arcady said:
Buy yes, use no.
I am going to buy it as I feel it was morally wrong for WotC to try and silence it and morally wrong to harm the rest of the community as well in that attempt.
So I will support the book on principle.
Odd... my "principles" of fair business lead me exactly the other way.
Anthony Valterra used insider knowledge - he knew that the "changes to the license were coming" - and tried to "beat WotC to the punch." WotC, by both their own and Anthony's admission, did not incorporate the "quality standards" into the d20 license as a reaction to the publishing of the BoEF. Rather,
the BoEF was published as a reaction to the incorporation of "quality standards" into the d20 license.
While I think it was wrong of WotC to try to insert the "quality standards" clause, I think it was MORE morally wrong to take advantage of insider knowledge to try to "slip something in" just before the window of opportunity closed. AV has said that his purpose was to slide the BoEF inside the door just before it shut, so it's not like I'm hypothesizing as to his motives.
And that's leaving the morality of the subject matter itself entirely out of things.
I have tried and tried to fathom how AV could be so gosh-darn determined and adamant about the "need" to get the BoEF out there. It was apparently so important that it cost him his job at WotC and he's laying out quite a bit of his own money to produce the BoEF. Is a gaming product THAT important?
The only conclusion I came to that made sense to me is that Anthony's religious beliefs (given the organizations he cited as giving him credentials and experience with the subject matter) - which some here (admittedly, myself included) find odd, somewhat "out there," and generally a bit distasteful - are what gave him the drive to put out this book. If it were otherwise, I have to think business sense (specifically, keeping himself employed) would have kept him from doing so - and I have to think his drive would not have been so intense as to make some of the... over-enthusiastic... moves he has made. And while I may not subscribe to his particular brand of religion, I cannot dismiss it as invalid or irrelevant to his actions. If he truly believes it, that is his business, and while I cannot fathom exactly WHY such things motivate him so, I can at least understand that he IS motivated by these things.
I think Anthony truly believes that he has the moral high ground here - that this is a book that "needed" to be published and that WotC was going to trample his "right" to do so - and that in some ways, this has the timbre of a "holy war" for him - he's "fighting" for what he believes in. That I happen not to share his belief means that I will arrive at a different conclusion, but that is only natural.
I personally happen not to think he has the moral high ground - in fact, I think he's on the moral low ground in both subject matter and business practices. I happen to think WotC is on the moral high ground with the inclusion of this clause, if on the ethical low ground for "changing the rules of the game" significantly. At the end of the day, I believe both are somewhat in the wrong, but I believe AV is more in the wrong than WotC - so I will not buy this book. I can see things from the other side - I can see the arguments for AV being on the moral high ground - I simply reject some of the assumptions/premises/fundamental beliefs that must hold for that argument to be entertained. That others may entertain them is not out of the realm of possibility, and I EXPECT them to side with AV.
Long story short - WotC's position bad, AV's position much worse.
For me, this is like supporting Salman Rushdie (sp?) for penning the Satanic Verses - the book was a deliberate and nasty attack and was morally reprehensible - though the response of the Ayatollah saying that Rushdie should be hunted and killed was even worse. We wind up defending the less nasty of two snakes.
I think most people, whether they support WotC or AV in this matter, feel the same way... that both WotC and AV are somewhat in the wrong. The hard part is figuring out who is MORE in the wrong.
Come to think of it, even if I thought WotC was more in the wrong, I *still* wouldn't support AV. That someone else is MORE in the wrong does not put me in the right. It's not "who's less wrong" to me - it's who's "right" or "wrong" - and you can both be wrong. So I won't support AV, but that doesn't mean I'm enthusiastically supporting WotC either.
--The Sigil
