D&D 5E Everything We Know About The Ravenloft Book

Here is a list of everything we know so far about the upcoming Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft.

Art by Paul Scott Canavan​

• May 18th, 256 pages
• 30 domains (with 30 villainous darklords)
• Barovia (Strahd), Dementlieu (twisted fairly tales), Lamordia (flesh golem), Falkovnia (zombies), Kalakeri (Indian folklore, dark rainforests), Valachan (hunting PCs for sport), Lamordia (mad science)
• NPCs include Esmerelda de’Avenir, Weathermay-Foxgrove twins, traveling detective Alanik Ray.
• Large section on setting safe boundaries.
• Dark Gifts are character traits with a cost.
• College of Spirits (bard storytellers who manipulate spirits of folklore) and Undead Patron (warlock) subclasses.
• Dhampir, Reborn, and Hexblood lineages.
• Cultural consultants used.
• Fresh take on Vistani.
• 40 pages of monsters. Also nautical monsters in Sea of Sorrows.
• 20 page adventure called The House of Lament - haunted house, spirits, seances.

​

D&D 5E - Full Wraparound Cover Art For Ravenloft

We've seen the cover already, but here's a look at the full wraparound art by Anna Podedworna. https://www.enworld.org/threads/updated-with-cover-the-d-d-book-is-van-richtens-guide-to-ravenloft.678411/ https://www.enworld.org/threads/heres-the-ravenloft-alternate-cover.678414/...

www.enworld.org

D&D 5E - Here's the Ravenloft Alternate Cover!

As usual, there is an alternate hobby-store exclusive cover for the upcoming Ravenloft book. Here's a look at it! And here's the full wraparound art. https://www.enworld.org/threads/updated-with-cover-the-d-d-book-is-van-richtens-guide-to-ravenloft.678411/...

www.enworld.org

D&D 5E - [Updated with cover!] The D&D Book Is.... Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft!

Yesterday's hints that a new D&D book would be announced today have born fruit -- we now have a product description and a title! It's a Ravenloft setting book, with tools and new rules for horror-themed games, and new horror-themed character options. I'll update this post with a product image as...

www.enworld.org

 

[Faolyn]

That was my thought as well (note: I haven’t finished it yet, I’m a few episodes into the final season, so please use spoiler tags when discussing it!). In general I feel like there’s some cool conceptual overlap between Magnus and Ravenloft, with the Dark Powers being analogous to the Fears and the Dark Lords being analogous to their Avatars.

Sorry--don't worry, that's not a spoiler for anything that happens. Just, y'know, general Beholding vibes.

There's definitely built-in overlap. Cosmic Horror with the Vast, Body Horror with the Flesh, and so on.

 

[Charlaquin]

Sorry--don't worry, that's not a spoiler for anything that happens. Just, y'know, general Beholding vibes.

Yeah, it reminded me specifically of

Spoiler

Alias/Jonah’s ability to see out of any eye

but really any kind of magical surveillance is sure to be reminiscent of the Ceaseless Watcher.

There's definitely built-in overlap. Cosmic Horror with the Vast, Body Horror with the Flesh, and so on.

Granted, The Magnus Archive is pretty specifically designed to tie into all the most common horror themes, with the Fears being based on those universal primal fears. But specifically the Fear-Avatar relationship reminded me very much of the Dark Power/Dark Lord relationship. It’s a little different, as (as far as I know) the Avatars aren’t the way they are as any sort of punishment, and aren’t really tormented by their Gods as the Dark Lords are by the Dark Powers. But still, I feel like there’s fertile ground there to play with - the Dark Lords as mortal (...ish) extensions of the Dark Powers within their respective domains.

 

[overgeeked]

It can be, but only if that’s what the players sign up for.

In about 35 years of playing and running CoC I've yet to meet a single player who wanted the GM to set up jump scares for the players at the table. The few times I have been a part of a game where the GM set up things like that, things designed to scare the players, it did not go well. At all. My favorite (he said sarcastically), so far, was the time the game ended in a fist fight because the player absolutely did not want there to be jump scares for the players at the table but the GM set them up anyway. Because the GM thought horror gaming was about scaring the players, not about putting the characters in scary situations and giving the players a vicarious thrill. The player signed up to play a horror RPG, i.e. to get a vicarious thrill, they did not sign up to enter a full-contact haunted house. Horror gaming is not about scaring the players.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Horror gaming is not about scaring the players.

