Positions & Should've

I am, at present very frustrated with DriveThru RPG. If you don't know why, there are a number of good posts discussing what happened, but the relevant thing right now is this.

Let's play "should've" for a minute. DTRPG should've pulled the product the instant it was brought to someone's attention. I'm not saying that they should do that whenever someone finds something offensive; that's a ridiculous, pearl-clutching oversimplification. I'm saying that when a game comes along that literally has the word "rapists" in the title, that's a pretty damn good indication that it deserves a second look. This is not a school district banning Fahrenheit 451 or a church flipping out because they think Harry Potter will cause Satanism. It certainly isn't comparable to Jim Crow laws or the CCA (both of which are comparisons that folks have made; disappointingly, the latter is one that Steve Wieck of DTRPG makes in that post). This is more like my local Family Video declining to shelve A Serbian Film or Human Centipede II among the "action" movies.

So, DriveThru should have removed the product (note that I'm not even getting into whether the product should have been made to begin with; it shouldn't, but there are always people willing to produce horrible things, regardless of the impact on others. I don't want to focus on them, because fuck 'em. They're not the professional adults, here.

Anyway, continuing the should'ves. Steve should've not (shouldn't have, if you like) engaged in a Twitter discussion about the subject at all. He should have left it well enough alone, or responded with a "thanks for bringing this to our attention, it's a weekend, people are at cons, we'll get on this ASAP" (and, of course, pulled the product, but we covered that). He definitely shouldn't have gotten into weak-ass slippery slope arguments, but at that point I think we're just hyperfocusing; no good comes of arguing on Twitter while tensions are running high.

And then there's the response, which I linked up there. It's missing a clear apology from Steve for being dismissive on Twitter. It's missing an acknowledgement that products like this can cause real harm to trauma survivors, and there are a lot of those. It's missing the understanding that while championing free speech is a very fine thing indeed, that's not - has never been - what is happening here. It's adding, unnecessarily, a large amount of personal justification and (as Charles' little sister might have said, if you're a Tick fan) 'splaining about his position and about how the game isn't actually this or that.

DriveThru also didn't add in a real policy about all this, you'll notice. They just said, "we're going to continue to err on the side of inclusion, and add a report button to let people let us know when they find content offensive." I'm OK with that part; sure, it's not sufficiently strident about the product in question, but I think that ship has sailed anyway - if the author puts it back on the site, it'll be subjected to more scrutiny than most other products get. Following the post, we immediately got a lot of hand-wringing from what some folks call the "freeze peach" crowd (I'm not a fan of dismissive nicknames, regardless of who's using them, but I have to admit that "freeze peach" sounds funny), including a publisher sending out a message to previous customers gravely stating that his products were probably not long for the world and y'all should totally back them up right away (I agree with +David Hill; it sounded a lot like the familiar NRA "better buy your guns quick, the liberals are coming to steal them!" rhetoric). 

So what does all this mean? I've seen people on both "sides" of this debate (to be reductive, the people who are upset that DT is censoring at all in any way, and the people who feel they aren't censoring enough and fast enough) threaten to boycott DriveThru, or actually pull products off. I've also seen more moderate folks be very dismissive of both concerns. Where do I stand, both as a consumer and creator? I don't like to rush to judgment, partially because that's a good way to fall off a cliff and partially because I know I'm a suck for a narrative; I find myself agreeing with whatever I'm reading at the time, so it's doubly important for me to think critically later.

I don't want to see things on DT that are harmful to people. You might think that a book or a game can't be harmful (feel free to insert "it's just a game" or whatever, here, if you like). I don't agree. I do kind of feel that if you're susceptible to certain language or images to the point that you can sink into PTSD upon seeing them, then really you need to be responsible for your own safety...

...but then, it's really damn easy for me to say that, isn't it? I have things that trigger me, but not nearly to that extent, and not generally online. When something is far removed from own experience, I try to be a little more open to understanding it, because I know that human beings are really bad at grokking perspectives not their own. As a white man, especially, empathy is not something that's asked of me, but it's important to me, so I try to cultivate it.

It's important to me that people not be harmed, in general. If the cost of not doing harm is that someone doesn't get to upload a roleplaying game that's explicitly about sexual violence to a given marketplace, I really don't think that's too high a cost. Slippery slope arguments are, I think, specious.

