D&D 5E tweaking narrative structure in CoS (spoilers; also really long)

[evilbob]

In this thread, I made a rough outline for Curse of Strahd to show the general narrative structure of the story in case it was (reasonably) overwhelming or you'd rather have a more linear plot. It looks like this:

[sblock]
Outline

Opening Quests

I. Intro/hooks

a. receive fake burgomaster letter, head to Barovia​

II. Death House - right when they get into town, the party is drawn to the crying child

a. explore all the upstairs​

b. rest, head downstairs, final battle, escape!​

III. Barovia

a. find out about Mad Mary (optional)
b. go to Inn, meet Ismark: he talks about Ireena (sister) and Strahd (vampire) and sets up most of the plot and gives them all kinds of info about Barovia

i. Vistani approach and tell the characters to see Madame Eva (critical)​

c. go to his house, meet Ireena

i. she asks them to help bury her father​

d. go to church

i. find Doru
ii. kill Doru
iii. comfort priest
iv. agree to come back in the morning for burial​

e. stop by shop on the way out of town (optional)
f. meet hag, do dream pastries encounter on the way out of town (optional)​

IV. Tser Pool - make sure players know they should head there

a. at the crossroads turn RIGHT
b. get fortunes read
c. leave​

V. Windmill (optional - also insanely dangerous so try not to let them get in a fight)

a. talk to the hags
b. negotiate for release of children (optional)​

VI. Vallaki

a. find the church first (change or ignore the map); introduce quest to find bones
b. Inn; quest to find more wine from Winery

i. mention that people in Krezk will know more​

c. Stockyard; discover tiger (optional)
d. coffin maker shop

i destroy vampires and get bones (insanely dangerous so reduce vampire spawn total or give them an "out" like burning it down) to complete church quest
ii. Ireena can now stay there safely (quest complete)
​

e. introduce burgomaster of this town

i. invited to festival coming up
ii. introduce his bodyguard and how he's a bad guy
​

f. NPCs mention Vistani on the edge of town

i. get quest to find girl at the lake
ii. finish that quest​

g. NPCs mention haunted mansion west of town "Argynvostholt", probably treasures are hidden there
h. NPCs mention haunted, abandoned town south of town​

PCs choice: stay in town, find wine, or head to spooky mansion

VII. Stay in Vallaki

a. festival starts

i. guy is arrested for laughing, party decides to help or not
ii. if they help, the burgomaster gets mad and starts to have them arrested, but either way...
iii. tiger is loose! Must help the town get the tiger captured or kill it; Rictavio skips town​

b. party is either already under arrest or implicated in the tiger fiasco; either way the burgomaster sends bad guy bodyguard after them

i. kill him or flee; either way, party isn't welcome in town and the townspeople fear them - but then they get an invitation to the Watcher House​

c. Watcher House

i. creepy woman tries to get them to kill the burgomaster; either way she also hires Vistani to kill the party
ii. more fighting; the party discovers the double-cross and can try to confront the Watcher woman or not; either way they will have to fight someone​

d. new boss, same as the old boss?

i. if the current burgomaster is killed, Watcher takes over and the town is worse off and she still tries to kill the PCs
ii. if Watcher is killed, the current burgomaster forgives the players and decides to reform (not in the book but easier)
iii. if both are killed, the innkeepers take over the town (not in the book but easier)​

VIII. Find Wine

a. head to Krezk

i. frosty reception; these guys want wine, too! They tell the party where the Winery is​

b. head to Winery

i. the current owners intercept the party and let them know the winery is under attack
ii. lots of encounters with druids! lots of fighting; PCs win; owners happy​

c. new quests: find the missing gems (optional)

i. they think one was stolen by druids: here is where the druids live
ii. they think the other was stolen by an old witch: she lives in the haunted, abandoned town south of Vallaki​

d. turns out there's enough wine for both Krezk and the Inn in Vallaki if they get both gems!​

IX. Spooky Mansion - cut this place down a lot and reduce the encounters

a. find the wagon and run into Ezmerelda - major companion

i. she suggests finding Rictavio; there's a tower nearby - new quest (optional)​

b. go in, meet ghosts, find out they need a skull from the castle to light a beacon and be happy again - new quest​

