The Gauntlet G+ Archives

A follow-up from earlier today…

I have been thinking about my post earlier today, about Ben Dutter’s KS project (I’m naming him here because he identified himself in my original post; otherwise I would not). The project has been on my mind pretty much non-stop since yesterday.

At the outset, I do think there was a basic misunderstanding about Ben’s intentions vis-a-vis our community. I’m happy to acknowledge that. I should have followed up with him, but I thought by keeping my original post anonymized and un-shareable, I was creating a space for me to vent, highlight some issues I found frustrating, and then peace out. It ended up being messier than I intended, and I’ll own that.

But I also want people to try to understand where I’m coming from here: our Slack group in particular is a place where a lot of our members are really open and vulnerable with one another. There is a really high concentration of queer people; some of the strongest women voices in the hobby hang out there; and many people, regardless of who they are, put themselves out there every day in terms of sharing their creativity and emotions.

Ben paid his six bucks and was therefore within his rights to use the space as he wished, so long as he followed our policies. But this is what it looked like to me: a dude came into our space, milked it for what it was worth, and then dropped out in a way I found to be very off-putting. If it was just about money, I would have shrugged and encouraged him to stick around anyway. If he felt like he was free-riding, he could have run one of his games for the community. There were a million ways to handle it, but he just bailed quite suddenly.

Now here is something I am very sensitive about: our hobby’s tendency to keep elevating the same five white guys (NOTE: I know it’s more than five–I’m being pithy here). I talk about this all the time, and it shouldn’t be a shock to anyone who knows me. Even within the Gauntlet, there is a tendency to keep elevating, over and over, the same five white guys. And trust that I call our members out on it. Regularly.

Hopefully this is starting to come together for you: this white dude comes into our quasi-private space, uses the feedback and ideas of queer people and women for his game, drops out of that space in kind of a fuck-you manner, and then launches his KS. He in no way acknowledges the input of our community and he hasn’t hired a single woman for the project (I can’t speak to whether he hired any queer folks or POC, but women were standing in as my barometer for how thoughtful this project was).

In ways both personal and social, the project did not conform to the values I want our community to celebrate. And yet many members of our community were boosting this project all over G+, Twitter, and elsewhere. That is totally their right, but it is also my right to clearly express what I think about the situation.

Having said all that, I will take Ben at his word that he simply communicated poorly when he decided to drop out of our Slack group. I accept that, and, in turn, offer my public apology for not giving him the courtesy of touching base privately before venting. I am still disappointed that his team has no women on it, and that is enough reason for me, personally, to not support the KS. That is a stand I choose to take both as a consumer and a person who is doing his best to improve the diversity of the Gauntlet, which is nowhere near where I want it to be.

(You’re welcome to post comments here, but I won’t be responding to any of them).

There is a game that is currently on Kickstarter that has been bugging the fuck out of me since it launched yesterday. I’m not going to call it out by name, but I do want to highlight a few issues I have with it:

-The author spent a fair amount of time in our spaces and received feedback on his work but does not acknowledge this anywhere on the KS page or the published materials. A simple shout-out to the Gauntlet could have avoided this post (if not for the third point I make below).

-The author did a thing that a lot of game designers have historically done to us that pisses me off: used us for whatever promotional or creative advantage they thought they could glean and then ditched us when their project was over. In this case, the person literally told me “I have gotten all I can out of this community.” Fuck. That.

-The author has assembled a team of five people to work on this book and none of them are women. How many times do we have to keep having this conversation in the hobby? It would be one thing if this was the first KS project by this team. It is not. In fact, the indie side of the hobby has always been very generous with this particular publishing outfit. We have a right to say: do better! At this point, I really think the author should go ahead and announce the first stretch goal writer and make sure that person is a woman.

Ok. Apologies for starting the day in such a negative way. I’m not suggesting here that anyone should or should not back any particular KS project. That is not my role here. My role is to look out for the interests of this community and to make plain our values. You can do whatever you want with that (and your money).