Thanks so much. We just got our copies yesterday and are very pleased with how it turned out.
Jackie & Nicky
1 being WORST and 10 being BEST
Layout: 8 of 10
Setting Info: 8 of 10
Material of use in a concrete adventure/campaign: 6 of 10
Price: 6 of 10
OVERALL: 7,00 - GOOD
Nice for reading, but a bit too expensive to buy it if you aren't sure if you need it for your campaign.
As a Ravenloft enthusiast, however, I think about buying it in spite of that.
A question if I may?
I loved the book but was disappointed not to find the family trees that graced the pages of Chapter XIV of the old Realm of Terror boxed set. I think those were terrific and allowed someone to have a general view of any of the DL families "at a glance". Given how long ago RoT has been published, I confess I was really looking forward to a reprint of that material (albeit one "corrected" to include the latest info).
Why weren't they included?
I don't know... $29.00 is a pretty good buy for a sourcebook in Canada. Most books find themselves hovering between 35 and 45.
Sure.
It always depends on if you REALLY need the book for gaming or just want to collect all that's out there.
I personally refuse to print out or to buy a sourcebook at the full price if I don't especially need it for what I am doing.
I am just a poor student, and, you're right, 30$ is a lot of cash...
Besides, in my review, I judged the book to be GOOD, what means
*well done and quite interesting, a worth addition to any gaming library, but not essencially important for Players or DMs.*
If you have no plans for a concrete game or are a VERY devoted fan, I think such an amount of money is not really justified to be spent.
There are tons of free fan - web modules and info you can enjoy instead...
------------------------------------------------
Don't want to spoil the business to noone, but that has to be said, IMO.
JackieandNicky,
A question if I may?
I loved the book but was disappointed not to find the family trees that graced the pages of Chapter XIV of the old Realm of Terror boxed set. I think those were terrific and allowed someone to have a general view of any of the DL families "at a glance". Given how long ago RoT has been published, I confess I was really looking forward to a reprint of that material (albeit one "corrected" to include the latest info).
Why weren't they included?
Not official, but I would think that space was the main reason. You would have lost about 2 families to add them in. Also, the family tree means that geneology is more concrete. Instead of being able to flesh the characters out as your NPC of PC, you'd be stuck with Cannon names. Sure, you could change that, but there are a great number who would have been livid.
Not official, but I would think that space was the main reason. You would have lost about 2 families to add them in. Also, the family tree means that geneology is more concrete. Instead of being able to flesh the characters out as your NPC of PC, you'd be stuck with Cannon names. Sure, you could change that, but there are a great number who would have been livid.
Oh, come on! They wouldn't have eaten more than a dozen pages. I would gladly have paid a few more $ to have them. Moreover, even back in RoT those family trees had many ? marks on them.. which is just what you need if you want to insert a PC/NPC (not to mention almost none of the names had any kind of background at the time)
First of all, I had no input into Legacies of Blood. So, I don't know the "real" reason why the family trees were not put in. Personally, I'm okay with them not being in there. Would it have been nice? Sure.
But second and more importantly, I want to address the idea of extra space. Simply because this topic has come up often.
You can't "stick in" an extra dozen pages into a book. You have a limited number of pages you are allowed to work with, and a limited word count. You can't exceed these numbers. Hey, I would have gladly paid an extra $5 to see the 50 more minutes of cut footage from Return of the King, but they simply couldn't make the movie that long. Ultimately, you have to say, "here's how long the book's going to be. Period."
There's also a contractual issue. Authors are paid by the word. They sign a contract before they even write stipulating how much they are going to write. If I have a bunch of extra stuff, I can't just push it on the company.
Anyways, we've been given permission to release unpublished work now, so if authors do have extra stuff, they can now release it. However, it is up to the individual authors to do so. It is not the responsibility of the developers or companies to do so.
I don't know... $29.00 is a pretty good buy for a sourcebook in Canada. Most books find themselves hovering between 35 and 45.
Given the price on amazon.com being $15.63 and the current exchange rate between the British Pound and US Dollar, I can get Legacy of Blood for about £8 plus postage. Even with postage it makes it alot cheaper than I can get it across here
Rucht, on the web enbhancement subject, can you expand as to whather to say it is material the author cut him/herself or/and material cut by the publisher?
