D&D General Reading Ravenloft the setting

[Bedrockgames]

Ah yes, the Twilight Zone Gremlin. Honestly, he looks pretty huggable to me.

Lol. I think that one was much more reliant on Shatner's performance than the guy in the suit

 

[Istbor]

My point was just that puppet master has a kind of classic vibe to it. It doesn't feel like Friday the 13th to me. It definitely has cheesy 80s stuff and more gore than you would have in Ravenloft. But it is pretty atmospheric, has a solid backstory and a real classic kind of location and plot.

What is a classic kind of location?

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm also not buying that all of Ravenloft has been the slow patient horror, and can think of a few campaigns I was in where there was a pretty high body count, or some heavy body horror.

Can't we just all have Ravenloft, and let it be the place for horror in D&D? I feel like we are going to start doing horror film/story gymnastics trying to make things fit into one or possibly two subgenres.

Nothing is all X, but Ravenloft was certainly more patient horror. It is spelled out explicitly in both the black box and the red (and DoD gets into that too). Doesn't mean they don't have moments of gore, or occasionally borrow from other things (some of the later Hammer movies they borrowed from for example were more exploitation movie than classic horror). I don't think I am exactly reaching here saying Ravenloft was about gothic and classic horror. If you want it to move into a broader range of horror, you can definitely argue for that. But it wasn't an all encompassing horror setting. You can always find exceptions. But the rule is pretty clear looking at that TSR line

 

[Bedrockgames]

What is a classic kind of location?

What I mean is an old, creaky mansion/hotel (I just watched it again about 7 months ago, I was very stuck by the classic vibe----which I didn't really remember it having to be honest: I always thought of it as schlocky slasher but it didn't feel like that so much watching it again)

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm also not buying that all of Ravenloft has been the slow patient horror, and can think of a few campaigns I was in where there was a pretty high body count, or some heavy body horror.

Ravenloft can definitely do some body horror. There is an adventure seed in the black box based on Alien (thought they make it more gothic). Like I said you can blend genres. The issue is you need a core of gothic and classic for it be coherent. If you just start blending all genres you loose that core that is rooted in the gothic tradition (and that matters because then it just becomes a generic horror setting).

Also you could do a pure body horror setting if you wanted. I love body horror (it is probably my favorite horror subgenre). But body horror isn't easy and you will lose some of its potency if you water it down and blend in, say, dark fantasy and all the rest.

My point is what set Ravenloft apart was having a focus. When it comes to horror RPGs I really think focus is much better than generic horror. A focused body horror game? great. A focused slasher game? Great. A focused gothic horror game? Great. But if you start blending all genres in equally? To me that is too wishy washy. When I sit down to watch a horror movie, I want a horror movie that has a clear vision, not one that is a muddle of 18 genres. Same with an RPG

 

[Bedrockgames]

It sounds to me that you define "classic horror" as "anything non-slasher, unless it doesn't 'feel right' to me, in which case it's not classic."

No, not at all. I think it is mostly older horror films, older horror stories and older horror movies (and also newer films that are rooted in older sensibilities, or in line with stuff like the classic monsters: so a new werewolf movie might have a classic horror feel because it is one of the big classic monsters). I do think thought that Nesmith and Heyday definitely had slashers in mind when they were contrasting Ravenloft with modern horror (for those who weren't around at the time it is hard to convey just how omnipresent the slasher genre was: a lot of the slashers that came out have been completely forgotten about since but there were a ton of them). Definitely they were pretty clear that they were going for a classic, gothic, horror and not a modern, more gorey horror. And to be clear again, I have no problem with gore, J-Horror, C-Horror, body horror, psychological horror, slashers, etc. I like all kinds of horror (with the possible exception of some of the recent arthouse horror that has been emerging). But I think it would be disingenuous to say Ravenloft was meant to embody all those subgenres. It is pretty clear that isn't what they were going for (and I think having the focus, when they kept it, is one of the things that made it work as a setting). It isn't a sin for a setting to not be every kind of horror under the sun.

 

[Remathilis]

I think it is more like saying the original star wars trilogy was better than the prequels (which is a sound point of view: people like the prequels but in terms of film quality, the original trilogy I would say is leagues better: classics for a reason). We don't have to agree on art and games. I wasn't trying to be polemical (if it sounded polemical it is because I was responding to a poster who was taking an extremely hostile tone to my posts)

There disagreeing and there is disagreeing. Its okay to prefer the OT to the PT, but its also fair to say a lot of Millennial fans have strong positive feelings towards the PT like how we do towards the OT. Its also possible to say the prequels, for all their faults, are better than the Disney Sequel trilogy. We can argue the finer details on ranking and such all day. It gets trickier however, if we were to discuss something like Grogu's midiclorian count and someone responds that "they don't like midiclorians because they are from the Phantom Menace and that's not a real Star Wars movie".

 

[Bedrockgames]

It looks like you simply dismiss whatever it is you don't like as being "influenced" by something not properly gothic, instead of actually admitting that Ravenloft has never been limited to only gothic horror, but instead has always drawn from a variety of sources.

We get it. You prefer only gothic in your gothic horror. But mixing in other types of horror doesn't ruin or dilute Ravenloft one bit; it just makes it more varied and interesting.

No, I don't. But I am going by memory. I recall as the line went on, they clearly started imitating vampire because vampire was HUGELY successful and was threatening the dominance that D&D once held. I didn't recall when the Vampyre came out or how gothy it was but was just basing my response off your post and my memory.

Again, we simply disagree. Which is fine. You don't have to agree with me. But this notion that including more genres somehow automatically makes something better I would reject. Especially with a line that was defined by the subgenre it belonged to, and by its staunch advocacy of that style of horror against more modern styles.

And I am not saying it didn't draw from other things. A lot of people contributed to that line and brought in influences. But it is really obvious if you look at Ravenloft in the 90s, it was rooted in classic horror (and it is explicit in the black boxed set). I don't think that is even controversial. There is a big difference between having a foundation based on a subgenre, and weaving in other subgrenres here and there, and just having a total free for all.

 

[Bedrockgames]

There disagreeing and there is disagreeing. Its okay to prefer the OT to the PT, but its also fair to say a lot of Millennial fans have strong positive feelings towards the PT like how we do towards the OT. Its also possible to say the prequels, for all their faults, are better than the Disney Sequel trilogy. We can argue the finer details on ranking and such all day. It gets trickier however, if we were to discuss something like Grogu's midiclorian count and someone responds that "they don't like midiclorians because they are from the Phantom Menace and that's not a real Star Wars movie".

But people are entitled to their opinions. I don't know. This feels to me like people have been tricked by large corporations like Disney into equating dislike of a movie, or rejection of something they've decided is canon, with attacking other fans. We can disagree. We can even disagree on what 'real star wars' is. That doesn't mean we are rejecting or hating on one another. That is just corporate spin in my view

 

[Remathilis]

My point is what set Ravenloft apart was having a focus. When it comes to horror RPGs I really think focus is much better than generic horror. A focused body horror game? great. A focused slasher game? Great. A focused gothic horror game? Great. But if you start blending all genres in equally? To me that is too wishy washy. When I sit down to watch a horror movie, I want a horror movie that has a clear vision, not one that is a muddle of 18 genres. Same with an RPG

The beauty of Ravenloft is that every domain COULD be its own genre of horror. I personally enjoy the gothic, but I can't fault them from wanting ghost stories, folklore, or other elements of horror. You don't like the zombie apocalypse domain? Don't use it. If there is ANY benefit to the "every domain an island" setup, its that the domains you use and ones I use can be different and we don't have to worry about the ones we don't like.