RPG Review – Campaign Events: Masquerade Ball

By Endzeitgeist

The first installment of Raging Swan Press’ new campaign events-series clocks in at 12 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page advertisement, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 7 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

So, masquerade balls there are a couple of scenes in a given GM’s arsenal that boil down to being simply awesome and memorable – in my case, one such experience was a time loop masquerade ball that required the PCs to not be noticed by all previous incarnations of their previous runs of the time loop. The adventure was one of the most challenging I’ve ever run, not simply because of the time loop premise, but also because of the ridiculous level of detail required for the proper depiction of a masquerade ball in the first place.

If I had had this pdf back then, I would have had a much easier job – for example, we begin with a 50-entry table of sample masks – from elegant masks of lions to veined marble make-up, the list is diverse and cool – but we’re talking fantasy here. Hence, the second table, covering 50 entries as well, sports magical masks for the truly decadent: From snapping crocodile’s jaws to live squids you can wear or multi-hued bubbles, it is here that the book lights a whole array of idea-fireworks, with unique enchantments and mechanical benefits just being asked to be added to these masks.

Beyond that, though, two more tables provide the finery we really want to see – 50 entries for male and female costumes span the gamut of inspiring ideas, from dresses made all of pearls to insubordinate duplicates of the regent’s attire and military attires as well as stylized dragon costumes, this section is downright awesome.

Of course, anyone that has tried to run a masquerade ball knows that, while costumes and the like are interesting, what truly makes such an event difficult, ultimately boils down to the number of people required to properly pull the event off – and here, a massive, fluff-only table of 50 entries provides in spades – from half-orc wizards on staff to use mending and prestidigitation to fix costumes on the fly to disguised gnomes in the clothes of a roast pig, decadence and fun seep from each and every entry – and yes, there are obvious foils included in here.

Conclusions:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I noticed no glitches. Layout adheres to Raging Swan Press’ elegant, printer-friendly 2-column b/w-standard and the pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience. Additionally, the pdf comes with two versions – one optimized for the screen and one for printer-use.

Kat Evan’s Masquerade Ball is a pdf I did not look forward to reviewing, mainly because I do believe that masquerade balls are hard to capture in their style – and on one hand, this pdf spectacularly succeeds: As a dressing-toolkit, this is pretty much the apex of what can ask from a pdf on the subject matter and it is a great buy. At the same time, I do believe that the subject matter covered would have vastly benefited from a more in-depth coverage. What Do I mean by this? Disguise-DCs. Sample entertainments. Sample dances and mini-games – the whole party-shenanigans, would have made this a pdf I’d use for years to come, a book of pure awesomeness. A more thorough blending of fluff and crunch with GM-cheat-sheet-tricks and mechanical tidbits could have made this a prime candidate for my Top Ten of 2015.

At the same time, I’d be an unfair reviewer, if I did not acknowledge the level of quality and detail of the fluffy bits that *are* here – and these still warrant a final verdict of 5 stars.

Endzeitgeist out.

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