Oh, and I am very much looking forward tothe extended Return of the King, 48 more minuets including the Mouth of Sauron, Voice of Saruman and Aragorn tearing the grip of the Palantir from Sauron... bring it on!
JackieandNicky,
A question if I may?
I loved the book but was disappointed not to find the family trees that graced the pages of Chapter XIV of the old Realm of Terror boxed set. I think those were terrific and allowed someone to have a general view of any of the DL families "at a glance". Given how long ago RoT has been published, I confess I was really looking forward to a reprint of that material (albeit one "corrected" to include the latest info).
Why weren't they included?
Legacy of the Blood was not intended as a reprint of anything -- it was supposed to provide material that would allow for player characters who were members of some of the major families in Ravenloft.
And it's true, you can't stick in a few extra pages -- they have to be in sets of 16 or 32 pages (called folios, I believe) which has to do with the way the pages are bound into book form. Arthaus also can't usually afford luxuries like fold out maps or extra enclosures, either.
That's the best answer I can give. I know that many people wanted the family trees, but we were more focused on the ambience of the families.
J&N
That's the best answer I can give. I know that many people wanted the family trees, but we were more focused on the ambience of the families.
J&N
Ah well.. thank you for the info.
Maybe as a web enhancement, some day...
Ah well.. thank you for the info.
Maybe as a web enhancement, some day...
Perhaps there are some genealogy afficianados out there who would like to re-design the family trees with the expanded info? Or an "insert your branch here" space...
It seems to me, though, that the family trees might, in fact, be a little too restrictive for people who wanted to insert their characters but not in the available blank spaces.
As an aside, I have a gaming friend whose main interest lies in creating extremely detailed family histories for her characters. She's not that terribly interested in playing the character, just in coming up with the character's ancestors!
J&N
Step Two: but LotB
Step Three: Photocopy pages 121-125, 127
Step Four: write new names from LotB into the small blanks provided by the Black Box, add new lines where appropriate
-OR-
Get graph paper and design a DIY set of trees.
I know, just being some combination of devil's advocate and complete bastard. Looking bad it was a tad harsher than I wanted, sorry.
Jester,
It's not as harsh as you might think unless you read it that way. ;) On the other hand, Step One might be a little harder than it seems. I don't know how available the old Black Box is nowadays.
Or, to phrase it in South Park terms:
Step One: Collect underpants.
Step Two: ?
Step Three: Success!
I do think the idea of designing your own family trees based on characters actually played makes sense. Some scrapbooking sites on the web have family tree designs and papers with family trees on them for people to insert names.
J&N
Jester,
It's not as harsh as you might think unless you read it that way. ;) On the other hand, Step One might be a little harder than it seems. I don't know how available the old Black Box is nowadays.
Or, to phrase it in South Park terms:
Step One: Collect underpants.
Step Two: ?
Step Three: Success!
I do think the idea of designing your own family trees based on characters actually played makes sense. Some scrapbooking sites on the web have family tree designs and papers with family trees on them for people to insert names.
J&N
Collecting the old black box isn't a problem. Ebay has it for sale often enough. Not to mention the old Kargatane website had once the entire chapter XIV available as a .pdf download.
Any DM worth his salt can do his homework. Heck, I have certainly spent enough time building my own data base of classes/PrC/skills/feats/spells/etc.. specific to the RL setting not to worry about sweating a bit more over it.
The only problem I saw was with the original material not being reprinted/updated in Legacy of the Blood, arguably the most logical accessory in which to include it.
If it would have been too costly to include, fine.
No web enhancement coming our way? (and your latest post seems to hint at that) Fine again.
But as both a RL fan and someone who actually buys the new 3e line, I think I am entitled to a comment without being told that if I really want it all I have to do is roll up my sleeves and get to work. With that kind of reasoning, no 3e RL book is necessary. All you need is DoD, the Core 3e rulebooks, and a few hours to crunch the numbers
Collecting the old black box isn't a problem. Ebay has it for sale often enough. Not to mention the old Kargatane website had once the entire chapter XIV available as a .pdf download.
