Quote from: Omega;1049082Except the fact is the expensive as all hell glitz art inside doesnt sell the book, and it especially does not sell PDFs. This has been known since at least the late 90s.

Then it won't sell, they would have made a poor business decision, and would be punished by the market.
Your outrage at them daring to take the decision would still be inappropriate, though, unless you're a shareholder;).

Quote from: RPGPundit;1049444Yes, but that's what the print edition is for. PDFs don't have a real print cost.

So basically you are advocating for a plain no art, plain text game pdf being offered for really cheap as the standard for a role playing game.

Funny that you do not practice what you are attempting to tell everyone else what to do. I don't see the Dark Albion book being offered in a no-frills, no art plain text version for $5.

Sounds like you are merely posing as someone who advocates for cheap pdfs for all while exploiting the capitalist rpg book market for all it can bear.

Apparently it was the #1 seller on Drivethroughrpg for a while, so they seem to have got the price point right. As I said earlier, it's definitely a boutique item as opposed to something really needed, but it looks like it's a boutique item that a lot of people are interested in (they got $60 from me after all).

I guess there's a reason that George Lucas kept releasing all new extra special X anniversary collector's editions of Star Wars.

10 bucks per ~100 pages of high quality adventuring is not a bad deal at all.

Quote from: Hermes Serpent;1049573So basically you are advocating for a plain no art, plain text game pdf being offered for really cheap as the standard for a role playing game.

Funny that you do not practice what you are attempting to tell everyone else what to do. I don't see the Dark Albion book being offered in a no-frills, no art plain text version for $5.

Sounds like you are merely posing as someone who advocates for cheap pdfs for all while exploiting the capitalist rpg book market for all it can bear.

No, I'm saying there's a reasonable price for PDF books, reflecting both the initial costs and the opportunity for profit. The reason you need a much higher cost for a print book is that there's an ongoing cost beyond the original creation.

Quote from: Brand55 on July 11, 2018, 06:43:59 PM
Changing Jackson Elias is silly. When I start the campaign in a month or two, I'll be using the same character that I've used in previous runs through MoN as I don't care about Chaosium altering important NPCs to fill some sort of quota. Thankfully, keeping the old Elias is easy enough. I'm not sure about the other major NPC changes as I haven't looked into them yet. If they're interesting new characters, great. If they're just gender swaps much like the way new Elias was basically just a change from white to black, I'll be less impressed.

I'm still digesting the Peru chapter but I've looked ahead a bit. I don't mind the idea of the new plot in New York, but I am worried that it may make things run too long there at the start of everything. New York is huge now with a ton of characters. That's daunting to hit new Cthulhu players with early on. I'll likely use it but only if it looks to be worth the trouble of adding all the extra material.

Oh, and the art. I'm really torn on the art. I've seen some really great pieces so far, but some stuff (especially some character portraits) is a major no-go for me. Another big reason I'm sticking with the old Elias character is that the new portrait for him looks so goofy I actually laughed when I saw it.

So, after having some time with it, how did it pan out? Were the changes reasonable that add more variety and RP opportunity, or cringey in your face? I'm a newish keeper debating on getting it of the older version.

Quote from: Xanadu on October 18, 2022, 12:59:12 AM
So, after having some time with it, how did it pan out? Were the changes reasonable that add more variety and RP opportunity, or cringey in your face? I'm a newish keeper debating on getting it of the older version.

It's been some time, but for me it was a mixed bag. There was some good stuff, some bad. Due to real life stuff, we got about halfway through the campaign before having to stop.

There are some good additions and several smaller plotlines are fleshed out, which I liked. I trimmed out a few scenes in the New York chapter and it worked well. Some of the other changes are completely unnecessary and seemingly done to earn woke points, but you likely won't notice if you aren't already familiar with the older versions. Probably the biggest issue I had was the sheer size of the books; I found them a hindrance to use at the table because it took extra time to find anything if I had to look something up. If the amount of material doesn't intimidate you, it's certainly worth running the new one.

Personally, if I ever run a MoN campaign again I'll be using my 2010 copy as the base and look into integrating a few of the changes/subplots from the new version.

Quote from: RPGPundit on May 21, 2018, 04:25:00 AM

But not to whitewash elements that certain ideological sectors of society have declared "offensive"?

That's EXACTLY what it is, Pundit.  I bought the original boxed edition of Masks when it came out and ran the campaign twice.  I got a chance to actually play in the campaign under another Keeper when the 7th edition came out.  Chaosium may want to straddle the fence on this issue for business reasons -- they've seen what happens to companies who say "we're left, we're proud, don't like it, don't buy it" -- but anyone who's familiar with all editions of the campaign and followed the SJW screeching over the years about "problematic" issues with Masks knows what I'm talking about.

That said, I'm not boycotting Chaosium because, though they may have instituted some changes I don't like, they also haven't deliberately insulted their customers and told us to " hit the road, you won't be missed" like others have done.

