Is D&D getting more "edgy"?

[Corinth]

I see an opportunity for a third-party publisher, preferably one filled with overeducated personnel who dig doing research into the real world, know how to write for the common man and know how to sell their stuff to the college undergraduate audience that is D&D's target audience.

 

[Tewligan]

I wonder if we'll see the equivalent of a Black Dog studio for D&D products...

I don't find the products mentioned particularly 'edgy' though. The Book of Vile Darkness has been watered down, and should be renamed The Book of Mildly-Naughty Darkness instead.

Oh, fooey. You haven't even read it yet.

 

[S'mon]

Is there any way of not being geeky?

Well my wife is a gardening geek... there are probably golf geeks... You could try working 8-6pm, go to a bar and drink beer with your buddies, come home and watch TV... and repeat ad infinitum.

 

[Buttercup]

Is there any way of not being geeky?

Sure there is! Just empty all the thoughts out of your head and have no interests whatsoever. You'll fit in with the rest of society just fine.

 

[SemperJase]

The other inane comment I hear a lot is "it's just entertainment." But there's nothing "just" about entertainment. As surely as watching a movie like Schindler's List (entertainment) can enlighten and inspire us to better things in real life, I suspect that spending our time roleplaying a bunch of CE deranged slave traders raiding tribal villages for girls to sell to Imperial brothels (after having some fun with them, of course) would dull our discernment of good and evil and inspire us to worse things in real life.

Great point Elder. The entertainment industry tries to have it both ways. It can't be both. If enterainment can have a positive effect on people (e.g. teaching socialization skills to gamers) it can have a negative effect (e.g. desensitizing people to evil they commit).

Interesting.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

Not this again

This is actually a fairly common discussion.
"Where does entertainment stop and perversion begin?"

Well, to put it simply....
That is for each of us to judge seperately. I'm an American, that means I have freedom of choice. My brain works (putting me in the minority as far as the human race goes), and allows me to make my own decisions.
It does not allow me to decide what other people may do, if it doesn't hurt anyone else.
You may believe that any book that contains profanity should be banned. I believe that banning a book is evil. Some people support the sexual expliotation of young children, I believe that I should have the right to shoot those people in the face with a shotgun.

As far as edgy goes, today's edgy is tommorrow banality. Eldritch magic (the old Chainmail book) had a naked woman on an altar on the cover, the 1E DMG I have has a naked succubus sitting on a rock in the back.
Demons were pulled on the harrassment of whoremongering televangelists, now they are back. Evil is being turned back into evil, not evil lite (tastes great, less hell!!) Personally, I like the idea of there being an actual EVIL for the PC"s to fight. How evil is a demon's lair with a couch, a lounge chair, a half-eaten pizza, and the he's so evil because he has an illegal cable descrambler turned onto the Swedish Erotica channel?
BUT, if the PC's go into the cave, where the veins in the rock throb with unwholesome life, souls scream in tortured agony from where they have been shaped into furniture to fit a demonic frame, and a bowl is filled with small souls of children that the demon arranged to have murdered, now THAT guy deserves an ass-kicking!

Don't sweat it. I'm one of those now pushing 40 that was originally played it, and frankly, The Book of Vile Darkness from Wizards of the Toast appeals to me about as much as The Big Book of Fuzzy Bunnies. My gaming group doesn't wear makeup, doesn't dress wierdly, aren't cross-dressers or closet axe-murderers, and I don't think one of buying that book will turn us into that.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Games don't make people evil, people make people evil.

Seriously, I'm a firm believer that anyone who can tell the difference between reality and fantasy can have a healthy barrier between what they see and what they do.

A movie can inspire you do do diobolical things, in theory. But only if it makes you see them as right. Stuff like Hitler's propoganda? Some of the McCathyistic tapes? *That's* the kind of wicked power that a form of entertainment can have. Heck, back in the 1700's, some of the most wicked literature of the Brittish Empire was the stuff that some of the colonial revolutionaries were writing.


People aren't going to paint something as wicked or vile and have people emulate that. It's against human nature to do anything that you, personally, think is wrong, regardless of what that is.

So what do you do? You make people see it as right.

 

[Sulimo]

Armour spikes. It all started with armour spikes.


Hong "where, oh where will it all end?" Ooi

Probably with WOTC releasing a anime inspired setting...or perhaps even licensing something like say Slayers.

 

[Black Omega]

Probably with WOTC releasing a anime inspired setting...or perhaps even licensing something like say Slayers.

Yep, I'd pay for that. DnD already has strong elements that can fit anime just fine. A human falling off a 1,000 foot cliff is toast. But in DnD and Anime they'll just leave a big crater.

 

[Billiarmus]

Now, i'm sure i'll get flamed for this, but this is just IMHO.
Looking at DND in general, it's been pretty tame up to now, as fare as WOTC core supplements. Some of the other d20 publishers have done some pretty gritty stuff, though. Not to say it wasn't well done.

However, ever since I heard about the Book of Vile Darkness, i've been a little worried.

Now, groups in the past have always hated DND, and there are still some that do. But since the new "revamp" of 3rd edition, WOTC hasn't done a lot that would really offend. TBOVD seems like it might just be the flag that such groups can wave around to once again make non-RPGer's hate DND again. Plus, I worry this may signal the beginning of a much grittier approach to DND as far as future supplements, at least for the immidiate future. Personally, I like DND's current tone, but I can definately understand how some people might like a slight departure.
I'm just the kind of guy that always plays a good character

Monte does a good job, but I'm just not sure about this book. I've talked with my friend, and he agrees, this book sounds like it might just be a little too much.

Well, I guess this was kind of a rant, but I just thought i'd get my opinion out there. Again, I hope I haven't offended anyone. Any thoughts on this would be interesting to discuss.