Quote from: Drohem;539641Is Gothic Earth a RPG, or a setting?  I am unfamiliar with it.

Gothic Earth is an old ravenloft variant released in the mid 90s. Basically they took the ravenloft concept (a very loose interpretation of it) and ported it into victorian era earth. It is kind of a new game, even though it uses 2e, because it had to rework many of the mechanics for the time period. One thing that stood out (but keep in mind I haven't run it in years so going by memory) is the gun rules were actually kind of nice.

Quote from: Drohem;539639Which edition?

Y'know?  I'm interested to see where Raven's going with this new version, and there are some things I'd probably see as improvement...  but it's actually given me a real hankering to just run v2 (the 1993 edition).  The new one is a little more pointbuy and a little less "random rolls on top of random rolls", and I actually think tons of random rolls suits the genre.  (Errr, "genre".)  IDK, supposedly we're getting a new update of the playtest rules on Thursday with a lot of changes, we'll see what's been added/corrected.

Edit:  I should be clear - this is totally hypothetical, there's no way in hell I'm finding my way across the pond, this year (I'm fresh out of school and trying like hell just a find a damn job, right now).

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;539644Gothic Earth is an old ravenloft variant released in the mid 90s. Basically they took the ravenloft concept (a very loose interpretation of it) and ported it into victorian era earth. It is kind of a new game, even though it uses 2e, because it had to rework many of the mechanics for the time period. One thing that stood out (but keep in mind I haven't run it in years so going by memory) is the gun rules were actually kind of nice.

Ah, that's why.  My old AD&D GM ran the original Ravenloft when it came out and it left a bad taste in my mouth so I soured on Ravenloft stuff and avoided it.  Fuck the Fog!

Quote from: DestroyYouAlot;539645Edit:  I should be clear - this is totally hypothetical, there's no way in hell I'm finding my way across the pond, this year (I'm fresh out of school and trying like hell just a find a damn job, right now).

Of course, dude, it's all in good fun in this thread.  So 2nd edition it is!

Quote from: Drohem;539650Of course, dude, it's all in good fun in this thread.  So 2nd edition it is!

On the Synnibarr note, I suspect many of the changes in the combat system (although not so much the character generation) will find their way back to my v2 game - and changing "10ths" to "protection factors" (which, instead of factoring from 1/10th damage to 1/100th damage and so on, go from 1/2 damage, to 1/3 damage, etc.) could be a game-changer (potentially in a good way - although some of the crazy damage numbers might need scaling down to match).

Quote from: Drohem;539648Ah, that's why.  My old AD&D GM ran the original Ravenloft when it came out and it left a bad taste in my mouth so I soured on Ravenloft stuff and avoided it.  Fuck the Fog!

And to be honest, even when it first came out, it was a tough sell. But I found a few years later when I pulled it out again (probably around 99 or 00) it worked pretty well for victorian horror. A bit clunky though given they built it on 2e.

Quote from: Marleycat;539636The great thing about this is that it shows just how many different games are favorites on the forum. As it is you have all the major types covered.

Hey, I made an assumption about what you would run when I made the initial post.  Sorry about that, but was I right?  Or would you run something else?

The old Masque of the Red Death? That'd be sweet.

Quote from: DestroyYouAlot;539635Well if this happens, then clearly I'll be running Synnibarr...











... what?  

May God have mercy on our souls.

Quote from: Benoist;539654The old Masque of the Red Death? That'd be sweet.

Yeah, is still have the rule book from the boxed set (but lost all the contents and my guide to transylvania gothic earth gazeteer.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;539652And to be honest, even when it first came out, it was a tough sell. But I found a few years later when I pulled it out again (probably around 99 or 00) it worked pretty well for victorian horror. A bit clunky though given they built it on 2e.

Yeah, I'm sure if I gave it a fair shake again that I would probably get some enjoyment out of it.  It's just that I have a real hard time swallowing forced boxed text, and being railroading by a freight train into a setting or module; which happened often in the TSR modules.

Quote from: Drohem;539657Yeah, I'm sure if I gave it a fair shake again that I would probably get some enjoyment out of it.  It's just that I have a real hard time swallowing forced boxed text, and being railroading by a freight train into a setting or module; which happened often in the TSR modules.

The trick to running ravenloft is to ignore the modules material and the 2e railroading (which the ravenloft line suffered from pretty heavily). If you work around that stuff the modules are still useable (feast of goblyns and castles forlorn had plenty of good stuff to use). The biggest problem with ravenloft is they encouraged gms to do a lot of bad things in their advice sections: use the mist as a plot sledgehammer ("you WILL go to the haunted house and LIKE it), story heavy adventures (The Created Module is a classic example), etc. It worked if you let the players explore and take initiative (and the powers checks system really went well with this style of play). The original setting was actually small enough that I could literally run a whole campaign without planning a single thing in advance if I really wanted to (because i was able to familiarize myself with all the key people and places).

Any Red Steel love? I remember looking over it briefly in a used book store many years ago, but didn't bite via a purchase. I wasn't even aware that it existed until that experience, as I hadn't seen it advertised....nor was anyone talking about it. Was it really that unpopular ? Or was I just a member of an isolationist group, and wasn't aware of it?

Quote from: deMonica;539659Any Red Steel love? I remember looking over it briefly in a used book store many years ago, but didn't bite via a purchase. I wasn't even aware that it existed until that experience, as I hadn't seen it advertised....nor was anyone talking about it. Was it really that unpopular ? Or was I just a member of an isolationist group, and wasn't aware of it?

Oh, hell yeah!  I love that setting!  The audio CD had some really cool skits on it that gave you a feel for the campaign.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;539658The trick to running ravenloft is to ignore the modules material and the 2e railroading (which the ravenloft line suffered from pretty heavily). If you work around that stuff the modules are still useable (feast of goblyns and castles forlorn had plenty of good stuff to use). The biggest problem with ravenloft is they encouraged gms to do a lot of bad things in their advice sections: use the mist as a plot sledgehammer ("you WILL go to the haunted house and LIKE it), story heavy adventures (The Created Module is a classic example), etc. It worked if you let the players explore and take initiative (and the powers checks system really went well with this style of play). The original setting was actually small enough that I could literally run a whole campaign without planning a single thing in advance if I really wanted to (because i was able to familiarize myself with all the key people and places).

Totally this.  Like most 2e stuff: ignore the DM advice, ignore (or fix) the modules, and make it sing.

Also, don't run it using d20 rules unless you want a VERY ANNOYED rogue player.