The Dark Powers are gone, instead a definitely evil and scrutible presence exists called the Red Death. Rather than an abiguous crucible for good, or a rewerd for evil, there is simply something perverting magic.
The powers checks, such as they are, are so closely linked to magic use that all else seem somewhat lost.
I will study it at greater length, but it seems to me that the conection between the two worlds is stylistic only...
Ah well.
It also mentions that the Vistani came straight from Ravenloft.
The book mentions a theory of Van Helsing's which suggests that Imhotep accidently poked a small hole in a planar prison. The idea I got was that the Red Death is a exiled Dark Power, one that the others locked away for one reason or another.
It also mentions that the Vistani came straight from Ravenloft.
A fair idea!
The basic concept of MotRD, IMO, was to give some RL adventurers the possibility to play games on the industrial - cultural level.
You may combine it with older stuff like the *Bleak House* box or the classic *House on Griffon Hill* (it is spelled like that?!).
As a stand alone for games on Earth I never considered it detailled enough - however, I found the basic material to be outstanding, regardless what others might say.
I you want to get the best out of the setting, don't focus on the main concept, focus on the images you get when you think of an adventure in dirty, dark streets of 1890 London, think of the sweat on your hands when you walk through a wide park alone at night...
IMHO, although never provided with too much supplies, the old MotRD box was one of the best and most intriguing products of late TSR.
So, I can only advise you to give it a try!
A fair idea!
The basic concept of MotRD, IMO, was to give some RL adventurers the possibility to play games on the industrial - cultural level.
You may combine it with older stuff like the *Bleak House* box or the classic *House on Griffon Hill* (it is spelled like that?!).
Although I don't know why the original MotRD was created, I strongly suspect it was in order to give players a chance to play a "gothic horror" game in the actual time and general setting of one of the most popular stories of the genre: Bram Stoker's Dracula. Hence Gothic Earth and the 1890s. Since not every player character will go to Transylvania, (if they did, Transylvania would be crowded with the vampire-hunting pests!), the game opened up the rest of the world and was able to include London of Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes, etc.
As a stand alone for games on Earth I never considered it detailled enough - however, I found the basic material to be outstanding, regardless what others might say.
One of the reasons MotRD is not as detailed in setting is that it would take up so much space to detail the entire world in the 19th century. Additionally, they are numerous books on the time period readily available at libraries and book stores and info on the internet. That's why bibliographies are included in the book!
I you want to get the best out of the setting, don't focus on the main concept, focus on the images you get when you think of an adventure in dirty, dark streets of 1890 London, think of the sweat on your hands when you walk through a wide park alone at night...
And that's ALWAYS a good idea. Let the characters infer an "uberplot" from the slow accumulation of details -- don't tell them there is a "Red Death" out there. Let them begin to put together clues that the disparate events they're involved in have some common roots and those roots lie hidden in...etc., etc.
IMHO, although never provided with too much supplies, the old MotRD box was one of the best and most intriguing products of late TSR.
So, I can only advise you to give it a try!
Agreed! But try the update, it's probably easier to find.
J&N
Warning the zombies patriots of Quebec are attacking you!
When I read that I first registered zombie parrots of Quebec??? What? LOL!
Gothic Earth has been my favorite "realm" of RL since it came out. I was disapointed the 3.5 book didn't take the material further than what had been done in the Living Death campaign but IMO the setting is impossible to beat.
Yes there are extraordinary differences between life in the core and life in Gothic Earth. Living Death might be as well understood as a variation on d20 rather than a direct transport of D&D but it produces very heroic settings. Magic is a bit different, and much less forgiving. With no effctive armor combat is less forgiving too.
I was surprised to see so much variation from how the Living Death campaign handles corruption from spellcasting and guns. In the LD variation of the world the first time you fail a powers check you merely "draw attention to yourself". Fail a second time and you reach stage one of corruption (which LD handles as being able to be cleansed with a Bless spell - which admittedly is a method burried in the magic chapter). LD is a heroic campaign where all PCs are part of a qabal fighting Big Red so if someone who falls lower than stage 1 in play is removed as a PC, a PC who has become "tainted" can be cured by the organization between tournament events.
