D&D General The thread where I review a ton of Ravenloft modules

[James Gasik]

This is not my experience with Ravenloft at all. I remember it being one of the most popular settings, and it was also a very easy setting to recruit players for as well. There were people who didn't like it, and they often had strong opinions about why, but there were plenty of people who loved it. The railroading, that was just 90s TSR. A lot of 90s TSR lines and modules were done in that way. But the 90s was a very strong time for horror in general, Vampire was just taking off for example, Call of Cthulhu was popular still, and we had numerous campaigns set in ORRORSH for TORG. And gothic was pretty in at that time. I never found any issue with shifting focus away from the heroics and towards horror. It also never felt like Crystal Lake. The black box was specifically dismissive of the slasher genre as a model (it wasn't until Woodruff figured out how to bridge that gap through golems in Van Richter's Guide to the Created that it was even kosher in the setting to think of bringing someone like Mike Myers or Jason in for inspiration). But the emphasis was never on slaughtering characters, it was on mood building, building mood, and hopefully achieving a sense of horror (which was not so much about fountains of blood but a sense of things not being as they ought to be)

I'm not saying Ravenloft can't be fun. I think in the hands of a good DM with group buy-in, it could be. But my experience has been that Ravenloft is a setting that's inflicted upon players, rather than them really wanting to play there.

You make your characters, you're all set to play some D&D when, suddenly-

"A thick fog rises around you, you cannot see beyond your own hand. Sound is muffled, muted- you no longer know if it is day or night, all sense of direction has been stripped from you.

Then, without warning, it begins to clear, and you find yourself somewhere...else. Somewhere...darker."

And cue the groans because the players know that they're going to be underleveled, under-geared, laboring under nerfs to their abilities, against overtuned monsters, because the people who make this setting don't really get how to frighten a PC- so they go after the player the only way they know how. Threatening to take their character away, or warp it into something unrecognizable.

Is this how all Ravenloft games are? I highly doubt it. But enough of them have been that way that it's rare that I've ever encountered anyone in real life who has played in a Ravenloft game who doesn't immediately get a thousand yard stare as their PTSD is triggered.

It's like how some people really enjoy Call of Cthulhu- you're doomed, your choices probably don't matter, almost all the enemies can kill you instantly and shrug off firearms and high explosives. I was in a scenario where a Star Vampire was killing people, and nothing we tried worked- there was a specific way to defeat it, and that was that. Classic railroad.

But I'm told, despite how dismal the experience my friends had, that particular scenario is well-loved by many CoC fans.

And it really comes down to, people who play a game are looking for a certain experience. You want existential horror in a doomed world? CoC is apparently your game.

But D&D has always been "yeah, this world is tough, and a cheap death is always right around the corner, but given time, your humble hero may become a champion capable of throwing down with Gods."

And in Ravenloft? Nothing you do matters much. You can't fight the Dark Powers. If they tire of you, you'll be chucked out of the Demiplane, and told that's you're reward. You can't kill Strahd- the Dark Powers love to feast on his torment, so they'll always bring him back. Barovia will always be crushed beneath his heel. It's the way of things. You'd be better off trying to wrestle with gravity or time- those are things D&D characters can interact with.

Even massive shakeups to the setting don't really involve the players*. The Grand Conjunction? All a plot by a powerful daemon, Inajira, to get himself out of Ravenloft. The players are either unwilling dupes or spectators to what's going on here.

*I'm not familiar with the other shakeups- I bought the Sword & Sorcery Ravenloft and was just confused by all the changes. Maybe the players are more involved. But to me, it was just like the Vecna Saga. Vecna does things, and you're kind of witnessing it.

And I have Ravenloft adventures I love. Adam's Wrath and The Created play with body horror- you wake up as a powerful flesh golem. You're bodyjacked by a tiny, weak puppet and the most dangerous thing in the adventure is a damn housecat!

But a lot of players do not want to sign up for that experience, and I admit, it can be pretty dreadful. The last time I ran The Created, one character permanently ended up in the wrong body and the player opted to retire the character rather than continue their story, saying it was "too much".

I was confused, but I decided to let it drop. It wasn't something they wanted to explore.

Ultimately though, I think it goes to show that making the magic happen isn't something a setting can do for you. Just saying "we're playing Ravenloft" doesn't make D&D any better at creating a horror game. The most terrifying D&D adventure I've ever run was a non-Ravenloft adventure in Dungeon where you're trapped in an inn during a storm, and some poor fool is murdered when a Red Slaad hatches from him, and it quickly turns into a sendup of Alien meets The Thing when you start having to ask, who is infected? Who is going to lose their character because some alien frog demon is going to inject them with it's offspring, to be consumed from within?

