Interested in finding out what aspects of the 2E Ravenloft line worked for people who were into it (if you were not a fan feel free to weigh in and say why as well----but particularly interested in those who played or ran it frequently and had thoughts on the way different parts of the setting and mechanics functioned). What were the parts you really liked, the parts you disliked and was there anything you were excited when you read but in practice it simply didn't work?

I loved the concept of Ravenloft, with dark lord vampires and a dark world where folks toil away, but when they advanced the campaign to a "domain" thing and had lots of dark lords working against one another I felt it had moved too far from the original. What works best for me is to focus on the castle and nearby villages and keep the campaign somewhat contained.

Only two of the other Lords compare to Strahd, Soth and Vecna - and both of them have been 'ripped off' from their home setting (kind of the point I know) - I couldn't name any others without looking them up.

It almost seemed like they went from the one mostly-effective gothic horror product they had, to the later Universal vs. films - a certain amount of cheesiness got baked in.

Add to the fact that PCs often distrust NPCs in a normal, friendly setting, they'll get downright paranoid - but not 'scared'.

It -could- have been interesting as a version of hell - your evil PC dies, 'wakes up' [at level 1] in the Ravenloft Demi-plane, and tries to if not get out, take over.  Do it like the Heroes in Hell novel, where sometimes death is permanent, so you still don't take excessive risks.

I found it worked best as a supplement to a campaign rather than as a stand alone setting. I worked it into the lore of my existing campaign: some sages and wizards knew that such a place existed and that you could potentially wander into it.

I never really went for "horror" gaming with Ravenloft. Lots of gothic atmosphere, but in the end it was D&D set against a Hammer Horror background.

Best Ravenloft experience I had was with Ship of Horror. I liked that adventure better than the original Ravenloft, and it was a blast even as it chewed through PCs (we had a party of 8 to start the adventure, only 3 survived the whole thing).

I really thought a lot of it worked. Feast of Goblyns is one of my favorite adventures, its a little more D&D than what came after while still clearly a Ravenloft adventure. Speaking of lords, Harkon Lucas was great in that adventure. The first few low level adventures and the tarot cards both worked well for me.

Stuff that didn't work?

I started to run that prophecy mega adventure but one of the parts was an absolute mess and I abandoned it. I didn't get much mileage out of some of the lords, like Not Frankenstein and the lich. There was one high level adventure with the Mind Flayers that was just absurdly masochistic. The very cool but printer unfriendly character sheets with all the black filler.

Quote from: Dimitrios;1141798I never really went for "horror" gaming with Ravenloft. Lots of gothic atmosphere, but in the end it was D&D set against a Hammer Horror background.

I feel like Castlevania replicates that sort of vibe in a videogame form. I LOVE how kitshe Ravenloft is. It's such a wonderful contrivance. Evil gods literally pack a world full of the most miserable spooks. What fun.

Quote from: Conanist;1141809Feast of Goblyns is one of my favorite adventures, its a little more D&D than what came after while still clearly a Ravenloft adventure.

I thought Feast of Goblyns had a lot of high quality stuff in it, but I never ran it as written. To me, it works better as a mini setting than as a straight adventure.

I never ran or played Ravenloft, but I really like the idea of the setting. I think the setting rules are solid (modifications to turn undead and detect evil, curses and corruption) but I dislike having it set in a demiplane.

For my own, unplayed setting/campaign that I tinker with occasionally, the setting is a world, not a plane, centered on the town of Ravenshire. The sins of the townsfolk have allowed evil to enter and curse the town.
The idea is that in order to lift the curse, the characters investigate the town, uncover the secrets and resolve each "sin".
Taking inspiration from the original Diablo and Castlevania, because this is a game, not a gothic novel. Just lean heavily into the tropes.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1141827I never ran or played Ravenloft, but I really like the idea of the setting. I think the setting rules are solid (modifications to turn undead and detect evil, curses and corruption) but I dislike having it set in a demiplane.

For my own, unplayed setting/campaign that I tinker with occasionally, the setting is a world, not a plane, centered on the town of Ravenshire. The sins of the townsfolk have allowed evil to enter and curse the town.
The idea is that in order to lift the curse, the characters investigate the town, uncover the secrets and resolve each "sin".
Taking inspiration from the original Diablo and Castlevania, because this is a game, not a gothic novel. Just lean heavily into the tropes.

I think that D&D rules (any edition) are far down the list of what would help make the feel of Ravenloft work. I did have a WFRP 2e game set in Sylvania and I think it worked far better with that.

I haven't played Ravenloft in decades, but I basically got dragged into it by a player who became obsessed with the setting and always expected every D&D game to be set in it by default--even if characters were made for another setting, since you could basically drag them to the demiplane wherever the mists showed up. I went along with it since he was one of my few consistent players and we sometimes shifted DM duties, or played one on one when no one else showed up, but I eventually got tired of it after a while, cuz I wanted to try other settings.

I liked the Vistani and the culture surrounding the actual castle Ravenloft, but I didn't like the disjointed feeling that having a mishmash of random "domains" that got dragged into the demiplane created. It was an interesting idea on the surface, but it got so overused in my campaigns thanks to that one player it lost all charm really fast, and I preferred actual planar campaigns over being stuck in that one demiplane you couldn't escape from. Looking back on it, I think I'd prefer a more fully fleshed out Castlevaniaesque world based around castle Ravenloft and the Vistani, and make it all about fighting rammed up classical horror creatures and having cryptic encounters with traveling Vistani.

I played a lot of Ravenloft back in the day.  A few of the games seemed very gimmicky, like the one where you get turned into little dolls, and on the otherhand some were very deadly.  I dont know if it was the Feast of Goblyns adventure but I do remember one adventure with Goblyns killed more then a few of my PCs.

Masque of the Red Death. It took the Gothic Horror of Ravenloft and put it in its native milieu - the late 19th century.

I read both the novels about Strahd and Soth set in ravenloft and loved them, conversly they were the only ones transcribed to my native language:)

Havent actually played the game but i liked how unique the concept is, we didnt have much gothic horror in games back in the past when ravenloft was semi new. What worked was the concept of the Mists for my tastes, the atmosphere and the Dread Powers remaining unknown.

What didnt work i cant honestly say having low experience with the game as it should be played.

What i also liked is a concept introduced on a blog that combines Ravenloft with Blue Rose, making it a romantic fantasy filled with gothic horror. Now thats a setting that i would like to play.

Quote from: Warder;1141922What i also liked is a concept introduced on a blog that combines Ravenloft with Blue Rose, making it a romantic fantasy filled with gothic horror. Now thats a setting that i would like to play.

That is so on point it would almost be painful if it weren't so funny.

I'd play it, too.