It is time to forgive WOTC and get back onboard.

[Clint_L]

Neither her nor there, but there us a third option, virtue ethics...but corporations do not have personal virtues or habits, so that boils down more to questions of our own habitual responses and questions of the Form Of Justice, and before you know it we've all been forced to drink Hemlock by the Vox Populi.

Philosophers generally hate virtue ethics because they all just depend on context. Everyone uses them to some degree, but they are very hard to logically justify.

Similarly, most of our moral judgements are probably fed by emotions more than anything else, but again...complete logical disaster.

 

[Parmandur]

Philosophers generally hate virtue ethics because they all just depend on context. Everyone uses them to some degree, but they are very hard to logically justify.

Similarly, most of our moral judgements are probably fed by emotions more than anything else, but again...complete logical disaster.

That's why most modern virtue ethicists (we still exist! We'renot dead yet!) have embraced the methods of phenomenology, but wow we are gett8jg off topic.

 

[Faolyn]

One of the two main schools of ethics, consequentialism, judges actions based on consequences (as you might expect). It is quite influential - it is why we don't punish recklessly running a stop sign the same way we prosecute recklessly running a stop sign and killing a pedestrian. From a consequentialist perspective, outcomes are what matter, not motives. Hasbro should be applauded for ultimately doing the right thing.

You, on the other hand, seem to be espousing a fairly hardline deontological perspective, for which motives are all that matter. Thus, Hasbro are terrible villains for even thinking about rescinding the OGL, and the fact that they didn't go through with it is irrelevant. Fair play to you.

I'm generally more of a consequentialist. From my perspective, when it comes to sharing its D&D IP, Hasbro is in practice miles better than the vast majority of entertainment corporations are with any of their IP. They tried to backslide but got busted, so the result is they wound up with a policy even more generous than what they started with (irony!). They actually took in feedback and did a 180 on their policy. That's objectively great - don't we want more corporations to do that? What even is the point of protesting if we get what we want and still have beef with the folks who acceded to our demands? That just seems petty to me.

No. He is showing them, that there actions do matter. You show, that no good deed goes unpunished. So going by your morality standards, it would have made no sense to stop what they are doing. If the thought* about doing something is as punishable than actually doing something, then why hold back?
*Or after an attempt that was stopped early enough, if you are punished as if you succeeded, you can as well run amok and try to maximize the damage...

So again, it doesn't matter what they tried to do. Only that they failed to do it this time.

And the next time they do something like this, next year, five years from now, ten years from now? If it turns out that their generosity is because they plan to make One incompatible enough with 5e that having 5e be CC is pointless, because they figure people won't want to buy content for an old edition? What will you say then? Or are you truly convinced they will never try to do anything this harmful again?

And yes, motives do matter. They didn't just make a dumb mistake. They didn't think they were doing something good for the community that turned out to be bad for it. Their motives were to get more money. That's not a motive that's ever going to go away. They're a company and they're always going to want to make more money.

So no. They did a 180 now but it's silly to immediately trust them again. They need to earn that trust, and that takes time.

 

[Parmandur]

So again, it doesn't matter what they tried to do. Only that they failed to do it this time.

And the next time they do something like this, next year, five years from now, ten years from now? If it turns out that their generosity is because they plan to make One incompatible enough with 5e that having 5e be CC is pointless, because they figure people won't want to buy content for an old edition? What will you say then? Or are you truly convinced they will never try to do anything this harmful again?

And yes, motives do matter. They didn't just make a dumb mistake. They didn't think they were doing something good for the community that turned out to be bad for it. Their motives were to get more money. That's not a motive that's ever going to go away. They're a company and they're always going to want to make more money.

So no. They did a 180 now but it's silly to immediately trust them again. They need to earn that trust, and that takes time.

Well, sure, but I never trusted them? Why would I trust WotC...?

 

[Vaalingrade]

"Attempted murder. I mean seriously what is that? Do they give Nobel prizes for attempted chemistry?"

 

[Clint_L]

So again, it doesn't matter what they tried to do. Only that they failed to do it this time.

And the next time they do something like this, next year, five years from now, ten years from now? If it turns out that their generosity is because they plan to make One incompatible enough with 5e that having 5e be CC is pointless, because they figure people won't want to buy content for an old edition? What will you say then? Or are you truly convinced they will never try to do anything this harmful again?

The obvious counterargument is, "well, what if they don't?" You can't really base moral (or legal) arguments on what someone might or might not do at some unspecified future date. Otherwise we'd all be in jail. If they try to do something I disagree with in the future, then I'll judge that case when we come to it.

Also, what does trust have to do with me buying their products? You keep writing about them like we are getting into a relationship or something.

 

[Faolyn]

The obvious counterargument is, "well, what if they don't?" You can't really base moral (or legal) arguments on what someone might or might not do at some unspecified future date. Otherwise we'd all be in jail. If they try to do something I disagree with in the future, then I'll judge that case when we come to it.

If they don't, then I will have spent money on other systems and publishers who quite likely deserve a chance to be supported.

Also, what does trust have to do with me buying their products? You keep writing about them like we are getting into a relationship or something.

It is a relationship--a relationship between buyer and consumer. If I can't trust a company, why should I give them my money?

 

[Parmandur]

It is a relationship--a relationship between buyer and consumer. If I can't trust a company, why should I give them my money?

...that's a financial transaction, not a personal relationship. There is no trust involved.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

So no. They did a 180 now but it's silly to immediately trust them again. They need to earn that trust, and that takes time.

360... They tried a 180. But failed.

Silly to blindly trust corporations at all...
their goal is to make money from you.

What I think is more silly is living in constant fear that a corporation at some point will stop offering a certain product...

 

[Faolyn]

...that's a financial transaction, not a personal relationship. There is no trust involved.

Wow, yeah, there is. We trust, or distrust, companies based on their past performance all the time. That's why we read reviews, both professional and customer, to find out how reliable--trustworthy--they are. To give an example: if you ordered from a restaurant and more often than not they screwed your order up or forgot it entirely or gave you ingredients you told them you were allergic to... how much would actually want to eat there? How much would you trust that they'd get your order right this time? If you needed to service your car, but the repair place has dozens of reviews saying how they overcharge customers or charge them to "fix" things that aren't actually broken, would you trust them to do a worthwhile job?

Can I trust WotC to produce quality material? No. Spelljammer shows that they are willing to skimp a lot on lore and mechanics (which lets them save money on writing and playtesting) and make the book look more substantial than it really is by using paper with a heavier weight than typical (which lets them jack up the prices because it's nicely presented). That makes me not trust their ability to produce well-written books in the future. Which, when combined with their recent actions, means I'm spending my money elsewhere.

And that means that WotC is going to have to (A) show that they're not going to try to do something shady with the OGL, including making One incompatible enough that a Creative Commons license for 5e becomes worthless (because it's supposed to be backwards-compatible, or so they have claimed), and (B) have their next several books be very well-done.