Remathilis
Legend
The issue was that, for example, casting a spell in MotRD needed you to look up the spell in the PHB and then apply any unique changes from both Ravenloft and MotRD to them. That's three sources to figure out one spell. Just reprint the spell with all the necessary changes in one place!I maybe used a little bit of the PHB for it but I remember it as being very self-contained. I don't think I ever referred back to the original RL box set.
And you needed the RL box set for fear, horror, madness and Powers checks rules, plus the general changes to magic that MoRD didn't further override.
I still have a weird fondness for MotRD, but I think it was hampered by not being its own game and trying to work within the AD&D 2e structure. As a spinoff to a spinoff, it suffers from a lot of "fix it yourself" style problems. I just think if it was its own thing like Gamma World or Alternity, it would have been far better than it was.