Charney wrote:How are the character classes? The way they looked when I skimmed through it, they looked like a collection of class skills and a bonus feat each odd level, is it like this?
Oh, so instead of REQUIRING d20 modern, they COPIED d20 modern (this kind of feat progression is typical for modern)?
Provided that I use d20 modern rules by the SRD, having to pay for these extra pages copying the system I know doesn't make me extremely happy. Anyway, I hope they are good. Anyway, I won't buy the book. One of my friends' will (we split the Ravenloft books - each one buying half of them, while the other buys the rest)
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Bought the book this Saturday. Here's the review I've sent to the Fraternity. I think it might be pertinent to post it here, with all the misonceptions and hasty judgements going on here regarding it.
Before starting this review, let me state possible reasons of bias I might have towards this product. I was already in love with the Masque of the Red Death setting for years before this book was printed, so I can’t really claim to be a totally impartial customer. Also, before I decided myself to go and buy this book, I’ve read some discouraging reviews of it, so it is easy for me to be pleasantly surprised by this book’s merits. Its like going to a movie everyone told you would be a disappointment, and finding it wasn’t so bad after all. I now think the negative reviews I’ve read were due to the reverse effect: when you expect a product to be a shining hit, its almost sure to come short of your expectations (hence why many Star Wars fans felt betrayed by the two last movies).
That said, lets move closer to the point.
Masque of the Red Death setting takes place on an alternate version of our planet Earth in the last decade of the XIXth century. It is a sort of “What If” setting that takes the horrors of the standard Ravenloft setting and transports them into the Victorian era of our history. Famous characters like Dracula, Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper all coexist in this setting, and the forces of evil, subtly controlled by an extra-dimensional horror known only as the Red Death, strive to slowly bring about the fall of human civilization and its ideals. Players assume the role of everyday folk, who, through discovering the existence of the forces of darkness and opposing them, get the chance to slightly tip the balance in the struggle through their actions. This is a perfect setting for DMs and players who aren’t afraid to do some historical research and enjoy Victorian horror atmosphere. Playing Masque of the Red Death turns every history book in your local library into a potential game product, as any real world event can be turned into a horror adventure with but a little imagination. The downside of the product is that it is not a complete stand-alone. To use it, you must be familiar with the rules specific to the Ravenloft setting for D&D, as many of those are referenced (but not reproduced) in the book. This tends to limit the product’s audience to people already familiar with the world of Ravenloft.
I’ll now discuss the contents of the book chapter by chapter.
Introduction. Nothing much to be said here. A few pages of explanation on what is the Gothic Earth setting and what its about. This section features an in-game document penned by Miriam Van Helsing (sister to the famous monster hunter Abraham Van Helsing from the Dracula novel).
Chapter One: A History of Gothic Earth deals with the world’s history, as one might expect. This chapter tells about how the Red Death came to our world as well as what actions have been taken by its minions to increase its power, and by its enemies to oppose it, throughout the millennia that followed. This history section is more detailed than the history overview in the old MotRD boxed set, but is still heavily based on it. I was quite pleased with the touching upon of old African civilizations – makes you realize history wasn’t frozen before the Athenian times. The chapter ends in a list of the most significant political events that happened in the 1890s.
Next Chapter, An Atlas of Gothic Earth, touches upon the cities of Alexandria, Cape Town, Atlanta, Boston, New Orleans, New York City, San Francisco, Vancouver, Mexico City, Port-au-Prince, Buenos Aires, Lima, Bangkok, Calcutta, Constantinople, Saint Petersburg, Singapore, Brisbane, Christchurch, Bucharest, Dublin, London, Paris, Rome and Vienna, as they existed at the end of XIXth century. This chapter is larger than its double from the old boxed set, but there’s little here that isn’t paraphrasing from there.
