How did we go from the only 2 pieces of retardation in the book of vile darkness (prostitution is evil and deathwatch...

its not strange at all to hate the book of exalted deeps while liking vile darkness
vile darkness is a mostly fantastic book to the point when asked to criticize it all most people can come up with is some vague stuff about nipple clamps.

the book of exalted deeds is mechanicaly a lazy mirror and the fluff is writen by somebody who has no fucking idea how d&d morality is supposed to work to the point it actually has spells for forcing people to become good.

I always loved that. When I took stuff out of BoVD when i was doing 3.5, they were always flavorful choices (if unsavory), and my group despised me for it.
When I bring up that the Apostle of Peace is a walking aura of evil magical effect by the books own definition of a non-good spell? Got yelled down to hell and back.

Then again, this is why the book of exalted deeds is garbage as a whole, except for min-maxing goofy builds.

>prostitution is evil
That's not retardation. That's common sense normal morals.

It is since it's not directly harmful. Inconvenient as fuck but not directly harmful. It at least keeps them occupied

There's a difference between "good" as in the morals and "good" as in the alignment. As far as alignment is concerned, forcing someone into a good alignment is a good act, but just about everyone would take issue with that since it's brainwashing.

2/10 bait

Prostitution and BDSM are evil though.

Prostitution is illegal in 49 states plus DC.

And that's fucking AMERICA.

More progressive countries like Scandinavian ones? 100% illegal.

I didn't see a big issue with making Healing conjuration instead of necromancy before. But now that you bring it up, Necromancy should be Conjuration too if it deals with channeling Negative Energy.

>BDSM
>Evil

Cloistered Monks didn't spend their lives whipping themselves and living in chastity for you to spread such falsehoods, user.

That's not BDSM. Shame on you.

It's evil, and like all evil it's pathetic.

The arguments for prostitution being evil are manifold, though it can be argued that the prostitute herself is not always to blame so much as the society that forces/enables her.

It may be a lesser evil at times, but it's still an evil.

BDSM likewise falls into the evil category because it seeks to subvert and even invert ideas about love, trust, pleasure, identity, and intimacy.

I remember an interview I had with a hardcore sadomasochist, who believed that the greatest show of trust he could offer was to allow his partner to chain him up and torture him, because a psychopath could easily take it one step too far and kill him.

Essentially, his idea of the highest level of trust he could offer to someone was to say "I trust you're not a psychopath."

For most people, that's the lowest hurdle you need to jump over before you even enter a relationship.

>Masochism and chastity
>Not BDSM

If the prostitute is prostituting of her own free will, in what way is it an evil? Who is being harmed or having their rights infringed by a transaction of sex for money?

How is a massage less evil than a handjob?

>though it can be argued that the prostitute herself is not always to blame so much as the society that forces/enables her.
Hence the Swedish model being the most moral, criminalizing her exploiter but not her.

>nothing of someone's own free will can be evil
So tax evasion and hate speech are all fine in your games?

Answer my question bucko: What part of prostitution hurts others or deprives them of their rights?

The same part as my examples, yet all three are still evil.

So you're just gonna ignore the second part about not harming anyone?

How exactly is consensual sex harmful?

But neither of those "harm" anyone any more than sexual exploitation and societal breakdown such as prostitution does.

>How exactly is consensual trade harmful?
>How exactly is consensual speech harmful?

>sexual exploitation
>Societal breakdown
Not innate to consensual sex with money-exchange. See: Nevada

It's only BSDM if you enjoy it.

That's retarded.

Same with tax evasion and hate speech. If you wanna go libertardian on me, you have to go full libertardian.

Alright then, explain to me how Tax-evasion and Hate-Speech are harmful and then apply those reasons to prostitution in a manner that makes sense.

As long as you don't take part in any parts of society funded with tax dollars sure go ahead and not chip in. And as for hate speech as long as it's not directly calling for violence spew whatever bile you want.

>explain to me how Tax-evasion and Hate-Speech are harmful
So you admit they aren't! Libartardian alert!

>As long as you don't take part in any parts of society funded with tax dollars sure go ahead and not chip in.
So the super-rich can make it big off the state, then move to their private exclaves and never give anything back. Until things go tail up of course, then they're normal people again.

And lets apply the same to prostitution: fine, but only as long as you (client and whore) don't take part in normal monogamous society. No partner for you.

>And as for hate speech as long as it's not directly calling for violence spew whatever bile you want.
/pol/ detected.

Yes, that is correct.

>So you admit they aren't!
At no point did I say that, I simply asked you to explain how the evils of tax-evasion and hatespeech apply to prostitution.

Nothing wrong with hate speech, except that the phrase itself is loaded.

>god of sex
Who was that?

Wow, I can't believe you're pro genocide like that. Shame on you.

