How does tg feel about Ravenloft? I'm about to go all-in on a Ravenloft game and I'm wondering how it stands up these days. I really like it obvs but I want to avoid any massive pitfalls I shouldn't be doing with it. First adventure will be a mystery I am going to set in Darkon, since I've run games in that Domain before. Some of the new stuff for the setting seems like it does stand out but I'm not so happy with the lore changes. Anyway, check out this cool comic book cover that's coming out for Ravenloft! This was the best pic I could find of it, sorry.
>>97877554Wait for the new Ravenloft book, it will be peak.
Ravenloft is a shitty setting that was literally created with the same philosophy as Tomb of Annihilation;By bitter, butthurt gamemasters going out of their way to make everything as oppressive, unfun, bad faith, and bullshit, because they were sick and tired of their players winning.The entire setting is edgelord doomwank personified. Written by idiots who hail "subverting expectations" and "Things suck, just like the real world!" to the most absolute, grognardian extreme. All of the villains and problems are written to be ultra edgy unbeatable bullshit that would make Darksteel the Hedgehog blush.I'd rather play Warhammer Fantasy during the End Times. Fuck Ravenloft.
>>97878106Lord Strahd must have killed this guy repeatedly.
>>97878124Grimdark and doomwank suck ass and I'm tired of pretending otherwise.
>>97877554My opinion of Ravenloft is largely shaped by grimderp russian DMs, who I suspect posted about Ravenloft on TRPG forums a lot more than they've actually DMed it.Like, I remember one of them posting his ideal Ravenloft adventure>The party is traveling through the misty forest and encounter a camp of goblins. They kill them and move on. Then they encounter the same camp of the same goblins, somehow alive and in their way again. Then it happens again and again. Eventually the PCs will be overpowered numbers and die.Or I remember>I dislike how the players can just summon light with spells. Could the Dark Powers make the Light spell into a light-sucking vampire that attacks the party when summoned? Can I do something like this with all other spells I don't like?That, and redditors basedfacing about how queer Strahd and Escher are.I don't actually know how Ravenloft is supposed to be.
>>97878168Ravenloft doesn't have to be grimdark or doomwank. It's been a lot of things besides that.
>>97878253Oh, another one wrote an erotic BDSM splatbook domain for 3.5, it had a flesh golem that has an orgasming ability.
>>97878271Like and ability to cause others to orgasm with a touch? Or is this flesh golem capable of orgasming? Come to think of it, what stops flesh golem from being able to orgasm in the first place...
That is indeed a cool cover
>>97877554I feel the same about Ravenloft that I feel about any D&D product or property, that I want as little to do with it as possible.
Ravenloft is pure kino and always has been. At least it's different from your normal d&d settings and it encouraged you to fuck over the players with every unfair advantage there was. And the monsters were fun. Pretty sure the Blood Golem first appeared in Ravenloft.
>>97877554It's not for me. I had a 2e boxed set I got from a friend (I think that's how I got it, but I can't rule out the cool box art didn't seduce me), but the fear checks and such turned me off. The inability to triumph over the oppressive darkness and not being able to escape isn't the experience I want from D&D, or at all, really.
>>97877554I like a lot of the ideas but the market is currently flooded with grim settings so I'm more inclined to hit the brakes on the much darker stuff. I like FEUDAL JAPAN levels of tragedy, not Warhammer 40k levels.
>>97877554I wasn't expecting a Ravenloft thread, so I'll ask while I'm here- is there a common throughline in female PCs that look at Strahd and say>I can fix himOr>I like him just the way isOr even>I want to make him worseI like doing character studies and this seems like the time to ask: Things I can do to make him more appealing so that the dumping is that much more brutal, for instance.
>>97878106This is some advanced baitposting
>>97877554The biggest issue in running a Ravenloft game today is that the players already know the major twists. How you address this shows your quality as a DM.
>>97886335Hm. Interesting. I wonder how I will hold up.
