The edition wars have hit a new low

Mouseferatu said:

Qu'ran, Bible, Player's Handbook, or See Spot Run, makes no difference. Book burning has, and will always have, very powerful personal, cultural, and historical meaning. Nothing happens in a vacuum, and some things are always inappropriate.

Does he have the "right"? Sure. Nobody's talking legal consequences. And we have just as much right--and even, I would argue, a moral obligation, no matter how overdramatic you may personally find it--to speak up about our reactions to the matter.

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Oh spare me the self righteousness. These are RPG books, not some work of art or historical or rare thing. It's functionally no different than me throwing out my GAMER magazines. It impacts nothing. Not your gaming books, not access for anyone else, not the company, no one but him and the fact that if he wants the books back, he'll have to buy them again. It's nothing more than him trying to get a rise and guess what? You're giving it to him.

"Moral Obligation"? You have to be kidding me.

Neonchameleon said:

With a quite literal book burning party.

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My group and I beat them to it by years.

After trying 4e for the better part of a year, we decided to take all our 4e book along on a camping trip. We used them to fuel the campfire til they were all gone. Meanwhile, we drank and played some Pathfinder (which we defaulted back to as the rpg we were playing just before 4e). Of course we tried 4e because we were sick of the rule bloat of 3e and Pathfinder (even though PF reduced a little of the bloat). We went back to 2e AD&D for awhile until we finally just give up the D&D brand for DCC and a couple old school style rpgs.

We had discussed selling them, but decided that visiting our experience with the system on others would instantly change our alignments to chaotic evil, and the fewer of those books out there, the better.

double post from lag

Umbran said:

Any time folks spit on what you love, you're apt to take it personally. Because spitting on things is *intended* to be personal.

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I'm not connecting with this. I'm pretty sure that spitting on people is intended to be personal. Spitting on things is the opposite of personal, unless there's some kind of mutual understanding that the thing in question is a symbol for the other person.

I agree with your wife.

Sacrosanct said:

"Moral Obligation"? You have to be kidding me.

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Not in the slightest. Agree with me or not, that's your right. But I stand by my feelings on the matter. (And it's not just the burning, but the making a spectacle of it.)

I AM curious, if it's such a non-issue to you, why do you feel the need to argue over it? You may feel that it's silly for me to react this way, but you're expending just as much energy on something you feel doesn't matter. I'm not being snide here; I'm honestly curious. What do you get out of it?

Also burning these books is disrespectful of the people who worked literally hundreds of hours making them. This isn't even just not liking the books, it's making sure others don't even get to experience it. It takes it a step further than just dismissing the author's work, it's actively destroying part of their life. I mean, the artists, the rules designers, the workers that printed all of this. Yeah it's a big deal, it's messed up completely. Why not donate them to children who have never had the chance to play a game like this? It's disgusting.

Ramaster said:

Book burning?

Simply disgusting.

Almost as bad a throwing away bread.

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KaiiLurker said:

Yes, book burning of any kind is just wrong. Some books aren't worth the paper they are print on, but even in those cases, the paper can still be recycled. Burning a book for anything other than survival is just pointlessly polluting the environment and well, it is a book, if you don't want it, sell it, give it away, donate it to a library. And if it is a 4e book, well give it to me, these guys have become ridiculously hard to find in my country.

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Wrong? Disgusting? It is wrong to burn a book for any other reason except survival? Wow. Yes there are other options but who cares what a person does with their own property. I would have zero issues with feeding a dining room table through a wood-chipper if the owner said they wanted to do that with their own property then that is the end of it. Yes I'd find it silly. Yes there are other options, but I don't find it wrong or morally objectionable for that person to destroy their own property in whatever way that makes them happy.

It isn't a visceral reaction in the slightest. It might be stupid but that is as far as it goes. It isn't like we're saying ALL 4e books should be burned, we are just commenting on one person burning their own books. Okay, hope they're happier. I wouldn't do the same but those aren't my books.