Next comes one of the “crunchiest” pieces, the Character Creation chapter. I must say I was very impressed by how the book handles character classes, though I have to warn you it might not fit everybody’s tastes. The book presents six “generic” classes, called Adept, Athlete, Intellectual, Mystic, Sleuth and Tradesman, and 17 “variant” classes, that take a generic class and tinker with it until you get a new archetype, albeit related to the generic class that gave it birth. For example, the Charlatan is a variant class of the Adept. Like the generic adept, the charlatan is a wielder of arcane energy, but unlike his more “bookish” generic counterpart, he is more of a stage-man. As such, he doesn’t need books to prepare spells, gets bonus to sleight of hand and illusion spells and additional class skills. As counterbalance, he loses bonus metamagic feats, gets slightly less skill points and risks taking nonlethal damage when casting spells, to reflect a more “self-taught” background. The variant classes are Charlatan, Metaphysician and Occultist for the Adept, Soldier, Explorer/Scout and Shootist for the Athlete, Physician, Scholar/Scientist and Parson for the Intellectual, Medium, Shaman and Spiritualist for the Mystic, Criminal, Journalist and Dandy for the Sleuth and Performer and Mechanic for the Tradesman. Though I admit this system is not as flexible as I would have liked, I can’t really think of a character concept that wouldn’t fit into one of those somehow (mostly thanks to the Generic Tradesman class, that accommodates a great many jobs and careers). Then come nine prestige classes: Antiquarian, Artifact Hunter, Exorcist, Forbidden Loremaster, Lycanthrope Hunter, Master Inventor, Qabalist, Spy and Undead Hunter. A list of skills and feats specific to the Masque of the Red Death setting follow. From what I’ve seen, they make sense, and some of the feats actually look quite good.
Overall, I find this a very good chapter, with the exception of the inconsistencies of the Mystic Class (more on the flaws of that class below)
Then we come upon the Money and Equipment chapter, which features a list of items specific to a Victorian setting. Unfortunately, the book doesn’t repeat items already listed in the D&D Player’s Handbook, although most of these should be considered antiquities in this setting, and as such, aren’t likely to be affordable (nor very useful) for Gothic Earth heroes. The chapter features firearms, pricing for transportation and telegrams, as well as a broad choice of items ranging from the typewriter to the tomahawk, priced in American dollars of the time.
Next comes Chapter Five: The Magic of Gothic Earth. This section explains how magic in the MotRD setting is different from standard D&D magic (and even that of the standard Ravenloft setting). Suffice to say magic has got far more hazardous, time consuming and risky to use. Since the Red Death has corrupted magic to its source, casting a spell, no matter how benign, requires the character to make a powers check or begin to slowly turn into a minion of the Red Death. In D&D, magic is part of the everyday adventuring trade. On Gothic Earth it is likely to be only used as a last resort, even by characters gifted with magic abilities. The chapter is complete with full spell lists for Adept and Mystic class (more on the flaws of Mystic spellcasting mechanics below). There’s a brief discussion of magic items on Gothic Earth, but no new items.
Next chapter is Combat. It is not as long as one might have expected, since it doesn’t bother repeating information in the D&D Player’s Handbook. It mainly touches the notions of firearms, explosives, undead-turning, and healing.
Chapter Seven deals with Madness and Mystery. It discusses the use of Fear, Horror and Madness saves, curses and Powers Checks, but doesn’t repeat the actual mechanics (these are in the Ravenloft Player’s Handbook). Also discussed are the topics of Superstition, Omens and gypsies (including the Vistani).
The following chapter is another favorite of mine: A Practical Guide to 19th Century. This chapter explains the way of life in the 1890s, from fashions to social classes to technology to entertainment and so on and so on (it even explains the Language of Flowers). Also featured are lists of noteworthy events in the 1890s regarding literature, music and inventions. It also lists nine of Gothic Earth’s secret “Qabals” (yes, the same as in the old Gothic Earth Gazetteer, plus a new one, called the Necessity’s Children). Though it is impossible to completely convey a whole epoch in 20 pages, it does provide a global idea of the Victorian society and gives a small start for your own research.
Next come the Appendices.
