The Mists of Ravenloft

If my memory serves me correctly, published Ravenloft adventures frequently begin or end with "The Mists close in and transport you to a new location..."

But somehow, this just doesn't feel right. While it could be argued that Destiny is at play in these adventures (and Destiny, or at least Fate, are staples of gothic fiction), this way it just feels like ham-fisted railroading. For the right atmosphere, the players should at least have the illusion of being able to make choices about their destinations from time to time - the Destiny should only be obvious in hindsight.

If the Mists are used to frequently as a plot device from getting from place to place, in the end the reaction will just be:

"Oh, those bloody mists again. Yawn. OK, seems like they have lifted. Hmmm... Seems green and pleasant enough, although that doesn't have to mean anything. Let's find a secure base site and then explore in these directions..."

It would be much better if the player characters made a series of choices about their destinations, and yet all those choices only serve to bring them closer to their real destination. Destiny while still retaining the illusion of free will.



Hmmm. Does this make any sense to you? And if it does and you have GMed Ravenloft, what did you do about it?

Depends what we are talking about. The mists of Expedition to Castle Ravenloft are defined in a different way (albeit not opposite) than the AD&D2 Ravenloft Setting's Mists (which is what you seem to be referring to here).

When I ran AD&D's Ravenloft Setting, I just used the Mists as "transporters" once: to kick off the campaign we ran. Afterwards, these were more barriers separating the different Domains (as the boxed set implies) than teleporters really. So the boredom with them never truly came up in the game.

As for Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, they have some particular weakening effects on targets, and are a tool at the control of Strahd. There's no allusion to "domains" or the "demiplane of dread" I can see in the adventure at this point (I just reached the Fortune Telling part at this point, i.e. around page 55).

Edit - As for the Mists featured in WW's Ravenloft, they are more a sentient part of the setting than tools to be used by the Lords of the Domains of Dread. There is a whole "mystique" and mysteries surrounding the nature of the Mists, as well as a popular cult related to them (i.e. the Lady of the Mists).

Hey!

This topic is a great one. Ravenlofters have been looking for creative ways to change from the usual "the mists rises and you find yourself elsewhere". I think it’s a classic "first time entrance" but it works only once. More then once and the PCs smirks!

These are some of the things I heard or used to bring PCs into RL:

- They are running after a villain, who opens a gate. The PCs follow, to find themselves in RL.

- The Inn. The PCs were in a FR Inn, where they stayed for a night. But the next morning, they find out the inn have been moved to a new place. None of the other patrons or Inn staff is there, just the PCs.
As if it wasn't enough, they find the Inn surrounded by a large number of hostile peasants, who are setting the Inn on fire ("it just appeared here, it must be evil, let's burn it").
So they were thrown into action and must act quickly.
Later, when they are back in FR, they found out the inn burned that night and the PCs were believed dead from the blaze.

- Have the PCs be present when an old enemy commits an act evil enough to gain a RL domain, and they got sucked in along with it (the domain was a building snatched from their world, and they were in the building when it happened). That worked quite well - they were very freaked out and had no idea what had happened, why the building had suddenly become a lot more haunted, or why their enemy had gained strange new powers.

- There are also a few domains/lords that could be able to reach into other worlds: the Headless Horseman's Road, the theater of Scaena, the Phantom Lover, and the beam from Monette's lighthouse.

- on an expedition in the Rockies, a great earthquake: the PCs plunged down a thousand feet below, to the Domain of Dread.

- an creepy option on the mists: the mists as teleporting everything they touched, but only those parts that they touched. The mists would thus maul everything with which they came in contact. Animals would be stripped of limbs, people decapitated, buildings slashed, etc. When the PC awoke, he would be whole, but also surrounded with the missing parts of animals, people, trees, ect...

- Planar rip due to spell misfunction or gate opens near the PCs.

- The PCs are lost in a swamp. They end up still lost in a swamp, but this time it's in RL Souragne (see the library in my sig for a great netbook IMHO: the FoS report on Souragne).

- There are also a the vistanis gypsies that could be able to reach into other worlds. Someone could have paid enemies to bring them to RL , or PCs are pickpocketed by gypsies, when they give chase, they get their money back but find the road that they're on doesn't lead where it used to...

- Accidently tear open a portal. Like dropping a bag of holding into a portable hole. It could be an act of self sacrifice. And instead of getting shunted into the Atral plane they get dumped into RL.

- They could be summoned by someone in RL. "A strange voice cries for aid from beyond, do you offer your assistance?"

Those are a few ideas to get in. Getting out is another matter

Joël

Let's also not forget that according to the old Realm of Terror boxed set, there are a few permanent one-way gates into Ravenloft on a few other campaign worlds. Likewise, we see another permanent one-way gate (apparently artificially created) in Die Vecna Die!.

Jürgen Hubert said:

this way it just feels like ham-fisted railroading.

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Because it is. But let's be honest - Ravenloft modules aren't known to be the most... *ahem*... 'competently-written' adventures out there (and is one of the main reasons why 2e adventures were reviled).

I had the recent misfortune of (finally!) going through my Ravenloft module collection and converting them to 3e - and they are universally awful.

Alzrius said:

Let's also not forget that according to the old Realm of Terror boxed set, there are a few permanent one-way gates into Ravenloft on a few other campaign worlds. Likewise, we see another permanent one-way gate (apparently artificially created) in Die Vecna Die!.

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There's a portal to Ravenloft beneath Castle Greyhawk, according to Greyhawk Ruins.

Arnwyn said:

(and is one of the main reasons why 2e adventures were reviled).

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Yay! Edition war!

But getting beyond that... for Ravenloft though, unless you're starting off inside the demiplane itself, to some extent you have to start off with some manipulation by the DM just to get the PCs there in the first place. It's virtually impossible to avoid.

Shemeska said:

Yay! Edition war!

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Heh. Unfairly, I might add. While Ravenloft modules certainly do deserve all the venom spewed at them, I think 2e overall doesn't deserve the grief it gets in terms of adventures; for example, other than the Dungeon #114 're-start', Dungeon was strongest in the 2e era.

As for alternates to Ravenloft's mists, I think Joel covers it very well.

Arnwyn said:

Because it is. But let's be honest - Ravenloft modules aren't known to be the most... *ahem*... 'competently-written' adventures out there (and is one of the main reasons why 2e adventures were reviled).

I had the recent misfortune of (finally!) going through my Ravenloft module collection and converting them to 3e - and they are universally awful.

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I'm afraid to be disagreeing on this. Many needs to be adapted / modified by DMs, but some parts can be salvaged as they are great.

Evil Eye comes to mind as an excellent adventure, as those of the Hexad, with some modifications (ex: Ship of Horrors is pretty good until the Necromancer's island).

Most of them requires the players to accept adverse conditions for a while. It may seem like railroading to some, but is godd roleplaying opportunity to others.

Joël

Ripzerai said:

There's a portal to Ravenloft beneath Castle Greyhawk, according to Greyhawk Ruins.

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Nice! I just got my copy of this about ten days ago, and haven't read through it all yet.