Curse of Strahd seems to get universal acclaim. I was excited to play it. Yet, I found my experience lacking...
After I ran it, players I'd been gaming with for 15+ years said it was the
best we'd ever played. To me, it was the best in 20+ years of DMing, and that's saying a LOT. BUT, I didn't run it as-is, straight from the module. If your DM did, I can see people being disappointed. It wasn't all just me scouring the net for what other DMs had done, getting a guide, adding material from the Ravenloft novels, and altering Strahd's story; it was also my players agreeing to immerse in a theme of
despair, and to get into a medieval Romanian/Slavic setting by not playing dragonborn, orcs, tabaxi, (exotic high fantasy races) etc. The immersion helped quite a bit, a ton in fact.
Everyone seemed scared of Strahd but that was it. He was just this boogey man in a castle. There really wasn't any evidence of his influence and hold over the people other than their fear.
Strahd needed a complete overhaul. The adventure didn't do him justice. I read, back in the 90s, the
"I, Strahd" novel as well as other Ravenloft novels that get into his head. The entire time the party was nothing but an afterthought. He's immortal. If he fails this time, he'll wait another generation and do it all over again. The only time the party comes onto his radar is when they interfere with Irena, who the DM must do everything in his power to make the PCs care about. She's a domestic violence victim, not past him yet. And that's complex. His only interaction with my PCs was to advise them not to interfere with the rules, and eventually an offer to convince Ireena to give herself to him.
If your experience was Strahd just popped in like an ass, threw a fireball and taunted the PCs then ran, then he was being run from the module only, and the module totally missed the mark on a very complex bad guy. I put probably dozens of extra hours into improving this part of the game.
None of us really cared about Barovia. We just wanted to leave....
Some work needs to be done with the story on this one, and again that's on the DM. It should've been clear Strahd closes borders, so you can't leave. He closes borders because he wants Ireena, but not by physical force. Drawing upon the novels, he wanted to recreate in my campaign the scenario of the past, when he first (nearly) seduced her and she instead threw herself off a cliff. I created a countdown to when this would match the calendar. He's beating her down emotionally, and this should piss people off. If it doesn't, then the Vistani give a 2nd reason: Strahd is cursed and needs to be fixed. Here's how, and then you can go home. You can't go home unless Strahd is fixed. But, he's an immortal god, and only relics from his past can undo him.
Because 90% of the souls in Barovia are simply shades (not sure this ever came into play) and not real souls, no one would care about taking on this task. The shades wouldn't care at all because they're puppets created by the Dark Powers to populate Barovia. Otherwise, I also played up the Ravens. They're trying to combat despair. Why give away free wine? Because it brings a slight bit of happy to this land, which wants to beat you down, make you dig your own grave and crawl into it, then feed off that hopelessness.
Ireena's story also has to be strong. It's easy to abandon her in Vallaki, so she needs to be tortured by Strahd. He wants to isolate her, beat her down. If you can stand by and watch someone do this to another, then maybe you're in the wrong game. And, it's not all Strahd. In my game, the party had met the Abbott who wanted them to kill Ireena (no competition for his bride). After the party convinced him this was wrong, they went adventuring. When they returned to Vallaki, they found the Abbott had taken their advice. He sent his minions and took Ireena's face, then healed her. He stitched the face onto his bride so Strahd would have the face he loves and the obedience of a home-made wife to cure him. This is the type of horror that caused jaws to drop. Then, he sent the party a wedding invitation, fully believing in his insanity they'd appreciate his moral solution.
From there, the party was on suicide watch for Ireena, who wanted nothing more than to die, for this to be over, and at her lowest, she gave herself to Strahd.
I feel like the end game of the module was weak, too. Strahd showed up when we restored Argonvost and through a combination of crazy tactics and dumb luck we managed to trounce him....
As above, the party means nothing. Why would he leave his castle? He could simply outlive them. He IS the Land. It won't let its favorite plaything die. His suffering is delicious to the Land. In his castle, Strahd is pretty much invincible. He can run through walls. In my game, he did "hit and run," accepting any attack of opportunity, regenerating, then doing it again. Because he needs no rest, he could do this forever until the party depleted itself. He was a genius general and he doesn't fight stupid...
And that was the key to defeating him. How can you get Strahd to abandon his genius tactics? What from his journal, or exploring his castle history, and from understanding him could tell you? I added a lot (some from the novels) to ghostly scenes that became more common the closer the party got to the conjunction of now with Strahd's original anniversary of the dark wedding. I let the PCs take roles, like a play, and get into the head of Strahd and what happened.
The Sunblade. Now, the impression I got from all the NPCs was that this was the key to getting an edge in fighting Strahd.... It was hardly the grand showdown with a Dark Lord that I was expecting.
If Strahd stands straight up and faces a party equipped with all artifacts, then yeah, he'll be easy peasy. It strips away much of his awesomeness, as it's supposed to. Hence, the "hit and run" my Strahd did.
So, did my players win? You bet. Ireena was taken in our story, turned and her face restored by Strahd. As a fledgling vampire, she needed rest. The party put up a Leomund's Hut, rested up, and made a plan to find her crypt in the maze of crypts (I had assigned her one). It was a footrace as they busted out, taking out posted sentinels while surviving his hit and run, then staking Ireena. Strahd loses. And this drives him to an insane fury. He forgets all strategy. He wants his fingers around the neck of these fool mortals. And his arrogance, his rage, it costs him. My PCs dropped him in 2 rounds.
SUMMARY: I had a love of the setting, so I put in a ton of hours customizing it. I, like others, get the impression your DM ran it as-is. I view all adventures as a coloring book, waiting for me to fill it in. So, sorry to hear it wasn't what it could've been, but don't give your DM too hard of a time. We all learn as we go. But in this day and age, where we have hundreds of forums and gamer sites with some amazing DM stories of what works and doesn't work, I hope all DMs are taking that extra time and effort to make their stuff a bit better.
