That would be, IMO, the best supplement to use with DL.
Cheers,
Cam
If you have the Book of Vile Darkness then the Book of Exalted Deeds is a must in think. Aside from, plenty of character paths (such as non violence and porverty) works well for a Dragonlance campaign, after all, this is the world of romantic and greater than live hereos.
Player's Handbook
Dungeon Master's Guide
Monstrous Manual
Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (WotC)
Dragonlance Campaign Setting (WotC)
Age of Mortals Companion (Sovereign Press)
Dragonlance DM's Screen (Sovereign Press)
In Nomine Core book (Steve Jackson Games)
In Nomine Ethereal Player's Guide (Steve Jackson Games)
In Nomine Corporeal Player's Guide (Steve Jackson Games)
Draconomicon (WotC)
Testament (Green Ronin)
Alchemy and Herbalists (Bastion Press)
BESM 2e (Guardians of Order)
We're done. I've owned a couple more in the past (AEG's War, The Silver Marches, and LGG Gazateer) but I sold them as soon as I felt I wasn't getting enough use out of them. The only book I'm really interested in buying right now is either Mutants and Masterminds or Silver Age Sentinels, though I'm hesistating on both because I don't think the d20 system would fit a superhero game particularly well. My friend on the other hand has a thousand dollars or more invested in all the splat books.
As you can imagine our DMing styles are vastly different. I don't care what cool new powers my PC or NPC's or monsters can have. So I don't buy splat books. When I DM an adventure I'm more concerned with crafting a well-thought out motivations and backstory for my NPC's, while as a player I am more concerned about making myself glorious. My friend on the other hand DM's his games as a showcase for the latest rules he bought. Plot is a bare minimum. Even though he does this, he still has only used a small percentage of all the rules he has ever bought.
Myself, I don't like alternate rules. For me, I feel prestige classes should be prestigious, reserved for high level adventurers who have earned their way to a select club. Nor do I particularly feel the need to sort through all the rules to find out if they are balanced. I pretty much keep all my D&D games core rulebooks only.
Now, if you're like my friend, you'll collect every splatbook like the crack cocaine it is, and revel in the new rules. If you're like me, you'll collect D&D books based on what the setting requires. Here is what I would collect for full enjoyment of each setting:
Greyhawk
Living Greyhawk Gazateer
Subscription to Dungeon/Polyhedron
Dragonlance
Dragonlance Camaign Setting
Age of Mortals Companion
Draconomicon
Forgotten Realms
Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting
Underdark
Magic of Faerun
Lords of Darkness
Location specific book if you are travelling extensively in that region, (otherwise don't bother).
Now for homebrew worlds... what can I tell you? It will all depend on the theme of your campaign world. Use Draconomicon if you have lots of Dragons for example. Otherwise, simply flip through the books in the store until you find something you want to absorb and make a KEY part of the campaign setting. If the book sits in the shelf instead of on the floor by your desk, you wasted your money.
In DL, perhaps the Vow of Obedience would be good for an aspiring Knight of Solamnia (although Honour-Bound covers it already, really) - it'd be great to have to be obidient to someone not so good as you thought. But many campaigns won't have something like this.
I wasn't fond of any of the prestige classes. I don't like that in every book WotC brings out a new host of gods are introduced (did it in Draconomicon as well). I don't like the deathless. Most of the higher level spells are unbalanced in that although the spellcaster may take temporary ability damage, at that level they can have a lesser restoration prepared anyway, so there's not much lost. Most of all, however, I don't see the reason for the mature warning, except so that they could put in some random nudey pictures.
No, *essential* for DL means the DLCS book. Not even the Age of Mortals is that necessary.
Originally posted by pddisc
I don't see the reason for the mature warning, except so that they could put in some random nudey pictures.
The author addresses that in the introduction. The Mature Label is there because the book deals with serious moral issues children should not be expose to. The book brakes away from the black and white D&D issues, such as slaying orcs for the sake of experience. The book is not a hundred percent useful for Dragonlance, but that is true for any product's use in any realm.
Originally posted by Baron the Curse
Ferratus how is BESM? I'm reading BESM d20 currently. The system has been alter enough to make it interesting. But I'm curious how it will measure up to the original BESM system.
BESM is good if you want to to do absolutely anything, and I mean anything. However, it doesn't work when you try to cross genres, so it doesn't really work for a superhero game. For various anime genres though, its great and has a much more cinematic feel than the d20 system. I don't know how it measures up to BESM d20 because I like the BESM system better than d20, so it would be pretty much redundant for me to buy it.
BESM d20 I think tries to simulate some of the original system. It is point base system that allows you to buy unique Attributes.
A good deal of the d20 system foundations rules don’t even apply. Strength and Dexterity don’t add “to hit” and AC absorbs damage, you have to dodge/block with a Defense Roll. The most interesting aspect is that characters suffer wound penalties depending on the amount of hit points they loose.
