Quote from: Pat on June 14, 2021, 12:42:17 AM


That's why I say that Ravenloft is D&D with some of the trappings of gothic horror, because it largely misses the heart of gothic stories. The goal is to use the superficial trappings, like haunted castles, stormy weather, and strange accents, in copious amounts to help get the players into the mood. Then use NPCs to evoke the more personal elements, like transformations, mysteries, romance, innocence vs. depravity, and tragedy. But the PCs and their players will be at best one removed, because even the player facing elements like corruption by the Dark Powers, will take place over the course of a campaign rather than a single story (adventure).

The problem with this approach is it would limit you to one shots if you are trying to get corruption in a single adventure. And it isn't like all gothic horror protagonists must be corrupted and warped. Again I think what you are pointing to is the difficulty of getting players to replicate things you see in literature. That isn't a gothic horror game problem so much as it is an issue of RPGS are a different medium. You are going to have a hard time emulating and forcing in fictional elements like that on a regular basis (and I am not sure doing so is desirable). I think a much better approach is the one Ravenloft took, where you have a setting that is clearly modeled on Gothic stories, and you have mechanics like Powers checks and curses that reflect the transformation and corruption you see in the genre. I don't see why it needs to all take place over a single adventure, and I don't see why it needs to be a guarantee it will take place. It is there, and comes up enough to be interesting  I think. Powers checks is one of the more successful mechanics like that I've encountered. It also worked great because it could be a tool for building monsters and threats in the setting. And again I think gameability is an important consideration here.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 13, 2021, 09:04:03 AM
Genuine gothic horror just doesn't appeal to people anymore.

Although you can certainly argue how well it implemented, the initial appeal of the Demiplane of Dread is that it was essentially about byronic heroes/gothic villains trapped in their own personal hells with a bunch of other innocent people dragged along for the ride (who may or may not be shades in purgatory anyway). The PCs were interlopers and risked becoming exactly those sorts of byronic/gothic tragedies.

It doesn't fit with the surreal Wonderland-esque freakshow that modern D&D has become. That might be appropriate for Planescape, but not a genre where deception and xenophobia are vital.

It is worth pointing out, when Ravenloft was released, "genuine gothic horror doesn't appeal to people anymore" was true at that time as well. The black box railed against a lot of modern horror, and strongly advocated for classic horror techniques. I think sometimes when something seems out of fashion, that can actually be the perfect moment to introduce it because it's actually refreshing. I loved horror when I first encountered Ravenloft, and I liked lots of different horror genres, including a lot of the modern stuff the black box didn't like, but Ravenloft definitely stood out as unique to me. I think a good comparison is how Fright Night was a bit refreshing in the mid-80s, because it was going back to those classic hammer style films in the age of Jason and Freddy. It sort of wore how square it was as a badge of honor

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 03:00:11 AM

Quote from: Pat on June 14, 2021, 12:42:17 AM

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on June 13, 2021, 02:40:25 PM

Not sure how accurate that is. I always just went by what I saw in the gothic stories I read and in the classic horror movies I watched. Obviously Ravenloft is a game, and is set in a fantasy world (though I think they captured a lot of the dreaminess and emotion of gothic horror in how they approached making a setting). The setting also came equipped with lots of tools for making the horror work better (including changing spells, and altering certain character class features, but also monster customization, making monsters more powerful, giving domain lords and the dark powers power). I never really had much trouble getting Ravenloft to be gothic horror. D&D might not be as lethal as some horror games, but as a consequence it has some truly powerful and strange monsters, and something like level drain can put the fear of god into players. Characters do get more powerful though, so that does change things (but those early levels can be very lethal: had a player taken out by a splinter in one of the book of crypts adventures)

Gothic horror isn't about a band of characters who go from location to location, slaughtering hordes of monsters along the way. It's about personal horror and inner conflicts. The characters in such stories typically come to tragic ends, or suffer dramatic transformations. These two structures are fundamentally at odds.

