Ken Tokoro's page

Nvm I found it

Cops and Robbers is a great argument, Koldoon. So is playing with toy guns, playing with GI Joes and playing violent video games. But in these situations we don't have actual adults playing with us and setting the example. On this board we have actual adults endorsing evil actions in the game. And what I worry about is kids follow suit not knowing the difference.

Do you actually think that adults don't play these games? How old do you think a person has to be to play video games AND have children? Your words have some merit, but it is definitely NOT the norm. Adults aren't endorsing the fact that "evil is good", my parents always told me the difference and that some things are just games. Plain and simple. End result,,,better parenting, less censorship.

I know TONS of adults with lots of children who play games with them all the time. Why? Because they enjoy spending time with them and they can monitor their behavior. It's like letting your kid have a drink of beer while you're present, most parents allow this so they know they wouldn't be abusing it by themselves.

I understand your concern Paul, but I think you're blowing this out of proportion and making a lot of unsubstantiated accusations. We can argue this until we're blue in the face, most of America already has.

I know there are a lot of video games out there that do a lot worse job of condoning violence and evil actions that will have more impact than D&D adventures ever will. But the fact remains, D&D is an immersive game, where role playing takes on a deeper quality than any computer game.

It's always the same argument for censorship, what to include, what not to include. It's a fine-line to decide what to expose your kids to. Frankly, my sister doesn't let her son watch Harry Potter because there's witches in it, but lets him watch The Simpsons because it's a cartoon...

Everyone has their own opinion, but I think there are far more people who play evil adventures on occasion than you think. This is only a handful of people who actually read the forums and post. Many DMers out there are more casual rather than computer-based players so I think the #'s are skewed, I would think like 10-15% of people have had on occasion played an evil campaign.

I also had another idea how to incorporate an adventure so both good/evil plotlines could take advantage of. You could make a "neutrally aligned" adventure which does not explicitly define the necessary alignment qualifications for both PC's and NPC's in the adventure. This would allow readers to at least be able to play the adventure in either direction without having to make so many alignment changes.

And for the record I agree with Steve Greer above, I don't believe that most adventures can be easily adapted to evil campaigns. There's often too much evil cleric/good paladin things to work around which often requires a complete NPC character change.

And I really doubt there are a lot of evil campaigns out there run by anyone 25+. Its something you may dabble with in your teens but thats about it.

Excuse me? That's like saying there aren't very many homosexuals because I don't know any. Sorry to be a little off-beat, but I'm not here to debate your opinion on what makes a good campaign. That's purely speculative and absolutely independent of the issue.

I shouldn't have to quote the saying "Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder or One Man's Poison is another Man's Drink" or whatever they say, you get the idea.

There are lots of Scenarios in Dungeon that I don't really care for and it has nothing to do whether it is good/evil. It simply doesn't interest me. Having more variety is the spice of life and I think adding a non-good (if that's a better word) adventure would be interesting every several issues.

Like Koldoon said above, it's not like we're asking for every issue, just one every now and then as a special addition or rare print.

I'm very impressed by your replies James. I may have to consider writing what I consider a PG-13 evil adventure and submit it. The only issue that I have isn't that it wouldn't get published, but that there would be a lack of adequate response after submission. If someone receives a blanket statement from Dungeon "Thank you for your submission, unfortunately we cannot publish your adventure as written. We appreciate all of your efforts and your continued contributions....etc" I would probably be a little frustrated and disappointed that a middle ground between editors and writers couldn't be established.

At very least, maybe a scenario with neutral-based encounters where it could swing in either direction of good/evil might be more accepted. A slow process but perhaps with a little tweaking it could be submitted without so much immoral criticism. Games like Neverwinter Nights, which is essentially a game where you can choose your own alignment based on your actions throughout the plot-line, might get more widespread approval if transposed into a Dungeon based scenario.

Capitulating to that rather than ignoring it is what earned TSR so much loathing. The old Dragon editorial where the TSR brass openly aknowledged that "angry moms" were determining what it published was a low point for the whole game. That was a disgrace that nobody involved ever lived-down. Is that really an example you want to follow?

First, I fully understand Dungeon's decision as a business to not want to publish evil adventures. It is understandably easier to avoid the entire situation than to spend manpower and effort to make a hard situation easier when it is not full endorsed by the public. I work for a very large international corporation so I understand that things like this aren't open for debate when it means losing money.

But, I assume most of you here also read Dragon magazine. Having said that you will know that there are several articles (I can't recall which ones) that were deemed non-G rated. I see this is a kind of double standard in publishing when the two magazines are obviosly tied to one another. There was more grotesque pictures in that one article than there would even be in a low toned evil adventure. Heck, even a "modified" good adventure with a sidebar wouldn't be 1/2 as bad.

I'm afraid you won't be seeing many adventures in Dungeon that send parties into the city to burn down an orphanage so their benefactor can buy the lot of land it's located on for a bag of copper pieces, or adventures that ask the PCs to infiltrate a good temple and assassinate its leader in order to install an evil doppleganger in his place. Adventures like this are better served as talor-made adventures by a DM who understands the limits of his or her players.

It's not that we are asking for blasphemous or immoral evil adventures. Stealing, planning ambushes, heists, thwarting a ruling king's reign, and so forth can be done without too much scrutiny at what is deemed to be questionable material. I don't think we are asking for each issue to have some kind of evil adventure, but at least one every so often would be nice.

At the very least, it would be refreshing to see a sidebar or an optional plotline that we can tailor for an evil adventure. The main use of Dungeon is to help DM's incorporate these scenarios into their campaigns. Everyone has been saying that you can "tailor" these already pregenerated good scenarios for evil campaigns,,,of course you can and I do it all the time, but I also have to do the same thing for my good campaigns when using Dungeon scenarios.

I appreciate your feedback James, but I get the feeling that Dungeon doesn't want to go anywhere with this because they simply don't want to deal with any potential negative feedback.

Change can be disruptive and a little scary, but it is the only way that progress is made.

Well if that's the case, then why doesn't Dungeon just publish some as "Evil" and already tweaked?

I have been a subscriber of Dungeon for quite some time as well as Dragon magazines. Frankly, there are a lot of people who play evil campaigns and I have never seen a scenario for evil adventurers.
Now I know that there could be some legal implications for young readers, but hear me out.

1) There have been past subscriptions of Dragon that had a young viewers notice inside of the magazine, Dungeon could do that for a few of it's evil campaigns.

2) The book of Vile Darkness supplement has a disclaimer before you buy it.

3) The campaigns for evil adventurers can be PG-13,,,I mean you don't have be slaughtering children or anything. There are varying levels of "evilness" and it's not like you have to be doing anything heinous or horrifically immoral.

4) Finally, I cannot being to think that you (Dungeon) have not had any submissions for evil campaigns, you just chose not to print them.

I would like any feedback here from any subscribers as well as Dungeon magazine editors. I think the Evil campaigns of D&D are mis-represented here.