Zak Smith is Accused of Abuse

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Wed Feb 20, 2019 6:59 pm

erik wrote:That reddit thread is full of gold. I had more snickers than after I raid my kids’ Halloween hauls.

It seems super reasonable for WotC to stop listing all their consultants. The upside for using their *cough* prestige to lure in OSR players has long since expired, and clearly the downside to listing them just continues to deepen. Unless they are contractually obligated to list em hell or high water then yeah, take em down.

Currently consoling: Stalinists

It depends on how much the consultants contribute, and if those contributions are still being used. Generally speaking, not crediting people while still using their contributions is considered plagiarism, and it's something that the publishing industry frowns on.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Feb 20, 2019 7:05 pm

hyzmarca wrote:
It depends on how much the consultants contribute, and if those contributions are still being used. Generally speaking, not crediting people while still using their contributions is considered plagiarism, and it's something that the publishing industry frowns on.

It's almost impossible to plagiarize in the context of an RPG. Plagiarism has to do with copied text, but definitely doesn't apply to copied mechanics. So unless someone sent in a draft and you copypastaed text out of it, it's not plagiarism.

-Username17

shinimasu · Post by **shinimasu** » Wed Feb 20, 2019 7:34 pm

Lamentations of the Flame Princess released an official statement regarding shitmuffin's contributions to their product:

https://www.facebook.com/88524315885/po ... 503045886/

The first part is a good neutral business statement about books shitmuffin worked on previously, the cancellation of his upcoming books, and the fate of books being printed for second run before the news broke.

Everything after "On a personal note" is a flaming garbage fire but namely this bit:

But there are other people out there. People who don't think this is a tragic situation. There are people out there thrilled about how things have turned out. They're going to tell you they were right all along about things. And they'll be most helpful suggesting all the things that still need to be done.

You all need to keep your eyes out for these snakes slithering among us, feigning compassion when they once spat only cruelty, loving what this has done to us, ready to take advantage of the situation for themselves and further erode what we've all collectively built as a creative community.

Don't let them.

And one last thing. I'd like to thank Zak for all the work and support over the years. I am absolutely crushed that we cannot continue to collaborate.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Wed Feb 20, 2019 8:45 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:RPGPundit going the full Franco is something that surprised me more than it should have.

Right now, I just genuinely don't even know what his goals are. I mean, he doesn't want the man who was extremely credibly accused of abusing his girlfriend to be thrown under the bus by corporations that he did freelandce work for? And he's going to... what? Like, I don't even understand what the threat is supposed to be if that completely insane demand is not met. It won't be met, because fucking obviously, but what does RPGPundit think he can do to change that?

Like, shitmuffin and Pundit are completely radioactive at this point. The only question is how severely WotC distances themselves from them. Making a bigger stink just makes the company more determined to draw a firmer line between itself and them.

-Username17

I'm guessing it's a vulgar attempt at power for Pundit? His attempt to pull a Trump/Hilary '16? Red meat to the base?

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Wed Feb 20, 2019 9:21 pm

Koumei wrote:
TheFlatline wrote:Also, I realized I miss gaming *and* you yahoos.
Dickhead

(Yes I'm just having fun here and reminding you why you missed us.)

See now I feel at home!

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Wed Feb 20, 2019 9:44 pm

I for one feel relieved that the Communist/Stalinist conspiracy has been located secretly scheming... in... TTRPG communities.

That's seriously some chicken pox virus going dormant in your spine levels of hiding right there yo.

Also, that RPGPundit post has both "This machine kills fascists" and he calls people "Stalinists".

Which is hilarious because Woody Guthrie was a *hardcore* socialist who flirted with straight up Communism. I know almost nothing about this guy, other than he should not be taken seriously from that alone.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Feb 21, 2019 4:19 am

My completely uninformed guess is that Pundit wants to stop people from looking at him too closely for fear that they find he's also abusive or a rapist or molestor or the like.
But that's judging solely by trend and similarity to Zak's bullshit.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Thu Feb 21, 2019 4:29 am

I've spent a big portion of the day catching up on Pundit. I would guess that he truly believes that people who dislike him for completely unrelated reasons believe that they can use this to 'get him' - his name being removed from the credits will be seen as WotC accusing him of abuse.