My advice for anyone who wants to run Masks is simply to get the CoC rules for 1st through 6th edition (any will do), buy an older edition of the Complete Masks campaign, and use most of your cash to buy the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society's box of gamer props for MoN.  Now THAT'S worth buying.  It's based on 7th edition, but as they are only props it doesn't matter much.

Quote from: Brand55 on October 18, 2022, 11:41:22 AM
It's been some time, but for me it was a mixed bag. There was some good stuff, some bad. Due to real life stuff, we got about halfway through the campaign before having to stop.

There are some good additions and several smaller plotlines are fleshed out, which I liked. I trimmed out a few scenes in the New York chapter and it worked well. Some of the other changes are completely unnecessary and seemingly done to earn woke points, but you likely won't notice if you aren't already familiar with the older versions. Probably the biggest issue I had was the sheer size of the books; I found them a hindrance to use at the table because it took extra time to find anything if I had to look something up.

Thanks, Brand55. I played through 7th ed Masks of Nyarlathotep a little over a year ago, but I wasn't familiar with the earlier versions.

Can you say more about the good additions and fleshed out plotlines?

One issue that I had as a player was what seemed like a tension between dramatic timing and immersive timetables, but that's probably not changed. There were several points when we arrived just in time for a dramatic event, but in-character, we had no reason to think that timing was critical. If we delayed on the trip, we'd still arrive just in time - but if we delayed at the location, we could miss the dramatic timing.

Timing in the campaign is funny, and that's nothing new. A lot of time the books will push on as if the PCs are gonna arrive at X time when a rite or something is going on, but I actually keep track of time when I GM. So if a rite only happens during a new moon and the party gets to the location a week later, then I'll have to adjust and adapt to keep things going since the party isn't going to see the rite happening. That often means I go off-road a bit compared to the published campaign.

As for the new additions, I'll focus on the early chapters since that's what we got to spend the most time on.

The prelude in Peru is a great addition overall. Fans were making Chapter 0 adventures with Jackson Elias going back decades because it works so much better when he's killed. While the prelude didn't wow me or anything, I think it works well to get people more invested in their friend's death. I hated the race change for Jackson and didn't keep it when I ran, but then I firmly had his image and mannerisms in mind from previous versions.

The New York chapter, to me, benefitted the most out of the new material. The subplot of the innocent man was mentioned in earlier versions but it was left entirely up to the GM to make something of it. Adding that into the campaign really helped push the story along, IMO. I think New York might have the most new characters out of all the chapters, and while it's good that more was added it was a bit overwhelming trying to keep track of so many minor NPCs. I ended up downplaying some of those scenes to keep the story flowing and not bogging down.

England is strange. On the surface, the changes are relatively minor. The major change is that one of the sidetrack scenarios went from being about a werewolf to being about a ghoul. I actually didn't like that change since I liked having some non-Cthulhu horror stuff in the campaign. One other niggling change for me was the softening of the rites at Misr House. In the original campaigns, they were much more explicit with female captives being raped by lesser gods and occasionally bearing offspring. If I recall correctly, the new version cut that out so now it's just the cultists having an orgy or sacrificing victims. It's not a huge change by any means, but it seemed unnecessary to me. I could judge my groups and knew whether or not to touch on such subjects, but the new version cut that out entirely.

So England is overall very similar, but it's a perfect example of my major complaint with the new version. Despite not offering a bunch of new material like New York, the chapter is over 3 times longer than the same chapter in the 2010 edition. I liked having some things more fleshed out, but the overall effect is to make things feel bloated to me and harder to use. I think doubling the size would have been more than enough. I'm sure some would disagree, though, and appreciate having so many things spelled out more explicitly.

Quote from: Brand55 on October 18, 2022, 02:11:48 PM
Timing in the campaign is funny, and that's nothing new. A lot of time the books will push on as if the PCs are gonna arrive at X time when a rite or something is going on, but I actually keep track of time when I GM. So if a rite only happens during a new moon and the party gets to the location a week later, then I'll have to adjust and adapt to keep things going since the party isn't going to see the rite happening. That often means I go off-road a bit compared to the published campaign.

As for the new additions, I'll focus on the early chapters since that's what we got to spend the most time on.

The prelude in Peru is a great addition overall. Fans were making Chapter 0 adventures with Jackson Elias going back decades because it works so much better when he's killed. While the prelude didn't wow me or anything, I think it works well to get people more invested in their friend's death. I hated the race change for Jackson and didn't keep it when I ran, but then I firmly had his image and mannerisms in mind from previous versions.

The New York chapter, to me, benefitted the most out of the new material. The subplot of the innocent man was mentioned in earlier versions but it was left entirely up to the GM to make something of it. Adding that into the campaign really helped push the story along, IMO. I think New York might have the most new characters out of all the chapters, and while it's good that more was added it was a bit overwhelming trying to keep track of so many minor NPCs. I ended up downplaying some of those scenes to keep the story flowing and not bogging down.

