D&D 5E (2024) Ravenloft: The Horrors Within preorder page lists the book's contents

tetrasodium · 2026-04-16T13:04:08+0100

Thommy H-H said:
There are actually mechanics for fear and stress in VRGtR. They revolve around "Seeds of Fear" that players are incentivised to interact with and use in roleplay. Also lots of advice for using horror and the distinction between inflicting it on players and characters. Which is not to say the discussion about this stuff here is without merit, just that 5e is already doing a lot of things people are talking about and there's no reason to think this Ravenloft book won't continue that.

They don't get praise because, as already pointed out, they are a simplification of the insufficient bolt on afterthought that already existed in the DMG. Worse still is that they serve an entirely different role & that role is so far in service of the player that it may as well be in service of The Main Character.

Remathilis said:
It's worth noting that fear and horror appeared in the 2014 DMG, was revised to fear and stress in VRGR and simplified in the DMG 2024. D&D has had these rules all along, but I wager they are not punitive enough for some people as they don't functionally remove your character from play for rounds if not sessions worth of play.

As noted above, they serve a different function to such an extreme that they are a thing the GM can not really even consider a functional tool in their toolbox. Their lack of function has nothing to do with how punitive or not that they are though, you need only look at the earlier "characters who had been fighting dragons and been on battlefields covered in bloody entrails are supposed to be scared" exchange for why those useless player facing player chosen player controlled traits are insufficient as a tool in the GM toolbox.

It's unreasonable to suggest that being punitive or not is a factor because wotc themselves force that onto the GM. Rather than providing GM's with the sort of revisions to rules & spells/class abilities as prior editions did to aid the GM by having the system itself carry some of the setting's themes & tone they provide an unhelpful footnote like this

Invite the players to with characters who they view as individuals that "had been fighting dragons and been on battlefields covered in bloody entrails" who are above such petty concerns to imagine something unsaid when the rules themselves ensure those PCs are incapable of any meaningful risk & under no particular threat other than the GM declaring rocks fall? Yea that's a waste of ink not something deserving of praise. Worse still ids that the actual rule & ability revisions present in past editions that 5e CoS & 5e VRGTR didn't bother with are on that same page "Feature monsters that are immune to tactics characters often use but that are vulnerable to other strategies the characters could employ."... IoW "We here at wotc aren't willing to provide you the support of tools to carry the weight so homebrew something". Monsters alone can't carry the themes & tone absent the revisions to spells abilities & core rules. Heck, VRGTR couldn't even be bothered to include a functional revision to rewrite the long & short rest rules to avoid this kind of nonsense

[/spoiler]

VashVet · 2026-04-16T13:11:10+0100

TheSword said:
The principle of a sanity/spiritual degradation/corruption/shadow check is a good one. I’ve seen it used well in several game systems to add another way of threatening PCs without just targeting easily recovered hp.

Level Up uses Stress - accumulating penalties that represent being shaken by traumatic corcumstances

CoC uses Sanity - a scaling stat that increases as you gain knowledge of the horrors of the world and that ultimately results in madness and player retirement.

WFRP uses Corruption - which represents the influence of chaos gods and can result in mutation or madness. The system has a nifty mechanic where you can do a dark deal with the DM to take a wicked act to reduce your corruption by a point or two and keep your character in play.

Adventures in Middle Earth 5e also uses Corruption - which represented the influence of the Shadow and measured by the Shadow Stat. Of the four it was probably the closest to what I imagine in Ravenloft. I’ll briefly summarize.

Adventures in Middle Earth Shadow Corruption

Shadow Points are a foil to Wisdom and sits alongside it. You accrue shadow points for witnessing or experiencing harrowing events; entering tainted areas, keeping tainted treasure; and perpetrating misdeeds. It’s the antidote to the murderhoboism that would kill a Ravenloft game.

When Shadow exceeds Wisdom then the PC gains the miserable condition and suffers disadvantage on all attack rolls and automatically fails Charisma checks. When a miserable character fails a check with a roll equal or less to the number of points their Shadow exceeds Wisdom then suffer a temporary Bout of Madness.

During a Bout of Madness the PC is out of control and could react with Rage, Wretchedness, Desperation, or Lust (the players choice). This is Boromir trying to take the ring, Denethor sabotaging Minis Tirith or Thorin turning his back. Once the bout is over the shadow points are reset but the PC is left with a Shadow Weakness trait and they gain 1 permanent Shadow Point, effectively leaving them slightly more vulnerable to the Shadow.

These Shadow Weaknesses can be Curse of Vengeance as they become more spiteful, bitter and brutal; Dragon-Sickness where greed and selfishness becomes the norm; Lure of Power where they become resentful and arrogant ; Lure of Secrets where they becomes secretive and treacherous; and the Wandering Madness where they become idle, uncaring and cowardly. Each of these weaknesses is represented by an escalating roleplaying flaw as characters go through the cycle. If a player falls a check that is related to their shadow weakness then the DM is allowed to interpret an aggravated result. For instance if a character with Curse of Vengeance tries to intimidate a crowd and fails then the DM could interpret that as part of the intimidation the character struck someone in their anger.

