4e Ravenloft - Dragon 368

[Banshee16]

What's the point of having different campaign settings then if they're all just the same races, classes and cultures? Different maps?

True this....

2nd Ed. was much better at creating viable, different campaign settings than 3E was...in some ways. Or, I guess I should explain this a little better.

There's nothing wrong with limiting choice of race or class in particular settings, if it helps to maintain the "feel" of the setting. Not all races fit all games. I wouldn't be a huge fan of having tieflings and dragonborn in Ravenloft. Races like elves, dwarves, and halflings are inhuman enough, and they can be in dangerous situations if they walk into the wrong bar in Ravenloft. And they don't have the ability to breath fire or anything like that....so they're less of a threat than some of the other monstrous races are.

Now, I could see that they might have a *domain* where a town of dragonborn was pulled into the mists. So you've got dragonborn in the setting. And they can walk around without being killed on sight....in that domain. But go to Barovia or Falkovnia or Sithicus or one of the others, and it's happy hour for the guys with torches and pitchforks.

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

As for making DoD part of the core, its easy to do. When I did my "Conglomerate World", where I have every setting I like that isn't its own full world, I put this HUGE black cloud bank down in the southwest corner between the continents of Airhde and the continent of Cascandia. Guess what that huge cloud bank encloses? Yep, you guessed it, the Domains of Dread. Works fine. I even threw in the Island of King Kong nearby just for the fun of it, since Necromancer Games did such a nice 3E version of it.

In what module did Necromancer do King Kong's island? I didn't know they had....

Banshee

 

[Kishin]

Add my voice to the ones calling for a return of Van Richten. There was a great feel to that material (and to all of Ravenloft, really) that I really hope they can recapture. Since we're on a musical subtheme within this set, It would be as disappointing as a legendary band returning from retirement and the world finding them much diminished (The Police, I'm looking at you).

As for Azalin, I really hope he makes it.

This too. I can't see them not keeping Azalin, though. He's iconic of Ravenloft. Also, we saw a lot of love go into the 3.5E Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, so I'm hoping that can be pulled off again.

The insipid multiculturalism in 4e is possibly the most annoying aspect of the PoL,

D&D fantasy has always been 'insipidly multicultural'. In fact, most heroic fantasy leans in that direction regardless.

"Emo" has changed a lot. The current look of emo is pretty far detatched from what it used to be. You can thank the formulaic drivel of Dashboard for that.

Actually, considering his usage of open tunings and odd chordings, Chris Carabba is a leagues better songwriter than his contemporaries in say, My Chemical Romance. I'm still not a fan, but you have to a musician credit where credit is due.

Still, this tripe is a far cry from Sunny Day Real Estate. But I digress. Bring on the Demiplane of Dread!

 

[ShadowDenizen]

Ravenloft doesn't play that way. It is, for the most part, a place where there's just progressively darker shades of grey that lead to black. Heroes who look inhuman and/or dark aren't going to be treated as heroes, regardless of what they do, by the local populace.

Yup, the "shades of grey" aspect is very important (IMO) to Ravenloft; it's a setting where the Darklords aren't MEANT to be defeated, they're meant to be twisted reflections of the characters and what they could become once they begin to embrace the Dark Powers.

That, again, seems to be in direct conflict to the 4E philosophy.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

On the other hand, I dare say some people will look at the arguments in this thread regarding "classic" Ravenloft -- that it's a pretty darn hard place to adventure -- and go "Okay, well, then, if they're throwing all that out... sounds like it'll be more fun." As great and atmospheric as Ravenloft is, there are elements about it that basically swat you on the nose for adventuring; some people won't miss that.

Sorry, you gotta expect it to happen. Hey, my initial Ravenloft experience was one of those AD&D choose your own adventure books -- that thing went straight from entering Barovia to taking your paladin and hunting down the Count with your sunsword and rod of lordly might. There's room for all kinds of stories in the setting, even those with pretty drastically different themes.

 

[Vocenoctum]

On the other hand, I dare say some people will look at the arguments in this thread regarding "classic" Ravenloft -- that it's a pretty darn hard place to adventure -- and go "Okay, well, then, if they're throwing all that out... sounds like it'll be more fun." As great and atmospheric as Ravenloft is, there are elements about it that basically swat you on the nose for adventuring; some people won't miss that.
<snip>
There's room for all kinds of stories in the setting, even those with pretty drastically different themes.