Any DM worth his salt can do his homework. Heck, I have certainly spent enough time building my own data base of classes/PrC/skills/feats/spells/etc.. specific to the RL setting not to worry about sweating a bit more over it.
The only problem I saw was with the original material not being reprinted/updated in Legacy of the Blood, arguably the most logical accessory in which to include it.
If it would have been too costly to include, fine.
No web enhancement coming our way? (and your latest post seems to hint at that) Fine again.
But as both a RL fan and someone who actually buys the new 3e line, I think I am entitled to a comment without being told that if I really want it all I have to do is roll up my sleeves and get to work. With that kind of reasoning, no 3e RL book is necessary. All you need is DoD, the Core 3e rulebooks, and a few hours to crunch the numbers
Sorry if I offended you. I'll try not to do it again.
If the Black Box is available without too much trouble, then that's a good thing. I was afraid it had gone out of print or was unavailable.
Legacy of the Blood was never intended to be an update/reprint of the Black Box material. Nor was it intended to reprint the family trees or include new family trees. They take up space that was better used with providing other information. We went in a different direction with LotB, so that we could provide lots of space for player characters or the DM's own NPC characters.
As far as putting the family trees up as a web enhancement, since they weren't part of Legacy of the Blood to begin with and thus were never cut, we don't have anything to put up.
We did say we would try to get some other web enhancements up after the holidays.
Finally, if you want to be strictly correct about things, all anyone needs for a game are the core books. The supplements are just what they say they are: supplements. I know many people who regularly do their own supplements because they don't like anything the game company puts out for their favorite game. And I was merely pointing out that some very cool material already exists for doing family trees that are very evocative and authentic in appearance.
Again, there was no intention to offend.
Sincerely,
Jackie
Step Three: Success!
Not quite... Step 3 is Profit! Now do you really want to compare WW/S&S/Arthaus to the underpants gnomes? :D
Gnome 1: This is where all our work is done.
Kyle: So what are you gonna do with all these underpants you steal?
Gnome 1: Collecting underpants is just phase one. Phase one: collect underpants.
Kyle: So what's phase two?
[Silence]
Gnome 1: Hey, what's phase two?!
Gnome 2: Phase one: we collect underpants.
Gnome 1: Ya, ya, ya. But what about phase two?
[Silence]
Gnome 2: Well, phase three is profit. Get it?
Stan: I don't get it.
Gnome 2: (Goes over to a chart on the wall) You see, Phase one: collect underpants, phase two-
[Silence]
Gnome 2: Phase three: profit.
Cartman: Oh I get it.
Stan: No you don't.
Kyle: Do you guys know anything about corporations?
Gnome 2: You bet we do.
Gnome 1: Us gnomes are geniuses at corporations.
Not quite... Step 3 is Profit! Now do you really want to compare WW/S&S/Arthaus to the underpants gnomes? :D
I was actually thinking more of freelancers...
"gotta go to work, work all night
search for underpants, hey!"
or something like that...
Thanks for the correction and the bit of dialogue. One of my favorite South Park scenes!
Jackie
You've given me new insight into the nightlife of librarians. ;)
Oh, great, now I have THAT song stuck in my head!
You've given me new insight into the nightlife of librarians. ;)
It's actually the night life of freelancers! The librarian sleeps tonight.
Sorry 'bout the song. My bad.
Jackie
The new material was excellent. Having like many others a lot of earlier Ravenloft Corebooks from the original onwards, I had begun to get slightly annoyed at rereading the same material or thinking hmmmm that doesnt match what product Y said 3 years ago.
Interesting twist on the Ba al Versi being almost destroyed (and nosferatu run now according to one of the other Gazateers) although I will not be using that. I would liked to see in future a lot more detail on them but obviously legacies was not the place for that.
I think I put elsewhere -good use of prestige classes. I've rambled on about the scientist before but also:
I like the new falkovinian knight and it is a welcome deperature from 'the talons arnt evil they are just made that way from eating some ground up mush of a talsiman of darkness'. I remember reading that and thinking nooooooooo the whole point being that humanity can give atypical gothic creatures a good run for there money.
Anyway a refreshing change. I look forward to the next book.