D&D 5E Sanitizing Curse of Strahd (+)

[Charlaquin]

I ran the Lake Zarovich kidnapping plot hook last night except I flipped it around quite a bit:

With Van Richten’s Guide now out and its new presentation of the Vistani as traders with a magical tradition who use mist talismans to travel between domains, I thought of a new take on this as well. Instead of Bluto abducting her because he thinks Vistani are lucky and sacrificing her to the lake will help him catch fish, he instead believes all Vistani can innately travel through the mists, and he plans to force her to take him out of Barovia.

 

[Dragonsbane]

I never had any problems with the original Strahd or its more recent incarnation in 5ed. But then again, my players are mature adults so...

Our table is all older adults as well, and we played the whole thing without anyone getting upset. In fact, I really played up the kidnapping of children/dream pastries with what I have learned about addiction from friends/life, the players said they felt it was a very realistic and fun part of the game. No antisocial behavior was really emphasized either, and the scenes only lasted a few minutes here or there, and it was more like a rated R movie or something from Game of Thrones.

As I use my own gameworld that has no "Ravenloft" I did change a few things. My cosmology has the Shadow Plane as a conduit to the Hells for souls, so I changed the villain to a once-human devil named Davos who made a deal with the devil (the deity Taovan). "I wish for a domain to rule and immorality!" and so Davos was imprisoned in a Hellraiser-cube kind of thing that when open transforms a 10-mile radius, merging it with the Shadow Plane. In the end, the heroes killed Davos, shut down the cube and escaped, but not before one of the PCs became evil (his slow progression RPed over 10+ sessions) and became the new master of the cube.

I say this with the utmost respect and no hidden whistles: No hurt feelings, no one thought we were insulting any real-world nationality or creed (as the Vistanti are a fictional human culture, and my table knows we are not thinking of/referring to/insulting any real-world creed or culture), and the players felt it was a horror game because, well... there were horrifying things.

No sanitization needed!

 

[Dragonsbane]

You know, OP stated quite clearly in the opening post that it's fine if you disagree with them, but in that case the thread isn't for you. And yet not only were you unable to resist making this post anyway, you also couldn't resist insulting the OP's players as "immature adults" with "sensitivity problems." Good job.

I am trying to understand. This sentence Helldritch wrote:

"Now with adults with sensitivity problems."

How would you word it? I am sure many older people like myself would like to / need to know the correct wording for saying this. We are all expected to be sensitive to others more and more these days. Can we agree some adults have sensitivity problems? What word is used instead to describe them?

Not trying to derail this thread, I just would like to know what we can/cannot say in these forums. Thanks!

 

[Bolares]

I am trying to understand. This sentence Helldritch wrote:

"Now with adults with sensitivity problems."

How would you word it? I am sure many older people like myself would like to / need to know the correct wording for saying this. We are all expected to be sensitive to others more and more these days. Can we agree some adults have sensitivity problems? What word is used instead to describe them?

Not trying to derail this thread, I just would like to know what we can/cannot say in these forums. Thanks!

C'mon, when you start a post with "But then again, my players are mature adults so..." in a positive thread there is no way to read it if not as insulting. Maybe it wasn't their intent but clearly the message was "if you have problems with this you are not a mature adult". Ironically, that posture didn't seem really mature to me....

 

[Burnside]

I am trying to understand. This sentence Helldritch wrote:

"Now with adults with sensitivity problems."

How would you word it? I am sure many older people like myself would like to / need to know the correct wording for saying this. We are all expected to be sensitive to others more and more these days. Can we agree some adults have sensitivity problems? What word is used instead to describe them?

Not trying to derail this thread, I just would like to know what we can/cannot say in these forums. Thanks!

If you tell people that they have a sensitivity problem, you're saying that the players are deficient and their negative reaction to the racist portrayal of the Vistani is a result of some sort of weakness on the part of the players. Which is particularly inappropriate if you're talking about a situation wherein the actual authors of the text have admitted that the text is, in fact, problematic.

It would have been better to say, "If you are uncomfortable with the portrayal of the Vistani" or "If the portrayal of the Vistani isn't to your table's taste...". The way it was phrased was more like, "If you snowflakes can't handle the Vistani as written, then let me, the mature adult, tell you what to do..."

