As is my tradition, each time a campaign ends, I'm trying to learn from it. This will be about my “Curse of Strahd” campaign.
About the Group and Selection of the Campaign
The group of players are the same as those featured in the Rime of the Frostmaiden Post-Mortem.
www.enworld.org
Real quick introduction to these guys that I didn’t include in the Frostmaiden post-mortem. My long-time friend (the guy I’ve been playing with for 20 years) introduced me to some of his co-workers. He had run a one-shot adventure with them, and they were wanting to play more. I came in to run a short adventure with them, and they loved gaming so much they wanted to keep playing. Now, a couple years later, we’ve played through several adventures together.
The biggest issue was that we had trouble all getting together to play. Several of the players have young children, I live in a different town, etc. When the pandemic hit, we moved to an online game and have been able to play consistently every week for close to two years.
Being mega-fans of D&D, several of the players have been collecting adventure books and reading them. I wanted to pick one they hadn’t read yet, that had good reviews, was available on Roll20, etc. We settled on “Curse of Strahd.”
Preparation
I go back a long way with Ravenloft. My first real experience with AD&D was joining a Ravenloft campaign in 2E when I was in high school. We played through many of the adventures, Adam’s Wrath, Web of Illusion, etc. That was my introduction to Strahd (sadly, I didn’t start with the original Ravenloft adventure). But over the years, I ran my own 2E Ravenloft campaign, and then ran the 3.5 edition of Castle Ravenloft, played the 4e-inspired board game, etc. Curse of Strahd was my wife’s real introduction to D&D, and I got to hear about many of her adventures. I thought it was time to run this for 5e and for a new group of players.
After loading the adventure into Roll20, there was very little prep I needed to do (besides reading through the adventure). I did locate my original 2E Tarokka deck to do a “real-time” reading to place the plot elements.
The Death House
The Death House was a challenging intro adventure. I had to change certain elements of it in response to one of the player’s emotional health. Otherwise, I ran it very close to the book - and in fact, stayed close to the book throughout Curse of Strahd - changing only references to the death of young children.
Heading into the Darkness
One of the coolest features was the map of Barovia, where I was able to place a real fog of war on it, so the party could only explore a hex at a time. It legitimately made them feel isolated and scared of what could be around the corner.
The Hags
Old Bonegrinder (the windmill) was going to be a literal meatgrinder. I decided to not have the entire coven of hags there so the party had a chance. And they did - but it was a nasty, nasty fight.
The Mad Mayor
The campaign really took off in Vallaki. The political factions, choosing the lesser of two evils. This was some of the best roleplaying I’ve had in a game, going to a thrilling end as the party got chased out of town.
NPC Overload
I’m going to forget all the specific names of NPCs since it’s been a year and a half since I’ve run this. But the party got Van Richten and his protege to join as well as the dusk elf. Having three NPCs with the party made the later chapters very easy. Especially as they investigated every nook and cranny to locate every potential artifact and ally to use against Strahd.
The Amber Temple
The Amber Temple is one of the coolest (literally) sites in the campaign. Unfortunately, I found the map a little confusing and think I messed it up when I ran it. I thought it was ground level and basement instead of 1st floor and mezzanine. However, it was the scariest and closest to death the party got (even more than Castle Ravenloft).
I went off book a bit in the Amber Temple. In the adventure it’s written that this is the place where Strahd became a vampire and became a vessel of the Dark Powers. So I used my knowledge of the 2E Ravenloft Campaign setting and pulled in visions of all the other Dark Lords. One of the players even fought a nightmare visage of Lord Soth.
What ended up happening was the Dark Powers were trying to corrupt the party, making them think that by accepting them it would be the only way they could destroy Strahd. Some of them believed this, some of them didn’t. They took the dark deals before the other half of the party could react. And then they went after each other - TPK.
And that would’ve been the end of the campaign. For the next week in real life I got emails from several players, people angry with their friends for ruining the game, people ready to quit D&D. I had to backtrack. Give them the chance for a do-over of “that’s the vision you had if you’d taken the deal.” (I thought this was appropriate because they were already having nightmarish visions in the Amber Temple anyway.)
Castle Ravenloft
Through gritted teeth, about at each other’s throats over betrayal, the characters entered Castle Ravenloft. With the help of their NPC allies they were able to follow the clues from the Tarokka reading to find the one place Strahd wouldn’t flee from. They went there and trapped him in his father’s crypt and handedly kicked his butt, carving him to pieces with the sunsword.
Castle Ravenloft took all of about 2 sessions and Strahd was a complete push-over. But everything else up to this was epic.
What Did I Learn?
Know your limits on how to push people. Be sensitive to the emotional trauma of your players - but don’t discount an adventure for that reason, just be willing to adapt it as needed.
Ravenloft is a cream-of-the-crop adventure in any edition. It certainly deserves its classic status. But I would say that the setting of Barovia - the Gothic sandbox - was better than the castle itself.
There is nothing in D&D - not even Strahd - that can stand up to 4 characters and 3 NPC allies. I should’ve killed off the allies, turned them against the party, or separated them with chutes, sliding walls, and Scooby Doo traps.
What Came Next?
We finished the campaign and decided the next one would be to start a playtest on the OSR campaign adventure I was writing, Against the Black City. That is another tale.
About the Group and Selection of the Campaign
The group of players are the same as those featured in the Rime of the Frostmaiden Post-Mortem.