Finding gems

X. Where the Druids Live

a. get close; fight some guys
b. druids start a ritual - must be stopped! (Strahd is supposed to show up - do not include this, as it is insanely dangerous that way)

i. stop the druids: defeat them, get the gem
ii. don't stop the druids: defeat the monster they create, then get the gem​

XI. An Old Witch

a. check out abandoned town south of Vallaki
b. run into wereraven woman (Muriel) who can help them by telling them the witch has a secret which can be used to stop her (or find out from the windmill hags by bartering something?)

i. party can sneak around to find out she has to bathe in animal blood to survive; they can keep her from bathing by fighting her or kill / release all her animals to get her out of there
ii. find the gem while she's dead/gone​

Other quests

XII. old Tower (completely optional)

a. lots of traps; can find Rictavio and some treasure​

XIII. Krezk (completely optional)

a. when they give them wine, they are allowed in
b. burgomaster is sad about dead son
c. lots of people talk about the Abbey
d. Abbey has crazy angel guy

i. PCs can decide to engage in conversation or explore or whatever but there's little reason for them to do anything here
ii. If they do converse, they can get the wedding dress quest, but that involves going into the burgomaster's house in Vallaki which may or may not be off limits; getting the dress allows the son to be raised (yay!) but he's insane (boo)​

XIV. Just skip it

a. Werewolves - I can't think of a single reason that this ties into the story unless the Fortune of Ravenloft is there
b. Tsolenka Pass - same
c. Amber Temple - same​

Wrap It Up

XV. Castle

a. hopefully they've found all the cool bits and bobs and leveled up so now the party receives a formal invitation to the castle

i. when they get to the crossroads near the castle the stagecoach shows up and takes them inside​

b. explore the castle

i. find the dragon skull to finish that quest
ii. find Mad Mary's daughter
iii. find any other fortunes of Ravenloft
iv. try not to die​

c. find Strahd in the final battle location foretold by the cards; kill him​

[/sblock]
Laying it all out like that got me realizing: I know this is a sandbox and it's meant to be played over and over, but unless you put specific hooks into certain locations, there's no reason a party would ever go there (other than curiosity).

Specifically, one that surprised me was the Werewolf Den. Other than the initial story hook, the only in-game reasons someone would go there are:
- they heard mention of werewolves in Krezk (along with lots of other types of wolves); a plot hook so thin it seems unlikely they'd take it
- the werewolves attack them at the Tower and they decide to follow up on that somehow; this is both unlikely because it requires colossal mistakes on the PCs' parts to even happen, and it doesn't necessarily connect back to the werewolf den unless maybe someone is captured
- they find the guy in the castle who wants to get back to his den; this is also unlikely because he's likely to turn on them / escape whenever he can, and has no reason to go back with the PCs necessarily; also they might just skip him or kill him anyway

In other words: there's basically no reason for them to look for werewolves other than maybe they run into a very unlikely event and are internally motivated to go out of their way to investigate it. And even if they were interested: how do they find it?!? Track it down or something? From what? Hope they get a random encounter and capture someone? Literally nothing leads them there.

Similarly, the entire Amber Temple (and subsequently Tsolenka Pass) are only mentioned... once? Kasimir is the only one who has a quest to go there, and frankly the whole dark elves sub plot is a little out of place in this world (just like the temple). Technically the hags can try to bargain the temple's existence for their lives but that's a long shot. Also you can accidentally teleport yourself there in one of the super-awful castle traps. But unless you talk to that one NPC who you have no reason to speak to whatsoever other than "because he's there", you'll probably never even know it existed. (Seriously, why would the PCs investigate all those houses until they found the one that had a guy who wanted to talk and then ALSO bring up his dead sister and all that crap?)

Even more surprising: why would the party ever go to Krezk? In my outline above I forced it by making the knowledge of the winery be in Krezk, but other than the fact that it's a town and has NPCs, there's nothing drawing you there. You could easily skip it, especially since the people in that town don't want you to come in. And there's a LOT of stuff there.

