D&D General Should I buy any old Ravenloft books?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Van Richten's Guides would be my suggestion, most of which have some interesting ideas that can easily be adapted to your game of choice.

 

[jian]

The question for me is: did anyone buy and use Masque of the Red Death back in the day, and how was it?

 

[Tinker Gnome]

The question for me is: did anyone buy and use Masque of the Red Death back in the day, and how was it?

Not back in the day, but it is AMAZING. Though I would probably still tweak the spellcasting rules if I ever ran a AD&D 2E game using it.

 

[R_J_K75]

Is there anything good you'd recommend buying?

if I can only grab, say, 3, what 3 should I get?

The 2e Von Richen Guides were pretty revolutionary at the time because they treated monsters as characters in their own right, fully customizable and diverse.

Out of all the Ravenloft books I owned from 1E-3E The ones that stick out for me we're the 2E books, Domains of Dread (the hardcover - TSR 2174), Carnival (TSR 11382) and Van Richten's Monster Hunter's Compendium Volume's One-Three (TSR 11447, 11507, 11613) immediately come to mind as ones that were good and wished I'd kept.

Domains of Dread is a good one book summation of the setting. Only drawback I can think of is that the maps weren't all that great. It was the first Ravenloft book I ever bought and read; and if you own the 5E Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft it's a good comparison.

Carnival is Carnival that travels through the Domains IIRC. It's pretty unique and easily dropped into any campaign. I never played or fully read the 5E adventure Wild Beyond the Witchlight but from what I did read of it I think one could draw some parallels between the two books at parts. Carnival is a quick 64 page read too.

I agree with @Celebrim about the Van Richten's Guides, but I'd opt for the compiled Monster Hunters Compendiums, might save you some money.

The various 2E Ravenloft Monstrous Compendiums are worth a mention too, think there was a combined Vol 1 & 2, and then a Vol 3. The 2E AD&D Monstrous Compendium Annuals Vol 1-4 had some good Ravenloft monsters spread throughout the 4 too, among other creatures.

 

[R_J_K75]

Boy do I wish I still owned my original I6 module.

Over the last 25 years I did 3 great purges of my RPG collection, I'm talking about 15-20 boxes. Every time a conversation like this comes up, I always regret getting rid of a good portion of what I did, even though I'd never read or use them again, I still miss them for nostalgias sake.