I agree - I like those detours from the story as well. What I don't like about 2e Ravenloft rules was the railroading. I'm cool with making lycanthropy different in Ravenloft, and harder to get rid of, but I also want the rules to have an internal logic, and if the players can follow those rules, they can cure themselves. I always hated doing stuff by DM fiat - I'd much rather do things like the Dark Powers "bargaining with the PCs for greater power at a price" type stuff. That way the players know full well that they are making a deal with the devil so to speak (or rejecting it), and then I have carte blanche to make their lives a bit miserable.
-
The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
D&D General The thread where I review a ton of Ravenloft modules
- Thread starter der_kluge
- Start date
Bedrockgames
Legend
The modules were railroady, it was the 90s, but the method was only as railroady as the GM. The idea is this information is available in the world. So players would obviously need to find people who know how to cure lycanthropy, research, etc. That was kind of the heart of the game.
Well, of course, but from a practical standpoint, making Ravenloft a viable setting, i.e. not just a weekend in hell place one drops the party occassionally, was never an easy thing. VRGtR went a long way to improving things, but you have your work cut out for you as a DM to take the old modules and make them sing.
Voadam
Legend
A lot of things in D&D were very rock paper scissors where the successful required element for a PC was cleric spells which ended up being fairly binary either you have it and are cured or don't and are screwed. Lycanthropy, mummy rot, energy drain, etc.
It put a bunch of story monsters in a weird space of either being very killer or not really a problem depending on the level of cleric the party had access to.
I would have preferred more folklore oriented things that anybody could do, the hunting down the master werewolf as a requirement is a decent one. Belladona being a risky poison thing anybody can do is decent too.
1e had fairly involved stuff for curing lycanthropy but if you had a 12th level cleric who knows what is needed you could be fine one shot cured no problem.
"Any human player character (humans are the only beings able to contract lycanthropy) bitten for 50% or more of his or her natural hit points has a 100% chance of becoming a lycanthrope of the same type that attacked him or her. If the player eats any belladonna within an hour after being bitten, there is a 25% chance the disease will not manifest itself, and thus the character will not be afflicted by it. If not, then a 12th or higher level patriarch must be found to administer a cure disease within three days after being bitten. If the adventurer is only able to find a patriarch of a high enough level after the initial three days, he or she may elect instead to have the priest attempt a remove curse. This spell must be performed on the player character when he or she is in wereform. The beast will need to make a monster’s saving throw against magic, and while in wereform the creature will fight violently to put as much distance as it can between it and the patriarch performing the spell. If all this fails, there is still hope . . .
At this point, if the player wishes to remain a lycanthrope the two charts given later should be consulted in handling the lycanthrope as a player character. If the adventurer decides to be cured and the methods mentioned thus far have been unsuccessful, he or she may take refuge in a holy/unholy place such as a monastery or an abbey. There the clerics can administer to the afflicted one holy/unholy water laced with a goodly amount of wolfsbane and belladonna prepared by the spiritual methods of that particular religion. This potation is to be consumed by the victim at least twice a day from a silver chalice. No adventuring may be done by the character while he or she is being treated by the clerics. After a month or more (depending upon how advanced the disease is) the player character should be cured and somewhat poorer in the purse, as this procedure is very costly. The clerics will charge for the cost of the herbs and the holy/unholy water as well as for the services rendered. The DM may also wish to include the level of the priest as well as the adventurer into the cost of this treatment."
"The scabrous touch of a mummy inflicts a rotting disease on any hit. The disease will be fatal in 1-6 months, and each month it progresses the diseased creature loses 2 points of charisma, permanently. It can be cured only by a magic spell, cure disease. The disease negates all cure wound spells. Infected creatures heal wounds at 10% of the normal rate."
Ravenloft at its best made these into story elements that could be discovered and acted upon by anyone and led to cool game scenarios. Often though it was just extra spells and time constraints and extra tough conditions required to deal with these things. So just a tougher binary requiring more high magic.
It put a bunch of story monsters in a weird space of either being very killer or not really a problem depending on the level of cleric the party had access to.
I would have preferred more folklore oriented things that anybody could do, the hunting down the master werewolf as a requirement is a decent one. Belladona being a risky poison thing anybody can do is decent too.
1e had fairly involved stuff for curing lycanthropy but if you had a 12th level cleric who knows what is needed you could be fine one shot cured no problem.