D&D 5E - Rime of the Frostmaiden Post-Mortem (Spoilers)
As is my new tradition, each time a campaign ends, I'm trying to learn from it. This will be about my Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign. About the Group and Selection of the Campaign The group contains a “seasoned” casual player who’ve I’ve been gaming with for over 20 years. I put seasoned in...
www.enworld.org
Real quick introduction to these guys that I didn’t include in the Frostmaiden post-mortem. My long-time friend (the guy I’ve been playing with for 20 years) introduced me to some of his co-workers. He had run a one-shot adventure with them, and they were wanting to play more. I came in to run a short adventure with them, and they loved gaming so much they wanted to keep playing. Now, a couple years later, we’ve played through several adventures together.
The biggest issue was that we had trouble all getting together to play. Several of the players have young children, I live in a different town, etc. When the pandemic hit, we moved to an online game and have been able to play consistently every week for close to two years.
Being mega-fans of D&D, several of the players have been collecting adventure books and reading them. I wanted to pick one they hadn’t read yet, that had good reviews, was available on Roll20, etc. We settled on “Curse of Strahd.”
Preparation
I go back a long way with Ravenloft. My first real experience with AD&D was joining a Ravenloft campaign in 2E when I was in high school. We played through many of the adventures, Adam’s Wrath, Web of Illusion, etc. That was my introduction to Strahd (sadly, I didn’t start with the original Ravenloft adventure). But over the years, I ran my own 2E Ravenloft campaign, and then ran the 3.5 edition of Castle Ravenloft, played the 4e-inspired board game, etc. Curse of Strahd was my wife’s real introduction to D&D, and I got to hear about many of her adventures. I thought it was time to run this for 5e and for a new group of players.
After loading the adventure into Roll20, there was very little prep I needed to do (besides reading through the adventure). I did locate my original 2E Tarokka deck to do a “real-time” reading to place the plot elements.
The Death House
The Death House was a challenging intro adventure. I had to change certain elements of it in response to one of the player’s emotional health. Otherwise, I ran it very close to the book - and in fact, stayed close to the book throughout Curse of Strahd - changing only references to the death of young children.
Heading into the Darkness
One of the coolest features was the map of Barovia, where I was able to place a real fog of war on it, so the party could only explore a hex at a time. It legitimately made them feel isolated and scared of what could be around the corner.
The Hags
Old Bonegrinder (the windmill) was going to be a literal meatgrinder. I decided to not have the entire coven of hags there so the party had a chance. And they did - but it was a nasty, nasty fight.
The Mad Mayor
The campaign really took off in Vallaki. The political factions, choosing the lesser of two evils. This was some of the best roleplaying I’ve had in a game, going to a thrilling end as the party got chased out of town.
NPC Overload
I’m going to forget all the specific names of NPCs since it’s been a year and a half since I’ve run this. But the party got Van Richten and his protege to join as well as the dusk elf. Having three NPCs with the party made the later chapters very easy. Especially as they investigated every nook and cranny to locate every potential artifact and ally to use against Strahd.
The Amber Temple
The Amber Temple is one of the coolest (literally) sites in the campaign. Unfortunately, I found the map a little confusing and think I messed it up when I ran it. I thought it was ground level and basement instead of 1st floor and mezzanine. However, it was the scariest and closest to death the party got (even more than Castle Ravenloft).
I went off book a bit in the Amber Temple. In the adventure it’s written that this is the place where Strahd became a vampire and became a vessel of the Dark Powers. So I used my knowledge of the 2E Ravenloft Campaign setting and pulled in visions of all the other Dark Lords. One of the players even fought a nightmare visage of Lord Soth.
What ended up happening was the Dark Powers were trying to corrupt the party, making them think that by accepting them it would be the only way they could destroy Strahd. Some of them believed this, some of them didn’t. They took the dark deals before the other half of the party could react. And then they went after each other - TPK.
And that would’ve been the end of the campaign. For the next week in real life I got emails from several players, people angry with their friends for ruining the game, people ready to quit D&D. I had to backtrack. Give them the chance for a do-over of “that’s the vision you had if you’d taken the deal.” (I thought this was appropriate because they were already having nightmarish visions in the Amber Temple anyway.)
Castle Ravenloft
Through gritted teeth, about at each other’s throats over betrayal, the characters entered Castle Ravenloft. With the help of their NPC allies they were able to follow the clues from the Tarokka reading to find the one place Strahd wouldn’t flee from. They went there and trapped him in his father’s crypt and handedly kicked his butt, carving him to pieces with the sunsword.
Castle Ravenloft took all of about 2 sessions and Strahd was a complete push-over. But everything else up to this was epic.
What Did I Learn?
Know your limits on how to push people. Be sensitive to the emotional trauma of your players - but don’t discount an adventure for that reason, just be willing to adapt it as needed.
Ravenloft is a cream-of-the-crop adventure in any edition. It certainly deserves its classic status. But I would say that the setting of Barovia - the Gothic sandbox - was better than the castle itself.
There is nothing in D&D - not even Strahd - that can stand up to 4 characters and 3 NPC allies. I should’ve killed off the allies, turned them against the party, or separated them with chutes, sliding walls, and Scooby Doo traps.
What Came Next?
We finished the campaign and decided the next one would be to start a playtest on the OSR campaign adventure I was writing, Against the Black City. That is another tale.