>>97877554There's multiple Ravenlofts at this point, between the "everything is new" of 2ed, to the "everything is detailed" of 3ed, to the "let's explore diversity politics and genderswapping" of 5ed. That said, Curse of Strahd is neat provided you understand that it's basically "what if we took that old tournement dungeon, fleshed out the surrounding countryside a bit, and then just let GMs run with it?" And the secret to running with it is to play it as a mix of D&D and those old Hammer Horror flicks. Villagers are ugly and dirty and scared, monsters are big and powerful and compelling, it's always storming and dark, there's a weird-ass grell in that basement for no reason (hint: he's a spy for Blutespur! Which, sadly, never went anywhere since my group was done with Ravenloft after Curse ended), and the heroes are there because -somebody- has to kill the vampire!Anyway, I'd look into running Curse of Strahd. The "shiny happy Vistani" stuff is overblown, and you can still just play them as the Hammer Horror stereotypes they're intended to be if you want. Beyond that, don't be afraid to twist and warp the adventure to reflect the players' attention, and you'll do fine. ("You rip off the vrock's wing-" "Yes!" "-only for him to fly away, a ring on his finger glowing brightly." "!?!? Why the hell did a vrock have a ring of flying?!?!" "Why indeed...")
>>97886225Doesn't really answer your question, but I figure you'll find it interesting:https://www.dmsguild.com/en/product/369197/she-is-the-ancient-a-genderbent-curse-of-strahdIt's basically a really really slick looking product, that has no real consideration of the material or reasoning behind it when it does its swapping. Like the author will genderswap a character with a Slavic name but then won't properly swap the character's name too. There was some other stuff, but it's been a long time.Having said all of that, I don't recommend the product. Just knowing it exists (and is genuinely a good looking product!) is enough.
>>97877554I love ravenloft in each edition. As someone who is very familiar with 2e Lamordia and Falkovnia, I much prefer the 5e reboot of them.CoS is ths best 5e module, and VGtR was fine, but disappointingly shallow with its mechanics and adventures.I am excited for this new release. It looks like they are including Darklord statblocks and at least 10 Ravenloft set maps. Also looking forward to its DMs screen.
>>97886225He's rich, powerful, handsome and is willing to murder the dipshits around you to keep you handcuffed to a radiator in his basement. Catnip for underage teen nerdy girls.
>>97878689Semi-serious guess: in Ravenloft they'd be mockeries of life. Their process of creation a blasphemy to nature, and existence a disconnect from humanity. As such, I suspect their ability to orgasm would be nil, since it's idealized as a thing that brings people together. On the flipside, I think flesh golems being able to misscary, conceive stillborn babes, and birth terata nightmares might be fitting too.In WotC 5ed Forgotten Realms I'm sure they have perfectly happy, healthy babies. Just with multi-ethnic/gender patches across their bodies.
>>97886443Jesus, you crybabies never stop complaining about things you made up.
>>97886432>CoS is ths best 5e moduleCoS might be one of the worst modules ever released for this edition, are you retarded?
New book's preorders are live!
Tristessa liiiiiives! Apparently there are 17 one shots in the new book.Bummer that they probably won't have the Artificer class in the book, so I'll have to grab that to use the Reanimator subclass.
Whats with all the faggot shills ITT?
>>97886866I'm sorry. I thought people posting in a Ravenloft thread would enjoy hearing about the new Ravenloft info that dropped today. I forgot that you all are miserable contrarians.
>>97886385Ah, thanks for the advice. I might run CoS at this point. I've only ever heard good things about it.
>>97886903OP here. I appreciate it at least. Thank you, anon. I knew new stuff was coming out but I haven't really checked into any of it yet. The art looks sick. Ty again.
>>97887757TY anon
>>97887900Np. I'm not a hateful, snivelling little bitch like most of tg.
>>97886432>As someone who is very familiar with 2e Lamordia and Falkovnia, I much prefer the 5e reboot of them.>FalkovniaWhy would you choose 5e's zombie apocalypse over Gondegal and his rebels fighting against the not-medieval Nazis with super soldiers and Hitler the Impaler?
>>97877554my favorite setting. it sucks wotc fucked it up so bad. Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft came out on my birthday too.the 3e gazetteers were the best. Domains of Doom was solid too and much cheaper to get physically.
>>97889433Huh. I might have to get those if the lore is so good.
>>97889433>the 3e gazetteers were the best.
