Some notes for session one:
Curse of Strahd adventure hooks suck. SUUUUUCK.
Here's my approach:
* Have each character describe their day-to-day life in Faerûn
* Once done, improvise a time when that character or the group of characters is alone
* The characters are surrounded by missed and dumped in front of the death house
* The mists circle tightly around the house, and don't let them otherwise explore
* Let the characters react a minute, before introducing Rose & Thorn
Read more:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...O-NOT-READ-IF-YOU-ARE-NOT-DMING#ixzz42KltVxda
Creating Mood
Some techniques I used to create a mood of mystery/suspense
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The house cleans itself up. PCs were moving things around and breaking stuff, once they'd turned their attention away from something, I'd later nonchalantly describe it as back in its place. If a player corrected me, I ask them what they were talking about.
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Constant Red Herrings. The PCs expected something around around every corner, so I gave it to them: a curtain that moved like something was behind it had a slightly ajar window; a wolf around the corner turned out to be a taxidermy.
What didn't work
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The fights are easy. I had two players absent, 3/5, and the fights were over after 2-3 rounds. The PCs were pretty banged up, but a 5-7 person party is not going to flinch at the battles (except maybe the armor, because it's just mathematically tough to hit.
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Combat-oriented PCs got bored The exploration is fun, but the lack of stuff to find on the first two floors gave my PCs the fidgets.
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Cliché challenges The PCs have seen these movies before: the suit of armor, the bookshelf secrets; they're all pretty obvious to the PCs
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Rewarding searching everything This adventure risks dragging on because there's a TON of stuff to find -- details of the walls and such, combined with a lack of time pressure, makes this adventure reward an excruciatingly methodical style that's not exactly fun.
Conclusion
Overall, the adventure was a lot of fun to DM, and reading ahead, I'm very excited for a Sandbox Barovia. Given the design issues level 1 PCs face, I think this is a good intro. It was strange, I enjoyed the history of the Dursts quite a bit, but I'm afraid my PCs aren't going to get very exposed to them, and that it will seem cliché to the point of camp.