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. :D
The only problem I ever had with Ravenloft was the agency of the Dark Powers in 'stealing' archvillains from other realms, and relying on Star Wars level plot armor to get away with it. Some of the darklords had been agents of evil gods, and said deities tend to be REALLY crabby when someone comes along stealing their favorite minion. Sooner or later, Takhisis is going to come looking for her toy.
(On a side note, I am amused at how Margaret Weis threw a titanic shitfit over Lord Soth getting yanked into the Demiplane of Dread.)
Not to mention the amazing chutzpah it took to try and confine Vecna for fuck's sake. Well, we all know how THAT turned out.
I'd rather write out the Dark Powers entirely and make the tendencies of Ravenloft an inherent issue. The Dark Powers aren't causing you trouble, it's just that the demiplane is so fucked up that things turn out that way.
Quote from: Ghostmaker;1141961Sooner or later, Takhisis is going to come looking for her toy.
(On a side note, I am amused at how Margaret Weis threw a titanic shitfit over Lord Soth getting yanked into the Demiplane of Dread.)
Prophecy achieved.
Quote from: Ghostmaker;1141961The only problem I ever had with Ravenloft was the agency of the Dark Powers in 'stealing' archvillains from other realms, and relying on Star Wars level plot armor to get away with it. Some of the darklords had been agents of evil gods, and said deities tend to be REALLY crabby when someone comes along stealing their favorite minion. Sooner or later, Takhisis is going to come looking for her toy.
I think Soth, Vecna and Kas are both the only pre-existing darklords and the only ones with that level of divine attention. But all things considered, I'm quite willing to concede that Soth and the Vistani were both more trouble than they were worth.
QuoteI'd rather write out the Dark Powers entirely and make the tendencies of Ravenloft an inherent issue. The Dark Powers aren't causing you trouble, it's just that the demiplane is so fucked up that things turn out that way.
I do have a mental model of the Dark Powers as a 'grand and lingering curse' for some versions of Ravenloft--Strahd's dark magic, unholy pact, and horrific crimes set off something that not only kicked Barovia into a demiplane and changed the rules, but that is still running and able to latch onto, absorb, and draw power from individuals who meet similar parameters, even on the Prime Material, to the point of being able to shape the Ethereal into inanimate matter and borrow non-sapient life from obscure Primes. (Sapient beings are victims of the Mists, refugees from other domains, and descendants thereof.)
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1141791Interested 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 liked that there were domains that weren't so outlandish and fulfilled the 'starkly beautiful' side of Ravenloft. Even in Ravenloft, PCs should have a chance to take a breather.
I 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." I much prefer to run horror scenarios set in whatever ordinary world there is for that game. So in D&D, the Ravenloft modules were set in the usual D&D background, not in a separate demi-plane.
Still, there was some nice-looking material produced for the Ravenloft setting, that I occasionally put into adventures set in another universe.
Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1141969I do have a mental model of the Dark Powers as a 'grand and lingering curse' for some versions of Ravenloft--Strahd's dark magic, unholy pact, and horrific crimes set off something that not only kicked Barovia into a demiplane and changed the rules, but that is still running and able to latch onto, absorb, and draw power from individuals who meet similar parameters, even on the Prime Material, to the point of being able to shape the Ethereal into inanimate matter and borrow non-sapient life from obscure Primes. (Sapient beings are victims of the Mists, refugees from other domains, and descendants thereof.)
Exactly. In the D&D cosmology, order, chaos, good and evil aren't just philosophical points; they're active forces in the multiverse as tangible as magnetism, gravity, and rolling a 1 when you needed to to make that saving throw. Who needs active, inscrutable 'powers' when just the nature of evil suffices?
If you conceptualize evil as being akin to gravity, then the Demiplane of Dread is something like an evil-aligned singularity or black hole. When a possible darklord reaches a certain point (a 'moral event horizon'?) and the stars are right, he or she or it might be drawn into the Mists.
I might go back through the Ravenloft campaign setting books and see if some of the other Darklords were more... important in their world than others.
Quote from: Ghostmaker;1141980Exactly. In the D&D cosmology, order, chaos, good and evil aren't just philosophical points; they're active forces in the multiverse as tangible as magnetism, gravity, and rolling a 1 when you needed to to make that saving throw. Who needs active, inscrutable 'powers' when just the nature of evil suffices?
If you conceptualize evil as being akin to gravity, then the Demiplane of Dread is something like an evil-aligned singularity or black hole. When a possible darklord reaches a certain point (a 'moral event horizon'?) and the stars are right, he or she or it might be drawn into the Mists.
I might go back through the Ravenloft campaign setting books and see if some of the other Darklords were more... important in their world than others.
