Tome of Extremes?

[Prak]

I thought of a new book for the tome series... a Tome take on the Books of Vile Darkness and Exalted Deeds. I'm not asking Frank and Keith to add this to their list, but rather was thinking perhaps the boards as a whole could work up something along the lines of a Tome of Exalted Light and Fell Darkness? I personally like the idea of the books, but I think we can all agree they were... shall we say less than well thought out...

so what do you guys think?

[Brobdingnagian]

I think 'dark' and 'light' shouldn't factor into alignment representation at all, but I guess nomenclature isn't the point here.

I'm tired, so I'll just do something quick tonight. We need new feats, of the Exalted and Vile nature. Things that scale to level as RoW feats do. There's a problem, though. How good you are at fighting doesn't represent how good or evil you are. Neither do any skills, or your ability to cast spells. So we have two choices.

1: Scale them to Knowledge (religion or the planes) and call it a day. I don't really support this idea, but it does tie in thematically, to an extent.

2: Scale them straight to character level. The restriction for these isn't that you keep learning to fight or cast spells or do that thing that you do, but rather, stay true to your alignment and generally increase your strength to further your cause. I like this idea much more than the other one.

No other ideas from me right now. Long day and a couple screwdrivers, I'm going to bed.

[Iaimeki]

I think the Tome of Fiends is pretty much Frank/K's take on the evil side of things. I know they're planning to write a Tome of Virtue, but it's slated for last, so I expect they'll finish sometime when I'm in the nursing home.

[PhoneLobster]

Good thing too, not much else to do other than play D&D in a nursing home.

[ckafrica]

Do you maybe add a new mechanic where you have points for exalted and vile behavior and you level in your exaltedness and vileness based on deeds? This would could be prone to abuse but if you are supposed to be getting rewarded with power for your upstanding or rotteness should you not in fact have to be good or rotten to get them?

[User3]

I like the idea of just tying the feats directly to HD, with a requirement of being vile/exalted... We'll need to clarify what V/E mean, and I kinda like the idea of making them alignment supertypes, as in, you could have an ExLG or a VCE, or even, assuming you could justify it, VLG and ExCE.

I realise that the tomes of Fiends/Valor are probably all Frank and Keith have to say on good and evil, but I'm not asking them to do this, I'm proposing it as an idea for a board-wide project.

I would say tie level-dependant effects to one's good/evil aura...

[Artless]

Thing is, Exalted and Vile traits do not make any sense. Extremes of such broad concepts as Good and Evil are so full of fail I don't have the patience to dissert what really irks me about them. Still, I'd like to contribute a little bit.

When you write down on your sheet that you're deity is Pelor, that just means that his afterlife is the best one for you. You don't even need to be Neutral Good to sign up with the Sunman, you just have to say you worship a big ball of fire in the sky.

When you throw Exalted and Vile into the mix, that says to me that you've taken your religion's concepts to the extreme. In fact, past the extreme. You're either a veritable Demigod based on how devoted you are, or you're a reviled pariah for your heretical views on the church.

You can be a Vile cleric of Corellon Larethian, or you can be an Exalted cleric of Gruumsh. In either case, you have different aspects of your church pushed to the limit. You are a paragon or antithesis of your faith's virtues.

I know it's not the classic definition of the terms, but it's worked well enough for me.

[User3]

actually that makes a lot of sense...

[shirak]

1181016905[/unixtime]]Thing is, Exalted and Vile traits do not make any sense. Extremes of such broad concepts as Good and Evil are so full of fail I don't have the patience to dissert what really irks me about them. Still, I'd like to contribute a little bit.

When you write down on your sheet that you're deity is Pelor, that just means that his afterlife is the best one for you. You don't even need to be Neutral Good to sign up with the Sunman, you just have to say you worship a big ball of fire in the sky.

When you throw Exalted and Vile into the mix, that says to me that you've taken your religion's concepts to the extreme. In fact, past the extreme. You're either a veritable Demigod based on how devoted you are, or you're a reviled pariah for your heretical views on the church.

