D&D 5E Enhancing "Curse of Strahd" (and DDAL adventures)

[OGIHR]

Having now taken the time to carefully study the cross-connections between the various NPCs and storylines in Curse Of Strahd (and then more time to read the novel "I, Strahd" which I found through a used-books seller online), I find myself fascinated by two points in particular of the module. First, that for every pair of same-level chapters in the book, the order presented on page 6 is precisely the opposite of the natural flow of the plot (with S requiring W for entry, V's combat-event providing directions to Z, and both T and O respectively being en route to X and N). An inversion so uniform it could only have been by design. 

Secondly, I can't shake the feeling that there's an entire page worth of content missing from Vallaki. Izek Strazni has a barbed devil's arm that shoots magical fire. The climax of the chapter comes when the rain extinquishes the Burgomaster's mundane torch. Magical fire. Diobolic arm. Diabolic cult seeking to usurp the Burgomaster. Izek doesn't know where his new arm came from. Diaboic cult summoning devils. But instead of tying these threads together, all we get is a note that Fiona Wachter plans to have Izek killed during the process of her seizing power. 

It seems obvious to me that the mysterious devil's arm and the only person in the whole book explicitly summoning devils are supposed to be connected. So when my game gets to the Festival of the Blazing Sun, I see it playing out very differently (asuming the heroes do nothing to interfere). The rain puts out the torch, Izek's diabolic arm tenses up, Izek looks at it in horror because he's not controlling it, the flame is hurled, the Burgomaster is ignited, he staggers into the wicker effigy, the effigy is ignited, Izek drops to his knees and screams, as his devil-arm bulges obscenely. The arm tears free of his body, forming a full barbed devil that emerges from the stump, cue the battle-climax while Izek kneels on the ground, not even crying, because his devil-arm was the only part of him that had soul-type feelings.

On the up side, I've also worked out where exactly the three treasures and fated ally will be to fit the game I have in mind. The Tome will be in the main room of the Abbey (S13), so that the Abbot's fall from grace is tied in to his buying the "I'm so tortured and sympathetic" routine hook line and sinker. The Sword will appear at the Beacon of Argynvostholt (Q53) only when the dragon's skull is returned and the Beacon is lit. And the Symbol lies in the iron chest above the Heart Of Sorrow (with a 240' drop to the stone floor offering a not at all subtle option for breaking open the iron chest, if the heroes are willing to risk destroying its contents), for the heroes to be able to sneak off to after the dinner party they were invited to by "Strahd XI" before they knew anything about his family's reputation. ‎

On the ally side, I have no tolerance for vastly omnipotent signature NPCs inviting themselves along on the heroes' quest so that they can effortlessly resolve crises and reduce the (lower-levelled) PCs to mere cheerleaders. And given that most of the available Allies are entirely recruitable by an L5 party, even a "merely" L9 NPC spellcaster is too omnipotent for my particular tastes. But I also don't want the fated ally's only use being to provide Inspiration during the final assault on the castle. So  after much consideration, I settled on Viktor Vallakovich, the (less than competent) amateur wizard of Vallaki. Strip down his spellcasting omnipotence a bit, and he'd make a good loremonkey to study the Tome in the Abbey while the heroes travel the land dealing with more combative problems. And, when the time comes to assault the castle, he'd certainly be able to make himself useful with the various ingredients in the witches' upper apartment suite. 

But in the course of picking my Tarokka reading content, I looked back over the equivalent section in the 3rd ed "Expedition to Castle Ravenloft", and was amazed that it was literally triple the narrative content. Five questions yes, with three cards each. And I find myself wanting to expand the 5th ed reading similarly; with a Focus card for the question, a Covering card for the location/purpose of the answer, and a Crossing card for the complication thereupon. 

(Focus card) "You must seek the knowledge of the Devil's secrets..." (Covering card) "Hidden behind the sun, in the house of a saint..." (Crossing card) "But it is held by a man who does not see that his hands are already covered in blood; he will not relinquish those secrets until your own hands are equally unclean."

That sort of thing. And I invite suggestions for cards to fit the following meanings:

Tome / 1 Glyphs=S13 / unclean hands
Sword / 4 Stars=Q53 / restore the light
Symbol / 1 Stars=K60 / brief window of invitation
Ally / Donjon / ??? (haven't figured out a suitable complication for Viktor yet)
Location / Mists / history repeating
Werewolves plot hook / stealing children / they believe sweet lies
Lord of the castle / seeks security for his domain / minions serving two masters (seems to paint my "Strahd XI" and "Strahd the First and Only" as adversaries, but actually refers to the heroes' desire to be heroic while they're eliminating rivals on his behalf)
Master of the land / seeks to escape his well-earned fate / needs Ireena's soul to get freedom

Also, has anyone else tried opening the floodgates to player-generated questions for Madam Eva's cards? And if so, what questions did they ask in your games?