Guns use the old rules from 2E where a derringer does a 1d6, a navy pistol does 2d6-1, an army pistol does 2d6+3 and rifles generally do 3d6 (a big game rifle does 4d6). There is no "threat range" but each time you roll a "6" you keep it and roll again, adding up the numbers. In the LD campaign I had a 9th level character killed in a shoot-out when a lucky navy pistol shot did 42 points of damage. Though mourning the passing of Daniel O. Abernathy I think its an excellent rule/variation because, much like fearing a 1 on an important save, it helps to keep the PCs honest in respect to getting shot. If you do decide to experiment with LD I strongly recomend it.
As to the flavor of the Red Death, yes its is absolutely evil and not nebulous like the Dark Powers. But magical knowledge is so rare its still extraordinarily mysterious. Does it have a body in the border ethereal somewhere? Can it be physically confronted at all? And though there is little gaming material published for it outside the RPGA's campaign there is a tremendous amount of material to draw upon when working in that time period. Two books I was surprised not to see suggested were "Devil in the White City - by Eric Larson and the reprints of the Sear & Roebucks guide from 1895 (or 1897?), which gives you the cost of dang near anything you could want to buy.
Devil in the White City is very readable and is about the storry of the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893 (the event of the decade in North America) contrasted against the serial killer who opperated in Chicago during the same period known as H. H. Holmes. A campaign could pretty much run on the year leading up to the Exposition and the events of the summer while it ran.
-Eric Gorman
When I read that I first registered zombie parrots of Quebec??? What? LOL!
Gothic Earth has been my favorite "realm" of RL since it came out. I was disapointed the 3.5 book didn't take the material further than what had been done in the Living Death campaign but IMO the setting is impossible to beat.
I've been fortunate to play in some Living Death tournaments run by Rucht Lilavivat, one of the Red Death authors and a long-time author of Ravenloft and Living Death tournaments. Rucht is, without a doubt, one of the best LD/Ravenloft DMs ever. Ever.
Yes there are extraordinary differences between life in the core and life in Gothic Earth. Living Death might be as well understood as a variation on d20 rather than a direct transport of D&D but it produces very heroic settings. Magic is a bit different, and much less forgiving. With no effctive armor combat is less forgiving too.
In fact, fewer people rush to play spellcasters in Red Death/Living Death and those who do are perhaps more apt to be cautious about throwing spells around since even "floating disc" can invite the Red Death's attention!
I was surprised to see so much variation from how the Living Death campaign handles corruption from spellcasting and guns. In the LD variation of the world the first time you fail a powers check you merely "draw attention to yourself". Fail a second time and you reach stage one of corruption (which LD handles as being able to be cleansed with a Bless spell - which admittedly is a method burried in the magic chapter). LD is a heroic campaign where all PCs are part of a qabal fighting Big Red so if someone who falls lower than stage 1 in play is removed as a PC, a PC who has become "tainted" can be cured by the organization between tournament events.
Some of LD's rules are meant for tournament play at conventions and in situations where corrupted players can be real trouble for the DM and the other players. In home campaigns, to which MotRD is geared, players can (with the DM's permission) play out the agonizing fall into corruption or near corruption and the tortuous road back, if that's even possible. Masque of the Red Death is perhaps not quite so heroic as LD but it allows for more variance in many ways.
While we mentioned the existence of the White Rose in Red Death, we didn't make membership in it mandatory as it is in LD, which has to have some way to unite characters played by people who may only get together at conventions. Hence, they are all members of the same secret society.
Red Death mentions a number of these societies and allows for DMs to create their own if they wish.
Guns use the old rules from 2E where a derringer does a 1d6, a navy pistol does 2d6-1, an army pistol does 2d6+3 and rifles generally do 3d6 (a big game rifle does 4d6). There is no "threat range" but each time you roll a "6" you keep it and roll again, adding up the numbers. In the LD campaign I had a 9th level character killed in a shoot-out when a lucky navy pistol shot did 42 points of damage. Though mourning the passing of Daniel O. Abernathy I think its an excellent rule/variation because, much like fearing a 1 on an important save, it helps to keep the PCs honest in respect to getting shot. If you do decide to experiment with LD I strongly recomend it.
That's certainly an option for people who don't like the Red Death gun rules.
