Quote from: Mizzle;1075669The most uncomfortable experience I've had in 30 years of gaming was at Garycon and had nothing to do with Frank.
Having a stripper on the boardroom table, bdsm punishments for rolling 1s or 2s, and a plethora of other stuff.

Seriously? Well I guess they are really keeping the Spirit of Gygax alive, then! :eek:

Meh. Because I'm an adult, I realised it was not representational and moved on...

Quote from: S'mon;1075668Yeah, but Frank Mentzer didn't even do that.

Let's not let facts get in the way!

Quote from: S'mon;1075670Seriously? Well I guess they are really keeping the Spirit of Gygax alive, then! :eek:

Greetings!

LOL! Bring it on, Woot!:)

You know, S'mon, when I was in my unit, me and my crew of crazy Marines, well, we were in a foreign country, at a club. The local women were very welcoming to a group of handsome young US Marines. There was lots of loud music, and plenty of good cigars being smoked. Bottles of Tequila were poured left and right, and women leaped about us, dancing on the tables, right before our eyes. While some women danced on the table, other gorgeous women graciously sat in our laps, one, two, or three such gorgeous women for every Marine.

Ah. Just a little snapshot from heaven. Yes, my friend. Heaven really does exist!:)

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

But was that an official game at a convention, booked thru the booking system?

Quote from: S'mon;1075654*ouch* Sammy that was a mean hit on 4e!

Anyway I agree with your sentiment. Mentzer's attempt at bullying EOTB over on Dragonsfoot was pretty appalling; his awkward hitting on Price was just silly, though his views on sexual harrassment were unwise to say the least. I don't think I like him much. But he has done nothing to deserve this treatment from Luke Gygax & Garycon. The guy is an industry legend who is probably a bit senile, as you say. He is not some kind of sexual predator.

Quote from: SHARK;1075701Greetings!

LOL! Bring it on, Woot!:)

You know, S'mon, when I was in my unit, me and my crew of crazy Marines, well, we were in a foreign country, at a club. The local women were very welcoming to a group of handsome young US Marines. There was lots of loud music, and plenty of good cigars being smoked. Bottles of Tequila were poured left and right, and women leaped about us, dancing on the tables, right before our eyes. While some women danced on the table, other gorgeous women graciously sat in our laps, one, two, or three such gorgeous women for every Marine.

Ah. Just a little snapshot from heaven. Yes, my friend. Heaven really does exist!:)

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

You mean you weren't offended and triggered?  Haha!!!

Quote from: S'mon;1075631I don't think Mentzer is married; could be wrong. I would have thought Price would have mentioned it if he was.

I... I think Mentzer has been a massive jerk, but still he should not have been un-personed. I felt strongly enough to post my views to Garycon's Facebook, so I expect to be torn to shreds by the SJWs active there. :\

Wheres Gronan to tell us all this SJW stuff is not really real and never ever effects cons or real life gaming? :rolleyes:

Quote from: kythri;1075664Cool.  Garycon got woke.

Glad my plans to attend this year fell through.

It is not very surprising when you think about it. There was that Contessa incident a few weeks ago.

Quote from: S'mon;1075661I would like to see fewer specious un-personings in the RPG game industry. I would like to see a clear bright line between (a) jerkish behaviour and (b) serious allegations of criminal activity. I would like to see the two treated very differently.

Quote from: MotorskillsSome guy gets drunk starts leering at the ladies - it's not a crime, but why should the convention defend that person over the people that are understandably not wanting to be in the same room as that guy?

Quote from: S'mon;1075668Yeah, but Frank Mentzer didn't even do that.

On the general issue - I think S'mon's comment about criminal activity is off base. Someone doesn't need to be a criminal in order to be disinvited from being a special guest at a convention. If someone acts like a huge jerk, it's totally reasonable for them to stop getting invited to social events like cons.

I agree that Mentzer didn't do drunk leering, but what he did do was blatantly threaten to destroy people's careers in gaming just for disagreeing with him (both Price and EOTB).

Quote from: Mizzle;1075669The most uncomfortable experience I've had in 30 years of gaming was at Garycon and had nothing to do with Frank.
Having a stripper on the boardroom table, bdsm punishments for rolling 1s or 2s, and a plethora of other stuff.

Ooooooo.. Somehow I missed that, do tell. What game was this for? For the record last year and the previous year I worked GM services in the evening Thursday through Saturday bringing snacks for the folks running games, and I was in every board room both on the ground floor, and upstairs several times during the evening, and don't remember seeing any of that, or anything like that.

Quote from: jhkim;1075723he did do was blatantly threaten to destroy people's careers in gaming just for disagreeing with him (both Price and EOTB).

To clarify, in the very small chance this idea would end up being picked up somehow, I don't have a career in gaming and would never want one; as I consider the ability to tell anyone in gaming to go fuck themselves to be more valuable than any dozens of gaming dollars.  I would never depend on a gaming revenue stream, to the point where I would feel it better to behave a certain way that preserves it.

I don't really have any other comment on this, except to say that even when I was Frank's target du jour, being in his direct presence was the opposite of threatening.  Frank is the type whose threat disappears when he's in your physical vicinity.  To keep him farther than arms reach is when the threat begins.

Quote from: EOTB;1075727To clarify, in the very small chance this idea would end up being picked up somehow, I don't have a career in gaming and would never want one; as I consider the ability to tell anyone in gaming to go fuck themselves to be more valuable than any dozens of gaming dollars.  I would never depend on a gaming revenue stream, to the point where I would feel it better to behave a certain way that preserves it.

I don't really have any other comment on this, except to say that even when I was Frank's target du jour, being in his direct presence was the opposite of threatening.  Frank is the type whose threat disappears when he's in your physical vicinity.  To keep him farther than arms reach is when the threat begins.

Thanks for the input, EOTB. Still, his message was over-the-top in threatening language. Do you want to comment about how do you feel about him being removed as Guest of Honor from GaryCon?

To my mind, if I had received a message like that from someone, I suspect I'd be uncomfortable being around them in person - and would appreciate GaryCon's move. But I don't know the people or the community in this case.

We've been given no real information, so there's no reasoned comments to make.  Other than perhaps the likely withholding of information without any true 3rd party visible would point to an internal matter.

In my situation, nearly every single person commenting had zero clue.  So I won't make the same mistake.

As a generality, I'd say that when a narcissist is receiving more supply than they normally do, they're typically charming, happy, cuddly people who leave you feeling wonderful, not in danger.  Frank at cons is probably the safest he is ever going to be.  Those who know him better will decide if that's safe enough.

But when everyone was commenting on my situation about how wonderful Frank was personally to them, primarily at conventions, I didn't doubt them at all.  In fact, bad convention behavior would have been a piece of Frank's personality puzzle that didn't fit, rather than one that confirmed my suspicions.

I have met a few artists who were like that too. Really nice at cons. But once they got out of sight they Jekyll/Hyde into some of the worst people. And a few who were the opposite. Really unpleasant at a con. Which cost them commissions. But pretty nice once out of the public.

Quote from: S'mon;1075640...

This makes it sounds as if Mentzer was harrassing people on the basis of their gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, or what edition that they play - which is false, libellous, and really bad IMO. ...

That is clearly a generic statement about how they want to run the con, not implicating FM specifically.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1075652... while the only thing that happened to Black Hat Matt is that he was banned from RPG.net (which isn't exactly hard to accomplish) and that was it.

...

Not exactly - http://theonyxpath.com/about-matt-mcfarland/