D&D 5E Everything We Know About The Ravenloft Book

Here is a list of everything we know so far about the upcoming Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft.

Art by Paul Scott Canavan​

• May 18th, 256 pages
• 30 domains (with 30 villainous darklords)
• Barovia (Strahd), Dementlieu (twisted fairly tales), Lamordia (flesh golem), Falkovnia (zombies), Kalakeri (Indian folklore, dark rainforests), Valachan (hunting PCs for sport), Lamordia (mad science)
• NPCs include Esmerelda de’Avenir, Weathermay-Foxgrove twins, traveling detective Alanik Ray.
• Large section on setting safe boundaries.
• Dark Gifts are character traits with a cost.
• College of Spirits (bard storytellers who manipulate spirits of folklore) and Undead Patron (warlock) subclasses.
• Dhampir, Reborn, and Hexblood lineages.
• Cultural consultants used.
• Fresh take on Vistani.
• 40 pages of monsters. Also nautical monsters in Sea of Sorrows.
• 20 page adventure called The House of Lament - haunted house, spirits, seances.

​

D&D 5E - Full Wraparound Cover Art For Ravenloft

We've seen the cover already, but here's a look at the full wraparound art by Anna Podedworna. https://www.enworld.org/threads/updated-with-cover-the-d-d-book-is-van-richtens-guide-to-ravenloft.678411/ https://www.enworld.org/threads/heres-the-ravenloft-alternate-cover.678414/...

www.enworld.org

D&D 5E - Here's the Ravenloft Alternate Cover!

As usual, there is an alternate hobby-store exclusive cover for the upcoming Ravenloft book. Here's a look at it! And here's the full wraparound art. https://www.enworld.org/threads/updated-with-cover-the-d-d-book-is-van-richtens-guide-to-ravenloft.678411/...

www.enworld.org

D&D 5E - [Updated with cover!] The D&D Book Is.... Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft!

Yesterday's hints that a new D&D book would be announced today have born fruit -- we now have a product description and a title! It's a Ravenloft setting book, with tools and new rules for horror-themed games, and new horror-themed character options. I'll update this post with a product image as...

www.enworld.org

 

[Bedrockgames]

As I said before, I think it’s appropriate to call Ravenloft a horror setting for D&D, which I don’t think it’s appropriate to call a horror game.

I played TORG-ORORSH, Cthulhu, Vampire and Ravenloft all through high school: all of them can be scary. Some of our most frightening sessions were Ravenloft sessions. The power scale in D&D is so big, and 2E was lethal enough, that I found it pretty easy to scare players (nothing like Level drain to unnerve people)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But I think something that recurs in this thread as a theme is a total dismissal of what came before as less scary, and I would argue that isn't true.

I think that's a projection on your part. I'm not seeing any total dismissal, just seeing a trend - and I see that trend and supported it with actual argumentation as to why it's happening.

I think you yourself are rather overlooking that a lot of horror through the years hasn't been very scary.

Sometimes old people are right.

About this sort of thing? Pretty much never. This is subjective and cultural. Claiming "music was better in my day", which is effectively the approach you're replicating is usually laughably wrong for example.

My point is people who simply assume modern horror movies are more scary than old ones because they are accustomed to the technique and special effects are as wrong as we were in the 80s thinking our movies were more scary than stuff from the 70s, 50s and 30s (and this became apparent to me the deeper I dove into that old material). We probably won't have a good idea of where the past decade stands and where now stands for a good 20 or 30 years (just look at how looked down upon 80s music was int he 90s and even into the early 2000s, and now it has gained a lot of credibility as a period of interesting music....and who knows what people will think of it in 30 years, good or bad).

But what you're still not quite getting is that for modern audiences modern horror is, typically, more scary in a very easy to demonstrate and personal way - it scares them more. You can't really argue with that.

As for in 20 years, who knows. I think a bunch of stuff will stand out and people will absolutely see the '00s as a horror golden age (even though I'm not a fan of a lot of that stuff), because there was tons of it, it was novel, and it was culturally influential. The '10s? Harder to say. I don't think so, because whilst there have been some important horror movies, horror movies as a genre have been less culturally important and influential (TV horror has been coming up though - much of it quite gothic and camp in a Ravenloft-y way, but also usually extremely sexual and often violent in a way that would make Strahd cover his innocent eyes with his cape and run away hissing! Ryan Murphy being responsible for a large fraction of it).

As an aside, I'd actually say the horror movies that tend to survive are not the scariest ones (which are often not even the best ones), but rather the ones which are scary and tell a good story. Some of them are actually towards the lower end of the scary scale, esp. '80s ones. It's not always true though. Don't Look Now is still profoundly creepy though perhaps not very scary, for example.

Personally I find arthouse horror made less for fans of the genre and more for elite audiences. It just isn't really for me.

I dunno what this is referring to? Is this some kind of weird-ass zing on The VVitch, Midsommar, Hereditary, The Babadook and so on? Because the idea that they're "for elite audiences" is a weird way of saying "for people younger than me" lol. These are mainstream movies. Or are you taking aim at something I'm missing?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

(nothing like Level drain to unnerve people)

I feel like "horrifying mechanics" are sometimes an underrated part of the horror experience in RPGs. If you hit the PLAYERS where it hurts by permanently damaging but not killing their characters (esp. if there's no way for some irritating Cleric to trivialize it by curing it next downtime) that tends to create an extra level of horror which some games just don't engage with. Killing them usually upsets them less than level-drain in my experience. I've never seen anyone ragequit D&D because their character died. I've even seen people cheer for that because they got to make a new one. I have seen it happen because of multi-level level-drain (I mean, he came back eventually but wow).