Excellent description. Which opens up the possibility of cross-genre Darklords, if you are so inclined. What might a Sith Lord's domain look like? :D
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." I much prefer to run horror scenarios set in whatever ordinary world there is for that game. So in D&D, the Ravenloft modules were set in the usual D&D background, not in a separate demi-plane.
Agree 100%. "You're in Hell" might work as the LAST line of a horror story - never the first!
Quote from: S'mon;1141986Agree 100%. "You're in Hell" might work as the LAST line of a horror story - never the first!
In fairness, I could think of a couple scenarios where "You're in Hell!" (MUAHAHAHAHA!) could be an interesting start for a story or game adventure (Escape from Hell!), I just don't think that Ravenloft is that setting. The whole idea that the Demiplane just makes a copy of the world and then drags the evil with it just removes that essence of evil from its original context--where it would have been interesting and had earth-shattering consequences for that region--and robs it of its significance, turning it into a pale imitation of itself, suspended in a separate plane where nothing ever changes.
I think part of what makes gothic horror interesting is the idea of dark forces invading our reality and forcing us to confront them. But the Demiplane of Dread just steals these dark forces from the world and locks them away in a hell dimension, preventing them from interacting with the environment that gave them meaning.
Rather than the opening line being: "A dark cloud has fallen over X [inset town or region name]..." the opening line becomes "A dark cloud took X away, never to be seen again...(the end)". BUT if you happen to be in the place where the dark cloud took X away to, you may interact with it, even though X has nothing to do with your world of origin and you have no reason to care what happens with X. Because..."Dread".
Quote from: VisionStorm;1141994In fairness, I could think of a couple scenarios where "You're in Hell!" (MUAHAHAHAHA!) could be an interesting start for a story or game adventure (Escape from Hell!), I just don't think that Ravenloft is that setting. The whole idea that the Demiplane just makes a copy of the world and then drags the evil with it just removes that essence of evil from its original context--where it would have been interesting and had earth-shattering consequences for that region--and robs it of its significance, turning it into a pale imitation of itself, suspended in a separate plane where nothing ever changes.
I think part of what makes gothic horror interesting is the idea of dark forces invading our reality and forcing us to confront them. But the Demiplane of Dread just steals these dark forces from the world and locks them away in a hell dimension, preventing them from interacting with the environment that gave them meaning.
Rather than the opening line being: "A dark cloud has fallen over X [inset town or region name]..." the opening line becomes "A dark cloud took X away, never to be seen again...(the end)". BUT if you happen to be in the place where the dark cloud took X away to, you may interact with it, even though X has nothing to do with your world of origin and you have no reason to care what happens with X. Because..."Dread".
Yeah, I agree with all of that.
Dracula the book works by juxtaposing 'nice, safe' Victorian England, with the invasive alien horror. Pretty much all actual horror does that.
Quote from: Ghostmaker;1141961The only problem I ever had with Ravenloft was the agency of the Dark Powers in 'stealing' archvillains from other realms, and relying on Star Wars level plot armor to get away with it. Some of the darklords had been agents of evil gods, and said deities tend to be REALLY crabby when someone comes along stealing their favorite minion. Sooner or later, Takhisis is going to come looking for her toy.
Lord Soth has been around for hundreds of years, mostly sitting in his Castle. I get the feeling that with his kind of Pride he is not one of Takhisis's favourite toys.
What didn't work in Ravenloft is what never works anywhere, even in horror - misery porn. That was never inherent in the setting materials I read, but it was always lurking in discussions about the setting.
Quote from: RandyB;1142027What didn't work in Ravenloft is what never works anywhere, even in horror - misery porn. That was never inherent in the setting materials I read, but it was always lurking in discussions about the setting.
Oh, yes, that's been one of the most frustrating bits of 'fanon' out there.
Quote from: Ghostmaker;1141980Who needs active, inscrutable 'powers' when just the nature of evil suffices?
Early Ravenloft plays up the Land as a living, reactive, but not necessarily sapient entity. It's not until a year or two in that the "Dark Powers" start to be highlighted as potentially distinct and conscious entities.
QuoteI might go back through the Ravenloft campaign setting books and see if some of the other Darklords were more... important in their world than others.
To the best of my knowledge, five characters in Ravenloft were pre-existing outside of those taken from I6 and I10--Soth, Gondegal, the sorcerer-king Kalid-Ma from Dark Sun (although that might be parallel creation, as his background was brought in only two months after the release of the Dark Sun boxed set), Vecna and Kas.
Quote from: VisionStorm;1141994I think part of what makes gothic horror interesting is the idea of dark forces invading our reality and forcing us to confront them. But the Demiplane of Dread just steals these dark forces from the world and locks them away in a hell dimension, preventing them from interacting with the environment that gave them meaning.
