D&D General Ravenloft: Monsters vs Darklords

[Incenjucar]

The souls have been messed with - many of the minor characters don't have one. By your own argument, that makes the setting more horrific, not less.

It makes it post-horror.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It makes it post-horror.

Post Horror: The Stakes Strike Back

A horror movie made for an audience of vampires.

Also,

Post Cocaine

A high stakes horror movie.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Magic Jar is an interesting spell, in that the target has to be humanoid. Does that mean only humanoids have souls? It doesn't work on Fey PCs. Does that mean fey don't have souls? If you look at real world myths and folk tales, the answer is yes.

However, it doesn't say anything about the creature type of the caster, irrespective of if they actually have a soul or not.

And there are lots of examples of dragons and liches using Magic Jar in D&D.

 

[Incenjucar]

Magic Jar is historically a ghost signature ability. Arguably a person without a soul is more like a construct than a humanoid. Many kinds of undead are assumed to be formed from human souls, so Ravenloft should be one of the least-haunted places in the multiverse.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Magic Jar is historically a ghost signature ability. Arguably a person without a soul is more like a construct than a humanoid. Many kinds of undead are assumed to be formed from human souls, so Ravenloft should be one of the least-haunted places in the multiverse.

Just a reminder - the people without souls is in CoS, not VGR, no reason to suppose the phenomena is widespread beyond Barovia (unless the DM wants it to be).

The ghost possession ability isn't called Magic Jar in 5e, and no particular reason a ghost couldn't possess a souless body anyway - no opposition.

 

[Bedrockgames]

What bothers you about that? Do plants have souls? Does it matter?

Personally I just find it weird that you have all these people inhabiting a world like that but for some reason they have no souls. Ravenloft for me worked when you had inhabits who felt like real people. There may have been some ambiguity around the history (how do all these ancient ruins come into being when the domain is just a couple hundred years old) but you assume the people there are real and like other people. I would agree with others who think it is a bad choice for the setting.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Name a situation where it could possibly matter. A difference that makes no difference is no difference.

It is the overall situation. It just feels off. It creates a sense that nothing matters if the people are all just fabricating of Strand's will. Now that possibility always existed, but it is like anything else in Ravenloft, like the nature of the dark powers, when you start spelling that stuff out, it cheapens the setting. I am sure plenty of GMs had this kind of interpretation. Personally I didn't as I think an important aspect of the setting working is the people the players interact with, help, save, contend with, etc all be as real as they are

 

[Bedrockgames]

Just a reminder - the people without souls is in CoS, not VGR, no reason to suppose the phenomena is widespread beyond Barovia (unless the DM wants it to be).

The ghost possession ability isn't called Magic Jar in 5e, and no particular reason a ghost couldn't possess a souless body anyway - no opposition.

I don't have my copy of VGR or CoS on hand as they are at my old place. I only read them once and never ran them as they weren't quite for me (I will say I liked CoS much more than VGR in general). However if this is the case, it is at least better. It still makes Barovia worse. Does it still state this in the Barovia entry in VGR? Also even if it is just Barovia I can see how people would take that explanation and apply it to other domains because Barovia is the original Ravenloft domain.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It is the overall situation. It just feels off. It creates a sense that nothing matters if the people are all just fabricating of Strand's will.

It's supposed to be personal. That's the nature of horror, and gothic horror in particular. A lot more innocent people die in Star Wars ANH than in any horror movie. It's the protagonists' lives and souls that matter in this genre.

Does it still state this in the Barovia entry in VGR?

No.

Also even if it is just Barovia I can see how people would take that explanation and apply it to other domains because Barovia is the original Ravenloft domain.

In that it first appeared in I6, sure. But CoS is just one of many Ravenloft products published over the years, no more reason to give it any more weight than any other. Apart from VGR perhaps, which as the most recent, is the most current.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's supposed to be personal. That's the nature of horror, and gothic horror in particular. A lot more innocent people die in Star Wars ANH than in any horror movie. It's the protagonists' lives and souls that matter in this genre.

All of whom were presumably real people with souls in the fiction, just as much as Luke, Han and Leia. To outright say otherwise destroys, for me, the feeling that anything matters in the setting. If your PC doesn't care (and is incentivized not to care) if the bad guy slaughters a village so long as they don't get these particular one or two people, can they really call themselves "heroes"?

Look, I can see this whole idea as a way to enforce narrative structure; ie., we have called out who's important and who's not in the story. If you're a storygame player or see RPGs primarily as a way to tell a story together, I can imagine that would be appealing to you.

But Paul, you know I'm not that guy.