Didn't exalted deeds introduce Deathless? I think they're pretty cool. Or, at least, how they were used in Eberron.

>how the evils of tax-evasion and hatespeech apply to prostitution.
But they aren't evil just like prostitution! All three are perfectly moral!

>Avoiding the question
I guess that means I win the argument?

Well, it subverts and even inverts ideas about love, trust, pleasure, identity, and intimacy, for starters.

If you want to discuss the topic in greater detail, we're going to end up going through about five millennia worth of arguments, and it's quite a ride.

In the case of a prostitute acting of "her own free will", ie. not being coerced into the position, we need to examine what societal pressures lead her to choose the vocation, whether she had opportunities in other sectors, what her attitudes and beliefs about relationships and intimacy are (and whether those attitudes and beliefs are healthy and worth emulating), what her effects are on her Johns and her community, and by the time we've sorted through all that, we have to get into the horror stories involving STD's, stalkers, pregnancies/abortions, tax and financial complications, adultery, misogyny/misandry, and that's just the start of the list.

Prostitution is by no means the worst evil that can be committed, but it's a lesser evil that's often tied up with far greater ones.

In fact, perhaps one of the most evil forms of prostitution was something called "Flirty Fishing" performed by the "Children of God" movement, in imitation of past "sacred" forms of prostitution in reference to temple prostitutes but quite different in practice. Young women were encouraged to attempt to seduce men in order to try and convert them to their pseudo-Christian faith, which is about as insane as it sounds.

If by "win" you mean prostitution, just like not paying tax or speaking hate, is moral, yup, you've won! No one is arguing against that!

>Societal pressures lead her to choose the vocation
Money is a nice thing to have, and sex is a way to get money.
>STDs
Condoms
>Stalkers
Not exclusive or innate to the profession
>Pregnancies
Condoms again
>Tax and financial complications
Legalisation would mean regulation, sorting those issues out
>Adultery
Not exclusive or innate to the profession, again.
You spent a long time saying absolutely nothing about how consensual sex in exchange for money is evil m8

You missed about forty points to weakly tackle the ones you thought you could, and you did a terrible job even on those.

>Money is a nice thing to have, and sex is a way to get money.
Prostitution is not the only way to get money though, and the question is what leads someone to decide that it is the best way of getting it for themselves.

>condoms
They're neither fullproof nor protect against a fair amount of STD's. While pregnancy can be reasonably avoided with using other contraceptives in addition to a condom, STD's continue to spread even in well-regulated brothels simply because having a considerable number of partners in intimate acts inevitably lead to the spread of disease.

>legalization
The issue with prostitutuion and finances, and why it's such a welcome bed for activities like tax evasion/money laundering/etc., is because the act itself is private, and negotiations are expected throughout the process, including substantial tips. It's also a problem with strip clubs, and those are considerably less private and are already regulated.

Those are also secondary points after all, and you might want to reread and take a look at the fair amount you skipped, including the most basic one about it subverting and even inverting ideas about love, trust, pleasure, identity, and intimacy.

Once again, it's by no means the most evil thing you can do, but seducing people in order to take their money/favors is not exactly a noble profession, regardless of how venerable it is.

>what leads someone to decide that it is the best way of getting it for themselves.
They like sex and it's in enough demand that people will pay for it. You're overcomplicating things mate.
>STD's continue to spread even in well-regulated brothels
Gonna need some sources on that, especially considering regulated brothels in Nevada also have mandatory STD testing.
> it's such a welcome bed for activities like tax evasion/money laundering/etc
I'll concede this point.

> including the most basic one about it subverting and even inverting ideas about love, trust, pleasure, identity, and intimacy.
Which is a very vague statement to make. Yes it's not the same as procreational or even recreational sex in a marriage, but you've failed to explain why this is an innately bad thing.

So all spells that infuse you with positive energy are automatically good?

Mindrape is an evil spell no matterr wjat purpouse it is used for.

>They like sex and it's in enough demand that people will pay for it. You're overcomplicating things mate.

Liking sex, and liking sex with strangers/clients are two separate things.

>Gonna need some sources on that, especially considering regulated brothels in Nevada also have mandatory STD testing.

The Nevada situation is interesting, because there are only 19 legal brothels employing about 200 women (less than 1% of all of Nevada's prostitutes), and even within that small sample there are still reports of STDs, though admittedly they're still low enough not to sound any warning bells. But, health inspections and interviews with prostitutes have revealed that they're rather lax with the precautions they take.

>Which is a very vague statement to make.
Largely because I don't know what kind of values you have and whether it's worth going much deeper into this argument. Most people recognize prostitution as wrong because it conflicts with multiple core values they hold, but if you lack those core values, there's really no way to explain anything to you.