>>97889433Ironically, for all their depth and world building the Gazetteers made me realize that Ravenloft simply doesn't work as a realistic setting. It's something that'd been staring me in the face since the old Domains of Dread for AD&D, but it never clicked (me being a decade older when I revisited Ravenloft probably helped)."Where does their building materials and supplies come from? Where does their food come from? Where do the people come from?!?!" The books make it out to be almost a dream realm that holds the Dark Lords captive, with the food and houses and people simply existing as quasi-illusions, but if that's true why care what happens to any of them. "Strahd killed my family!" "So? They weren't real and neither are you."I still love the setting, but the metaphysics of it need help.
>>97891133I think that the dreamlike nature of the realm plays into its strength as horror, but I do think something like the following works well:>Barovia is a perfectly happy little nation you pass through onto your way to somewhere more important>One night you get a weird feeling as you go to sleep>You wake up in the middle of the night in a horrifying reflection of the quaint village you fell asleep in>All of the stuff is there, but none of the people are, all replaced with soulless pastiches and hellish monsters>Everyone unfortunate enough to be here is trapped in their own personal hell (whether they deserve it or not)It even serves as a justification for a modern party to get dragged into Ravenloft, with the double whammy that since they're presumably traveling instead of being born there, they don't have any of their personal resources to pull on and cell phones/technology don't work because no shit.
Honestly it seems fine. I personally don't care for the, "oooo this place inherently sucks and must always return to the status quo no matter what happens because "dark powers."" I get grim setting and morbid undertakings.However the weird mix of power and powerlessness annoys me. Like in CoC you have very little power you may manage to temporarily thwart an eldritch incident but it will cost you. But you never really powered up to do that.In Dark Sun the world being screwed is both an environment and a couple of evil people. While it can't be stopped it can be fought against.In Dark Heresy you can't fix the Imperium but never is your goal to do so.Ravenloft? I slowly level up to eventually kill some evil guy and then he just gets better. You can't stab him enough, imprison his soul, force him to another plane, or even help him work out his issues as the dark powers will prevent anything that breaks the cycle.
>>97891942I mean, you can change the status quo in your group. The only reason why the status quo even exists is for consistency across game books, I reckon. You can completely fuck up Barovia if your DM lets you. I let my players take over Verbrek when one of their party became a werebear. It was fun. Everyone had fun, including me.
>>97891942In a lot of adventures they had the built-in good ends where the PCs actually win properly, but I think as >>97892091 said, maybe they wanted to keep things consistent in revised boxes and still give parties to use the older adventures.>>97886225Figure if the adventure is DM'd properly, every PC ends up just wanting to plant a stake into his nards soon enough. >>978775542e Raveloft was peak.
>>97891942>Honestly it seems fine. I personally don't care for the, "oooo this place inherently sucks and must always return to the status quo no matter what happens because "dark powers."" I get grim setting and morbid undertakings.>Ravenloft? I slowly level up to eventually kill some evil guy and then he just gets better. You can't stab him enough, imprison his soul, force him to another plane, or even help him work out his issues as the dark powers will prevent anything that breaks the cycle.This is mainly an issue with 5e Ravenloft, multiple darklords in pre-5e Ravenloft were removed from power and/or were permanently killed. Camille Dilisnya, original darklord of Borca, was assassinated by her own daughter. Baron Bakholis, original darklord of Invidia, killed by a half-Vistani girl he was about to murder. Claude Renier, original darklord of Richemulot, assassinated by his granddaughter. Duke Gundar, original darklord of Gundarak, staked by random adventurers after he was betrayed by one of his servants. Only Strahd, and maybe Azalin, seem to get special protection from the Dark Powers because they seem to play key roles in the Dark Powers' plots.
>>97878168I'm inclined to concur.
>>97893361Even Azalin was out for a bit at the tail end of 2e.