As to the flavor of the Red Death, yes its is absolutely evil and not nebulous like the Dark Powers. But magical knowledge is so rare its still extraordinarily mysterious. Does it have a body in the border ethereal somewhere? Can it be physically confronted at all? And though there is little gaming material published for it outside the RPGA's campaign there is a tremendous amount of material to draw upon when working in that time period. Two books I was surprised not to see suggested were "Devil in the White City - by Eric Larson and the reprints of the Sear & Roebucks guide from 1895 (or 1897?), which gives you the cost of dang near anything you could want to buy.
Dang. I thought we added Devil in the White City to the bibliography! I read it and I know the author of the society chapter read it. If we left it out, that was our mistake -- as was the Sears & Roebucks guide. Perhaps if people decide to do some book-related research on their own, they'll discover these two sources themselves.
Devil in the White City is very readable and is about the storry of the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893 (the event of the decade in North America) contrasted against the serial killer who opperated in Chicago during the same period known as H. H. Holmes. A campaign could pretty much run on the year leading up to the Exposition and the events of the summer while it ran.
-Eric Gorman
I was a little disappointed in Devil in the White City. For some reason, I felt that the author could have been a bit less distanced in his writing. The details on the troubles of the Expo were wonderful, but the material on Holmes was very oddly placed throughout the book. It did not have the compulsive readability that I've often found in books about murderers (Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and Vince Bugliosi's Helter Skelter coming immediately to mind because I couldn't put them down). Don't get me wrong, Devil in the White City is an excellent resource, particularly for the down-home details of life in Chicago in that time-period and of the Expo itself. I was just a little let down at the end. My own personal opinion, though, and again I do apologize for its omission from the book's bibliography.
Jackie
One of the reasons MotRD is not as detailed in setting is that it would take up so much space to detail the entire world in the 19th century. Additionally, they are numerous books on the time period readily available at libraries and book stores and info on the internet. That's why bibliographies are included in the book!
...
Agreed! But try the update, it's probably easier to find.
J&N
This was no kind of critique - indeed, I like the new stuff and look forward to the upcoming publications!
The point for me is, as I posted on an earlier thread, that people are unlikely to create MotRD campaigns on their ownas they tend to be very complex, but to enhance the stuff so that it fits for their vision of RL - for example, I enhanced the old MotRD box modules to fit into my current campaign.
Anyway, Grimfondle, try to play it! It's worth the while...
Rafael
I would agree that the material w/ H.H. Holmes is a little bit out of synch with the rest of the book. I think part of it is that the story of building the Expo are driven so clearly by old documents, commentary and letters. The gaps to fill in to tell the Tale of Holmes are larger and sometimes Larson takes a few liberties to "fill in those gaps" in a probable way. For example we know of the footprints in his "kiln"...we don't know whose footprints they are. If I remember correctly Larson attributes them to someone directly. Basically Its the same kind of "gap filling" as you might see in the book version of The Perfect Storm once radio contact was lost with the swordfishing boat.
-Eric Gorman
As has been pointed out to me by a friend Devil in the White City is indeed in the list of recomended books. Ooops! Not sure how I missed it.
I would agree that the material w/ H.H. Holmes is a little bit out of synch with the rest of the book. I think part of it is that the story of building the Expo are driven so clearly by old documents, commentary and letters. The gaps to fill in to tell the Tale of Holmes are larger and sometimes Larson takes a few liberties to "fill in those gaps" in a probable way. For example we know of the footprints in his "kiln"...we don't know whose footprints they are. If I remember correctly Larson attributes them to someone directly. Basically Its the same kind of "gap filling" as you might see in the book version of The Perfect Storm once radio contact was lost with the swordfishing boat.
-Eric Gorman
I thought we had included the book in the bibliography! Thanks for checking. I didn't have access to the book when I wrote that so I was just working from memory, which, admittedly, is not what it used to be.
I think the book might have worked better if it had not tried so hard to focus on both the Expo & its behind-the-scenes backstory and the story of Holmes. One or the other would have been much better; in fact, the Holmes story would have worked even better as docu-fiction. Embedded in the details of the Expo as it is, it either gets lost, obscured or, as you say, carried by "gap filling."
Jackie
Agreed! But try the update, it's probably easier to find.
