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Author Topic: The Dumbest Thing in New Woke Ravenloft  (Read 30303 times)

thedungeondelver

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Re: The Dumbest Thing in New Woke Ravenloft
« Reply #45 on: May 13, 2021, 01:36:16 PM »
I started reading some of the articles on this more closely and looking more at the previews, this is definitely fire the old fans edition of Ravenloft. Maybe they know something I don't but it looks like WOTC is setting itself up for a repeat of the big 4E split, in the way that it is shaking off the whole 'bring the fans back together' approach. One strange design choice is they seem to not be including any stats for domain lords (it is possible this information is incorrect or not complete, as I have only seen it in one place). But the reasoning seems to be to encourage people to not have it be about fighting them. Which is fine if you want that, and often I like it when campaigns don't involve fighting domain lords, but lots of campaigns were built around Domain lord hunting, and eventually someone gets fed up and swings a sword at one. They already had baked in protection from the demi plane anyways (most were hard to kill, most required special circumstances to be permanently killed, etc). Between that, the safety tools, the hesitancy to engage horror, and the massive changes, this is just looking worse and worse

Of course they're firing the fans - Jessica Price worked on this pile of shit.
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Armchair Gamer

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Re: The Dumbest Thing in New Woke Ravenloft
« Reply #46 on: May 13, 2021, 02:20:58 PM »
I started reading some of the articles on this more closely and looking more at the previews, this is definitely fire the old fans edition of Ravenloft.

   According to folks on the EN World thread, real fans are the ones who embrace change for the sake of the Great New Audience, recognize the setting needed to be fixed with a chainsaw, and bow down in obedience to the Dragon of Many Colors and of None. ;)

Dropbear

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Re: The Dumbest Thing in New Woke Ravenloft
« Reply #47 on: May 13, 2021, 02:53:57 PM »
Between that, the safety tools, the hesitancy to engage horror, and the massive changes, this is just looking worse and worse

Safety tools? Ugh, must have missed that.

Bedrockbrendan

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Re: The Dumbest Thing in New Woke Ravenloft
« Reply #48 on: May 13, 2021, 03:11:10 PM »
Between that, the safety tools, the hesitancy to engage horror, and the massive changes, this is just looking worse and worse

Safety tools? Ugh, must have missed that.

Possible I am misinformed (been following previews and threads) but seems like safety tools are a key part of the book now

Bedrockbrendan

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Re: The Dumbest Thing in New Woke Ravenloft
« Reply #49 on: May 13, 2021, 03:18:30 PM »
I started reading some of the articles on this more closely and looking more at the previews, this is definitely fire the old fans edition of Ravenloft.

   According to folks on the EN World thread, real fans are the ones who embrace change for the sake of the Great New Audience, recognize the setting needed to be fixed with a chainsaw, and bow down in obedience to the Dragon of Many Colors and of None. ;)

Lol. Following that thread too. Some  people are cool, but there are lots of posters who say they're old fans yet everything they say is about how bad 2E Ravenloft was. I have no problem with changes being made to update a setting, but my feeling is if they are making Ravenloft it should be because they think its good, and they want to bring back some of those old fans while bringing in new ones. But it both feels like they are insulting the old fans, and they are even using the politics of some of the changes as a shield (i.e. if you don't like the changes you are a bad person). Stuff like taking Egyptian influence out of Har'akir, just makes no sense (so what is it now exactly? Just some high fantasy desert?).

Old Ravenloft had things I would fix: too much railroading, too much meta plot, not enough islands of terror initially, etc. But I've always felt that black box was a masterpiece (at least for me). And I liked most of the 90s line (had some iffy adventures here or there, some good adventures with quirks, and some stuff that was a product of 90s gaming, but on the whole I had a tremendous time running it. The core concept worked. But they've literally changed the core concept. It isn't even gothic/classic horror anymore. Classic Ravenloft would occasionally have elements of other horror genres intrude, but it had to intrude through the filter of the Ravenloft classic horror aesthetic (which was pretty cool when they brought in say Golems as slasher bad guys in The Created; or introduced something like the living wall). But now I think everything is keyed to a different subgenre. And the focus now is keeping it D&D and having a high fantasy vibe (there were always fans who wanted Ravenloft to lean on the fantasy but I always liked the stauncher position of the black box on that front).

