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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hawk Diesel" data-source="post: 7347526" data-attributes="member: 59848">This is actually a terrific point and one that I actually considered even as I was writing the original post. But if we consider the earlier movies, specifically Evil Dead 2, I think it did a great job of balancing humor with horror. In fact, the CoS book encourages for there to be moments of levity because pure horror and dread all the time can become overwhelming and begin to lose its impact. A good game should be like a roller coaster with twists, turns, highs, and lows. So it definitely will be a challenge as a DM to be sure to balance that.That being said, this is going to be a new group and largely new players. They may not be ready or want a true horror campaign. Placing this in the middle of the story at Vallaki will give them a chance to go through the Death House, the Village of Barovia, and then I can see if they begin to prefer the humor introduced by Ash or want to maintain the previous feel of the game.As for the difficulty with Ash being able to play second fiddle, I agree. But if we consider Army of Darkness or especially Ash vs. The Evil Dead, he causes just as many problems as he stumbles into resolving. Also, I would argue that in Ash vs. The Evil Dead, it shows he has the ability to share the spotlight with Pablo and Kelly. Hell, I would argue that Pablo is turning into just as much a key player protagonist as Ash. Pablo sees Ash as a mentor, and I predict in this 3rd season he's going to have to step up with an assist from Ash.Still, while Ash is a braggart, blow hard, and has an ego the size of a planet, he has the potential for good and to eventually (after much kicking and screaming) to do the right thing. In the game I'm planning, Ash is working in disguise. I'm playing it like after Ash took the cure in Army of Darkness from the Wise Man, Sheila decided to go with him. But the Dark Powers of Barovia yearned for the Necronomicon, and so intervened to bring Ash, Sheila, and the book into Strahd's realm. Strahd, always after his beloved Tatyana, believed Sheila to be her successor. While Ash managed to hide the book from Strahd, the vampire left Ash for dead and took Sheila as a vampire spawn. Strahd wants the book and believes Ash to be dead. So Ash is laying low, because he can't read the Necronomicon and believes if he could, he could unlock some secret to beating Strahd, saving Sheila, and getting back home. So he's working to figure out if the Vistani or the Keepers of the Feather can be trusted and translate the book. But after meeting the players, his cover will get blown and Strahd will be watching. It may come down to Ash needing to take on the forces of Strahd in order to allow the players to escape with the Necronomicon to find the Mad Mage, with the fate of Ash left to the player's imaginations.So it's definitely something to pay attention to and will be a challenge. But I'm pretty confident that I can find a way to make it work. Plus, I have all you guys to help me find the holes in my ideas and create solutions to help address them! ^_^</blockquote>

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