Actually, the old boxed set (and the other accessories) can be bought as a .pdf file for about 5$ on a number of websites (SVGames, RPGNow, etc..)
People don't even have to browse ebay these days, except if they want the paper version of course ;)
Actually, the old boxed set (and the other accessories) can be bought as a .pdf file for about 5$ on a number of websites (SVGames, RPGNow, etc..)
People don't even have to browse ebay these days, except if they want the paper version of course ;)
I tried to buy a .pdf copy of one of the old Ravenloft products and couldn't get the download to work -- it turns out there was some other file I needed to download and didn't, and I wasn't able to go back and get the second file.
So I gave up and borrowed a copy until a friend could get me one on e-bay...
Because of that, I'm always a little hesitant to buy downloads of files.
Jackie
People don't even have to browse ebay these days, except if they want the paper version of course ;)
Or they want **** Bleak House, which is not available as pdf.
Or they want **** Bleak House, which is not available as pdf.
Personally, I miss the boxed sets. They always made you feel like you were getting so much stuff! But they must have been awfully expensive to produce...specially the boxes themselves. And a packaging nightmare, to boot!
Still, they were cool!
Jackie
I tried to buy a .pdf copy of one of the old Ravenloft products and couldn't get the download to work -- it turns out there was some other file I needed to download and didn't, and I wasn't able to go back and get the second file.
So I gave up and borrowed a copy until a friend could get me one on e-bay...
Because of that, I'm always a little hesitant to buy downloads of files.
Jackie
I am sorry you had problems of that kind. Are you talking about SVGames? I know their download is a bit weird compared to, say, RPGNow.
RPGNow gets you everything in one mega-download (thus you need a good connection)
SVGames gives you parts of the products you want for free but, to make it work, you have to buy and download the last part and then assemble them with Winsplit (which you can download for free on their website). That software is very easy to use if you read the short instructions readily available.
I have bought quite a few pdf myself and, while I have run into problems about 5% of the time, I have always found the webmasters of the download sites to be both friendly and eager to help (even when it was a result of a mistake on my part :P ). Thus, it surprises me you couldn't get what you paid for
Apart from some old accessories no one has apparently bothered to scan (yet), I would say 90% of what TSR ever produced (in any setting) is now available.. which is a huge improvement compared to having to bid on ebay to get it. Of course, nothings beats the paper version but pdf take a lot less space in your library and are much easier to transport when you move to a new house ;)
As a Dm, I need to make my little notes on the pages, just need to touch
the book I am working with, reading it when I chill out (?) on by sofa...The main problem with the pdf - retailers is that to print the books comes you at least as expensive as if you would buy them on ebay!...
I like the old boxes and buy them whenever I can! They have so much great stuff with them... Actually, the world map of the original MotRD was a nice additon to the other posters on my wall...
I hunger for the Bleak House box for quite a while, too...
The main problem with the pdf - retailers is that to print the books comes you at least as expensive as if you would byúy them on ebay...
quite right there, I used a whole colour cartridge on printing the Gothic Earth Gazetteer....
I like the old boxes and buy them whenever I can! They have so much great stuff with them... Actually, the world map of the original MotRD was a nice additon to the other posters on my wall...
Sigh.... the contents of those box sets..... books, maps, card handouts, even in some transparent overlays like the old Black Box..... not to mention RPGA photocopied sheets and cataloges!
I hunger for the Bleak House box for quite a while, too...
So to did I.... and I have to say if you can get an original boxed copy, it's worth it's money I've found since getting one last year for around a Tenner (the box cover has faded a bit, but it was almost still sealed, the shrinkwrap was torn but still holding the box shut... Just... until it had a little Accident :D )
For printing out your stuff I recommend to go to a professional copy shop - it's cheaper than buying new ink for your home pc.
Not anymore for me
I can get 10 colour and 10 Black Cartridges for £40 that's £2 each! :D
At the university I can have a pdf printed (depending on the length of pages) and *put in book form* for about 5⁈, but if I wasn't a student, it would cost me about three times as much...
Not anymore for me
I can get 10 colour and 10 Black Cartridges for £40 that's £2 each! :D
I used to get cheap ink cartridges as well, but the printer I used packed up and can't afford to get another just yet. Need to overhaul the rest of the pc first ;)