I am wondering if there is a bigger divide here at work. I definitely want to be scared when I game in a Horror RPG. But maybe it is just we are talking about different things.

I am not sure what people mean by jump scares in an RPG (is this like shouting something loudly all of a sudden to frighten people by surprise?). But one observation I have here is there may in fact be a generational thing arising around how people engage horror. When I was a kid scaring one another on halloween was normal, for example. When people told scary stories it was really common to 'jump scare' people by building tension, then letting a silence fall and shouting something as you revealed some terrifying detail (my dad did this constantly when he told stories). We thought of it all being in good fun. I think we tended to approach horror games similarly. Again, there are lines (if someone is afraid of spiders we weren't going to bring out a tarantula or something). But the GM being like a person telling a scary campfire story was pretty common (and if I understand what jump scare is here, those were definitely on the table I think).

 

[Bedrockgames]

In about 35 years of playing and running CoC I've yet to meet a single player who wanted the GM to set up jump scares for the players at the table. The few times I have been a part of a game where the GM set up things like that, things designed to scare the players, it did not go well. At all. My favorite (he said sarcastically), so far, was the time the game ended in a fist fight because the player absolutely did not want there to be jump scares for the players at the table but the GM set them up anyway. Because the GM thought horror gaming was about scaring the players, not about putting the characters in scary situations and giving the players a vicarious thrill.

I might not be following what jumpscare means here. I have been playing since 86 and Cthulhu was a regular game for us starting in about 1990. Most of the groups I was in I think jumpscares were accepted (I mean if someone told us they absolutely didn't want them, we wouldn't have done them but I think most of the players wanted to have a good horror movie-like experience). Can I ask what the GM was doing to jumpscare people? Maybe I am imagining something different.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Every once in a while, you can pull it off. It works best when you've lulled your players into a false sense of security and then spring something very wild on them. However, it's something that a little goes a long way, you might be lucky enough to score it one or two times in an entire campaign's life, but that's pushing it.

One of the things I find with horror too is it is about openness to the experience. I have had groups where it happens once or twice a campaign, but I have also had groups where it happens almost every week. One thing I will say is, as hokey as it seems, room atmosphere can matter a lot. Campfire stories are often scary because you are in dark woods around a fire. Some of the old advice about dimming the lights, can go a long way. I remember one of my most successful Ravenloft groups was held at a friends' house who lived by the water in an old creaky new england house. To me it felt like running a game inside a wooden ship for some reason. And he had a fireplace. So those sessions were just real easy to build mood with. However some of our sessions were at another guys house, where he had a great game room. But the atmosphere tended to be more casual and definitely noticed it was harder to build that atmosphere in that environment (the games were still fun, bad as my GMing probably was at the time, but not as scary I think)

But openness can go a long way too. I think we've all been in an audience where we were open to being scared by a movie and thus it was able to scare us (provided it actually brought the horror). But we've probably all also had the experience where we put more mental armor on and closed ourselves to being scared (what I would call "laugh mode" with horror). I think when you are running a horror RPG you really need to sense what the attitude and mood of the players are in this respect. Sometimes it is going to be popcorn and jokes, sometimes it is going to be scary. I think you can definitely pull it off. And one of the things it takes as a GM is sensing when the mood is right for a scare (and also having a bag of tricks you built up over time from experience). I thought a lot of the advice in the old Ravenloft books were pretty good on that front (some got into stuff I wouldn't do these days: stuff that railroads and doesn't give the players a fair shake). I remember Monte Cook's d20 Cthulhu having some good advise too. I never ran ORRORSH for TORG but I played it and was always curious what kind of advice the book gave because my friend who ran it did great job (he was also a horror movie nut so that might have helped).

 

[Faolyn]

I am wondering if there is a bigger divide here at work. I definitely want to be scared when I game in a Horror RPG. But maybe it is just we are talking about different things.

