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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
[COMPLETE] Looking back at the leatherette series: PHBR, DMGR, HR and more!
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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 8250461" data-attributes="member: 8461"><p><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16900/DMGR6-The-Complete-Book-of-Villains-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>DMGR6 The Complete Book of Villains</em></a> is a book that, after I purchased it and actually started reading it, struck me as having some seriously false advertising.</p><p></p><p>That wasn't actually the case, of course. The back of the book flat-out says that it presents "guidelines [...] offered on creating villains for role-playing games." So clearly, I didn't read the description closely enough (and, for whatever reason, apparently didn't flip through it before I bought it), because I thought for sure it was going to be a book of pre-fab villains that could be dropped into a campaign. Something like <em><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17484/MC15-Monstrous-Compendium-Ravenloft-Appendix-II-Children-of-the-Night-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>MC15 Monstrous Compendium Ravenloft Appendix II: Children of the Night</em></a></em>, <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17567/Villains-Lorebook-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>Villains' Lorebook</em></a>, or <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16954/Blood-Enemies-Abominations-of-Cerilia-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>Blood Enemies: Abominations of Cerilia</em></a>. Of course, I wouldn't get any of those until years later, but they were what I had in mind when I picked up DMGR6.</p><p></p><p>Having spent what little money my broke teenage self could scrape together on a book that wasn't what I thought, I did the only thing I could do: I sat down and read it. And as I did, I slowly found my disappointment fading away, because while this wasn't the gallery of baddies that I'd hoped (though, to be fair, it does have a few pre-made NPCs), it was actually pretty good for what it did. While I have very ambivalent feelings about "advice books" - as I've noted before, the fact that their goal is to obviate themselves if you internalize and utilize their advice always struck me as a sort of built-in obsolescence - I can't deny that the advice here is <strong>very</strong> good.</p><p></p><p>In a nutshell, this is a guide to making villains be <em>characters</em> rather than pastiches. From talking about their history and motivations to an examination of the different levels of organization they make use of to practical overviews of how to integrate them into your campaign, this book's advice is utterly rock solid. Notably, it never forgets that it's presenting advice on using villains in a game, rather than writing a novel; whether it's discussing special considerations that go into making a villain from the <em>Monstrous Compendium</em> into a villain or how you actually present them (and, more often, their deeds) to the players at the table, the practicality of this book is never pushed to the proverbial backseat.</p><p></p><p>Having said that, I'll note that the in-character boxed text present throughout the book was <em>tremendously</em> engaging, not only for how effectively it illustrated whatever point was being presented, but also because it was always entertaining. Rarely more than two or three paragraphs long, these were so snappily written that you couldn't help but want more. For instance, consider this demonstration of why "the heroes unintentionally drive someone to villainy as a result of their actions" is a weak way to introduce a villain to bedevil your PCs:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Now, that might come across as overly ridiculous, but it's undeniably funny. It's also in service to the point I mentioned before about the book never forgetting that it's an RPG supplement. Telling the players that their actions have resulted in some sort of narrative contrivance that they didn't know about and couldn't possibly have anticipated, the effect of which was to create a nemesis who's now targeting them, is more likely to be tick the players off than engage their interest.</p><p></p><p>I never ended up using any of the example villains (all of whom receive stats at the end of the book, after it has helpfully used them to portray ways of putting its advice into practice) in my games - though I was tempted to use The Corn Kings, a cult dedicated to an evil harvest deity, for their name alone (though that may have been because of my having watched the segment of <em>The Tomorrow People</em> involving Colonel Cobb) - but looking back, I made use of a <em>lot</em> of what's here with when portraying bad guys in my game.</p><p></p><p>That's really the highest endorsement I can give this book; if you're a GM, you'll get a lot of mileage out of it when you sit down to play.</p><p></p><p><em>Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 8250461, member: 8461"] [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16900/DMGR6-The-Complete-Book-of-Villains-2e?affiliate_id=820'][I]DMGR6 The Complete Book of Villains[/I][/URL] is a book that, after I purchased it and actually started reading it, struck me as having some seriously false advertising. That wasn't actually the case, of course. The back of the book flat-out says that it presents "guidelines [...] offered on creating villains for role-playing games." So clearly, I didn't read the description closely enough (and, for whatever reason, apparently didn't flip through it before I bought it), because I thought for sure it was going to be a book of pre-fab villains that could be dropped into a campaign. Something like [I][URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17484/MC15-Monstrous-Compendium-Ravenloft-Appendix-II-Children-of-the-Night-2e?affiliate_id=820'][I]MC15 Monstrous Compendium Ravenloft Appendix II: Children of the Night[/I][/URL][/I], [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17567/Villains-Lorebook-2e?affiliate_id=820'][I]Villains' Lorebook[/I][/URL], or [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16954/Blood-Enemies-Abominations-of-Cerilia-2e?affiliate_id=820'][I]Blood Enemies: Abominations of Cerilia[/I][/URL]. Of course, I wouldn't get any of those until years later, but they were what I had in mind when I picked up DMGR6. Having spent what little money my broke teenage self could scrape together on a book that wasn't what I thought, I did the only thing I could do: I sat down and read it. And as I did, I slowly found my disappointment fading away, because while this wasn't the gallery of baddies that I'd hoped (though, to be fair, it does have a few pre-made NPCs), it was actually pretty good for what it did. While I have very ambivalent feelings about "advice books" - as I've noted before, the fact that their goal is to obviate themselves if you internalize and utilize their advice always struck me as a sort of built-in obsolescence - I can't deny that the advice here is [B]very[/B] good. In a nutshell, this is a guide to making villains be [I]characters[/I] rather than pastiches. From talking about their history and motivations to an examination of the different levels of organization they make use of to practical overviews of how to integrate them into your campaign, this book's advice is utterly rock solid. Notably, it never forgets that it's presenting advice on using villains in a game, rather than writing a novel; whether it's discussing special considerations that go into making a villain from the [I]Monstrous Compendium[/I] into a villain or how you actually present them (and, more often, their deeds) to the players at the table, the practicality of this book is never pushed to the proverbial backseat. Having said that, I'll note that the in-character boxed text present throughout the book was [I]tremendously[/I] engaging, not only for how effectively it illustrated whatever point was being presented, but also because it was always entertaining. Rarely more than two or three paragraphs long, these were so snappily written that you couldn't help but want more. For instance, consider this demonstration of why "the heroes unintentionally drive someone to villainy as a result of their actions" is a weak way to introduce a villain to bedevil your PCs: Now, that might come across as overly ridiculous, but it's undeniably funny. It's also in service to the point I mentioned before about the book never forgetting that it's an RPG supplement. Telling the players that their actions have resulted in some sort of narrative contrivance that they didn't know about and couldn't possibly have anticipated, the effect of which was to create a nemesis who's now targeting them, is more likely to be tick the players off than engage their interest. I never ended up using any of the example villains (all of whom receive stats at the end of the book, after it has helpfully used them to portray ways of putting its advice into practice) in my games - though I was tempted to use The Corn Kings, a cult dedicated to an evil harvest deity, for their name alone (though that may have been because of my having watched the segment of [I]The Tomorrow People[/I] involving Colonel Cobb) - but looking back, I made use of a [I]lot[/I] of what's here with when portraying bad guys in my game. That's really the highest endorsement I can give this book; if you're a GM, you'll get a lot of mileage out of it when you sit down to play. [I]Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.[/I] [/QUOTE]
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[COMPLETE] Looking back at the leatherette series: PHBR, DMGR, HR and more!
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