You can be a Vile cleric of Corellon Larethian, or you can be an Exalted cleric of Gruumsh. In either case, you have different aspects of your church pushed to the limit. You are a paragon or antithesis of your faith's virtues.

I know it's not the classic definition of the terms, but it's worked well enough for me.

Thing is though, when you die, you'll go to Corellon Larethian or Gruumsh and they'll judge your actions. So if your actions are not in accordance with the church, you suffer. Your argument would be correct if the Church had an idea of dogma but not the idea of dogma. But the Church really does have the one and only idea of dogma ever because every fucking Cleric can just call up Pelor and ask his opinion in any given topic. There is no such thing as "my own Way of following Pelor" in D&D because the only opinion that matters is Pelor's. You either follow him completely or you choose willingly to differ in opinion with him. Which might get you punished if your opinion differs too much.

Now, granted, you can totally be a CE Vampire and follow Pelor but that's like being a proffesional killer who decides to go to a police station and start confessing. And, really, why would you do that?

[SunTzuWarmaster]

I liked the idea of alignment points that power alignment-feats. Lets say that everyone starts with +4 if they are good-aligned and -4 if they are evil-aligned (yeilding a max equal to your max skill rank, DM determines on level-up if you gain a point). Then, these power your alignment-feats. Sample alignment-feat:

Exalted Smiter [Alignment]
you are good at stabbing things in the face, especially evil things
#ranks/ability gained
1 - you may always choose to deal non-lethal damage with spells, natural attacks, or weapons at no penalty to attack roll or damage.
5 - Your spells, natural attacks and weapons are always considered good-aligned for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction. Also, any spells you cast are type [good] and have +1 caster level against evil creatures for the purposes of overcoming SR.
10 - Your spells, natural attacks, and weapons do an additional +2d6 damage against evil creatures. If your spell does not do hit point damage, your save DC is increased by 1.
15 - something else, but more powerful that the above

and essentially have it be like a skill feat, excpt grant bonuses to smiting evil things.

[Artless]

1181041930[/unixtime]]Thing is though, when you die, you'll go to Corellon Larethian or Gruumsh and they'll judge your actions. So if your actions are not in accordance with the church, you suffer. Your argument would be correct if the Church had an idea of dogma but not the idea of dogma. But the Church really does have the one and only idea of dogma ever because every fvcking Cleric can just call up Pelor and ask his opinion in any given topic. There is no such thing as "my own Way of following Pelor" in D&D because the only opinion that matters is Pelor's. You either follow him completely or you choose willingly to differ in opinion with him. Which might get you punished if your opinion differs too much.

Now, granted, you can totally be a CE Vampire and follow Pelor but that's like being a proffesional killer who decides to go to a police station and start confessing. And, really, why would you do that?

That's assuming that a god gives a damn about how he's worshipped. When you're signing your soul away to him, you're not saying "I'll follow the church in worshipping you"; you're saying "I'll be another soldier in your eternal army." The only reason a god might intervene with a Vile worshipper is if they are being so crazy in their worship that the god's losing followers.

With the idea of Exalted and Vile characters, you're gonna have to assume some rules about the ways deities work. That is, specifically, that the gods are not infinitely accessable, their churches are run by mortals, and mortals have written up their code of worship.

[User3]

1181044858[/unixtime]]I liked the idea of alignment points that power alignment-feats. Lets say that everyone starts with +4 if they are good-aligned and -4 if they are evil-aligned (yeilding a max equal to your max skill rank, DM determines on level-up if you gain a point). Then, these power your alignment-feats. Sample alignment-feat:

Exalted Smiter [Alignment]
you are good at stabbing things in the face, especially evil things
#ranks/ability gained
1 - you may always choose to deal non-lethal damage with spells, natural attacks, or weapons at no penalty to attack roll or damage.
5 - Your spells, natural attacks and weapons are always considered good-aligned for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction. Also, any spells you cast are type [good] and have +1 caster level against evil creatures for the purposes of overcoming SR.
10 - Your spells, natural attacks, and weapons do an additional +2d6 damage against evil creatures. If your spell does not do hit point damage, your save DC is increased by 1.
15 - something else, but more powerful that the above

and essentially have it be like a skill feat, excpt grant bonuses to smiting evil things.

