Masque of the Red Death comments?

[valhallan]

Here's a good site for some MotRD stuff:

http://www.aquela.com/roleplaying/Masque/faq.html

Sammy Grimes' conversion to 3e I especially suggest taking a gander at after you look at the 2e rules.

 

[YokoburiKinura]

valhallan definitely has some valid points. The rules for gaining mystic spheres is obscure in the d20 book and needs errata or some house-ruling to work. It doesn't make clear that every mystic starts with minor access to All and minor access to at least one other domain, which is sometimes defined by your 'sub-class'; and that mystics can go up to major access in a domain or gain minor access to a new domain every level (but that is made clear in the 2E boxset).

I haven't used the rules as written in the d20 book; for the most part I've used d20 Modern with adept (arcane) magic being handled like d20 Call of Cthulhu.

History and place descriptions are essentially direct from the 2E boxset with minor alterations (by the way, that information is also on the Living Death site).

Overall, I think the Magic chapter is excellent; the absence of the one paragraph that would clear up Mystic domains is the one problem. The chapter on Victorian culture is new; the appendices are pretty good, more extensive than the 2E box. I like the villains, monsters, and advice on adventure creation.

So, whether it's worth $35 (~$23 on Amazon) is up to you. The rules are quite iffy. But the setting is great.

 

[DnDChick]

Thanks for all the input, guys. It is all greatly appreciated.

Whether I get the d20 MotRD or not, how could I *not* at least get the "box" set and gazetter from RPGNow for $5 a pop?

Both seem like valuable resources for background material, even if a lot of the text of the box set is reprinted. The maps and adventures that come with it are themselves worth more than $5.

 

[DMH]

I am in the "old stuff is better" crowd. The only thing that I find useful in the new book is the masques for creatures- ways for them to interact with the public and yet remain unseen. The abilities to erase memories, change to human form, turn invisible and others is very useful for a GM.

 

[Bobitron]

Whether I get the d20 MotRD or not, how could I *not* at least get the "box" set and gazetter from RPGNow for $5 a pop?

Both seem like valuable resources for background material, even if a lot of the text of the box set is reprinted. The maps and adventures that come with it are themselves worth more than $5.

I'll agree wholeheartedly with that, what a great deal.

 

[Psychotic Jim]

I am in the "old stuff is better" crowd. The only thing that I find useful in the new book is the masques for creatures- ways for them to interact with the public and yet remain unseen. The abilities to erase memories, change to human form, turn invisible and others is very useful for a GM.

I'll second the monster chapter, the new abilities each have their own CR modifiers, almost like templates. The monsters are fairly interesting (such as lost boys who drain the youth of their victims, brutes who seem awefully a lot like Lurch, wooden people that wear strange masks they use to transform people into more of their kind) The villains section has a few not included in the original, like Imenhotep and Sarah Winchester.

 

[Joël of the FoS]

Hey, another MotRD fan, great!

The 3e MotRD book has important flaws in it. I do not say it to discourage you, to the contrary! But you should read the errata for this book at the Fraternity of shadows (FoS) site (link in my sig). This errata from the writers explains more on the mystic domains.

You do not critically need the RLPHB to play, even if it woud be useful. You can get a good version of the fear/horror/madness check in the Kargatane (www.kargatane.com) book of Shadows: Fear and Loathing in Third Edition.

The RL DMG is mostly helping setting the right mood in a RL campaign. Excellent read, but not needed to play MotRD. You can get a cheap (at least 50% off) copy of the RL PHB and the RL DMG on the White Wolf site.

The 2e MotRD books are indeed very good, even if written in 2e. Because they are mostly about fleshing the 1890 era. Highly recommended.

On the FoS site:

- a MotRD message board, where fans are currently making a list of many NPCs, events, etc, of the era. Good ideas there.
- a MotRD campaign journal (set in South Africa)
- the MotRD Web enhancement.

Lastly, the BoS netbooks (kargatane site) and Undead Sea Scrolls and Quoth the Raven (FoS site for both) have many lenghty articles about MotRD.

Have fun,

Joël

 

[DnDChick]

Cool ... I will look at that Book of Shadows document. I might not ever get to run a MotRD campaign, but I might do one-shots here and there if my group would go for such an idea. If I can get by without the RLPHB that would be great. The MotRD book alone is expensive enough for a something I might not even get to use.

 

[DnDChick]

Still thinking in the mindset that I would like to run MotRd as sort of a Victorian-era X-Files, I have already come up with a few basic adventure seeds. If I never get to play the game, at least others who do might make use of my ideas so, here they are.

1. William Klemmer was the first man to die in the electric chair in Auburn Prison, New York, in August of 1890. Later that year, grisly murders in Auburn have stumped the police. The victims appear to have been burned to death, and a local engineer has claimed that the victims were electrocuted.

[sblock]The strange energies of Klemmer's execution somehow unleashed a lightning quasi-elemental. Klemmer was executed by Edison's direct current (DC), rather than Westinghouse's alternating current (AC). For MotRD purposes, high voltage direct current has a 1% chance of creating a lightning quasi-elemental when a human life is "sacrificed" with it. After the adventure, DC is no longer used for executions not only for that reason, but also because of the sheer brutality of Klemmer's death.[/sblock]

2. Livestock is disappearing at a startling rate from local farms. No one is sure why, but the mutilated corpses of sheep and cattle have been found with no obvious cause of death.

[sblock]A wealthy man has imported dangerous big cats and one (or more) have escaped ... not all "monsters" have to really be supernatural if you play up the suspense! [/sblock]

3. Chimney sweeps are going on strike, afraid to work ever since a series of strange deaths by fire have claimed many of their comerades. They claim someone is specifically targetting them with flaming arrows, but no evidence of such attacks have been discovered.

[sblock]The culprit is the ghost of a crooked chimney sweep. He robbed wealthy families by sneaking into their houses through the chimney, and has hidden his ill-gotten gain in random chimneys throughout the city. The ghost is able to cast the burning hands spell and is protecting his stash by killing those who get too close to his treasures.[/sblock]

I have a few others, but they aren't even as complete as these idea germs.

I'll post more ideas as I get more.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I have (well, had, really; they're stored away across the country) the 2e version of Masque of the Red Death and its supplements. I loved some aspects of it, and was underwhelmed by others.

On one hand, I liked how the designers tried to weave the Red Death into history. On the other hand, they tried too hard, I think, to maintain history as we know it. That is, where Call of Cthulhu (the nearest thing to compare MotRD to) came up with some pretty shocking revelations about the basic underpinnings of the world, MotRD doesn't really come up with any real jaw-droppers - in my opinion, of course.

The adventures in the boxed set are pretty - especially the schematics of the huge mansion in which the last adventure is set - but kinda blah.

The changes to the classes in the rule book seem to me to be rather similar to what was done with the classes in Call of Cthulhu d20. On one hand this makes the heroes more realistically frail in comparison to their D&D counterparts, on the other hand, again, it's kinda blah.

The Gothic Earth book and Transylvania book continue the trend of blahness. Sure, they have some pretty good historical thumbnail sketches which would be handy for the history-challenged gamer. But beyond that, there isn't a whole lot of inspirational stuff in them.

It's as though the designers held back, and were way too conservative in putting this together. There is a lot of potential in the era - Cthulhu by Gaslight and even TORG's Orrorsh setting showed that. Thing is, those takes on the era really went for horror gaming fun over historical accuracy, and succeeded in their mission. MotRD didn't quite hit the mark. Still, it could be used as a good jumping-off point for customization, much as the D&D Historical Reference books were.