Bedrockbrendan

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Re: The Dumbest Thing in New Woke Ravenloft
« Reply #50 on: May 13, 2021, 03:18:59 PM »
I started reading some of the articles on this more closely and looking more at the previews, this is definitely fire the old fans edition of Ravenloft. Maybe they know something I don't but it looks like WOTC is setting itself up for a repeat of the big 4E split, in the way that it is shaking off the whole 'bring the fans back together' approach. One strange design choice is they seem to not be including any stats for domain lords (it is possible this information is incorrect or not complete, as I have only seen it in one place). But the reasoning seems to be to encourage people to not have it be about fighting them. Which is fine if you want that, and often I like it when campaigns don't involve fighting domain lords, but lots of campaigns were built around Domain lord hunting, and eventually someone gets fed up and swings a sword at one. They already had baked in protection from the demi plane anyways (most were hard to kill, most required special circumstances to be permanently killed, etc). Between that, the safety tools, the hesitancy to engage horror, and the massive changes, this is just looking worse and worse

Of course they're firing the fans - Jessica Price worked on this pile of shit.

Remember hearing this. Do you know what her role was in the design?

mightybrain

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Re: The Dumbest Thing in New Woke Ravenloft
« Reply #51 on: May 13, 2021, 07:08:35 PM »
I never liked the idea of the Demiplane of Dread. Part of the terror/horror comes from the supernatural intruding into the mortal realm.

If I were to run a Ravenloft campaign, my first step would be to set it on a prime material world.

I would have the demiplane connected to the prime material via the old wolf infested forest, magic fogs, lamps and so on. Then have Dracula / Strahd come into the prime material to prey on the PC's, their family, friends, etc. rather than the other way around. If the PC's manage to fend him off, then they can choose to chase him back to his castle if they want to risk it to rid the world of his evil.

wmarshal

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Re: The Dumbest Thing in New Woke Ravenloft
« Reply #52 on: May 13, 2021, 08:19:28 PM »
I started reading some of the articles on this more closely and looking more at the previews, this is definitely fire the old fans edition of Ravenloft. Maybe they know something I don't but it looks like WOTC is setting itself up for a repeat of the big 4E split, in the way that it is shaking off the whole 'bring the fans back together' approach. One strange design choice is they seem to not be including any stats for domain lords (it is possible this information is incorrect or not complete, as I have only seen it in one place). But the reasoning seems to be to encourage people to not have it be about fighting them. Which is fine if you want that, and often I like it when campaigns don't involve fighting domain lords, but lots of campaigns were built around Domain lord hunting, and eventually someone gets fed up and swings a sword at one. They already had baked in protection from the demi plane anyways (most were hard to kill, most required special circumstances to be permanently killed, etc). Between that, the safety tools, the hesitancy to engage horror, and the massive changes, this is just looking worse and worse

Of course they're firing the fans - Jessica Price worked on this pile of shit.

Remember hearing this. Do you know what her role was in the design?
I think officially she was listed as a designer. In actuality I imagine her roll was more that of commissar and mascot.

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Re: The Dumbest Thing in New Woke Ravenloft
« Reply #53 on: May 13, 2021, 11:05:59 PM »
saw a bit of art recently. Really going all in on that combat wheelchair gimmick arent they
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Daztur

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Re: The Dumbest Thing in New Woke Ravenloft
« Reply #54 on: May 14, 2021, 06:12:28 AM »
Ravenloft was stupid from the get go, only the maps were any good.  I've never understood people's obsession with it, but, every time someone creates a "Greatest classic D&D modules" list, there we see, I6 right up towards the top.

Of course, those lists are never really going to be repeated, like they were in the early 90s, because now old D&D and old D&D adventures are icky and have problematic things in them.

Never liked Ravenloft at all, having "nothing you do matters" baked in just makes the whole thing seem like empty wankery. Having your character's actions MATTER (for good or ill) in a game is a huge part of what makes RPGs fun and the Raveloft setting just seems to shit all over that. Also hard to take villains seriously if they're trapped in neat little hamster wheels and can't accomplish anything.

I started reading some of the articles on this more closely and looking more at the previews, this is definitely fire the old fans edition of Ravenloft. Maybe they know something I don't but it looks like WOTC is setting itself up for a repeat of the big 4E split, in the way that it is shaking off the whole 'bring the fans back together' approach. One strange design choice is they seem to not be including any stats for domain lords (it is possible this information is incorrect or not complete, as I have only seen it in one place). But the reasoning seems to be to encourage people to not have it be about fighting them. Which is fine if you want that, and often I like it when campaigns don't involve fighting domain lords, but lots of campaigns were built around Domain lord hunting, and eventually someone gets fed up and swings a sword at one. They already had baked in protection from the demi plane anyways (most were hard to kill, most required special circumstances to be permanently killed, etc). Between that, the safety tools, the hesitancy to engage horror, and the massive changes, this is just looking worse and worse

At the start of its run 5e really focused on bringing old fans back, they kinda had to after 4e. Now though? What percentage of 5e players give a flying fuck about earlier editions? Not that many. From a marketing perspective they seem to be doing just fine. For the hobby at a whole we kinda need both D&D bringing in new players AND D&D alienating people so we don't get the monotony of just one game.
« Last Edit: May 14, 2021, 06:15:27 AM by Daztur »

Anselyn

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Re: The Dumbest Thing in New Woke Ravenloft
« Reply #55 on: May 14, 2021, 08:48:03 AM »
saw a bit of art recently. Really going all in on that combat wheelchair gimmick arent they

This just in from the ENWorld review: "The famous occult detective Alanik Ray and adventuring physician Arthur Sedgwick are an example of how they're updated. While pursuing a serial killer Alanik fell from a roof, paralyzing his legs. Since his intellect has always been his greatest weapon, he still solves mysteries from a custom wheelchair, aided by Sedgwick, who he married."

