D&D 5E Curse of Strahd for Dummies (confessions of a DM new to the idea of 'sandbox' blecch!!)

[Saeviomagy]

Well, I disagree w/the concept of sandbox being preferred by experienced GMs. IMO sandox makes the DM too much of a player. IMO most players don't mind having their choices reduced in number in exchange for knowing that the DM is not just making stuff up as they go along. In my experience, the longer a GM is a GM, the more apt he is to give in to the dark side and give in to the option of making stuff up as he goes rather than doing the hard prep work, all the while citing sandbox and player freedom as his excuse.

In my experience, players are absolutely fine with a GM making stuff up as they go along, as long as the stuff you make up is interesting and fun. The longer a GM is a GM, the better he gets at doing that. The effort in running something like that is making the world change in the background in response to the PCs actions, and in remembering minor story threads and seemingly insignificant actions so they can come back at a later date.

The ideal is that the players don't even know that stuff is being made up.

In my opinion, most pre-written modules are far too rigid, segmented and prone to going belly up when the players leave their assigned rails, and while they often do attempt to show the effects of prior actions, doing that effectively requires a personal touch.

My advice on running a pre-written sandbox is this:
Read through it. Get the gist of what goes on in each location. But most of all: don't fret the details. Make stuff up. Just be confident when you do. If your PCs are dead set on going to the castle, let them. If you were watching a horror movie, would the main characters walk through the front doors of the creepy mansion and immediately be attacked by something which kills them? No. They're probably greeted by the lord of the manor. He's impeccably polite. He feeds them. Something spooky happens at night (possibly an NPC dies). I don't care if the module says you walk through the front door and 10 suits of animated armor attack: that's not where we are in the story yet.

 

[shoak1]

I was kinda laughing at this because what else does the DM do but make stuff up and why does it matter if you do it during the game or before but then I saw who posted ... the guy who BUILT RAVENLOFT CASTLE and how amazing would it be to play at that table? That's Masterwork DMing.

My style is a bit lazyer. Given a 2-3 hour sessions, what I do is prep a couple of things most likely to happen and make up the rest. Like, as my players will enter Barovia Town tomorrow, I'll make a little flow chart, like Weeping Lady-Tavern(Ismark&Vistani)-Witch-Burghouse(Ireena)-Church-Hangman Crossroads-Madame Eva. That's the most likely sequence of events. If they go to the Church first that's fine. But if they get through all that in one evening I'll be psyched. If they blow through town I guess I'll just roll with it, probably including some random encounters for some action.

My group likes to play D and D as a table top board game - we're not into role-playing per se. What I try to do is rather than give them choices of where to go (because I invest a lot of time/prep work in each scene, its not much fun for anyone if they dont have reason to go there and/or dont choose to go there), I give them choices of what to do there, and have ramifications of those choices.

So in my campaign, the players begin with the letter from the burgomeister, I give them the option to buy whatever equipment they want and to prepare spell lists, then <cutscene> they arrive at Barovia. There they see zombies running amok and have two basic choices I give them: kill the zombies/save the town or avoid the zombies and reach out to the townsfolk - so take curtain a or curtain b, no sandbox here. I have a village built in 3d (8 buildings or so in the center of town and the rest declared irrelevant in game terms) w/zombie figures ready for the fight if they choose, but it took me only an hour or two to build/prep (I have 4 custom zombie swarms pre-statted and their sheets printed), so if they want to avoid it, its coolio.

If they fight the zombies and win, they get +4 to their rolls for Persuade, Perform, Intimidate, and Investigate in the town.

Irregardless, next up is the "town gather info" phase. I show the players the village I created (if they haven't seen it already fighting the zombies) and tag the buildings "inn," "church," etc for ease of reference. They then go into any/all, in whatever order they choose, as an entire group or split as desired. In each building the PCs do a brief skill challenge (3 successes before 2 failures ala 4e). I have condensed the knowledge each NPC knows into 3 parts, and each success before 2 failures gets them 1 bit of that info (or possibly even a valuable item given to the PCs to aid them in their quest). Failure by 5+ means they get possibly deceptive info (which I have pre-scripted, I dont make it up on the fly).