In looking up things, it looks like he and Benoist had a major falling out. Haven't found Benoist's response, but I think it was after this. If anyone has more information, I'd be curious.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Feb 21, 2019 6:57 am

the thing I find disappointing, but sadly not surprising, about the Reddit thread is just how many people truly do not understand the difference between boycott and censorship. Like literally one is freedom and the other is slavery, and it's completely ridiculous how many people don't seem to understand that.

If I, or a corporation, or an institution, or fucking whatever decides that they don't want to support you and they stop supporting you - that's not fucking censorship. That's freedom of expression. Freedom of expression also necessarily means that you can stop saying things you think better of, and that you can express disapproval of others.

The people who think there is literally anything wrong with a corporation declining to print "thank yous" to Zak fucking S on future products are literally insane. They have somehow mixed up freedom and slavery.

-Username17

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Thu Feb 21, 2019 8:14 am

shinimasu wrote:Lamentations of the Flame Princess released an official statement regarding shitmuffin's contributions to their product:

https://www.facebook.com/88524315885/po ... 503045886/

The first part is a good neutral business statement about books shitmuffin worked on previously, the cancellation of his upcoming books, and the fate of books being printed for second run before the news broke.

Everything after "On a personal note" is a flaming garbage fire but namely this bit:

But there are other people out there. People who don't think this is a tragic situation. There are people out there thrilled about how things have turned out. They're going to tell you they were right all along about things. And they'll be most helpful suggesting all the things that still need to be done.

You all need to keep your eyes out for these snakes slithering among us, feigning compassion when they once spat only cruelty, loving what this has done to us, ready to take advantage of the situation for themselves and further erode what we've all collectively built as a creative community.

Don't let them.

And one last thing. I'd like to thank Zak for all the work and support over the years. I am absolutely crushed that we cannot continue to collaborate.

I wonder how this will affect their business, if at all. Raggi recently getting into hot water over expressing his love of Jordan Petersen probably didn't help the company.

In more directly related news: ZakS' wikipedia page got flagged for deletion for not being notable enough. After fourteen years of existing. You'd think being accused of abuse would make you more notable.

Thaluikhain · Post by **Thaluikhain** » Thu Feb 21, 2019 10:44 am

FrankTrollman wrote:the thing I find disappointing, but sadly not surprising, about the Reddit thread is just how many people truly do not understand the difference between boycott and censorship. Like literally one is freedom and the other is slavery, and it's completely ridiculous how many people don't seem to understand that.

Oh yeah, and they are always the first to tell everyone how everyone should stop buying stuff from, say, Gillette.

Dogbert · Post by **Dogbert** » Thu Feb 21, 2019 12:04 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:If I, or a corporation, or an institution, or fucking whatever decides that they don't want to support you and they stop supporting you - that's not fucking censorship. That's freedom of expression.

For the sake of debate, I'm going to play devil's advocate here.

Sure, if I decide I've had it with some game designer's shit and I'm voting with my wallet and not paying for publisher X' game, that's freedom, effectively (and that's why I refuse to buy E.A games on principle).

However, if I decide I've had it with (some schmuck working for publisher X) and, in addition to voting with my wallet, I organize angry mobs to threaten publisher X with a smear campaign unless they fire publisher X, call to his wife's number with libelous accusations in attempt to wreck his marriage, extend the harassment campaign also to Some Schmuck's associates, send threats to his home so even his kids feel scared, and recruit the aid of publisher Z to deploy mafia tactics on publisher X' distribution venue so they stop selling X' product *cough*EvilHat*cough* ... is it still freedom?

A lot of that shit happened in the 2013-2015 period, and not even to actual scumbags, but people whose only crime was disagreeing with the collective (hell, you knew things were reaching rock bottom in the bedrock of stupid when even My Little Pony aired episodes to warn people against the trap of collectivism).

Those who forget history and all that.

