Jest aside, how are the 5E Ravenloft books? Curse of Strahd and VR guide? Is it good stuff or suit ignore?
And would any other system be better for Ravenloft?
I have Curse of Strahd. It is ok but right off the bat it starts going on about how vampires are "sexual predators". Its got some totally meaningless LGBT insertions. That being that they are so minor as to pretty much not exist in one case and barely a sentence in another. Its implied Strahd is now Bi. You know. The Strahd who is in this whole mess because of his intense infatuation with his brothers girl? Yeah that Strahd.
They also for god fuck no reason other than to piss on the character have Mordenkainen. Yes THAT Mordenkainen as a shell shocked crazy who tried to challenge Strahd and lost. Fuck me just typing that makes brain cells die.
Theres no demiplane of dread and pretty much no dark powers really. Theres some nods to. But its so pathetic its barely worth noting.
Theres probably more but its not worth caring about.
That said. Ignoring the stupid the campaign isnt bad and could have been quite interesting as a new domain. The idea that a large chunk of Barovia's population are essentially soulless shells born of Strahd's need for subjects would have so much better worked for some new lord and their domain.
Nu-Ravenloft is pretty much worthless.
I lost track of how many domains were completely fucked with for fuck all no reason than to fuck with them.
The "make of it what you will" alignment idea is actually good and harkens back to O, BX and AD&Ds handling of monster alignments. But WOTC treats it as if they invented the idea and anything prior was wacist because they say so. Fuck me just typing that makes brain cells die.
Good ideas drowning in stupid.