If the players feel up to it, I role-play the skill challenges briefly with them (sometimes they just want to get to the "action" and could care less about talking to the barkeep), with a -2 to +2 awarded (we usually decide on the award quickly and consensually together as a group) to their rolls (I make the rolls secretly so they don't know whether they rolled good or bad and gain metagame info) based on how well they role-play it. After this, I give them the menu of goods/services available in the town then <cutscene> to next morning (although dep.on their rolls against 1-2 npcs, they might have a nighttime preset encounter (again, using the same 3d map I prev.prepped, so no biggee if the encounter doesn't happen).

As a result of their intel in the town, they will know their next stop (in my heavily modded campaign it is vallaki), why they want to go there (in my campaign it is to solicit aid from the great vampire hunter Von Richten in bringing down Strahd), and may have tidbits of extra bonus info/items gained from their skill challenges that will help them. Notice that as a DM, I don't make any decisions once play begins excpet how to run my monsters, the pre-written script and player agency alone is what makes the story develop.

I give them a little time to discuss/digest, then they are off to Vallaki. Now <cutscene> the players travel to Vallaki is interrupted by an encounter w/a Vistani camp. The players may avoid, fight, or parley. I have the 3d map prepped and ready, and Madame Eva's fortune telling pre-scripted. If the players fight, we run the battle and the players will have auto-hostile encounters w/any Vistani they run into in the future. If they avoid, I have a back-up reading contingency plan for Vallaki. If they parley, they get a skill challenge to gather info from Vistani, the card reading (done as a skill challenge also), and they get a menu of goods/services available.

I give them a little time to discuss/digest, then they are back on the road to Vallaki. Now they make a Survival roll to determine if they have a road encounter (I have several prepared encounters, in a set order, available). Their roll indicates 1 encounter, so <cutscene> their travel is interrupted by an encounter with the Headless Horseman!

and so on.....

So depending on a group's personalities and gaming preferences, this style of play might be preferred over the wide open sandbox approach. Certainly if you have much time to prep, it can allow you to develop encounters more rich in visual appeal, rife with choices, prepped to allow for fast-paced action packed play, and overall depth of immersion.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Sure way to increase posting traffic in a thread: make an assertive but unprovable statement about what "good" GMs do.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Certainly if you have much time to prep, it can allow you to develop encounters more rich in visual appeal, rife with choices, prepped to allow for fast-paced action packed play, and overall depth of immersion.

Many would disagree - for me a battlegrid is a necessary tool for tracking positions, and most of your description of structured phases and canned responses would only serve to break immersion, not aid it. Certainly prep time can be spent improving your game (mainly by reading through the material to be presented and taking useful notes), and physical props can be an aid to immersion, but the level of structure you have would put me in mind of something like Warhammer Quest, or the D&D board games. Certainly fun, and our group plays them often, but not something that we tell tales of later.

Also it's pretty tangential to the sandbox/railroad argument. If you'd spent the same prep time and approach on a sandbox, then the only difference is that you present your PCs with a list of places to visit instead of a single one each time. If you've already prepped everything up front, then it makes no difference except giving the PCs some actual choice.

 

[pedro2112]

My group likes to play D and D as a table top board game - we're not into role-playing per se.

So why play a role playing game?

 

[Daern]

Shoaki, that sounds similar to the 4e campaign I ran for a year. It was heavy on the set piece dioramas and really fun.
Meanwhile, in tonight's game there were not fights and the group blasted past Madame Eva, got no fortune and have now entered Vallaki of the Mandatory Cheerful Demeanor.

 

[shoak1]

So why play a role playing game?

Pedro, every game has a genre, but understand that that's only for ease of description. In reality, its more like they are x% roleplay, x% board gamish, x% miniatures, etc. Various D and D editions have floated between 60% and 90% roleplay. My hot zone is around 60% roleplay, so from that standpoint 4e hit the spot (except I hated the rule system compared to 3.5). My group consists of players that fall are only 30%-70% RPGish in their thinking. So we have lots of fun.

So back to Curse of Strahd, case in point. With the money, time, and inclination, I built a giant castle, Baba Yagas hut , a couple villages, and all the other scenes, and spent 100s of hours prepping. I modified and crafted the published adventure to more like a tabletop roleplaying game and less as a straight roleplaying game. I steer them toward specific places at specific times, but then give them plenty of options/choices once there. What would players prefer to play? My non-sandbox tabletop game style or your straight RPG game style? My players certainly prefer my style (which I have blended w/my players style to be a composite style very close to my own), but to each their own. People who love talking to innkeepers for hours and roaming wherever they wish in the world whenever they want to will not like my game style for sure.