Anyway, my two cents on the whole "boycott or censorship" thing. Take 'em or leave 'em.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Feb 21, 2019 12:59 pm

Dogbert's example is bad, because the difference between a single person boycotting and a group boycott is that both are free speech, but one of them was literally a tactic of the civil rights movement and the difference between boycott and harassment campaigns is that one of them is free speech and the other is a crime.

But there are two real issues in play:

1) We Live In Capitalism. A "Boycott" of a single individual, or of a company to get an individual fired is both free speech, and also really bad for that person because if it succeeds they might literally starve to death on the street. Now, MOST perpetrators being boycotted are insanely wealthy and will do fine and/or will go work for AEI, so it doesn't apply to most individuals, but you can see that it is POSSIBLE that getting Zak S fired from everything might result in him not having money, which in the US means you die in a gutter.

But you know what? People way better than Zak S are dying in gutters. So let's try to help all future people by you know, creating a welfare state, and let's not push back against attempts to make workplaces more safe for this one person's financial aid.

2) We Live In Capitalism. Hmmm. Well look, this one is different. When you choose not to "associate" with some shithead in real life, that is free speech, and when a group chooses not to, that's also free speech. But when COMPANIES choose not to, that's kind of a problem, because companies own everything and provide all the services. If Twitter and Facebook and Google "choose not to associate with you" by not letting you have a twitter or facebook or gmail account you are in a very different position re: censorship, then if some people are boycotting you, not because any actor is in principle doing anything different, but because some of the actors own like.... the infrastructure that we all use to communicate.

Again, the solution is not to say "well I guess Twitter should be required by law to never ban your account no matter how many people you harass" the solution is to destroy facebook, twitter, and google with anti-trust and/or nationalization.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Thu Feb 21, 2019 3:47 pm

How would one break up something like facebook in a way that would majorly reduce it's presence? Same goes for Twitter. I'm not thinking they are too big to fail but because these are just messaging platforms. Won't people just kind of gravitate toward one or another naturally?

Blade · Post by **Blade** » Thu Feb 21, 2019 4:36 pm

You could decide on an open standard protocol and enforce interoperability so that anyone can host and run their own facebook/twitter service that can interact with the other services.

Count Arioch the 28th · Thu Feb 21, 2019 5:15 pm

shinimasu wrote:Lamentations of the Flame Princess released an official statement regarding shitmuffin's contributions to their product:

https://www.facebook.com/88524315885/po ... 503045886/

The first part is a good neutral business statement about books shitmuffin worked on previously, the cancellation of his upcoming books, and the fate of books being printed for second run before the news broke.

Everything after "On a personal note" is a flaming garbage fire but namely this bit:

But there are other people out there. People who don't think this is a tragic situation. There are people out there thrilled about how things have turned out. They're going to tell you they were right all along about things. And they'll be most helpful suggesting all the things that still need to be done.

You all need to keep your eyes out for these snakes slithering among us, feigning compassion when they once spat only cruelty, loving what this has done to us, ready to take advantage of the situation for themselves and further erode what we've all collectively built as a creative community.

Don't let them.

And one last thing. I'd like to thank Zak for all the work and support over the years. I am absolutely crushed that we cannot continue to collaborate.

To be fair, he's not wrong. Raggi could nail Zak to the fucking cross and there'd be a large number of people insisting he "didn't do enough to condemn Zak". I wouldn't have said it myself, but he's right.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Feb 21, 2019 6:13 pm

MGuy wrote:How would one break up something like facebook in a way that would majorly reduce it's presence? Same goes for Twitter. I'm not thinking they are too big to fail but because these are just messaging platforms. Won't people just kind of gravitate toward one or another naturally?

Facebook provides a lot of different services and there is no reason they should all be run by the same people and profit the same people (obviously, they should all not profit any individuals, but whatever).

Why are the people deciding how the algorithms sort news and give it to people the same people who also do adds? Why is Instagram run by the same company? WhatsApp? Oculus VR? Why are the same people who provide a board for you to post on also the ones running data mining shit to check the progress and success of all apps that are on your phone and then selling that information to app makers?

There's nothing inherent about tying all these things to the concept of "a place you occasionally visit to see what your friends are up to."

