The Gaming Den

Ehhh

I may have no sympathies for Paizo, but this lawsuit looks slimy as fuck.

Lisa Stevens and co should have created a non-profit that 'advocates for the adoption and expansion of role-playing games' that happened to focus exclusively on Paizo games. Since it would be a non-profit, it appears they could have had volunteers. It's more work to setup, but seems like it would avoid these issues.

Certain states have prohibitions against using volunteer labor in a for-profit enterprise. If someone does work for you, you have to fucking pay them. This principle is called 'minimum wage' and is widely considered to be a Good Thing. Aggressive definitions of what an employee is are necessary for the enforcement of labor law, because otherwise no one is an employee they're just someone who shows up in a particular building at a particular time to do a particular thing for grossly inadequate compensation. It's the government that defines what an employee is, not the business, because the business will just call you whatever has the least protection under labor law.

This is currently an issue floating around in the TTRPG and convention circuit. A lot of these events are revenue streams and have demonstrable business value to the people running them and many of the staff don't get paid because they are 'volunteers.' Yes, that is illegal in certain states. Yes, it should be illegal in those states and all the others. If you plan to profit off a convention, it's just a promotional and sales event, and you can pay the staff who work it or they can sue your ass for withheld wages and legal expenses for all I care.

Conventions are really very shitty and exploitative on the operations side. It's just one of the ways corporations found to sucker people into doing valuable work for free (like unpaid internships) that we haven't cracked down on yet.

DSMatticus wrote:Certain states have prohibitions against using volunteer labor in a for-profit enterprise. If someone does work for you, you have to fucking pay them. This principle is called 'minimum wage' and is widely considered to be a Good Thing. Aggressive definitions of what an employee is are necessary for the enforcement of labor law, because otherwise no one is an employee they're just someone who shows up in a particular building at a particular time to do a particular thing for grossly inadequate compensation. It's the government that defines what an employee is, not the business, because the business will just call you whatever has the least protection under labor law.

This is currently an issue floating around in the TTRPG and convention circuit. A lot of these events are revenue streams and have demonstrable business value to the people running them and many of the staff don't get paid because they are 'volunteers.' Yes, that is illegal in certain states. Yes, it should be illegal in those states and all the others. If you plan to profit off a convention, it's just a promotional and sales event, and you can pay the staff who work it or they can sue your ass for withheld wages and legal expenses for all I care.

Conventions are really very shitty and exploitative on the operations side. It's just one of the ways corporations found to sucker people into doing valuable work for free (like unpaid internships) that we haven't cracked down on yet.

But can't you just call them interns and not pay them.
I mean, most interns aren't paid.

Slade wrote:But can't you just call them interns and not pay them.
I mean, most interns aren't paid.

That is also illegal in WA.

Interesting. There are lots of things super-fans do for free that I wouldn't do if you paid me. But I suppose this is different since Paizo is actually hiring and firing their "volunteers".

I imagine some of their current volunteers would be insulted if they were offered minimum wage for their activities.

Mord wrote:

Slade wrote:But can't you just call them interns and not pay them.
I mean, most interns aren't paid.

That is also illegal in WA.

Not according to article. They were told they weren't to be paid and they know they aren't entitled to a job.

Now the questions are:
Did they work with regular employees or by themselves? If they did unpaid is allowed?
Did the interns get any benefit?
Does training them only benefit the intern mostly?
Did they get actual training?

If all those are met, it says no paying required.

Likely, they fail the penultimate question, as Paizo benefit way more from this.

If fails on Point 1:

1. The training, even though it includes actual operation
of the facilities of the employer, is similar to that
which would be given in an educational environment
or vocational school.

How is what these volunteers did similar to what you would do in a vocational training school?

Edit -

And even if it DID qualify, they had to apply for special permission and fulfill their obligations on how to monitor and evaluate the training.