That's why I say that Ravenloft is D&D with some of the trappings of gothic horror, because it largely misses the heart of gothic stories. The goal is to use the superficial trappings, like haunted castles, stormy weather, and strange accents, in copious amounts to help get the players into the mood. Then use NPCs to evoke the more personal elements, like transformations, mysteries, romance, innocence vs. depravity, and tragedy. But the PCs and their players will be at best one removed, because even the player facing elements like corruption by the Dark Powers, will take place over the course of a campaign rather than a single story (adventure).

I find it works best to recognize that Ravenloft is, at heart, D&D. Don't try to replicate stories of gothic horror, because it's the wrong medium. Instead, take D&D adventure structures, and wrap them in gothic trappings.

Ravenloft wasn't really about slaughtering hordes of monsters.

It absolutely is. How many monsters will a party of Ravenloft adventurers kill over the course of a 1-9 level campaign? Even if you use more of a mystery-structure for most adventures, which as I mentioned is the standard of the genre, instead of a clear-every-room structure you're assuming from traditional D&D, that's still a giant pile of things that are dead or destroyed. I think you're seeing the trappings, saying "oh this is gothic horror", and missing the massive differences in structure. Which is exactly what you should be trying induce in your players, but it's not the most useful perspective for a DM.

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 03:10:14 AM

Quote from: Pat on June 14, 2021, 12:42:17 AM

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on June 13, 2021, 02:40:25 PM

Not sure how accurate that is. I always just went by what I saw in the gothic stories I read and in the classic horror movies I watched. Obviously Ravenloft is a game, and is set in a fantasy world (though I think they captured a lot of the dreaminess and emotion of gothic horror in how they approached making a setting). The setting also came equipped with lots of tools for making the horror work better (including changing spells, and altering certain character class features, but also monster customization, making monsters more powerful, giving domain lords and the dark powers power). I never really had much trouble getting Ravenloft to be gothic horror. D&D might not be as lethal as some horror games, but as a consequence it has some truly powerful and strange monsters, and something like level drain can put the fear of god into players. Characters do get more powerful though, so that does change things (but those early levels can be very lethal: had a player taken out by a splinter in one of the book of crypts adventures)

It's about personal horror and inner conflicts

Is it? I am not so sure. I posted the wikipedia definition.

Nothing in what I said contradicts the Wikipedia definition, as you seem to be implying. Gothic horror is about wildly tormented protaganists who have to deal with changes that wrack their very being. It's part of the melodrama, transformation, romance, tragedy, and more. Think of the monster's struggle in Frankenstein, or Dracula arriving like a disease or corruption.

I just noticed something in Curse of Strahd (5E).

On p36, 'A Vistana's Tale', the NPC in question tells the story of a mighty wizard who contested with Strahd but was felled. Later on, the PCs might discover said wizard is still alive, but driven mad by Strahd and/or the Dark Powers. This is an addition from the original Ravenloft 2E adventure.

So why is this an issue? Well, in a truly spectacular example of what tropers call 'worfing', the maddened wizard is Mordenkainen. Yeah, that Mordenkainen. The guy who does shots with Elminster in Ed Greenwood's kitchen.

No, no, no, what the fuck, WotC. We already know Strahd is a badass, why are you fucking up Greyhawk's preeminent archmage? That's just fucking insulting.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on June 14, 2021, 08:20:17 AM
I just noticed something in Curse of Strahd (5E).

On p36, 'A Vistana's Tale', the NPC in question tells the story of a mighty wizard who contested with Strahd but was felled. Later on, the PCs might discover said wizard is still alive, but driven mad by Strahd and/or the Dark Powers. This is an addition from the original Ravenloft 2E adventure.

So why is this an issue? Well, in a truly spectacular example of what tropers call 'worfing', the maddened wizard is Mordenkainen. Yeah, that Mordenkainen. The guy who does shots with Elminster in Ed Greenwood's kitchen.

No, no, no, what the fuck, WotC. We already know Strahd is a badass, why are you fucking up Greyhawk's preeminent archmage? That's just fucking insulting.

Why?