Appendix 1: the Villains of Gothic Earth is the jewel of this book. I found the villainous NPCs featured here are among the most well-thought NPC’s I’ve seen in a gaming product. Simply put, whole campaigns can be made around every one of these villains. Dracula, Imhotep, Frankenstein’s Monster, Professor James Moriarty, the Maestro, Madame Delphine LaLaurie and Sarah Winchester. A most macabre gallery to be sure, though most come from either pre-existing literature or real world history.
Appendix II: Monsters in the World, features new creatures and an innovative concept of “masques”, that allow to tinker a standard D&D creature and make it usable in a Victorian horror story (and it actually works!) I won’t go in too much detail on this one. Limited quantity of new monsters is compensated by excellent quality. Enough said.
Appendix III: Lairs of Evil I’ve actually found a little bland, so much that I started to skip forward a few lines at a time by the middle of the chapter. Basically, the chapter deals with the creation of horrifying locales to serve as lairs to the master villain in the adventure. Not that there’s bad advice here, but nothing stellar either.
Finally comes the fourth and final appendix, Adventures in Gothic Earth. It deals with creating adventures in the Gothic Earth setting and instilling a sense of fear into the players during the game. As can be expected, little of this information is new, but it is still generally good. The section (and the book) ends with a list of adventure ideas for a Gothic Earth campaign.
Now lets sum up all the good I’ve got to say about this product: first of all, great job on layout and art in this book. I’m doubly pleased to say this because I’ve found many recent Ravenloft books lacking in this respect. Its good to see the designers understand that 50% of interest in a horror RPG book is the atmosphere, and saw to it that the book has lots of it. Victorian-style fonts and chapter introduction pages look great, as does the art. The latter is superior to what I’ve grown accustomed to see in Ravenloft products and I’ve found it conveys the feel of the setting marvelously well. And when the book is filled with great material and ideas, there’s really very little I can find to complain about.
Unfortunately, there are things to complain about, despite all that I have said earlier. Inconvenience number one: No world map included. While I’m less bothered by this than some, since I still have the old map from the original MotRD boxed set, new DMs will have to do their own research for something as elementary as political borders, city locations and railways. In my opinion, a map definitely should have been included. Alas, it wasn’t.
There are also some problems with editing at times, which I think have bothered me less than some other readers whose reviews I’ve read. A missing dot here, an inelegant typo there, it sometimes detracts from reading. A better editing job would have caught many of these irksome errors. As I said, this has bothered me less than it could bother some (I’ve heard of a passage somewhere in the book mixing Mystic Domains with the Spheres of 2nd edition, but if its there, I haven’t managed to find it).
And, finally, the single greatest flaw of all, the Mystic class. Three chapters in this book deal with Mystics (Character Creation, Magic and Villains), and unfortunately every one of the three seems to have its own interpretation on how Mystic spellcasting is supposed to work. This is that much more of a shame that the problem would have been avoided had the writers perhaps cooperated better when writing the book. In the end, though, the rules on the Mystic’s spells are unfortunately incomplete and often confusing. Giving the matter much thought, I’ve managed to piece together the following “definitive” system, that reconciles most of the three chapters and saves you from having to alter the character stats in the Villains appendix:
- To be able to cast a spell, the mystic must have access to the Domain that spell is part of. In case of 3rd and lower-level spells, a Minor access to that domain suffices. To be able to cast 4th-level spells belonging to a domain, you must have a Major access to it. For example, you need to have Major access to the Divination domain to be able to cast Scrying (a 5th-level spell that is part of the Divination domain).
- In order to gain access to domains, Mystics must spend Domain Slots (a term invented by me). One domain slot must be spent in a domain to have a Minor access to it. Two need to be spent to get Major access.
- Unlike clerics in standard D&D, Mystics don’t have a list of “generic” spells that all Mystics know. All their spells come from their domains. Thus, you need to correct the spell progression tables on pages 76, 78, 80 and 82 in the Character Creation chapter. Simply add all the “+1”s into the number next to them to get the total number of spells of that level per day. Thus, “2+1” becomes “3”, “5+1” becomes “6”, etc.
