D&D General The thread where I review a ton of Ravenloft modules

[Paul Farquhar]

I've always played fast and loose with the timelines - I've never really paid canon timelines much mind.

The idea that time should flow the same across multiple planes of existence makes no sense. It’s contrary to the fiction, mythology and science.

 

[Remathilis]

I guess I don't see these things as surreal, per se. I think of them more in the terms of a wild conspiracy theory. Surreal to me is when a truly reality bending occurence happens like a border closing, and suddenly the way you were going just leads back into the domain. But then I've always dialed back on some of the more obvious and over the top excesses of Ravenloft, largely because TSR was so bad at it.

Really, there are two answers to the design of Ravenloft; dial back the absurdity to create a living world OR embrace the absurdity and create a dream world. Neither is wrong, but I feel it makes Ravenloft require a lot more vision from the DM as far as the threshold for BS they are willing to tolerate. Personally, I found attempts to tone it down were an exercise in frustration and when I accepted its vibe, I connected again with me. YMMV. I just feel the more you try to make Ravenloft make sense, the less time you spend engaging with the horror as much as explaining it away...

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Really, there are two answers to the design of Ravenloft; dial back the absurdity to create a living world OR embrace the absurdity and create a dream world. Neither is wrong, but I feel it makes Ravenloft require a lot more vision from the DM as far as the threshold for BS they are willing to tolerate. Personally, I found attempts to tone it down were an exercise in frustration and when I accepted its vibe, I connected again with me. YMMV. I just feel the more you try to make Ravenloft make sense, the less time you spend engaging with the horror as much as explaining it away...

Frankly, a Ravenloft game is going to be more difficult to DM than Generic Fantasyland, no matter what approach you take.

 

[TiQuinn]

Frankly, a Ravenloft game is going to be more difficult to DM than Generic Fantasyland, no matter what approach you take.

It is definitely Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (har har)

 

[Bedrockgames]

The thing was, I too once expected Ravenloft to adhere to the concept of "normal" as a default to allow the horror to be the unnatural and it drove me to a place where I could not stand Ravenloft after a while. The Mists, the landmass, the inherent contradictions of geography and politics, it didn't make bloody sense! Because I was trying to make it Faerun but spooky and that wasn't Ravenloft. Ravenloft is a dream. It's based on vibes not logic. It allows a vampire to be the Lord of a land for 400 years and nobody in the country questioning it. It was when I accepted that Ravenloft is surreal that it made sense again. It allowed me to let go of trying to make it a living world (something Arthaus tried, but I feel ultimately, failed at) and embrace each realm as its own nightmare. It's an anthology made into a setting, and once that clicked it all made sense again.

It isn't Faerun but spooky is the issue. It is a world of atmosphere. I was talking on my podcast the other day about movies that use soundstages and sets rather than being filmed outdoors. Neither approach is better or worse in my opinion but they achieve very different results and immerse you in different ways. Soundstages immerse me in a way that that plays immerse me, where my imagination has to build the spaces between sets (outdoors they can more readily show you those in between spaces) but they are also very intimate, moody and pull me in, in a dream like way. Ravenloft always felt like a world built in this manner. It is more akin to universal monster movies, or to something like the 1992 dracula, where it is all about the mood, the atmosphere, where overthinking it isn't really expected and can get in the way.

 

[Stormonu]

I've always played fast and loose with the timelines - I've never really paid canon timelines much mind. For Strahd, it's been easy.

"He's from a noble family whose line stretches back generations. Count Strahd II was the father of Count Strahd III, and how strange that they are so similar, but then the bloodline is very strong with the Von Zaroviches. I hear he's taken a new bride. Perhaps another heir someday soon?" -- some Burgomeister.

There's some of that in the original Ravenloft, but I've always sort of treated Ravenloft domains somewhat like Ground Hog days - the Dark Powers let the realm run for some time until the Darklord succumbs or comes close to overcoming the grave they've dug for themselves and ...then the realm resets back to day one (or to some certain point), forcing the Darklord to repeat all that came before only to fail once again at the very end and realize how much they've screwed up (and probably blame someone else for their failure) - only to have to repeat it yet another time, trying something just a little different this time around...

As they say, insanity is doing the same exact thing every time and expecting different results. And in the case of the Darklords, they can't resist making the same exact mistakes that led to their fall and are too blind to see that by their very own hubris would willfully make that same exact choice that would lead to their doom over and over again, no matter how they tried to approach the problem in the first place.

 

[Remathilis]

It isn't Faerun but spooky is the issue. It is a world of atmosphere. I was talking on my podcast the other day about movies that use soundstages and sets rather than being filmed outdoors. Neither approach is better or worse in my opinion but they achieve very different results and immerse you in different ways. Soundstages immerse me in a way that that plays immerse me, where my imagination has to build the spaces between sets (outdoors they can more readily show you those in between spaces) but they are also very intimate, moody and pull me in, in a dream like way. Ravenloft always felt like a world built in this manner. It is more akin to universal monster movies, or to something like the 1992 dracula, where it is all about the mood, the atmosphere, where overthinking it isn't really expected and can get in the way.

Sound stages create an aura of claustrophobia that helps set the mood and I feel domains being isolated (even if that's not physically isolated) help to do the same thing. You are in a place where the locals take whatever weird things the domain is known for in stride and escape is difficult but not impossible. It's not even that they are malicious or evil, just off in some way, a village located in the Uncanny Valley, so to speak.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Sound stages create an aura of claustrophobia that helps set the mood and I feel domains being isolated (even if that's not physically isolated) help to do the same thing. You are in a place where the locals take whatever weird things the domain is known for in stride and escape is difficult but not impossible. It's not even that they are malicious or evil, just off in some way, a village located in the Uncanny Valley, so to speak.

It also invokes play logic. In the movie one armed swordsman, he stumbles after his arm gets sliced off, and tumbles off a bridge and as he falls he lands on a passing boat rowed by a local village woman who nurses him to health and just happens to have the exact martial arts manual he needs in order to learn how to fight one armed. It is beautiful. It doesn't work when they try to take it outside that soundstage environment for some reason (most efforts I have seen to remake it, just end up making a whole new movie, and I often wonder if it is the way movies aren't filmed on sound stages anymore that leads them in that direction). The Blade gets pretty close, but is still different and noticeably leans into the grittiness of a real world. I find in Ravenloft play logic, or perhaps old movie logic applies well. The villagers act more like the villagers in Frankenstein. They are real. But it isn't gritty, historical realism. You aren't examining the nuances of their daily lives in great detail.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Hammer filmed on a sound stage (usually) because they had a much lower budget than Universal!

 

[Tonguez]

Marvels Conan features fights against a Vampire (of Nosferatu lineage), he stabs it with a spear to no avail but eventually recalls that they can be killed by a wooden stake through the heart defeated so he breaks the spear haft and forces that through the vampires chest. Marvel also gives us Varnae the Blood Ape, a 10000 year old vampire gigantopithecus, who was formerly a servant of Thulsa Doom before his master was killed by King Kull of Atlantis. Varnae is Marvels first ancient vampire, who fails to become a god because his blood filled coffin is at tge bottom of the ocean in Sunken Atlantis, he is however lineage ancestor to Nosferatu, Lamia and Dracula.

REH has Solomon Kane fight vampires, he discovers that his voodoo staff is more effective than his blade or pistols (magic items for the win).