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The Book of Vile Darkness was the first TTRPG book I ever bought, I had good times and more good times with it. A GM once let me use feats and other things from it on a character, and I've used many of those monsters against my players.
I did a video review of the book on my YT channel if anyone is interested.
What are all your experiences with that book?
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I've had a couple of DMs let me utilize the nastiness within this tome; haven't had enough time-in-campaign to actually build a pain farm.
If you're clever, you can use quite a lot of it without bringing the smiting of herodom down on your head... impatience seems to be the hallmark of lots of evil folk, though, so ymmv.
It isn't for everybody; when I refer to it as "nastiness," well... it is. Some groups won't want to explore the verges of Really Evil Stuff. A couple of groups I've played with did, and we had a blast.
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I've had a couple of DMs let me utilize the nastiness within this tome; haven't had enough time-in-campaign to actually build a pain farm.
If you're clever, you can use quite a lot of it without bringing the smiting of herodom down on your head... impatience seems to be the hallmark of lots of evil folk, though, so ymmv.
It isn't for everybody; when I refer to it as "nastiness," well... it is. Some groups won't want to explore the verges of Really Evil Stuff. A couple of groups I've played with did, and we had a blast.
Sadly my experience is that the people I play with, simply don't know how to play evil. However I love using its prestige classes against players as well, a really unpleasant surprise for them.
I get you on that one; while a handful of people I've played with have had a great deal of success in a villains campaign, most folks just don't have an efficient "evil" mindset.
Either you get frothing, kill-everybody embodiments of chaos (which I despise) or you get snarky-but-goodhearted, misunderstood and waiting for redemption "antivillains."
Sigh. How is a would-be tyrant to prosper in such times?
;)
PS -- if you have the patience to hunt through the threads, there are a number of them relating to playing evil characters. I've given up on participating in them, because the vast majority of the participants seem unable to grasp that evil=/=stupid... asking "why wouldn't an evil character betray the party?" as though being evil makes you unable to weigh gain-loss ratios... having a group to support you kinda trumps looting their bodies. Arg. Anyway, if you want a few chuckles as an observer in old posts, they are there.
IME, people who have trouble with playing non-stupid/-disruptive evil are probably mostly the same people that have trouble playing truly good characters, as well. Frankly, not every person can grasp the implications of the objective alignment system in D&D well enough to roleplay good and evil as more than just words on their character sheet.
Usually, the same people that play "evil" as kill-happy psychopaths, "misunderstood" anti-heroes, or shortsighted backstabbers would play a paladin as a self-righteous, murderous "witch-hunter" type (i.e., attacking anyone that "pings" on their detect evil) or a shallow fool.
One way to get people to play evil in a non-stupid/-disruptive manner is to make sure they have a common goal (members of the same organization, etc.), have enforcement mechanisms other than PvP to police characters (superiors that will kill them if they jeopardize the organization's goals, "Mission Impossible" style briefings*, etc.), and be willing to let characters die if they screw up (no "PC/plot armor"). In short, run adventures like spy films or crime dramas (The Godfather trilogy, Goodfellas, etc.) where the PCs are encouraged to "get the job done" in whatever "quick and dirty" way they can (end justifies the means).
*- "If you are caught or killed, [the leader/organization/nation] will disavow any knowledge of your actions." Some organizations that work well with this are (Greyhawk) The Scarlet Brotherhood, (Forgotten Realms) The Cult of the Dragon, the Zhentarim, and (Golarion) the Aspis Consortium.
Well, it's pretty Vile. Sometimes it can even get dark!
(Though, even from the little I've been able to see of it, Green Ronin's Book of Fiends is even more vile, in the "squicky" sense... as their tagline "We got your Vile Darkness right here!" may well indicate...)
IME, people who have trouble with playing non-stupid/-disruptive evil are probably mostly the same people that have trouble playing truly good characters, as well. Frankly, not every person can grasp the implications of the objective alignment system in D&D well enough to roleplay good and evil as more than just words on their character sheet.
Usually, the same people that play "evil" as kill-happy psychopaths, "misunderstood" anti-heroes, or shortsighted backstabbers would play a paladin as a self-righteous, murderous "witch-hunter" type (i.e., attacking anyone that "pings" on their detect evil) or a shallow fool.
All true. With one exception (an evil campaign run in a longstanding group) the thing that USUALLY happens to me is being the sole evil character in a group of good-neutral PCs. Some hilarity possible in such a set-up. Usually, nobody realizes they're harboring evil in their midst, because I'm useful and helpful, as well as pleasant. Everyone seems to think that you've got to be mean and/or nasty if you're evil. Not so; it's far more useful to be seen as standard "good" than obviously evil; if you have to play nice for that, it's worth the effort.
I think the problem is that most people can't separate the moral and ethical spectrums, so they assume evil always has to be chaotic. (Actually a conversations I've had with a lot of my players, since I recently decided to try my hand at lawful evil and everyone I asked about it thought I was a bit crazy for thinking it could be a thing.)
SO this. L/E is my preferred alignment -- I occasionally shift to N/E if there's some requirement from a class to not be lawful (but even then, I tend heavily towards law).
I do wish more people exhibited reason regarding the moral vs. ethical axis thing; there's a reason we end up with nine alignments...
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I have a physical copy of the BoVD, but I don't think I've ever used it in a game, as my D&D games rarely venture into suitable territory.
On the topic of playing evil, some of my favourite characters were evil. Always Lawful Evil though. The mastermind, the controller, the dominant, but never the mad beast. My LE characters tend to be manipulators who seem helpful while they're actually getting you to do what they want. Rarely are they ever obvious about being evil.
Just in case anyone missed them, some more Vile prestige classes were published/updated in the last issues of Dragon magazine before the license was yanked back in preparation for 4e.
Dragon 329: Thrall of Pazuzu
Dragon 333: Thrall of Fraz-Urb'Luu
Dragon 337: Thrall of Zuggtmoy
Dragon 341: Thrall of Baphomet
Dragon 345: Thrall of Kostchtchie
Dragon 349: Thrall of Dagon
Dragon 353: Thrall of Malcanthet
Dragon 357: Thrall of Demogorgon (update to 3.5)
Dragon 360 (web-only issue from WotC): Thrall of Graz'zt (update to 3.5)
Other Vile prestige classes of which I know:
Ur-Priest update to 3.5 (Complete Divine)
Thrall of Eltab (Champions of Ruin)
Kinslayer (Drow of the Underdark)
Black Blood Hunter (Player's Guide to Faerûn), follows Malar
Maiden of Pain (Player's Guide to Faerûn), follows Loviatar
Slimelord (Player's Guide to Faerûn), follows Ghaunadur
Yathrinshee (Player's Guide to Faerûn), follows Kiaransalee
As for the alignment discussion ... yeah, there often seems to be a lot of Alignment Stupid role-playing, whether it's supposedly LG, CE, or something else. One has to wonder if those players have it in personally for some of the other players, or if they're just bored out of their skulls for some reason and feel the need to create chaos. :(