>>97877554Admittedly, the setting as a whole is very interesting, it's just not one I had the occasion to explore much in my earlier days with 3.0/3.5, mostly because my autist friends were immediately smitten by Eberron, which admittedly is amazing. Returning on Ravenloft, the various Domains of Horror seem very interesting, and the idea of anything that involves Lord Soth is based as fuck.But I ended up in a 5e CoS campaign like two years ago, it went at a very sluggish pace and it was a generally painful experience. The DM did a good job but due to there being relatively inexpert players he decided to run the whole thing borderline RAW and holy shit, I don't know who thought the game design of this thing was acceptable. The encounter ratings are shit, nothing seemed downright unbeatable but we either fought deadly odds or things so comically weak it killed any hope to be horrifying. Incredibly annoying were the gotcha traps and ambushes and moments that apparently didn't even ask for Perception/Investigation checks, they just happened. Also, from what I've been told, the handbook switches between forgetting and remembering about passive perception, sometimes using it for traps, sometimes going "Tee hee, if they don't actively Perceive, they spring". Like, why is it there as a stat then? I started rolling Perception at every corner at that point, fortunately it didn't slow the game down because I keep everything relatively neat on my side.Regarding plot, fuck, the NPCs are unbearable, and most of them are literally soulless, how am I supposed to care? It's not even a matter of them not being cool noblebright rebels ready to help us against the oppressive vampire, they were just genuinely lame people devoid of any respectable traits. Strahd himself has motivations that just don't work nowadays. Maybe it was cooler when it was originally written but even if you don't find his rapist obsession "problematic", it is still inherently pathetic.
>>97893923The more I hear about cos, the less I find that I will ever play it. It just sounds terrible all around.
>>97877554It’s probably the best attempt anyone is ever going to get in terms of bringing horror to D&D. It’s still obvious the base game just isn’t built for that kind of thing, but it’s a valiant effort. Strahd himself is surprisingly weak, however. When I ran Curse of Strahd, he went down in about two rounds in the final fight. Admittedly the party had gotten the Sunsword, but even with me trying to play smart, he was defeated fairly easily.
>>97877554> How does tg feel about Ravenloft?It’s ultimately a very, very bleak and cynical setting that has it baked into the fundamental core of the setting that there are no happy endings and your character will either end up dead, having accomplished nothing, or twisted into something you, the player, don’t even recognize or want anything to do with, generally accomplishing less than nothing as they’ve instead become yet another part of the overall problem.So as I said, it’s a very depressing, very cynical setting that’s not for everyone, or most well-adjusted people. I will grant you 40k is very much the same, but 40k can get away with it because 1) it’s upfront and very open about being extremely, cartoonishly, grimdark. And 2) it supplements this with gratuitously over-the-top weapons and armor that’s gonna hit you with a near-lethal dose of testosterone. Point is, you’re neither being blindsided, and at least you’re gonna have a fun time on your character’s fall into damnation.
>>97894682The thing a out 40K/WHF though is that the setting still celebrates and champions "the little guy."Like unless we're playing Necromunda hivescum or something, the setting still tries to make and pastiche your characters actions, even if theyre just a lowly guardsman, as heroic and valiant (even if they may be largely irrelevant.)Ravenlofts problem is that it really loves to rub the players face in the fact that nothing they do matters. It underlines it over and over to the point where it pushes any normal person into the "Why even bother" mindset.Meanwhile in 40K, there's a sense that you belong to something bigger, so even if your stuff "technically doesnt matter" you can still feel like a hero, even if its just those in your immediate sphere of influence.
>>97893923>I don't know who thought the game design of this thing was acceptable. The encounter ratings are shit, nothing seemed downright unbeatable but we either fought deadly odds or things so comically weak it killed any hope to be horrifying.CoS is infamous for this and I dont know how its become lauded as "the best module ever in 5e."The amount of stupid Rocks Fall You Die levels of bullshit in that campaign is backbreaking. Id never let a new player within 50 miles of that campaign with just how much the DM has to overcommunicate not to do something because otherwise the party will fucking explode.Your point about the NPCs is also 100% on point. Theyre so fucking unlikable and shitty that it quickly pushes the party to not give a single fuck because why would you bother helping assholes who will just as quickly sell you out to Strahd? Its also infuriating how Ireena becomes an MMO style "Game Mandated Escort Mission" and you have to spend most of the campaign with her on a fucking child leash otherwise you lose.And yeah, like you said, Strahd sucks. The old lore, though a bit campy, is actually kinda funny and more enjoyable, because he has motivations outside of being an incel (and my GM got really bitthurt everytime we openly reffered to le coll and edgy vampire as such). I like some of his possible motivationa in the old one more, they included escaping Barovia himself by body swapping with someone, making an artifact to survive sunlight, or finding and destroying the sunsword before you found it.Way more fun than a case of Cosmic Oneitis.