Van Richten's Tower is also pointless unless you find Ezmerelda to tell you to go there (and the book acts as if you would most likely meet here here), and if Rictavio never skips town in Vallaki there is NO reason to go there. Argynvostholt (I copy/pasted that) also has no reason to go there other than "maybe there's treasure or something." Seriously why would anyone start that quest?

There's also little chance you'd stumble upon any of: The Winery, Yester Hill, or Berez except for the convoluted wine quest! That's right: nearly a fifth of the locations are only going to be introduced if your characters care about getting wine. And since Krezk offers no reason to go inside and the Inn in Vallaki is just offering... free room and board?? (They find a piece of jewelry in Death House worth 750g which should supply all their boarding needs for the entirety of the adventure.) It's an easy quest to skip, especially given how much effort you have to go through for literally no reward.

I guess my point is: other than the Fortunes of Ravenloft, there's almost nothing in-game to motivate the characters to venture from place to place. Which: ok, fine, maybe that's the intent. I've wondered if there was just too much in this world for one campaign, really, and you're supposed to skip sections so you can come back and do them later in another campaign. But - who does that, really? Who buys a campaign to run over and over, especially one that takes literally weeks to prep? I guess the plus side is that it's extremely easy to cut things with ZERO impact.


Separately, there's probably TOO much plot in Vallaki. That's where most new DMs are going to start going, "huh? Wait... what's supposed to happen here?" The truth is that nothing is supposed to happen: they just put a bunch of dominoes in place and it's up to your players to knock them down or not. But that's also pretty confusing and extremely open-ended to the point of getting people lost, especially since the only thing close to a direct path leads nowhere (who takes over the town when you get rid of both bad guys? The answer is who cares anymore). I know for my group if they have about 3 to 5 quests, that's about all they can handle: when you start piling on tons and tons of options, they immediately just start ignoring information and focus on the first few things they found out. Vallaki has too many paths and there's no clear ones, and keep in mind you already have 5 quests from Madame Eva, plus Ireena in tow, plus anything else that might have come up.

And finally, all this comes back to the castle... HOW? I mean, there are a couple of things the PCs can do to specifically piss Strahd off: if they stop the church in Vallaki from being destroyed (which hopefully happens early); if they allow Ireena to get sucked into a lake by a weird ghost who happens to be Sergei (why are they in Krezk again?); or if the characters meet Ezmerelda at the Tower (why would they go to the tower unless she told them to?); each of these situations will cause Strahd to send them a letter to invite them to the castle. Strahd also meddles in specific affairs; the attack at the church and the druids' ritual involve him, and he might get mad at them that way, but those are also both heavily optional (and the church is hopefully unlikely!). But other than the letter (which has no time limit) there's nothing drawing them back to the castle. The one place in the countryside that asks you to go to the castle and come back is Argynvostholt and there's no reason you'd go there in the first place! (Ok, also Mad Mary's daughter, but that's copied from the original module.) Sure, Strahd's supposed to attack repeatedly so you hate him, but even that is confusing - why is he so pissed at us? How does he know so much? Is the GM just cheating? And that's not really a story: that's just flicking someone over and over until they punch you.

So really, the only true narrative is: "find these items and this person, then kill Strahd because he's evil or something." So... it's really just one big fetch quest. ...Awesome.


Next post: so how can these threads be tied together a bit better?

 

[evilbob]

I'm going to start with a big tweak, and throw smaller ones in as well.

Anything used to tie the campaign together has to encompass every disparate area. So far, the best idea that I can find (which isn't mine and I'm sorry to whoever suggested it because I haven't looked you up to cite you) is what I'll call the "Points of Light" campaign idea: in short, the reason Strahd can't be beaten is because the entire land is completely miserable; the party needs to bring hope, courage, and "light" back to the land - specifically the towns, but doing so will involve nearly everywhere else. Each point of light they can create weakens Strahd and it weakens his hold on the land (similar to the 3.5 Ravenloft campaign idea). Once he's weak enough, the land itself will help you fight back - and you'll know the time to take down the tyrant is nigh.

