What is the best introduction to Ravenloft?

What's cool about it?

What's lame?

What's the one must have Ravenloft product?

Quote from: Piestrio;592551What is the best introduction to Ravenloft?

What's cool about it?

What's lame?

What's the one must have Ravenloft product?

I used to have the core setting book back in the day.  If I remember correctly, once you're in Ravenloft you're fucked and can never leave.  So you roam around the "Realms" which are each ruled over a tyrant or lord of some sort.  These lords are usually "D&D" versions of archetypal Gothic horror characters.

It's a pretty cool setting, but the literary aspirations and various intricacies don't really mesh with the "kill things and take their shit" mechanics of D&D.

Quote from: Piestrio;592551What is the best introduction to Ravenloft?

What's cool about it?

What's lame?

What's the one must have Ravenloft product?

You must get feast of goblyns. Has the GM screen, kartakan inn, and ravenloft character sheet. Also has Skald and Harmonia. Stepping out, but will try to write more tonight.

I've been told that the 3E Book for Ravenloft produced by White Wolf/Sword & Sorcery was very good. I've never owned it however as it came out long after I'd stopped playing later versions of D&D.

The Domains of Dread hardback is the best all-in-one resource for the setting.  However, it annoyingly refers to other products all over the place in an obvious attempt to get you to buy the whole line.

What's good in Ravenloft: some of the domains have interesting plot-hooks that will get your mind working on potential adventure ideas.  There are also some great adventures in the line: Night of the Walking Dead is one of the best adventures I've ever bought.

What's bad in Ravenloft: it's not that influenced by Gothic literature per se; it's more like Hammer Horror meets D&D.  Also, the Dark Lords are fairly lame and obvious pastiches.  They have the 2e issue of having pages and pages of backstory that has no effect in play--this is the work of frustrated would-be novelists.

Quote from: Silverlion;592568I've been told that the 3E Book for Ravenloft produced by White Wolf/Sword & Sorcery was very good. I've never owned it however as it came out long after I'd stopped playing later versions of D&D.

Someone misled you on that score, heh.

Quote from: misterguignol;592593Someone misled you on that score, heh.

Totally.

I like the 3e book, and would recommend it for a one-stop.

What did you guys dislike about it?

Quote from: misterguignol;592591What's bad in Ravenloft: it's not that influenced by Gothic literature per se; it's more like Hammer Horror meets D&D.

That's sounds awesome to me. I've never been a big fan of gothic novels but I LOVE hammer horror films.

Quote from: One Horse Town;592608Totally.

I think in fairness, it depends. I tendto agree with you and mr guignol on this one. But i have met tons of people who love the white wolf/S&S books. Personally i feel they take the setting from gothic to goth and they just have too much of a white wolf vibe for my tastes. However they did do some things well like make some of the setting info (such as language and religion distribution more clear). Thet eliminated any absolute measure of distance though, making the setting quite amorphous.

A lot of people like domains of dread, but i am not a fan. Instead i suggest the black or red boxed set (domains of dread works best if you have that andother source book because it leaves out a lot of stuff on the vistani and other important details).

To OP: Personally i say get the red or black boxed set, feast of goblyns, castles forlorn and (seconding mrguignols suggestion) the night of the walking dead.

I ythink i see some of the things mrguignol lays out as weaknesses, strengths of the setting. The gothic pastiche for lords, the heavy borrowing from hammer studios, all of it worked for. Ravenloft is great ecause it has a degree of camp that I think hits the right feel for me. Mrguignol is much more of an expert on gothic literature and such, so you may want to take his advice here, but as someone who was into books like dracula, frankenstein, etc, it felt gothic enough for my tastes when i was playing it.

What works: the fear, horror and powers checks rules were awesome (particularly powers checks). You do evil things in ravenloft you earn double edged gifts from the dark powers and begin a process of transformation that an deepen with each additional evil deed.

The changes they make to spells and other mechanics work  well.

The setting itself is also good, with the core concept of a demiplane that sucks folks in from other realms and has individual domains that reflect the personality of their lord (i think you take this out, you dont have ravenloft.

I felt the setting worked best as weekend in hell, or "the prisoner" with pcs as non natives brought to ravenloft by the mists.

