Article on _genuine_ mature themes

[Thresher]

It would be somewhat ironic or condescending to write a book aimed for mature readers telling them how to play mature characters anyway.
I mean really, if you really need a book to tell you how youre supposed the behave as a mature person then youre probably never going to get the idea.

Anyway, the BoVD I thought was a great addition for people who wanted to add some sinister and dark aspects to bad guys for their games and if they really wanted to freak out players then its a case by case basis. Some things scare/revolt certain types of people whereas others would barely raise an eyebrow.

As for new materiels, Ive got a few ideas, but I better get my ass to work so it'll have to wait a few hours

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Monte, glad to hear that your intentions in writing the book were different to how it was marketed. I don't own the BoVD (mostly because I very rarely DM), but it seems as though you produced exactly what you had said, which had nothing to do with a more 'mature' style of game, but was simply a set of rules that could be used to make evil NPC's more, well, evil. Which is fine.

The idea that mature = rules for drug addiction, sacrifice and demonic possession was something that annoyed a lot of people! Glad to see that it was not your feeling about the book.

 

[Bhaal]

Monte, I agree that the BoVD has some huge misconceptions in the commercial world. The guy at the gaming store described it as "D&D's mature book" when he was telling me about it. Thumbing through the book and glacing at the art--oh boy, the art--with "D&D's mature book" in mind made it seem about as mature as a hormone-driven 15 year old boy*. It's a great book once you get rid of that paradigm. The art however really did it in for me. If you know the artists, or the people in charge of that stuff, let them know that there's nothing evil, vile or dark about "adding more breasts" to all the pictures. They were obviously trying to get the "mature" point across ("mature" NOT the point of the book), and did so in the most immature way possible. Half my gaming group is female, we're all 20+ (many with degrees), and the women howled over how badly the book seemed with the art. I'm glad to hear this wasn't your intent, though .

Back to topic, that was a great article. I really liked his first suggestion of "giving players off-screen lives". The thought occured to me that very little time usually goes by in a campaign. All the action that brings a character from a 1st level flunky to an all-powerful hero is bunched up together. Even something as simple as having a level 1-7 adventure, let years go by and let the characters settle into their new lives, only to have them meet back up for their level 7-14 adventure in their middle ages, etc. That there would probably add a lot of 'mature' depth, since the characters will most likely have property, spouses, offspring, etc. Doing it during sessions might be tricky, and I'm not sure how the players would react, but the phrase about giving characters some time got me thinking.

As for my own input, I think an addition to the already stated moral ambiguity is responsibility. Conceptually, the player is faced with decisions, none of which have an easy option, and they must deal with the drawbacks of the option they take. Sacrificing their home town to save a nation, or the converse of saving their hometown while a nation is destroyed, as a cheesy example. Something where they feel the weight of the decision, and whatever choice they make sits on their shoulders. You of course don't want to just tear down your players' self esteem during sessions, reward them for the good in their decision, but let the palpable sting of repricussion bite every once in a while. Make those victories hard-earned and a little bittersweet, and those broken eggs and other metaphors will make the experience feel far more mature than just slaying the orc king who was raiding villages.

I don't mean you can only have a "no black and white, only shades of gray" scenario, the lines between good/evil/right/wrong can be clearly defined. What I mean is for maturity you need responsibility, and responsibility comes with--among other things--sacrifice and making tough decisions.

* No offense to any hormone-driven 15 year old boys, of course.

EDIT for grammar and such.

 

[Hypersmurf]

The answer is: A book filled with rules relating to evil characters (primarily NPCs).

And the No Light cantrip.

Nasty, nasty spell when used right.

-Hyp.

 

[s/LaSH]

Maybe it's too much Babylon 5 in my formative years , but I always thought giving the world a logical structure and giving the PCs' actions repercussions beyond the dungeons was important. My natural instinct is to push the envelope, and while the PCs in my campaign aren't going to settle down and get actual lives any time soon, they do know that 'hit wif sword' isn't the be-all and end-all of interaction with the world.

If they didn't, the paladin wouldn't hold the parole of a devil that didn't want to die and surrendered. I think that's mature.