Barovia

I'd suggest starting with throwing a lot of narrative weight onto Ismark, who is sadly already overloaded - but also one of the first NPCs you are nearly certain to meet who is both friendly and eventually indebted to you. Perhaps after the party has helped take his father to the church (but ideally before the funeral), he can start to open up about a theory he's had: Strahd and various other agents of evil have kept the land in darkness and misery and maybe the secret to stopping him is to make people happy again. He can mention the three different towns of Barovia, their burgomasters, and ask the party to seek each one to find out what can make that town happy again. This:
- gives even more reason to find the burgomaster in Vallaki and get inundated into that plot line, as well as making the "festivals" even more ironic
- gives a reason to get into Krezk
Once the characters get the priest to bury the dead burgomaster, that morning a ray of pure sunlight falls on the grave site. If the characters have killed Doru and he is getting buried as well (whatever is left of him), a second ray of sunlight falls on his grave as well. It only lasts a few seconds, but Ismark and the priest both remark on it. The priest in particular wonders if it's a sign from the Morning Lord. These each count as a Point of Light.

Defeating Death House was another (maybe it was barely noticeable).

When the characters permanently stop the hags from selling dream cakes (however this happens), they see a large amount of sunlight break through the clouds and cover the town for a few moments. This is another. Each one might get a little longer for that location.

When Mad Mary's daughter is returned, sunlight falls on her house for a few moments, and Mad Mary regains her sanity when she looks into the light. This is another.

When the children kidnapped by werewolves are returned to their homes, maybe some come back to Barovia and that causes another.

When the winery is restored and wine is shipped back to the Blood on the Vine, maybe that's another.

After some number of Points of Light are achieved in this area - maybe 4, maybe more or less depending on what you see fit - the town of Barovia changes. People are a little friendlier and brighter. Not that you would ever use the rats or zombies but you could say the houses no longer have a chance to be filled with rats or zombies. It also means that for a few minutes a day, maybe at noon, true sunlight shines down on the town. There's definitely a visual effect. Maybe the church has started to be repaired and more people talk about the Morning Lord.


For a smaller tweak, I'd have Ismark also comment on recent kidnappings. Be sure to mention "over a dozen" and "children." The former is important to make sure the party understand that it's not just the hags, and the latter is just factual (for the Fewer Dead Children variant: don't mention children).
- This is the first hook into the Werewolf Den and if the characters already have the adventure hook, it should blend nicely.


Windmill

The hags should be keen to negotiate, and their favorite bargaining chip is information. They can be bribed to let the children free (this is more of a party-saving tactic) with any sort of arcane magical item or trinket; if the party has a cool trinket - many of the ones in Death House fit the bill nicely, and they might find one in a random encounter - they can get Morgantha to spill secrets in trade for it. She'll also trade for unwanted spellbooks or arcane items from the castle (or other witch items). This area will need to be "cleansed" eventually, but in the short term hopefully the party can use it as a great source of info. Specifically, they'll trade for these secrets:
- Strahd has undead enemies in Barovia, namely the fallen knights of the Order of the Silver Dragon. These revenants cart be found in a ruined mansion west of Vallaki (low value)
- there are seven witches who live in the castle and serve Strahd; they probably know some of the castle's secrets (high value)
- Morgantha actually made a gift to the ruling witch when she came to this land; a terrible and ancient creature named Baba Lysaga, who still lives near the ruins of Berez (medium value) (the gift was of information about the castle and Strahd; Baba Lysaga wanted it badly and Morgantha used her hag eye to get it - that's why it's still in the castle; this is also medium value information)
- Baba Lysaga is extremely interested in the Winery for some reason (medium value)
- Baba Lysaga wants to destroy the Winery and uses enchanted scarecrows to do it (high value)
- druids also live near standing stones at Yester Hill and perform rituals in the service of Baba Lysaga (medium value)
- Baba Lysaga must bathe in the blood of animals at the new moon or she will crumble to dust (extremely high value)