To take shots at (in no particular order):

Pre-WOTC D&D
Gary Gygax
Greyhawk
Fans of the above

And to exert dominance over D&D past, present, and future. "Those Midwestern rubes won't dare to invade the creative space rightly owned by the True Fen."

Quote from: Pat on June 14, 2021, 07:40:13 AM

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 03:10:14 AM

Quote from: Pat on June 14, 2021, 12:42:17 AM

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on June 13, 2021, 02:40:25 PM

Not sure how accurate that is. I always just went by what I saw in the gothic stories I read and in the classic horror movies I watched. Obviously Ravenloft is a game, and is set in a fantasy world (though I think they captured a lot of the dreaminess and emotion of gothic horror in how they approached making a setting). The setting also came equipped with lots of tools for making the horror work better (including changing spells, and altering certain character class features, but also monster customization, making monsters more powerful, giving domain lords and the dark powers power). I never really had much trouble getting Ravenloft to be gothic horror. D&D might not be as lethal as some horror games, but as a consequence it has some truly powerful and strange monsters, and something like level drain can put the fear of god into players. Characters do get more powerful though, so that does change things (but those early levels can be very lethal: had a player taken out by a splinter in one of the book of crypts adventures)

It's about personal horror and inner conflicts

Is it? I am not so sure. I posted the wikipedia definition.

Nothing in what I said contradicts the Wikipedia definition, as you seem to be implying. Gothic horror is about wildly tormented protaganists who have to deal with changes that wrack their very being. It's part of the melodrama, transformation, romance, tragedy, and more. Think of the monster's struggle in Frankenstein, or Dracula arriving like a disease or corruption.

I didn't say it did. I just think you are overemphasizing personal horror and internal conflict as essential. Maybe I don't understand what you mean by personal horror.

Quote from: Pat on June 14, 2021, 07:33:58 AM

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 03:00:11 AM

Quote from: Pat on June 14, 2021, 12:42:17 AM

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on June 13, 2021, 02:40:25 PM

Not sure how accurate that is. I always just went by what I saw in the gothic stories I read and in the classic horror movies I watched. Obviously Ravenloft is a game, and is set in a fantasy world (though I think they captured a lot of the dreaminess and emotion of gothic horror in how they approached making a setting). The setting also came equipped with lots of tools for making the horror work better (including changing spells, and altering certain character class features, but also monster customization, making monsters more powerful, giving domain lords and the dark powers power). I never really had much trouble getting Ravenloft to be gothic horror. D&D might not be as lethal as some horror games, but as a consequence it has some truly powerful and strange monsters, and something like level drain can put the fear of god into players. Characters do get more powerful though, so that does change things (but those early levels can be very lethal: had a player taken out by a splinter in one of the book of crypts adventures)

Gothic horror isn't about a band of characters who go from location to location, slaughtering hordes of monsters along the way. It's about personal horror and inner conflicts. The characters in such stories typically come to tragic ends, or suffer dramatic transformations. These two structures are fundamentally at odds.

That's why I say that Ravenloft is D&D with some of the trappings of gothic horror, because it largely misses the heart of gothic stories. The goal is to use the superficial trappings, like haunted castles, stormy weather, and strange accents, in copious amounts to help get the players into the mood. Then use NPCs to evoke the more personal elements, like transformations, mysteries, romance, innocence vs. depravity, and tragedy. But the PCs and their players will be at best one removed, because even the player facing elements like corruption by the Dark Powers, will take place over the course of a campaign rather than a single story (adventure).

I find it works best to recognize that Ravenloft is, at heart, D&D. Don't try to replicate stories of gothic horror, because it's the wrong medium. Instead, take D&D adventure structures, and wrap them in gothic trappings.

Ravenloft wasn't really about slaughtering hordes of monsters.

It absolutely is. How many monsters will a party of Ravenloft adventurers kill over the course of a 1-9 level campaign? Even if you use more of a mystery-structure for most adventures, which as I mentioned is the standard of the genre, instead of a clear-every-room structure you're assuming from traditional D&D, that's still a giant pile of things that are dead or destroyed. I think you're seeing the trappings, saying "oh this is gothic horror", and missing the massive differences in structure. Which is exactly what you should be trying induce in your players, but it's not the most useful perspective for a DM.

