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Enhancing "Curse of Strahd" (and DDAL adventures)
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<blockquote data-quote="hastur_nz" data-source="post: 7105360" data-attributes="member: 40592"><p>Yes, that is in fact what Chris Perkins recommends and it worked well for my group. There will always be random encounters, side-treks, role-play for its own sake, etc. But the players all know, that to level up, they need to accomplish actual goals. In my game, they didn't always know exactly what they needed to do to level-up, but it wasn't exactly hard to have an idea, and it drove a decent amount of focus instead of just being a random walk in a sandbox. It can also help avoid the usual 'kill things, take their stuff' of D&D, because killing people doesn't get you any closer to leveling up (and 5e doesn't need much loot, except magic items of which CoS doesn't have a lot lol).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That sounds quite extreme, but if you've thought about the pacing of the adventure, and can make it work, sure why not. Personally I run all my games now with a simple variant from the DMG, where you just don't recover any hp from an overnight rest, so you have to use spells and hit dice before going to sleep; that doesn't slow the game much at all, but at least makes resource management a little more relevant and means PC's can't always steam-roll the adventure on a completely relentless and unrealistic schedule. I'd just wonder that if you slow the game down to a weekly cycle, how do you deal with what everyone does on their weeks off - not just the PC's, but all the NPC's - as written, the adventure is pretty static, and you have to start making up a lot of "what's next" - if you slow it down from days into weeks, then you've got a lot more work to do, or it all become static again i.e. NPC's all just sit around waiting for the PC's to be ready again...</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I'd recommend you scrap that idea immediately. I can't see how it could enhance the experience, vs the risk of making it worse. D&D is a game, with some abstractions, to keep it simple and fun enough for everyone.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Personally, I don't think it matters one bit where the PC's 'home world' is, it's completely irrelevant to the actual adventure. In my game, I said it started with PC's from Forgotten Realms (not my favourite setting, by any means), and then the only time it ever featured in the game was a couple of vague mentions from me, as back-story elements, which made zero difference to the players or the rest of the game. The adventure assumes the PC's are drawn into Strahd's Domain, and their main focus is to escape; once they escape, it's game over; the whole campaign effectively starts and ends in Barovia. So whatever back-story elements the players come up with, should be focused on what might actually be relevant in the adventure. For example, here are some from my game, which the players made up with minimal change from me:</p><p></p><p>1) human knight, experienced leader of a large company; fell battling evil, waking up (in Barovia) with amnesia accompanied only by his flag-bearer, bugler, and squire (and went back to level 1, as he'd largely forgotten his skills and training etc). The back-story of how he got to Barovia wasn't important - what was important was that he spent the campaign slowly getting himself back into fighting shape (i.e. leveling up), finding his henchmen who had scattered earlier (then watching them die lol), and basically trying to get back home.</p><p></p><p>2) goliath warrior, the 'local monster' of the central forest, who found the hilt of the sun-sword, which compelled him to 'not be evil'; he became a bit of a folk hero type, joined the other PC's, and tried to activate the sun-sword's full abilities (which finally happened late in the game, and lead to his death, after which he came back a revenant). Again, the back-story was only important in that he was a local but non-human; his motive was to activate the sun-sword (which got him killed, twice, lol)</p><p></p><p>3) the rest were basically drawn in against their free will, somewhat motivated to help people and/or just help themselves get back out - the fact they came from somewhere in the forgotten realsmwas completely irrelevant, except for one (the warlock) who we said was an old associate of the knight; except that the knight didn't even remember him; so who knows, in fact that warlock ended up turning evil and joining Strahd, after their time in the Amber Temple, so he ended up and NPC then (of course) eventually was dead.</p><p></p><p>Lastly, @"DEFCON 1" made a very good point - try not to plan out the whole adventure before it even begins. The best thing I ever did when running this campaign, was making sure that I spent a few hours in between <strong>every session</strong>, thinking about what went on prior, and what might happen next. And by next, I primarily mean what might happen <strong>next session</strong>. </p><p></p><p>To start with, I skim-read the adventure book, then focused purely on Death House (which, for us, was all but finished in one three hour session, BTW). I had just enough knowledge of the Village of Barovia, to help make sure I understood the context of Death House, before and immediately after. For the next session, I re-read the Village of Barovia, the bit about Madame Eva, Random Encounters, and that was about it; enough for the next session or two. And so on. Every session, I'd need to re-read a chapter or two of the book, and think about what the important NPC's were doing, what their plans were, responses to the PC's, and so on. I never had a grand plan, it unfolded as we went along, and it was pretty good. It was hard work at times, but spending that time in between sessions, re-planning, is a part of DMing that I really like.