This community exists to provide a safe, diverse, and engaging space for online gaming with community spaces to explore and discuss those games. Everyone participating in the this gaming community—including, but not limited to the Discord, Foundry, and World Anvil—is required to agree to the following Code of Conduct.
This community is dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neurotype, physical appearance, body, age, race, ethnicity, nationality, language, or religion. We do not tolerate harassment of participants in any form.
Participating in this community constitutes acknowledgement and acceptance to abide by this Code of Conduct both within and outside of the community, including, but not limited to, digital and physical spaces.
Anyone who violates this Code of Conduct may be sanctioned or expelled.
PRINCIPLES
In accordance with our Code of Conduct, all members of our community shall function within the following principles:
- Safety. All games run within our community must use, explain, and support safety tools. This isn’t to eliminate challenging content, but to make sure that everyone knows the bounds and has given consent. For more on that see our Play Guidelines and Tools of the Table presented below.
- Consideration. That safety doesn’t end at the gaming table, but extends into our community spaces. we ask that in those spaces you consider your words and their impact. It is vital that members can offer opinions and discuss issues, but that should be done in a spirit of support, kindness, and inclusivity. Think about your intent and act in those spaces with integrity and love. Be positive and supportive of others as you would hope they would be of you.
- Creativity. Community members should be supportive and kind. They should think about the impact of their words, the privilege they hold, and the relative position of those they interact with. Where possible, criticisms should offer solutions and alternatives. Personal attacks, even indirect subtweeting, should be avoided. Don’t hurt one another and don’t mock or erase someone’s life or experience. Do think about how you can model and support ideas which create rather than destroy.
PLAY GUIDELINES
In the course of exemplifying the Principles, all members of our community shall function within the following guidelines:
- Respect player pronouns and character pronouns; routinely reaffirm these throughout play and at the start of each session
- Practice regular check-ins for enthusiastic consent of game content
- Respect player autonomy and practice regular check-ins to affirm enthusiastic agreement of game development
- Clearly declare the concept, aim, tone, & subject matter (including clear content warnings) of every game shared.
- Explain and incorporate some form of tools for safe play (e.g. X-Card, Lines & Veils, etc) into every game shared.
- Plan regular breaks and outline the schedule for them at the start of each session
- When wishing to record and/or publicly share a game session, post as such in the event description to notify potential participants before they RSVP
- In the event a player requests that a gaming session not be shared after-the-fact, honor the request not to share the recorded session
TOOLS OF THE TABLE
Games organized here are expected to use tools for safe, welcoming play. To read about the Tools of the Table, see here Tools of the Table.
DEFINITIONS
Harassment includes:
- Offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neurotype, physical appearance, body, age, race, ethnicity, nationality, language, or religion
- Unwelcome comments regarding a person’s lifestyle choices and practices, including those related to food, health, parenting, drugs, and employment
- Deliberate use of incorrect name or pronouns, including misgendering or use of ‘dead’ or rejected names
- Gratuitous or off-topic sexual images or behaviour in spaces where they’re not appropriate
- Simulated physical contact (eg, textual descriptions like “hug” or “backrub”) without consent or after a request to stop
- Derogatory comments that refer to a particular person without directly mentioning them, especially for, but not limited to, means of mockery or criticism (eg, “subtweeting” or “vaguebooking”)
- Making intentionally false communications, either written, spoken, or posted on any social media, that harms a member’s reputation
- Stealing or misappropriation of any property (including digital) belonging to another member, including all materials developed for or on behalf of the community without the express permission of the member
- Acting in a manner that endangers the health or safety of another person
- Exhibiting disorderly conduct, including but not limited to, abuse of controlled substances or overt drunkenness
- Threats of violence
- Incitement of violence towards any individual, including encouraging a person to commit suicide or to engage in self-harm
- Deliberate intimidation
- Stalking or following, including both physical and digital spaces
- Harassing photography or recording, including logging online activity for harassment purposes
- Sustained disruption of discussion
- Unwelcome sexual attention
- Pattern of inappropriate social contact, such as requesting/assuming inappropriate levels of intimacy with others
- Continued one-on-one communication after requests to cease
- Deliberate “outing” of any aspect of a person’s identity without their consent except as necessary to protect other community members or other vulnerable people from intentional abuse
- Publication of non-harassing private communication via any platform without consent by the involved parties
We prioritize marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. To that effect, we reserve the right to not act on retaliatory complaints or other attempts to weaponize this Code of Conduct or other community processes. Such bad faith actions include, but are not limited to:
- complaints of ‘reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’.
- complaints against the reasonable communication of boundaries, such as “leave me alone,” “go away,” or “I’m not discussing this with you.”
- complaints of someone communicating in a ‘tone’ you don’t find congenial.
- complaints against criticisms of racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behavior or assumptions.
REPORTING
If you experience disrespectful or harassing behavior by a member of the Gauntlet community, notice that someone else is being disrespected or harassed, or have any other concerns, please immediately contact Nathan Matteson via discord @Shepherd_GG
ENFORCEMENT & CONSEQUENCES
Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately.
If a participant engages in harassing behavior, we may take any action deemed appropriate, up to and including expulsion from all spaces and identification of the participant as a harasser to other community members or the general public.
Any and all complaints received are investigated to the fullest extent possible. Anonymous complaints are investigated to the extent that information provided allows. In the case of a formally-lodged complaint, we will endeavor to protect the confidentiality of a complainant to the fullest extent possible.
If the person who is harassing you is a moderator or privileged member, they will recuse themselves from the handling of your incident.
We must investigate allegations of prohibited behavior, and must document the issue in a formal written complaint, either as written by the complainant or as compiled by a representative and approved by the complainant.
You should be assured that there will be no retaliation against you for making good faith claims.
THANKS
This policy was based on the existing XOXO Community Code of Conduct, which is itself based on resources provided by Geek Feminism, and borrows heavily from similar open source policies authored by JSConf AU and Django.