Porting the structure of literature into the structure of an RPG is always a problem. Are you looking for a more narrative RPG approach? You can have as many encounters as you want in a campaign. As GM you don't have to do wandering encounters. And the game encourages planned encounters any ways to keep atmosphere. So it would be entirely possible to make sure your essentially encountering one monster as the main villain and have any encounters occurring during the adventure be related to that. And they don't all end in the players killing something. It is a setting that works with players gaining less XP and advancing slowly. Yes, you can also have a more standard amount of encounters. But I don't think that detracts from the gothic horror. At least it never felt less gothic to me due to those kinds of things.

Quote from: RandyB on June 14, 2021, 08:29:41 AM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on June 14, 2021, 08:20:17 AM
I just noticed something in Curse of Strahd (5E).

On p36, 'A Vistana's Tale', the NPC in question tells the story of a mighty wizard who contested with Strahd but was felled. Later on, the PCs might discover said wizard is still alive, but driven mad by Strahd and/or the Dark Powers. This is an addition from the original Ravenloft 2E adventure.

So why is this an issue? Well, in a truly spectacular example of what tropers call 'worfing', the maddened wizard is Mordenkainen. Yeah, that Mordenkainen. The guy who does shots with Elminster in Ed Greenwood's kitchen.

No, no, no, what the fuck, WotC. We already know Strahd is a badass, why are you fucking up Greyhawk's preeminent archmage? That's just fucking insulting.

Why?

To take shots at (in no particular order):

Pre-WOTC D&D
Gary Gygax
Greyhawk
Fans of the above

And to exert dominance over D&D past, present, and future. "Those Midwestern rubes won't dare to invade the creative space rightly owned by the True Fen."

Probably, but it's just so pathetic. I wonder if they realize a DM can look at that, go 'nah' and just excise it from his game entirely.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on June 14, 2021, 08:54:44 AM

Quote from: RandyB on June 14, 2021, 08:29:41 AM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on June 14, 2021, 08:20:17 AM
I just noticed something in Curse of Strahd (5E).

On p36, 'A Vistana's Tale', the NPC in question tells the story of a mighty wizard who contested with Strahd but was felled. Later on, the PCs might discover said wizard is still alive, but driven mad by Strahd and/or the Dark Powers. This is an addition from the original Ravenloft 2E adventure.

So why is this an issue? Well, in a truly spectacular example of what tropers call 'worfing', the maddened wizard is Mordenkainen. Yeah, that Mordenkainen. The guy who does shots with Elminster in Ed Greenwood's kitchen.

No, no, no, what the fuck, WotC. We already know Strahd is a badass, why are you fucking up Greyhawk's preeminent archmage? That's just fucking insulting.

Why?

To take shots at (in no particular order):

Pre-WOTC D&D
Gary Gygax
Greyhawk
Fans of the above

And to exert dominance over D&D past, present, and future. "Those Midwestern rubes won't dare to invade the creative space rightly owned by the True Fen."

Probably, but it's just so pathetic. I wonder if they realize a DM can look at that, go 'nah' and just excise it from his game entirely.

They don't care. They are conditioning the current and next generations of brand consumers to take what's published as unalterable canon.

Quote from: Pat on June 14, 2021, 07:40:13 AM

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 03:10:14 AM

Quote from: Pat on June 14, 2021, 12:42:17 AM

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on June 13, 2021, 02:40:25 PM

Not sure how accurate that is. I always just went by what I saw in the gothic stories I read and in the classic horror movies I watched. Obviously Ravenloft is a game, and is set in a fantasy world (though I think they captured a lot of the dreaminess and emotion of gothic horror in how they approached making a setting). The setting also came equipped with lots of tools for making the horror work better (including changing spells, and altering certain character class features, but also monster customization, making monsters more powerful, giving domain lords and the dark powers power). I never really had much trouble getting Ravenloft to be gothic horror. D&D might not be as lethal as some horror games, but as a consequence it has some truly powerful and strange monsters, and something like level drain can put the fear of god into players. Characters do get more powerful though, so that does change things (but those early levels can be very lethal: had a player taken out by a splinter in one of the book of crypts adventures)

It's about personal horror and inner conflicts

Is it? I am not so sure. I posted the wikipedia definition.

