D&D 5E CoS Ideal Tarokka Reading Storywise

I'm about to start DMing Curse of Strahd for the first time with my group and I love the fortune telling aspect of the module. I have seen a few people talking about some of the possible outcomes being lackluster or underwhelming though (finding one of the relics in Madame Eva's camp for example). So, I thought that I might try to structure our first run of the adventure and randomize it if we run it again.

My question to all of you that have ran CoS is then, what do you think would be an ideal tarokka reading to tell the best story? I don't want the relic locations to be too easy and I really want them to be in locations that make the most sense/enhance the area in some way. I'm also interested to hear good story ideas for the possible allies and which ally provides the most to the story.

Thanks!

I'd say Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Random.

But if you do want to stack the deck a little, remove the cards that correspond to locations in Castle Ravenloft for the treasures, along with Eva's camp card if that bothers you (although Ezmerelda can also give the reading if the party meets her first).

All the allies already have stories and I think they could all make very interesting additions to the story. If there is a tricky ally it is the child, as her father will almost certainly forbid her from going to the castle, and there's not much the PCs can do about that - even if they are the sort to voluntarily take a child into a vampire's castle.

(having said that she can still make for a great gothic story - suppose the PCs wisely decide to leave her safely behind... but then Strahd, or another monster, kidnaps her (again) and she winds up waiting to be rescued in the castle anyway - just as the fates have foretold it etc. Also she's no use in combat other than granting inspiration, so if she winds up there give her other things to do, like finding secrets that the PCs miss).

I think I'd agree with 5Shilling - removing stuff that's within Ravenloft will probably make the PCs exploration of Barovia itself more interesting, rewarding, and engaging. I also don't think you should necessarily do it as the random element of this adventure is a huge part of it. I'd be gutted if I found out my DM faked the reading after the fact.

I ran this adventure recently for a four-day event, I'll tell you what I did that I found really helped, although a lot of people might disagree with my approach. As I only had about 40 hours of table time, I knew I wanted there to be lots of chances to figure out the clues/riddles from the reading and find interesting items. I also knew I didn't want to cheat the PCs and force certain results.

Instead, I had Madam Eva do the main reading for the super-powerful, adventure specific items and then do a second reading with the remaining cards. From this she drew another 8 cards, I then used these to correspond with magical items that weren't part of Curse of Strahd (taken from the DMG). Madam Eva identified that these were 'lesser' finds but that could still prove useful (using the descriptions taken from the item bit of CoS), though were not a defining part of the party's 'destiny'. As a result the party had an overwhelming number of clues/leads straight out of the gate which gave them so much to think about, consider, and pursue.

The more circumstantial/situational items from CoS are so insanely powerful that it was pretty easy to balance introducing other magical items into the mix but, at least for my group, it was an awful lot more interesting and enjoyable. Obviously a lot of results still don't come up so this approach is still very much 'random', it just gives you a lot more 'hits' or 'opportunities' than the adventure itself gives you (5).

Whatever you do, it's an amazing adventure, I'm sure you're players will love it.

Daniel McDonald.

Dan@DeepDark-Designs said:

Instead, I had Madam Eva do the main reading for the super-powerful, adventure specific items and then do a second reading with the remaining cards. From this she drew another 8 cards, I then used these to correspond with magical items that weren't part of Curse of Strahd (taken from the DMG). Madam Eva identified that these were 'lesser' finds but that could still prove useful (using the descriptions taken from the item bit of CoS), though were not a defining part of the party's 'destiny'. As a result the party had an overwhelming number of clues/leads straight out of the gate which gave them so much to think about, consider, and pursue.
Daniel McDonald.

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This I like and it would help alleviate my worries about a possible lack of exploration in the random reading. My players are very much completionists and would love tracking down more items.

Which items from the DMG did you use or how did you pick them?

"This I like and it would help alleviate my worries about a possible lack of exploration in the random reading. My players are very much completionists and would love tracking down more items." - Cool, like I said, it's not an approach for everyone but it definitely suited our group.