 

[hastur_nz]

Well, I was a player in the 3rd ed "Expedition to Castle Ravenloft", and none of us got terribly invested in the Reading, beyond the usual "clues to get the McGuffins, then we can go kill Strahd". YMMV, it depends on your players, but as DM and Player, I've never really found many people, if any, that get super-excited over overly complicated clues, mainly because what seems obvious to the DM just isn't to the players, so they tune out easily. When I was DM for Curse of Strahd (5e), I also don't remember any of the players getting overly excited about Madam Eva's cards, beyond the obvious "clues to get the McGuffins".

As for Izek, I really like your thinking, in my game I found there were too many potential plot threads in Vallaki, and only some struck a chord with the players; certainly the "Festival of the Blazing Sun" fell pretty flat; your idea is a good addition. I'd just say, make sure you add on the "so what" for the PC's, i.e. when you say "cue the battle-climax", what exactly does that mean? Is the Devil going to make sure the Burgomaster dies, along with Izek, so Lady Wachter can take over as the new ruler? (meaning, the PC's have the opportunity to get involved, assuming they care?) By all means, keep that idea up your sleeve for later, it's a decent one, however from my experience the most important thing about running this adventure, is to be flexible, and 'pre-plan' every single session as you go along, as you really have no idea what directions your players will end up running in, so to speak... They will, most likely, go through Vallaki a few times during the campaign, so there's plenty of opportunity to meet NPC's, have encounters, and so on, and you never know up front how your players will perceive the NPC's etc. until you get there. So when I say 'pre-plan' every single session, I mean before every session, go through what's likely to come up in that session, and think of some likely scenarios, so you have pre-thought some of the ad-lib that will be required.

p.s. mainly I'm saying "don't over-plan" - Curse of Strahd is definitely more "sandbox" than "railroad", on a session-by-session basis, so by all means add some notes in the margins for the future, but most likely by the time you get there, you'll need different notes...

For example, in my game, Izek actually became an Ally, of sorts, to the PC's. I really wanted to try and play out the hidden-brother-sister thing, but I couldn't see how without forcing it upon the players. Lady Wachter didn't feature until the last time the PC's were in Vallaki, where she tempted them and they politely refused. All up, most NPC's in Curse of Strahd followed my preferred approach to NPC's in my games - they are somewhat Grey, not obviously Good nor Evil, and not obviously breaking any laws, so the PC's don't just kill them. I don't think my players thought much of the Baron, or Lady Wachter, but eventually they moved on to the main objective - Strahd's Castle, and left everyone in Vallaki to their own devices.

 

[OGIHR]

I'd just say, make sure you add on the "so what" for the PC's, i.e. when you say "cue the battle-climax", what exactly does that mean?  Is the Devil going to make sure the Burgomaster dies, along with Izek, so Lady Wachter can take over as the new ruler?  (meaning, the PC's have the opportunity to get involved, assuming they care?)

What I meant by that was the specific plot turn at which the protagonists are expected to retain the moral high ground while they resort to murderous violence to claim the opportunity to dictate the resolution of the current narrative thread. If the heroes do nothing, then yes Lady Wachter's barbed devil clears the board and she asserts control over Vallaki. And if the heroes get involved, then they shape the narrative from there. 

I plan to start my game at L2 with a shortened version of Death House (still no clue what if anything to do about the TPK risk inherent in the shambling mound), then offer the village of Barovia as a base of operations through the heroes' tenure at L3, with a handful of side-quests presented to justify them getting there. I have probably already mentioned these, but there's the canon plotline of Kolyan Indirovich's funeral arrangements (where I'll have Strahd show up to advise them that he respects Ireena's need to mourn her father, but after the due to the dead is satisfied, he will return to claim her), plus Morgantha's pastries at some point, plus the dinner party at the castle with Madam Eva's reading up front and the option to explore the castle a bit at the tail end (with Strahd showing back up to politely nudge his invited guests away from the more lethal areas of the castle), plus the random houses infested with zombies (after a TPK in a Expedition to Castle Ravenloft campaign with the Undead Legions secondary goal), plus a false lead on the werewolves from my chosen plot hook (a lone mad druid in the eastern Svalich woods who's declared himself lord of the wolves and Strahd wants the heroes to get rid of this pretender for him), plus a real werewolf encounter (using EtCR's Tser Falls Cave as a storehouse for werewolves operating on this side of Mount Ghakis) on the heroes' eventual trip to Vallaki. Should be more than enough for the heroes to take some, ignore others, and still earn L4 before they arrive at Vallaki. 

