7 replies on “Nerding Day: The Book of Vile Darkness”
Ah, I vividly remember the vacation I got this book on, excitedly leafing through all the edgelord supervillainy and extremely boring Monte Cook attempting to be philosophical.
Shout-out to Greg Stolze for doing this kind of book, but actually well. Strong recommendation for A Dirty World, Better Angels, and Unknown Armies!
I mean he looks an awful lot like Skeletor from the end of the Gary Goddard film, but I can see why you wouldn’t go there.
I got a lot more entertainment out of Book of Exalted Deeds when I was a teen, getting into D&D for the first time. It’s full of useless, broken garbage. I distinctly remember that it turned “being poor” into a superpower, flying in the face of anything that might be considered “game balance”.
The Vow of Poverty on a monk was game-shatteringly powerful.
Same with Chastity and Obedience.
Did it never occur to the writers that there’s nothing to following a vow when you’re doing it through a fictional character that never experiences greed, horniness, or rebelliousness?
“Oh no! My completely imaginary character can’t have as much imaginary stuff! Good thing my imaginary willpower and dedication comes with ridiculously overpowered abilities and advantages!”
I loved this article, super fun! I laughed out loud at “You sober up halfway through the orphanage”. It also brought back memories of days spent at the specialized rpg shop just peaking at obscure complement books too expensive to justify it’s weirdness but fascinating nonetheless
I had one of those in my neighborhood, too.
There is no game so unpopular, or aspect so arcane that they won’t try to sell you a book about it.
White Wolf published Guild Books and Kith Books for Wraith: The Oblivion and Changeling: The Dreaming, respectively…
NOBODY plays Changeling…I should know, I was Storyteller for a Changeling game.
And the only reason I was able to pull that off is our tabletop RPG group had an idea:
Instead of picking one game, each person in the group would pick a game and run it, and we’d switch each week…
It sounds like more fun than it turned out to be 😂
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7 replies on “Nerding Day: The Book of Vile Darkness”
Ah, I vividly remember the vacation I got this book on, excitedly leafing through all the edgelord supervillainy and extremely boring Monte Cook attempting to be philosophical.
Shout-out to Greg Stolze for doing this kind of book, but actually well. Strong recommendation for A Dirty World, Better Angels, and Unknown Armies!
I mean he looks an awful lot like Skeletor from the end of the Gary Goddard film, but I can see why you wouldn’t go there.
I got a lot more entertainment out of Book of Exalted Deeds when I was a teen, getting into D&D for the first time. It’s full of useless, broken garbage. I distinctly remember that it turned “being poor” into a superpower, flying in the face of anything that might be considered “game balance”.
The Vow of Poverty on a monk was game-shatteringly powerful.
Same with Chastity and Obedience.
Did it never occur to the writers that there’s nothing to following a vow when you’re doing it through a fictional character that never experiences greed, horniness, or rebelliousness?
“Oh no! My completely imaginary character can’t have as much imaginary stuff! Good thing my imaginary willpower and dedication comes with ridiculously overpowered abilities and advantages!”
I loved this article, super fun! I laughed out loud at “You sober up halfway through the orphanage”. It also brought back memories of days spent at the specialized rpg shop just peaking at obscure complement books too expensive to justify it’s weirdness but fascinating nonetheless
I had one of those in my neighborhood, too.
There is no game so unpopular, or aspect so arcane that they won’t try to sell you a book about it.
White Wolf published Guild Books and Kith Books for Wraith: The Oblivion and Changeling: The Dreaming, respectively…
NOBODY plays Changeling…I should know, I was Storyteller for a Changeling game.
And the only reason I was able to pull that off is our tabletop RPG group had an idea:
Instead of picking one game, each person in the group would pick a game and run it, and we’d switch each week…
It sounds like more fun than it turned out to be 😂