I think the intent was to allow Ravenloft adventures to be mixed into regular campaigns with a "Twilight Zone" feel, but that was undercut by the establishment of large
stretches of connected domain territories and the underuse of the 'conjunction' concept from the original boxed set. Another experiment I've wanted to try is to take the Known World and sprinkle Ravenloft's domains throughout it.
Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1142035To the best of my knowledge, five characters in Ravenloft were pre-existing outside of those taken from I6 and I10--Soth, Gondegal, the sorcerer-king Kalid-Ma from Dark Sun (although that might be parallel creation, as his background was brought in only two months after the release of the Dark Sun boxed set), Vecna and Kas.
I'm not necessarily looking for pre-existing characters so much as I'm looking for villains who would be missed by their homeworlds. Someone just important enough that a proverbial search party might get sent out after them.
Quote from: S'mon;1141986Agree 100%. "You're in Hell" might work as the LAST line of a horror story - never the first!
It works (kinda) in one of my favourite comic book series ever: Hellblazer. John Constantine is not (always) in Hell, but lives like if it his surrounded by it.
Which leads to the need of rolling characters adequate to the setting - i.e. Gothic Horror archetypes, minimum. I once successfully ran a D&D adventure inspired by "Seven" by David Fincher set in Waterdeep, and I managed to make it work. In Ravenloft it would have been a week like another.
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 (https://rpggeek.com/rpgsetting/14432/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.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1144234I 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.
Well, I think the bigger problem is mainstream D&D is not well made to handle horror. Too much big magic, PCs aren't vulnerable enough, too much of a need to include extra monsters and treasure for xp reasons.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1146704Well, I think the bigger problem is mainstream D&D is not well made to handle horror. Too much big magic, PCs aren't vulnerable enough, too much of a need to include extra monsters and treasure for xp reasons.
I agree on this. I think it was a much bigger problem in 3rd edition Ravenloft, but still an issue in 2nd. They tried to deal with that by doing things like changing spell effects and having greater customization of monsters (if you use the Van Richten books to make your werewolves, vampires, golems, etc they become much tough opponents), but it only went so far. Ravenloft was still D&D and, with the exception of very low level characters, PCs are not going to be vulnerable like most characters in horror stories and horror movies are. Early levels you could still get a lot of that effect, though I still encountered comedy. I remember running the Book of Crypts adventure where the door to Mordenheim's Mansion has splinters that do damage, and the mage in the party died just trying to knock on the door (if I recall it was 1d2 damage, but might have been a d4----been many years).
Quote from: RPGPundit;1146704Well, I think the bigger problem is mainstream D&D is not well made to handle horror. Too much big magic, PCs aren't vulnerable enough, too much of a need to include extra monsters and treasure for xp reasons.
Yeah, nothing cramps the sense of horror you should have seeing a gug step out of a tear in reality, quite like the party sorcerer giving it a 'bitch, PLEASE' glare and smoking it with
finger of death.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1146704Well, I think the bigger problem is mainstream D&D is not well made to handle horror. Too much big magic, PCs aren't vulnerable enough, too much of a need to include extra monsters and treasure for xp reasons.
Quote from: Ghostmaker;1146793Yeah, nothing cramps the sense of horror you should have seeing a gug step out of a tear in reality, quite like the party sorcerer giving it a 'bitch, PLEASE' glare and smoking it with finger of death.
I agree that there are some issues with D&D and horror - but power level isn't one of them. It's trivial to come up with threats that can easily kill the PCs.
Horror isn't restricted to helpless children going down into basements alone. In many ways, horror is more effective when it scales up. When characters think they are tough and safe, and they find that they aren't. Something that set the original Ravenloft module I6 apart was that it had a villain who could move around, plan, and come at the PCs -- rather than just sitting in a room waiting to be encountered.
I think one of the more major issues is regular PC death. If the players are already used to having a PC die and just rolling up a new character, that takes away the threat. I think the challenge is more making the characters more personal and familiar. The more the players care about the PCs as well as NPCs and the world, the more effective the horror is going to be.
A better way to induce horror is to induce helplessness. The realization that something is wrong and no amount of smite evil or plane shift is going to fix it quickly.
I ran an adventure in a superhero game that was loosely based off the old Internet tale 'the Dionaea House'. Spatial distortion and temporal shifts abounded, and none of the PCs had powers that would allow them to sidestep those issues. Nothing like the freaked out expression on one player's face when I described the interior of the house with a set of stairs going up to the next floor.
HER: 'Wait, when we were outside, we saw a one story house, right?'
ME: 'That's what you recall seeing, yes.'
HER: *bug-eyed expression*
Quote from: Ghostmaker;1146800A better way to induce horror is to induce helplessness. The realization that something is wrong and no amount of smite evil or plane shift is going to fix it quickly.