I am not sure what people mean by jump scares in an RPG (is this like shouting something loudly all of a sudden to frighten people by surprise?).

One of my first times running Ravenloft, waaaay back when, I crouched down and then sort of leapt up at the other player--not landing on him at all, but more just doing grabby hands from below. It got a yelp from the player involved, so I guess that would count as a jump scare. Even if it was about as sudden as watching a cat wiggle its butt for a minute before pouncing on you--he could clearly see what I was doing; I think he just didn't expect I'd go grabby.

My knees won't allow me to do something like that anymore.

 

[Charlaquin]

In about 35 years of playing and running CoC I've yet to meet a single player who wanted the GM to set up jump scares for the players at the table. The few times I have been a part of a game where the GM set up things like that, things designed to scare the players, it did not go well. At all. My favorite (he said sarcastically), so far, was the time the game ended in a fist fight because the player absolutely did not want there to be jump scares for the players at the table but the GM set them up anyway. Because the GM thought horror gaming was about scaring the players, not about putting the characters in scary situations and giving the players a vicarious thrill. The player signed up to play a horror RPG, i.e. to get a vicarious thrill, they did not sign up to enter a full-contact haunted house. Horror gaming is not about scaring the players.

Well hang on. You’ve shifted the goalposts from “the goal of horror gaming should never be to scare the players” to “you shouldn’t scare the players with jumpscares.” That’s a very different claim, and I’ll concur that I’ve never met a player who wanted the GM to set up jumpscares for them. That’s because no one likes jumpscares, and also they aren’t actually scary. They’re just startling. I have, however, met players who are absolutely on board for being scared. Not startled, but scared. I’ve also been a player onboard for that.

 

[Faolyn]

Horror gaming is not about scaring the players.

Not through physical means like a "full-contact haunted house," of course--unless it's a LARP--but the players should be fully immersed in the setting through description and possibly extra things like sound effects. Otherwise, you're left with a standard RPG that uses less typical monsters.

 

[overgeeked]

I am wondering if there is a bigger divide here at work. I definitely want to be scared when I game in a Horror RPG. But maybe it is just we are talking about different things.

Scared is mostly used wrong in the context of horror. Scary movies don't actually scare people. They thrill, excite, surprise, disgust, titillate, etc. But they don't really scare, outside of fleeting jump scare moments...but that’s more of a surprise. Scared is when you think you're going to die. Scared isn't when you think something bad will happen to a fictional character. Scared is "thrown into or being in a state of fear, fright, or panic". I do not want the GM to scare me during a horror game, I don't want to fear for my life. I want the GM to thrill me, excite me, surprise me, disgust me, etc. Scared is incredibly bad. Thrilled, excited, surprised, disgusted, etc are all fun. Scared is fight or flight territory.

Like when people refer to everything as “awesome”. No, your coffee isn’t awesome. It doesn’t inspire awe. It’s not the grand canyon or the Mona Lisa. It’s good. It’s delicious. It isn’t awesome.

I am not sure what people mean by jump scares in an RPG (is this like shouting something loudly all of a sudden to frighten people by surprise?). But one observation I have here is there may in fact be a generational thing arising around how people engage horror. When I was a kid scaring one another on halloween was normal, for example. When people told scary stories it was really common to 'jump scare' people by building tension, then letting a silence fall and shouting something as you revealed some terrifying detail (my dad did this constantly when he told stories). We thought of it all being in good fun. I think we tended to approach horror games similarly. Again, there are lines (if someone is afraid of spiders we weren't going to bring out a tarantula or something). But the GM being like a person telling a scary campfire story was pretty common (and if I understand what jump scare is here, those were definitely on the table I think).

Yeah, that's one way to do it.

Well hang on. You’ve shifted the goalposts from “the goal of horror gaming should never be to scare the players” to “you shouldn’t scare the players with jumpscares.” That’s a very different claim, and I’ll concur that I’ve never met a player who wanted the GM to set up jumpscares for them. That’s because no one likes jumpscares, and also they aren’t actually scary. They’re just startling. I have, however, met players who are absolutely on board for being scared. Not startled, but scared. I’ve also been a player onboard for that.

No, I haven’t. It’s just one example of scaring the players instead of the characters.