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

humble minion · May 13, 2021

Disgruntled Hobbit said:
And all the old guard won't "come around." They'll just be beaten down and driven out of the hobby. Replaced by younger gamers

That ... won't happen.

The old guard aren't a monolithic group, and more to the point, D&D isn't a centralised activity. Some 'old guard' will try the new stuff and like it, some will try it and dislike it but adapt the 5e mechanics to the old setting, some will go back to OSR or AD&D or something and play their preferred iteration of the setting. And old guard gamers will generally have an old guard group they game with. It seems hyperbolic to claim that old school gamers will be 'beaten down' and 'driven out'. Who's going to be doing the beating and driving?

There's things about the new RL I don't like, or that I think were changed unnecessarily (from the very limited amount I've seen). But there were things I didn't like about the old Ravenloft too, both the 2e and the 3e versions of it. If I was running it, I'd probably put together an unholy melange of all sorts of bits and pieces across different versions, plus stuff I've made up myself. The only real disadvantage in doing it that way is in pre-campaign prep - you can't just throw a setting book at your players and tell them 'read this and come up with a character', you have to compile/edit/write one yourself.

Urriak Uruk · May 13, 2021

Disgruntled Hobbit said:
Changing everything and not giving a flip about the existing fans worked out well for 4th Ed

Considering how 4E split the fanbase so completely it gave rise to D&D's biggest competitor Pathfinder, which tried to maintain something the older players enjoyed, I'm not sure that this statement is true at all. WotC I think hates the whole 3.5 vs. 4 vs. Pathfinder debacle.

Urriak Uruk · May 13, 2021

tetrasodium said:
Snyder was the director for batman vrs superman & justice league to start but they kicked him off & brought in someone else to hack the movies down & the result was a more traditional super hero movie tone that left a confusing plot. Snyder got the chance to reshoot & finish both with snyder cuts on hbo's streaming thing & the results were rather dark but great super hero movies with a morality spectrum that largely ranges from grey to grey. I don't know if they are still on hbo's streaming thing but they are worth watching.

With the new ravenloft leaning into a more nuanced morality & dipping into horror genres rather than redoing what has long been kind of cheesy movies that weren't o originally cheesy it makes for a good analogy

Totally off-topic, but lord that trilogy of films was horrendous. I'm too lazy to even blame Snyder, Whedon, or anyone, all three films were boring and nonsensical.

FitzTheRuke · May 13, 2021

I guarantee you that this book will be a MASSIVE success, so take that for what you will regarding how many actual fans the changes will turn off; old OR new. I played Ravenloft back in the early 90's, so I guess I'd count as an "old" fan, but I really, really don't care if they make changes, as long as the new stuff is good.

And so far, I think it looks great.

Parmandur · May 13, 2021

humble minion said:
That ... won't happen.

The old guard aren't a monolithic group, and more to the point, D&D isn't a centralised activity. Some 'old guard' will try the new stuff and like it, some will try it and dislike it but adapt the 5e mechanics to the old setting, some will go back to OSR or AD&D or something and play their preferred iteration of the setting. And old guard gamers will generally have an old guard group they game with. It seems hyperbolic to claim that old school gamers will be 'beaten down' and 'driven out'. Who's going to be doing the beating and driving?

There's things about the new RL I don't like, or that I think were changed unnecessarily (from the very limited amount I've seen). But there were things I didn't like about the old Ravenloft too, both the 2e and the 3e versions of it. If I was running it, I'd probably put together an unholy melange of all sorts of bits and pieces across different versions, plus stuff I've made up myself. The only real disadvantage in doing it that way is in pre-campaign prep - you can't just throw a setting book at your players and tell them 'read this and come up with a character', you have to compile/edit/write one yourself.

Yeah, they seem to be focusing on this book being a malleable toolbox of ideas more than a concrete traditional Setting. Which fits old school Ravenloft.

Paul Farquhar · May 13, 2021

overgeeked said:
The biggest danger for anyone is to fall into the trap of assuming they themselves are reasonable. Humans are rather famously incapable of reason.

But have you tried telling them that?!

Paul Farquhar · May 13, 2021

Parmandur said:
Yeah, they seem to be focusing on this book being a malleable toolbox of ideas more than a concrete traditional Setting. Which fits old school Ravenloft.

Yeah, as someone who owned the Black Box back in the day, the new book is full of stuff that is actually useful for running horror-themed D&D, rather than being overstuffed with acres of repetitive, irrelevant, or just plain silly (e.g. domain population figures) lore.

Which brings me to something I have noticed with some fans of other settings: they read them as history books, rather than use them as tools for playing D&D. What they want to know is "what happens next in the metaplot" or "which is the true version of this trivial lore contradiction". Actually having a toolbox for playing a fun game doesn't matter to them.

Anyway, I have read some early reviews, and they are overwhelmingly positive. I think WotC have a massive hit on their hands.

Remathilis · May 13, 2021

JEB said:
Nostalgia which will evaporate quickly when the veteran fans actually read the descriptions of domains like Dementlieu... and in some cases, shift to disappointment, or irritation, or even a sense of betrayal. Is that really better than leaving well enough alone? Why invite fans to choose a side?

I wonder how many people are upset with the specific changes vs. upset that there were changes?

I mean, in the great canon of domains and darklords, how many people really put Dementieu on the top 10? A genteel domain with few naturally occurring horrors, a human population with limited (but still greater than many) access to magic, and a darklord who can cast enchantment magic at will and has consent issues. Even when given multiple pages in the Gazetteers, the best they could do was a brain in a jar and a vague Le Mis vibe. What part of that are you missing? What part should they have kept? How do you fix Dominic to make him both compelling and less creeper? What does Old Dementieu have going for it besides tradition that makes it worth keeping?

Answer me that, and maybe I'll buy that they miscalculated in changing it to the faux Cinderella ball by way of Masque of the Red Death. But right now, between the two versions, I'm far more inspired by the new version then I ever was by the old.

eyeheartawk · May 13, 2021

I'd be happy if they gave me stat blocks for the dread lords.

But naw.

Bedrockgames · May 13, 2021

eyeheartawk said:
I'd be happy if they gave me stat blocks for the dread lords.

But naw.

This seems like a very odd choice. I can understand not giving stats to something like gods, but to not stat up domain lords, is a terrible design choice in my opinion. It is going to come up that someone swings a sword at a domain lord (heck some campaigns are built on domain lord hunting).

I spent the past day going over the previews more closely. This really seems like it is thumbing its nose at the old material to be honest. And it definitely doesn't seem like they are making an effort to unify anymore like they did when they released 5E. This is the fire the old fans edition of Ravenloft