Volume Two of the 2018 edition of Masks of Nyarlathotep covers Kenya, Australia and Shanghai. Aside of some gender swapped NPCs (plenty of those in Volume One as well) and some minor changes in Shanghai, the back half of the new Masks reads pretty much the same to me, though with a good deal of modern polish.

The biggest difference is the final chapter: Grand Conclusion. You see, for as great as the original Masks was, it didn’t have much of an ending.

That is sort of by design. Because the chapters are modular and can be played in any order (though there are two primary sequences), no chapter has anything resembling a definitive, climactic confrontation between the players and the forces of darkness. Everything you need to build one is there, of course, but the lack of real guidance on the subject is weird. The main suggestion in the original is that we live in the world where the heroes failed – that the stock market crash and WWII and Reagan, etc. are all because the gate was opened. Which, ha, yea, that’s clever, I guess, but also a crummy way to end a campaign that you probably played for over a year.

The new Masks clearly lays out the requirements for success, partial success and failure, with definitive consequences for all. Spoiler: they’re pretty much what you’d expect, but it is nice to see them in print.  

Mike Mason, who headed up the revision, did a hell of a job. He took something that was great in 1984 and polished it up so that it is equally great in 2018. It is more inclusive and easier to run (seriously, if you’ve heard me talk about Masks and thought it sounded cool but were put off by me saying it is a tough game to run, that is no longer true. You can do this. I believe in you). When Masks first came out, it was the best. In the years since, rivals to the throne appeared. The new edition vanquishes them. Masks of the Nyarlathotep is the best. Full stop.