"Any human player character (humans are the only beings able to contract lycanthropy) bitten for 50% or more of his or her natural hit points has a 100% chance of becoming a lycanthrope of the same type that attacked him or her. If the player eats any belladonna within an hour after being bitten, there is a 25% chance the disease will not manifest itself, and thus the character will not be afflicted by it. If not, then a 12th or higher level patriarch must be found to administer a cure disease within three days after being bitten. If the adventurer is only able to find a patriarch of a high enough level after the initial three days, he or she may elect instead to have the priest attempt a remove curse. This spell must be performed on the player character when he or she is in wereform. The beast will need to make a monster’s saving throw against magic, and while in wereform the creature will fight violently to put as much distance as it can between it and the patriarch performing the spell. If all this fails, there is still hope . . .
At this point, if the player wishes to remain a lycanthrope the two charts given later should be consulted in handling the lycanthrope as a player character. If the adventurer decides to be cured and the methods mentioned thus far have been unsuccessful, he or she may take refuge in a holy/unholy place such as a monastery or an abbey. There the clerics can administer to the afflicted one holy/unholy water laced with a goodly amount of wolfsbane and belladonna prepared by the spiritual methods of that particular religion. This potation is to be consumed by the victim at least twice a day from a silver chalice. No adventuring may be done by the character while he or she is being treated by the clerics. After a month or more (depending upon how advanced the disease is) the player character should be cured and somewhat poorer in the purse, as this procedure is very costly. The clerics will charge for the cost of the herbs and the holy/unholy water as well as for the services rendered. The DM may also wish to include the level of the priest as well as the adventurer into the cost of this treatment."
"The scabrous touch of a mummy inflicts a rotting disease on any hit. The disease will be fatal in 1-6 months, and each month it progresses the diseased creature loses 2 points of charisma, permanently. It can be cured only by a magic spell, cure disease. The disease negates all cure wound spells. Infected creatures heal wounds at 10% of the normal rate."
Ravenloft at its best made these into story elements that could be discovered and acted upon by anyone and led to cool game scenarios. Often though it was just extra spells and time constraints and extra tough conditions required to deal with these things. So just a tougher binary requiring more high magic.
Bedrockgames
Legend
If that is your view, that is fair. I would just say once again though, it is a matter of taste and perspective. I read VRGTR when it came out, it wasn't what I was looking for in Ravenloft or in a gothic horror setting, but if the approach is more gameable to you, then I can't say otherwise. I can say, the original line was far more gameable for me. As a setting, I started on the black box, and while it is clearly intended more as a weekend in hell at that point, I ran it as a long term campaign from the get-go (typically the conceit of these campaigns were the players were brought to Ravenloft from elsewhere, but I occasionally had them play natives). For me, the black box got just the right balance on the details (there was enough that I understood what the setting was about, but there was plenty of space for me to build within that). But by domains of dread, it was treated as a more full setting even in the books.
ON the modules, I get that they are more railroady than many of us play today (I am the furthest thing from a railroad GM). But I find if you engage them on their own terms and run them as intended, they generally work (there are some hiccups the GM has to smooth over but I think we were pretty accustomed to that just from the fact that they were making so many adventures back then so there was always bound to be some amount of material they didn't catch). But I have also found the old modules great for cannabalizing and turning into other types of adventure structures. It just depends on what I am looking for. Again though, taste and preference. Even within the fandom of the 2E era, some people prefer DOD and later, which I get, and some prefer Black Box and the earlier models (which is where I tend to reside). I am sure there are some who are devotees of the red box even.
Paul Farquhar
Legend
The curse rules in VGR are more focused on cursed NPCs than PCs bitten by random werewolf mooks.
It’s not much of a quest to lift the centuries old Barkaville family curse if the PC cleric can simply cast remove curse. Or even if they have to succeed in a bunch of rolls. They need to go somewhere and do something, so that there is actually an adventure to be had.
It’s not much of a quest to lift the centuries old Barkaville family curse if the PC cleric can simply cast remove curse. Or even if they have to succeed in a bunch of rolls. They need to go somewhere and do something, so that there is actually an adventure to be had.