Has it occurred to anyone that this is so OTT that they might just be taking the piss by this point?

Bedrockbrendan

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Re: The Dumbest Thing in New Woke Ravenloft
« Reply #56 on: May 14, 2021, 09:52:38 AM »

At the start of its run 5e really focused on bringing old fans back, they kinda had to after 4e. Now though? What percentage of 5e players give a flying fuck about earlier editions? Not that many. From a marketing perspective they seem to be doing just fine. For the hobby at a whole we kinda need both D&D bringing in new players AND D&D alienating people so we don't get the monotony of just one game.

I have no idea what their numbers are. All I know is I didn't make the switch to 5E, and Ravenloft was the one thing that would have given me a reason to do so. But when I read the previews, followed the threads, it just seemed like they were sneering at those of us who liked it. I don't think it needs to be a choice between new and old fans. And I think this kind of divisive approach is probably harmful to their numbers in the long run if 4E is any indication (I am seeing more and more people not wanting anything to do with WOTC products because they feel like WOTC doesn't want them. These people buy RPGs too. Also we are hardcore fans. If I get excited about Ravenloft, I am going to run it a lot and talk about it a lot. Getting rid of the hardcore fans, in my opinion just doesn't make sense.

Armchair Gamer

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Re: The Dumbest Thing in New Woke Ravenloft
« Reply #57 on: May 14, 2021, 10:20:21 AM »
I have no idea what their numbers are. All I know is I didn't make the switch to 5E, and Ravenloft was the one thing that would have given me a reason to do so. But when I read the previews, followed the threads, it just seemed like they were sneering at those of us who liked it. I don't think it needs to be a choice between new and old fans. And I think this kind of divisive approach is probably harmful to their numbers in the long run if 4E is any indication (I am seeing more and more people not wanting anything to do with WOTC products because they feel like WOTC doesn't want them. These people buy RPGs too. Also we are hardcore fans. If I get excited about Ravenloft, I am going to run it a lot and talk about it a lot. Getting rid of the hardcore fans, in my opinion just doesn't make sense.

   I think they're counting on new fans, old fans who like the changes for various reasons, and those who have sold their souls to WotC as a mouthpiece of the Death Cult and will thus approve anything and sneer at anyone who doesn't follow along. The EN World thread seems to have a solid mixture of the three. :)

Bedrockbrendan

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Re: The Dumbest Thing in New Woke Ravenloft
« Reply #58 on: May 14, 2021, 12:23:21 PM »
I have no idea what their numbers are. All I know is I didn't make the switch to 5E, and Ravenloft was the one thing that would have given me a reason to do so. But when I read the previews, followed the threads, it just seemed like they were sneering at those of us who liked it. I don't think it needs to be a choice between new and old fans. And I think this kind of divisive approach is probably harmful to their numbers in the long run if 4E is any indication (I am seeing more and more people not wanting anything to do with WOTC products because they feel like WOTC doesn't want them. These people buy RPGs too. Also we are hardcore fans. If I get excited about Ravenloft, I am going to run it a lot and talk about it a lot. Getting rid of the hardcore fans, in my opinion just doesn't make sense.

   I think they're counting on new fans, old fans who like the changes for various reasons, and those who have sold their souls to WotC as a mouthpiece of the Death Cult and will thus approve anything and sneer at anyone who doesn't follow along. The EN World thread seems to have a solid mixture of the three. :)

Been involved in those threads (someone just accused me of secretly being Pundit--which is silly given how different our opinions on Ravenloft are).

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Re: The Dumbest Thing in New Woke Ravenloft
« Reply #59 on: May 14, 2021, 12:38:46 PM »
saw a bit of art recently. Really going all in on that combat wheelchair gimmick arent they

This just in from the ENWorld review: "The famous occult detective Alanik Ray and adventuring physician Arthur Sedgwick are an example of how they're updated. While pursuing a serial killer Alanik fell from a roof, paralyzing his legs. Since his intellect has always been his greatest weapon, he still solves mysteries from a custom wheelchair, aided by Sedgwick, who he married."

Has it occurred to anyone that this is so OTT that they might just be taking the piss by this point?

god if it is I tip my hat.
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