I'm less fond of this system, because it goes back to abilities based on DM favour, which the tome series tries to get away from. I maintain that it should rely on one's aura rating, ie, how they register when targeted by a detect [alignment] spell, as this is the only way to tie alignment to HD in any meaningful way.

[User3]

1181047106[/unixtime]]

1181041930[/unixtime]]Thing is though, when you die, you'll go to Corellon Larethian or Gruumsh and they'll judge your actions. So if your actions are not in accordance with the church, you suffer. Your argument would be correct if the Church had an idea of dogma but not the idea of dogma. But the Church really does have the one and only idea of dogma ever because every fvcking Cleric can just call up Pelor and ask his opinion in any given topic. There is no such thing as "my own Way of following Pelor" in D&D because the only opinion that matters is Pelor's. You either follow him completely or you choose willingly to differ in opinion with him. Which might get you punished if your opinion differs too much.

Now, granted, you can totally be a CE Vampire and follow Pelor but that's like being a proffesional killer who decides to go to a police station and start confessing. And, really, why would you do that?

That's assuming that a god gives a damn about how he's worshipped. When you're signing your soul away to him, you're not saying "I'll follow the church in worshipping you"; you're saying "I'll be another soldier in your eternal army." The only reason a god might intervene with a Vile worshipper is if they are being so crazy in their worship that the god's losing followers.

With the idea of Exalted and Vile characters, you're gonna have to assume some rules about the ways deities work. That is, specifically, that the gods are not infinitely accessable, their churches are run by mortals, and mortals have written up their code of worship.

this could be an option discussed in the tome.

[User3]

I'm a pretty sick fvck when I try.

The Tome of Necromancy and Tome of Fiends was just PG-13 DnD. I could get jailed for writing out the ideas I've discarded for those tomes alone. Honestly.

Frankly, the game and hobby itself aren't ready for real evil, so don't expect me to contribute.

[User3]

well, like I said K, you guys have plenty to work on, so let us tackle this one.

[ckafrica]

The Tome of Necromancy and Tome of Fiends was just PG-13 DnD. I could get jailed for writing out the ideas I've discarded for those tomes alone. Honestly.

Though I don't know what dark thoughts torment K's warped mind , I have certainly had visions of evil that stands above what we've seen. The big problem with these concepts is that you got get real dark to truly encapsulate evil. Dnd evil is kiddy crap. Nothing in BoVD is that vile. It's just run of the mill evil of human(oid)kind.
Likewise for good. No characters play good enough to be exalted; heck even the angels of Dnd are not that nice. nor are the goodest of the good gods.
You would need to invoke an absolute manifesto of good and evil and provide categorized steps in the realms of evil or good needed to achieve in order to have any material like this mean anything. Otherwise we are just adding generic bonuses to be applied to characters for following a certain "morality" who want to invest in the devotion to that morality.
If that's what you want just make good and evil feats and don't muck about believing that they are any more than they are: generic feats with an alignment prereq.

DnD Pantheons fvck up concepts of good and evil anyways. Is a god of trickery truly evil or is he there to create lessons of man's follies. Most DnD gods shouldn't have many followers because too many of them don't really give the faithful what they are looking for: guidance, protection and redemption or power through obedience.

[Username17]

The Book of Vile Darkness is the worst things a 14 year old child can draw in the margins of his binder. The Book of Exalted Deeds is all of those things multiplied by negative 1.

-Username17

[User3]

I can tell you I could imagine (maybe even draw) better things than a damn furry when I was 14. On an on-topic note: K, if that material still exists, do you think you'd have, well, the interest, in passing this along if asked? Actually, what'd interest me isn't even the gore/sex/whatever most people find repulsive, but the philosophy you seem to be capable of talking about. Of course, if that goes into "apocrypha" (read: quite criminal thinking), so be it (I know I do often, not that it goes into active crime).

