Harassment and Worse in RPG Industry & Community

by Victoria Jesswein published 2022/11/12 08:27:55 GMT-8, last modified 2022-11-12T08:27:56-08:00
A blog article was posted to the CAR-PGA (The Committee for the Advancement of Role-Playing Games) mailing list today, regarding terrible behavior by the RPG industry & Community...

Below is the message that was sent to the Car-PGA (The Committee for the Advancement of Role-Playing Games) mailing list. Regarding sexual harassment in the tabletop RPG industry & community. - http://latining.tumblr.com/post/141567276944/tabletop-gaming-has-a-white-male-terrorism-problem


While I have read the blog posting, I haven't researched it any further yet so I do not know more about validity of the source yet, but it was the occasional stories like these, for various orientations, ethnicities, disabilities, and other populations, told to me verbally as I was performing other RPG research, that lead to my starting research specifically on this topic years ago, which is currently undergoing analysis, to have some idea of prevalence as updated here: http://rpgresearch.com/blog/rpg-gender-bias-research-stage-2-status-update-1


This is also why I have been trying to build the RPG Trailer (http://gofundme.com/rpgtrailer) to provide a "safer" gaming environment, though most people have not understood what I meant by this (an unfortunate failure of communication on my part). Hopefully this article makes that clearer.


Much more needs to be done to fix the PUG (Pick-Up Gamer) environment at hobby stores, conventions, etc. See my points on the "Gamer Floater Hypothesis" for the long list of relevant issues: http://rpgresearch.com/blog/hypothesis-of-the-role-playing-gamer-floater While these dysfunctional players need help, and I believe a properly implemented gaming environment can help them, I believe they are driving away a much broader potential audience, and we as a community, industry, and PUG hosts, need to do more to address these issues.


The Car-PGA Email: 
### BEING EMAIL ###
" A very long piece on sexual harassment in the tabletop community has been
brought to my attention:
http://latining.tumblr.com/post/141567276944/tabletop-gaming-has-a-white-male-terrorism-problem
Please note that there is an opportunity for direct action in the case of Wyrd;
their phone number and online contact form are at the bottom of the post.

CAR-PGa has a longstanding interest in increasing the number of women in
gaming and opposing all forms of harassment. Suggestions on new initiatives
to combat this problem are welcome.

CAR-PGa publishs one of if not *the* most complete gaming convention
schedules, and I'd be really interested in getting some volunteers to find
out which meet the Scalzi minimum-acceptable-harassment-policies (http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/07/02/my-new-convention-harassment-policy/).
An example of an acceptable harassment policy would be, for example, that
of the American Library Association's conferences (http://2016.alaannual.org/statement-appropriate-conduct).

Finally, while the subject does not normally come up, allow me to state for
the record that neither the Newsletter nor this discussion list will
tolerate attempts to harass people via them. —Alan"
### END OF EMAIL ###

 

UPDATE 20160403: Someone posted the following response: The person who posted the blog did get her Day in Court and did win: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/taking-a-stand-against-abuse-284204591.html

 

 

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