 

[NoOneofConsequence]

That was a great article but I feel that it gave short shrift to escapism.

The main reason I play DnD is to escape from the drudgery of my everyday life, where my duties to my family mean that I work a forty hour week at a job that I find essentially unfulfilling, but which pays the bills.

I'm an ordinary guy who eats too much, is unfit and overweight. I'm not stunningly good looking, only moderately charming and have never had magical powers. This is my life - I do it every day. If I'm going to escape from this reality I'm bloody well going to be a hero (or even superhero). My characters get into fights that I could easily avoid in real life.

Sure, I like dealing with sophisticated themes (like rape, torture, slavery etc) in my rpgs but mostly I like it to be a little simpler than real life.

My wife is a rape/DV counsellor and she puts it this way - "My life is depressing enough, why would I want my liesure time to be depressing too?"

 

[mkletch]

The main reason I play DnD is to escape from the drudgery of my everyday life, where my duties to my family mean that I work a forty hour week at a job that I find essentially unfulfilling, but which pays the bills.

[...]

My wife is a rape/DV counsellor and she puts it this way - "My life is depressing enough, why would I want my liesure time to be depressing too?"

My wife is a public school teacher in a rural community, and it really doesn't get a whole lot more depressing than that. She and the other women gamers in our group want the escapism, and want to bash orcs more than the guys. THat said, they are also the ones that get bored first when things start to drift toward formulaic. Some spice needs to be there, and it has to be different each time. Mature content can make one think, if used mindfully in game. And it's better than CSI, or other shows like that, which simply 'rot your brain'; passive and empty.

-Fletch!

 

[Deadguy]

I have always wanted to run this campaign, but I have never had the right set of players. Maybe somebody out there does.

The campaign begins in our world, with a collection of unlikely heros. Through the machinations of various persons, they are drawn into a faerie Otherworld in which they engage in various acts of heroism, eventually saving the young queen and becoming Heroes of the Realm.

Sounds like a very typical fantasy story, right? Except it doesn't stop at "happily ever after". The heros return to this world for the second part of the campaign, which is all about how the events have changed them - because you'd better believe that fighting a war in Faerie is going to change you. How are you going to react to an abusive boss when you've stared down an Ogre Lord and slew him in single combat? What happens when nothing in the real world can match what you saw or did in Faerie? Do you reject your experiences, try to forget? Look for a way back?

The third part would be thirty years later, as we see what happened to both the heros and Faerie during the intervening time, as they are called on once again.
J

I just wanted to let you know, Doc, that I managed to play in a game with a similar predication to the idea you describe. At the time it was one of the best games I had ever participated in. The basic idea was to be playing ourselves (there were 3, later 4 of us). We started by witnessing an impossible 'magical' event, and then getting hit by the repercussions of that event. I can still remember meeting the talking cat (sounds silly - at the time it was downright spooky!).

Then we slowly began to change because of our experiences, transforming into creatures out of fairytale and nightmare, though still able to hide behind a facade of the mundane if we so chose. It was interesting just how alien we became as time went by. One embraced his heritage absolutely and became a murderous killing machine. Another retreated into fairyland, living a 'normal' life. A third tried to pretend she was still innocent, whilst embodying magic that twisted the hearts and minds of those around her, as her emotions were moved. And for myself, I tried to live on as a normal person, whilst being suckered into fighting on the wrong side by a woman he fell in love with (in the end I was hated by every character in the group - and we only met up when a real crisis broke out).

Four players - four characters - four very different responses to the events that slowly swept them up. But in many ways one of the finest sessions took place early on, when we were joined by an extra player for a single session. He too played himself, except that he was entirely normal. At the time the story revolved around a vampire (of sorts), and he was manipulated by it, and later nearly slain by it. We managed to rescue him, and he helped us defeat it. In the process, of course, we revealed our true natures to him, the first person we'd actually confessed to. And his response was great - not awe, nor wonderment. But bitterness, anger, that we were special and he wasn't. I can still vividly remember the conversation we had at the end: "I am sorry it turned out this way. If it's any consolation, none of us chose this, and if we could undo it, we would," I told him. He replied "It's no consolation," with real bitterness. Our characters never spoke to each other again, and it was probably the most poignant moment of 'betrayal' I'd ever felt in an RPG to that time.

