Here we go, folks:

1984 style.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/technology/one-of-dungeons-and-dragons-best-campaigns-is-getting-two-extravagant-new-reprints/ar-BB17q4pf

One of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons' most famous adventure modules, Ravenloft, tells the story of the vampire Strahd von Zarovich and the cursed valley of Barovia. In 2017, Wizards of the Coast released a revised edition, titled Curse of Strahd, with the help of its original authors. It's gone on to become one of the most popular adventures for the modern 5th edition ruleset. Now it's being revised again, and released as a pair of lavish collectors' editions timed for Halloween.

Curse of Strahd Revamped will be one of the first modules revised by Wizards to align with the developer's renewed focus on diversity and inclusion. The campaign setting was called out for its insensitive portrayal of the Romani people, and Wizards said in a press release that the module will have other changes and updates made as well. The $99.99 boxed set will be released Oct. 20 at local game stores and on Amazon.


What's wonderful about this boxed set is that is comes with a Dungeons Master's screen -- which is especially helpful for this sandbox-style open-world campaign -- and a deck of foil-stamped Tarokka cards. These tarot-like cards are a vital prop for setting up randomized elements of the adventure.

[Warning: The link below leads to some spoilers for Curse of Strahd Revamped. If you haven't run the adventure before, or aren't planning to be the Dungeon Master for your group, best to stick to the copy below.]

In addition to the $99.99 edition, Beadle & Grimm's -- which licenses D&D content for lavish boxed sets -- is also making a $399.99 version of the module. It's currently up for pre-order at $359.99.

What's extraordinary about this Curse of Strahd Legendary Edition is that it comes with tons of handouts, maps, and props for use at the table. First, Beadle & Grimm's takes care to shred every D&D adventure module down into its component parts. That presents the DM with far less paperwork to manage at the table. They also include encounter cards, 60 in total, for running the game's many combat and non-combat events. The Legendary Edition also includes physical letters written by Strahd himself, which serve as hooks and clues to collect during the adventure. There's jewelry, coins, and other physical props galore, plus a new map of Barovia created by Devin Rue.

The real treasure here, however, is the entirety of Castle Ravenloft -- the setting for the climactic showdown at the end of the module -- is included as a series of physical maps.

I've been running Curse of Strahd for the better part of a year with my local playgroup, and I can tell you that some of the most fun my party has had comes from wandering the twisting stairwells and towering spires of this haunted, gothic fortress. To play things out at the table, I ended up created my own Ravenloft map using a home printer and a half-dozen sheets of foamcore. The prospect of opening up a box and having that all ready to roll on day one, well, that would have saved me a lot of time.

Beadle & Grimm's says in the product listing that this is just the first of many collaborations with Wizards of the Coast to enrich its back catalog of 5th edition modules. Look for more information on their website.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/gaming/dandampds-culturally-sensitive-strahd-revamp-is-here-but-itll-cost-you/ar-BB17fKZ5

Updated: 7/28/2020, 3 p.m. ET: Wizards of the Coast has reached out to io9 to clarify just what has been updated in the re-release of Curse of Strahd, and how Dungeons & Dragons players will be able to access updated material without purchasing Revamped. According to Ray Winninger, the executive producer of Wizards' D&D studio, only text in Strahd has received revisions to bring the module's depiction of the Vistani more in line with Wizards of the Coast's commitment to diversity and inclusion, and none of the original artwork in the module or the included Tarroka Cards has been modified as part of this update.

For owners of the original release of Curse of Strahd, the updated material--alongside the rules errata previously released online--will be released for players to download for free on the D&D website in the future, and also be made available for free to players who purchased Strahd digitally in the D&D Beyond app. While Wizards cannot exchange physical copies of Strahd for the updated version released as part of Revamped, as previously noted in the D&D team's statement on diversity and race in the game, future reprints of Strahd will included the updated material as well. The original story is as follows.

The Vistani have a clear resemblance to the real-life Romani people, and much criticism was made of the way 2016's Curse of Strahd in particular reinforced stereotypes historically used to oppress and persecute them. That criticism led to Wizards of the Coast issuing official revisions to the material to try to answer some of the criticisms. And now, Curse of Strahd is getting a fancy box set. Nice? Well, there's a bit more to it.


