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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kalani" data-source="post: 6826501" data-attributes="member: 88085">While I understand the reasoning behind this post - I vehemently disagree (personal opinion). As an avid Ravenloft and gothic horror fan, I can say for the record that knowing how to escape (or where) hugely deflates the tension, uncertainty, and anxiety that the player should be experiencing when playing these adventures. The DM is strongly encouraged to make the player feel aversion, shock, tension, etc - rather than simply say "your character experiences X".... Ravenloft is supposed to evoke a visceral emotional and psychological response from the players.Knowing where to exit, will only deflate the sense of dramatic tension and visceral fear for their characters that the players should be experiencing. As a DM, you want your players jumping at every shadow, and fearing for their characters lives when even a simple zombie crawls out of its tomb.... That is done through visceral imagery and keeping everything cloaked in metaphoric darkness. In Ravenloft, the unknown can hurt you, and has nasty big pointy teeth.Instead of saying that a room contains zombies, DMs in Ravenloft should instead evoke the imagery and visceral horror the party faces...... "The stench of decay and buzzing of flies assails your senses as three shambling corpses rise silently on creaking and popping joints. Blank eyes stare out of their maggot-ridden faces as you stare in horror at the remains of the Bakers son and his mother who you saw brutally slain not the day previously. As they shamble toward you, the boy reaches toward you with his glistening wet, and decaying hand - flesh pulled back from his face in a rictus grin of death. Not two days previous, the smiling happy child was playing hackysack with his friends, and stopped to give you directions to his fathers shop. Now, all light and joy from that once-happy face have fled, only to be replaced with the unbeating heart of the undead. As the three inch toward you in a shambling gait, everyone roll for initiative."This is an extreme example of the kind of imagery a DM should try to evoke when running these adventures. Not every DM is an author, nor are they expected to be - but DMs should at least try to capture some image of revulsion and the grotesque mixed with something familiar whenever possible - even if it is only a brief mention of the mixed scent of decay and fragrant summer blossoms, once beloved of the Bakers wife.As a player, you have no idea what you are facing here. Yes it could be a zombie - but it could be much worse. The fact that you knew this zombie-esq creature personally, only makes the punch to the gut that much worse. It also calls up images of moral dilema's, as you knew this rotting corpse personally - do you hack it down it disgust, kill it out of pitty, back away in horror at the thought of the bright happy child now suddenly trying to eat your face, try to reason with the child and bring it back to his senses, or try to restrain him as this isn't his fault? Either way, gothic horror shouldn't be a simple case of "I hit it with my sword".Also, in Ravenloft - I wouldn't let players simply identify creatures with a simple knowledge check. Nothing should ever be certain. Everything should be questionable, and even the familiar (such as a humble zombie) should seem alien and foreboding. That, and the Dark Powers deliberately and maliciously veil evil (and the truth) from being discovered with their alien and unknowing agenda.</blockquote>

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