So HawaiiSteveO, the original poster, said:

After this I'm totally lost! Way too many choices, and I can't have entire book prepped so the players can do whatever they want. I like the idea of the party having a choice of A-B-C etc but still want to steer them in certain directions and not offer too many choices. To start off I'd like to roughly follow level guide to sections presented early in the book.

My advice to HawaiiSteveO is this: Cut off options for players as to WHERE to go and do your prep work. If your players are like you, they will probably be happy trading off choices of where to go in favor of getting steered to level appropriate areas and in favor of better DM-prepped content. So if the PCs decide to enter the castle from the roof, your prep means you know exactly how Strahd responds, and with what force. You have listed your available minions and noted their locations, and how far they can move each round, so you know how long it takes them to respond to the roof assault. You have the stat sheets ready, with special powers/tactics you want to use noted. You have pre-decided what rooms Strahd might attack the party in. You may have custom added a cool trap or two you found online. You have prerolled the first 100 rolls on the wandering monster list, rolled to see what monsters they are, and have their stat sheets handy. You are ready, and the game will play quicker as a result. The players wont feel you are fudging stuff because you are under prepared.

Bottom line: Foster player options within each area as a substitute for freedom of movement. My players don't mind me steering them to this beautiful castle, as long as they have options on HOW to assault the castle.

You can use a variety of tools to cut off sandbox play. One is the referral - so NPCs in Barovia tell you Strahd is too powerful for you to handle, and that you need aid from Von Richten in Vallaki. The Barovians may offer other info about Vallaki, and even Castle Ravenloft/Strahd, but no info that steers them in a direction other than Vallaki. Some NPCs also tell the PCs that its dangerous in the wilderness, and advises them to stick to the road to Vallaki and away from Castle Ravenloft.

On the way, they run into madame eva's tent /camp on the side of the road. If they dont take the bait there, no worries, an NPC in Vallaki will refer them back to Eva.

In Vallaki, Von Richten says the Tome, which can be found in Old Bonegrinder, is neccessary to discover what might aid in defeating Strahd. Don't have NPCs in Vallaki steer the PCs anywhere else, and in fact, have the NPCs talk about the danger in going to such-and-such place.

and so on...Just remember to give them plenty of options once in each location. If the objective is info gathering, they should be able to get it by burglary/stealth, by force, by persuasion through act or deed, or maybe thru independent study. Each option should be preset by you as to what bonuses/maluses it may have for later. If the objective is assaulting Castle Ravenloft, don't make them go thru the front door

 

[Waterbizkit]

Don't be afraid to make mistakes. There's a lot of good advice in this thread already and so rather than rehash it I'll make that my contribution. If the players make a left when you were expecting them to make a right don't be afraid to be up front with them and explain you weren't expecting it, then check your notes/the books and keep going.

Obviously the preference is to be able to roll with it and adlib in such a way that the players don't even realize it's happening, but that's a skill that takes time to develop and when you can't do it don't look at it as a failing. We're all playing the game to have fun and if you need to stop play because you're blindsided by a choice the players made so be it. Better that than stressing over it because you're trying to make stuff up on the fly when you're not comfortable with doing so.

So prep as best you can because that's always the most important thing you can do, but just don't kick yourself if you need to grind things to a stop and page through the module because the players went in a direction you weren't expecting. Over time you'll develop the skills to roll with that sort of thing seamlessly, but until you reach that point just accept you'll make mistakes and make sure your players realize your learning this sort of thing as you go.

Good luck with the campaign. I've been thinking about picking up CoS myself because I've never run a published module before and I hear this one is as close to the sandbox campaigns I usually run as they've had so far.

 

[Savage Wombat]

My party - which traditionally hasn't done sandboxes - discovered suddenly just how much weird stuff is just "there" in Vallaki. They just decided to poke around the burgomaster's mansion while he was out (they were looking for Victor) and found the guy in the closet, and the room full of dolls, and are now creeped out and confused.

Incidentally, just as a hypothetical question - how much damage do you think someone would take in total trying to escape from a burning crate in a raging attic fire and having to jump out a second story window?

 

[5Shilling]

Incidentally, just as a hypothetical question - how much damage do you think someone would take in total trying to escape from a burning crate in a raging attic fire and having to jump out a second story window?

Ha!

Assuming 10ft per story; 2d6 falling (bludgeoning) damage + 2d6 fire damage (if a raging attic fire is equivalent of a Flaming Sphere spell).

I'd totally forgotten about the guy in closet.