As previewed today by IGN, Curse of Strahd: Revamped Premium Edition is a collector's edition of the module, collecting a revised version of the book along with a monster booklet, a Tarokka deck, a booklet to explain how to use the Tarokka deck in your adventure, some handouts for players, illustrated postcards, and a Dungeon Master's screen.

"We don't do a tremendous number of box sets," D&D's principal narrative designer, Chris Perkins, told IGN. "And we don't always have the luxury of time or money to really test ourselves... You'd think that we're just taking something that exists, we're putting it in a fancy package and 'Whoop!' it's done, but actually so much thought and so many people were involved in the concepting and the packaging and the design, the cards, the DM screen, and everything. It was actually a very time consuming--but fun--process."

Notably, this is the first time Curse of Strahd will have been republished since a number of amendments were made to the book, released to players as errata for the printed edition, that sought to undo some of the harmful stereotyping of the Vistani people, along with revising the book's approach to a specific character's disability to avoid ableist stereotypes. And while it's good to have a full published version of the modified module, releasing it as a collector's edition box set is an odd choice.

For one thing, the revisions aren't as extensive as perhaps they could be. While modifications do fix things like the stereotyping of the Vistani people as "uncivilized" and heavy drinkers, the module still gives the Vistani abilities to curse and hypnotize players or cast spells like Evil Eye, which, along with unrevised art that heavily conjures stereotyped imagery of the Romani, leans into tropes that suggest the Romani have mystical, dangerous powers, tropes that have been used in the past to target Romani for persecution.

Dungeons & Dragons Team Announces New Plans to Address Race and Inclusivity in the Game

For another, it seems like a hefty ask, for players who might want an edition of their fun vampire module that isn't culturally insensitive, to go out and buy a $99.99 collector's edition. If, as Perkins told IGN, Wizards isn't in the business of publishing collector's editions on a regular basis, this seems like perhaps a poor choice of module for that purpose. Perkins addresses concerns over representation in the book, in the interview, saying, "Curse of Strahd [Revamped] specifically [addresses] pain points around the Vistani and around this disabled character, and there were small other issues to resolve as well."

He continued, "We wanted to clean that up a bit and remove some stuff that the fans didn't particularly like in terms of representation and how they were depicted--it's that sort of very granular-but-important change. More like surgical changes to the adventure than some sort of grand sweeping change."

But stereotyping of the Romani people--erroneously and offensively labeled using an old slur term for the people--is a fixture of the gothic fiction the setting of Curse of Strahd uses as its stylistic basis. While Wizards of the Coast is clearly making strides, recently pledging to hire and publish more diversely, and specifically hiring a Romani consultant to work on some of its releases, it will likely take more than a handful of granular changes to fully expunge offensive undercurrents from the setting. And while there's a real opportunity here to do better work--the aforementioned diversity pledge also mentioned future works that will feature the Vistani people and aim to complicate their depictions--starting that work with a fancy collector's edition feels less like a promise to do better and more like a victory lap.

We've reached out to Wizards of the Coast for clarification and comment on the re-release of Curse of Strahd and Vistani representation, and we'll update this post if we hear back. The Revamped Premium Edition of Curse of Strahd will be released on October 20th, 2020, according to Amazon.

This post has been updated with additional comment from Wizards of the Coast.

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Y'all hurry on out and pre-order a copy!

Double win for them. They get to advance The Narrative, and generate publicity for this overpriced product out of the accompanying controversy.

Congratulations for giving them the second one here. Because the one thing they don't want is to be ignored.

No 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.

It did make me decide to buy a Tarrokka Deck before they decide that's too offensive, since I do own the 2016 printing of the Sourcebook.  Don't think I'll be buying this boxed set though, much as Ravenloft is my favorite D&D setting. I'll keep buying up the older pdfs on Drivethru before they decide to remove those from sale too.

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.

They also have the $399 version ... just open your pretty little mouth ... show me that soy gape ...

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.

Pretty much what I thinking, though, some people are willing to shed absurd amounts of money for ridiculous stuff, so I don't wanna get my hopes up for them to fail. But $399? Jeeses Christ! That's a lot of money to blow for a whitewashed reprint of an freaking MODULE--not even a full blown game, but a glorified adventure. Like WTF happened to this industry that they're asking close to four hundred freaking dollars for what used to be a cheap loss leader decades ago?

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.

