D&D General Ravenloft: Monsters vs Darklords

[Paul Farquhar]

can they really call themselves "heroes"?

The protagonists in horror are not supposed to be heroes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The protagonists in horror are not supposed to be heroes.

I'm not interested in protagonists at all, because to me RPGs are not all about telling a story. That's incidental. Horror elements in the setting influence the actions of PCs and NPCs alike, leading in all likelihood once the campaign is over to an emergent story with horror elements, but the game was mostly about living in that world as your PC, not making a story about it as a player.

 

[Bedrockgames]

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.

If everyone around you doesn’t have a soul there isn’t much meaning to your actions. Just because horror tends to focus on protagonists, that doesn’t mean the people around them don’t have souls. I just see this only taking away. And importantly, horror doesn’t do this. You may have a story specifically about people with no souls, but in Dracula the people outside the main characters have souls.Dracula sacrificed his soul. But the people he murders all have souls. Also making it so Strahd has to focus on the party because everyone else has no soul, that makes everything feel so small to me.

If you like it, that is entirely fair, but this simply doesn’t work for me. I don’t like it all.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The protagonists in horror are not supposed to be heroes.

This depends on the horror. They can be heroic, at times. I wouldn’t say they have to be. Plenty are though. To me this is less about heroism and more about moral choices mattering and having a world that at least touched the ground a little. I like that Ravenloft is dreamlike and ethereal. But having people there just be fabrications gives it less weight to me

 

[Bedrockgames]

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.

Do you remember where it says this in I6 (not doubting just want to confirm because I don’t remember it being in there: but there are lots of things I don’t remember)

 

[Voadam]

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

Finding out that the innocent people around you that you are trying to protect are not actually people but just soulless construct simulations matters. This can lead to despair about the meaninglessness of it all and nihilism where you care as much about whether they are victims as you would about whether the plants are victims or holograms or illusions are victims. It is doubling down on the artificiality of things and distancing it from a normal human emotional base.

This is fairly different than the normal fun of dealing with a gothic horror tragic ghost story or werewolf plot where you care about the impacts on victims.

 

[Voadam]

Do you remember where it says this in I6 (not doubting just want to confirm because I don’t remember it being in there: but there are lots of things I don’t remember)

I think he means that Barovia first appears in I6, not that the soulless stuff first appears in I6.

 

[Bedrockgames]

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.

Lol. I misunderstood your post originally (see my first response to this). I thought you were claiming that soulless Barovians were introduced in I6. Well, I think it is pretty long established Canon that Barvoia is the original Domain, is central to Ravenloft and that Stahd is at its heart. While you can view it differently for sure, it is not a logical leap here that people would extrapolate things in Barovia to other domains, as the whole line is an extrapolation of Barovia

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think he means that Barovia first appears in I6, not that the soulless stuff first appears in I6.

Lol, thanks. I busted out I6 and was combing through looking for mention of this lol

 

[Voadam]

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).

I own but have not yet read a lot of VRGtR.

Good to hear that VGtR does not repeat the soulless stuff explanation. I think it is one of the worst aspects of CoS.

Is Barovia from 5e CoS part of 5e VRGtR? Would the reasoning for people not having souls in CoS apply to the other Ravenloft domains as well?

I understand that the consistent explanation in the three 2e setting books and the 3.0 and 3.5 setting books that Ravenloft as a setting is actually an in-setting building of new domains off of Barovia does not necessarily apply in 5e with its no prior canon philosophy and reimagining of Ravenloft, but there still seems some reasons to think that 5e CoS stuff applies to other 5e VGtR Ravenloft domains if they are part of the same 5e setting.