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Curse of Strahd - What am I missing? (Possible spoilers?)
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<blockquote data-quote="jayoungr" data-source="post: 8024590" data-attributes="member: 6702445"><p>I notice that several of the OP's complaints are specifically about the lack of horror-related mechanics.</p><p></p><p>Looking over the instructions in CoS on how to set the mood of horror, I can see that most of them are narrative elements. The module seems built on the philosophy that horror is most effective when it's developed through the story and atmosphere, rather than the mechanics. So I think a large part of the issue here is just a mismatch of expectations between the players and the writers of the adventure.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Did you go the Amber Temple? That is the main place where the Dark Powers come into Curse of Strahd, but some DMs choose to cut that part.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Page 24 of the hardback includes a list of alterations to magic: spells that would allow a party to leave Barovia won't work, and Strahd may intercept any spell that attempts to contact another plane. It also has suggested cosmetic changes to spells (for example, <em>mage hand</em> would appear as a skeletal shadowy hand rather than a normal one); did your DM use those?</p><p></p><p>As for magic just plain not always working, it seems to me like that would penalize the players of magic-using characters in unfun ways. But that's just MHO.</p><p></p><p></p><p>There is a system for tracking sanity and rolling for fear/horror/madness in the Dungeon Master's Guide, which your DM could have added to CoS. I do think the book would have benefitted from a pointer to that section of the DMG and a note on how DMs could incorporate it. To really integrate fear/horror/madness checks deeply into the adventure as written would take a lot of work, though.</p><p></p><p>I ran the Adventurer's League modules that accompany this adventure last year, which do include some horror/madness checks. To be honest, I don't think they worked well for our group. They just felt tacked on. That's why I think it would take some doing to bring this fully into the adventure, and not every table really wants to track sanity as if they were playing <em>Call of Cthulhu,</em> so for every group that was happy to have this fully and officially woven into the adventure, another group would probably be turned off. Plus, as I noted at the beginning of this post, the authors seem to be approaching the story with the goal of doing more with narrative and less with mechanical changes.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="jayoungr, post: 8024590, member: 6702445"] I notice that several of the OP's complaints are specifically about the lack of horror-related mechanics. Looking over the instructions in CoS on how to set the mood of horror, I can see that most of them are narrative elements. The module seems built on the philosophy that horror is most effective when it's developed through the story and atmosphere, rather than the mechanics. So I think a large part of the issue here is just a mismatch of expectations between the players and the writers of the adventure. Did you go the Amber Temple? That is the main place where the Dark Powers come into Curse of Strahd, but some DMs choose to cut that part. Page 24 of the hardback includes a list of alterations to magic: spells that would allow a party to leave Barovia won't work, and Strahd may intercept any spell that attempts to contact another plane. It also has suggested cosmetic changes to spells (for example, [I]mage hand[/I] would appear as a skeletal shadowy hand rather than a normal one); did your DM use those? As for magic just plain not always working, it seems to me like that would penalize the players of magic-using characters in unfun ways. But that's just MHO. There is a system for tracking sanity and rolling for fear/horror/madness in the Dungeon Master's Guide, which your DM could have added to CoS. I do think the book would have benefitted from a pointer to that section of the DMG and a note on how DMs could incorporate it. To really integrate fear/horror/madness checks deeply into the adventure as written would take a lot of work, though. I ran the Adventurer's League modules that accompany this adventure last year, which do include some horror/madness checks. To be honest, I don't think they worked well for our group. They just felt tacked on. That's why I think it would take some doing to bring this fully into the adventure, and not every table really wants to track sanity as if they were playing [I]Call of Cthulhu,[/I] so for every group that was happy to have this fully and officially woven into the adventure, another group would probably be turned off. Plus, as I noted at the beginning of this post, the authors seem to be approaching the story with the goal of doing more with narrative and less with mechanical changes. [/QUOTE]
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