Nothing in what I said contradicts the Wikipedia definition, as you seem to be implying.

My point was I don't see it mentioning those things. Again, maybe I missed it, maybe I don't understand what you mean by personal horror. Maybe the page itself isn't a good one (like I said I am not an academic, I've read gothic fiction, but it isn't like I've read books of analysis on it). Just in terms of reading the stories, watching the classic horror movies, the setting feels like it hit the right notes to me

^ Was that an accidental repeat post?

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 08:35:23 AM

I didn't say it did. I just think you are overemphasizing personal horror and internal conflict as essential. Maybe I don't understand what you mean by personal horror.

The heart of gothic stories is melodrama. It's not a genre of clinical detachment, but of overwrought emotions. Virtually everything about gothic horror is aimed at emphasizing the emotional elements. Even mundane things like the weather and the lighting conditions are used to help set the mood. But it's fundamentally centered on the emotional journeys of the main characters. That's why secrets, transformation, betrayal, self-doubt, grand actions, and tragedy are so central. It's about setting up and then wringing the most out of the characters' tribulations. It's the domains of dread, not the domains of bayesian risk assessment.

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 08:40:54 AM
Porting the structure of literature into the structure of an RPG is always a problem.

Absolutely.

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 08:40:54 AM
Are you looking for a more narrative RPG approach?

Are you looking for tickets to Munich?

(The answer's no, but literally nothing I said suggested I was looking for a more narrative approach, so your question seems really random and out of the blue.)

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 08:40:54 AM
You can have as many encounters as you want in a campaign. As GM you don't have to do wandering encounters. And the game encourages planned encounters any ways to keep atmosphere. So it would be entirely possible to make sure your essentially encountering one monster as the main villain and have any encounters occurring during the adventure be related to that. And they don't all end in the players killing something. It is a setting that works with players gaining less XP and advancing slowly. Yes, you can also have a more standard amount of encounters. But I don't think that detracts from the gothic horror. At least it never felt less gothic to me due to those kinds of things.

Why not use the system from Call of Cthulhu?

You're fighting the structure of the game itself. D&D is a game of levels, with piles of hit points followed by a sharp line between perfectly okay and dead, huge increases in power, advancing threats, spells that can be cast in the middle of great melees and blast armies, and a limited skill system. Yes, you could run a pure murder mystery with no combat encounters until a final showdown with the villain, but that's not how any of the published adventures work. And even if you do, you're still largely missing the central transformation and emotional journeys of the protagonists.

That's why I'm emphasizing that Ravenloft is D&D with some gothic trappings, not a gothic RPG that happens to use D&D as a game system. In general, you need to play to D&D's strengths. While that doesn't necessarily mean a dungeon -- though it's worth noting that the ur-Ravenloft adventure I6 literally has a dungeon, and even the above-ground rooms are treated as a variant on a dungeon crawl -- it will typically involve multiple combat encounters, a sense of serial continuity where the party stays together usually under the guise of monster hunting and grows massively in competence, and most of the emotional freight will be shunted to one-off NPCs.

Quote from: Pat on June 14, 2021, 02:04:15 PM
^ Was that an accidental repeat post?

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 08:35:23 AM

I didn't say it did. I just think you are overemphasizing personal horror and internal conflict as essential. Maybe I don't understand what you mean by personal horror.

The heart of gothic stories is melodrama. It's not a genre of clinical detachment, but of overwrought emotions. Virtually everything about gothic horror is aimed at emphasizing the emotional elements. Even mundane things like the weather and the lighting conditions are used to help set the mood. But it's fundamentally centered on the emotional journeys of the main characters. That's why secrets, transformation, betrayal, self-doubt, grand actions, and tragedy are so central. It's about setting up and then wringing the most out of the characters' tribulations. It's the domains of dread, not the domains of bayesian risk assessment.