So how should (back to "should") DriveThru proceed? Some folks have suggested that they hire people to read books, or at least blurbs. Some folks have opined that a community-focused approach is better. Some folks, of course, feel that "letting the market decide" is the best course of action; something that is offensive to the community at large just won't sell. This may or may not be true (I lean towards "not"), but it also doesn't address the whole "harm" thing.

What I think is that DriveThru's proposed approach - pay attention to the community, let them report problematic or offensive content, and err on the side of inclusive - is not going to do much to alleviate a situation very much like the one that just happened. I think that we'll get our first real test of that the next time someone tries to make a buck off being a martyr for some ill-conceived notion of "free speech" or "mature content," but until then I don't know the particulars.

I think DriveThru's approach has some holes, but I think it's something, it's (at least incremental) progress, and while I have reservations and I'm disappointed in their handling of all this, neither of those things are intense enough for me to want to stop buying product there, or to remove Growling Door's products from that marketplace.

So for the time being, I will continue to make games that strive to be inclusive, representative, non-exploitative, and non-harmful. I will continue to pay attention to people and consider what they're saying. And I will continue to sell my products on DriveThru.

If something happens to make me change that position, then I'll change it.

Matt's GenCon 2015 Schedule

Just in case you want to find me at GenCon and, like, hug me. Or talk about gaming. Whichever.

Matt’s Schedule

Wednesday: Running a game of Chill for our Indianapolis Regional Coordinator backers.

Thursday: From 3PM to 6PM I’ll be at the Indie Game Developer Network booth. That’s booth 734, it’s right near Indie Press Revolution. I’ll be happy to talk about Chill, sell you books, sign books, and hear about your characters. From 8PM to Midnight, I’ll be running Beast: The Primordial in the Downtown Marriott, ballroom 9. The game is full, but you never know. Show up with tokens and see if a slot opens!

Friday: From 10AM to 2PM I’ll be running Chill at the Indie Game Developer Network’s game HQ (Downtown Marriott ballroom 7, which is a really good place to stop and see a bunch of awesome games in action). Again, it’s sold out, but that doesn’t always mean anything. At 3PM, I’m on the What’s Up with the New World of Darkness? panel for Onyx Path Publishing, in Crowne Plaza Central Ballroom D. From 5PM to 6PM, I’ll be at booth #1103 (Onyx Path) to sign books and talk about World of Darkness stuff (but I’ll probably talk about Chill if you ask me, too). From 6PM to 8PM, I’ll be at the IGDN Game HQ (Marriott Ballroom 7, remember) to sign books and talk about Chill (but if you ask me about World of Darkness stuff, I’ll probably talk about it, too).

Saturday: From 2PM to 6PM, I’ll be running curse the darkness at the IGDN Game HQ. Again, game’s sold out, but show up if you want to play and we’ll see what we can do.

Sunday: From 10AM to Noon-ish, I’m running Clay-o-Rama. Yeah, the one where you make monsters out of Play-Doh and make them fight. Sold out, might still have slots, etc. That’s in the ICC Family Fun Pavilion. And then from noon to 2PM, I’m in the IGDN booth (#734) doing Chill demos.

If I haven’t said where I’m going to be during a time, it’s because I’m a) playing in a game somewhere or b) unaccounted for and will probably be eating. Downtown Marriott Ballroom 7 is a pretty good place to look for me.

Mall Adventures!

Back in March 2012, I wanted something to do with my kids that didn't cost much and wasn't outdoors (because it was rainy and then became cold and rainy). I started thinking that we'd go to the zoo, but again, cold and rainy. And besides which, my daughter didn't get out of school at 3:30 and the zoo was only open until five.

I like playing with my kids, so I figured we'd have a little game. I knew Kai wanted to go to Wendy's for dinner, so I had Michelle call my cell and leave a message using her awesome German accent as the evil Dr. Twistybread, claiming to have kidnapped Wendy in order to obtain the secret of delicious Frostys. Kai was appropriately horrified. Cael decided he could use his super punching power on the evil Dr. Twistybread.

We talked about where to start looking for clues, and I told Kai to think about "twisty bread." That suggested pretzels, so we headed to the mall, since that's where you can get big pretzels (Auntie Anne's, y'see). I slipped my GameStop card into the pretzel bag when Kai wasn't looking, and from there just kind of winged clues, sometimes with the help of mall store staff, until we wound up at the arcade. We needed at least 20 tickets to free Wendy from Dr. Twistybread's clutches, but we managed it, and then headed to Wendy's for a celebratory dinner.

