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Author Topic: Ravenloft 5E  (Read 6982 times)

Armchair Gamer

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Re: Ravenloft 5E
« Reply #45 on: February 24, 2021, 01:45:40 PM »
I agree strongly with this, and the Demiplane/Doomed/Dark Powers thing is a big turn off for me. 5e Curse of Strahd actually seems worse than the 1e Ravenloft module in this regard.

  The setting wasn't quite as grim and hopeless as a lot of fans would make it out to be (adventurers had things stacked against them, and villains often couldn't be brought down forever--but really, not much different from standard D&D settings for the ordinary person), but this was one of Tracy Hickman's big complaints about it, and so I was bemused when he was consulted on CoS and made it the most dark and hopeless Barovia's ever been.

jhkim

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Re: Ravenloft 5E
« Reply #46 on: February 24, 2021, 02:14:08 PM »
I think everyone responds to settings differently. For me, Ravenloft just resonated massively and I had no trouble running it (it was literally pretty much all I ran in high school and for several years after). I had long, ongoing campaigns. The ones that were more successful, tended to be based on the monster hunt investigations you could build using tools from the Van Richten books (but that was definitely not the only kind of campaign). Mostly I ran it with the player characters as outsiders (not as a weekend in hell, but as a campaign where the premise is they are from another setting and get pulled in). Occasionally ran it with them as natives (I personally found this didn't work as well for me, but I think that was just personal preference, not a problem with the premise itself). Ravenloft did suffer from some of the usual 90s problems with RPGs. But on the whole, I found it a lot better than stuff coming from WOTC in the 2000s.

Absolutely experiences differ. And I'd be interested on how our experiences differ. One thing is that you expressed playing up the campiness and humor of imitating Hammer films when running the Ravenloft demi-plane, whereas in the short times that I played it, the DM didn't seem to be doing that.

For me running the original Ravenloft module, one of the big deals was getting all the players to make PCs who engaged with the Gothic horror aspect. For example, the summer before last I ran it using 5E for my family. All the players made a PC who had a strong Gothic horror connection - like a swindling sorcerer of gypsy descent, a Texan-like ranger (after Dracula), a Shadowfell-connected monk, and others.

Bedrockbrendan

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Re: Ravenloft 5E
« Reply #47 on: February 24, 2021, 05:26:40 PM »
I think everyone responds to settings differently. For me, Ravenloft just resonated massively and I had no trouble running it (it was literally pretty much all I ran in high school and for several years after). I had long, ongoing campaigns. The ones that were more successful, tended to be based on the monster hunt investigations you could build using tools from the Van Richten books (but that was definitely not the only kind of campaign). Mostly I ran it with the player characters as outsiders (not as a weekend in hell, but as a campaign where the premise is they are from another setting and get pulled in). Occasionally ran it with them as natives (I personally found this didn't work as well for me, but I think that was just personal preference, not a problem with the premise itself). Ravenloft did suffer from some of the usual 90s problems with RPGs. But on the whole, I found it a lot better than stuff coming from WOTC in the 2000s.

Absolutely experiences differ. And I'd be interested on how our experiences differ. One thing is that you expressed playing up the campiness and humor of imitating Hammer films when running the Ravenloft demi-plane, whereas in the short times that I played it, the DM didn't seem to be doing that.

For me running the original Ravenloft module, one of the big deals was getting all the players to make PCs who engaged with the Gothic horror aspect. For example, the summer before last I ran it using 5E for my family. All the players made a PC who had a strong Gothic horror connection - like a swindling sorcerer of gypsy descent, a Texan-like ranger (after Dracula), a Shadowfell-connected monk, and others.

I think because I was running long campaigns, the idea of always striving for pure horror, would have been difficult to achieve. Don't get me wrong, horror happened. And I used a lot of the advice for horror in the books. But I wasn't disappointed if a session was more cheetahs and jokes than anything else. I was more in Ravenloft for the long haul. And when I made bad guys, they were often quite hammy. I saw it more as running games set in a horror universe. One thing I didn't really do was expect players to engage with gothic horror stuff (like I didn't expect them to become like characters in a horror story----they were adventurers). Sometimes a couple might go down a corrupt path that led to powers checks, but for the most part they were out there to hunt monsters, escape from Ravenloft etc. I actively avoided having them play Vistani for example (even when that became an option). I think part of the horror of Ravenloft is not having privy to the knowledge and power of those kinds of groups in the setting.

