Masque of the Red Death comments?

[DnDChick]

I have a fascination with running a game best described as "if HG Welles and Jules Verne collaborated to write the X-Files." Think Sherlock Holmes meets VanHelsing ... wonky Victorian inventions, grand adventure, exploration, ghosts and monsters, the works. Sadly for me, most recent "steam punk" style books (OGL Steampunk, Iron Kingdoms, etc.) have a heavy dependence on high-level magic and still fall back on the D&D races and classes. I don't want "D&D with steam tech." I want a real-feeling Victorian era setting on Earth, with *some* magic and monsters.

Ravenloft: Masque of the Red Death caught my eye at my NSLFGS (not-so-local friendly game store) and I wanted to see if it was worth the price of admission. It seems to fit the bill of the above-described campaign, but since its a Ravenloft book I don't want to have to get the Ravenloft PHB and Ravenloft DMG just to run it effectively.

I know the book doesn't stand on its own, but instead of using it with the 3.5e PHB as it suggests I figure I can just as easily use D20 Modern for the overall rules set, but if anyone can answer this...

Do I *need* the Ravenloft core books to really use it? Would it play well with combat concepts from D20 Modern (mainly, class-based Defense bonuses, etc.)?

 

[YokoburiKinura]

Masque does refer to the Ravenloft Player's and Dungeon Master's books quite often; however these are mostly on Ravenloft game mechanics such as Fear, Horror, Madness, and Dark Powers checks. If you're not keen on emphasizing horror elements in your game, those books aren't nearly as important. Most of the book is oriented towards the Gothic feel, and the history, appendices, and approach to magic really reflect that.

This book is built on the standard d20 SRD. That means that the classes take the archetype approach. They're divided into six groups - Adept, Athlete, Mystic, Intellectual, Sleuth, and Tradesman, with three or four variant classes in each, so there's a really large number of classes, with a few prestige classes as well. If you're only going as far as adding defense bonuses, you can probably work something out, but if you're going all the way to using the Modern classes, the Characters chapter won't be of much use.

Magic is built on the normal 9-level system but the excellent Magic chapter has quite a few suggestions that can make it considerably more dangerous to use. The Combat and Equipment chapters hardly have any game mechanics at all, being much more focused on discussing flavor issues. There's a web enhancement available at www.fraternityofshadows.com that can help a little with firearms, and the Living Death rulebook at www.livingdeath.org provides some good rules for explosives and firearms. You may find using D20 Modern's rules much simpler.

Overall the book does a very good job at describing Victorian culture, with a chapter dedicated to the Victorian worldview. If you can filter through the Gothic elements there is a good bit there. Discarding those Gothic elements does entail ignoring much of the book, though.

Edit: You may be able to find valid rules for Fear, Horror, Madness, and Power checks in the Living Death rulebook or in one of the "Books of S..." series archived at www.kargatane.com.

 

[DnDChick]

That's the general impression I got, YokoburiKinura. Thanks ...

I liked the classes, so if I got the chance to run something like this I'd use them and just add Reputation and Defense Bonus from d20 Modern. I know armor isn't at all common in that era, so I might house rule in some simple "Armor as DR" rules -- maybe borrowed from Star Wars d20. I will definately use the reduced Massive Damage Threshold rules from D20 Modern. I also have OGL Horror from Mongoose Publishing, so lacking the Ravenloft Horror rules I could just borrow their Fear save mechanic.

Thanks for the input!




Edit: This is part of what I like about d20 ... if something doesn't quite fit, you can shoehorn in something from somewhere else. lol

 

[DnDChick]

A few more questions.

How pervasive is magic in the "Gothic Earth" setting they describe? Are there magic shops in Manhattan? Ladies protecting their skin with the darkness spell instead of parasols? Or is magic largely unknown except to a precious few?

How easy would it be to run it without the magic-using classes, or running it after "converting" the magic using classes into D20 Modern-style advanced classes?

 

[Gomez]

I have a fascination with running a game best described as "if HG Welles and Jules Verne collaborated to write the X-Files." Think Sherlock Holmes meets VanHelsing ... wonky Victorian inventions, grand adventure, exploration, ghosts and monsters, the works.

That's just the type of game that I want to run too!

 

[YokoburiKinura]

Magic is not pervasive in Gothic Earth. It would be better to compare it to Dark*Matter than Forgotten Realms. Most things work the way we would expect them to in 1890's Earth. Magic is very rare, and every time someone uses it they risk corruption by evil. The book encourages every magic item to have a story behind it and an adventure in finding it. So, story-wise, even the lowliest +1 weapon gets treated like an artifact.

Several of the villains presented have levels in magic-using classes and would require some modification if you did anything there. I'd say that if you stick with the paradigm of the world you shouldn't get rid of them entirely, but you shouldn't have any difficulty trimming them down into advanced classes. Like D&D spellcasters, they don't get a lot of extra class features.

 

[DnDChick]

[MrBurns]Exxxxcellent ... [/MrBurns]

Thanks for the input! This now goes officially on my Wish List.

 

[der_kluge]

You could always check out the original Masque of the Red Death boxed set from TSR. It's loosely based on Ravenloft, and I think part of the RL line of products, but there were only a handful of supplements (maybe 1) released for it, but it was a good game. It's 2nd edition, though.

You could probably find it on eBay.

 

[kenobi65]

Magic is not pervasive in Gothic Earth. It would be better to compare it to Dark*Matter than Forgotten Realms. Most things work the way we would expect them to in 1890's Earth. Magic is very rare, and every time someone uses it they risk corruption by evil. The book encourages every magic item to have a story behind it and an adventure in finding it. So, story-wise, even the lowliest +1 weapon gets treated like an artifact.

Exactly. I don't have the MotRD book, but I've played extensively in the RPGA's Living Death campaign. To the average denizen of the setting, there's no difference between Gothic Earth and our Earth. Magic, vampires, werewolves, etc. are things of legend, and the typical person never encounters them (or, if he does, he'd likely dismiss it or apply some mundane explanation to it).

Dark*Matter's probably a good analogy; so is "X-Files."

 

[GMSkarka]

You could always check out the original Masque of the Red Death boxed set from TSR. It's loosely based on Ravenloft, and I think part of the RL line of products, but there were only a handful of supplements (maybe 1) released for it, but it was a good game. It's 2nd edition, though.

You could probably find it on eBay.

All of the original Masque of the Red Death products are available in PDF from RPGNow:

The Masque of the Red Death boxed set

The Guide to Transylvania

The Gothic Earth Gazeteer

There's also a bunch of the general supplements for Ravenloft, which you might also find useful.