Mouseferatu said:

Qu'ran, Bible, Player's Handbook, or See Spot Run, makes no difference. Book burning has, and will always have, very powerful personal, cultural, and historical meaning. Nothing happens in a vacuum, and some things are always inappropriate.

Does he have the "right"? Sure. Nobody's talking legal consequences. And we have just as much right--and even, I would argue, a moral obligation, no matter how overdramatic you may personally find it--to speak up about our reactions to the matter.

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And what I'm talking about isn't a right, legal or otherwise. I'm saying that I have no issues with that person doing it at all. Mind you I take no objection if they were burning 3e, PF, the bible, a [canadian] flag, or anything else. MY copies of those things? At that point I'd care but so long as they are doing something to their own objects then I don't care - right or wrong, I don't care.

It isn't inappropriate to burn something. To burn something in order to threaten someone? Yes. To burn something with the intention of destroying somebody else's property? Yes. To burn something with intent to start a larger fire? Sometimes. To burn something for and giggles? Nope. Not wrong. Not inappropriate.

Wow.

Sacrosanct said:

I don't know what's more ridiculous. Him burning books or the reaction of some people to his burning books. You'd think he burned the Qur'an or Bible or something.

This whole thing is such a non issue

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Exactly.

In that case I could understand the backlash, it is a "holy book" for certain groups. Is 4e a religion now? If so I could understand but otherwise who cares and why do they care?

Okay, having calmed down some--in addition to my innately strong reaction to the notion, I've had a really bad day--I'd like to try explaining this from another angle. I'd much rather we have a genuine dialogue about this than a salvo of emotion from either side.

It's not just the book-burning itself that gets me. If this was something they'd done in private, and word happened to get out, I would still be disgusted--very--but not incensed.

It's the fact that it was done publicly, in order to make a statement.

Historically, that has only ever been done to silence people or to promote hatred. Sure, we're "only" talking about gaming books here. I'm not claiming it's anywhere remotely in the same ballpark. But the message is, at its core, one of antagonism. And the act they've chosen to represent it, the historical analogues they've deliberately brought down upon themselves, have deep meaning to a lot of people.

Even if you still disagree with where I'm coming from, I hope that at least lays it out a bit more clearly.

dd.stevenson said:

Personally I feel about this the same way I would feel if it had been organized by Pat Robertson: it's as dumb as stumps, but the applicable property laws are very clear and his bonfire isn't hurting me any.

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I'd like to posit the idea that while perfectly legal, it does hurt you, indirectly, because it makes D&D fans look like the kind of people who burn books that they don't agree with rather than face the ideas in them. It puts fans of the game in the position of censors and morality police who deem certain books unworthy of even existing. Imagine being a 4e fan in that community...or even being just an RPG fan, knowing that the opposition is strong enough to want to obliterate whatever texts they could get their hands on. Imagine trying to have the idea that this is "just a game" and that "it's not that serious" and "everyone likes different things" in the context of a group of people who cannot abide different things.

It's legal, and it's small scale, but it's harmful to their community directly and to gamers in general via network effects. They're allowed to be dumb as stumps, yes, but part of the reason this is dumb as stumps is because burning a book, regardless of stated intent, is trucking in the symbols and methodology of various self-proclaimed authoritarian purity police throughout history who must guard the tribe's boundaries against any taboo material, and I figure most gamers are much better than that reactionary tribalism that forbids outsider material to even exist.

It hurts you like graffitti on someone else's wall hurts you, like a mugging a few blocks away hurts you, like a KKK meeting-house down the street hurts you. Regardless of the legality of it, it changes the tone of the smallish D&D neighborhood to allow stuff like that to go with just a shrug and "folks can be dumb." Because other dumb folks see those dumb folks, and eventually, it's doofuses as far as the eye can see, who all imagine that their being dumb must be acceptable since no one is telling them they're wrong.

So I feel confident telling them that they were wrong to do this. Within their legal rights, but wrong, in a way that makes the world a little bit of a worse place for everyone who likes imaginary elf games.

Thank you, KM, for articulating some of what I wanted to, but couldn't.

I can't XP you again yet, or I would have.