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="hastur_nz, post: 7105360, member: 40592"] Yes, that is in fact what Chris Perkins recommends and it worked well for my group. There will always be random encounters, side-treks, role-play for its own sake, etc. But the players all know, that to level up, they need to accomplish actual goals. In my game, they didn't always know exactly what they needed to do to level-up, but it wasn't exactly hard to have an idea, and it drove a decent amount of focus instead of just being a random walk in a sandbox. It can also help avoid the usual 'kill things, take their stuff' of D&D, because killing people doesn't get you any closer to leveling up (and 5e doesn't need much loot, except magic items of which CoS doesn't have a lot lol). That sounds quite extreme, but if you've thought about the pacing of the adventure, and can make it work, sure why not. Personally I run all my games now with a simple variant from the DMG, where you just don't recover any hp from an overnight rest, so you have to use spells and hit dice before going to sleep; that doesn't slow the game much at all, but at least makes resource management a little more relevant and means PC's can't always steam-roll the adventure on a completely relentless and unrealistic schedule. I'd just wonder that if you slow the game down to a weekly cycle, how do you deal with what everyone does on their weeks off - not just the PC's, but all the NPC's - as written, the adventure is pretty static, and you have to start making up a lot of "what's next" - if you slow it down from days into weeks, then you've got a lot more work to do, or it all become static again i.e. NPC's all just sit around waiting for the PC's to be ready again... I'd recommend you scrap that idea immediately. I can't see how it could enhance the experience, vs the risk of making it worse. D&D is a game, with some abstractions, to keep it simple and fun enough for everyone. Personally, I don't think it matters one bit where the PC's 'home world' is, it's completely irrelevant to the actual adventure. In my game, I said it started with PC's from Forgotten Realms (not my favourite setting, by any means), and then the only time it ever featured in the game was a couple of vague mentions from me, as back-story elements, which made zero difference to the players or the rest of the game. The adventure assumes the PC's are drawn into Strahd's Domain, and their main focus is to escape; once they escape, it's game over; the whole campaign effectively starts and ends in Barovia. So whatever back-story elements the players come up with, should be focused on what might actually be relevant in the adventure. For example, here are some from my game, which the players made up with minimal change from me: 1) human knight, experienced leader of a large company; fell battling evil, waking up (in Barovia) with amnesia accompanied only by his flag-bearer, bugler, and squire (and went back to level 1, as he'd largely forgotten his skills and training etc). The back-story of how he got to Barovia wasn't important - what was important was that he spent the campaign slowly getting himself back into fighting shape (i.e. leveling up), finding his henchmen who had scattered earlier (then watching them die lol), and basically trying to get back home. 2) goliath warrior, the 'local monster' of the central forest, who found the hilt of the sun-sword, which compelled him to 'not be evil'; he became a bit of a folk hero type, joined the other PC's, and tried to activate the sun-sword's full abilities (which finally happened late in the game, and lead to his death, after which he came back a revenant). Again, the back-story was only important in that he was a local but non-human; his motive was to activate the sun-sword (which got him killed, twice, lol) 3) the rest were basically drawn in against their free will, somewhat motivated to help people and/or just help themselves get back out - the fact they came from somewhere in the forgotten realsmwas completely irrelevant, except for one (the warlock) who we said was an old associate of the knight; except that the knight didn't even remember him; so who knows, in fact that warlock ended up turning evil and joining Strahd, after their time in the Amber Temple, so he ended up and NPC then (of course) eventually was dead. Lastly, @"DEFCON 1" made a very good point - try not to plan out the whole adventure before it even begins. The best thing I ever did when running this campaign, was making sure that I spent a few hours in between [B]every session[/B], thinking about what went on prior, and what might happen next. And by next, I primarily mean what might happen [B]next session[/B]. To start with, I skim-read the adventure book, then focused purely on Death House (which, for us, was all but finished in one three hour session, BTW). I had just enough knowledge of the Village of Barovia, to help make sure I understood the context of Death House, before and immediately after. For the next session, I re-read the Village of Barovia, the bit about Madame Eva, Random Encounters, and that was about it; enough for the next session or two. And so on. Every session, I'd need to re-read a chapter or two of the book, and think about what the important NPC's were doing, what their plans were, responses to the PC's, and so on. I never had a grand plan, it unfolded as we went along, and it was pretty good. It was hard work at times, but spending that time in between sessions, re-planning, is a part of DMing that I really like. [/QUOTE]
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