I ran an adventure in a superhero game that was loosely based off the old Internet tale 'the Dionaea House'. Spatial distortion and temporal shifts abounded, and none of the PCs had powers that would allow them to sidestep those issues. Nothing like the freaked out expression on one player's face when I described the interior of the house with a set of stairs going up to the next floor.
HER: 'Wait, when we were outside, we saw a one story house, right?'
ME: 'That's what you recall seeing, yes.'
HER: *bug-eyed expression*
That's a good example of horror, but a bad example of helplessness. It's a good example of "things are not as they seem" horror, which doesn't require helplessness. It requires a violation of normal assumptions - even "not helpless" PCs put in that situation can cause the kind of horror response in the players that you relate.
Quote from: jhkim;1146795I think one of the more major issues is regular PC death. If the players are already used to having a PC die and just rolling up a new character, that takes away the threat. I think the challenge is more making the characters more personal and familiar. The more the players care about the PCs as well as NPCs and the world, the more effective the horror is going to be.
I have been on both sides of this over the years. But my current thinking is more regular character death is better for horror RPGs. I do think you don't necessarily want a meat grinder, but for all the articles and ink I've seen spilled arguing for making the players care about their PC, and therefore not killing them, or not killing them as much, in order to maximize horror, at the table, I see time and again, that letting the players know death is on the table, it will happen objectively according to the rules, produces horror pretty effectively. I think if the players know or sense, you are staying your hand with the threats, they are less threatening. But if the monster in question thinks nothing of picking up a PC and ripping him or her apart, and that plays out mechanically with the character dying, they have something to fear. Whether they identify with or care about their PC, almost doesn't matter. All that matters is they feel like they are in the shoes of their character facing that threat (which is a different feeling than identifying with or caring about the character)
Quote from: jhkim;1146795Horror isn't restricted to helpless children going down into basements alone. In many ways, horror is more effective when it scales up. When characters think they are tough and safe, and they find that they aren't. Something that set the original Ravenloft module I6 apart was that it had a villain who could move around, plan, and come at the PCs -- rather than just sitting in a room waiting to be encountered.
.
This is something I think works well in Ravenloft. D&D characters may be powerful, but by having Strahd function more like a PC, he could undermine a lot of that power. And that was expanded to the whole line in the way it handled monsters and encouraged making any major threat unique, and therefore full of surprises. You couldn't rely on the monster manual entry of lycanthropes to handle a werewolf in Ravenloft, because it could be much more powerful than a standard werewolves, and its weakness might require all kinds of research or investigation to figure out.
Quote from: jhkimI think one of the more major issues is regular PC death. If the players are already used to having a PC die and just rolling up a new character, that takes away the threat. I think the challenge is more making the characters more personal and familiar. The more the players care about the PCs as well as NPCs and the world, the more effective the horror is going to be.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1146803I have been on both sides of this over the years. But my current thinking is more regular character death is better for horror RPGs. I do think you don't necessarily want a meat grinder, but for all the articles and ink I've seen spilled arguing for making the players care about their PC, and therefore not killing them, or not killing them as much, in order to maximize horror, at the table, I see time and again, that letting the players know death is on the table, it will happen objectively according to the rules, produces horror pretty effectively.
I also find it's good to let the players know that death is on the table, and that it happens objectively according to the rules. That doesn't require *regular* character death, though. One of my Call of Cthulhu campaigns only had one PC death, for example, but had plenty of horror.
I've played in a number of Call of Cthulhu games which were fun in a campy way, but where the players were quite blase about their character dying or going insane. It seems like it's a pretty common mode of play in the wider CoC community. It's not comedic, but it's more like gritty noir than horror. I have friends who are also into playing board games like Arkham Horror and Mansions of Madness, and they have a similar feel.
Quote from: jhkim;1146817I also find it's good to let the players know that death is on the table, and that it happens objectively according to the rules. That doesn't require *regular* character death, though. One of my Call of Cthulhu campaigns only had one PC death, for example, but had plenty of horror.
.
I am not saying it ought to be regular. I guess what I am trying to say is I think it should be more 'let the dice fall where they may', and the GM shouldn't pull punches to artificially avoid more frequent character death.
Quote from: Ghostmaker;1146800A better way to induce horror is to induce helplessness. The realization that something is wrong and no amount of smite evil or plane shift is going to fix it quickly.
I ran an adventure in a superhero game that was loosely based off the old Internet tale 'the Dionaea House'. Spatial distortion and temporal shifts abounded, and none of the PCs had powers that would allow them to sidestep those issues. Nothing like the freaked out expression on one player's face when I described the interior of the house with a set of stairs going up to the next floor.
HER: 'Wait, when we were outside, we saw a one story house, right?'
ME: 'That's what you recall seeing, yes.'
HER: *bug-eyed expression*
http://homepages.math.uic.edu/~kauffman/CrookedHouse.pdf