What doesn't work: the setting material is plagued with much of the railroading, storyteller philosophy prevalent at the time. The advice is easily ignored, but running some of he modules requires you work around this.

Quote from: Piestrio;592614That's sounds awesome to me. I've never been a big fan of gothic novels but I LOVE hammer horror films.

They even do a omain based on the lost continent. If you loved hammer, you will love ravenloft (van richten is basically peter cushing).

Quote from: mcbobbo;592612I like the 3e book, and would recommend it for a one-stop.

What did you guys dislike about it?

The 3e book is simultaneously bland (ugh, the way the various domains are described make them all sound the same) and yet it also has that "edgy" White Wolf feel to it that I personally find annoying.

I thought the WW ones were all well done, but really I thought the Red Box was the best. If you can find them, the Van Richten's Monster Hunter Compendiums are a great way to collect the info that had previously been released in something like 3 or so separate products.

One of the things that I think sort of got lost along the way was the original concept that many domains aren't all that bad all the time. Barovia, for example, is supposed to have some beautiful spots.

As each edition came out, it seemed like you were passing from one hell into the next. I never ran it that way. Darklords shouldn't be a part of day to day life, but they should cast a terrible shadow, so to speak.

I liked the 1e box set and the 2e hardcover book. Both were fairly different from each other, but both really nailed the atmosphere of the setting perfectly.

I've run several 2E era Ravenloft campaigns, and tried 3E. It's easily among my favourite settings for D&D.

Much of the WW material for 3E is very good. The base book is only ok, but the Gazetteers, for example, are excellent. Unfortunately, the atmosphere of Ravenloft suffers heavily under the 3.x system. It's hard to put one's finger on exactly what the problem is, but if I had to try, I'd say it's something to do with a combination of the power level assumptions in 3.x (higher than AD&D), and reduced lethality of many monster abilities (energy drain, poison, etc.). It's just much harder to frighten players (as opposed to characters) in D&D 3.x  There may also be something about how the newer system encourages more out-of-character thinking that breaks the suspension of disbelief necessary for Fear and Horror in an RPG.

As for the original AD&D 2E material, I'd definitely recommend either the Red (preferably) or Black (plus Forbidden Lore) Boxed base sets. They lay all the groundwork (rules-wise) for the setting, provide lots of actual setting material, and give lots of good advice for running a Ravenloft game.

Beyond this, Feast of Goblyns is both a pretty good adventure (with a slightly out-of-place dungeon crawl in it), as well as a DM's screen, character sheet, and mini setting book in its own right.

As for other modules, Night of the Walking Dead is an awesome module! My players still remember that one. There are a couple moments that, if you manage to set the mood up to that point, you may be able to evoke real horror in your players.

The Created was also excellent, but I will warn you right now that it has a serious railroad in the middle that the adventure hangs on. This is the adventure that originally convinced me that not all railroading was bad. The players I've run through it loved it, and many had that truly rare reaction during an RPG: fear! They could not have cared less that they were briefly railroaded. Obviously, if such a thing is absolutely antithetical to your players, steer clear (although my players would have said it was to them, too).

Hour of the Knife can work well, and is a fun cat-and-mouse murder mystery, but takes more DM work.

Lastly, I got a lot of use out of The Book of Crypts, which was a supplement with a bunch of mini-adventures in it. Many of these are, as written, just ok (though a couple are superb; see: Blood in Moondale). However, if you're willing (as a DM) to weave them into an ongoing campaign you can make them truly shine.

Moving away from adventures, also excellent are Van Richten's Guides. Each covers a particular kind of monster (Lycanthrope, Ghost, Vampire, etc.) and how they differ in Ravenloft, both in terms of rules, and how they can be used to build an adventure. These are seriously some of the best supplements I have purchased for any game, ever. I can't recommend the ones covering Vampires, Ghosts and Werebeasts highly enough. The rest are also good, with the only one I found weak being the Vistani guide.

Most of the rest of the material was hit and miss, but the above is enough to keep a good DM going for a very long time.

One other book I'd recommend isn't actually a D&D book, or even from TSR: Nightmares of Mine, published by the now defunct I.C.E. was a great book on incorporating horror into any RPG. Well worth a read if you're thinking of running this type of game.