Design & Development: BoVD

[mudlock]

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Book of Vile Darkness)

If Schwalb thinks the Cancer Mage was the pinnacle of awesomeness for the 3e BoVD, I don't think his version is going to be something I'll like.

Not that the 3e one was something I particular enjoyed either, but really, the Cancer Mage?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The only ones I've seen so far were shrinkwrapped on the shelves of one of my FLGSes...so it will be hard to browse...

 

[Rechan]

Anyone remember the Acolyte of the Skin? I wouldn't mind things coming more from that direction. (Yes, I know that wasn't from the 3e BoVD but...)

Honestly I don't want to see "Giving PCs options for EVIl to the EXTREEEME!" But to go into directions that basically no Good character ever would.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Anyone remember the Acolyte of the Skin? I wouldn't mind things coming more from that direction. (Yes, I know that wasn't from the 3e BoVD but...)

Honestly I don't want to see "Giving PCs options for EVIl to the EXTREEEME!" But to go into directions that basically no Good character ever would.

The Alcolyte of the Skin was a very nice evilish prestige class. I would be behind seeing more like that.

 

[chitzk0i]

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

 

[delericho]

IMO, the "Book of Vile Darkness" was one of the worst missed opportunities of 3e. (The "Book of Exalted Deeds", on the other hand, was just bad.) I believe that there is a place for muture themes in D&D, and a mature discussion of Evil in D&D could have been truly excellent. But the BoVD we got seemed to lean too much towards just being "boobs 'n' blood". Just about the only thing I ever used was a few of the monsters, and even then they weren't particularly special, they just happened to fit what I was looking for.

(That said, I did think the Cancer Mage was a pretty cool concept.)

The feeling I get from the 4e version is that they're going for a less... controversial approach to the whole. 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.)

 

[Bold or Stupid]

The 3e BoVD always seemed to heavy on the "Look how EEEEVIIIIL I am type of evil." I would have liked a more nuanced discussion running from anti-heroes to psychokillers. It seemed childish and of the top. The BoED on the other hand was true tosh, mostly going with Lawful Good is the bested sort of good!!! And it was childish and just tried to mirror the BoVD. I guess my preference to Law/Chaos and Preservation/Destruction type conflicts doesn't help. Good and Evil is always too subjective for me.

 

[gorckat]

The 3e BoVD always seemed to heavy on the "Look how EEEEVIIIIL I am type of evil." I would have liked a more nuanced discussion running from anti-heroes to psychokillers

My group has talked about running evil after the new year with BOVD.

The only way I'm interested is if it somehow "transcends" the dungeon crawl and typical adventure and actually "means" something to be evil.

On the one hand, everything already exists to be evil. I was tooling around with the idea after we talked about it and in one of the Dragon mag articles was the idea of raising dead gods. The theme Faith Leech clicked and I created a wizard who pays lip service to one of the living deities and will spend his career working to res and evil god from divine death...no book needed- just a DM willing to work my plot in with the other characters'.

But the concept still doesn't quite stand on its own as evil over good...we adventure, kick ass and do bad things. Perhaps instead of kobolds its a farmstead we knock over at level one to get at the forgotten temple the barn was built over. After a couple levels of this kind of variation, it still really comes down to the RP aspect...what does it mean to be evil, how does the world react to evil, why is the character evil...

D&D might not be built to sustain an evil game, other than in short bursts, without more than just a sourcebook.

More interesting to me at the moment are evil characters pursuing good ends for selfish reasons, and I can do that in my current group. We're playing with troupe style stables and one of my backups is a character is evil and worships an evil god (Bane, Forgotten Realms) but does not see himself as evil, simply bringing a divine truth to the unknowing (something like the explorers in the New World). He wants to bring down the same enemies of the other characters (Ashmedai cultists) but his motives and means are way over there.

 

[Rechan]

D&D might not be built to sustain an evil game, other than in short bursts, without more than just a sourcebook.

Because nothing says GOOD like invading something's home, killing everything inside, and taking their loot, so you are armed to take on the next home. Oh, and robbing tombs. Also never take prisoners and if you do, kill them.

IMO many, many groups may have good Intentions (i.e. the quest may be for good) but their behavior is often quite another thing.

 

[M.L. Martin]

Because nothing says GOOD like invading something's home, killing everything inside, and taking their loot, so you are armed to take on the next home. Oh, and robbing tombs. Also never take prisoners and if you do, kill them.

IMO many, many groups may have good Intentions (i.e. the quest may be for good) but their behavior is often quite another thing.

Yes, well, you could argue that D&D isn't really built to sustain good games either. Star Wars, Pendragon, many superheroic games, (EDIT: forgot Call of Cthulhu, in the mode promoted by Ken Hite, at least), even a couple of the settings like Dragonlance and Ravenloft--those seem oriented towards more 'good' styles of play than the default "kill them and take their stuff" form of D&D, which is probably more 'amoral/mercenary', swinging between 'well-intentioned but antiheroic' and 'utterly ruthless' at the extremes.

In short, the default PC mode for most forms of D&D has been Boba Fett, Han Solo (as of Episode IV) at best, and Nute Gunray or General Grievous at worst.