If you go to the BESM webpage you can download the BESM d20 rules for free.
Originally posted by Baron the Curse
The author addresses that in the introduction. The Mature Label is there because the book deals with serious moral issues children should not be expose to. The book brakes away from the black and white D&D issues, such as slaying orcs for the sake of experience. The book is not a hundred percent useful for Dragonlance, but that is true for any product's use in any realm.
"Serious Moral Issues"? I have to say that I found very little of that in the books, yes it is a bit more in-depth to the (frankly dire) system of Alignment in the corebooks, it mentions a few of the moral problems that a D&D game could bring up, however these are the kind of problems that is blatantly obvious to anyone anyway.
The line “Allow you’re players to be heroes, don’t put them in a situation where they have to do evil actions” really summed up the treatment of Good in the book for me. Sorry, but isn’t that rather the point of having a serious, “mature” campaign? To work out what is the right thing to when it is not obvious? Some of the best RPing I’ve ever done is when the DM’s done exactly that.
The Book of Vile Darkness really didn’t impress me with it’s discussion of Evil either, and who ever wrote it (Monte Cook?) also seemed to confuse being evil with being mentally disturbed. Sometimes they go together, and for example being masochistic could mean you cannot relate with the fact that others don’t like pain (and so not care about phyiscally abusing people) but it’s still very far removed from someone in organised crime who encouraging drug addiction amongst kids. Necrophillia is a deeply disturbing act, but it isn’t evil in the same way that ****, murder and genocide, where there are obvious victims (as far as I know, no corpses have ever need truma counciling afterwards).
He seemed to imply that almost every evil character would have a nice collection of Mental disorders, this is very often not the case as many apparently mentally stable people can commits horrific acts, often due to very cold, but reasonable calculations.
It may be because I have studied Ethics as part of my Physics and Philosophy degree and so have had more exposure to the critical analysis of the ambiguities of it than most people. However as far as not being suitable for children, I have to totally disagree with that, most decent children’s books do deal with these issues, and its one of the things that make them good books. A prime example is the Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman (The setting would make a great D&D). I’m not sure if America culture (or parts of it at least) suffers from far greater fear of exposing children to something where they can think and which may actually cause them to ask questions required than Britain.
Anyway, almost all the children reading a D&D book are going to probably be 10-12 at the minimum, and even the prudish film certificates allow a fair amount through at that age.
Hell if you want the most obvious of examples, the Dragonlance series itself, I was reading Chronicles well before I was 16 (and so “fit” to read the BoED), Chronicles and Legends deals, the characters of Raistlin and Soth and to a lesser extent Kitiara, Dalamar and even Tanis (at times) brings up far more complex moral ambiguity that BoED does, and even when I was significantly younger I appreciated that. Similarly in the WoS Mina is a great character because of the portrayal of her naïvity, yet insane fanaticism (and the power she draws from), Gerard being the prejudiced, arrogant yet shame-ridden knight and Palin almost losing himself in bitterness.
Likewise Strum wasn’t just another Paladin among many, his sacrifice genuinely was genuinely noble, he had to fight against fear, doubt, uncertainty and having his ideals and beliefs ridiculed and undermined by the very people he was supposed to admire (the Knight Council), that and Caramon’s dedication to his brother and friends are great examples of heroic characters.
Similarly even the most “pure" Organisations of Good in Krynn, have gone badly wrong. The most obvious being the Theocracy of the Good Gods in Istar that became the most oppressive regime on the planet, similarly the Knights of Solamina, the foremost Champions of Good became hated, then corrupt after the Cataclysm, dragged down by the very system of ideals that were meant to uphold their nobility. And the Knights of Neraka were still capable of being both oppressive yet equally as “honourable” as the Solamnics.
(Sorry, that was a certified rant from a raving anti-alignmentist
)Aside from the bad philosophy, there are some very cool ideas in the BoVD & BoED, but I would say that the flavour of neither books really seem to particularly suit the Dragonlance campaign. Some of the prestige classes in the BoVD could work with followers of Chemosh and Morgian (maybe Hiddickule), however many of the classes in both books seem to be dependent on certain Gods, some of which don’t have a particularly obvious DL counterpart.
I haven't looked that much through the Exalted Deeds (aside from the First chapter or so) but I do get impression that the book is tailored towards extreme good, i.e those Characters totally dedicated to the ideals of the Good Gods (and probably happens to have some random celestial ancestry) To be honest that kind of character appears to lack depth and be quite dull and boring, often portrayed as being more brainwashed than genuinely a nice person. They also don’t suit the “grittier” hero found in Dragonlance
It may just be me but most of the prestige classes and magic items found in other “splatbooks” don’t really seem to suit the DL image, maybe because DL is perhaps far better defined in Novels than most other settings. As plenty of other people have mentioned almost everything in the Draconomicon does work well in DL (not least because Paladine interchanges with Bahumut, and Takhisis with Tiamat really rather well). DL is definitely a campaign setting that doesn’t need or necessarily benefit from lots of extra books.