The problem is that sort of mechanic probably needs to be specific to "Horror D&D", rather than generalized.

EDIT - Also an important part of this working to cause horror/fear is that they know about it. If some monster touches them and level-drains them and they had no idea, it just feels like a "DM dick move", even though it probably isn't, and there's no drama or horror just annoyance, for that player anyway. If the PCs know they're chasing something that level-drains (or being chased by it), and that they need to be careful to avoid it, the drama and horror potential is huge. I guess it's like jump-scare vs proper horror even.

 

[tetrasodium]

I feel like "horrifying mechanics" are sometimes an underrated part of the horror experience in RPGs. If you hit the PLAYERS where it hurts by permanently damaging their characters (esp. if there's no way for some irritating Cleric to trivialize it by curing it next downtime) that tends to create an extra level of horror which some games just don't engage with.

The problem is that sort of mechanic probably needs to be specific to "Horror D&D", rather than generalized.

It's too early to say if there will be useful mechanics towards that end based on the ToC alone, but on the point about 2e & power scales being so different there might be some guidance to backup the gm on stripping back some of the more egregiously offending abilities to at least make room for tension added elsewhere to matter.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I feel like "horrifying mechanics" are sometimes an underrated part of the horror experience in RPGs. If you hit the PLAYERS where it hurts by permanently damaging but not killing their characters (esp. if there's no way for some irritating Cleric to trivialize it by curing it next downtime) that tends to create an extra level of horror which some games just don't engage with. Killing them usually upsets them less than level-drain in my experience. I've never seen anyone ragequit D&D because their character died. I've even seen people cheer for that because they got to make a new one. I have seen it happen because of multi-level level-drain (I mean, he came back eventually but wow).

The problem is that sort of mechanic probably needs to be specific to "Horror D&D", rather than generalized.

EDIT - Also an important part of this working to cause horror/fear is that they know about it. If some monster touches them and level-drains them and they had no idea, it just feels like a "DM dick move", even though it probably isn't, and there's no drama or horror just annoyance, for that player anyway. If the PCs know they're chasing something that level-drains (or being chased by it), and that they need to be careful to avoid it, the drama and horror potential is huge. I guess it's like jump-scare vs proper horror even.

Level drain works but it only works if people don't rage quit (which varies from table to table, and is more or less common in different periods of gaming). I like the power of level drain, it really makes a life draining undead scary (and I agree it is one place where meta-knowledge is useful). I quite liked how horror and fear checks worked as well (because the loss of control made characters very vulnerable. The two most effective tools I have noticed over the years are mechanics like level drain and mechanics like paralysis. Those terrify players

 

[Charlaquin]

I played TORG-ORORSH, Cthulhu, Vampire and Ravenloft all through high school: all of them can be scary. Some of our most frightening sessions were Ravenloft sessions. The power scale in D&D is so big, and 2E was lethal enough, that I found it pretty easy to scare players (nothing like Level drain to unnerve people)

I didn’t say D&D can’t be scary...?

 

[Bedrockgames]

I didn’t say D&D can’t be scary...?

I am not sure what you meant then by it isn't a horror game

 

[Bedrockgames]

About this sort of thing? Pretty much never. This is subjective and cultural. Claiming "music was better in my day", which is effectively the approach you're replicating is usually laughably wrong for example.

I never said 'music was better in my day' or 'movies were better in my day'. I said dismissing older media because you are only accustomed to new media is narrow-minded and will negatively impact your ability to operate in a genre or in a musical style. Saying music in my day was better isn't any more sound than 'music in your time was worse'. Which is my point. When it comes to elders leveling criticism at a current generation, there is often truth in what they say because they've seen it before. Obviously that can be taken to the extreme of "music in my day was better", but the other side too often just takes comfort in shouting "go away old man".

 

[tetrasodium]

I didn’t say D&D can’t be scary...?

5e empties the quiver & does a lot of stuff to make players feel cofident in any situation. Without terrifying mechanics like level 2e drain & 3.x attribute damage in their quiver the GM is left with needing to devote aa larger chunk of the scary to the practice of targeting the players more so than the payer' fears for their characters. I can do it & have even done it with player who want that kind of dark game but it's not d&d that's scary at that point. When you add things like 5e's wolverine/deadpool in looney toons levels of durability for the average PC the gm needs to crank that intensity up accordingly to overcome that confidence.

 

[Charlaquin]

I am not sure what you meant then by it isn't a horror game

Horror is a genre - a loosely defined set of conventions, tropes, and common themes that characterize certain works of fiction. Not everything scary falls into the horror genre, and not everything that falls into the horror genre is necessarily scary. Fear is often one of the emotional responses works of horror try to evoke in their audience, but it isn’t always successful. And often, non-horror works will evoke a fear response in at least some of their audience members, intentionally or unintentionally.

When I say “D&D isn’t horror,” I’m not saying D&D isn’t, can’t be, or shouldn’t try to be scary. I’m saying its conventions, tropes, and themes, taken holistically, don’t fall under those associated with the horror genre. Typically speaking. Obviously you can include horror conventions, tropes, and themes in D&D, and the result might be something that could reasonably be described as horror. But I don’t think the game as-written is particularly well-suited to it.

Ravenloft, as a setting, does employ many of the tropes, conventions, and common themes of horror, so I think describing it as a “horror setting” is very fitting. Playing a game that is not horror by design, in a setting that is, can create a very interesting genre mashup. I think that’s the primary appeal of Ravenloft. And, of course, you can adjust the dials to find the balance of adventure, horror, and fantasy that feels right for your purposes.