Vallaki

Here you can expand the roles of the Blue Water Inn family. If Ismark is with the party he can introduce the idea, but Urwin should mention or otherwise reinforce the Points of Light theme. He should specifically tell the party about how wine is important and brings joy to the people of Barovia, and give more urgency and reason for them to pursue the Winery quest (it's worth several points of light). He can also specifically bring up Argynvostholt and just straight-up give them a big chunk of the background for that place, including that an ancient enemy of Strahd still roams the area and might be of some assistance somehow. You can also hang Berez on Urwin: he can give a lot of the background about the former burgomaster and Strahd destroying the town, and he can mention that the ghost of the former burgomaster still haunts the area and that perhaps they could put him to rest. He should also warn them about a powerful witch that also roams the area.

If you keep the Amber Temple, Urwin can mention an ancient place of great evil in the mountains as well, beyond Tsolenka Pass. He suspects the dark elves who live just outside of town know much more about that place. This gets one name into their vocabulary and pushes them to talk to the one person in the game that can tell them more.

Rictavio should out and out mention a nearby tower (Van Richten's Tower - which obviously he won't use that name) as one of the places he's visited recently, and hint that there might be treasure there. This place needs all the hooks it can get.

For another easy tweak regarding the Werewolf Den, Urwin can also talk about recent kidnappings of children from Vallaki on the road, but that he's not heard if anyone from Krezk has been kidnapped. You can also have Luvash mention drunkenly that his daughter "better not have been kidnapped by those werewolves, or there will be hell to pay." And once the party discovers werewolves are behind the kidnappings, the two wolf hunters (whose names are hard to spell) in the Blue Water Inn can be contacted; they know the way to the werewolves' den, and will show the party - for 20 gold. (They won't help them fight, though.) Another option is to have a werewolf encounter outside of any town, and have several attack and the last one surrenders instead of fleeing. This last werewolf gives up his den and all sorts of other information about the pack in exchange for his life.


Overall, there's an argument to be made to drop the Watcher storyline altogether. It's cool in a "you can't trust anyone!" sort of way, but it's bulky and most importantly redundant. It's also a second dungeon in a small area that already has one dungeon (the burgomaster's house). It's easy to cut and you lose nothing related to any other quests or story lines.

If you choose to keep it, I'd suggest wrapping it up quickly: make it obvious after her initial play that she's evil but that she will absolutely take over if the current burgomaster is taken out or weakened (she'll have him killed if Izek is dead) and make sure the party wraps up both ends if they start to go down the "maybe someone else should be in charge" path. Try to avoid anything that destroys the current burgomaster's house completely because that wedding dress is ridiculously important; if they go through that area make sure they find it if at all possible.

I'd also deus ex machina Urwin to be the new burgomaster in the likely event that both the current burgomaster and the Watchers are taken out. He's the only obvious choice and I think making him step into the role (even reluctantly) would make more sense than leave the town without a leader.

There are many Points of Light possible in Vallaki, but a huge one would be to get Urwin in charge of the town, and to save the church. Those two (especially since they are both multi-step quests that are complex) along with restoring the wine should be enough to "brighten" Vallaki: once this happens, there is no more cult, Izek leaves if he isn't already dead, and the people are more trusting of the party. Even the Vistani just outside of town get a little brighter if Arabelle is rescued and the town is "brightened." There may be other ways to get the town saved without some of these; add or subtract as you see fit.


Krezk

The important thing here is to get the party to notice and ask about Dmitri's sadness before they leave. Make the success automatic to notice it (instead of DC 12); get him talking and have him give obvious hints that this is a Point of Light. They're also very interested in the wine and can give specific directions to get to the Winery, although they'll also offer that they worry something might be wrong.

Once admitted to the town, Dmitri and Anna become the new major information NPCs. They can mention that their walls are high "to keep the werewolves from stealing our children." (This should be plenty of hints by now to go to the Werewolf Den.) They can also give all the info you need to hand out about the Abbey and the Abbot to get the party interested in going there to help stop the madness. It should be the main quest they get in Krezk: the town is safe from the outside, but it's still so dangerous inside that people are still scared. Please help us get rid of the madness that has overtaken this once holy place!

