BoVD Thoughts

[RobNJ]

The fear and lies spread in the 80's by such groups as BADD made it very hard to be a gamer. Now I like to think that we live in an more enlightened time. But there are always those that are looking for something to destroy.

Yes. Now, we've graduated up to merely being intensely ashamed about our hobby .

If you did not game in the eighties then you can't entirely know what it was like. If you did I apologize for this.

I did, and it really wasn't that big a deal. If anything, it added to the "street cred". Now that it's not dangerous anymore, you don't get the druggie burnouts playing.

 

[Kichwas]

Based on what I saw in Dragon 300 I posted this at Nutkinland:

I looked at the Dragon when it arrived in the mail yesterday and came to the conclusion that the new book needs to be renamed to "The book of Comic Book Darkness".

It didn't look dark, dirsturbing, and forboding to me in the least.

It looked vile in the same way that Games Workshop's demons are vile:

Put crab arms on a woman and she becomes a demon... put eye stalks in the flower bed and it becomes icky...

-shrug-

I just find all this demon stuff silly and preteen-comic bookish in terms of it's horror value. There's nothing shocking in it, nothing even scary. It's too 'UPN Relic Hunter / latest Video Game'. Hmm... maybe what I'm searching for is that it's too 'pop culture'. There's nothing in there that scares anyone anymore.

Maybe Dragon just showed all the cheesy stuff and the good stuff is still to be released in the book, but I'm skeptical.

 

[RobNJ]

Flame detector reading code yellow. Engaged:

Then obviously, you don't need the book, you are already on a deeper level than what the book will deliver.

Alert! Alert! Vague-yet-present ad hominem class 9!

Conversely, I don't need more graphic content, I want away from this reality, and I choose to do so in my games. To me, people that need more graphic content need to get out more, the world is a rather horrific place.

Threat level rising to the red. Get some ice on this, stat.

Here's the thing, and I'm genuinely asking this, not tring to wind you up. Are you against dungeon crawls? I mean, are you against the stereotypical D&D "lite" story where "heroes" invade the homes of people they can intermate with but who look different (orcs, what have you), exterminate every single one of them, and then steal their stuff?

Because if that doesn't offend you, why does the rest of this? I find the fascist implications of the standard D&D storyline as performed by heroes far more disturbing than anything the villains could do.

Understanding this, I state that I do not care about the book in itself, I am voting with my wallet, buy it, use it, makes no difference to me.

Fair enough, but I think it's important that you don't make people who are reading your comments feel like you're calling them satanists if they do like darker gaming. It's that kind of thing that gets these discussions turning into flamewars. If someone wants the standard D&D campaign where evil is absolute and good is absolute and certain stuff is not described with game mechanics . . . well, cool. It's not the kind of game I'd like to play in, but I certainly would attempt not to implicitly insult them for enjoying that kind of game.

 

[Buttercup]

Far from it, I find myself trying mightily to restrain myself from acting out a banal internet passion play: The admiration-of-an-forum-post snap marriage proposal.

You're very sweet. But I'm taken.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

First- I will say again what I have said from the beginning- wait and see. Wait and see. Wait and see.

Let's call the two reasons to be against BoVD, A (it might cause us problems) and B (the material is wrong/immoral/stupid and shouldn't be published).

I think you are painting by too broad of a brush- especially with B.

A- I don't care what people think, but I can appreciate those concerned that went through the worst of the d&d hysteria of the 80's.

B- I think the material is stupid, but I am not opposed to it being published. I am concerned about its future impact on D&D.

If such material as corpsebond was an example of what is to come in BoVD, then I would be very disappointed. It is stupid immature splatterpunk.

Yes, I know a different person wrote that section then who wrote BoVD, but the magazine and the book share the same warning. If the material in the book is just DM tips on how to run villians, then the warning would be just a gimmick. If it is not a gimmick, then we have an example of what the publishers believe is "mature audiance only".

But- I have read MC's thread on his board and trust him from his past books that this will not contain such stupidity (still- wait and see, wait and see, wait and see!).

So- what is my concern as a side-group of B?