And nothing about the restrictions contradicts:

If the interns are engaged in the operations of the employer
or are performing productive work that benefits the
employer (for example, filing, performing other clerical
work, or assisting customers), then interns may be entitled to
the benefits provided under the wage and hour laws, even if
they also derive other benefits from this type of placement.

deaddmwalking wrote:If fails on Point 1:

1. The training, even though it includes actual operation
of the facilities of the employer, is similar to that
which would be given in an educational environment
or vocational school.

How is what these volunteers did similar to what you would do in a vocational training school?

Edit -

And even if it DID qualify, they had to apply for special permission and fulfill their obligations on how to monitor and evaluate the training.

And nothing about the restrictions contradicts:

If the interns are engaged in the operations of the employer
or are performing productive work that benefits the
employer (for example, filing, performing other clerical
work, or assisting customers), then interns may be entitled to
the benefits provided under the wage and hour laws, even if
they also derive other benefits from this type of placement.

It isn't an element test, it's a weighted factors.

It says:

If all six of the following criteria are met, the trainees
are not considered employees:

and it lists six criteria.

Later it explains that if all of these are true, it could still be considered employment.

Ultimately, it's hard for a company to get free labor out of someone in Washington. And while it might seem 'unfair' in this specific case and plenty of people might enjoy 'volunteering' to work at a baseball game or a football game, it's also not incredibly surprising that companies have to pay workers.

I don't have strong feelings one way or the other whether people should be able to volunteer to Paizo, but I can understand why that could be considered a violation of minimum wage laws. I'd guess that Paizo didn't INTEND to break the law, but ignorance of the law isn't a defense. It can reduce the CHARGE - accidentally killing someone through negligence is certainly not as bad as killing them on purpose, but that only goes so far.

How expensive is this case likely to be for Paizo? Slap on the wrist and don't do it again, a painful fine, or file for bankruptcy time? You hear bad things about the American legal system but I've no experience with it.

It depends on how much money Paizo had, and how many hours of 'lost wages' they're responsible for. A Limited Liability Company (LLC) is designed to protect the owners from unlimited liability (similar to how if you own shares in a publicly traded company you, personally, are not responsible for corporate malfeasance, even though you are, in a sense, an owner).

If Paizo doesn't have the funds to pay restitution and/or any associated fines, they can declare bankruptcy. Their assets could be liquidated to pay for any damages.

But ultimately, Paizo isn't really an 'Intellectual Property' company. If Paizo declares bankruptcy, Lisa and her partner(s) can create a new LLC and that new company can release a D&D 3.95 under the OGL exactly like they did before. And everyone that likes Paizo will feel like they got the shaft so they'll probably want to support the new company. Effectively, they can pick up where they left off with the possibility of not being able to release any 'prior catalog' titles which will belong to someone else at that point. If Paizo does declare bankruptcy you might be able to buy the rights to their adventure paths on the cheap.

So, 'Ludo' is Latin for 'I Play'. A few headaches later, offering to hire staff back at a lower wage (at least at first) and moving back to someone's garage and in a short time they'll be back where they were before.

It is much easier for a company to dissolve/declare bankruptcy than it is for an individual.

Paizo is going to settle for a few tens or possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars and that will be the end of it. It might sting but it won't be death-inducing.

Mord wrote:or possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars

Still, that's well over a million, so it's quite a big sting to settle for.

nockermensch wrote:Ehhh

I may have no sympathies for Paizo, but this lawsuit looks slimy as fuck.

Funny thing is, from a quick google search, the Elliott guy was Volunteer of the Year for Paizo and the first Campaign Service Coin Award (whatever that is).

Braenwe wrote: Funny thing is, from a quick google search, the Elliott guy was Volunteer of the Year for Paizo and the first Campaign Service Coin Award (whatever that is).

I think it means he was rewarded with a coin the owners found in the bottom of their pocket. Still, better than most rewards corporations give out.

http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dy ... r-Playtest

Lol..

