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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 8271352" data-attributes="member: 85555"><p>I haven't played 5E much so can't comment on its ability to do horror. I think with 3E characters had become too durable perhaps. But the real problem for me, more than anything else, was the introduction of skills. 2E had NWPs, but a NWP like etttiquete isn't something you roll in order to behave in the right way, it is a knowledge skill basically and it specifically says in the entry that it isn't used to RP (i.e. the GM tells the player which fork is the appropriate one to use, and the player then decides what to do with that information). Same for things like Bluff, Gather Information and Spot. Those skills are fine, but my Ravenloft games in the 90s, used to be very much about players 'feeling' the setting: asking specific questions to NPCs, actively telling me where they were looking, etc. Very investigatory, very heavy on in character talking. I just noticed this really evaporated during my 3E campaigns, even with the same players. The mood was just very different as well. I genuinely just chalked this up to nostalgia. I was in my late teens and early 20s in the 90s, I figured those were just the days when we played D&D four times a week and didn't think about it (it just had a more magical vibe). But I started going through the 2E material again around 2009 or so, and ran a campaign. Instantly it felt like the old Ravenloft to me. There are lots of other rules reasons for that. But it was stark. I will say, I think that is a separate question from can 3E do horror, can 2E do horror, and what is the best system for horror. That is a much deeper question. I think 3E can do horror, I don't think it does it in the same was as 2E (and personally I found it much easier to frighten players using 2E). But some of it might have come down to the modifications that 3E made to the system versus 2E. Ravenloft modifies the core system in order to make the horror work. I think for 3E they essentially ported over most of the kinds of changes that were used for 2E, but they are two totally different games. You really needed to crack down on lots of other things that were less of an issue in 2E (multi classing needed to be made more difficult to avoid optimization, they probably should have removed feats completely for 3E ravenloft, and, in my opinion, they should have taken out lots of skills). I would have to revisit 3E again to really make a serious effort to figure out what needs changing. But it really required different changes I believe than 2E required. And I think that was one of the biggest issues I had with 3E Ravenloft. Another issue was less about mechanics and more about flavor. Third edition Ravenloft was basically put out by white wolf if I recall. And it felt very white wolf to me (to me it felt very emo, very much like the characters weren't pulled out of classic horror stories but more like gamers LARPing Gothic if that makes sense: I used to call this 'nerd projection' where we project our own sensibilities and our own social circle into a setting rather than have it be its authentic self---it is like mary sue but more across the board (you aren't just inserting yourself, you are inserting your friends, the style and temperament of your clique, etc). In its worst form you have fighters who don't look like they can hold a sword in the art. Someone might have a better term for this.</p></blockquote><p></p>

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