Design & Development: BoVD

[Zaukrie]

Also, there's the blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to the BoVD movie.

And that's the last piece of news we've had on that in how long?

 

[Shemeska]

That really doesn't fill me with any confidence. I would love to see a truly mature take on D&D (or Evil in D&D, whatever), and would especially love to see some true mature-themes adventures. Sadly, I don't hold out any really hope that we'll ever see it. (From WotC or Paizo.)

Depends on what you consider "mature". Adult themes or really cheesy and immature stuff that falls into what a giggling highschooler would imagine "mature" to be. Becuase I've far too often seen the latter. But as far as actually pushing the content bar in a coherent fashion, Paizo has been pretty good about adventures made with a group of adults in mind. If there's evil it doesn't get whitewashed but it's not done in such an overthetop self-parody fashion that is often the case when something is called "mature".

For instance look at the Paizo treatment of fiends in Book of the Damned 1, 2, and 3* and compare to stuff from 1e, 2e, and early 3e (Faces of Evil from 2e being similarly dark).

*disclosure: I did BotD 3, so I'm biased.

 

[chitzk0i]

And that's the last piece of news we've had on that in how long?

I want to say I heard about it when when it was still rumored strongly, but it's been so long since then I've ceased to care.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

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Reported.

 

[delericho]

Depends on what you consider "mature". Adult themes or really cheesy and immature stuff that falls into what a giggling highschooler would imagine "mature" to be.

Yeah, this was pretty much my objection to much of BoVD (and also a lot of Vampire: the Masquerade, especially in actual play. Oh, and the TV series "Torchwood"). It claims to be mature... but devolves into boobs'n'blood.

Becuase I've far too often seen the latter. But as far as actually pushing the content bar in a coherent fashion, Paizo has been pretty good about adventures made with a group of adults in mind. If there's evil it doesn't get whitewashed but it's not done in such an overthetop self-parody fashion that is often the case when something is called "mature".

Paizo do good stuff, to be sure. I'm a fan.

However, the game still boils down to white hats vs black hats. The PCs are very definitely the "good guys" (even if they are Boba Fett or proto-Solo), while the bad guys are pretty clearly highlighted. And the solutions are still pretty straightforward - generally involving the pointy end of the sword.

In terms of "mature" stuff, I would prefer a much more nuanced approach. The PCs are still the good guys, but the Dark Side is really tempting - how close can they fly to that flame without getting burnt? The bad guys may be clearly drawn, but they also can't be easily removed. Or perhaps the bad guys aren't clearly labelled - evil too often has a pleasing countenance. The PCs have to make tough choices - which group of worthies do they help? Indeed, they may have to actively cause harm to get what they want (or even to serve the greater good).

I appreciate that that is not for everyone, of course. I certainly wouldn't advocate it as the default style of play. But it is something I would very much like to see someone tackle.

(At one stage I really wanted to do a cyberpunk-style game where the PCs needed expensive cyberware to do their job, but getting that cyberware necessarily meant taking on large debts to bad people, which then had to be paid. That meant that the PCs were constantly abusing their bodies, leading to them gradually falling apart physically and mentally. They could stave those things off in the short-term by various escapes (drink, drugs, etc), but in the longer term those would just make the problems worse... Unfortunately, I could never quite find a way to make it work. Plus, I suspect it would have very quickly become intolerably grim.)

 

[gorckat]

(At one stage I really wanted to do a cyberpunk-style game where the PCs needed expensive cyberware to do their job, but getting that cyberware necessarily meant taking on large debts to bad people, which then had to be paid. That meant that the PCs were constantly abusing their bodies, leading to them gradually falling apart physically and mentally. They could stave those things off in the short-term by various escapes (drink, drugs, etc), but in the longer term those would just make the problems worse... Unfortunately, I could never quite find a way to make it work. Plus, I suspect it would have very quickly become intolerably grim.)

You could probably pull that off by re-skinning Ron Edwards' Sorcerer, changing the power source from Demons to Cybernetics...may have already been done in Electric Ghosts.

 

[Arctic Wolf]

I thought that the old BoVD was meh also. I was hoping it would of told me how to make a really evil character but from what I discovered about making enemies is that I like to make characters that are really really gray. Characters that are too white or black are boring to me. xD