Bedrockbrendan

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Re: Ravenloft 5E
« Reply #48 on: February 24, 2021, 05:30:05 PM »
In my experience, when shown that their characters are doomed without a glimmer of hope, then players are usually like "Whatever. Can we start a new campaign yet?" Character doom and death happens regularly in an RPG, so it's not actually horrific. I find that to get real horror flavor, there needs to be some actual hope -- and especially, there need to be things that the players care about.

I agree strongly with this, and the Demiplane/Doomed/Dark Powers thing is a big turn off for me. 5e Curse of Strahd actually seems worse than the 1e Ravenloft module in this regard.

It wasn't really that way in my experience. The doomed of Ravenloft are the dark lords. But the players don't have to go down that path unless they choose to do bad things (and all stuff was pretty codified in terms of what constituted a transgression). Plus the percentage chance on powers checks were generally low. The one area people sometimes got screwed was stuff like necromantic magic (which prompted checks)

Bedrockbrendan

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Re: Ravenloft 5E
« Reply #49 on: February 24, 2021, 05:36:10 PM »
I agree strongly with this, and the Demiplane/Doomed/Dark Powers thing is a big turn off for me. 5e Curse of Strahd actually seems worse than the 1e Ravenloft module in this regard.

  The setting wasn't quite as grim and hopeless as a lot of fans would make it out to be (adventurers had things stacked against them, and villains often couldn't be brought down forever--but really, not much different from standard D&D settings for the ordinary person), but this was one of Tracy Hickman's big complaints about it, and so I was bemused when he was consulted on CoS and made it the most dark and hopeless Barovia's ever been.

Basically Ravenloft made you work a little harder to kill monsters like vampires. And killing lords was especially difficult, but I honestly never saw that as the point of adventures (maybe once in a while). The key was research. Again, that is why the van richten books are so important, they really emphasize that party's are expected to research their foes because they often have unexpected powers and their weaknesses are not usually the ones listed in the standard monster manual. If a GM doesn't make that clear, it can be frustrating for the players

Omega

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Re: Ravenloft 5E
« Reply #50 on: February 24, 2021, 05:36:38 PM »
In my experience, when shown that their characters are doomed without a glimmer of hope, then players are usually like "Whatever. Can we start a new campaign yet?" Character doom and death happens regularly in an RPG, so it's not actually horrific. I find that to get real horror flavor, there needs to be some actual hope -- and especially, there need to be things that the players care about.

I agree strongly with this, and the Demiplane/Doomed/Dark Powers thing is a big turn off for me. 5e Curse of Strahd actually seems worse than the 1e Ravenloft module in this regard.

5e Ravenloft cleaves mostly to the original and drops 90% of the boxed set stuff. Its overall bleaker and harder. But still winnable in various ways. The PCs can escape. Whereas in the boxed set it feels like escape is just short of impossible.
Have not read the White Wolf version i a long time but from what I recalled it was even more bleak and hopeless than the boxed sets.
« Last Edit: February 24, 2021, 05:39:05 PM by Omega »

Bedrockbrendan

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Re: Ravenloft 5E
« Reply #51 on: February 24, 2021, 05:44:24 PM »
In my experience, when shown that their characters are doomed without a glimmer of hope, then players are usually like "Whatever. Can we start a new campaign yet?" Character doom and death happens regularly in an RPG, so it's not actually horrific. I find that to get real horror flavor, there needs to be some actual hope -- and especially, there need to be things that the players care about.

I agree strongly with this, and the Demiplane/Doomed/Dark Powers thing is a big turn off for me. 5e Curse of Strahd actually seems worse than the 1e Ravenloft module in this regard.

5e Ravenloft cleaves mostly to the original and drops 90% of the boxed set stuff. Its overall bleaker and harder. But still winnable in various ways. The PCs can escape. Whereas in the boxed set it feels like escape is just short of impossible.
Have not read the White Wolf version i a long time but from what I recalled it was even more bleak and hopeless than the boxed sets.

