Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9002780" data-attributes="member: 6877472">Ravenloft, as a setting, has had a few issues over the years.  In the beginning, it was simply D&D in a gothic horror setting, dealing with classic horror villains, ranging from those based on historical figures to Universal monsters.  But it all hinges on frightening the characters; this world is familiar but also alien.  It works against you at every turn; it doesn't want heroes, it wants to see heroes fall and become monsters.Crushing hope and evoking terror and despair are hallmarks of the setting, just as much as it's villains.But frightening a character requires frightening the player, and unless the player has buy-in, there's only so many ways to force this.  You can use mechanics like 2e's fear and terror checks, but that's cumbersome and annoying- nobody wants their behavior and actions dictated to them.So quickly it was settled on that the way to make Ravenloft frightening was to make the monsters stupidly overtuned.  Contrast the way the Dark Lords are statted (quite conservatively, for the most part) in the original box set to the Monstrous Compendium foes, where you have variant Werewolves that can only be hurt by gold weapons (??), Greater Wolfweres that heal all damage at the end of each combat round, and all manner of things you really don't want to fight- in a game where fighting monsters was effectively the way to succeed.There's a reason many players I know, when the topic of playing a Ravenloft game comes up, will sigh and groan, because they see the setting not as a fun trip into darker territory, but a "weekend in hell" slog where you better bring your most optimized characters and get used to being toyed with by the Dark Powers.  Because Ravenloft isn't about your story.  It isn't about your characters.  You've been dropped into someone else's story, and you may play a part in it, but the Powers will desperately attempt to preserve the status quo in the end.  Any victory is fleeting.Not only is this not like standard D&D, to treat it as standard D&D is a REALLY BAD IDEA, in my opinion.  Ravenloft is a setting about stories.  Dark, twisted, often frightening stories.  The DM spins a tale, perhaps one as old as time, and the players are basically Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; characters in the story who can comment on it, and play a role, but have little agency.And that can be fun, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't play well with the concept of character classes and subclasses that are 85-90% combat abilities when most of the monsters aren't things you want to fight, and even if you do, cannot be fought conventionally.  You can't defeat Strahd with sword, holy water, or a stake- you need his brother Sergei's sword, and the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind just to have a shot at it!(Also, when employing a stake, don't forget to bring a mallet, rib cages are tougher than you think!).In a game like this, experience should absolutely be granted by milestones, and if your players made combat characters, you should get them (and you) out of Ravenloft quickly- it's going to be a miserable experience.</blockquote>

Verification