Recent content by Paul Farquhar

Aside from the offensive treatment of mental illness in earlier editions of Ravenloft, you continue to be incapable of grasping the point that it’s the emotions of the players that matter in horror games, not the characters.

Cthulhu was in AD&D before Strahd was.

I’m sorry, but I’m unable to detect sarcasm unless I make a DC 25 Insight check.

The same characters who had been fighting dragons and been on battlefields covered in bloody entrails are supposed to be scared by a skeleton falling out of a cupboard?! But whatever, the point of horror isn’t for the players to pretend they are frightened, the point is for them to actually be...

Second and third. And in both occasions they were terrible and quickly abandoned by all sensible players.

Then you are going to be paying more if you want print books. WotC has been using it's size to absorb some of the costs of [politics], but there is only so much any business can do. It is mostly print that is affected by [politics] though. WotC do pitch their digital prices quite high to keep...

No one fears character death - computer games for small children feature their character dying over and over. It's just not scary. Thus, making the PCs weak and pathetic is a pointless exercise. If you want to frighten the audience - the point of horror - you need to do it by building atmosphere...

It's already confirmed that Cthulhu is the dark lord of Innsmouth. They function differently to other dark lords - the dark powers can only imprison him whilst he sleeps. If he wakes he will bust out of Ravenloft, and the Innsmouth domain (at the very least) will be destroyed.

Some would have to be toned down at least. Some are mostly curse and minimal benefit (Echoing Soul, Gathered Whispers), and so no one would ever take them as a feats. Or maybe the bad ones will be quietly dropped and replaced with different dark gifts. On the other hand, Living Shadow and Touch...

No. It does have advice on how to instil those emotions in your players.

The firework shop fight works better than tabletop, which lacks rules for explosives triggering fires and further explosions. Barrels are too easy to carry around and throw, wine is a little too volatile, but when it comes to smokepowder, destructible terrain, light sources and icy surfaces, it...

Strahd wears a wing collar - a decidedly Victorian fashion - in the cover of the original module.

Ravenloft is even less medieval than standard D&D! I would have gone for a Victorian art style.

That sounds like the original. I wonder if a restored version is in circulation now? I don’t think the version I saw 30+ years ago had that scene.

I can think of stranger.