Will anyone survive?

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm not saying Ravenloft can't be fun. I think in the hands of a good DM with group buy-in, it could be. But my experience has been that Ravenloft is a setting that's inflicted upon players, rather than them really wanting to play there.

You make your characters, you're all set to play some D&D when, suddenly-

"A thick fog rises around you, you cannot see beyond your own hand. Sound is muffled, muted- you no longer know if it is day or night, all sense of direction has been stripped from you.

Then, without warning, it begins to clear, and you find yourself somewhere...else. Somewhere...darker."

And cue the groans because the players know that they're going to be underleveled, under-geared, laboring under nerfs to their abilities, against overtuned monsters, because the people who make this setting don't really get how to frighten a PC- so they go after the player the only way they know how. Threatening to take their character away, or warp it into something unrecognizable.

Is this how all Ravenloft games are? I highly doubt it. But enough of them have been that way that it's rare that I've ever encountered anyone in real life who has played in a Ravenloft game who doesn't immediately get a thousand yard stare as their PTSD is triggered.

It's like how some people really enjoy Call of Cthulhu- you're doomed, your choices probably don't matter, almost all the enemies can kill you instantly and shrug off firearms and high explosives. I was in a scenario where a Star Vampire was killing people, and nothing we tried worked- there was a specific way to defeat it, and that was that. Classic railroad.

But I'm told, despite how dismal the experience my friends had, that particular scenario is well-loved by many CoC fans.

And it really comes down to, people who play a game are looking for a certain experience. You want existential horror in a doomed world? CoC is apparently your game.

But D&D has always been "yeah, this world is tough, and a cheap death is always right around the corner, but given time, your humble hero may become a champion capable of throwing down with Gods."

And in Ravenloft? Nothing you do matters much. You can't fight the Dark Powers. If they tire of you, you'll be chucked out of the Demiplane, and told that's you're reward. You can't kill Strahd- the Dark Powers love to feast on his torment, so they'll always bring him back. Barovia will always be crushed beneath his heel. It's the way of things. You'd be better off trying to wrestle with gravity or time- those are things D&D characters can interact with.

Even massive shakeups to the setting don't really involve the players*. The Grand Conjunction? All a plot by a powerful daemon, Inajira, to get himself out of Ravenloft. The players are either unwilling dupes or spectators to what's going on here.

*I'm not familiar with the other shakeups- I bought the Sword & Sorcery Ravenloft and was just confused by all the changes. Maybe the players are more involved. But to me, it was just like the Vecna Saga. Vecna does things, and you're kind of witnessing it.

And I have Ravenloft adventures I love. Adam's Wrath and The Created play with body horror- you wake up as a powerful flesh golem. You're bodyjacked by a tiny, weak puppet and the most dangerous thing in the adventure is a damn housecat!

But a lot of players do not want to sign up for that experience, and I admit, it can be pretty dreadful. The last time I ran The Created, one character permanently ended up in the wrong body and the player opted to retire the character rather than continue their story, saying it was "too much".

I was confused, but I decided to let it drop. It wasn't something they wanted to explore.

Ultimately though, I think it goes to show that making the magic happen isn't something a setting can do for you. Just saying "we're playing Ravenloft" doesn't make D&D any better at creating a horror game. The most terrifying D&D adventure I've ever run was a non-Ravenloft adventure in Dungeon where you're trapped in an inn during a storm, and some poor fool is murdered when a Red Slaad hatches from him, and it quickly turns into a sendup of Alien meets The Thing when you start having to ask, who is infected? Who is going to lose their character because some alien frog demon is going to inject them with it's offspring, to be consumed from within?

Will anyone survive?

I don't know. There are bad GMs out there. I have had games like that that didn't require a Ravenloft weekend in hell at all (a GM who runs a bad ravenloft session, in my experience also was running bad Forgotten realms sessions). Also the weekend in hell was not a requirement. A lot of people ran it as a straight setting even during the black box era. And when weekend in hells were run, I remember them being a blast (they could sometimes be a surprise Halloween adventure, or they could be something everyone bought into after the GM suggested a short stint into Ravenloft---this varied by group). I am sure there are people who didn't like, and I am sure there are people who had bad experiences with it just like there are people who had bad experiences with Dark Sun or Forgotten Realms. But what you are describing does not match my memory of Ravenloft during the 90s at all

 

[Bedrockgames]

And cue the groans because the players know that they're going to be underleveled, under-geared, laboring under nerfs to their abilities, against overtuned monsters, because the people who make this setting don't really get how to frighten a PC- so they go after the player the only way they know how. Threatening to take their character away, or warp it into something unrecognizable.

