Quote from: LiferGamer;1141797Only 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.

Azalin was objectively the most powerful domain lord, seconded by the elder brain of blutespur.

As we commented in the most recent episode of Inappropriate Characters, it seems that every Ravenloft game tends to start out with the GM trying to run Dracula, and ends up looking more like "The Three Stooges Meet Dracula" instead.

Quote from: jhkim;1141973I loved the original two Ravenloft modules, but I thought the whole idea of the "Demi-plane of Dread" was meta and counter-productive to horror.

I've run a bunch of gothic horror, and I think it works much better if you *don't* say "This is an offshoot of the ordinary world where the laws of reality are stacked against you."

Agreed. I was a huge fan of the original modules but never liked the demiplane idea, simply because I prefer worlds that feel like natural, self-contained, organically logical places -- the Demiplane of Dread was literally a mash-up.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1143769Agreed. I was a huge fan of the original modules but never liked the demiplane idea, simply because I prefer worlds that feel like natural, self-contained, organically logical places -- the Demiplane of Dread was literally a mash-up.

It was identical to any prime world which was a counterpart of Earth, with the exception of each fantasy counterpart culture being a patchwork edition. It feels more realistic to me in some ways, since it's not very organic for most fantasy worlds to be clones of Earth circa AD1000.

There's nothing inherently wrong or unnatural with patchwork worlds. Given the fantastical nature of D&D, you would expect them to show up with some frequency. In fact, D&D planets operate on young Earth creationism anyway, so singling out the Plane of Dread feels arbitrary.

It's D&Disms like that which hinder my enjoyment of canonical campaign settings. D&D can't decide what's it own physics, metaphysics, geological history, and evolutionary history are supposed to be, which breaks my immersion.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1143785It's D&Disms like that which hinder my enjoyment of canonical campaign settings. D&D can't decide what's it own physics, metaphysics, geological history, and evolutionary history are supposed to be, which breaks my immersion.

You can explain most of that due to unreliable author.

Quote from: Shasarak;1143836You can explain most of that due to unreliable author.

That works for the fluff, but what about when it applies to the crunch?

Quote from: HappyDaze;1143838That works for the fluff, but what about when it applies to the crunch?

The crunch is explained by the fluff.

The main "inconsistency" is when it is not medieval authentic.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1143785It was identical to any prime world which was a counterpart of Earth, with the exception of each fantasy counterpart culture being a patchwork edition. It feels more realistic to me in some ways, since it's not very organic for most fantasy worlds to be clones of Earth circa AD1000.

There's nothing inherently wrong or unnatural with patchwork worlds.

Insofar as they're all essentially literary conventions for the sake of combining popular tropes, you're not wrong. Nonetheless, much as it's admittedly a subjective reaction, the level of handwaving meant to disguise the artificiality does make a difference to me -- the patchwork of the Forgotten Realms at least feigns to be a self-contained world, while the patchwork of Ravenloft rubs itself in the players' faces, and I find the suspension of disbelief easier for the former.

(This is also why I disliked the power-management system of D&D 4E; the explicit classification of spells and powers as "at will", "once per encounter" and "once per day" simply felt too much like an obvious game mechanic not pretending it was anything else, while spell points or spell slots at least made a nod to integration with the implied setting/fluff. Even if in practice the in-game usage ratios came down to about the same, I found it just that little too disruptive to immersion for my taste.)

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1143984Insofar as they're all essentially literary conventions for the sake of combining popular tropes, you're not wrong. Nonetheless, much as it's admittedly a subjective reaction, the level of handwaving meant to disguise the artificiality does make a difference to me -- the patchwork of the Forgotten Realms at least feigns to be a self-contained world, while the patchwork of Ravenloft rubs itself in the players' faces, and I find the suspension of disbelief easier for the former.

Agreed. I liked the boxed set, but only used the individual domains, never the entire patchwork demi-plane.

Your 4e comment reminded me: that "the mechanics are too clearly mechanics" aspect is something that always bothered me about the Hero system except when using it for the superheroes genre, where it doesn't bother me at all for some reason.

The only two things that I remember about Ravenloft was from when it originally came out.

1) Our DM played Strahd to his strengths and he was one of the best adversaries we ever had.

2) Isometric maps look really cool, but suck when you use them for practical battlemap purposes in game.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1143768As we commented in the most recent episode of Inappropriate Characters, it seems that every Ravenloft game tends to start out with the GM trying to run Dracula, and ends up looking more like "The Three Stooges Meet Dracula" instead.

I think sometimes the worst thing a GM can do, is try to force horror. If am running Cthulhu or Ravenloft, and it veers into comedy, I just go with it. Ravenloft lends itself well to campy horror so I think it is fine. For me the horror setting is the most important thing. It doesn't always have to be brimming with super serious horror atmosphere. Sometimes when players are goofing around and joking, they let their guard down and it contrasts well when something truly horrifying occurs. My reaction to horror movies is usually either being on the edge of my seat, or laughing. So it works. Half the reason I love old horror movies with Vincent price is the sense of humor behind it.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1143984Insofar as they're all essentially literary conventions for the sake of combining popular tropes, you're not wrong. Nonetheless, much as it's admittedly a subjective reaction, the level of handwaving meant to disguise the artificiality does make a difference to me -- the patchwork of the Forgotten Realms at least feigns to be a self-contained world, while the patchwork of Ravenloft rubs itself in the players' faces, and I find the suspension of disbelief easier for the former.

(This is also why I disliked the power-management system of D&D 4E; the explicit classification of spells and powers as "at will", "once per encounter" and "once per day" simply felt too much like an obvious game mechanic not pretending it was anything else, while spell points or spell slots at least made a nod to integration with the implied setting/fluff. Even if in practice the in-game usage ratios came down to about the same, I found it just that little too disruptive to immersion for my taste.)

You should check out the Porphyra campaign setting. The premise is basically Ravenloft but without the mists or the horror genre. Porphyra is a patchwork of regions from different worlds due to various reality-breaking wars that occurred in the past.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1144735Porphyra is a patchwork of regions from different worlds due to various reality-breaking wars that occurred in the past.

Sounds a bit like TORG. I'll look it up. Thanks!

My idea of "basically Ravenloft but without the Mists" would be to keep the Gothic Horror, crank it up to 11, and expand upon the world Barovia comes from and make it all a full blown, self-contained gothic horror setting about fighting overpowered creatures of darkness.

Alternately, it could also be more of a campaign "style" rather than a setting, where the "Dark Powers" would just show up at an existing campaign world and rather than making a copy of the land in some demiplane and stealing the population the Dark Powers could instead sort of "infect" the land, bringing an ominous "darkness" that takes hold of it and draws creatures of darkness (overpowered werewolves, vampires, zombies, etc.) to the surrounding region. And all this darkness will be centered around a prominent figure (the Dark Lord) that has been infused with the "Dark Powers" and been transformed by them as a result. Destroying this figure will drive the Dark Powers away, but as long as the Dark Lord is around the Dark Powers remain. And if the Dark Lord is defeated but not destroyed, the Dark Powers will simply go dormant until the Dark Lord returns and gets back into power. That way we could have a consistent setting instead of a jumbled mess while still retaining many of Ravenloft's key elements.

Kaidan seems to take cues from Ravenloft, except based on Japanese folklore. I don't remember what exactly it's deal is, but IIRC it's a realm of horror that you get to by dying and being reincarnated as an inhabitant.