communities of Practice and the Intersections of Learning, Socialization, and Resilience in Online Gaming.
So, we have evidence these behaviors exist from personal experiences to peer-reviewed research. How do we recognize them when they occur in our games and then address them in ways that improve our environment and make it more welcoming for everyone?
The first step is recognizing what they are. Once we know how to identify what’s going on, we can find ways to step in and police discriminatory behavior in our own games.
Harassment, in its most technical form, is improper conduct directed at an individual in a space where the harasser knew or should have reasonably known it would cause discomfort or harm. It includes actions, intimidating actions/threats, commentary, or displays that demean, belittle, or cause personal humiliation or embarrassment based on traits such as ethnicity, race, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, or gender. Discrimination is an overall category that includes harassment, along with other behaviors.
Things to Know:
Harassment is not only repeated events. It can be one comment. It can be a series of comments. If you make one comment about a player making their way on their back but back off once you’re told it makes that person uncomfortable, you still committed harassment.
Harassment is not about your intent. It’s about the effect it has on the target. You can intend to make a comment jokingly without meaning it and still be guilty of harassment. While we can all joke and flirt, we are responsible for owning when that impacts another person, even it’s unintentional.
Harassment can be physical, mental, and social. It can be touching a cosplayer (even bumping into them or pressing against them) without asking for their permission. It can be making comments about making sure people aren’t just being given handouts for their marginalized status. It can be pressuring a player to offer you sexual favors so you make their experience smoother.
Harassment isn’t just about obviously harassing comments. For example, sexual harassment isn’t solely about making sexual commentary or physical gestures. It is about any harassment made based on sex. So, if you assume someone is less capable because they are female and seek out their male counterpart instead, that is sexual harassment.
Discrimination can also include more direct actions, such as violence; making a choice based on someone’s race/ethnicity/sex/preferences/religion, such as always choosing cis (identifies as gender assigned at birth) gendered players over Transgender (does not identify as gender assigned at birth) players because you are uncomfortable; or writing a piece on how all PoC are snowflakes because they want representation.
Discrimination includes harassment, but is usually an overall behavior directed at an entire group. Harassment usually only includes one person or a small group of people.
Ways to Help
We’ve identified harassment and discrimination. What can we do now? We go to the proactive method of training in order to prevent instances of harassment and discrimination and then performs interventions to react to them when do they do occur.
Training: Most gamers have no formal harassment or discrimination training. Even content creators are often freelancers or members of small companies who don’t have the resources to pay for training or education. People who do have training usually received it in their workplace, with no way to apply it in the real world. How do we increase awareness?
Locate available resources and provide them to players as the basis of joining a game. There are videos (like the one in the available resources links), PowerPoint, and educational documents online that work for everything from rotating tabletop game to a blockbuster LARP or video game community.
Create workshops with real examples so people can see how harassment and discrimination work in their particular environment. These are particularly useful for LARPS, where you have everyone in place and you should already have some play workshops to help manage their experiences.
Constantly seek out new resources. It is kind of like homework, but assign someone in your game to handle bringing new resources to the table and to proactively handle issues that arise. Make sure they do this with a person first attitude– they aren’t there to “fix” the problem, but make sure a person feels welcomed and included.
Intervention: Most people, if they’re even aware of how intervention works, feel uncomfortable stepping into the role. No one wants to be the person that rocks the boat. In some cases, it comes with a lot of backlash from the community, organizers, and other players, making it easier to keep quiet. However, keeping quiet leaves many in a vulnerable position.
Companies or communities dealing with gaming need a simple to understand Code of Conduct which clearly outlines what is expected of their fans or membership.
All companies and communities need to have a secure method to report harassing/discriminatory behavior or other violations of the Code of Conduct, and they should handle this in a way that is transparent for the person reporting it. Whether you report to a single person in small troupe LARP, or through a form to a larger group, the process needs to be clear to everyone so they have some place to go when violations occur.
Use by bystander interventions– direct, delegate, and distract– by noticing the problem and determining how you can help. While you should never jump into a dangerous situation (such as a gamer knife fight), if you do this early in the process it can prevent a situation from escalating. You can also distract while someone else gets help, intervene or speak up directly in the situation, or delegate it to someone more comfortable with handling the problem
Create a policy for dealing with retribution and make damned sure you aren’t trying to shut reports down. One of the primary reasons people don’t speak up is they are afraid– they’re afraid the person’s friends might come after them, they might be punished, or find themselves in a more dangerous situation. Policies against retribution keep everyone on the same page and give you a prescribed method for handling the situation.
While standardizing information and getting into the nuts and bolts of harassment and discrimination can seem to suck the fun out of a game, nothing does that more than being on the receiving end of those behaviors. You don’t need a 100 page book, though. Sometimes, it’s just as easy as sitting around your table and establishing what is and is not okay for your group, or having your raid group watch a video to make sure everyone is on the same page. It doesn’t have to be complicated. It does have to be addressed.
Join us next week, when we throw ourselves around a (hopefully, maybe) shorter article on dehumanization in games. While you wait, why don’t you tell us tips you used to minimize harassment or discrimination or how you think dehumanization affects your game?
We’ve all seen it: games exposed on social media for harassment, power abuse, and rampant hostility; creators called out for their actions (or their inaction) along with private conversations screen capped and posted online; the incoming flood of comments where people tell everyone they knew all along, that’s why they left, and now play THIS game because it’s “not like that.” There’s always a new game without all of the problems and politics of the previous one. The hot new thing.
Until it happens again. The hot new thing is under fire. It’s an endless cycle of exodus, exalting, then exposure. It’s endless because people keep blaming games or the culture, without focusing on what makes up those things: the people.
The people are the problems within each game whether it’s a tabletop group, video game community, or LARP society. They move from group to group, the game taking the blame for problems they cause. While it’s easy to point out the “problem players” as the issue, it seems like an impossible problem to solve. After all, their actions and mindsets are a symptom of a much larger problem within society as whole. However, with our smaller groups we can hold people accountable and find ways to reduce instances of problem behaviors– once we recognize them for what they are.
In games, there are numerous concerns to dissect. Over the coming weeks, we’ll discuss a few and find ways not to blame a system, game, or organization, but to understand what is going on in the population and the people– to put words to actions and know how to intervene and improve the environment through activism.
Harassment, Discrimination, Hostility: We go into some of the obvious and not-so-obvious instances of how people in games harass others and underpin ideas that support discriminatory behavior.
Dehumanization: We address how people elevate games and rules above the people who play them.
Social Media and Clique Politics: How does the use of social media, instead of direct action, affect us? How do cliques within games create an environment where we only see what we want to see to support our beliefs?
Entitlement and Abuse of Power: We look at the behaviors that support the belief that we are entitled to resources, time, and effort within certain games and how we use perceptions of our power to take control of games and the people within them
Unintentional Bias: What are the things we do that we don’t even recognize? How do we hold ourselves accountable and question ourselves and our actions?
What do you think are some of the issues that plague our enjoyment of game?
The Wuthering Cephalopod 