Fans of mature (vile) material, what do you want?

[BLACKDIRGE]

Hi all,

I am just on a fact-finding mission here. Blackdirge Publishing has recently gone live with its first release, and as my aim is to put out products that feature vile and mature themes, I thought I would ask fans of such material what they would like to see.

So, fans of vile material, what would you like to see in a product? Monsters? Prestige Classes? Spells? Tell me, what fills your vile little heart with happy nastiness?

Obviously, my intention here is not to revive the flame war between fans of vile material and those that feel it is inappropriate. So, please, refrain from any shenanigans that might get the thread closed.

Thanks

BD

 

[Shemeska]

Lots of generalities incoming:

Think deeper, 'Faces of Evil' type of vile material, not shallow stuff that's more icky, gross, or revolting rather than Evil and seriously dark.

Disturbing in every meaning of the word, not blood and guts squick factor. The Exorcist rather than teen slasher movie from the 80s.

PrCs... not sure I'd go for that myself. Vile acts in and of themselves can be done without needing a special class for them.

Items are probably where you may have more luck. Detailed items with history and backstory, something to seriously inspire with information as black as you can make it. Vile type artifacts would find a market I suspect.

Monsters... fiends in and of themselves should qualify for anything 'vile' in the book that you can think of, so individual monsters with fleshed out backstories will probably suffice.

Personally I like NPCs that are truly and irredeamably vile, usually, about 90% of the time these will be fiends. Just to give examples of material and ideas that I'd consider 'vile', and a bit more than the normal black and white evil you find presented in typical DnD games, maybe something just completely over the top like...

Blotches of sudden white light awoke Selkar from the darkness. Glowing, glistening spots of color danced across his field of vision as his eyes involuntarily jerked and pulsed in their sockets with both pain, and the beating of an alien heart and the rush of alien blood into his brain and through the hemorrhaging vessels across his retinas.

“Welcome back mortal of mine.” The Baernaloth’s voice whispered into his ear. “The strings of the puppet are hung from the playwright a gallows upon which to dangle and now dance.”

While the Baernaloth rambled, perched precipitously on the edge between brilliant lucidity and outright psychosis, Selkar was moving. Or the room was moving. He wasn’t entirely sure. But no… the perspective was all wrong, skewed, as if he had been shrunk down to a fraction of his prior height. He was following the Baernaloth, looking up at it, his hands pressed to his cheeks to tilt his head at the correct angle.

Selkar’s hands did not have claws. They never had. But the hands upon his cheeks did.

“Observant at last, little rat to my pied pipe.” The Baernaloth said with a chuckle, turning its head to look down at the summoner. “Such skill would have served you much better before you attempted to summon me.”

The fiend gestured with a finger and Selkar’s field of view rotated, his body turning and swiveling to follow the directions of its puppet master. What he saw brought spots to his eyes and a soundless scream from his lips.

Where the Flesh Sculptor pointed, sprawled in a bloody mess on the floor, was Selkar’s headless body. A foot or two away was the severed head of one of his apprentices’ quasit familiar. The alien hands on his cheek pulled his face down to look at the body that supported it.

Slick, mottled blue flesh, webbed, frog-like feet, a gently twitching tail, and missing or ambiguous genitalia. The Baernaloth had connected his head to the still living body of a quasit, the same body that was following it in a compulsive, ecstatic trance.

And if you want to be more subtle, I like them especially when they can drag PCs into moral quandries. Something like...

The Gloom Father smiled and laughed, “So I did say that, promised you an answer… as for the bargain they and I made, some things happen because they must. Accept that mortal and live your life under all those moral pretenses you hold onto. Nothing comes without sacrifice. For anything to happen, anything great to happen, there must be two things: blood and terror.” The Clockmaker paused and turned its sightless eyes towards the elder Ratatosk. “We are well acquainted with both…”

The Baern stepped closer to the elder ratatosk as the children whimpered in abject horror, clutching onto Clueless, Tristol and Aiden. “Uncover their eyes. Make them watch this.”

At least that's what I think of when I think of 'vile' material. I go for much for the fluff side of things than looking for crunchy stuff, but the market may differ dramatically from what I'm looking for. I can't really say.

