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<blockquote data-quote="Darkness" data-source="post: 369376" data-attributes="member: 13"><p>The Book of Vile Darkness...</p><p></p><p>Me, I'll buy it mainly for the demon lords, the rules for making pacts with them, and the "crunchy bits:" Spells, prestige classes, magic items...</p><p></p><p>The advice on evil campaigns will certainly be interesting, too, but I'm not sure how useful it will be to me.</p><p></p><p>See, on the one hand, my campaigns always had many "vile" parts; glossing over the baser parts of human (and, less common, nonhuman) nature just isn't compatible with my style - and neither is it compatible with my players' (note: we don't usually need much detail of really gruesome things, though; it's just that we don't pretend that they don't happen). Slavery, prostitution, torture, crime, atrocities, necromancy of the vilest kind, and, to a lesser extent (although only because I didn't have many rules for them and was too lazy to make some up myself <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":o" title="Eek! :o" data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":o" />), drugs were always a part of my games. Also, I seldom prohibited my players from playing evil characters if they insisted on doing so.</p><p>I've never run a long-running campaign of evil characters, though; at the most, we created characters and played a one-shot game - few (if any) of which were appreciably vile or interesting. I dunno; so far, I've just never had the interest or sufficient inspiration to thoroughly plan a campaign featuring evil-aligned PCs... From my experiences in trying to envision such games and create such characters, though, I'm certain that these games need to be planned very carefully lest they become boring, random, end prematurely (because of intraparty violence or carelessness) and/or too unpredictable to plan ahead very much for.</p><p>Thus, a few tips on how to make such a campaign happen would certainly help to get me interested enough in running one. (Really, lack of interest and vision for such a game were my main reasons for not running one. Also, I would have to work hard to make it happen - which just isn't worth it if I don't really what I care about it anyway. Still, that idea of mine in which the PCs would have been members of the clergy of an important temple of a deity of death - Nerull or Myrkul or whatever, I can't remember at the moment... A <em>swimming</em> temple, that is: A <em>ghost ship</em>. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin :D" data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> And all other crew members are undead; only the PCs, and possibly some other young acolytes, are alive. And so, <em>they</em> get to go ashore for the temple as emissaries, spies, traders, or whatever is needed in relations with the living... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool :cool:" data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /> )</p><p></p><p>But on the other hand, if the article isn't <em>really</em> good, it won't convince me to run an evil game any time soon. Plus, it better have guidelines on how to show to your players that evil PCs are to be played carefully and like <em>people</em> rather than howling madmen (unless that's what you want to do - which <strong>I</strong> don't). Anyway, I'm skeptical - and even if this part of the book is terrific, it's quite probable that I won't run an evil campaign anyway (really, if it was at all important to me, I could easily get all the inspiration that I need through research on my own)... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></p><p></p><p>Still, even outside of nominally evil campaigns, it will be good to have rules for drugs, pacts with demons, etc.</p><p>You see, without temptation by evil, true heroism kind of lacks something. After all, it is adversity that makes heroism possible in the first place - and killing monsters is, <em>by itself</em>, not even <em>nearly</em> as important to being a hero as resisting compromising your spiritual well-being for short-term gain. Either of these conflicts becomes more heroic the higher the stakes are, though, of course... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p><p>And with the Book of Vile Darkness, it will hopefully now be as much a challenge to resist the inner (spiritual) demons as to fight the outer (physical) ones. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool :cool:" data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Darkness, post: 369376, member: 13"] The Book of Vile Darkness... Me, I'll buy it mainly for the demon lords, the rules for making pacts with them, and the "crunchy bits:" Spells, prestige classes, magic items... The advice on evil campaigns will certainly be interesting, too, but I'm not sure how useful it will be to me. See, on the one hand, my campaigns always had many "vile" parts; glossing over the baser parts of human (and, less common, nonhuman) nature just isn't compatible with my style - and neither is it compatible with my players' (note: we don't usually need much detail of really gruesome things, though; it's just that we don't pretend that they don't happen). Slavery, prostitution, torture, crime, atrocities, necromancy of the vilest kind, and, to a lesser extent (although only because I didn't have many rules for them and was too lazy to make some up myself :o), drugs were always a part of my games. Also, I seldom prohibited my players from playing evil characters if they insisted on doing so. I've never run a long-running campaign of evil characters, though; at the most, we created characters and played a one-shot game - few (if any) of which were appreciably vile or interesting. I dunno; so far, I've just never had the interest or sufficient inspiration to thoroughly plan a campaign featuring evil-aligned PCs... From my experiences in trying to envision such games and create such characters, though, I'm certain that these games need to be planned very carefully lest they become boring, random, end prematurely (because of intraparty violence or carelessness) and/or too unpredictable to plan ahead very much for. Thus, a few tips on how to make such a campaign happen would certainly help to get me interested enough in running one. (Really, lack of interest and vision for such a game were my main reasons for not running one. Also, I would have to work hard to make it happen - which just isn't worth it if I don't really what I care about it anyway. Still, that idea of mine in which the PCs would have been members of the clergy of an important temple of a deity of death - Nerull or Myrkul or whatever, I can't remember at the moment... A [i]swimming[/i] temple, that is: A [i]ghost ship[/i]. :D And all other crew members are undead; only the PCs, and possibly some other young acolytes, are alive. And so, [i]they[/i] get to go ashore for the temple as emissaries, spies, traders, or whatever is needed in relations with the living... :cool: ) But on the other hand, if the article isn't [i]really[/i] good, it won't convince me to run an evil game any time soon. Plus, it better have guidelines on how to show to your players that evil PCs are to be played carefully and like [i]people[/i] rather than howling madmen (unless that's what you want to do - which [b]I[/b] don't). Anyway, I'm skeptical - and even if this part of the book is terrific, it's quite probable that I won't run an evil campaign anyway (really, if it was at all important to me, I could easily get all the inspiration that I need through research on my own)... ;) Still, even outside of nominally evil campaigns, it will be good to have rules for drugs, pacts with demons, etc. You see, without temptation by evil, true heroism kind of lacks something. After all, it is adversity that makes heroism possible in the first place - and killing monsters is, [i]by itself[/i], not even [i]nearly[/i] as important to being a hero as resisting compromising your spiritual well-being for short-term gain. Either of these conflicts becomes more heroic the higher the stakes are, though, of course... :) And with the Book of Vile Darkness, it will hopefully now be as much a challenge to resist the inner (spiritual) demons as to fight the outer (physical) ones. :cool: [/QUOTE]
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