Compound that with the "My players are mature adults, so..." lead in (which, despite Helldritch's back-pedaling, was of course a clear insult to the OP's players) and it was a bad post to make.

But I'm not a mod and and I'm not here to tell you what you can and can't say. That particular post Helldritch made just rubbed me the wrong way.

FWIW, it didn't even occur to me to take out the child-killing stuff in CoS but post-campaign I give my players a little survey about the experience, and one of them let me know that it did make her uncomfortable. So in the future I will bring child-killing up in session zero to see if it's an issue for players, and if so I will change it (it doesn't bother me personally). It also never occurred to me - or ANY of the 11 players in my two full play-throughs of CoS - that Patrina represented a "solution" to the dusk elf extinction problem by being used as a "breeder." I honestly think that to say the book is implying that is a huge stretch. I did change the Vistani because they are obviously based on real-world negative racist stereotypes of Eastern European Roma and I would have been embarrassed to run them as written.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I am trying to understand. This sentence Helldritch wrote:

"Now with adults with sensitivity problems."

How would you word it? I am sure many older people like myself would like to / need to know the correct wording for saying this. We are all expected to be sensitive to others more and more these days. Can we agree some adults have sensitivity problems? What word is used instead to describe them?

Not trying to derail this thread, I just would like to know what we can/cannot say in these forums. Thanks!

It's not a 'problem' if you dislike or are uncomfortable with something.

The correct way to express that thought was 'not'.

 

[MGibster]

A person choosing to communicate with the other players in regards to something he or she finds uncomfortable is exhibiting behavior I would associate with a mature adult. I am not exactly Mr. Sensitivity over here, I'm never going to use the X-Card or an opt in system, but when running a horror game even I ask my players to let me know what subjects to avoid. Cannibal witches eating children might not bother me in particular but I won't think any less of a player who wants no mention of the death of children in any game they're a part of. I might have a wider tolerance for violent imagery but that doesn't make me more mature it's just more evidence that I'm dead inside. And there are things you will never see happen during play in any game I run. I might have dead children as part of a scenario but you won't see acts of violence against children played out.

 

[Charlaquin]

So anyway…

Using Van Richten’s Guide’s expanded rules on curses, what might be the pronouncement and resolution for a dusk elf infertility curse? Something like, “may no child be born of your blood as long as petrovna sleeps in the earth”? That seems serviceable, though a little direct. I like my curses on the poetic side so there’s room for creative interpretation in how to break them. It’s also worth asking, who actually set the curse? Like, it could certainly have been Strahd, but might it be more poignant if it was Rahadin? Or maybe even Kasimir did it in hopes of spurring other dusk elves to help him resurrect his sister? Or she could have done it, and that’s why you need her to lift it.

 

[Burnside]

So anyway…

Using Van Richten’s Guide’s expanded rules on curses, what might be the pronouncement and resolution for a dusk elf infertility curse? Something like, “may no child be born of your blood as long as petrovna sleeps in the earth”? That seems serviceable, though a little direct. I like my curses on the poetic side so there’s room for creative interpretation in how to break them. It’s also worth asking, who actually set the curse? Like, it could certainly have been Strahd, but might it be more poignant if it was Rahadin? Or maybe even Kasimir did it in hopes of spurring other dusk elves to help him resurrect his sister? Or she could have done it, and that’s why you need her to lift it.

If you want to do it as an infertility curse, I think it makes the most sense that it was inflicted post-Patrina's death as a punishment on the dusk elves themselves for murdering her. So I think it would originate either with the spirit of Patrina herself, with Madame Eva or Baba Lysaga out of general outrage for a whole society turning on a lone woman, or by the Dark Powers because punishing crimes with existential curses seems to be their jam.

 

[Charlaquin]

If you want to do it as an infertility curse, I think it makes the most sense that it was inflicted post-Patrina's death as a punishment on the dusk elves themselves for murdering her. So I think it would originate either with the spirit of Patrina herself, with Madame Eva or Baba Lysaga out of general outrage for a whole society turning on a lone woman, or by the Dark Powers because punishing crimes with existential curses seems to be their jam.

Yeah, I kind of love the idea that it was set by Patrina in her dying moments, or by her spirit posthumously. Then you have a really strong motivation to resurrect her: to try to convince her to lift it.