Purging the Abbot of his madness should be another obvious Point of Light. Personally I'd favor "cleansing" the whole area as a solution worth pushing but your group might be more creative. He's worth keeping around for a while because 1) the party can't hope to kill him until they're a higher level and 2) his quest to get the dress so he can Raise Dead on Dmitri's son is one way to get this Point of Light (probably the only way they can get it before the 10 days pass until Raise Dead can no longer be used, since they won't be hitting level 9 anytime soon). Be sure they can quickly put together the wedding dress hints from Vallaki - have someone mention going to the Vallakovich wedding all those years ago and remembering the dress if necessary.

The Abbot is also another great source of information. He should directly mention Argynvostholt as a place of evil, and if you're using the Amber Temple he can talk more about that as well, filling in a few gaps that were left by Kasimir. He actually knows a lot about both places since he investigated them to find the source of the evil in this land - before coming to the false conclusion it was just Strahd, and that Strahd is the single source of evil and stopping him is all that matters. (You can do a lot more with this character as well and another thread has some great suggestions.) However, he will ask the party to cleanse both of those places of evil, and give them details about how to get there. Getting more quests to go to these places can't hurt. He can also mention that he's seen strange lights coming from an abandoned Tower just southeast of here, and the party should probably check it out.

If you can get the party to the Abbey, go ahead and introduce Ezmerelda as well if they haven't found her yet. This is one of the few places it has made sense for them to go that she can be found.

Getting Ireena back with Sergei can be a Point of Light, but I wouldn't make it required. Dmitri and Anna can remark on how a soul has escaped the land, however, and how they have hope because of it. Don't punish the characters because Strahd destroys the gazebo if this happens as well.

Purging the Abbot of madness (probably with violence), restoring the wine, and raising the son should be enough to "brighten" Krezk. Add/subtract other goals as necessary. Once this is done, the pond regains more power and works on each person 1/week instead of once ever, the people are hardier and Dmitri discusses opening up trade with the other two towns (they have lots of food here but little in the way of horses and plows; also they could use more cloth and other sundries).


Tower

Have the werewolves attack anyway once Ezmerelda is found (or if they already have her) and the tower is explored; it's a pretty defensible position and the best chance the party has of taking the leader out. Try to have one of the werewolves go unconscious or get captured or otherwise surrender - he'll give up the den's location and other secrets about the werewolves' internal politics in exchange for his life. If they kill the leader this should be particularly easy to do; the others just give up as the new alpha has emerged (whoever landed the final blow on the leader!).

If you're using it, put information in the tower about the Amber Temple. The lich that lived here is now living there, so provide some links. Maybe he kept a diary (soooo overused in this campaign but anyway) of his experiments and plans up there.


Winery

Don't be afraid to have one of the druids surrender. He or she can then give up information about the other druids, their planned ritual at Yester Hill, their deal with Baba Lysaga, and more in exchange for their life.

As suggested in the outline above, just give the party the info on who has stolen the gems. Don't make it hard. And make it important that they get them back: they need them for the wine which will bring happiness to many people.


Baba Lysaga

She should know information about the hags at the Windmill, the witches in the castle, the Amber Temple, Argynvostholt, the druids, the Winery, and the Tower. They likely won't get her to just talk about all that, though (but if they can - awesome! She's super hard so have her spill her guts if they manage to capture her). But maybe she has a diary in her hut that at least mentions all these things, or if they spy on her maybe she mutters to herself about these places in relation to Strahd. She's technically the second-most informed creature in the valley next to Strahd - don't let her knowledge die too quickly.


Werewolf Den

If they manage to rescue the children and still haven't gotten to the Tower, some of the kids who are from Vallaki mention getting kidnapped while playing near the tower near their town. The werewolves don't really have a "happy" ending other than killing all of them; getting them to stop kidnappings is ok but it's not really a point of light for them (it is for Vallaki and Barovia though).