Since then, I've made up a number of these "Mall Adventures" for the kids. They've gotten more elaborate every time, but it's always just been a matter of making up a narrative - some mission that they have to complete. The puzzles have gotten harder as they've gotten older and better able to think abstractly. I want to share the most recent one that we did.

I picked the kids up from school and handed them a note made with an online ransom note generator. It was from a character called "Patchwork." He promised a prize if Kai and Cael could solve his puzzle (which involved finding a series of objects or other things at the mall, five each). If they failed, he promised something unspeakable, but was non-specific as to what (but assured them it was scary!).

Needless to say, the kids got to work. We got their capes (from Amazing Capes!) and headed over to our local mall.

Kai needed to find "a place to buy a hot drink," which was easy enough.

One down. 

Cael, likewise, needed to find "a woman drinking coffee." As it happens, Kai's success spurred his.

Don't worry, he always smiles like that. 

From there, Kai needed to find "where he would go if he were lost." This was one I was interested to see how he'd approach - the mall has a security office, of course, but one of the other things on his list was "a security guard or police officer." He initially said that if he were lost, he'd find the security guard or police officer, but I reminded him that "where" indicates a place. He used the directory and found the security office, and somewhere in there found a cop as well (but I don't have a picture handy).

Cael needed to find a "candle that smells sweet," but wasn't sure where to look. He went into Teavana, which is (as the name suggests) a store that sells tea, but they don't sell candles. He asked the ladies who worked there, though, where he might find such a thing (explaining that he was on a mission), and they were very helpful.

Social interaction, you see.

 From there, we headed to Yankee Candle, and Cael found what he needed.

See? Smiling.

 The next thing was "a dark store for dark teens," which I thought would be harder than it turned out to be:

They showed no interest in going in. 

 And that just left a couple for Kai: "A movie about a horse" and "a place to buy a furry friend."

The movie theater had no horse movies at present, so we wandered a bit, looking for a store that sold DVDs. We found one, and Kai looked around for a moment and found War Horse.

Not my favorite Oscar nom that year, but it's about a horse, all right.

He puzzled over the "furry friend" a bit, and Cael went in search of his last challenge: "The name of an employee at Earthbound Trading Company." This challenge is twofold; he had to find the place, and then talk to someone and ask their name. He used the directory to find it (with some help), and then approached a very nice lady there and explained his mission.

His mission completed, Kai realized that one could buy a furry friend at Build-a-Bear.

Of course!

We weren't buying today, but the kids knew that going in. And with that, their mission was completed and they learned their prize - tobogganing the next day!

This is how Mall Adventures works, more or less - craft the narrative, design the puzzles, and then sit back and let the sleuths solve the problems, helping as necessary. We're going to be running a Kickstarter to publish Mall Adventures so that parents, babysitters, grandparents, godparents, aunts, uncles, and big brothers and sisters can make up awesome missions for the kids in their lives.

More details to follow!

Enter the Growling Door!

We're changing the name of our company.

Turns out "Play Attention" is trademarked by a company in North Carolina; they make software and educational products for students with Attention Deficit Disorder. That's kind of ironic, if you think about it (I'm a speech-language pathologist, meaning I work with kids with various attention disorders and I'd never heard of this company, though they seem to have a decent-sized footprint). The owner of the company was very polite and understanding about it, but in the end, his company makes games and he was here first.

That's fine. The nice thing about the RPG industry being such a small pond (and our company being so new) is that we're not losing years of brand identity by having this happen. We've changed the name to:

Here's what you need to know:

• That awesome logo was drawn by Lauren Chaikin. 
• This change will not affect the release of A Tragedy in Five Acts, except that it'll be through Growling Door Games rather than Play Attention Games (which, in turn, means nothing more than a different logo on the book and that I'm less likely to catch heat for copyright infringement). 
• Our main website will be down for a little while while we get growlingdoorgames.com up and running (we wanted to redo it a bit anyway). I'll be communicating here, at cursethedarkness.net, Facebook, G+, and Twitter (@GrowlingDoor). 
• I'll be uploading a revised pdf of curse the darkness whenever I can get to it; we'll be changing the logo on the inside and making some minor corrections. 

Please spread the word on this, and if you hear people on the street asking "Hey, what's with this 'growling door' thing?", let 'em know! (It could happen.)