England is strange. On the surface, the changes are relatively minor. The major change is that one of the sidetrack scenarios went from being about a werewolf to being about a ghoul. I actually didn't like that change since I liked having some non-Cthulhu horror stuff in the campaign. One other niggling change for me was the softening of the rites at Misr House. In the original campaigns, they were much more explicit with female captives being raped by lesser gods and occasionally bearing offspring. If I recall correctly, the new version cut that out so now it's just the cultists having an orgy or sacrificing victims. It's not a huge change by any means, but it seemed unnecessary to me. I could judge my groups and knew whether or not to touch on such subjects, but the new version cut that out entirely.

So England is overall very similar, but it's a perfect example of my major complaint with the new version. Despite not offering a bunch of new material like New York, the chapter is over 3 times longer than the same chapter in the 2010 edition. I liked having some things more fleshed out, but the overall effect is to make things feel bloated to me and harder to use. I think doubling the size would have been more than enough. I'm sure some would disagree, though, and appreciate having so many things spelled out more explicitly.

Thanks for the heads up and detailed breakdown! I tend to prefer more open ended prompts to incorporate home brew and improv rather than condescendingly over explained bloat, so I'll probably be getting the older edition.

Are there any other famous modules that You'd recommended? How about newer stuff I should be aware of potential issues with?

Quote from: Xanadu on October 18, 2022, 02:44:12 PM
Thanks for the heads up and detailed breakdown! I tend to prefer more open ended prompts to incorporate home brew and improv rather than condescendingly over explained bloat, so I'll probably be getting the older edition.

Are there any other famous modules that You'd recommended? How about newer stuff I should be aware of potential issues with?

I'm no expert on Chaosium's stuff; I haven't read any of their new books, and I actually use Realms of Cthulhu to run my games instead of the original CoC rules. Doing a web search will give you a lot of suggestions, but your biggest hurdle might be acquiring some of the older modules and not paying an arm and a leg. The last time I looked a few years ago, a lot of the classics were quite pricey. If you're fine running with a PDF, you shouldn't have any problems.

Beyond the Mountains of Madness and Shadow of Yog-Sothoth are probably two of the best options you could look into. I have Horror on the Orient Express (the 2014 edition) but have never had a chance to use it. It is MASSIVE, so I wouldn't suggest it unless you've got a group with plenty of time to invest. I do like the shorter scenarios collected in Mansions of Madness, too.

I checked out this thread because I still cherish (dread?) the terrific memories (in King James English that means full of terror) of playing Call of Cthulhu in 1985.

The board game expansion for Eldritch Horror called Masks of Nyarlathotep is equally fantastic and terrific. You each play a character in this board game as part of a team doomed to struggle against the inevitable horror.

Quote from: Brand55 on October 18, 2022, 03:07:12 PM

Quote from: Xanadu on October 18, 2022, 02:44:12 PM
Thanks for the heads up and detailed breakdown! I tend to prefer more open ended prompts to incorporate home brew and improv rather than condescendingly over explained bloat, so I'll probably be getting the older edition.

Are there any other famous modules that You'd recommended? How about newer stuff I should be aware of potential issues with?

I'm no expert on Chaosium's stuff; I haven't read any of their new books, and I actually use Realms of Cthulhu to run my games instead of the original CoC rules. Doing a web search will give you a lot of suggestions, but your biggest hurdle might be acquiring some of the older modules and not paying an arm and a leg. The last time I looked a few years ago, a lot of the classics were quite pricey. If you're fine running with a PDF, you shouldn't have any problems.

Beyond the Mountains of Madness and Shadow of Yog-Sothoth are probably two of the best options you could look into. I have Horror on the Orient Express (the 2014 edition) but have never had a chance to use it. It is MASSIVE, so I wouldn't suggest it unless you've got a group with plenty of time to invest. I do like the shorter scenarios collected in Mansions of Madness, too.

Of the big campaign books, I've played a small part of Horror on the Orient Express in the 1990s and the full revised Masks of Nyarlathotep two years ago. I've also GMed part of John Tynes' The Golden Dawn campaign with a lot of my own adaptations in the early 2000s. I also played with the author of Beyond the Mountains of Madness for many years, but while we went to the Antarctic, I never played through it straight - she had her own custom campaign. I think she's a great GM, so I'd recommend Beyond just on that strength.

I loved The Golden Dawn, but I'm not sure how well it plays straight. It has a great premise and characters that I enjoyed adapting.  I didn't like what I saw of Orient Express in that it seemed excessively railroady (heh) - but I didn't know it very thoroughly. Masks of Nyarlathotep was fun, but my biggest problem was the issue of dramatic timing.

I've also played through and GMed a lot of short scenarios - I don't think I could catalog them all.