Café de Nuit

The Designer interview for Heroes of Horror is up, if people are interested. There's some good stuff there and I'm looking forward to the book.

But WotC spelt my name wrong!

Mr Drink? *lol*

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The direct link is http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ps/20051010a

It seems they tried to stay away from Ravenloft-like atmosphere and try to insert horror in regular high fantsay campaigns.

We'll see when the book is out, but it doesn't seem there is much for us

Joël

I doubt that the book will be a good buy from the RL perspective.

JW: I've already discussed why I didn't include sanity rules. Though I've been a big Ravenloft (and Masque of the Red Death) fan, I tried very hard to steer this book in a different direction.

Can't be put more clearly, I think...

Doesn't mean we can't take from it what we want and dump all the high-fantasy rest.

Joël of the Fraternity wrote: It seems they tried to stay away from Ravenloft-like atmosphere and try to insert horror in regular high fantsay campaigns.

We'll see when the book is out, but it doesn't seem there is much for us

Joël

But that doesn't mean it's not a great prize now, does it Joel?

*cough*

Okay, let's make an effort as a community:

Until the book hits the shelves, we will all put out fingers in our ears, close our eyes real tight, and continuously chant -
"It will be a good book, it will be a good book, it will be a good book...."
And not stop until we get the book and open it

And if it isn't a good book, I'll know someone here opened their eyes and jinxed the whole thing!

Oh please, don't get me wrong.

I am actually pretty sure it will be a good book. - Certainly better than most of what we saw from WotC in the recent past.

But it certainly seems like we can bury any hope for an explicit mention of Ravenloft, or for explicite RL material in it.

Remember, I retired from the contest because I had already ordered the book!

The book seems to have some interesting ideas.. just the sort of thing to shock the players by throwing something not normally found in gothic horror at them (and erasers don't count here.)

The authors were influenced by Ravenloft (or at least one of them was,) so hopefully they will build upon what has already been done (at least a little.) Maybe I'm in the minority here, but if nothing else I'd expect the book to get me thinking in new ways...

Drinnik Shoehorn wrote:But that doesn't mean it's not a great prize now, does it Joel?

Hey, it will be a good read, I'm sure, as most WotC books are.

Weither we can take parts of it is Ravenloft remains to be seen.

Joël

Especially the maps somewhat intrigued me... Although necessarily more generic than a specific RL resource, it seems like HoH is the best we are going to see from official side for the forseeable future.

I really liked what I saw.
The "I tried to steer away from Ravenloft" doesn't bother me at all.
it is a reference to Ravenloft after all, from wizards of the coast!
I like fantasy horror, so I'll buy this book.

Not to mention that I felt that the D&D rules for fear (-2 to hit rolls or out of the fight) were a bit lame. And I agree with the perspective that the paladin's immunity to fear is not as much a blessing as it seems. A paladin has to fight when everyone else is running away, if only to give them a greater head-start.

I can't say that this interview makes me want to buy the book. It sounds a little too much like: "here's our take on horror, forget Ravenloft books, buy ours instead."

THe PrC sounds ok though and there's not too much of them (which is a good thing).

I actually think this book will be great. You know ravenloft always had a kind of identity crisis between gothic horror and high fantasy. I think this book could actually kind of repair that. The archivist base class is nice.

Also their kind of horror seem original: instead of being based on making the player weak it seem to try to corrupt them(the taint mechanic will probably be great and can also bring explanation for all kind of monster)

Well.... I will probably use it(along with some ravenloft gazetter) to create my homebrewed world(I will use those elves who worship the eternal order as a base for my elven kingdom.)

Mmm... Why do you all use future tense about this book when I have it in hand

It is released today Friday but I got it a day before thanks to my friends at the Valet.

I just had time to browse through it, and I really liked what I saw. It is perhaps a fine companion to the RL DM guide (at least the first chapters). There are plenty of ideas to design an horror oriented campaign, and it is fun to see Ravenloft was definetively an influence ("taint" is similar in essence to path of corruptions)

And I found a reference to Ravenloft. Not by name, but a mention of a "demiplane that entraps all who enters within an impassable border of mist" is close enough I think

More later ...

Joël

Joël of the Fraternity wrote:
And I found a reference to Ravenloft. Not by name, but a mention of a "demiplane that entraps all who enters within an impassable border of mist" is close enough I think