Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 MaximumHavoc Nov 17, 2011 23:19:57	Book of Vile Darkness Excerpts Creating Vile Encounters by Bart Carroll A better solution for dealing with enemies is to lure them onto battlefields of your choosing. Talk about this preview here.
#2 Shroomy Nov 17, 2011 23:22:04	The crypt thing is back...awesome.  It's one of my favorites.
#3 Plaguescarred1 Nov 18, 2011 1:17:40	WOW these are vile Curse and Disease ! Scary for 4E's standards I love them !
#4 Style75 Nov 18, 2011 5:19:10	Diseases, curses, and new traps.....   This book went from my won't touch it list to my might buy list, assuming of course that we get more of each than what was posted in this preview. I'm a huge fan of these game elements for long running campaigns. I had no interest in the BoVD (I don't run evil campaigns) but perhaps WotC learned from the 3.5 version and is making a quality book. I'm mildly optimistic.
#5 ranadiel Nov 18, 2011 5:29:23	I realy don't see anything vile about Werewolf Lycanthropy. Stages 2 and 3 are certainly jerk moves, but frankly stage 4 seems more like a minor annoyance than anything else. I suppose that Faceless Hate is "vile" in flavor. Mechaznics just seem like being a jerk though. *shrug*
#6 Style75 Nov 18, 2011 7:24:14	The crypt thing is back...awesome.  It's one of my favorites. Mine too. And it looks like WotC has taken the muzzle of Schwalbe and let him add some teeth to 4e. Have you read his blog? He posts some nasty monsters there that will set PC's knees knocking. For a while now I've been thinking that the power pendulem has swung too far in the player's favor and there's no fear of danger anymore.  The teleport power from the Crypt Thing is really nasty and is the kind of thing that players are likely to remember for a long time.
#7 incenjucar Nov 19, 2011 4:38:50	I realy don't see anything vile about Werewolf Lycanthropy It's vile because the player of that character no longer gets to play that character and instead gets to sit on their hands until their allies cure them. Same with Faceless Hate.
#8 thespaceinvader Nov 19, 2011 5:09:41	Ugh. I appreciate extra disease tracks (though, to be honest, I see no particular reason not to make curses like these specialised disease tracks anyway), and traps.  But the book, in and of itself?  Really, really awful idea.
#9 ranadiel Nov 19, 2011 5:24:56	It's vile because the player of that character no longer gets to play that character and instead gets to sit on their hands until their allies cure them. Same with Faceless Hate. So the definition of "vile" is being an **** of a DM?....okay yeah both of those are vile then. I just thought the book was about horrible evils....not jerks.
#10 GloriousDemon Nov 20, 2011 2:36:52	It's vile because the player of that character no longer gets to play that character and instead gets to sit on their hands until their allies cure them. Same with Faceless Hate. So the definition of "vile" is being an **** of a DM?....okay yeah both of those are vile then. I just thought the book was about horrible evils....not jerks. But isn't that essentially what villains are?  And is not the DM the driving force behind said villainy?  Besides, the PCs can't always be catered to.  If that was the case, then nobody would ever play Tomb of Horrors.
#11 thespaceinvader Nov 20, 2011 4:32:08	No, as a general rule, that is not what (the best) villains are.  Villains who are just meaningless, for the evulz, jerks, are dull and uninteresting.  Villains with actual motivations, which actually make sense, and make the PCs question, even if just for a second, whether they might actually be on the wrong side... Those are the interesting villains.
#12 ranadiel Nov 20, 2011 6:08:08	But isn't that essentially what villains are?  And is not the DM the driving force behind said villainy?  Besides, the PCs can't always be catered to.  If that was the case, then nobody would ever play Tomb of Horrors.    Not really. There is a difference between a villian who is evil and a villian who is a jerik, although there can be overlap. Additionally there is a difference bewteen a DM who is RPing a jerk NPC and who is being a jerk. These mechanics fall into the DM being a jerk category. Taking a character out of a fight or removing a player's control over their character isn't fun. What it does is it causes them to pull their DS out and start tuning the campaign out for the rest of the session. Yes sometimes a character is taken out because the die are just against them and it simply can't b avoided, but mechanics that are focused solely on doing just that really don't add to the overall enjoyment of the game in most cases.