Edgar A. Poe MotRD netbook

[Boccaccio Barbarossa]

I fear so...

Not only was the group silent for half a year, most of us who really wanted to be involved in a RL project moved on to other efforts... (Like the NPC netbok we are building, for example.)

However, if you want to do your own take on this, please feel welcome to do so!

That's very unfortunate. And I'm just a litle TOO busy with school right now to want to actually run the show on a project like this... well, maybe some other time...

[Le Noir Faineant]

If you focused on being butchered by my Staunton Bluff monstrosities, that would be pretty much enough for me. About the E A Poe book, one will see if one cannot submit something to the next QtRs.

[Boccaccio Barbarossa]

If you focused on being butchered by my Staunton Bluff monstrosities, that would be pretty much enough for me. About the E A Poe book, one will see if one cannot submit something to the next QtRs.

One will see indeed! (in fact, there are DOZENS of great writers from the period I am already accumulating notes on...)

(Am presently reading about your game... I think I can find the time to whack things... but isn't there always time to whack things? )

[Dupin]

Hi Rafael! Well, it's been a long time since the last reply so I hope you're still on this; I really like Poe (I guess my name speaks for itself), and I'd like to see what could be done.
Basically I'm telling you that if you want I may help you, and I refer with "may" because my skills are (I guess) not as good to do such work; I hope I can

[Le Noir Faineant]

Thank you for your help, but this project was suspended a long time already. What became of it is a semi-finished artile for one of the Fraternity's netbooks that I want to finish over this summer. Apart from that, there's not really something to do.

[Dupin]

Well, I hope the article is good , it will be read, and I hope that when you summer it's by June (my summer has passed, I'm from the other pole, and winter is, fortunately coming, I hate heat I makes me sweat like if I were ni hell)

By the way, I'm writting a tale for the contest, I let you know as you like Poe, you can trust my writting type is very like his, which I'm starting to consider as a disadvantage, I have alwas written that way,



Well, wish you luck and see you in some of your 181293082910 millon posts haha

[artemis wands]

I'd love to see something like this. My only complaint with the original MotRD was that I thought it should have been to Poe's "mythos" what the Call Of Cthulhu RPG had been to Lovecraft's. Of course, that would be no reason to leave out the other fine Victorian beasties, but given the name of the setting and the cosmic evil therein, it just seemed like a logical design theme. I had an idea about building a campaign around this theme, but I could never get together a group interested in playing Masque.

In case no one noticed, the ending of Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym screams campaign hook. IRL, Jules Verne wrote a sequel to the Pym story. Perhaps he could retain the PCs to do a bit of "research" for him. Or maybe a descendent of Mr. Pym needs some help organizing an expedition to discover her dear uncle's final fate...

[Le Noir Faineant]

...Twenty improbable years later. Still gaming, still with the Ravenloft books in my shelves.

Thank you for everything, guys!

[Joël of the FoS]

Good to hear from you

[moonglum]

...Twenty improbable years later. Still gaming, still with the Ravenloft books in my shelves.

Thank you for everything, guys!

Still exclusively (or mostly) running 3e Ravenloft all these years later?

[Le Noir Faineant]

...Twenty improbable years later. Still gaming, still with the Ravenloft books in my shelves.

Thank you for everything, guys!

Still exclusively (or mostly) running 3e Ravenloft all these years later?

...Yeah, I know it's been a while. I come with a few surprises in the next few days, though. At least I hope!

-- I don't play in Ravenloft any more. I stopped around the time the 5e adventure came out, and I think I positively skipped the entirety of RL's 5e run since then. No strong opinions on this - it's just that I was always more of a "Southern Core" guy, and that I arguably had already run my version of "House of Strahd". Offline, and online: Here at the Café, by the way. I took another really close look at the 2020 setting and its supplements, but ultimately also decided against using them for my games:
First, positively, because I already had my version of the setting; my Barovia is "my" Barovia, whatever the some new maps might say. Second, though, rather negatively, because I thought that many of the changes that were made were rather silly - and largely useless at the gaming table. Like, even to players who don't read, the arguable appeal of Ravenloft tends to be the very basic recognizability of 19th and 20th century horror tropes. You take that away, you get something else; and that "something" might well serve other DMs as handsomely as classic Ravenloft has served me - but it's not for me, and not a problem with that: I can say your wife is pretty - and not try and steal her, or go home and immediately divorce mine.