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu Feb 21, 2019 6:19 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:
hyzmarca wrote:
It depends on how much the consultants contribute, and if those contributions are still being used. Generally speaking, not crediting people while still using their contributions is considered plagiarism, and it's something that the publishing industry frowns on.
It's almost impossible to plagiarize in the context of an RPG. Plagiarism has to do with copied text, but definitely doesn't apply to copied mechanics. So unless someone sent in a draft and you copypastaed text out of it, it's not plagiarism.

-Username17

There's a difference between copyright and attribution. You can give someone a credit and still be violating their copyright. You can respect someone's copyright, but still plagiarize them by rewriting their work without attribution and presenting it entirely as your own.

shinimasu · Post by **shinimasu** » Thu Feb 21, 2019 6:24 pm

Count Arioch the 28th wrote: To be fair, he's not wrong. Raggi could nail Zak to the fucking cross and there'd be a large number of people insisting he "didn't do enough to condemn Zak". I wouldn't have said it myself, but he's right.

It's at best incredibly tone deaf though. If you think you're dealing with an angry mob then it's kind of career suicide to tell the angry mob to chill. Angry mobs tend to react poorly to being told they're too angry.

And I say "if you think" because honestly aside from him getting ragged on in gaming forums I haven't actually seen former employers being unjustly crucified? Correct me if I'm wrong but anyone who's been accused of giving a lame mealy mouthed apology was so accused because they actually gave a lame mealy mouthed apology. Not because of the implacable hoards of SJWs crying for blood. If this problem exists it exists on such a small scale that I doubt it needed direct addressing. I'll take "Things your lawyer definitely didn't approve before publishing" for 500 Alex.

But it's when paired with the phrasing of "crushed we cannot continue to collaborate" it just looks bad. It stops reading like "I'm sad your horrible behavior means I can no longer in good conscience give you this platform" and more like "I'm sorry, I would totally still employ you if the mean internet people wouldn't yell at me for it."

Whether he intended this or not is kind of moot, that is largely the takeaway of most of the people who have read this statement. And this is why if you actually have retained legal counsel you should fucking listen to them before posting shit.

Iduno · Post by **Iduno** » Thu Feb 21, 2019 11:56 pm

https://twitter.com/Gen_Con/status/1098692902228639744

And, as always, the comments are fucking rainbows and sunshine.

Dogbert · Post by **Dogbert** » Fri Feb 22, 2019 10:29 am

Kaelik wrote:the difference between boycott and harassment campaigns is that one of them is free speech and the other is a crime.

Only God and you (and perhaps not even God) know how you moved the point all the way to class warfare, but I like the way you think.

Still, my point was something much simpler: To be wary of people who would (ab)use Mandy's story and weaponize it in order to destroy/unperson via torches and pitchforks anyone they don't like.

(a form of chicanery that actually outdates capitalism, dating all the way back to organized religions).

P.S: Yeah, Raggi's condemnation-but-not-really statement was suit levels of bad, especially since he stated in a video how shitmuffin was far from his favorite person.

Usamimi · Post by **Usamimi** » Sat Mar 02, 2019 2:29 pm

MGuy wrote:How would one break up something like facebook in a way that would majorly reduce it's presence? Same goes for Twitter. I'm not thinking they are too big to fail but because these are just messaging platforms. Won't people just kind of gravitate toward one or another naturally?

“Too big to fail” means in practice that a corporation’s leaders are sufficiently embedded in the government structure through nepotism and bribery to divert resources towards covering the costs of their personal financial failure.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Mon Mar 04, 2019 9:22 pm

Zak provides an exhaustive rebuttal.

Edit: Exhaustive in that it is exhausting to read, not that it necessarily actually rebuts anything.

I'm working my way slowly.

Zak S" wrote: Believing Jennifer here means two women can enthusiastically and completely soberly scheme to initiate sex with a pair of guys, happily engage in it, date the men involved for years after, then retroactively blame one of the guys for it a decade later because one of them's mad at her ex-.

