So, if anyone hasn’t been keeping up (and a lot has happened amazingly quickly), last week the workers of Paizo announced they had formed a Union, the United Paizo Workers, in conjunction with the CWA, and called on the Paizo onwership and Executive Team to voluntarily recognize it, rather than wait for the legally binding vote UPW seemed sure to win.

Just last week, I was on the BAMF podcast with Jake Tondro, discussing how and why this had happened, and what to expect next.

You can read the statements from the UPW itself on their website. You can read Paizo’s statement on their website.

I’m not kidding when I say this is a historic moment. there may have been a Union in the tabletop game industry before, but I’m not aware of one. Paizo and their staff have been leaders in change and new ways of doing things for more than a decade, so it’s no shock to me to see the workers take on the amazingly complex task of getting a union organized and union cards signed, nor am I shocked to see Paizo’s ownership and executive team voluntarily recognize that union, given how clear it was a supermajority of eligible employees were members.

I also want to hoist a glass to the Pathfinder and Starfinder communities of freelancer and fans. A group of freelancers came together to put their careers on the line to support Paizo staff, and as soon as the staff formed a union, that support pivoted to asking for the union to be recognized. It’s something I have never seen before, and it made my heart full to witness the real care and compassion with which the freelancers fought for the better treatment of their colleagues within the company. I talked a little but about why I consider that to be entirely professional behavior on my post Wednesday.

I’ve long discussed systemic, serious, complicated problems that have plagued the tabletop industry for as long as I have been involved, sometimes under the hashtag #RealGameIndustry. I’ve had no suggestions on how to fix these issues, much more often than not. But I truly believe that collective action–definitely of the UPW, but also of the freelancers who have self-organized and found power and support among themselves in doing so, is much more likely to produce answers than any previous approach.

There are many, many more freelancers and independent creatives producing work in the tabletop industry than their are companies with multiple full-time employees. I know from experience that can be a lonely life, not just because you often end up working along typing (or drawing, or outlining, or laying out) for hours, but also because there’s no informed, connected support structure to lean on.

My first “professional” writing project was 100,000 words… for $50. I signed a contract, I had a deadline, and I delivered. And I was exhausted, and shocked how hard that took (and I didn’t think it would be easy). Now admittedly this was the mid 1990s, but there was really no where I could turn to when I had questions or concerns. That project never saw print (though I did get paid for it, in accordance with the contract), and if I had not ended up with Dave Gross accepting some Dragon magazine pitches I sent to him, I suspect I would have dropped out of game creation entirely. I didn’t know any better, and I didn’t know where to go to learn more.

There’s now a group of freelancers who have discovered they have power, and that they can work together and support others. I hope they continue to evolve that collaboration to support one another and, in time, support newer freelancers who otherwise might have no place to go. Maybe it’ll just be a casual group, keeping in touch in case they ever feel the need to take massed action again. Maybe they’ll form something more formal, and overcome the many, many hurdles so many RPG writer’s guilds failed to clear.

But they have already done more than I ever did when I was first freelancing, and I stand in awe of their vision, dedication, organization, and compassion.

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