I have only rough plans in place for any of those listed after the dinner party, and even less detail planned for Vallaki or beyond. All I know for sure is that I'm not interested at all in areas M, V, or X, so the Vistani did find the Mad Mage's body last year, the werewolf attack will be shifted to Krezk when the heroes are ready to learn what their Ally Viktor has gleaned from the Tome of Strahd, and there's a war on the southern border which could require a visit to Tsolenka Pass at some point (or not). 

Sense making?

 

[Rils]

It's obvious you've put a lot of thought and creativity into this, which is awesome! However, I'm going to echo [MENTION=40592]hastur_nz[/MENTION]'s comment not to over-plan this. I made that mistake, and wasted hours upon days upon weeks planning out stuff that my players never did anything with. For instance, early on I had them witness the hag trading pastries for a child, and they were appropriately upset about that - but when they got to the windmill and smelled baking pastries, even with the deed to the windmill in hand, they walked right on by. That shot my plans for that night's game, I even had voices ready and everything! And so on and so on. Just about every hook I expected them to take, they didn't. Even up to last game - they have all three artifacts, there's very few loose plot threads left, they have an invitation to dinner with Strahd - and when I conveniently had his coach waiting for them at the crossroads, they walked right on by. No reason, other than to blow Strahd off. That was the end of last game. Now they are going to spend the night in VR's tower and walk to the Castle in the morning. So much for the exciting coach ride I had in mind.

There's pages and pages of notes I made which are all for naught, and as the voice of experience, I can say - take it maybe two games at a time. There's nothing wrong with outlining the main story beats, but leave it at that - an outline. Based on what your player's do, plan maybe two games worth of content - one you expect them to do, and the following one for if they skip that. Otherwise, don't get too far ahead of it, as you'll inevitably find yourself constantly re-working things like I did. Save yourself the wasted time.

And ultimately, it'll inevitably be more fun - because it's the group's story you came up with together, not the DM's story that was bestowed upon the players. Enjoy!

 

[jayoungr]

A few more links ...

CoS DM seeks campaign ideas from the community
Strahd's Lines (snappy one-liners)
Help me define Mother Night
Vallaki help
Pitch Ravenloft to new players
Van Richten's Tower Trouble
Mid- to High-level Undead (potential extra monsters)
Alternative exits (ways to get out of Barovia without defeating Strahd)

 

[robus]

I put my index in the first post, but my goodness this thread is a shadow of its former self. We lost so much with the crash...

 

[TheProdigalson1965]

I am running it now. I am using a planes-hopping motif for the overall campaign theme, where the party has to do some scavenger hunting to assemble the components to make a legendary artifact, and one item is in Ravenloft. I have in my cosmos that Jergal is the one responsible for the Mists and he is the one responsible for Strahd being there. The party had to go to find Velsharoon's skeleton, and they showed up on Gehenna to find Velsharoon's palace and by "entering" the palace, they were going into RL. Strahd is actually guarding the remains, and the party needs to get a piece of that. So I am interweaving the land, and some of the encounters (The Amber Temple, meeting the Vistani, and meeting Strahd himself) as part of the adventure. They aren't expected to necessarily face Strahd, but if/when they go to the castle, we'll see what happens.

 

[Sloblock]

after a bit of a break we are heading into Argynvostholt, and the joy that a spooky mansion brings. so far my PCs are outside of the mansion and just about to go in....

I was wondering how others have played this, did you add anything extra? did you hand wave the empty rooms?

 

[Ganymede81]

after a bit of a break we are heading into Argynvostholt, and the joy that a spooky mansion brings. so far my PCs are outside of the mansion and just about to go in....

I was wondering how others have played this, did you add anything extra? did you hand wave the empty rooms?

Fill the empty rooms with visions/hallucinations of the fall of Argynvostholt. I narrated Argynvost's final moments in the Foyer.

 

[Sloblock]

Fill the empty rooms with visions/hallucinations of the fall of Argynvostholt. I narrated Argynvost's final moments in the Foyer.

Thanks for replying. That is a great idea to fill in the back story and fills the room.

Thank you