Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;1142777I'm not much of Ravenloft fan, so I have no dog in the fight (wouldn't be buying a 5e Ravenloft product one way or the other). All I have to say is that this thread made me think of the Cher song. (Good song -- not sure it would have a chance a being a hit, today, because the lyrics might be seen as "problematic.")

"Gypsies, tramps and thieves
We'd hear it from the people of the town
They'd call us, gypsies, tramps and thieves
But every night all the men would come around
And lay their money down"

Or her other hit, "Half-Breed"

QuoteMy father married a pure Cherokee
My mother's people were ashamed of me
The Indians said I was white by law
The White Man always called me "Indian Squaw"

Quote from: Mistwell;1142786I strongly suspect the plan is to expand on this aspect of the Vistanti. Making them planes travelers and inter-planar traders, and using them in some way to tie in a planes book and possibly Sigil.

That's what I did in my campaign. The Vistani looked like "colorful wanderers" because they were the only ones who could travel between the planes, and they'd pick up exotic clothing, equipment, and music from all over the multiverse. There were even elf and dwarf "Vistani." Basically, it was a job, not a race. Since they were the only ones who could travel between the mists, they had a monopoly on inter-plane commerce, much like the Guild in Dune. And they charged hefty fees for transporting goods.

Yes, I turned them into Evil Capitalists.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1142844You may note the Amazon preorder version has it's price slashed nearly in half. From 99 to 59 bucks.

It's $65 right now, but you may note that's not often in the control of the publisher, but instead is done by Amazon. For a variety of reasons some of which I still don't understand, and in an automated fashion. It looks like it will soon crack the top 500 of all books sold on Amazon...in preorders!

Regardless, it's selling well, which was my point. The claim was nobody would buy it because it was some "woke" shit, but people are clearly buying it.

Quote from: moonsweeper;1142847Maybe, but Pundit's stuff is actually good unlike WOTC.

Don't forget, the ice cream market is far larger than the TTRPG market.

I am not making a claim about quality really. In fact my claim is more cynical than most. I happen to like WOTC books these days but my argument has more to do with people just buying whatever WOTC sells more than what I think of the books. I am more saying WOTC books will sell well, regardless. The book is not going to tank because it's "too woke" because that's not the only factor involved with people deciding to buy this sort of stuff. I don't think it's a meaningful factor in sales for them.

Quote from: Mistwell;1142986I am not making a claim about quality really. In fact my claim is more cynical than most. I am more saying WOTC books will sell well. The book is not going to tank because it's "too woke" because that's not the only factor involved with people deciding to buy this sort of stuff. I don't think it's a meaningful factor in sales for them.

Network effect and convenience mean that a lot of people will stick to WoTC.

Quote from: Aglondir;1142863That's what I did in my campaign. The Vistani looked like "colorful wanderers" because they were the only ones who could travel between the planes, and they'd pick up exotic clothing, equipment, and music from all over the multiverse. There were even elf and dwarf "Vistani." Basically, it was a job, not a race. Since they were the only ones who could travel between the mists, they had a monopoly on inter-plane commerce, much like the Guild in Dune. And they charged hefty fees for transporting goods.

Yes, I turned them into Evil Capitalists.

Yeah see that is a much more interesting group of people than what was presented in the original Curse of Strahd book.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1142844You may note the Amazon preorder version has it's price slashed nearly in half. From 99 to 59 bucks.

Completely apart from anything to do with wokeness, I'm surprised that so many people are willing spend even $59 on a revised version of an adventure that's barely a few years old.

Quote from: Mistwell;1142985The claim was nobody would buy it because it was some "woke" shit, but people are clearly buying it.

That was not the claim.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1142542No way a bunch of social justice nitwits are going to buy tons of copies of a whitewashed Ravenloft at hundreds of dollars a pop.
They'll play their old modules (if they play at all) and moan about the stereotypes on twitter.

Can't wait to see this flop and get blamed on the neo-nazi OSR grognards somehow.

If it doesn't flop, it won't be because social justice nitwits bought a ton of copies.

Quote from: Dimitrios;1142991Completely apart from anything to do with wokeness, I'm surprised that so many people are willing spend even $59 on a revised version of an adventure that's barely a few years old.

This is why I mentioned in my first post that I didn't wanna get my hopes up on them failing with this. Way too many people will buy ANYTHING from prominent corporations, like mindless consumer sheep--specially when it involves limited edition-type stuff. The more prominent the company or product, and the less they need the money compared to anyone else in the same industry, the more that mindless sheeple will be tempted into buying it. And I doubt even 10% of them are even aware of the woke shit involved one way or another (pro or against)--they're just buying it cuz they're worthless consumer trash.

This bothers me more for wasteful moronic attitude involved than for any woke shit contained in the books (which is bad enough by itself). I lose more hope for humanity every single day.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1143001I lose more hope for humanity every single day.

When are you expecting to hit 0 hope?

Quote from: HappyDaze;1143004When are you expecting to hit 0 hope?

I might be at negative hope already. That's why I said I didn't want to get my hopes up from the get go: I already have no hope for humanity not acting like mindless consumer garbage.

Regarding the price -- I am perfectly willing to pay good money if it's material that I know I will use and get good value from. $59 for entertaining six people is cheaper than a movie or a nice dinner, and a good boxed set can be material for many hours.

Personally, I ran the original Ravenloft module for my family last summer, and I went through the work of printing out battle maps for the whole castle to hand out for players. I felt that greatly added to the experience.

https://www.dmsguild.com/product/254681/Castle-Ravenloft-Battle-Maps

EDITED TO ADD:  Regarding the Romani, it's not a huge point, but yeah, it was something I disliked in the original module and that I changed when I ran it. It helped that one of the players (my son, actually) had his character have a Romani background.

Quote from: Dimitrios;1142991Completely apart from anything to do with wokeness, I'm surprised that so many people are willing spend even $59 on a revised version of an adventure that's barely a few years old.

$59 is a reasonable price, if you don't already own CoS and the Tarokka deck.