"Which items from the DMG did you use or how did you pick them?" - I think I used something of a mixed approach. I did specifically pick items that I thought would be interesting thematically or useful, but not 'too' powerful'. I ended up with something like 5 more 'average' items, 2 really good ones, and 1 that I thought was fantastic. Then when I did the reading, I only used the clues/flavour text from the item section but again, I identified which of these items were more useful than others.

So the PCs had 5 specific items from the real reading, and then another 8 items divided between three loose groupings in addition. Then when I did the reading itself I made sure to find much longer ways to articulate the clues (just throwing out extra descriptors). Basically, to my mind, the reading was the most interesting and fascinating part of the adventure, I wanted to find a way to take it even further for my group.

Daniel McDonald.

I myself have removed certain cards from the deck so that the locations/people I don't want to see come up have no opportunity to do so.

I want the three magic items to come into play into the story earlier than the end of the campaign, so I took out all the Amber Temple locations (since that location is really not meant to be attempted until the PCs are level 9-10). Also, while I'm expecting and planning for the PCs to go up to the Castle several times throughout the campaign (either to speak to Strahd or look for Gertruda, explore the castle etc.), I didn't want the odds to lean so strongly towards several items being found up there in general or more especially down in the sub-basement crypt area. So I removed all the non-Von Zarovich crypt locations, leaving only the three directly related to the family (Strahd's, Sergei's and the parents' tombs). All told, of the 40 regular cards, 15 cards gave locations throughout the entirety of the Castle, and five of which were the random crypts besides the three family ones. By taking those five other crypts cards out, we're now down to only 10 Castle locations, and much less likely to get more than a single item down the crypts.

That was enough to keeps the odds such that the items will more likely be spread out across the landscape, plus able to be chased after earlier in the campaign. Which hopefully will make things more interesting for both of my parties I'm running and for me.

RNG is god. Thou shalt not defy RNG. Thou shalt not bypass RNG. Trust RNG! Praise RNG! Ia! Ia! Fthagn!

I wanted the items to make sense, so I put them where I would think they could be expected to be found.

Here is what I came up with for my group:
Holy symbol: Monk (Abby)
Tome: Wizard (Van Richten's Tower)
Sword: Avenger (Held by a Revenant at the ruins of the castle that I can't spell the name of)
Strahd: Beast (throne room) That sounded better than being in the crypt and it gives the party a reason to go upstairs.
Ally: Mists (Esmeralda) I figured she was one who the party would want to have along and her story can be interesting.

I also made it so that the characters backstories mention one of the three items so they feel like they should be looking for it. I'm still toying with changing the strengths/weaknesses of Strahd and having that information be in his journal to give a reason to find it. I may have to have another look at it, but I don't see any reason why the Tome of Strahd is important enough to find before facing him. The only thing it seems to do is cause Strahd to want to attack the party for finding it.

TenkayCrit said:

My question to all of you that have ran CoS is then, what do you think would be an ideal tarokka reading to tell the best story?

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I've also thought a lot about this.

My solution for my group is that I am going to tell the players: this reading is EXTREMELY random and it can increase or decrease the difficulty of the campaign substantially. I (Madame Eva) will present them with the deck and offer them a choice: if they wish, they can choose to take what the fates have offered to them (in other words, what I pre-picked out as being fair choices and have stacked on the top of the deck); or, if they want luck to be the only master of their fates, they can shuffle the deck.

For the pre-stacking, my choices for a fair but even campaign are:
Tome: Master of Glyphs - Castle Chapel
Holy Symbol: 8 of Coins - Vistani treasure wagon in Vallaki
Sunsword: 2 of Glyphs - in the garden at the Abbey
Ally: Mists - Ezmerelda
Final fight: Broken One - Sergei's Tomb

Here is my reasoning:

The tome being in the castle makes sense (why would he have lost it somewhere else?). It also has no practical value to the characters so finding it late isn't a big deal, especially since they'll know 90% of the story in it anyway. The chapel is an easy, early location in the castle with another powerful artifact as well so it makes sense that Strahd has ignored this area for centuries and didn't think his book might be there. Also, the tome is really more of a cursed item than a boon: once they have it and Strahd knows, he'll track them down relentlessly - so they might as well find it late-game.