A couple of things the original box set (and red box set) had that are indelible to me was the fantastic, moody Stephen Fabian art that I absolutely loved, and then the core maps. One thing that I didn’t care for in VRGtR was that every domain became an island requiring trips through the mists and tokens acting as keys to take you to certain domains. That works for the more surreal campaigns but it’s never been something that appealed to me, i.e. my vision of a Ravenloft campaign. Come to think of it, my vision of a Ravenloft campaign was probably closest to Masque of the Red Death, which I also adored wholeheartedly.
Bedrockgames
Legend
Masque of the Red Death was very good. That is one I would love to play again. Yeah, turning domains all into islands never really worked for me (I get why it can work in terms of going from one adventure to the next, but I like having a core)
der_kluge
Adventurer
The Ghost of Mistmoor (Dungeon #35) 
This is another haunted house type adventure. Though, not specifically a Ravenloft module, the module came out around the time the boxed set itself was released, and thus was written just prior to its arrival. The author even laments that it would have been perfect for the setting, and he’s not wrong. The module is designed for levels 3-6.
The setup is straightforward – the owner of a haunted mansion hires the PCs to hopefully recover his family’s lost fortune from the estate’s vault. Seems he owes a ton of debt to the local duke, and the only hope he has of paying it off is with the money in this vault. But the house is terribly haunted, and he’s no hope of doing it on his own. He also has no money with which to pay them up front, so if the PCs want their payday, they’ll have to succeed.
The background of the mansion is a little contrived. Basically, an evil priest of a god who opposed the Mistmoor family (who owned the mansion) disguised himself as a raven (with a magic cloak) and managed to gift himself to one of the daughters who lived in the mansion. The mansion had 3 identical triplets – Rebecca, Reveri and Regine. He became Regine’s pet bird, and managed to convince the young girl that he was a magic bird that could change form into that of a man. From this vantage point, he fed the girl hallucinogens which ultimately led to her killing her whole family. The priest, Erebus, then tried to break into the vault, but a magical mishap there killed him, and now he’s an Ether Shadow (read: greater shadow) that haunts the vault proper. On top of this, there are a pair of good-natured rogues who live in the house and attempt to scare people so they can try to claim the treasure for themselves but have thus far failed to find it. The girl rogue, named Psyche, disguises herself as the daughters (from portraits she’s seen) which adds to the PC’s confusion.
Ok, obvious pedophile-vibes from the creepy priest dude being the pet of a 15-year-old girl, it does seem like an overly complicated plot to rid the world of a family of do-gooders that have apparently been a thorn in your evil church’s side (or so the story goes).
What follows is a dungeon-crawl through the house, with a set of specific hauntings that occur – a dozen, in fact. There’s also the potential of a nightmare induced by Erebus, should the PCs decide to rest in the house, which is nicely done. There is all the typical fare you’d expect from a exploration quest such as this. Each room has a description and a lot of detail. Ultimately, the goal is to find the treasure vault, which is hard to do, and requires a couple of provided magical tools to speak with the dead and ask the appropriate questions. Presumably in 2nd edition, the spell didn’t work on dead things older than a certain amount of time, since the scroll in this module is more powerful than a normal one to account for that fact. The 5e spell has no such limitation. There’s also a chance the PCs could get trapped in the vault, which will require some deus ex machina to free them. The writer does a good job covering all the possible different outcomes, though.
This is a solid module. The premise is a shaky – for example, why didn’t the evil priest just kill everyone himself? It seems a little Scooby Doo to me. Like, the villain tried to get his hands on some real estate, and so created an advanced army of cybernetic, artificially sentient zombies to scare people away. And you’re left scratching your head thinking that if the villain had the resources to build said army, he could just legit buy the real estate? That’s kind of how this premise feels. But, if we overlook that convoluted backstory, the second big problem you’re going to have is the magic items and treasure here. The two rogues have a portable hole and use it as a trap against the PCs. These rogues aren’t evil, and so most PCs won’t have a real reason to kill them outright, but if they do, they’re going to get their hands on a game-breaking item. The vault also has a veritable fortune in treasure. The writer offers up a huge section on how to deal with greedy PCs – most of which involve the DM just absolutely screwing them over or killing them outright. The nobleman is supposed to accompany them through the house. It could be possible that he just dies at some point legitimately, and the two rogues could also die – probably less likely, but you never know. And now you’ve just handed your party an obscene amount of treasure and loot. If you decide to run this – and there’s enough good here that it’s worthy of consideration, you’re going to want tread lightly on how to resolve this one. I’d recommend at the very least, vastly reducing the amount that’s found here, and possibly changing some of the coins into real estate holdings, or something more mundane like that.