This isn't how it worked. First off, the people who made it were very good at giving advice on scaring the players and almost none of that advice had to do with taking the characters away from them. Not all of the advice ports into a modern campaign but most of the advice in the black box was very good and the advice in the modules was also good. You had to pick and choose what fit for you but I found it really upped the sense of horror in my campaigns following it. A lot of it is just intended to help create atmosphere. It is true foes being hard to defeat that is a big part of making it horror. A horror villain you can just kick to the side of the curb and end the adventure is going to be harder to use in a scary way (it can be done but if you are trying to do something like Dracula, you want the vampire to be a real threat). Elements like powers checks are what made Ravenloft work. Keep in mind, all kinds of things can happen to your character in a normal D&D campaign during that time as well. But these things also weren't falling out of the sky for no reason, they were responses by the dark powers to actions the players took. You aren't meant to lord it over them. The early stages can be reversed, and it is slow descent into being turned into. Even if they don't understand the inner workings of powers checks, they are meant to know they are on a dark path and turning away from that path is all they usually have to do to avoid something like becoming a dark lord. But even then I would say, when this does unfold, I don't see it as an issue. We are talking about a game where you can get level drained, characters can die, get lycanthropy etc. A powers check is a slow incremental transition into a monster. In my experience more players are bothered by level drain or a TPK than that.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I don't know. There are bad GMs out there

Every DM has finite skill. But Ravenloft is harder to do well than generic fantasy-land. The tendency temptation to try and “scare” players by threatening their characters being only one of the tiger traps in the path of the unwary DM.

 

[TiQuinn]

Not all of the advice ports into a modern campaign but most of the advice in the black box was very good and the advice in the modules was also good.

I can’t fully agree with this because the advice given in the box sets was not reflected in any of the modules. Ravenloft suffered from “Do as I say; not as I do.” The modules were chock full of:

A) The mists rise around your character, whisking them off to another plane of existence.

B) Kill the characters brutally to “shock” them that this is not your standard game. This was done in at least three modules.

C) The adventures were mostly linear, relying heavily on the supposedly rare occurrence of border closings repeatedly to keep PCs on the rails of the adventure.

D) The box sets themselves had several rules around how magic was different. Fans of the setting may have no issue with this but to others that’s a nerf.

Roll these all into one and it took a very determined DM to get past the bad ideas to find the diamonds in the rough.

 

[TiQuinn]

And I have Ravenloft adventures I love. Adam's Wrath and The Created play with body horror- you wake up as a powerful flesh golem. You're bodyjacked by a tiny, weak puppet and the most dangerous thing in the adventure is a damn housecat!

But a lot of players do not want to sign up for that experience, and I admit, it can be pretty dreadful. The last time I ran The Created, one character permanently ended up in the wrong body and the player opted to retire the character rather than continue their story, saying it was "too much".

Speaking as a fan of “The Created”, it needs its tweaks.

For instance, there is no reason why characters have to be imprisoned as puppets. I’ve run the adventure in a way that if the players are careful and a little lucky, they can avoid being captured. Also, if they are body-jacked, I changed it so that the only body they could swap back into was their own. The players quickly realized that those carrionette bodies are actually pretty tough, and can absorb punishment. The cat always worked great, though. The key is that you have to IGNORE THE ADVICE of the module, and think “what would a player be okay with here?” They expect agency above everything else. Ravenloft, for all its rules, needs to respect that, or it’s not worth running.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I can’t fully agree with this because the advice given in the box sets was not reflected in any of the modules. Ravenloft suffered from “Do as I say; not as I do.” The modules were chock full of:

I am not saying the modules always followed the advice of the black box, or that they didn't do bone headed things

A) The mists rise around your character, whisking them off to another plane of existence.

This is just the standard way to enter Ravenloft. This I don't think is a problem as it is one of the core ideas of the setting. That isn't the only way to enter, but it makes sense that the modules would make heavy use of the mist. Some people might not like it. But I don't recall the party being drawn into Ravenloft by mistake s being a huge issue (it was pretty much how the dark powers operated). Again a GM didn't have to do this. It could be a product of player buy in in advance (though you would still likely arrive there by mist)

B) Kill the characters brutally to “shock” them that this is not your standard game. This was done in at least three modules.