Organizations, cults, richly detailed NPCs/monsters, and artifacts that carry around significant baggage, those are all ripe for work I think.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So, fans of vile material, what would you like to see in a product? Monsters? Prestige Classes? Spells?

Yes.

But for the purposes of a PDF, I'd like them all to be thematically linked together. Since you're not stuck with certain sizes of documents, there's no need to write more than really fits with a theme.

Your first product is pretty close to what I want: A cult (or other eeeevil organization), appropriate crunch, some guys to beat up and other suggestions on using them. Depending on the group, spells, magic items, prestige classes and monsters might all be appropriate, but I don't need stuff that really doesn't need to be done added to pad things out. I'm a big believer that, with monsters and prestige classes especially, a lot can be done with the basic rules.

 

[megamania]

Not much to expand on. Maybe some magic items or artifacts with personalities and backstories. Something for us to look at and use as we will.

As said earlier- Its more about presentation and personality than powers that makes something "vile".

 

[Aikuchi]

Some personality and archtypes to give greater expanse to horrific impressions in characters.

Perhaps some consequence to some 'boons' or 'gift's' that don't end in blood, ick and gore but in the continual challenge of personal code and ethics, Temptation rather than brutality delivers some drastic changes to the core. Magic items and conditions with a price that teeters between changing because of the penalty, the demands of the items or what-nots.

(giggles)

 

[Turanil]

So, fans of vile material, what would you like to see in a product? Monsters? Prestige Classes? Spells? Tell me, what fills your vile little heart with happy nastiness?

I am no fan of such material, but as a DM I would prefer stuff that is easy to use. So okay for spells and monsters, but not prestige classes. Players won't really notice that a NPC villain has got a cool prestige class, and statting a NPC with a prestige class only adds to an already long and tedious work. I would however agree to a simple base class, such as a demonologist class, or a set of new feats easy to use for the DM.

Other stuff I could be interested in, is basically stuff that helps a DM, not stuff for PCs.
-- Magic items: Drugs that would enhance a villain but at the same time make him mad and addicted ; Altars, statues, doors, etc. that could be used for dungeon dressing ; no need for conventional evil magical items such as swords, armors and the like.
-- Examples of evil organisations (with statted NPCs) and how they operate.

 

[frankthedm]

Long lists of actions Good, Neutral, Lawful, Chaotic and Evil.

Options of Neutrality: A thin line or a big field.

Discussions on old-world moralities and modern politically correct assumptions and how neither are inherently accurate in a world where the gods can and do have their desires be known on a frequent basis. Finish with lists of morality sets
>Bleak historic
>Approved comic code
>Die rather than lie
>P.C.

What does it mean when the gods have tasked one gender with bearing children?

 

[pogre]

Monsters and other enemies! Not so much PrCs.

 

[Graf]

Hmmm.

You’re talking about making a Niche product. So I think the question is… “Which niche”?

The prophyl house horror adventure for Dungeon was an excellent adventure because the parts that were “vile” fit well within the adventure structure. With a bit of work you could easily have made it a “normal adventure” and I think it would have been very strong.

Fundamentally, while the pcs, dealt with lots of icky people it wasn’t an adventure about ickiness precisely (i.e. the key plot was, in some ways, grade A standard DnD fare). And generally depraved state of the environment they were in provided additional complications while still supporting the DnD world (i.e. detect evil worked fine but wasn’t going to be helpful in finding the villains in the adventure).

If I could make a suggestion I would say: go with the deep story filled stuff… a priest who is being blackmailed because he’s a drug addict, into using the pcs to do something bad. The priest doesn’t want to do what they’re doing, but they also do good works and are worried that their prospective replacement is even worse than they are.

If you make your guiding light: “does this ‘vile’ material introduce a moral delimma? Or is it just ‘eyeballs in the soup’?” you should be headed in the right direction.
IMHO, natch.

 

[fnork de sporg]

I like Prestige Classes but only if they have a good reason to exist. There are some concepts that just wouldn't work as anything else. But to me most PCs seem like they would have been far better off as new feat chains. You shouldn't have to tell someone your character is in a prestige class, it should be immediately apparent.