On Vitriol: This Zak Smith Thing

Almost four years ago, Zak Smith and wundergeek had a very public fight about gender politics. At the time, I had been away from blogging due to the health of my child, but decided to use the situation as a launching point for a meditation On Vitriol in the digital age.

Ironically, at the end of this past December, right before Christmas, my youngest again had a surgery and has been in and out of the hospital since. Having walked away from blogging again to deal with this situation, Zak Smith is again at the middle of a storm within the OSR due to accusations launched at him by his girlfriend, Mandy Morbid. Again, I feel compelled to say something about this whole Zak Smith thing.

Let me be blunt. I do not like Zak. I find him to be an abrasive personality that I would not wish on anyone. I experienced this first hand when he leaped onto the comment section of my first meditation On Vitriol. While actively ignoring and dismissing the message of the post, he attacked the means in which I delivered that message and kinda proved the point I was trying to make in that post. While something I would be willing to do again, I cannot say that it was a pleasant experience.

Let me be even more blunt: I don’t even like his gaming material. I bought Vornheim way back when, didn’t find it particularly useful or inspiring and have never been much interested in anything he’s authored since. Thus, I wouldn’t miss much if he disappeared from the gaming community altogether and the world never saw another RPG-related publication by Zak.

Having said all that, I am still troubled by the reaction many have had to Mandy’s accusations. Cutting Zak completely off is not an answer I can endorse. Let me explain:

When I read the Facebook Post that started the purge of Zak Smith from all things gaming, I saw a bunch of broken people. Zak, Mandy and everybody else involved in this mess are broken. They were broken long before Zak ever did a thing to Mandy. It was this brokenness that led to Zak behaving in such a reprehensible way towards others. It was this brokenness that led to Mandy going along with the abuse as long as she did. This brokenness has also led to this community cutting Zak off. As James Raggi said in his announcement that LotFP won’t be publishing Zak’s stuff anymore:

[Everyone I talked to] was bummed out. They recognized this was a tragedy from top to bottom. Even the people who agreed with my course of action here, hell, even someone that thought I wasn't going far enough, recognized what we were losing, even while they said we needed to lose it. 

I recognize the brokenness for what it is because of my Christian world-view. We are all sinners. I also believe that everyone deserves an opportunity to repent and to allow God (who went to the Cross to give all of us a second chance) to transform the sinner into a saint. I still hold out hope for Zak that he can use this disaster as an opportunity to turn around his life and become a person we can all enjoy at the gaming table.

I say this, of course, as a Christian; however, we no longer live in a Christian society. As an openly practicing Christian who brings Christ to the gaming table I am acutely aware that I am in an extreme minority both within the OSR’s corner of the internet and gaming at large.

So, I have a serious question, not only for those who have cut off Zak, but for anyone who embraces secularism/atheism: How is it that abusive behavior (especially against women and children) is universally condemned?

As a Christian, I can answer this very easily. As the source of all good things in the world, God provides us with a standard that is eternal and universal. For secularism and atheism, answering this question is a much harder task.

Without the existence of God, there is no such thing as an eternal, universal standard, because all standards are generated by humans. Since humans are finite and mutable, any standard that we make is also finite and mutable. Considering that we have around 7 billion possible standards in the world (one for each person who lives on the planet), to expect any one of those standards to stand the test of time and continue to endure generation after generation is, well, folly.

Indeed, if we insist on the relativism of “my truth,” Zak’s opinion that breasts of a certain size have no value is perfectly valid. My truth may disagree with Zak’s truth, but since the source of these truths in both cases are human beings (the only real source of truth in a world without God), each is just as legitimate as the other.

Further, if we insist on organizing a society around one version of “my truth” over and against other versions of “my truth,” there is only one avenue for ensuring that one supersedes the others: force. As such, Zak’s abusive behavior is completely justified. He was imposing his version of “my truth” on everyone around him in hopes that his version would prevail.

Instead, we are all condemning Zak’s abusive behavior in the same way that humans have condemned abuse (especially against women and children) generation after generation after generation. Even if we refuse to acknowledge His existence, we are all using God’s eternal and universal standards to judge Zak’s behavior.

Due to the fact that this standard is actually God’s and not our own, I would invite everyone to consider the reality that this very same God knew who Zak would be when he went to the Cross. Despite all the vitriol and all the abuse, Christ still got up on that Cross for Zak.

For my part, I refuse to condone Zak’s lifestyle or to tolerate Zak’s abuse; however, if he ever needs someone that will listen in an attempt to turn his life around, he is always welcome.

Lazy Post — 23 Questions

A couple of folks have chimed in with their answers, so here are mine:

1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?
That boring Sword +1 might just be an elf of the Winter Court trying to escape mortality.

2. When was the last time you GMed?
November.

3. When was the last time you played?
Last Saturday.

4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.
The Brainlashers need your help — the great machine that kept their inter-dimensional uber-gate from tearing giant holes in time and space has been destroyed.

5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?
I usually chime in with what the NPC henchmen and followers think about the situation.

6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?
Somebody will usually show up with leftovers, cookies or pizza.

7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?
Physically, no. Mentally, Yes. There have been plenty of times when I have come into the game physically exhausted and I haven’t noticed a difference in how I feel physically, but having to improvise always takes its mental toll.

8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?
Talking with what every other character thought was a god while insisting that it was merely an angel at best and a demon at worst. (I survived too!)

9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?
No, all my players like to immerse themselves into the reality of the world. We tend to be goofy out of game.

10. What do you do with goblins?
In the Lost Colonies, goblins are creatures who desperately feel the need to attach themselves to some creature more powerful than they are. They understand themselves to be so pathetic that unless they have something like an ogre, troll or dragon to “back them up” they have no courage what so ever.

11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?
A painting by Romanian artist Sever Frentiu.

12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?
The Halfling war cry: No one insults a Halfling’s cheese and lives!

13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?
Mr. Stater’s Pars Fortuna has a simplified version of feats called boons. I wanted to use them as an inspiration for my own musings about feats.

14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?
Anyone who is willing to do their stuff in B&W.

15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?
Yes. I gleefully play up those things that creep out my players and am quite guilty of having creatures crawling around my worlds that PCs have no business messing with.

16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)
Roshia’s Gauntlet by Dave Dollar. It is an independently published funhouse adventure from back in the day that has a specific goal — seeing if the characters are worthy to have a powerful wizard as a patron.

17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?
I’d love to game in a high-ceiling room with lots of natural light with everyone comfortably ensconced in big fluffy sofas and chairs.

18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?
Empire Builder (Mayfair’s Railroad simulation board game) and GURPS Traveller.

19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?
The Bible and HPL.

20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?
The kind who is unafraid to be wildly creative.

21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?
I've used my time on Mt. Athos to translate both the monastic lifestyle and the physical properties of the monasteries themselves into my games.

22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?
No. There are so many wildly awesome products out today that far surpass my own idea of the possible that for me to wish for anything else would be disingenuous.

23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?
Not really. I think this is one of the reasons I blog — it gives me an outlet to geek out that I would otherwise not have.