Oh on a side note pddisc, the Gods in the Draconomicon aren't really new as most have been around since 1st and 2nd ed, and probably just hadn't been mentioned much in 3rd ed.
Originally posted by ferratus
BESM is good if you want to to do absolutely anything, and I mean anything. However, it doesn't work when you try to cross genres, so it doesn't really work for a superhero game.
Actually, Tri-Stat has ended up as one of the best superhero games on the market (as Silver Age Sentinels). Guardians of Order had to increase the die type to d10 to do it, but that's just an order of scale.
Cheers,
Cam
If you look at the history of mass murderers and serial killers you’ll find that while these people where indeed disturb, there is also little doubt left to the evilness in them. I myself don’t believe in Good and Evil, but if I had to peg down evildoers I would have Saddam Hussein, Bill Gates, and Adolf Eichmann high on my list.
A lot of the material in the Book of Vile Darkness dealing with “disturbed” physiologies have been done to death in countless other mature RPG games, notably games like Vampire and Kult. But nothing of this nature has ever been written for D&D (to the best of my knowledge) and therefore I think it was a good book that did an a great job in introducing new forms of evil for D&D players that have not been expose to such material. Aside from that the new rules where excellent and I really enjoyed the detail given to the Abyss and the Nine Hells.
I read the Chronicles at the age of 14 and I agree there is nothing in that book a kid can’t handle. Frankly, the whole moral issues are on a level with soup opera dilemmas, except on a fantasy setting. The only serious issued I enjoyed was with Sturm and the Council, and many people I know found Sturm boring as hell and his whole story tiresome.
There is always some righteous group ready to shield kids from the most ridiculous things. Currently some parent association or such group is boycotting “Peter Pan” because they claim the whole movie is a lesson in sex ed. But I bet yah all those kids have seen Fast and the Furious and the violent LOTR. Anyway, that’s a whole new topic and as you said it’s also regional.
Yes I agree that Evil people are sometimes psychologically disturbed, however what is normally disturbing about them is their readiness to manipulate, harm and kill others, the other things like sexual deviancy really rarely have that much additional effect, unless perhaps they become obsessive about it (but then becoming obsessive about anything is dangerous). And to be honest it wasn’t a very comprehensive discussion in the BoVD. They seemed to be there to get into prestige classes as much as anything else.
I think the Moral dilemmas presented in Dragonlance are a lot more indepth and insightful than the “ethical debates” given in either the BoVD or the BoED. I would agree with the maturity rating because alot of the images in and equipment the BoVD is somewhat sexual and sadistic (although me and most people I know had seen far worse by that age anyway).
However the point was that giving the BoED a maturity rating due to the ethics raised was just dumb, because the issues raised just didn’t warrant it at all (even if"society" at least thinks the pictures of the about-to-be-smitted naked Succubi later did)
To be honest I can’t think of any reason to shield kids from “moral dilemmas” unless perhaps the material in the dilemma itself is of a somewhat “adult nature”. In fact I would encourage kids to think about them.
As for it doing a good job of introducing serious moral debate, well I didn’t think so at all, however all the people I have ever played with are the type who are more than intelligent enough to deal with real-life philosophy and politics let alone D&D, hence don’t need the “Evil and Good for beginners” approach.
In several games, we had the DM, myself and two other players all studying either pure Philosophy or Philosophy combined with Physics/Maths, the only non-Philosopher was playing a Paladin, and he insisted in hiding under the table whenever an ethical debate started up (we quickly decided that the Paladins “Protection from Evil” should be replaced by “Protection for Logic”).
Yeah, I though Strum was pretty dull up until he died (he actually seemed to start thinking then), but then I also thought Tanis was irritatingly whiney.
For a standard D&D campaign I think alignment is essential because fantasy settings, especially Dragonlance, have always been about the struggle of Good vs. Evil. I could do without it in some campaigns, like Scarred Lands, but as you say it requires a lot of tweaking to make it work.
But I think you got my point though, I think this products are good because they introduce new possibilities for newbies. Aside from that, I found a lot of the game material in those books useful.
A great Power of Evil lies in power of deceit and for even the lowest powered Paladin or Cleric to concentrate for 18 seconds or so and determine that someone is in fact evil and smiteable rather takes the whole point away, as does the whole “Smity, Smity” attitude. Its also a power I've noticed that Novel writers tend to shy away from using in there storys. The reasons for them doing so apply equally to a DM in a Role Playing game.
The idea that someone is hurt more with a weapon (with the "Axiomatic" power) due to believing in a less restrictive society just seems bizaare to me as well, even if it is due to magic.