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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 8209129">The advantage of having a core was it was a good foundation for campaigns. The potential issue if they are all islands of is less freedom of movement. The reason I loved the classic Ravenloft set up was you had a core, which a lot of players seemed to like because they weren't stuck in one domain, and it gave a bit of variety, freedom, etc (thought the lords could always close the borders), but you also had the islands (and later the clusters). To me that was the best of both worlds. I do hear you on the dreaminess. It is one of the reasons I liked the original core rather than the post grand conjunction one. The old core had more varied domains that weren't all vaguely european (mostly eastern european). After the grand conjunction, the core felt more cohesive, but I saw that as a flaw rather than a strength (I preferred having things like Bluetspur, G'henna and the nightmare lands as part of the core). I will say I liked some of the post grand conjunction changes, but I kind of prefer my core a little disjoined and stitched together. On the dreaming island front, you do make a good point there. I actually tried to do something like that when I did Strange Tales of Songling (it was inspired by Chinese supernatural accounts, but there was a Ravenloft-like dreamy-floating island thing I tried to incorporate). It worked well for one shots and short series of monster of the week adventures (which is what I was trying to do). But one downside was for less structured campaigns, and longer campaigns, it was harder (so I shifted away from that for those ones). I think there is upsides and downsides here. For me, and again this is just my opinion, don't expect everyone to share it, that first boxed set really caught lightning in a bottle and the line (particularly the early material) was just great. I think I am not really the target audience for this as I am in my mid-40s (realized I incorrectly said 43 earlier, actually 44). So this is for a younger audience who is more accustomed to 5E and to current fantasy aesthetics. But I thought the Ravenloft line worked well. I had so many campaigns there, and many of the complaints I do see, just were never an issue for me (often the things people don't like were things I liked about it).</blockquote>

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