Wes Schneider Is the Product Lead for Ravenloft: The Horrors Within

Wes Schneider was confirmed to be the product lead for Ravenloft: The Horrors Within in a recent panel at Gary Con. Over the weekend, Wizards of the Coast hosted a panel discussion about the past and future of Dungeons & Dragons featuring much of the current game leadership and Luke Gygax. While discussing the upcoming Ravenloft: The Horrors Within rulebook, D&D game design director Justice Ramin Arman stated that Wes Schneider was the product lead for the book. Schneider notably was the product lead for the last Ravenloft book Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft.

Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft notably updated the lore of Ravenloft, with different Domains of Dread shifting to focus on different genres of horror. While it's unclear whether that change is being reversed or fleshed out further, the new Ravenloft book will notably include statblocks for the various Darklords, something that Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft curiously lacked.

Ravenloft: The Horrors Within will be released on June 16th.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I'm not sure about Weiss religious beliefs, Hickman is the devout Mormon

Both Mormons. Probably why they managed to work so well together when Weis didn’t have a gaming background.

Christians of various stripes tend to be huge Horror fans, historically

Not in the churches I belonged to.

There are as many different Christian beliefs as there are Christians.

That was actually Hickman's main beef with 2E Ravenloft that he appreciated the return of in Curse of Strahd, the morality play tragedy element

Absolutely. They decided they needed to compete with CoC by making it grimdark with unbeatable Evil. 2e Ravenloft was really more Lovecraftian than Gothic - which is often, as you say, a morality play, in which you win by remaining virtuous.

 

[Parmandur]

Both Mormons. Probably why they managed to work so well together when Weis didn’t have a gaming background.

Not in the churches I belonged to.

There are as many different Christian beliefs as there are Christians.

Absolutely. They decided they needed to compete with CoC by making it grimdark with unbeatable Evil. 2e Ravenloft was really more Lovecraftian than Gothic - which is often, as you say, a morality play, in which you win by remaining virtuous.

Is Weis also Mormon? I looked and haven't found any info on that, though it seems plausible enough. She isn't outspoken the same way if so.

It is true that different Christian groups differ on a number of things, but a love for Horror as a genre is pretty widespread ecumenically in my observation.

 

[Remathilis]

Absolutely. They decided they needed to compete with CoC by making it grimdark with unbeatable Evil. 2e Ravenloft was really more Lovecraftian than Gothic - which is often, as you say, a morality play, in which you win by remaining virtuous.

More WoD than CoC. A crapsack world you cannot win in but merely survive by sacrificing as few morals as possible. It certainly fits that 90s dystopia vibe.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

More WoD than CoC. A crapsack world you cannot win in but merely survive by sacrificing as few morals as possible. It certainly fits that 90s dystopia vibe.

Sure, although I’ve never played WoD, so I cited the one I have played.

Could probably cite WH40K as well, which has a similar vintage.

 

[tetrasodium]

I hope that they support GM's with a section like the 3.0 Ravenloft book had where several pages were dedicated to rule spell and class changes that shifted the core stuff to better fit the themes and tones of Ravenloft.

Vrgtr had a line somewhere that punted the whole thing onto the gm saying something along the lines of "consider countering PC abilities with changes to monsters". Not only was that a completely unacceptable failure when it comes to gm support, it results in an entirely predictable reaction from players who react with outrage while claiming the gm is cheating by doing so. Heck it didn't even bother to supply a different set of resting rules that would have made taking rests away from the safety of the nearest creepy town actually concerning.. yes(IIRC):CoS had a thing somewhere that could result in PCs gaining traits from the long/short term madness tables, but without the sort of push mechanics you see in some other ttrpgs like fate or whatever they are entirely ignoranble no impact thing to shrug off at the very best.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

More WoD than CoC. A crapsack world you cannot win in but merely survive by sacrificing as few morals as possible. It certainly fits that 90s dystopia vibe.

WoD is more Gothic Horror, CoD is much personal psychological horror about person trauma, WoD is more normal horror and while inspiring some early CoD, CoD is much more likely to psychological mess players up, its an amazing setting, but it could come with a warning label.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

WoD is more Gothic Horror, CoD is much personal psychological horror about person trauma, WoD is more normal horror and while inspiring some early CoD, CoD is much more likely to psychological mess players up, its an amazing setting, but it could come with a warning label.

The 2nd edition Ravenloft idea that you need to neuter PC abilities is straight out of CoC. As I understand it, PCs in WoD are technically powerful, but the world is messed up and the PCs can’t do anything to fix it.

 

[delericho]

Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft notably updated the lore of Ravenloft, with different Domains of Dread shifting to focus on different genres of horror. While it's unclear whether that change is being reversed or fleshed out further, the new Ravenloft book will notably include statblocks for the various Darklords, something that Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft curiously lacked.

Suddenly I have some interest in this book. I'm not remotely a fan of "Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft" for several reasons, but the absolute worst, IMO, was the absence of those statblocks. Their inclusion here is really good news.