Mature-themed games are doable. It just takes the right group at the right time (I say the latter, since 12 years on I still game with the same people, but none of us think we could recreate that campaign now). Still, if it is your cup of tea, and you can get it, then, boy, does it feel fantastic!

 

[Larry Fitz]

I liked the article too, I also liked that this thread gave us that insight into the creation of the BoVD. However I must nitpick.

I do not need Ingmar Bergman's talent to participate in a well done cinematic style campaign, but it would help. More so than Jackie Chan's choreography ability. However the claim that as drama the RPG's are inadequate is hardly fair. most of the elements of drama (lighting, camera angle, timing, sets) Are someone else's idea of what is dramatic. In an RPG each player's imagination fills in the blanks and does much better on the special effects. First in your imagination all five senses are engaged, you get an idea of what a "Dwarven Slammer" tastes like. You can smell the apple blossoms as you ride forth from the keep of your liege lord. But most importantly, everything is personalized to your senses of drama. You don't, in your mind's eye, see Ingmar Bergman's concept of what a spirit of death would look like, you see your own; which for you is much more frightening because it's what you think death would look like. You don't see Peter Jackson's idea of what a Balrog pulling Gandalf to his death would look like, you see what it would look like to you to see a flaming demon pulling your buddy Bob to his doom; which as much as I admire Mr. Jackson's work, is much better.

I know all this because I've seen it myself, in campaigns I played in and campaigns I've run. I've seen players who were not personally involved in the action come to tears when NPC's died valiantly staving off attackers from PC's, and I've seen players have vehement arguments about the quickest route from one place in a city they were playing in to another place in that city, when neither one had ever seen the city map (They were Gnomes and when I checked my own map later I discovered that one of them was right, by a single city block), I've seen PC's sacrifice themselves to save other PC's and NPC's. I've heard players joke about their relationships IG being more interesting than their relationships OOG. And! I've played Feng Shui with strangers under Doc Midnight, and Jackie Chan would be lucky to be in such a good movie....

All that being ranted, one thing Monte said pricked up my curiosity (my curiosity is not particularly attractive when pricked up, but hey, whose is?). Even a D20 writer of your stature has no residual deal for writing books? You do straight work for hire? I'm assuming your price per word is abover the industry norm and I don't think it would be polite to ask, but could you possibly start another thread (or if I start one will you answer in it?) discussing what the business arrangements for someone like you are (sans actual pricing if you're shy about that sort of thing). I think it would be interesting for people here to see more of the behind the scenes process.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

The misconceptions of what the Book of Vile Darkness were so far afield that I'm surprised the book did as well as it did (it sold, and continues to sell, I'm told, very well--not that that benefits me in any way, but that's another issue...). I'm pleased that it did well, and am gratified to see it on a lot of DM's lists of favorite supplements.

What if I said it's the only WotC book on my list of favorites?

Consequently, I think it does benefit you in some way: While not a Malhavoc book, it is another feather in your cap to proudly wear.

I turn the book over, and get the feedback that it's not vile enough. I object, fearing the book becoming gratuitious. I'm actually told (really, this happened) to: "add in more sex and violence, but not in a gratuitious way."

So I explain what "gratuitious" means.

The book is then accepted, and kept pretty much intact.

ROFL!!!

But back to those two misconceptions. I set out to create a book on game material for evil characters. Some--but not nearly all--of the material might be offensive to some readers and players. So in that way--and that way only--I would say that the book is for mature gamers. Not because the material is "mature," but because mature people can handle potentially offensive material appropriately. There's absolutely nothing "mature" about the cancer mage, but a mature gamer knows when and when not to add such a thing to his game.

Actually, you list two ways that it's "mature", although you likely didn't notice (I personally promote the later often).

As for the initial post/mature gaming article, it's kinda describes well what I try to achieve in my own games, going for a bit more of depthness regarding character development, interpersonal relationships, politics and social movements, religion and the like. Glad to have read it; I'll have to refer others to it (often!).

Thanks, S'mon!