Points of Light Wrap-up

Once the party has restored light to all three towns, the land is with them again. Every evil creature in the castle gains a -1 penalty to AC and saves while this is true, and vampires and vampire spawn all throughout the land take a -2 to each. Additionally, true sunlight now comes through the clouds for most of the day; any vampires would be extremely restricted and all undead moving outside during the day are all slower and take disadvantage on most rolls. Once the characters restore Argynvostholt, they get the boon it grants. Further boons can be granted at your discretion but just restoring the three towns is pretty huge and covers nearly every area. You could grant something else for cleansing the Amber Temple - maybe destroying all the vestiges is required? It's certainly worth something! Plus, voluntarily giving up all the potential (evil) boons should reward the party with some sort of good boon.

Once the 3 Points of Light are restored, Strahd should send them the invitation to the castle and have the carriage waiting: don't use it anywhere else; save it for now. Make it official and obvious: NOW is the time to go back to the castle.



Hopefully some of these story ties will be useful. Even if you don't use the Points of Light, hopefully some of these hooks will still help tie places together, especially to get to the werewolves, the tower, the temple, and others.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Most of the places can serve as a location for one of the primary treasures or for allies against Strahd. As such, Madame Eva gives the initial clues about the location, and then the characters would have to follow up on that, and the DM would hopefully help guide them to the spots. For example, the werewolf den is the location of the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind in my campaign. I plan on there being a bit of rivalry between the werewolves and the wereravens, so characters like the Martikovs may help point the PCs in the right direction.

But without the treasure as a lure, you are correct that many of these sites don't invite exploration, except for the meta reason of preparation for going to Ravenloft, and wanting to level up accordingly.

I think your Points of Light approach works to solve that issue. It reminds me of the whole "one with the land" aspect from the 3rd edition Expedition adventure, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I've heavily modified a lot of things about the adventure to make sure I utilize the parts I enjoy, and shed the parts I don't (like you, I find the Wachter subplot pretty bland).

 

[DEFCON 1]

Lots of fantastic ideas here, [MENTION=9789]evilbob[/MENTION]... many of which I am or going to be incorporating into my own campaign. And this is exactly what is I think an advantage of this kind of "small sandbox" type of campaign... all these ideas as they come to a DM can be incorporated even if the game is already underway. I hadn't thought of the "signs of hope" / "points of light" idea that was mentioned in another thread and then expanded on here until after my two games were first underway. But as nothing has happened thus far to contradict these ideas, I can bring them in now without any issue to expand my games. All the ideas for Vallaki, Kresk and everything else can be adopted in the same way.

Some additional ideas for people to use that I myself have thought of (or adapted from other material):

Rictavio / Van Richten can really have a much more important part to play if you want it to and can help introduce other areas of the valley... by having actually be a monster hunter while he's here. That's one thing the book never goes into... what does Rictavio do specifically while he's here? If he's really the famed monster hunter that he is... he should have his own thread of action that goes on while the party does theirs-- he should know or discover info about the Werewolf Den and want to purge it, he should find out about the hags and Baba Lysaga and want to dispose of them, he should easily wish to go to the Amber Temple and want to clear that place out of evil... all of which before heading up to the Castle to take on Strahd. So giving Rictavio a bit more knowledge or drive could also be a great motivator for the party when they finally meet up with him. Not to mention that at some point we should want to see Van Richten and Ezmerelda working together as a pair at some point as well. Yeah, he'll say he's cursed and that if he hangs around with friends they'll eventually be killed... but either his friends tell him "I don't care, you need my help"... or finding a way to break the curse could be in the cards (maybe Madam Eva or even Baba Lysaga herself could be a catalyst for that.)

Another thing I'm thinking about doing... and this will play a much more important part if one of my PCs that are going Rogue decide they want to take on the Assassin sub-class... is to reintroduce the Ba'al Verzi assassins that were described in Fair Barovia (if you have access to the 4E Dungeon module, I highly recommend reading it). And in tandem with the Ba'al Verzi... there is their leader, Leo Dilysnia, who served under Strahd during his final days and who tried to overthrow him on the day of Sergei and Tatyana's wedding. Strahd turned Leo into a vampire for this afront and buried him away in a tomb to starve for centuries. In the 4E module, Leo is the Big Bad... but in Curse of Strahd, Leo is nothing but a pile of bones in the home of the Wachter family. To bring the Wachter family more involved in the campaign... having the party find out about Leo, the Ba'al Verzi, and where his bones are (plus whether resurrecting Leo to be a supernatural assist on destroying Strahd in revenge) might be an interesting tactic as well.