The Holy Symbol is really, really good, but I still rank it below the Sunsword - but it's especially good for some tough undead encounters, so I want them to find it earlier. Vallaki makes sense; it's early, but they need to go through an entire quest to procure it. It seemed like a good reward at this time. Also, you can involve Arrigal if you think they got off too easy (he is DEADLY). It also seems like the type of thing that would be stored in a room full of "this is probably valuable but otherwise junk" stuff - the Vistani don't know exactly what it does or how it can be used since they aren't clerics or paladins, but they know it's worthwhile and they probably traded for it at some point. Or maybe they're keeping it so it can't be used against Strahd, but Luvash was so drunk and happy to see his daughter he forgot it was in there, and of course that's the one thing the party picked... Anyway it opens up interesting narrative reasons why they might have had it.

The Sunsword is better found later, but not too late - and well before the castle. The gardens in the Abbey is a nice spot out of the way of the main villain in that area, so it gives them a chance to deal with it separately but still they won't find it until they're well into the plot. Also, this spot unleashes a pack of wraiths when you find the item there - and they are weakened substantially by sunlight, thus making this item immediately useful in a practical way to show its importance. Finally, it ties in a bit better to the deva storyline in my opinion: maybe the deva or some helpful adventurers with him had already used the Sunsword once against Strahd and lost, and so it's still nearby, but hidden for another group to find - like the deva cast it aside in the garden when he realized the futility of his fight against Strahd and went deeper into madness. (This works better with the re-write of the deva's motivations in another thread.)

Ezmerelda is both the best companion and the worst: she's indisputably one of the two strongest and one of the easiest to acquire since you almost can't avoid her, BUT she's also sort of the worst companion because she'd likely join the party anyway! So it's sort of a double-edge: you get one of the best choices for sure, but you also don't get her AND another character. Still though, her advantages outweigh her negatives and she's such an interesting character it's worth intentionally highlighting her, and given her alignment she's going to both fit in better with most parties and be an easy "DM needs to suggest this course of action" mouthpiece. She also positively boosts the characters' potential interactions with other Vistani. And it cuts down on the total number of NPCs following you, which can get to be a LOT.

Final fight: Sergei's tomb is a naked attempt to make the characters have an easier time defeating Strahd at the end of the game. The tomb itself isn't difficult (there aren't other enemies or traps that will also kill the players - like Strahd's tomb, which is the worst place to fight him), but most importantly it's just a hop, skip, and a jump away from where the players MUST go in order to kill Strahd completely: his tomb. Having run this before, it's sort of anti-climactic to have the characters defeat Strahd in the "fated place" only to lose track of him when he mists back to his coffin: this is "final showdown" territory, narratively speaking, and while defeating him and having him escape other times is fine, THIS is when they need to finish it. They'll likely throw everything they have at him and just to lose him and have to find him again is beyond frustrating. Strahd's parents' tomb works equally as well to this purpose (and might even be better since they will unfortunately miss the treasure in Sergei's tomb), but I like his brother's tomb better for narrative purposes. It also makes Strahd a teensie bit more sympathetic at the worst possible time, which is interesting to me.


SO! What happens if my players choose instead to allow their own luck to determine their fate? (Which I put 9 to 10 odds they will.) Well, a lot of the other locations and companions also suck for a variety of reasons so I have further removed over 1/3rd of the total cards from the 54 card deck (I took out 21 and replaced one, for 22 changes) in order to guide the randomness in a way that still makes the game enjoyable. And also to account for the things I've cut because I personally didn't feel like including them.

First, things I've cut: all the dark elves (including Kasimir), Amber Temple, Tsolenka Pass, and the nursery in the Abbey (fewer dead children references). I made other changes but those are the main ones that affect cards. This means I removed:
- 3 of Swords (T-pass)
- 7 of Swords (Temple)
- 5 of Stars (Temple)
- 2 of Coins (nursery in the Abbey)
- 6 of Coins (Kasimir)
- 8 of Glyphs (Temple)*

* I then put the 8 of Glyphs back into the deck and changed it to be the Barovia church's undercroft as a location (listed in the book but not an actual fortune option). This adds an "easy" location so keep that in mind.