What I like about this system is that it combines roleplaying inspiration with mechanical effect in a way that doesn’t leave the character crippled. I think Cubicle 7 did a brilliant job replicating the many frailties and weaknesses of LotR characters that made them fallible without ruining their awesomeness - Boromir, Saruman, Denethor, Thorin and more.

I’m sure it could be easily adapted to Ravenloft.

That sounds much more mechanically interesting and useful than the purely punitive approach that sprung out of 2e and 3e Fear and Horror checks.

Paul Farquhar · 2026-04-16T13:27:37+0100

tetrasodium said:
exchange for why those useless player facing player chosen player controlled traits are insufficient as a tool in the GM toolbox.

The only “tool” you need in a GM toolbox is being a good storyteller.

The original rules about mental illness were replaced because they stigmatised mental illness - something Lovecraft reasonably feared, given that he, like so many others, struggled with mental illness himself. As do many people who play D&D, so WotC had good reason to remove the rules. But D&D isn’t Call of Cthulhu, it doesn’t need to track psychological damage to the PCs (whilst the players giggle). That’s not part of what makes D&D what it is, a game of fantasy heroes (that is sometimes scary).

Remathilis · 2026-04-16T14:07:03+0100

tetrasodium said:
They don't get praise because, as already pointed out, they are a simplification of the insufficient bolt on afterthought that already existed in the DMG. Worse still is that they serve an entirely different role & that role is so far in service of the player that it may as well be in service of The Main Character.

Because D&D is in service of the main character.

Let me ask you something. Can D&D do horror without the Ravenloft setting? At all? Tomb of Horrors, Pharaoh, Ghost Tower of Inverness, those can't be horror adventures? Nor could anything being discussed in this thread because they lack Ravenloft's fear and horror mechanics (let alone the other systems to keep players subservient, like Powers checks). Obviously they cannot be, since the players are under no mechanical compulsion to be afraid. There is no mechanic that forces the PC to flee upon the realization that Accerack's skull repels all attacks. No horror check at the realization of what the face of the devourer is. No madness check for entering the Shrine of the Kuo-Tao. D&D cannot actually do horror without something approximating the Ravenloft rules, therefore D&D (and all it's 3pp spinoffs) cannot do horror. Would you agree or no?

Because if true, much of D&D's most famous horror adventures, including the original I6 Ravenloft, are not horror. No mechanics de power your PCs. Their spells function as written. No fear or stress rolls are needed. An adventure like Rime of the Frostmaiden, clearly coded as a survival horror adventure, is little different than Wild Beyond the Witchlight without those mechanics to instill fear in the characters.

And if that's not true, if Frostmaiden and Carrion Crown and Tomb of Horrors are actually horror adventures as D&D sees it; why do we need Ravenloft fear rules when it's clear D&D can do horror without them?

Mecheon · 2026-04-16T14:53:59+0100

TheSword said:
Precisely. When the characters see the wooden puppet lapping blood from the neck of prone toymaker I want there to be some more reaction that 2d6 psychic damage. Something that leaves a mark.

I mean, I read that and my thoughts are either 'he's been destroyed by his own creation' or 'a rival sent that to take him out'. Neither of those are going to leave a mark.

Its. IIs genuinely not a scene I would ever see wanting a fear or horror check?

TheSword · 2026-04-16T14:56:33+0100

Mecheon said:
I mean, I read that and my thoughts are either 'he's been destroyed by his own creation' or 'a rival sent that to take him out'. Neither of those are going to leave a mark.

Its. IIs genuinely not a scene I would ever see wanting a fear or horror check?

Well it was just an off the tip of the tongue example but yes the jaded life we lead in 2026 is why characters need a separate mechanic.

Let’s be honest if we were all capable of roleplaying to our own disadvantage none of it would need mechanics.

Bae'zel · 2026-04-16T15:15:22+0100

I'm loving the artwork so far. Scary, sexy, vivid. The way I like it.

Muso · 2026-04-16T15:29:41+0100

Paul Farquhar said:
2nd edition wasn't the original Ravenloft. 1st edition Ravenloft had no dumb fear checks.

Your opinion...

Paul Farquhar · 2026-04-16T15:32:36+0100

Muso said:
Your opinion...

Whist I have lots of opinions, 2nd edition Ravenloft not being the original is an easily verifiable fact.

Weiley31 · 2026-04-16T16:10:03+0100

Im interested in how the Hexblood is gonna be in this book.

D&D 5E (2024) Ravenloft: The Horrors Within preorder page lists the book's contents

tetrasodium

Legend

VashVet

Explorer

Paul Farquhar

Legend

Remathilis

Legend

Mecheon

Sacabambaspis

TheSword

Warhammer Fantasy Imperial Plenipotentiary

Bae'zel

Hero

Muso

Adventurer

Paul Farquhar

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Weiley31

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