D&D General Unprofessional spoilers: it's not like it was hard to figure out but still...

[Li Shenron]

I finally got around to resuming our Ravenloft family game after a long break since the first session. The PCs had investigated the village of Barovia and started figuring out who the BBEG is, then moved on to confront him (the game is a 5e running of the original adventure so not nearly as long as the CoS remake). On the first meeting, one character uses an ability which detects certain creature types because they have a hunch... and there it is, in the PHB description of the ability the BBEG character is specifically called out and his exact nature is mentioned, even though the ability itself only lets you know the general creature type but not the specific creature

As I said, the players already had an idea but at least they weren't sure of it yet. And the PHB gave it away!

Just in case someone missed it when the player read the text out loud, we also watched Stranger Things after the game, when the same BBEG is mentioned and its nature revealed. But at least Stranger Things doesn't have responsibility on this, while in my opinion WotC has, especially since they keep focusing on "new players" and they have published the CoS remake. I think putting the spoiler in the PHB was very unprofessional. At least my kids are not that dnd-lore-savvy to know who the BBEG was by name.

 

[Chaltab]

I mean, it kind of sucks but it's not like Strahd being a vampire is a secret.

Divine Sense having that spoiler isn't true in the 2024 PHB, incidentally. The 2014 Player's Handbook wasn't written with new players in mind, not really. It was a Hail Mary designed to draw back people who had abandoned ship due to attrition, dissatisfaction with 4E, or who were playing Pathfinder.

 

[Seramus]

Sense Branding - You can tell whenever an iconic intellectual property monster is within 60' of you. If they have a specific name, you know it.

 

[Umbran]

I mean, it kind of sucks but it's not like Strahd being a vampire is a secret.

The original Ravenloft module was published in 1983. Spoiler bans don't last 40+ years.

 

[humble minion]

Yeah, at some point a spoiler ban stops having validity. I mean, if you're surprised about Strahd, I've got some bad news for you about Luke Skywalker's father too. And Strahd is literally illustrated as a pale black-haired aristrocrat in opera cloak with fangs etc in pretty much every piece of art for the guy ever.

Having said that though, I've recently started a new Vecna - Eve of Ruin campaign as a player, and had a major plot element spoiled for me by one of the miniatures in the official Wizkids mini set. And that seems a bit gratuitous.

 

[Umbran]

Having said that though, I've recently started a new Vecna - Eve of Ruin campaign as a player, and had a major plot element spoiled for me by one of the miniatures in the official Wizkids mini set. And that seems a bit gratuitous.

If you are trying to sell minis specifically designed for use with an adventure, your customers are going to want to know what's in the set.

 

[humble minion]

If you are trying to sell minis specifically designed for use with an adventure, your customers are going to want to know what's in the set.

Yes, agreed - in general terms. But the plot element in question is (spoiler!) 'evil NPC A is disguised as friendly NPC B', and they've not done that by having miniatures of both A and B in the set, which would have been perfectly fine and actually useful if you were running the game. They've done it by having a miniature in the set called 'A disguised as B' which depicts A with their magical disguise only half in place, and not including a regular miniature of B at all. So yes, I think I stand by the 'gratuitous' here.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The original Ravenloft module was published in 1983. Spoiler bans don't last 40+ years.

This one didn’t last any years. The picture on the cover of the module made it obvious that Strahd was a Dracula expy. The players are expected to have meta-knowledge and roleplay their characters’ ignorance. It’s not like Sinners where there was an attempt to keep the audience in the dark for a while. This is why I always viewed the module as a movie parody or pastiche (like it’s predecessor Pharaoh) rather than a serious attempt to do horror.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Having said that though, I've recently started a new Vecna - Eve of Ruin campaign as a player, and had a major plot element spoiled for me by one of the miniatures in the official Wizkids mini set. And that seems a bit gratuitous

This was spoiled pretty much everywhere as soon as it came out. The problem is with how the adventure itself is structured. Better written adventures with this type of twist used random dice rolls to determine the identity of the Traitor. The DM pretty much has no choice but to change this to a different character (in my version it’s…)

 

[humble minion]

This was spoiled pretty much everywhere as soon as it came out.

'Everywhere' is pushing it. I'd certainly managed to avoid the plot point in question without too much effort up to that point. I mean, if i went into a spoiler-tagged review of the module, yeah, I'd expect to hear about it, but a miniature set? And of course the spoilery miniature in question is of a nature that actually makes it LESS useful as a gaming piece because you can't use it in game before the revelation. Bewildering choices there.

I mean, I'll deal. I can distinguish between character and player knowledge. Hell, I played through Storm King's Thunder after being spoiled on that module's evil-NPC-in-disguise plot just fine. In that case the spoiler was because i part-read the module before i knew i was going to play it, so no issues there. It's just a bit annoying.