Book of Vile Darkness is really unnecessary...

[scadgrad]

Anxious...

Well I have to agree with Psion. I'm looking forward to the book & will reserve judgement on it until after it arrives. That being said I believe Monte will not stray too far beyond the Valley of Good Taste. Even if he does include some risque material, JK Rowling will continue to draw most of the Gospel Grenades from Jack Chick and the other Fundy Idiots.

And finally, as a good church-going Episcopalian I'm looking forward to giving that Asmodeus character the butt-whipping that he so richly deserves And hey you...Dispater! Wipe that smile off your mug, your next pal!

Bring on the Big Bad Guys...I mean the REALLY Bad Guys

 

[I'm A Banana]

Yeah....the book is about vile darkness, but there's a certain level of assumption that the Heroes will destroy said vile darkness...

Basically, this is a book to give you some new ways to define what your heroes fight against....it's a way to put the smack down on evil, and to make sure that the heroes know that evil is alluring and tempting.

So it's not promoting or enhancing evil....just giving you what evil is, so that one can recognize it and smite it in-game. For the Real World, various holy books (like the Bible) give that.

So it's just a way to define what evil can be smitten, not something to tempt players to the dark side.

 

[Leopold]

as a church going roman catholic i have learned 2 things:

1. D&D is a game

2. D&D is make believe


Knowing those 2 important things, I can seperate reality (real life ) from my time as DM in a fantasy world (D&D). What does the BoVD give me? It allows me to tell my story to my players (all in fantasy make believe land) with more infomration and clarity on subjects that DO exist in the medevil periods that are relavent.

This boils down to the simple ideology: If you don't like it, don't buy it and don't read it.

simple easy and darn near foolproof advice..

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

As a complete and total atheist and rabid D&D player of two decades, I am very much looking forward to the Book of Vile Darkness! I think it is a product we have needed for years. Monte's name assures a certain level of (above average to brilliant) writing quality, and WoTC's name assures us of superior production values.

DISCLAIMER:
How depraved the book actually is, is anyone's guess. I for one certainly hope it lives up to the hype!

 

[gregweller]

To answer the question, of course a Book of Vile Darkness is necessary. Do I think it's going to be truely vile? I doubt it. About the only time I was really surprised by how far a RPG book was willing to go was the v. dentata on the back cover of the of the Clanbook Tzimisce book. And then there was the description of Shub-Niggurath in the COCd20 book. Of course what I'd like to see is some tentacle rules to be able to do a decent (or indecent as the case may be) hetai module. Now, of course, I could do that myself sans official rules, but it would be cool to see them in print. I don't know if any RPG publisher would have the guts to do a really hard R/NC-17 style book, but it would be nice if they did. Given the controversy that a book that hasn't even been published, simply trying to extrapolate from the title, has managed to stir up, I'm not going to hold my breath.

 

[estevans_lackey]

If it's written by Monte...it's necessary.

 

[Humanophile]

Nathanael, thankfully your worries are pretty much groundless. While there's still a lot of residual anti-D&D sentiment around, it's usually someone who remembers "weren't there a bunch of kids who killed themselves over it back in the 80's?", and just haven't seen any proof to counter that. So these people come in two camps; the (somewhat) reasonable ones who have had no exposure to D&D to counteract the hype, and the unreasonable ones who are still sticking to secondhand accounts of what's in 1e books. The first type, if they do stumble across D&D books, will be far more likely to find one of the basic ones and realize that D&D is nothing to worry about, while I see no reason for the second type to actually go as far as to read these books they condemn.

Plus, I hope that your FLGS will put the BOVD on a higher or lower shelf, away from the curious eyes of first time gamers, while the core books occupy the obvious spaces. Remember, us fans may know what WOTC brings out and salivate over every leaked morsel, but your average plebe on the streets just vaguely knows that D&D is out there, and maybe some of them might remember the cartoon or the opening sequence to E.T. Think the last time you were at a bookstore. If there was a series of romance novels that included detailed descriptions of how to summon Satan, Cthulhu, and any other big, world-ending nasty you can think of, how likely would you be to notice them? That's about the same odds as your average non-gamer would have to notice the BOVD, so I don't think we'll draw enough attention to have the bad publicity.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

Re: Re: Book of Vile Darkness is really unnecessary...

I'd rate this troll a 7. Well written, reasonable, but major deductions for subject being too obvious. Bonus points for getting so many to fall for the troll, though. Good job, Nathanael! I look forward to more of your, uh, "posts" on these boards.

 

[PeterLind]

Book of Exalted Deeds

My suggestion: Someone write the Book of Exalted Deeds in response. That should sell well too . . .

 

[chatdemon]

If it's written by Monte...it's necessary.

........................................

um, yeah, right

anyway, I've got a few thoughts on this:

1> Why is BoVD drawing all this attention? It's not even out yet, the content is all speculation. Books such as Evil, Legions of Hell, and Secret College of Necromancy didn't draw this much attention. It makes me think a thread like this isn't really about the content, but I have no idea what the true motive might be. Then again, there's that qoute at the top of this post...

2> I think the religious right who get targetted in threads like this are getting a bum rap. At least some of the problem is gamers themselves. Like some pagans I know, some gamers go on a crusade to make everyone accept their hobby as a legitimate pasttime. "Hey, that guy is born again, he thinks I'm evil, I'll show him!" What's the point? If someone thinks that, let them think it, ignore them. Just look at how many times the Jack Chick issue gets brought up here. Do you really believe there are that many people who actually see that drivel and get so offended that they need to bring it here? I don't. It seems to me to be more along the lines of rallying the troops to a cause to garner acceptance among them. When you look at it, the 'followers' and 'preachers' type people are just as common among us as they are among religious folk. Not everybody, by any means, and not even a lot of people, but enough to make it ironic every time we see the issue of anti-rpg zealots brought up.

3> I'm not overly religious, and I'm about the farthest thing from a devout christian anyone could imagine. I like evil in my games, I've used themes like rape, prostitution, kidnapping, murder, extortion, etc, in my campaigns for quite some time. To me, it comes down to crafting the story so that the players actually start to hate the villains, instead of them just playing the role they are expected to. By painting your villain in the colors of pure evil, you make fighting, and defeating, that villain much more satisfying for the players.

If you think a book like BoVD, or a campaign like mine, is over the line and apalling, I can respect that. I'm not going to argue or call you a zealot or rant and rave about the differences of our religious outlooks. Im just going to ask you to turn the other way, and let me run my game the way I want, as I would let you do.