[Username17]

I know we came about (holds up thumb and forefinger) this close to printing the "Rapture Seeker" in Tome of Necromancy. It was a class based on Sleepy Girl, where you spent a lot of time controlling other peoples' emotions by pretending to be dead and using dream magic and necromancy. Ultimately a lot more disturbing than Lich Loved, so we scrapped it.

Basically, some things are unsettling, because they are outside the arbitrary boundaries of polite conversation. This can either be because they involve cultural taboos, or simply because they involve things which are culturally considered to be deeply personal. While there's nothing wrong with it in a broad sense, I really don't want to talk about your wife's clitoral hood piercing. Ever.

On the other hand, some things are bad, because they are things that should not happen. People getting hurt, needed services denied, lives and livelihoods cut short, ugliness and suppression of discourse. You know, bad stuff. Some of that just happens (rocks fall and you all die: it happens), some of that requires an active force of will on someone's part (village burned, men enslaved, women raped, story at eleven).

Anyone can write things that are bad. Four children drown at the bottom of a well after being thrown in. They try to climb out, but the walls are wet and sharp, and eventually they lose strength and their heads fall below the water and they drown. Boom - that's bad stuff. The more details you throw in, the worse it gets with no particular limit.

Anyone can write things that are unsettling. You just find a taboo and start talking about it. Incest, Canibalism, and Beastiality are good for this. Combine them in new ways and you have some really unsettling imagery. Like imagine chaining some women up and allowing a puma to repeatedly penetrate her before eating pieces of flesh off her back while she bleeds to death. That's some disturbing stuff.

If you really need to kick things up a notch from "we have to stop this!" to "I think I'm going to be sick!" you really just kick in some unsettling imagery and throw it in with whatever the bad stuff you're talking about is. Seriously, instead of having a dark ritual that transforms someone into a half-fiend with evil tendencies, kick it up a notch: capture someone's mother and then force her to have sex with a demon, retroactively transforming her children into half fiends. Bonus points if you kill her during or afterwards.

---

Unsettling Evil is actually trivially easy to write, but people honestly don't want to talk about it. That's what makes it unsettling.

-Username17

[User3]

so how about we focus on the philosophy rather than the actions? actions would probably need to be discussed at some point, but they can be downplayed in favour of why someone chooses to be exalted or vile and what that means.

[User3]

what is Sleepy Girl, by the way?

[Username17]

1181161321[/unixtime]]what is Sleepy Girl, by the way?

Sleepy Girl is a euphamism for women who pretend to be dead during intercourse or sex-play in order to indulge specific sexual fetishes.

-Username17

[User3]

ah, gotcha

[User3]

Being me the guy who asked K, Frank, I have to say that Prak pretty much explained me: I do know writing the "baddest thing ever" is ridiculously easy. I wasn't interested in, say, the most terrible rape account ever (and I could pull off worse than yours right now - you could too, of course - but I don't even see a reason to make people return their stomaches' contents to open air through the wrong side), but in any thing K might have written that actually focused on the moral issues (not) involved in "exalted" and "vile" material (By the way, that's important: who said only the bad side deserves attention?).

Also, I don't have the slightest about what's Sleepy Girl either, but, for one, the short description isn't even particularly gross (of course, I don't know it in full, but the summary doesn't seem much worse than vile printed material); and, as such, I believe it could have been made into something PG-13, so to say.

Pseudo-edit (I saw Frank's post while previewing): OK, not that I know the slang, it started to look disturbing. Frank: supposing I ignored that last bit, would you be OK with me taking the concept (since I didn't saw a single rule) and trying to publish it? Pardon the off-topic, as well as what I hope you don't regard as an outright thievery attempt.

[User3]

well yeah, vile stuff is incredibly easy to write, and I've written stories that could qualify(at least as far as BoVD is concerned) as both pissed off revenge-motivated mental gratification and as one-part personal fantasy one-part character story. It's the philososphy and the consequences of Exalted and Vile play that I'm interested, along with rules and options that make sense.