Ravenloft: Masque of the Red Death. Anyone have it?

[Achan hiArusa]

Achan hiArusa - are you either Jarrod Lowe or Sammy Grimes?

If so, what's up! Long time no see!

If not, glad to know you anyway!

I'm Sammy. Do I know you, or did you just read my online works?

 

[teitan]

I don't understand why fans get ruffled about Open content. It doesn't really affect us if a product isn't open content so why let that be a decision maker in whether you buy a product? I don't see people swaring off the World of Darkness because it isn't OGC...

Jason

 

[HalWhitewyrm]

For me, it's because I wear two hats: fan and publisher. As a fan, I don't care about OGC, just about value for my money, hence why I have a few of the Forgotten Realms releases. As a publisher, I care very much about OGC, because if a product is closed content, then I prefer to stay away from it lest it influence what I write.

It's not a perfect divide, as you can imagine. I can't simply unlearn everything I have read in the FR books when I sit down to write my own stuff, though it means I have to be ultra careful. I guess in the end it depends why I want a particular book: I wanted the FR books for my game, but I was interested in the MotRD book as a source for Victorian Gothic Horror game content. Since the new MotRD doesn't provide what I wanted it for, I'll stick with the old version, which still works fine for me, and use the OGC toolkits at my disposal to recreate the rules I'll need for a Victorian Gothic Horror game.

Oh, and the reason I don't swear off the WoD is because it is not an OGL product. I wish White Wolf had chosen to open the Storyteller system up using the OGL. Hey, I can dream.

 

[DMH]

Simply put, the history is either identical or almost so to the box set. The only nice additions are the masques (minitemplates that give more of a horror feel to the monsters) and the monsters themselves (mad scientist creations, fey that drain youth, a few others). If the powers, fear, horror and madness checks were in it, it would be worth a lot more.

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

Simply put, the history is either identical or almost so to the box set. The only nice additions are the masques (minitemplates that give more of a horror feel to the monsters) and the monsters themselves (mad scientist creations, fey that drain youth, a few others). If the powers, fear, horror and madness checks were in it, it would be worth a lot more.

No argument here- like most republished campaign settings, a lot of the ground is retread. For someone like me, who didn't have the original, this was a good way to get the material (I'd rather have a book than a PDF). But I doubt that there will be much more new material than has been done for the fantasy version of Ravenloft.

As for OGC, a lot of this is based off the Living Death rules, which I don't if they'd be considered OGL or not. In a way, I suppose that anything done through the RPGA would be considered licensed, and I don't think the orginal PDF had a license copy or content declaration.

Gstor- if you let us know what you're looking to get out of the book, we might be able to give you a better idea of whether you'd want it or not.

 

[jaerdaph]

I'm Sammy. Do I know you, or did you just read my online works?

Hi Sammy,

I used to be in the Kargatane - My 15 Minutes of Fame with that were the Sherlock Holmes MotRD articles in the Kargatane netbooks. I remembered you from the Kargatane message boards mentioning working on your own 3e MotRD when 3e first came out.

Hope all is well with you.

 

[Joël of the FoS]

Has anyone purchased the new Masque of the Red Death?
If so, how does it compare to the old one? How are the classes/PrC/feats/etc.? How comprehensive is it in its world-view? And lastly, how much is OGC/PI?

Thanks.

Some people love it, other hate it because of important flaws.

You can read fan reviews here: http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/...ducts/3rd edition/Masque of the Red Death.htm

Hello Joe, good to see you

Joël

 

[jaerdaph]

Hello Joe, good to see you

Hey Joël, good to see you too.

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

It was a natural for a Anglophile (especially Victorian) like me to pick this up. The 2e version was OK, yeah, but I prefer a book over a PDF immensely. It has its problems, yes, but nothing I can't houserule out. After all, what's DnD without houseruling? Worthwhile to me.

 

[jaerdaph]

In fact I think Modern d20 is too much of a powerup for Masque of the Red Death.

Hi Sammy, if you're still around:

Specifically how so? For example, in MotRD , PCs theoretically had access to 9th level spells (at least in 2e MotRD, I really haven't seen the new MotRD or paid to much attention to the old 3e Living Death conversion). In d20 Modern, they only have access to 5th level spells.