There are a lot of baffling things in that announcement, but directly lifting proficiency bonuses from 5e has got to be one of the weirdest.

I mean... there are worse things to lift from 5e. And I was kind of with them until they referred to everything beyond race and raising as "a smaller choice."

I mean, a game where who your ancestors were and how you grew up is more important than what your profession is could work, but I'm not sure that's D&D, or rather, not a D&D I'm familiar with. I suppose that kind of describes how non-humans were handled in OD&D, but...

Disregard, I suck cocks and skim Internet articles. Class is the third thing you pick. I'm ok with this set up. Now I'm only worried that Starfinder is an indication of the power level they're looking at for this.

Axebird wrote:directly lifting proficiency bonuses from 5e has got to be one of the weirdest.

Personally, after spending a lot of time dicking around with BAB and save progressions, I decided to say "fuck it" and moved to the 4e model of adding half-level to everything.

If nothing else, it makes class tables easier to read.

I can't imagine this will be any good. They had a comprehensive playtest 10 years ago and threw hissy fits when people showed up explaining with math that evocation was bad.

I suppose PF and 5e converging into a boring morass of bad design was inevitable, making me suspect that the modern RPG scene just isn't for me any more.

GnomeWorks wrote:

Axebird wrote:directly lifting proficiency bonuses from 5e has got to be one of the weirdest.

Personally, after spending a lot of time dicking around with BAB and save progressions, I decided to say "fuck it" and moved to the 4e model of adding half-level to everything.

If nothing else, it makes class tables easier to read.

Even if you don't want to have different progressions for BAB vs. saves vs. skills vs. whatever else (which I agree isn't the most elegant setup), I think it's good to have something (two or three universal progressions, large-ish bonuses at first level, or the like) to differentiate classes beyond a binary proficient/nonproficient toggle.

Having had the distinct displeasure of running a 5e campaign for some D&D newbs for the past few months, I find that the thing where everyone's bonuses tend to start out in the same +1 to +5 range for attacks, saves, and skills (+1 to +3 for stats and +0 or +2 for proficiency) and so they're all nearly equally (in)competent at absolutely everything, and at higher levels the biggest difference you'll see between proficient and nonproficient characters with similar stats is +6 so often the fighter, wizard, or cleric will beat the rogue at Stealth checks, makes for a very homogeneous and/or slapstick experience.

If instead of just "Proficient" you had a "Good" progression of, say, +5 to +20 and a "Poor" progression of +0 to +10, or if being a fighter gave you a static +4 to weapon attack rolls and Str and Con saves while being a wizard gave you a static +4 to Int-based skill checks and Int and Wis saves (or whatever), that still cuts down on the complexity without having all the classes blur together.

Considering that they still think "+ ½ level to X" is a good class feature to indicate "class is good at X", I'm not hopeful.

Emerald wrote:Even if you don't want to have different progressions for BAB vs. saves vs. skills vs. whatever else (which I agree isn't the most elegant setup), I think it's good to have something (two or three universal progressions, large-ish bonuses at first level, or the like) to differentiate classes beyond a binary proficient/nonproficient toggle.

At the risk of ridicule, here is an example of how I've been approaching class design as of late.

This isn't ridicule, but there is a problem with getting multiple selections from the same list. For example, you get Fury 4 times and there are six Fury selections. At higher level, you can choose 'Deep Fury' for additional Fury selections (ie, you can get all 6 if you want). The thing is, you've opted NOT to get a particular selection at 2nd, 4th, 6th and 8th level before POSSIBLY picking it up at 10th. Which basically means you are going to be excited about getting your Fury pick at 2nd level and pretty bored with it at 8th level...

If you're going to have people pick from a list of abilities, you pretty much want to give them access to a new tier periodically. If 'better abilities' come online at 6th level, they'll have picked their top 2 at 2nd and 4th and now they're excited again... The disadvantage is that you have to write more powers.