It's like if the discussion was "Murder is wrong", and you didn't believe that people have a right to live, I'd be forced to go the long way around and talk about population statistics and what murder costs a taxpayer, in hopes that at the very least you had self-interest in mind.

Prostitution is hardly an ideal occupation, with 80% of the legal prostitutes in Nevada reporting they were unhappy with their job. It's not something we want to encourage our sisters, daughters, brothers, sons, or friends to take up, because it is an occupation that distorts and trivializes intimacy dramatically.

We can talk about things like objectification, societal pressures, putting money as a chief priority, seduction and taking advantage of lust, but I really have no idea what values you might hold if you're arguing there's nothing innately wrong with people offering up their bodies in exchange for money.

What are the coolest things from Book of Vile Darkness?

Souls and Liquid Pain as currency/power. There's a lot of interesting ways they're utilized in the book, including as incredibly powerful material components to boost up spells, as well as being necessary for powering up a zombie spewing cauldron. The methods for harvesting them are also pretty cool, as well as the rules for unholy sacrifices, even if they're just begging to be broken.

Some of the most interesting spells in the game. Mindrape and Apocalypse from the Sky are two spells that could easily be the center of an entire campaign, and Soul's Treasure Lost and Love's Pain are rather unique for dealing damage not to the target, but to what the target cares about. There's plenty more cool spells, but sadly most are just spells with an "evil" flavor.

The Drug rules from Lords of Darkness were ported over and expanded upon, and those are always interesting, even if they suffer from weird GP costs like poisons do. There's also cool poisons and diseases to make players really regret messing with someone, which is a great way to build up hate, which makes their final defeat all the more cathartic.

The Demon Princes and Archdevils are always cool.

And there's also a bunch of really neat items and artifacts. The Despoiler of Flesh stands out, because its effect is essentially unique and ridiculously powerful in the game of D&D.

I'm a different person. My cardinal values are liberty and equality for all, and as much prosperity for all as can be realistically achieved. Lay your reasons on me.

Also, Book of Exalted Deeds was, in my opinion, mostly quite good except for one or two stupid things.

>Also, Book of Exalted Deeds was, in my opinion, mostly quite good except for one or two stupid things.

Absolutely disgusting.

I have nothing but contempt for you, and cast you from my sight. Begone, you insufferable wretch, and may you share the company of rapists and murderers.

I agree with him, it's pretty good tuff.

"Liberty" and "Equality" are very vague, alongside the question of what is prosperity and what it means to realistically achieve it. I've often found that Liberty in particular is used in countless different ways, but I might as well give it a shot.

By choice, most people do not want to be prostitutes. Prostitution does not serve a vital role in the community, and most studies actually conclude it is detrimental. The people who do prostitute themselves typically lack education and skills to pursue other vocations, and prostitution, despite being illegal, ends up as their most promising vocation. Here, prostitution is a symptom and enabler of many different interconnected problems, and encouraging it only emboldens the rest. It infringes upon Liberty by preventing people from seeking out meaningful and constructive vocations that they would otherwise choose.

That's of course talking about a purely ideal form of prostitution, and ignoring its reality, where Liberty is strictly denied the legal prostitutes of Nevada and even more strictly denied to illegal prostitutes, many who are effectively slaves.

As far as Equality goes, prostitution is an interesting yo-yo of inequality, depending on what values you might have. For the most part, it's the exploitation of women and children, but depending on your values, it could also be seen as the exploitation of men, as the John's are effectively seduced. While the former is the major reason why prostitution is criminalized, the latter should not be overlooked in regards to the hypothetical scenario where the prostitute is willing in the full definition of that term.

It's evil in a similar way to how Alcohol bottlers and distributors do their best to maintain and enable the people who make up the overwhelming majority of their profits, binge-drinkers and alcoholics. For prostitution to be a profitable business, people need to be sexually frustrated to relatively extreme levels.

i hope to have an adventure involving apocalypse from the sky one day its a great clock to be racing against

one thing i liked is not every spell was an evil spell they took the opportunitys to use some darker themes allowed by the book to give normal partys some nice toys as well.

bone blade should not have been an evil spell though although i suppose if it was not it would have to be a combination transmutation/necromacy spell

That starts to get into a weird territory where most magic can be thought of as conjuring different forces/elements/etc.

Conjuration being the summoning of complex items (such as chairs and shit, or other beings from planes) being different from bringing forth elemental power, or necromatic power, makes more sense.

Maybe healing spells should have been it's own school though. or a subschool of abjuration

the vermin lord is really cool
the souleater is pretty good to

for creatures i like the eye of fear and flame

death rock is a pretty neat artifact

The eight schools of magic are a wizard thing. Necromancy and healing operate on the same principles, but the school is called "necromancy" because that's what wizards do with it, since they can't use healing spells the way clerics can.