I don't think this follows. Zak is claiming that she could ONLY be speaking about a few situations, and those few situations COULDN'T possibly count. There is nothing to indicate that she couldn't be referring to other incident(s). Further, this repeats the tactic of saying 'she had a positive interaction with me where she didn't make any accusations, and we all know there's no way anyone would ever be nice to anyone who hurt hem even if it took them years to realize that it wasn't their fault that the abuse happened'. Like, that's a thing - sometimes you do things because you feel pressured to, and it isn't until later you realize that the PRESSURE was wrong more than the things you did.

Zak S wrote:
Mandy wrote: For clarity's sake I've cut-and-pasted the text:
Mandy Morbid <email redacted>
Mon 5/9/2016 11:52 AM
I feel like I'm losing you.
I feel like this year has been incredibly traumatic for me. I feel like I've changed and grown.
I feel like we have nothing in common anymore. I feel like we've grown apart. I feel like we want different things.
Love is supposed to change over time but I don't like where I am at with mine anymore. I am uncomfortable. I do still love you tremendously. But you have become a source of anxiety.
I don't know how to talk to you anymore. I am terrified of hurting you. I feel heartbroken and lost. I thought Hannah would help, I thought she would be fun and easy and something we could share again. Michelle was a disaster, Michelle hurt me, and us I think.
I feel like you put me up on a pedestal. Like I always have to be the hottest girl in the room. "What do you need to see for, don't wear your glasses" my needs come after the need for me to be this perfect little sex doll. I need to be a normal human. "Chin up" over and over and over again. "What are you even here for if you're not fucking me" all seemingly harmless in the moment but in the long run it got under my skin and it's rotting, I feel this pressure because of comments like those to be something special for you and I don't know who I am anymore in relation to you because I got so sick and I'm just not the hot little porn slut anymore. I don't know if we can find a new way to be together, what we've been doing isn;t working. I'm not happy. I don't want to lose you but I don't know how much you can change who you are and what you are doing with your life for me---I know you try so hard to make me happy, you've become more nurturing over the years despite it not being natural to you. I hate LA right now. It's full of memories that hurt me.
That's all I wanted to say for now.
What's most important about all of this is the complaints in it closely resemble her recent Facebook attack, only rendered not as accusations of systematic abuse, but rendered just as normal (if very sad and distressing) end-of-marriage complaints.

To me this looks like a recognition of a pattern of behavior that dehumanizes her and caused her to leave. Again, to me this would be consistent with the abuse she describes before she realized that it wasn't her fault.

I think with any claim of abuse, there's always the unspoken accusation - why didn't you do something sooner. And there's always reasons. Coming to terms with your own powerlessness in certain situations isn't easy. Recognizing that it is a PATTERN of behavior, rather than a series of 'out-of-character moments' is usually the hardest part.

*******************

After spending a lot of words explaining how only the people that didn't complain about him could possibly know that he didn't deserve this, he has moved into playing the victim:

Zak S. wrote: In fact, this was kind of a common theme: when Mandy was away, friends would treat me like someone on leave from a warzone. They constantly told me I looked exhausted, asked me if I was ok, whether I needed help, brought me food, asked whether anyone was taking care of me, etc.

********************

I think this part is an outright fabrication:

Zak S wrote:
FAQ wrote: You don't want to be deplatformed--but aren't you a vocal advocate of deplatforming? Turnabout is fair play, haha!
.....

I've always made efforts to contact people before calling them out, I've always done everything possible to make sure I haven't missed anything, and I've always taken steps to make sure the person actually did the thing I'm calling them out for. You need to take care and caution before inflicting serious consequences on anyone.

shinimasu · Post by **shinimasu** » Tue Mar 05, 2019 3:37 pm

Holy shit someone was on r/rpg like a day ago going "Zak has made a rebuttal and you all shouldn't believe those women and I'm available to answer any questions you might have."

I thought it was a troll, especially because of the "PM Me for deets" tone of the whole post but also because when they wrote it he hadn't put anything up on his blog yet (and they hadn't linked anywhere).

I never expected him to be stupid enough to write a second long winded rant about how he's been done wrong.

Iduno · Post by **Iduno** » Tue Mar 05, 2019 4:39 pm

shinimasu wrote: I never expected him to be stupid enough to write a second long winded rant about how he's been done wrong.

Is he stupid enough? Yes. But is he narcissistic enough? Yes.