You know, I think this ultimately explains why, despite the developers' best efforts, Vampire the Masquerade has always run better as "trenchcoats & katanas" than as the "game of personal horror" they keep trying to make it; including canceling the series for the "personal horror; this time we mean it" of Requiem that fizzled and the current abomination that is V5 that gutted the system again to try and add Requiem elements and enforced "Bella Swanning" (the term I've heard used for V5's Touchstone system that requires you to tie your character's convictions to particular mortals and suffer potential loss of Humanity if they fail to live up to the mental picture you have of them, basically requiring you to stalk them and micromanage their lives to keep them from changing too much lest you fall to The Beast).

The problem being that whenever you devolve the elements of gothic/personal horror down to mechanics, you're forcing the players into a degree of clinical detachment from their PCs and so any horror you might have been able to generate falls by the wayside with the call of "make a Conscience check."

The result is people try to use the mechanics for something else and the playerbase coalesced around "trenchcoats & katanas" and "supernatural political thriller" as the most viable genres and every dev since has warred to drag the game back to their original vision of how it "should" be played only to be undone as the players stick to older editions or slap enough house rules onto the current one to make their preferred genres viable.

It's actually rather bemusing to me that the Dark Lords of the World of Darkness are sort of caught in a Hell of their own making where they constantly struggle to make the world bend to their wills only to be undone by overwrought fans of the prior editions refusing to capitulate.

Second aside; between the demi-plane nature of Strahd's realm that sort of incurs onto regular reality, the deal with Death, way more monsters to kill and bands of heroes questing to defeat them, Ravenloft almost feels like it's got more spiritual roots in the Castlevania video games than Bram Stoker's novel.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 14, 2021, 02:26:04 PM

Quote from: Pat on June 14, 2021, 02:04:15 PM
The heart of gothic stories is melodrama. It's not a genre of clinical detachment, but of overwrought emotions. Virtually everything about gothic horror is aimed at emphasizing the emotional elements. Even mundane things like the weather and the lighting conditions are used to help set the mood. But it's fundamentally centered on the emotional journeys of the main characters. That's why secrets, transformation, betrayal, self-doubt, grand actions, and tragedy are so central. It's about setting up and then wringing the most out of the characters' tribulations. It's the domains of dread, not the domains of bayesian risk assessment.

You know, I think this ultimately explains why, despite the developers' best efforts, Vampire the Masquerade has always run better as "trenchcoats & katanas" than as the "game of personal horror" they keep trying to make it; including canceling the series for the "personal horror; this time we mean it" of Requiem that fizzled and the current abomination that is V5 that gutted the system again to try and add Requiem elements and enforced "Bella Swanning" (the term I've heard used for V5's Touchstone system that requires you to tie your character's convictions to particular mortals and suffer potential loss of Humanity if they fail to live up to the mental picture you have of them, basically requiring you to stalk them and micromanage their lives to keep them from changing too much lest you fall to The Beast).

You don't see that as much in D&D, because D&D has kind of become its own genre. People's see six stats and hit points, and think of dungeons and video games, so they're less like to confuse it with the high fantasy or sword & sorcery in other media. But is has cropped up at various points. For instance, 2nd edition had a heavy emphasis in the fluff on high fantasy and being heroes. But that contrasted with the rules, which were fundamentally the same brutal system as 1e. As a result, some new players came in expecting to play epic heroes with plot immunity and grand destinies out of the starting gate, and died to a random orc.

This seems to happen more in other genres, like gothic horror or urban fantasy. People default back to their expectations based on other media, and there's a period of struggle. Those that keep beating their head against the rules tend to become frustrated, while those who adapt and run games that the rules support, even if they lose some of the key elements of the genre they're supposedly playing, have more fun. The katanas and trenchcoat crowd are a good example.

That's why I think recognizing that Ravenloft is D&D with some gothic trappings, not a gothic horror RPG and only secondarily D&D, is important. You can stumble upon a version that works for you, which I suspect is the case with Bedrockbrendan, but I think some degree of conscious awareness helps avoid the many pitfalls.