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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scott Lynch" data-source="post: 1108272" data-attributes="member: 4450">Howdy, all--I'm the last "dilettante" cited by Dana as an example, and to shed a bit of light on what he's complaining about in my case, I'm going to post verbatim the first e-mail I sent to him, in reference to the following RPGNow review of my *Book of Distinctions & Drawbacks Modern:*<a href="http://www.rpgnow.com/product_reviews_info.php?products_id=1905&reviews_id=1357&" target="_blank">http://www.rpgnow.com/product_reviews_info.php?products_id=1905&reviews_id=1357&</a>Here's what I wrote in response, attempting to be polite (by way of sincerely praising the review in general and being open about my own design shortcomings, of which I am quite aware), because I was, after all, essentially calling him on what I knew to be a false insinuation.*****Howdy, Dana–Very recently, you posted a review of my *Book of Distinctions & Drawbacks Modern* on RPGNow, a review that I find to be mostly fair and defensible– but in one small measure I must take exception to it. Your criticism of the layout and design of the book is quite welcome and apt; my tolerance for ragged right margins is a personal quirk that not everyone shares. I don't think I could cut the page count in half as readily as you suggest, but to each their own– my layout skills are, at best, mediocre.However, as you wrote:"it simply shoehorns the advantages/disadvantagessystem of GURPS into D20 using a point system inspiredby Fuzion."Now, GUPRS might have influenced the BODD-M design process at some point since I played it several years ago, but I do not currently own a GURPS book and could not reference one while working on BODD-M. However, more importantly, I have never so much as picked up a Fuzion-powered game . The BODD-M was most certainly not "inspired" by it. "Reminiscent of Fuzion" might be a very appropriate comment, but "inspired by Fuzion" is simply not true. You seem to be a fairly demanding critic of the PDFs you've examined, and to be frank I greatly prefer your more detailed style of criticism to the usual two or three lines; "This is an awesome book!" is really no more useful or constructive than "This book sucked!"However, the "inspired by Fuzion" line is an erroneous allegation that comes uncomfortably close to a suggestion of plagiarism. The rules of the OGL are that credit must be given where credit is due– this is why the designers of d20 Modern are mentioned in the OGL text of the BODD-M. Had the designers of Fuzion so much as entered into my mind during the design process, they would have been mentioned and thanked at some point in the book. Cheers, and thanks for your review–SL *****I'm willing to accept the possibility that I could have been even more polite, and placed still softer verbal kid gloves on my paragraphs, though I'm beginning to wonder if even that would have helped!Now, the remainder of the exchange (which I will not repost) devolved from there into snarkiness, vitriol, and unprofessionalism on both sides. I hope it's clear from the above e-mail that I was in no way "trying to tell him how to review my product," but merely trying to suggest that "this product is very reminescent of Fuzion" is a totally acceptable statement in just the way that "this product is inspired by Fuzion" is what we would politely call "libelous" or "actionable," if I were rich and bored and soulless enough to raise a legal stink about it. This point, in the exchange between Dana and myself, is the only real salient point, and I confess to absolute mystification with how it can be unclear. The trouble seems to be that DJ appears to equate "professionalism" with "shutting up and taking whatever I have to say, however I choose to say it;" in other words, the PDF producer is expected to allow even egregious misstatements (and note that I was polite enough not to call it an outright lie at first) to pass with silence and a smile.I've seen this sort of behavior before in the RPGnet forums, and it goes like this:1. Random Jerk (note that I am not calling Dana a random jerk, merely drawing a parallel between two similar forms of behavior) posts criticism of a certain game or game designer; criticism contains something that is blatantly untrue or libelous.2. Game designer or company rep responds "well, think what you will, and thanks for the input, but just one point of fact-- such-and-such statement is simply not true." 3. Random Jerk responds harshly, insisting that "professionals" take their medicine quietly and that they "only make themselves look worse" when they talk back to their critics. The attitude in both cases is that only one side (the criticizer/commentator) retains any right of response whatsoever, regardless of the nature or content of the allegations/criticism in question. My personal opinion is that this attitude is quite wrong, and that "professionalism" has nothing to do with happily accepting untruths (innocent or otherwise) when a critic presents them in public. Astute readers will note that I accepted Dana's opinion of my layout and design (I happen to share it, in fact) and took issue only with his statement about Fuzion. Anyone who tries to argue with defensible critical opinions ("This book is poorly written, this book is badly layed out, these illustrations are poorly done, this idea is trite and overdone") is being unprofessional and wasting everyone's time to boot. However, I would argue that attempting to correct wildly inaccurate leaps of critical imagination ("The writer of this book clearly cribbed it all from Fuzion," "the writer is obviously a communist and a lecher," "the writer has obviously served time in prison for arson and aggravated assault,") is hardly unprofessional, especially when done politely and sincerely. As I've said, I might have been even more polite when I responded to Dana's review, but then I wasn't taking issue with his opinions of my PDF as he seems to think I was.To give Dana all due credit, he did take the time in his immediate response to my letter above to describe a number of layout and design precepts which were quite sincere and helpful, to the point that I'm even going to credit him in my next PDF. I've been meaning to experiment with improved layout and style for some time, and his note convinced me to turn "maybe some time soon" into "right now." For that, at least, I'm very grateful. And we do need more demanding, constructive criticism in the PDF community... but professionalism has to come from both sides in any critical exchange.Cheers and best to everyone--SL*****Scott Lynch<a href="mailto:cryptosnark@yahoo.com">cryptosnark@yahoo.com</a><a href="mailto:cryptosnark_games@yahoo.com">cryptosnark_games@yahoo.com</a><a href="http://www.minasithil.com/cryptosnarkgames" target="_blank">http://www.minasithil.com/cryptosnarkgames</a></blockquote>

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