This is another haunted house type adventure. Though, not specifically a Ravenloft module, the module came out around the time the boxed set itself was released, and thus was written just prior to its arrival. The author even laments that it would have been perfect for the setting, and he’s not wrong. The module is designed for levels 3-6.
The setup is straightforward – the owner of a haunted mansion hires the PCs to hopefully recover his family’s lost fortune from the estate’s vault. Seems he owes a ton of debt to the local duke, and the only hope he has of paying it off is with the money in this vault. But the house is terribly haunted, and he’s no hope of doing it on his own. He also has no money with which to pay them up front, so if the PCs want their payday, they’ll have to succeed.
The background of the mansion is a little contrived. Basically, an evil priest of a god who opposed the Mistmoor family (who owned the mansion) disguised himself as a raven (with a magic cloak) and managed to gift himself to one of the daughters who lived in the mansion. The mansion had 3 identical triplets – Rebecca, Reveri and Regine. He became Regine’s pet bird, and managed to convince the young girl that he was a magic bird that could change form into that of a man. From this vantage point, he fed the girl hallucinogens which ultimately led to her killing her whole family. The priest, Erebus, then tried to break into the vault, but a magical mishap there killed him, and now he’s an Ether Shadow (read: greater shadow) that haunts the vault proper. On top of this, there are a pair of good-natured rogues who live in the house and attempt to scare people so they can try to claim the treasure for themselves but have thus far failed to find it. The girl rogue, named Psyche, disguises herself as the daughters (from portraits she’s seen) which adds to the PC’s confusion.
Ok, obvious pedophile-vibes from the creepy priest dude being the pet of a 15-year-old girl, it does seem like an overly complicated plot to rid the world of a family of do-gooders that have apparently been a thorn in your evil church’s side (or so the story goes).
What follows is a dungeon-crawl through the house, with a set of specific hauntings that occur – a dozen, in fact. There’s also the potential of a nightmare induced by Erebus, should the PCs decide to rest in the house, which is nicely done. There is all the typical fare you’d expect from a exploration quest such as this. Each room has a description and a lot of detail. Ultimately, the goal is to find the treasure vault, which is hard to do, and requires a couple of provided magical tools to speak with the dead and ask the appropriate questions. Presumably in 2nd edition, the spell didn’t work on dead things older than a certain amount of time, since the scroll in this module is more powerful than a normal one to account for that fact. The 5e spell has no such limitation. There’s also a chance the PCs could get trapped in the vault, which will require some deus ex machina to free them. The writer does a good job covering all the possible different outcomes, though.
This is a solid module. The premise is a shaky – for example, why didn’t the evil priest just kill everyone himself? It seems a little Scooby Doo to me. Like, the villain tried to get his hands on some real estate, and so created an advanced army of cybernetic, artificially sentient zombies to scare people away. And you’re left scratching your head thinking that if the villain had the resources to build said army, he could just legit buy the real estate? That’s kind of how this premise feels. But, if we overlook that convoluted backstory, the second big problem you’re going to have is the magic items and treasure here. The two rogues have a portable hole and use it as a trap against the PCs. These rogues aren’t evil, and so most PCs won’t have a real reason to kill them outright, but if they do, they’re going to get their hands on a game-breaking item. The vault also has a veritable fortune in treasure. The writer offers up a huge section on how to deal with greedy PCs – most of which involve the DM just absolutely screwing them over or killing them outright. The nobleman is supposed to accompany them through the house. It could be possible that he just dies at some point legitimately, and the two rogues could also die – probably less likely, but you never know. And now you’ve just handed your party an obscene amount of treasure and loot. If you decide to run this – and there’s enough good here that it’s worthy of consideration, you’re going to want tread lightly on how to resolve this one. I’d recommend at the very least, vastly reducing the amount that’s found here, and possibly changing some of the coins into real estate holdings, or something more mundane like that.
Paul Farquhar
Legend
Where is the fun in that?
But in this case there in no reason to suppose the villain was powerful enough to kill everyone and escape unscathed with a more direct approach.
Similar Threads