Now, around 2015, I started switching towards two newer games that I've, since then, only ever used in contexts related to Ravenloft: One is "Shadow of the Demon Lord", a mix of Warhammer FRP and D&D. The other is "Vaesen", a game apparently designed to emulate "Cthulhu Gaslight" that rather unintentionally ends up displaying many elements known from MotRD.
But all that was a while ago, already: Since 2023/2024, I've mainly been running "Black Sword Hack" (French D&D Fast Play) and "The One Ring" in recent years - but be that as it may, I'm, in my heart, still mainly a Ravenloft DM, and it shows in every game: Whether that is when my BSH version of (Stormbringer's) "Curse of Chandros" begins to borrow stuff from "The Fall of the House of Usher", or when the Low Fantasy, vanilla, VERY vanilla TOR group has to hold out an entire night against a whole army of Flesh Golems. Even if I don't go back to the "setting proper" again, I think this tendency to run "Ravenloft-style" games will probably never go away.

I was barely twenty-two when I registered here; what Ravenloft did, what you guys did, was that you made me read: Ravenloft being based on many literary classics was a great motivator to eventually read them; that I'm still reading horror today, and that I occasionally gravitate to really funky older stuff like "The British Library's Tales of the Weird", that's mainly because of Ravenloft, and because of the conversations and ideas that started HERE. -- This goes out to Joel, to Eddie, to Nathan, to Jester, to Dion, to Ron, to Catman Jim, and to many others: Without you guys, I would be a different Rafe today than I am. Thanks, guys.

[Le Noir Faineant]

Just noticed the most obvious Captain Obvious thing in all of obviousness: This is this morning's photo of my honestly rather Spartan, but uncannily cozy workspace at home. All of you might recognize the map; some of you might recognize the smaller poster above it, as well: It's from "The Pale Blue Eye", the Netflix Poe movie from a few years ago. So, I guess, I'm still a Ravenloft man - in less words than above.

That's really my desk - uncleaned. Wanted to do some personal records - ended up having to fix a Linux problem.

[moonglum]

Just noticed the most obvious Captain Obvious thing in all of obviousness: This is this morning's photo of my honestly rather Spartan, but uncannily cozy workspace at home. All of you might recognize the map; some of you might recognize the smaller poster above it, as well: It's from "The Pale Blue Eye", the Netflix Poe movie from a few years ago. So, I guess, I'm still a Ravenloft man - in less words than above.

That's really my desk - uncleaned. Wanted to do some personal records - ended up having to fix a Linux problem.

Now I just want to see the rest of that room and your house. Looks like an awesome space. What are the piled up books?

[Le Noir Faineant]

Now I just want to see the rest of that room and your house. Looks like an awesome space. What are the piled up books?

Hehe, thank you kindly. My place is really just as big as a sardine tin, and mostly resembles, I don't know, some backroom in some woodland ranger's weekend pad. -- The books at the table might be something you guys consider fun, though:

The big one on top is a long OOP "Wordsworth Collection" tome of ghost stories.
The ones below that one, I think, are all from this excellent series of anthologies:

https://shop.bl.uk/collections/tales-of-the-weird

Those are the best horror anthologies I've seen in a while, since the days of Richard Dalby. I long don't own all of them, but those which I own are all absurdly well done. My usual MO when I prepare RPG games is, I look at them for inspiration, pick a story, and build a scenario around it. That doesn't always translate to an "adaptation" of the story - it's really a starting point only. But this is how Gothic content has stayed at my gaming table long after I stopped running Ravenloft on a regular base.
This also perhaps contextualizes why I'm not exaggeratedly fond of H. P. Lovecraft - I sure like his work, but I also like other stuff. This is why I still occasionally fancy Vaesen, but not the newer Cthulhu.

Now, I want to stress: Me developing this life-long love for Gothic literature, that's on the Frat. Without you guys, this one would have been a phase. But thanks to you, I kept looking for this content long after Ravenloft 3e had gone out of print. And this will be with me long after Ravenloft 5e has gone out of print as well.

Not to make this sound as if -- Grandmother Rule still applies, I guess -- "unduly and exaggeratedly flatter you with the goal of later recurring a favor". Now, really: In 2005, I quit the university course on American Gothic and Edgar Allan Poe. In 2026, I'm still occasionally sought by the people that actually do this literature stuff full-time. That's on the Frat, and on the rest of you guys, for always rewarding my enduring passion for "Gothic Earth" with kindness.

[Joël of the FoS]

Great to read that Thanks for the good comments.