Café de Nuit

I was only curious if anyone uses the 'Gothic Earth' setting in any time period prior to its recommended starting date? If someone has, how did you and those with you enjoy it?

If you could explain how you felt about it and why, it would be interesting. Thanks!

** Doesnt just have to be Gothic Earth, could simply be a game set somewhere in the 'real' earth prior to modern times.

I've considered it, to be sure. The Seven Seas setting could be very useful if you want to run a MotRD game in the 16th or 17th centuries. I also bought a copy of the very interesting Colonial Gothic and Witchfinder RPGs with an eye towards using them in a pre-1890s Gothic Earth game...

I once ran a one-off set in Qing Dynasty China (1890s). The setting was very much an "empire in decline" with unstoppable drugs coming in from outside and foreign navies and armies decimating native populations. Because China had so many stagnant technological areas, in many ways it was still a pre-modern society even though it was the same time era as post-Enlightenment Europe. Some areas of technology had no reason to progress beyond 1600s, because of the availability of manpower and the unnecessity of mechanization.

The primary clash was between the Harmonious Fists (Boxer Rebels) and the foreigners, with the ossified Qing Imperial Bureaucracy as a distant power player. I threw in some mystical background agendas too, with a few people trying to push back the fearsome future arrival of the "Emissary of the Red Death" in Hunan province. In the end, the players were able to eliminate all three powers in the immediate area, leaving the community relatively free.

In the end, the PCs received a final dinner in thanks from a local farmer named Mao, whose very young son is the Red Emissary the mystics spoke of.

A 2nd edition book called Chronomancer, which detailed time-travel magic, states that the various 2nd edition "Historical Reference" books were basically detailing the past of the Gothic Earth, so you could use those as a basis, though you'll probably have to convert the rules.

Green Ronin had put out a line of d20 settings on earth known as "Mythic Vistas" which detailed various periods such as ancient Rome, Biblical Judea, and the Caribbean of the "Golden Age of Piracy" (1690-1720). You'd have to make some changes based on the MotRD rules and setting (corruption of magic, etc.), but they're a handy reference and have some neat prestige classes and monsters.

There's also the Mythic Vistas: Medieval Player's Handbook which could come in handy...

d20 Past would be pretty helpful as well, one of the periods it covers is "The Age of Reason," covering 1450 through 1700.

Actually, now that I think about it, d20 Past's Industrial Age rules and "Shadow Stalkers" setting are better suited to the core MotRD setting than White Wolf's "attempt" (seriously, the WW MotRD is 2e rules with a few words changed )

That's not completely true...

They also added half a page based on women's attire.

And I was just thinking of spending $100 to get MotRD 3.5. Should I save my money?

I certainly wouldn't pay $100 for the book! I got mine for $5 at a book sale...

I believe it exists for pretty cheap in .pdf format. Check DriveThruRPG

Higginz wrote:And I was just thinking of spending $100 to get MotRD 3.5. Should I save my money?

Save your money.

I would recommend getting the Masque of the Red Death Red Box set for 2nd edition, and / or the book D20 Past.

In the end, the PCs received a final dinner in thanks from a local farmer named Mao, whose very young son is the Red Emissary the mystics spoke of.

That's an awesome storyline. I've thought about introducing my players to something like this, but the political intrigue I think would be too much for me to handle, and may bore my players, but I still think it's a cool storyline. Great job!

Higginz wrote:And I was just thinking of spending $100 to get MotRD 3.5. Should I save my money?

It is a great book but certainatly not worth $100.

Loethadai the Lurker wrote:

In the end, the PCs received a final dinner in thanks from a local farmer named Mao, whose very young son is the Red Emissary the mystics spoke of.

That's an awesome storyline. I've thought about introducing my players to something like this, but the political intrigue I think would be too much for me to handle, and may bore my players, but I still think it's a cool storyline. Great job!

Thanks! You definitely have to pick your storylines to suit your players, and I was lucky that this particular group had a fair number of people who were interested in Chinese culture, language, or history (or who were Chinese descent themselves).

For my gaming groups comprised of Western players, I can well understand that the initial focus of the campaign on the Western powers as unsympathetic powers would probably kill off a lot of the gamer interest. I've done a few adventures in matriarchies (where the gaming group's gender added an interesting cultural viewpoint) and also involving the liberation of slaves (which can be very powerful with players whose own ancestors were slave workers) but you do have to be careful in fitting the tale to the audience.

Yes, I've thought of trying to run Asian oriented games, but to be honest, I'm just not well versed enough in their cultures to effectively run a game in that setting. At least, not for my standards. My players, and I place a high emphasis on our role-playing/acting abilities, and I can't speak for my players personally, but as for myself, I'm terrible at role-playing Asian Characters. When the mood is supposed to be serious, it ends up being comical due to my terrible attempts at Asian accents. LOL! I can do just about ANY other accent rather well. Unfortunately, when it comes to Asian, I end up sounding like a very bad Mr. Chan from the old Black and White murder mystery films. LOL!

The other thing that has me stymied, is the political aspects of the Asian settings. China for instance, is steeped in political intrigue. Plots within plots, and subplots within subplots. It can get very confusing even for me, and I'm the GM who is supposed to know, and understand every aspect of the game storyline. I can only imagine how confusing it might be for the players. This is why, I've shied away from doing this type of setting. I still use political intrigue in my games occasionally, but I keep it rather light. Only enough to add some spice to the story, but not so much that it dampens the players experience. I'm currently running a Masque of the Red Death game, and somewhere down the line I'd love to have the characters take a trip to Shang Hai. The city at this time period has at the very least a 50/50 mix of Europeans, and Chinese. The British Empire was extensive in the 1890's, so I think I can pull off a good adventure or two in this setting rather well. We'll see.

for an asian setting, would it be a good idea to use the Legacy of the five rings source books, which are set in a mythical japanese setting if I am not mistaken. I think it could be useful especially if using it for a d20 system, which is what I think it uses.