This is where we get to the "Making Ravenloft 4e" vs "Inserting some Ravenloft into 4e".

If you're going to conceptualize the Domains of Dread into a setting, it needs to maintain some distinctiveness from a traditional setting. If you're going to make a "horror" setting, then you have to avoid watering it down so much that it's just another PoL setting. It may be a delicate balance, when removing a players control over his character, between evoking feelings of horror vs evoking anger, but that's what "how to run" articles are for.

If you simply wash it out to the point that the player won't lose control, simply to avoid the potential for angering them, it's pointless.

Ravenloft works on the other level too, interjecting horror themes into the standard PoL without having to use the full mechanics that set Domains of Dread apart. Expedition to Castle Ravenloft was more about the original adventure than it was about the campaign setting, and that's cool in it's own way. This would fit in better with 4e's design philosophy, IMO, and allow for them to set up the situations better.

Just, for the love of god, don't label something as "the new Ravenloft campaign setting" and then give some washed out "how to kill a darklord" stuff that just pisses off fans of the original setting.


(For Dragon/ Dungeon, I think it could work well with a setup like "Darklords", Dragon highlights a specific darklord and his domain. Then Dungeon has an adventure in that setting.)

 

[Dire Bare]

Well, I for one will withhold judgement, positive or negative, until I get a chance to actually read the article.

I am just amazed at all the whining about how WotC will destroy Ravenloft to be a bit premature.

I know not everyone in the thread is doing that, but it is overwhelming.

Sigh, welcome to the internets, I know.

 

[Staffan]

In FR, at least, they showed that they didn't have the nerve to do so, even refusing to allow the Elven races of Toril to keep their names

They still have their cultural and cosmetic differences, but I for one am happy to see the mechanical differences between a dozen different types of elves erased.

 

[Remathilis]

Yup, the "shades of grey" aspect is very important (IMO) to Ravenloft; it's a setting where the Darklords aren't MEANT to be defeated, they're meant to be twisted reflections of the characters and what they could become once they begin to embrace the Dark Powers.

That, again, seems to be in direct conflict to the 4E philosophy.

Which makes Ravenloft a fun place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. Much like Midnight, a setting where you cannot win, just merely do some good before you die is fun for a while, but eventually unsatisfying to me.

Much more the point: Ravenloft as a setting required a certain amount of vulnerability. 2e Ravenloft did this in three ways: 1.) making everything that wasn't mundane shunned and feared (and making a great deal of the mundane suspicious as well). 2.) Attacking a PCs weaknesses (fear, horror, madness, curses) and 3.) changing, corrupting, or outright removing PC options and powers that would otherwise give them a position of strength (divination, druids, paladins, spell-changing, familiars!)

This all added up to a setting where the PCs were constantly behind the 8-ball; the simple comforts of safe haven, reliable magic, etc. It basically said "I'm changing the rules so your screwed. If at anytime you think not screwed, you secretly are". Unfortunately, this runs smack dab against the design philosophies of third (options not restrictions) and fourth (all classes should be viable/useful). This is why Arhaus's 3e Ravenloft lacked the same feel as 2e's Domains of Dread; they tried to apply a 3e mindset to Ravenloft and allow more options (some with a cost) that made Ravenloft less "gothic horror hodgepodge" and more "fantasy seen through a darkened lens".

Any attempt to recapture the feel of 2e Ravenloft, IMHO, is doomed to fail unless your willing to gut and rebuild the game around it. WotC has pressed a position of "PCs are Heroes, beyond mortal men" that is fine for fantasy but sucks for gothic horror. WotC would be wiser to lean on the Ravenloft that Expedition to Castle Ravenloft used; part of a larger world where heroes come from, but a dark and dangerous corner of it steeped in Gothic flavor, but ultimately closer to D&D with vampires than a different setting.

Which, unless WotC suprises me, is what they are going to so.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Well, I for one will withhold judgement, positive or negative, until I get a chance to actually read the article.

I am just amazed at all the whining about how WotC will destroy Ravenloft to be a bit premature.

I know not everyone in the thread is doing that, but it is overwhelming.

Sigh, welcome to the internets, I know.

Because judging something based entirely on their own previous works is bad now? Nobody here has ZERO INFORMATION regarding this. We have TONS of information. We know lots about the default setting. We know how Wizards handled the changes in Forgotten Realms. We know what themes they enjoy putting into their 4e settings. We have a basic idea of how and what they do when developing or changing settings.

We're not running around blind just because we harbor distrust.