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Author Topic: Ravenloft 5E  (Read 6994 times)

Ratman_tf

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Re: Ravenloft 5E
« Reply #90 on: February 28, 2021, 10:00:25 PM »
Whenever I DM Ravenloft, I lick my lips at the players and wink a lot. It helps underscore the sexual tension that vampires are supposed to represent.
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Bedrockbrendan

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Re: Ravenloft 5E
« Reply #91 on: February 28, 2021, 10:02:57 PM »
Whenever I DM Ravenloft, I lick my lips at the players and wink a lot. It helps underscore the sexual tension that vampires are supposed to represent.

You win the thread (and the creepiest GM award!)

Omega

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Re: Ravenloft 5E
« Reply #92 on: March 01, 2021, 12:41:47 AM »
To be clear I am more leaning the general and legendary depictions of vampires. These were things that fed on the living and cause them to waste away. There was nothing sexual about it.

From Dracula onwards that has ping-ponged back and fourth. But theres in general been a push to sexualize it. That is irrelevant to the initial point. Theres been pushes to sexualize zombies. That does not mean zombie = sex. And back near the start of this stupid there were some early claims that zombies represent gays. Hell. Theres been tries to sexualize freaking Mind Flayers.

Opaopajr

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Re: Ravenloft 5E
« Reply #93 on: March 01, 2021, 02:35:57 AM »
There is also a bit of luscious imagery that is explicitly favored by the author's GM advice in boxed sets' text (off the top of my head: Domain of Dread, Realms of Terror, Masque of the Red Death). Recommendations of calling up contrasts of beautiful against the horrific extoll GMs to not have the world wallow in endless mud and suffering. Moonlit vistas against breathtaking mountains and verdant glades suffesed in peaceful idyll... the call for romanticized language is very much a part of Ravenloft's suggested best practices.

Now, it is hard for me to say how romanticized language can be 'sexless', but I guess it could exist. Maybe because the word 'romance' is so closely associated with passion and lush imagination I have the trouble. But yeah, this current crop of scholastic dissembling and 'corrective reconstruction' seems forced, which is the exact opposite of allure. A pity because it is like putting the cart before the horse.

Horror is all that delightful messiness we don't want to think about, we don't want to let escape. Placing any agenda-based quota denatures that seduction of romantic contrast. Too systematic, inorganic, forced, unconsensual... and deeply ironic from the desired objective. (Heh, I just realized the core of the word unconsensual, 'sensual', and its relation to sex. I guess it is hard to separate.  8)  Giggity)
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Bedrockbrendan

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Re: Ravenloft 5E
« Reply #94 on: March 01, 2021, 09:13:41 AM »
Whenever I DM Ravenloft, I lick my lips at the players and wink a lot. It helps underscore the sexual tension that vampires are supposed to represent.

To be clear here, I am not suggesting that Ravenloft was like the book of erotic fantasy or R rated, or that the GM was meant to use sexual undertones to make players uncomfortable. Ravenloft was specifically, and very clearly stated as, a return to more old fashioned, subtle horror (it deliberately contrasts itself with the modern horror sensibilities of the time in the RoT boxed set, and makes a very strong case against things like slashers and some of the gorier movies: I like slashers but I get the argument they were making and that boxed set was my bible for running horror in the 90s). It was all about the slow build of dread, and the final horrific reveal: horror and terror (I think it phrased it more as fear and horror, but the idea was the same). So I saw it more as influenced by old fashioned movies like the classic universal films, the hammer films. But those still had some of the queer and sexual stuff (hammer especially later on, but even early it was there). They were often just more subtle about it, and it was under the surface. But what I am saying in terms of game content is stuff like art, characters, etc. So there are a lot of sensual depiction of vampires in the black and white fabian art (the brides in the RoT box, the vampire queen in the guide to Vampires, etc). I am also saying characters like Pretorius from Bride of Frankenstein were right at home in Ravenloft (Bride of Frankenstein is an old movie and it isn't like there is anything overt about that character that makes him clearly gay, but people often read him as such). And characters like Carmilla from the story, but more likely the movie Vampire Lovers, would have also been right at home (there may even be one based on her I am forgetting). I seem to recall a female character named Nostalgia Romaine associated with Ivana Boritsi, who wasn't a vampire or anything but had a highly suggestive relationship with the dark lord (and Ivana Boritsi is driven in part by a hatred of men). Think she was an emordenung or something. But it wasn't the kind of game where the GM is meant to get pervy on the players or build sexual tension between strahd and the party. I am just saying there are these kinds of elements present in the setting and the art (and it is often very subtle but I think still there). So something like a gay character for example, wouldn't be out of place at all, as there were plenty who we all assumed were gay.

And to be more clear: I am saying don't throw the baby out with the bathwater (something I am finding myself saying a lot about Ravenloft lately to people, often for very different reasons). I am not saying Ravenloft was all about modern political progressive issues. I am saying, just because someone makes a statement about placing that stuff in the forefront, people shouldn't react by recasting Ravenloft in the opposite light when I think there is a fair argument to be made that stuff like that was present in subtle ways that people were smart enough to pick up on.

My whole thing with new ravneloft is I think they should really be respecting the original material. I am not a big fan of many of the changes I have been hearing about, often because they sound like flipping things around for the sake of it (though it does depend on the specifics in the end). My biggest issue though is it sounds like Ravenloft might not even have a core landmass anymore, and might just be all islands of terror. For me that is too radical a break from the setting presented in the black boxed set, red boxed set and DoD books. Maybe they have no choice, as expectations have been created in the new edition and in the new material like CoS (and they worry about losing old fans). I just can't imagine running Ravenloft without a core (especially for long term campaigns which was my preference).

Stephen Tannhauser

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Re: Ravenloft 5E
« Reply #95 on: March 01, 2021, 10:46:13 AM »
...a good villain, at least in my opinion, should be both compelling and repugnant (you should feel drawn to them while also wanting to recoil).

That's a really good point and worth repeating.  It would be interesting to see how many other of the Ravenloft darklords met this criterion.
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Bedrockbrendan

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Re: Ravenloft 5E
« Reply #96 on: March 01, 2021, 10:58:47 AM »
...a good villain, at least in my opinion, should be both compelling and repugnant (you should feel drawn to them while also wanting to recoil).

That's a really good point and worth repeating.  It would be interesting to see how many other of the Ravenloft darklords met this criterion.

Just going by memory, I think most did a good job of this. They are going to land differently with everyone of course. But the main ones presented in the boxed set were good in terms of being both repugnant and compelling for me. Ones I wasn't as drawn to was often more a matter of personal taste than anything else