I am concerned about MC's comment about how that powers-that-be wanted him to make the book more "vile".

I have already voiced my concern over the direction Dragon magazine is going- and I would be horrified to see all of d&d begin to go in that direction due to great sales of BoVD.

The powers-that-be taking the sales as a sign to go ahead and drive d&d to the same low-brow "evil is kewl" attitude I find repugnant in the WW's WoD products.

Again- I don't want to see the book censored (I must be missing the posts that are even calling for this..). What I don't want to see is the core of the game I greatly enjoy being pushed in direction I don't enjoy. Let a d20 publisher push that boundry.

Even in a 'beer and pretzels' type game, it's useful to have some game mechanics on the evil guys. In a mature game, it's almost essential. Most of the sourcebooks have been aimed at the heroes..

This is not a good argument- villian characters use the same mechanics as non-villian mechanics. MC has made it clear it will have new options, but nothing in there is "essential". People have been playing villians well before this book was even known to be on the table.

I also invite you to look at many of the splatbooks- most of them are hero/villian neutral. They have plenty of options in there for villians- or else I have been foolish in using a lot of it for my villians.

FD

 

[RobNJ]

Can you imagine the rumors in the general populace?

There won't be any. I'd be shocked if what anyone could genuinely call the general populace even knows D&D still exists. To 90% of the world it's like arguing about Pong or Rubick's Cube. Do you realize there's a video game called State of Emergency where you wander through crowded shopping malls blowing away buisnessmen with machine guns in gory detail?

Here's one better, that story only got a few comments and is already forgotten.

No one cares. We are safe in our utter irrelevence. It's a horrible way to win, but won we did.

but there is no need to draw undue attention to our hobby.

I'd be happy to draw any attention to our hobby. Even if it were undue. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating that Paizo put out an issue of Dragon Magazine saying, "Here's why we love Osama Bin Laden!" just to get a few more people into the hobby.

It's more like I'm saying that if Dragon did put out that article, I very much doubt anyone would notice.

 

[RobNJ]

You're very sweet. But I'm taken.

B-but . . . I restrained myself!

 

[shadow]

I've mentioned before that I'm a little concerned about the BoVD. However, after reading Monte's comment on his message boards, some of my fears have been put to rest. Still however, I'm not planning on buying the BoVD since I doubt that most of the content will be usuable in my game.
One of my biggest fears was that the BoVD would mainly be shock value (like the 'corpsebound' spell from dragon 300). If what Monte says is true (that the book won't be as dark as many people are hoping for) then I don't think that I'll have a problem with it.
Personally I like the "comic book" style of gaming. I like larger than life heroes and villians. Tragic heroes, sympathetic villians, and moral ambiguity really don't fit well in my game. I have little interest in White Wolf's World of Darkness, and I absolutely despise Kult. The only thing I think that I could use out of the BoVD is the stats for the Demon and Devil princes. But I can get those free off the Creature Collection site (although they aren't "official"). Therefore I really don't think I'll be buying the BoVD.

 

[Buttercup]

First- I will say again what I have said from the beginning- wait and see. Wait and see. Wait and see.

You're correct, of course. I was speaking rhetorically.

I think you are painting by too broad of a brush- especially with B.

A- I don't care what people think, but I can appreciate those concerned that went through the worst of the d&d hysteria of the 80's.

B- I think the material is stupid, but I am not opposed to it being published. I am concerned about its future impact on D&D.

Ok. Let's call you B.1

Agan- I don't want to see the book censored (I must be missing the posts that are even calling for this..).

I don't want to name names. So I'll PM you. But not until after dinner.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

There won't be any.

I think you are being flippant about these concerns.

No one expected the initial attacks on d&d.

While you may have found that the d&d hysteria "wasn't that big a deal", many others went through hard time during that period.

I can understand their concern

But since the book will be coming out during a busy news cycle- I doubt it will be noticed.

If it came out in early August, then I could easily see the news-hungry media making a big deal out of it.

D&D is no more out of the woods then rock&roll or rap is out of the woods. It only takes a slow news day and a sensational incident to start the ball rolling.

FD