Yes. Please post a summary of the content of the videos and why they are worth taking the time to watch instead of just youtube links expecting us all to waste two hours listening to the blathering of retarded influencers as you did.
How about you watch it, summarize it, give your thoughts, and then ask us since that would be an actual conversation.
Yeah, I'm thinking I'm not going to waste my time watching some random D&D sloptubers you like.
Well, not the best at reviewing books myself, but I'll go ahead with this. Not very familiar with Ravenloft myself, so... this is me flying blind.
EVERYTHING IN RAVENLOFT: Horrors Within ~ Review
Book opens with a fairly standard explanation of the Domain of Dread, giving us an overview of the Mists and such, entering the world, that sort of thing. Gets into character options fairly quickly; first with the seven new subclasses - as he didn't actually bother to describe the subclasses here, I'll be covering that later.
He dipped into backgrounds next: first is Haunted One, which is the original backstory from OG Ravenloft (character was involved in a very dark event previously, plot hook sort of thing). Second is Investigator, which... is basically just Inquisitor from Forge of the Artificer. Third is Mist Wanderer, which is specific to the setting, about playing some chucklefuck that specializes in exploring the Mists. Last is Spirit Medium, which is centered around conversing/dealing with spirits - the last two backgrounds have some talking points about Dark Gifts, which are abilities gained from pacts with evil creatures - discount Warlock stuff, essentially. First one this guy reviewed was Living Shadow, which... makes your shadow come to life, can cast Mage Hand for you, will occasionally try to take control of your body... honestly pretty boring. There's also Watchers, which is basically a pack of vermin monsters that constantly follow you around, giving you access to abilities like Speak With Animals and being able to see from their perspective... but can also overwhelm you with sensory overload, giving you disadvantages on rolls.
Honestly, pretty mid. Wasn't exactly expecting Vile Darkness here, but I'm still let down.
Up next is the new races: first is Dhampir, which he didn't bother to explain in the video, but have a rather large chunk of powers and abilities including increased climb speed, draining life from enemies with melee damage, some darkness-related powers, etc. Next is Hexbloods, which are people infused with Fae/Eldritch magic - they look like Tieflings, because of course they fucking do, and also have the rather broken trait of being able to hear/see things up to 10 miles away using an innate magic skill. Then there's the Lupins, which are not the werewolf-hunting wolfmen from 3E, but are instead unlucky people that were able to partially resist the lycanthrope condition, getting stuck as wolf people - they're basically just a reskin of the Leonin from Theros, stat-wise. Lastly there's the Reborn, which have a metric shit-ton of resistances and need things like air, food, etc. less than normal people.
So, yeah... not exactly balanced the best, ironically the Lupin's probably the easiest to run with the typical party. The other three give me Ebon Tides Bearfolk vibes.
Anyways, now we're going into the DM side of things; firstly, talking about the different domains of Ravenloft... or, at least, about 17 of them. Unfortunately, the reviewer didn't exactly go into much detail with... any of them, mostly just gushing about how much he loves the setting, giving a description of each of them, along with their lords, along with suggestions for creating your own versions of both. We also got a very small amount of info about other domains, such as the Carnival - and I do mean a very small amount of info, as in about 2 paragraphs to each, maybe a map. Then the guy dipped into the chapter dedicated towards actually running a game; again, not much going on here, just an overview of how to set up the mystery, how to escape, some artifacts, again, honestly all fairly boring stuff. Some talk about NPCs in Ravenloft, like the haunted riverboat captain lady, as well as bastion stuff for whatever reason.
We also got a chapter dedicated towards actually creating our own Domain of Dread; this... already got covered a bit in the previous bit, so this is just padding, really. At the very least, if you want to make Yharnam...
Aside from that, the guy delves into his own history/fanfic with Ravenloft, some talk about monsters available in the new book, including literal Cthulhu for whatever reason, before the guy's review just... ends anticlimactically. I might write an actual, proper review of the book once I get a chance to take a proper look at it myself, but... honestly, not that impressed, feels very much watered-down. Fuck, I'm a complete bitch when it comes to horror, and even I thought this was weak;
give me a proper Vile Darkness 5E book, you weak-minded fucks!
As for my thoughts on the book so far; again, I'll need to do a proper review on it once I get the chance, but... it's not looking good. While I don't know much about Ravenloft myself as of yet, I can already tell this isn't exactly the best opening for it; races are poorly balanced, setting's a bit dry, and there's a lot written but not a lot actually being told.
I'll make a separate post for the new classes; this one's bloated enough.