Indeed. Totally aside from anything to do with "social justice", the price point is ridiculous. And it's not as though Curse of Strahd is some sort of legendary classic. It's a recent 5e adventure that was reasonably well received.

Quote from: Dimitrios;1142560Indeed. Totally aside from anything to do with "social justice", the price point is ridiculous. And it's not as though Curse of Strahd is some sort of legendary classic. It's a recent 5e adventure that was reasonably well received.

But it's got homosexual NPCs!

Man, what a gyp!

I can't wait for "Nosferatu" (either the original one or the Werner Herzog version) to be remade to be "more inclusive of ugly looking vampires". This time around the vampire gets the girl and all the characters agree how the union brings together the world of the living and those of the undeads. Because, you know, Undead unlives matter :rolleyes:.

I think you are overly sensitive. The changes are actually pretty small.

QuoteFor one thing, the revisions aren't as extensive as perhaps they could be. While modifications do fix things like the stereotyping of the Vistani people as "uncivilized" and heavy drinkers, the module still gives the Vistani abilities to curse and hypnotize players or cast spells like Evil Eye, which, along with unrevised art that heavily conjures stereotyped imagery of the Romani, leans into tropes that suggest the Romani have mystical, dangerous powers, tropes that have been used in the past to target Romani for persecution.

So the Vistani are depicted as civilized and sober. The remaining supposedly objectionable element is that they have magic. While that might be objectionable if you were trying to make a horror movie, it falls a bit flat in a setting where non-Vistani have magic too. Magic-user classes are a thing, and non-magic classes are normally decked out like Christmas trees in magic gear. The Ravenloft campaign setting also has random instances where somebody who isn't a magic-user may speak non-magical curses that are then made magical by the dark powers.

This is basically World of Darkness: Gypsies all over again. I think we should all be able to readily admit that the Vistani draw from contentious stereotypes of Romani peoples. The Romani are a real people, not fictional, and they are still oppressed in certain parts of the world.

As someone else once said:

Quotethe Vistani are pretty clearly all of the worst shallow anti-Romani stereotypes rolled together and played completely straight: as drunk, thieving, baby-snatching, Evil Eye-having vagrants in headscarves and covered wagons, who exist only as enemies and plot devices.

Trying to cleanup this depiction and portray the vistani as an unjustly persecuted minority doesn't even go against the canon. Van Richten's Guide to the Vistani outright states that the stereotypes are wrong and bigoted.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1142578I think you are overly sensitive. The changes are actually pretty small.



So the Vistani are depicted as civilized and sober. The remaining supposedly objectionable element is that they have magic. While that might be objectionable if you were trying to make a horror movie, it falls a bit flat in a setting where non-Vistani have magic too. Magic-user classes are a thing, and non-magic classes are normally decked out like Christmas trees in magic gear. The Ravenloft campaign setting also has random instances where somebody who isn't a magic-user may speak non-magical curses that are then made magical by the dark powers.

This is basically World of Darkness: Gypsies all over again. I think we should all be able to readily admit that the Vistani draw from contentious stereotypes of Romani peoples. The Romani are a real people, not fictional, and they are still oppressed in certain parts of the world.

As someone else once said:


Trying to cleanup this depiction and portray the vistani as an unjustly persecuted minority doesn't even go against the canon. Van Richten's Guide to the Vistani outright states that the stereotypes are wrong and bigoted.

pretty much, the Roma are being purged and killed in parts of Eastern Europe right now, lets not have a game spreading the propaganda used to justify it.

Quote from: Reckall;1142567I can't wait for "Nosferatu" (either the original one or the Werner Herzog version) to be remade to be "more inclusive of ugly looking vampires". This time around the vampire gets the girl and all the characters agree how the union brings together the world of the living and those of the undeads. Because, you know, Undead unlives matter :rolleyes:.

Naturally, Klaus Kinski would erupt from the earth and hunt down all the developers of such an endeavor.
Kinski would have made the ultimate batsh*t insane DM.
All SJW players would have crumbled under his roleplaying wrath.  Heh

the deck of cards was always ham, i just gave her a crystal ball instead.

Quote from: Taggie;1142584pretty much, the Roma are being purged and killed in parts of Eastern Europe right now, lets not have a game spreading the propaganda used to justify it.

I'm really surprised WotC hasn't made a module where the vistani are victims of ethnic cleansing and need to be rescued by the party, with a portion of profits being donated to charities that help Romani people.