No, they specifically accused him off sexual abuse, but not rape.
I’m really happy that yet another guy whose work I love isn’t actually a contemptible asshole. Looking forward to playing whatever you work on next, Chris!
Yeah, it’s hard to make heads or tails out of the situation without knowing which way the money went there. I like Avellone’s work, so I’d like to see him legitimately exonerated, but considering how rigged the system still is against abuse victims it’s hard to be confident in what any of this means.
Seems the money goes to Avellone (though I doubt he will actually see much of it)
I went back to look at the original quotations. The way I see it, Barrows implies a lot of things but doesn’t make specific allegations. With the “forcibly kissing” part, she doesn’t specify if it was against her wishes or if he continued despite her not reciprocating.
It’s a similar thing with the hand down the pants – she implies that his advances are untoward but doesn’t go as far as actually stating so. The omission of her own actions/feelings in her description of the events paint an unflattering picture of Avellone, but to me it’s too little to draw conclusions from with regard to sexual abuse.
Her account implies that he bought drinks for everyone in the group with the intention of sleeping with her, but no such explicit claim is actually made.
When she says “Chris Avellone is an abusive, abrasive, conniving sexual predator”, it’s not clear what event or sequence of events that assertion is in reference to. It just seems like a general statement.
Now, I’m not saying that it’s okay to slip your hand down someone’s pants if there is no indication of consent. All I’m saying is that for some reason or other, Barrows decided to keep her allegations implicit rather than explicit.
Look, when there’s a crazed weasel in there, sometimes you just gotta help a friend out. No time for courtly manners and consent and stuff
I’m not clear who “wins” in this settlement and statement but I still agree with what I said two years ago; this whole thing is about being right vs. being happy and I think no one is happy…
I’m not sure ultimately this is likely to change much. His name’s already been dragged through the mud and probably won’t be restored as a result. And while this appears exculpatory at least in part, it’s also the case that it’s the result of a lawsuit and I have absolutely seen that result in people publically having to apologize and make nice without having privately changed their opinions or version of events at all. We probably won’t know if things were actually sorted out, or Avellone’s case was just more convincing by whatever standard might obtain, which might not be ours.
Oh yeah, that may very well be. I didn’t mean that I thought he was flush, just that as a co-founder of Obsidian and “head honcho” kind of guy, I could see “seven figures” being at least plausible for him. These women weren’t executive level unless I’m misremembering, so I don’t know how they would have access to that kind of money unless they were able to cash in in a major way on the story or something?
That’s what my train of thought was when I read the seven-figure settlement, but that’s clearly just an assumption and could well be wrong!
Glad to see Chris Avellone exonerated, but judging by the reactions in this thread and the attempts to muddy the waters on what is a clear victory for him – acknowledging that he was defamed, badly damaged financially as a result of the knowingly false statements, and entitlement to a substantial financial settlement as recourse (whether or not he can ever actually get what he is now owed) – suspect it’ll still be difficult for him to reenter the gaming industry fully, even if that’s what he still wants to do.
In the court of the Internet he was already guilty from the start. I’ve listen to enough gaming podcasts where a plethora of hosts have made the judgement that he is a shit person forever. That stink is incurable.
I hope this is the just outcome, sounds like it might be.
I still wouldn’t, were it somehow up to me, hire him onto a team*. The work is already hard enough without subjecting my women colleagues to a guy who behaves like he has behaved, even if it was all perfectly legal.
* If he gave an impassioned mea culpa recognizing the regressive behavior of his past, showing regret and congnizance of why he needs to be better? …Maybe. But honestly, why should other members of the team have to worry about whether he’s sincere or not? How is that worth it?
Oh people don’t like to admit they were wrong, that’s clear…
Is writer / designer something that’s remote work friendly?
But this sort of thing is difficult, once it’s “public knowledge” that someone is going to be a “problem”, if you’re someone who clearly brings in money, okay, otherwise, why risk it?
What precisely are you referring to? Again, I have not followed any of this more closely than reading this thread here and very occasionally looking for evidence elsewhere, but this seems like a prime example of what Desslock said literally two posts above yours.
Barring all the now debunked allegations, poor behavior on Chris’ part is limited to hooking up with fans at conventions. I suspect he’ll be more circumspect from now on. But nothing beyond that unless I missed it, which is completely possible as I haven’t compulsively kept up with the case.
There is a massive difference between
“This guy is a creep and he acts inappropriately around women in the industry”
And legally getting evidence to the courts to prove that is true.
What those 2 women said, and went through, may very well be true, but without evidence to support it, his lawsuit against them would make hard evidence required for them to fight the defamation case he brought against them.
So, the lesson here is, don’t say shit on Twitter that will get people fired, unless you have the evidence to back it up.
But is even this true?
It seems like a bunch of big allegations were made, proven false, and now folks are falling back to a lesser, yet still unjustified position of “Well, they couldn’t prove it, but he’s still a bad guy.”
If this is in reference to my recent posts, please don’t take them that way. I’m not trying to muddy the waters, I just found the statement regarding the payment portion settlement to be vague and left me wondering who was paying who. Maybe these things are always worded that way and it’s bog-standard legal language.
I think we need to keep in mind that this was Mr Avellone defamation lawsuit against the accusers, and to be settled in such a way favoring him with payments (both legal fees and to him), it shows he would have likely received punitive damages if it had gone to a jury. That’s incredibly hard to have in US, unless his lawyers could also prove malicious intent. It’s a very high bar. It’s not just that defendants couldn’t have proved their claims, rather Mr Avellone lawyers must have shown some sort of evidence of actual malice, which resulted in the settlement.
Defamation lawsuits in US filed by public officials always have to prove malice, in order to succeed. But even non-public officials need to show malice, to be awarded punitive damages.
Isn’t this guy still buddy-buddy with the Nazi RPG forum jack-holes?