As I've mentioned before, I'm also reincorporating the Expedition To Castle Ravenloft's "three fanes" idea that were corrupted by Strahd centuries ago and which need to be cleansed before he can be destroyed... which ties in precisely with the "Points of Light" plot concept, and which is another path to get the party to both Old Bonegrinder and the Ruins of Berez (since I'm using the megaliths outside of the windmill and the menhirs outside of Berez as two of the three fanes, and Morgantha and Lysaga as their guardians). Adding EtCR's Lysaga Hill back in as the third one (changed up a bit and renamed with a new guardian) gives me three additional locations all of which will be mentioned in the Tome of Strahd.

Lots of great stuff in these threads as always!

 

[hawkeyefan]

I wound up heavily modifying the adventure, which resulted in me removing Ireena in favor of another character filling that role. Before I made these changes, I was toying with the idea of Rictavio and Esmeralda being kind of antagonists rather than allies. Their goal would still be to destroy Strahd, but I was going to have them using Ireena as bait, risking her life with little care for her regard.

I thought that would be a cool dynamic...to have allies that went too far due to their obsession. It'd create some opportunity for conflict of a more philosophical angle, and also perhaps change the dynamic of some encounters.

Ultimately, I went another route, but I thought that would have been cool.

 

[Destro]

I really enjoy the texture that the TMI sandbox book provides, and so far it seems my players do too. They're enjoying/embracing the fact that there's more going on then just their own story here, and they aren't trying to complete anything.

Our characters are all motivated to escape Barovia for various reasons, and it's been made clear they'll have to deal with Strahd one way or another to make that happen. I've been clear that I'm milestoning the experience so they have no motivation to grind for XP, and they're therefore willing to ignore the Old Bonegrinder while they seek more information on the land.

My anticipation for the climactic encounter is overshadowing any disappointment for all the cool stuff they're passing over, and I'm glad I won't have to retouch everything that I'd want to change.

 

[GlassJaw]

Great posts Bob! Nice work. If I ever run CoS (which I really want to do), I'll definitely borrow some of your ideas. I really like your points of light concept.

I'm not as concerned with all locations having built-in hooks though. That is sort of the nature of sandbox. Some places require the party to explore and stumble upon. And not every one has to be contingent on advancing the story.

Since this is not Baldur's Gate (the video game) where it's easy to see where you haven't been on the map and explore every nook and cranny, I do agree that dropping some hints or rumors (maps, notes, etc.) is probably a good idea. That way if the party picks up on something that sounds interesting, they can start asking around and investigating to get more information.

If you are using XP for level advancement, you can also introduce new locations if the party needs some more XP to boost their level.

 

[azathosk]

For my part I think that I'll let the players get to either buy, steal or find an old map of Barovia. That will give them some possibility to keep track of where they have been.

It could also be that they would find a map that shows some, but not all, of a place they could visit.

 

[robus]

Ah - I was worried this had gotten lost - great post [MENTION=9789]evilbob[/MENTION]! Glad it survived!

 

[hawkeyefan]

For my part I think that I'll let the players get to either buy, steal or find an old map of Barovia. That will give them some possibility to keep track of where they have been.

It could also be that they would find a map that shows some, but not all, of a place they could visit.

I really wish that the giant poster map of Barovia that came with the book didn't have all locations marked on it....it just seems so suited for laying it out for players, that to have areas marked seems like an obvious mistake. I wish that it had just had the towns and any known locations marked, but left anything secret like the werewolf den unmarked.

We've finally gotten to a point in our game where the PCs have been just about everywhere, so I've started using the map to help illustrate the locations and distances for travel. My players were like "why didn't you use this right from the start?"