Second post opposing prejudice, intolerance and abuse in the community

Here’s a screenshot of a session that was planned and announced for Capricon in Chicago this year:

The backlash was immediate and will continue on YouTube and blogs.

Here’s tenet number 1 on Capricon’s own published Code of Conduct:

I. Respect for Others

Phandemonium wants all its attendees to enjoy themselves at its events. As such, we ask that you respect each other. All Phandemonium events should be a space where everyone feels welcomed and comfortable. Phandemonium forbids abusive, insulting, harassing, and / or intimidating behavior which includes, but is not limited to, stalking, physical or verbal intimidation, discriminatory comments, inappropriate physical contact, hate group iconography and unwelcome sexual attention.

To be clear, sexual orientation is protected because we’re born with it. Race and color are protected because we are born with them. Age is protected because our birth defines it. None of us control any of those things about ourselves. The ill-thought session name and its description is a plain violation of the con’s own code of conduct. Unwelcome, uncomfortable, abusive, intimidating and discriminatory are obvious in what they said about this event and how they said it.

Good news is the session is no longer on the site. What obviously happened here is that someone lacked self-awareness about the inappropriateness of their own thoughts and words, and no one else caught this before it was published. But the backlash was immediate, and the problem was corrected. Calling it out is about *raising* awareness to help this happen less. Hopefully this made them rethink the agenda for the event, not just its name and description. E.g., is this the same session? “3:00 pm Game with the GoH: Original D&D with Victor Raymond” Hope so. Sounds better. And hopefully the person who did this has learned from the mistake and won’t make it again.

I am straight, white and older, but I’m not a grognard and don’t play OSR. Still, I’m not defending myself with this post. I’ve dealt with such prejudices before and am not reactive about them now.

Rather, I’ll always oppose prejudice, intolerance or abuse, no matter who the target is. And I’d like to help the community improve its inclusivity. Of everyone who wants to play. Of everyone who wants to be at the table. No matter their sexual orientation, gender or race. Tolerance and inclusivity are for everyone. They don’t point only in one direction.

I’m baaack!

12 years since I logged in, and the blog is still up, and I can still log in. Nice! I will be too brief about my status update. There’s a LOT in this, and the past 12 years.

Most recently, I worked at Wizards of the Coast as a Director of Software Engineering, managing the managers of software engineering teams that built and supported dozens of applications, APIs and services in support of tabletop Magic the Gathering play.

I returned from a wonderful head-clearing vacation on November 13 and handed in my resignation. The three very good reasons for this were 1) I don’t actually need to work anymore, and 2) my mom and my brother are both in poor health and need my support back east and 3) the bad situation at Wizards is just going to get worse.

Before I could tell everyone my news, that last point was demonstrated with the latest round of layoffs, just before the holiday break.

So what *am* I going to do now?

First, I’ll move back east, and arrange things for mom and brother. I expect that’ll keep me busy through June.

But I also have fun things I’m preparing to work on, do and create, without worrying about money or a job or bosses. Emphasis on fun! More about that as I prioritize and proceed. Picking this blog up again is, in fact, one of those things. This blog will continue its focus on video games, certainly.

But I also want to focus, even more, on tabletop gaming. Particularly but not only role-playing games, like D&D. So, I’ll be adding a new blog about that community and its games and its content and its business and its importance. There’s good connection and sometimes overlap between the video games and tabletop (are you playing Baldur’s Gate 3 yet?!?), but for the sake of keeping context and focus in the content organized and distinct, I think it will make sense to move forward with both, occasionally linking them with cross-references. We shall see.