I think the whole weekend in hell thing, where your player characters in a regular campaign get sucked into Ravenloft, tended to create frustration and resentment towards the setting. I never ran it this way. I usually told people we were doing a Ravenloft campaign, and they would make characters from other places that all came to Ravenloft shortly by the start of the campaign. I think that worked better than surprising players with Ravenloft when they are on some other adventure (and better than having them play as natives because they are still there as outsiders)

BronzeDragon

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Re: Ravenloft 5E
« Reply #52 on: February 24, 2021, 06:47:44 PM »
The one area people sometimes got screwed was stuff like necromantic magic (which prompted checks)

I love the fact that on the promotion material for the new book they list the opportunity of playing an Undead Pact Warlock. A PC that draws his power directly from an undead entity in RAVENLOFT.

That would be the fastest trip to chargen ever in previous iterations.
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horsesoldier

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Re: Ravenloft 5E
« Reply #53 on: February 24, 2021, 06:54:45 PM »
I agree strongly with this, and the Demiplane/Doomed/Dark Powers thing is a big turn off for me. 5e Curse of Strahd actually seems worse than the 1e Ravenloft module in this regard.

  The setting wasn't quite as grim and hopeless as a lot of fans would make it out to be (adventurers had things stacked against them, and villains often couldn't be brought down forever--but really, not much different from standard D&D settings for the ordinary person), but this was one of Tracy Hickman's big complaints about it, and so I was bemused when he was consulted on CoS and made it the most dark and hopeless Barovia's ever been.

He might have consulted and they then ignored everything. Happens all the time. Where was he voicing his complaints about Ravenloft?

horsesoldier

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Re: Ravenloft 5E
« Reply #54 on: February 24, 2021, 06:55:37 PM »
The one area people sometimes got screwed was stuff like necromantic magic (which prompted checks)

I love the fact that on the promotion material for the new book they list the opportunity of playing an Undead Pact Warlock. A PC that draws his power directly from an undead entity in RAVENLOFT.

That would be the fastest trip to chargen ever in previous iterations.

They've stretched this pact thing beyond all recognition.

Armchair Gamer

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Re: Ravenloft 5E
« Reply #55 on: February 24, 2021, 07:23:24 PM »
[He might have consulted and they then ignored everything. Happens all the time. Where was he voicing his complaints about Ravenloft?

  Various online fora in the 90s, when Ravenloft was a going concern. The 'soulless Barovians' feels like Hickman--it reminds me of some elements of the War of Souls for Dragonlance. That could just be my own prejudices, though.

Shasarak

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Re: Ravenloft 5E
« Reply #56 on: February 24, 2021, 07:50:16 PM »
I think the whole weekend in hell thing, where your player characters in a regular campaign get sucked into Ravenloft, tended to create frustration and resentment towards the setting. I never ran it this way. I usually told people we were doing a Ravenloft campaign, and they would make characters from other places that all came to Ravenloft shortly by the start of the campaign. I think that worked better than surprising players with Ravenloft when they are on some other adventure (and better than having them play as natives because they are still there as outsiders)

My favourite is to describe the gradually thickening mist building up around the characters.

Never fails to freak out the Players.
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Aglondir

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Re: Ravenloft 5E
« Reply #57 on: February 24, 2021, 08:03:07 PM »
Jessica Price is working on the book ...

They finally found a way to make it truly horrific.

Brigman

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Re: Ravenloft 5E
« Reply #58 on: February 24, 2021, 08:11:00 PM »
I just remember the OLD Ravenloft, Barovia was a town in a valley, not a demi-plane.  I liked it better that way I think, but I rolled with it when 2E changed things.
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Omega

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Re: Ravenloft 5E
« Reply #59 on: February 24, 2021, 08:21:15 PM »
They've stretched this pact thing beyond all recognition.

Undead pacts? Not really. Those pop up in fiction fairly often and probably some legends even. Especially if by undead that includes things like gods of death, some of which are not inherintly evil. But powerful undead like a liche or spectre granting powers totally fits.

Stretch for me was weapon pacts. Artifact weapons so potent they act as patrons. That seems a little out there considering 99% if these weapons are still very limited in scope. And why just weapons? If the Sword of Kas can grant spells then why not the Mighty Servant of Leuk-O?