- At first level, a Mystic character starts with a Minor access to a particular domain (All domain for Generic Mystics, Divination domain for the Medium, Animal or Plant domain for the Shaman or Knowledge domain for the Spiritualist) plus one EXTRA domain slot to spend as they choose. You can only get this extra free slot once in your career, even if you multiclass into another mystic class. (I deduced the existence of this “extra” slot because all the NPCs with a mystic class in the villain section have one slot that is unaccounted for. It seems logic to me to grant it at first level, with the added benefit of allowing the PC to be somewhat customized from the start).
- Mystics gain a new domain slot each time they level-up in a mystic class, to be spent as they choose. In case you’re multiclassing between two mystic classes, you don’t gain the 1st-level “extra” free domain slot for your second class.
The rest of it should be pretty clear.
Final verdict: a solid 4 out of 5. I would have given it a full 5 had it included a map and clear rules for mystics. At any rate, these flaws should not stop you from buying this book if you’re interested in the Gothic Earth setting. This book is a major improvement from the original boxed set of bygone 2nd edition days, much like Domains of Dread was a great (though not perfect) improvement upon the original Ravenloft Black Box. Highly recommended.
Igor the Henchman wrote:It seems logic to me to grant it at first level, with the added benefit of allowing the PC to be somewhat customized from the start).
- Mystics gain a new domain slot each time they level-up in a mystic class, to be spent as they choose. In case you’re multiclassing between two mystic classes, you don’t gain the 1st-level “extra” free domain slot for your second class.
However, the book clearly states that a mystic who "abandons" a domain can't go back to studying to gain Major access, therefore your second domain slot would mean that no mystic could gain major access in both their domains they start with (as at second level when they choose one of their minor domains to gain major access to, they've "abandoned" their other domain slot).
And that "2+1" spells per day was confusing -- bad editing. I love Gothic Earth but I would say this book is more 2.5 out of 5 just because of all these rules mistakes. Its hard enough to convince people to try an alternate-world game without having to resort to reinterpreting the book for them.
Igor the Henchman wrote:It seems logic to me to grant it at first level, with the added benefit of allowing the PC to be somewhat customized from the start).
- Mystics gain a new domain slot each time they level-up in a mystic class, to be spent as they choose. In case you’re multiclassing between two mystic classes, you don’t gain the 1st-level “extra” free domain slot for your second class.
However, the book clearly states that a mystic who "abandons" a domain can't go back to studying to gain Major access, therefore your second domain slot would mean that no mystic could gain major access in both their domains they start with (as at second level when they choose one of their minor domains to gain major access to, they've "abandoned" their other domain slot).
I consiously omitted that "abandoned domains" rule in order to let each DM figure this out for himself. Me, I find that rule unfounded, so I'll ignore it in my games. If the "extra slot at first level" house rule bothers you, simply ignore it. Just remember to adjust the villain stats in Appendix 1 accordingly.
How useful is this book if you intend to scrap most of the rules contained therein and just use it as inspiration for something with different mechanics?
The Lesser Evil wrote:How useful is this book if you intend to scrap most of the rules contained therein and just use it as inspiration for something with different mechanics?
I forget the origins of Dog-Faced Joe (it's been a while since I read the books; I think he was a Gypsy magician) but he was a body-shifting murderer. Basically, he'd hop into a body and something in his nature would cause it to begin physically deteriorating after a time. Once that began, he'd have to shift himself to another body. Once he had shifted, he'd kill the first body and then eventually the cycle would repeat. On and on, ad nauseam. In the book, Joe caused the bodies to degenerate into a simian creature, like an orangutan; but given that most of Jack The Ripper's victims were seriously ill anyway (Polly Nicholls was a "lunatic", Ann Chapman had some sort of brain fever, Catherine Eddowes had Bright's Disease; in fact, Chapman and Eddowes probably would have died shortly anyway), you could make that their physical degeneration.
Thus, Jack originally would have been Polly Nicholls, and each of the following victims *was* Jack at one time. All of which still leaves a bit of a mystery about where he got to after Mary Kelly.
Better to betray the world, than for the world to betray me.
