Before Release
As with most new products, Wizards of the Coast announced and previewed Book of Vile Darkness on its website during the months before its release. Unlike other products, previewer Mat Smith revealed virtually no hard details about the book's contents because the book "is being released as a 'Mature Audiences Only' title." Instead, he stressed that this book was something its developers felt had been requested by the community, something that "many, many gamers have been asking for." Also, as part of the promotion of the book, Paizo Publishing included sealed "mature" sections in both official Dungeons & Dragons magazines. Dragon issue 300 included flesh and skin themed magic, while an adventure printed in Dungeon issue 95, "The Porphyry House of Horror", called on players to infiltrate a harem in order to disrupt a sacrificial orgy intended to turn the city's residents into fiends.
Author and co-creator of the Dragonlance campaign setting Tracy Hickman distributed an angry response to Dragon 300 in a mailing-list newsletter entitled "D20 Terrorism". Hickman described both the Dragon content and the then-unreleased Book of Vile Darkness as "excrement" and as "cheap, trashy and demeaning." Following repeated references to the Comic Book Code, he stated, "Every dark fear that mothers and clergy across America have about D&D is now, suddenly, true. In one stroke, I watched everything Laura and I had worked toward for the last 25 years come crashing to the ground."
Following Hickman's statement and amidst substantial debate in the online community, Paizo president Johnny Wilson issued a statement defending the magazine material. He drew comparisons between the growing Book of Vile Darkness controversy and that involving the video game Mortal Kombat. He also argued that "publishing a guide to the atrocities and perversions that put the VILE in EVIL" allows role-playing that is "truly heroic" in contrast, while citing real-world examples of horror and heroism, such as the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Vietnam War, and World War II. Nevertheless, he did offer a partial apology, remarking that the introductory content outside the sealed sections was "as offensive (or more so)" than what was within them.
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