I also removed all the locations in the crypts of the castle which just suck because it is one of the last areas they're going to go. I also took out Baba Lysaga's hut because it already has a big quest and it's really difficult.
- 2 of Swords (Sergei's tomb)
- 4 of Swords (crypt)
- 6 of Swords (crypt)
- Master of Swords (Strahd's tomb)
- 6 of Stars (crypt)
- 9 of Stars (Baba Lysaga's hut)
- 1 of Coins (crypt)
- 5 of Coins (crypt)
- 4 of Glyphs (parents' crypt)

If you don't like "easy" locations, you could also remove these:
- 2 of Stars (the Tser Pool encampment)
- 7 of Coins (the river Ivlis Crossroads - also very close by)

Finally, I removed half of the "high" deck as well, just to get rid of crappy or uninteresting or especially weak companions, and remove Strahd's tomb as a possible final fight location:
- Darklord (no helper / Strahd's tomb - this is the worst possible card for either draw)
- Seer (Kasimir / study - cut due to the cuts I made earlier, also an encounter in the study means they will likely skip the treasury which I don't want them to)
- Horseman (assassin or dead guy / Strahd's tomb - terrible companions, including one who wants to kill you, and Strahd's tomb; the 2nd worst card for either draw)
- Innocent (Parriwimple or Ireena / Sergei's tomb - not a bad one but I didn't want Ireena to be the entire adventure, plus there's a chance she gets taken away!)
- Donjon (watcher boy or watcher daughter / hall of bones - just really off-putting and weak companions, although the potential is there)
- Marionette (Pidlwick II or Clovin Belview / north tower peak - I actually like Clovin but I like the other options better)
- Raven (old wereraven guy / parents' tomb - also not bad but sort of an uninteresting companion)

Notes:
The Tempter card has an option to give you a young girl or a flesh golem. The golem was an interesting enough choice that I left it, but some might want to ditch this card, too. (I think the young girl as a companion also has a lot of potential.)

The Ghost card also gets you a literal ghost as a choice, who is NOT easy to recruit and you have to visit the castle first in order to get him. The story was cool enough to me but this is definitely a "difficult" companion and could be skipped. (On the other hand, having someone with you who can move through walls is great! But having someone with you who can also get turned is not...)

The Mists gives you easily the best companion or lets you choose the exact spot for Strahd; if you really don't like "easy" you could ditch this one as well.

So who's left? (Besides the three above)
- Rictavio: very strong and highly thematically appropriate
- werewolf: ditto
- Mad Mage: extremely difficult to recruit but insanely strong (you could also choose the priest in Barovia which is a terrible idea)
- Ismark: weak but also thematically appropriate (could be leveled up a bit)

Also be aware: just removing the crypts doesn't remove all the hard locations! There are others that are particularly difficult, such as:
- 1 of Swords (Vladimir in the silver dragon area - have to solve that quest first, which involves going to the castle, or killing him, which is insanely hard)
- 5 of Swords (werewolf den - cursed!)
- 4 of Stars (silver dragon's beacon - same as 1 of Swords without a combat option!)
- 4 of Coins (the wine cellar is deep in the castle, plus it has some nasty hazards)
- 9 of Coins (castle treasury - difficult and dangerous to find)
- 5 of Glyphs (Gulthias tree - going to have to fight for it, possibly through some deadly encounters)
- 7 of Glyphs (windmill - a known death trap, especially for low-level parties who just found out the item is there!)

I didn't remove these but others might consider it.

Hope that overly-long answer helps ...anyone!

I was wrestling with this too. We'll likely end up at Madam Eva's tent next game, so I decided to do a "pre-read" just for fun. All three items ended up in the castle, with Pidlewick II as the ally. That sucked, so I did another one. Three items are at gallows crossroad, Tser Pool, and Amber Temple, with the ally being the dead guy from Vallaki.

Having got those two random readings, I'll now be using a stacked deck.