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

Retreater · 2026-03-25T12:34:04+0000

doctorbadwolf said:
Nah it is just for players who want the story to do that work while the game engine itself remains enjoyable to engage with.

You arent a more serious gamer for prefering the older way, you just have a different preference. there isnt anything more than that.

I was trying to explain to my wife why I think modern Ravenloft has abandoned the horror genre and become a power fantasy with a Gothic veneer.
So I hope we can agree that the Blade movies are pretty enjoyable (especially the first two). Wesley Snipes is a badass in them. Great superhero action, right? There are vampires. But ... is it horror? I'd say that it's not a horror franchise. Halloween, Elm Street, the Conjuring, those are horror movies.
If you want to play D&D with a horror veneer, it's already in the main game. There are golems, vampires, ghosts, etc, you can fight in the Monster Manual.
What the main game doesn't provide is Fear mechanics, ways to augment your adversaries to be more thematic, ways to structure your campaign and house rules to focus on achieving the horror feel.
That's what I think we need out of a horror supplement. Not new ways to get more powerful.

doctorbadwolf · 2026-03-25T12:51:49+0000

Retreater said:
I was trying to explain to my wife why I think modern Ravenloft has abandoned the horror genre and become a power fantasy with a Gothic veneer.
So I hope we can agree that the Blade movies are pretty enjoyable (especially the first two). Wesley Snipes is a badass in them. Great superhero action, right? There are vampires. But ... is it horror? I'd say that it's not a horror franchise. Halloween, Elm Street, the Conjuring, those are horror movies.
If you want to play D&D with a horror veneer, it's already in the main game. There are golems, vampires, ghosts, etc, you can fight in the Monster Manual.
What the main game doesn't provide is Fear mechanics, ways to augment your adversaries to be more thematic, ways to structure your campaign and house rules to focus on achieving the horror feel.
That's what I think we need out of a horror supplement. Not new ways to get more powerful.

VRGtR provided both

And fear mechanics are...deeply lame.

Artamo · 2026-03-25T12:52:52+0000

Retreater said:
I was trying to explain to my wife why I think modern Ravenloft has abandoned the horror genre and become a power fantasy with a Gothic veneer.
So I hope we can agree that the Blade movies are pretty enjoyable (especially the first two). Wesley Snipes is a badass in them. Great superhero action, right? There are vampires. But ... is it horror? I'd say that it's not a horror franchise. Halloween, Elm Street, the Conjuring, those are horror movies.
If you want to play D&D with a horror veneer, it's already in the main game. There are golems, vampires, ghosts, etc, you can fight in the Monster Manual.
What the main game doesn't provide is Fear mechanics, ways to augment your adversaries to be more thematic, ways to structure your campaign and house rules to focus on achieving the horror feel.
That's what I think we need out of a horror supplement. Not new ways to get more powerful.

I think Van Richten’s guide provides tools for multiple points of view on horror. While you may focus on the rules for Dhampirs or Hexbloods, you’re also forgetting the rules for Survivors which are specifically designed to run counter to the heroic horror take and provide an option for playing a more edge of your seat horror game where your characters are in danger. Where I think D&D and Ravenloft horror start to get more entwined with heroics is at higher levels, where the power curve of abilities starts to make characters being fearful less believable. Not that it couldn’t be done, but it does require one to lean into much more powerful monsters, and even then there’s likely a ceiling to that concept. Conversely, you can have plenty of genuinely scary stuff while PCs of virtually any type are in Tier 1. Their general squishiness makes it easier there.

Paul Farquhar · 2026-03-25T12:55:35+0000

Retreater said:
What the main game doesn't provide is Fear mechanics

They are a waste of time. For horror to be effective it’s the players who need to feel fear, not the characters.

Artamo · 2026-03-25T13:08:44+0000

I find the issue with a fear mechanic is that in a horror setting, it quickly becomes just a set of numbers. The actual fear isn’t earned. The PC is simply weaker - they have to run away, they can’t attack or their attacks are weaker, etc. Horror settings with fear mechanic like to spam that fear mechanic. The effect is like someone saying “You’re scared” without you actually being scared.

Imagine a game that spams Hold Person over and over because that’s what they’ve chosen to be their stand-in mechanic for being overcome with an emotion. Said game would start to really, deeply suck to play.

Stormonu · 2026-03-25T13:36:49+0000

Artamo said:
Tiyet was the other one, and she was from the Darklords accessory - I also always dug her background.

My take on the Ankhtepot art is that I could choose to use it or not (I’ve never really used Ankhtepot but I don’t dislike the artist’s take on him.) With a character like that, I don’t feel like there needs to be a canon depiction of the character in the same way Soth has his bucket helm, or Elminster has he red robes and hat. The alternative is he’s a mummy, and I’ve got plenty of examples of those.

Thanks all, I simply could not remember what book she was in (or the name, which made it doubly hard

).

While I can ignore the art if I need to, bad art sometimes turns me off from digging into certain things or make something seem too silly to bother with using it. (Not that the original art wasn't silly too - Touch of Death had the best image for what I'd expect Anktepot to look like, honestly).

Remathilis · 2026-03-25T14:42:37+0000

Retreater said:
So I hope we can agree that the Blade movies are pretty enjoyable (especially the first two). Wesley Snipes is a badass in them. Great superhero action, right? There are vampires. But ... is it horror? I'd say that it's not a horror franchise. Halloween, Elm Street, the Conjuring, those are horror movies.

Counterpoint: the Scream franchise is clearly in the horror genre but absolutely bucked the trend of weak protagonists and immortal monsters. Sydney has killed more Ghostfaces than there have been movies (easy when each movie has 1-3 of them). The Classic Three (and later Core Four) are almost never in danger of dying (save one time they Han Solo'd one). Sydney has grown smart and capable as she has faced wave after wave of wannabe killers. That's it's charm.

But then again, Ravenloft isn't trying to be Nightmare or Halloween. If it did, it would exclusively use NPC commoner stats for PCs. It's going for a more Van Helsing/Castlevania/Hellboy vibe. Once you realize it's more Witchhunters than Midsommer, it finds it's place.

Paul Farquhar · 2026-03-25T16:59:49+0000

Remathilis said:
Counterpoint: the Scream franchise is clearly in the horror genre but absolutely bucked the trend of weak protagonists and immortal monsters. Sydney has killed more Ghostfaces than there have been movies (easy when each movie has 1-3 of them). The Classic Three (and later Core Four) are almost never in danger of dying (save one time they Han Solo'd one). Sydney has grown smart and capable as she has faced wave after wave of wannabe killers. That's it's charm.

But then again, Ravenloft isn't trying to be Nightmare or Halloween. If it did, it would exclusively use NPC commoner stats for PCs. It's going for a more Van Helsing/Castlevania/Hellboy vibe. Once you realize it's more Witchhunters than Midsommer, it finds it's place.

You know what a good model for slasher horror in Ravenloft? se7en. The killer isn’t after the PCs, the PCs are rushing around trying to track down the killer as they horribly kill NPCs. They have to stop them before they get to NPCs the players care about.

dave2008 · 2026-03-25T17:51:59+0000

doctorbadwolf said:
VRGtR provided both

And fear mechanics are...deeply lame.

IIRC, they are also in the 2014 DMG and augmented / updated in VRGtR

dave2008 · 2026-03-25T17:55:12+0000

Paul Farquhar said:
You know what a good model for slasher horror in Ravenloft? se7en. The killer isn’t after the PCs, the PCs are rushing around trying to track down the killer as they horribly kill NPCs. They have to stop them before they get to NPCs the players care about.

That could be a pretty good premises for any D&D campaign, not just horror.