Again, I am not defending every module's choice of detail or hook. I mentioned the whole headless rider cutting off the players heads so they can end up in jars at the start of From the Shadows for example (in my opinion this would have been a much better "contingency adventure hook". That should have just been a hook used in the event of a TPK in that initial encounter, and there should have been other hooks beyond that for a more standard approach to Castle Avernus. I will say though, I don't think this is strictly against the black boxed set advice (it leans heavily into heroes not being in control) but I think it is bone headed nonetheless.

We can go over individual modules if you want. I think speaking broadly here isn't terribly useful. On the whole I found the modules to be good, despite some obvious flaws inherent in the time they were made

C) The adventures were mostly linear, relying heavily on the supposedly rare occurrence of border closings repeatedly to keep PCs on the rails of the adventure.

A lot of them were. But that was pretty standard at the time. Like I said, I am normally a sandbox GM. When I went back and ran some of the modules again recently I did so by taking them on their own terms. My only point here is 1) if you take them on their own terms, they do they what they intend and they can be enjoyed that way, 2) For the time, this is largely what players expects. Doesn't mean those models make for good sandboxes or open adventures (the seeds are there in things like Feast of Goblyns where they talk about living adventure, but you have to do the work to realize that potential). These may well be adventure structures you don't like or adventure structures that are outdated, but that doesn't mean they were not written with the horror advice in mind. Usually most modules contained a nugget or two of horror advice that the module showcased. I often found these helpful.

D) The box sets themselves had several rules around how magic was different. Fans of the setting may have no issue with this but to others that’s a nerf.

Altering magical effects isn't automatically bad though. For Ravenloft it worked great IMO. Again, this is subjective, you might not like it, others might not like it. But I recall this being not very controversial in the 90s.

Roll these all into one and it took a very determined DM to get past the bad ideas to find the diamonds in the rough.

Again, I would disagree. But I think at the end of the day we just had very different experiences with this line and very different impressions of the reception to the line during that time (which is fine). And again, if you feel that way, fair, but understand there are lots of fans who don't think it was particularly broken or badly done. I think the setting was brilliant, very well executed, and of course it had its rough patches and was a product of the era it was made. But I had several long term campaigns in the 90s that were all a ton of fun. And I brought and ran pretty much everything until about 1997-98 or so.


One thing I will say is during the run in the 90s, there was tension among the designers that you can see in the support material, where some envisioned it being used in different ways (and some who preferred the weekend in hell and some who didn't). I think the modules are inconistent around this quite a bit but I don't think that is necessarily bad, as it reflected the passions people working on the line had (and it also meant the products weren't uniform)

 

[TiQuinn]

in the time they were made

You’ve brought this up several times and this is where I think many people have a disconnect. It’s no longer that time. If one is going to play these adventures, they either have to undo all of their experience of effective gaming to go back to a yesteryear version of the game with all that that entails or the adventures and setting needs to change.

You can certainly argue for the former but expect a lot of disgruntled players as a result.

 

[Bedrockgames]

You’ve brought this up several times and this is where I think many people have a disconnect. It’s no longer that time. If one is going to play these adventures, they either have to undo all of their experience of effective gaming to go back to a yesteryear version of the game with all that that entails or the adventures and setting needs to change.

You can certainly argue for the former but expect a lot of disgruntled players as a result.

Not at all. It depends on your group. A lot of groups are flexible about this stuff. I think a lot of people here are universalizing their experiences and their preferences. If I ran Ravenloft for a group and they clearly were not going to enjoy going back to the old approach, I would not do it (I don't want to have an evening of misery trying to get players into an adventure they aren't going to enjoy). But there is definitely value in going back to older approaches. Like I said before, this is how the OSR emerged. If you go back and play them as written, they still will have many of the problems people have identified in this thread, but I also found a number of the problems aren't as prominent or bad as people remember. I tend to game with players and people who are happy to run and play games on the game's own terms to get the experience of it.

People do this all the time with old models and RPGs. That is one of the reasons why there are still all those classic modules up at Drivethru.

 

[Bedrockgames]

You’ve brought this up several times and this is where I think many people have a disconnect. It’s no longer that time.

I think there are a few different threads here. One is about modules which I addressed in my other post. I don't deny the modules are going to be a tougher sell for a lot of gamers (especially gamers who had a negative reaction to some of the heavy handedness of 90s material from TSR). But there is also the issue of the setting and its approach. Here I think the original setting far exceeds the new version of it (and I would say, at least in my opinion, the Sword and Sorcery version--which I particularly disliked). This is all a matter of taste of course. But I do think you can easily run Ravenloft using say the black box or DoD, supplemented with the Van Richter Guidebooks and not have any issues. It is quite a good setting and beloved for a reason (we wouldn't have gotten VGTR if it hadn't been).