D&D 5E Ravenloft= Meh

[Mouseferatu]

But he could do it on Oerth or Faerun. If my paladin is smiting demons in John's game on Wednesday, I am not scared that my bard is facing a vampire in Dave's game on Sunday.

That is not a problem with the setting. That's a lack of player buy-in on your part. Now, whether that's a problem or not is up to you; nobody says you have to like the different moods and feels of various settings.

But it's up to the players to think of and react to the circumstances, and to decide going in how they're going to treat each different setting's circumstances.

 

[Marius Delphus]

I categorically reject the notion that D&D "cannot do" horror. I personally DMed a "weekend in hell" style Ravenloft game over the course of 3 years in the 90s.

Ravenloft is my favorite 2E setting hands down. It's true that if you feed "beer and pretzels" into one end you're not going to get Gothic horror out the other. Thus the setting books talk about DMing techniques (the more so as new versions of the setting appeared): withholding information from the players; creating a sense that the characters are isolated, underpowered, and underprepared (even if they aren't); and using all the characters' senses to convey detailed but possibly misleading information about the world around them.

But as stated, creating the right atmosphere is not a DM-only operation; you need players who are willing to let their characters experience dread (in the purest sense of the word). Personally, I had a group of players who loved being worried for their characters, not quite knowing what was going on or what they were facing, and allowing their characters to react appropriately in situations ripe with dread.

Not 100% of the time of course. I've also run standard dungeon crawls that happened to take place in Ravenloft—a different set of players made a complete wahoo hash of From the Shadows, for example, illustrating perhaps the point I'm actually trying to make: Ravenloft works as a Gothic horror setting when it works as a Gothic horror setting.

 

[Bawylie]

I thought it might be helpful and relevant to link to the On Terror & Horror thread you started that was migrated here from the WotC forums.

Thanks for linking that. I just re-read the whole thing. Great discussion! Particularly our attempts to tease out how to reliably evoke terror.

Ah memories of WOTC forums

 

[Lidgar]

If that worked for you, then that's cool. For me though, level drain was always more of a bookkeeping hassle than a matter of horror.

I think you misunderstood, the bookkeeping was the horror!

 

[Rune]

But he could do it on Oerth or Faerun. If my paladin is smiting demons in John's game on Wednesday, I am not scared that my bard is facing a vampire in Dave's game on Sunday.

Thank you for illustrating my point. The fact that the paladin can do these things on Oerth or Faerun is actually part of why Ravenloft is scary, if run as a horror game. Because Ravenloft plays by a different set of rules. And the rules-makers/enforcers hate paladins.

 

[Shasarak]

I played a lot of Ravenloft back in the day, but I would much rather play one of the more interesting settings.

My favourite Dark Lord was Lord Soth, a large part of which was how he punked Strahd

 

[MonsterEnvy]

My favourite Dark Lord was Lord Soth, a large part of which was how he punked Strahd

Ironically Soth stopped being a Dark Lord because he was terrible as one. The Dark Powers found him boring because he eventully just stopped doing anything. He would just sit around looking a dream world in mirrors. As a result he became one of the few Dark Lords to escape the Demiplanes of Dread because the Dark Powers kicked him out.

D&D meets a bad Interview With a Vampire wannabe my love Tatianna died boo hoo not so much.

I think you don't know anything about Strahd.

 

[Shasarak]

Ironically Soth stopped being a Dark Lord because he was terrible as one. The Dark Powers found him boring because he eventully just stopped doing anything. He would just sit around looking a dream world in mirrors. As a result he became one of the few Dark Lords to escape the Demiplanes of Dread because the Dark Powers kicked him out.

Nah, it is just means that the combined wailing and gnashing of teeth of Dragonlance Fan Bois are greater in power then the might of the "Dark Powers".

Maybe even over 9000.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Nah, it is just means that the combined wailing and gnashing of teeth of Dragonlance Fan Bois are greater in power then the might of the "Dark Powers".

Maybe even over 9000.

He still just sat around as a boring lump.

But The Hickmans did dislike Ravenloft taking Soth becuase it was done with out their permission.

 

[Shasarak]

He still just sat around as a boring lump.

You could easily write an adventure where any Villain sits around as a boring lump

But The Hickmans did dislike Ravenloft taking Soth becuase it was done with out their permission.

You do get that sometimes and on the other hand Soth going to Ravenloft is not as bad as Dragonlance not only jumping the shark but going down the wrong trouser leg of time and space. So it is not as if everyone hits a creative home run everytime.