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Everything We Know About The Ravenloft Book
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<blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 8209713" data-attributes="member: 5948"><p>This is a very 'your mileage may vary' opinion, but for me the 'weekend in hell' thing just never really worked. It seemed kinda cheap and consequence-free. Can it be a fun adventure? Sure, but you can do the same with a sidequest to a vampire's castle in Faerun or somewhere.</p><p></p><p>If a horror setting is nothing but different flavours of horror all the time, the whole thing risks being cheapened into the most parody-worthy sort of grimderp. Horror lacks impact unless there's normality to contrast it against. Even in the most everything-is-awful settings like survivalist post-zombie apocalypse worlds, the normality exists in memory, and in scraps and artifacts and leftovers, to contrast with the present and remind people of what has been lost.</p><p></p><p>But with a weekend in hell - my PCs have no investment in this place, they've probably never been here before, they don't know any of the people, their families and friends aren't here, it's just one evening it got a bit misty and suddenly poof, we're doing a Halloween-themed adventure today, and next week we'll be back to bashing orcs or whatever. There's no lasting consequences to the world, There's no slow burn. If you fail to stop your sister being turned into a vampire, (which you won't, because your sister is back in normality and didn't take the trip here with you) then you won't have to deal with the guilt and wrestle with the dilemma of what to do about her once she starts killing, or be horrified when she shows up smiling with a seat on the town council, or mourn her once she's gone. Meh meh and double meh.</p><p></p><p>That's what the Core and Ravenloft-as-a-setting-rather-than-holiday-destination gave us. Context to the horror, and normality for the horror to lurk underneath. Now it's quite possible that new Ravenloft will still do this. This is fantasy, it's perfectly 'reasonable' fantasy to have fantasy world denizens live in a realm bounded by mists and only be able to travel to other lands with the aid of experienced guides etc, and to be able to live perfectly mundane lives like that and never think it was weird at all because that's just the way the world it where they come from. So I'm not going to chuck the baby out with the bathwater here. but CoS was probably a fun adventure, but i really think it's a bad template to use once WotC expand Ravenloft to something that's meant to resemble and actual coherent world. Wall to wall gonzo monsters around every corner, who seem to outnumber regular people many, many times, and regular people only exist for monsters to prey on, and the only people in the place with any agency seem to be the PCs. It's a theme park, not a <em>setting</em>.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="humble minion, post: 8209713, member: 5948"] This is a very 'your mileage may vary' opinion, but for me the 'weekend in hell' thing just never really worked. It seemed kinda cheap and consequence-free. Can it be a fun adventure? Sure, but you can do the same with a sidequest to a vampire's castle in Faerun or somewhere. If a horror setting is nothing but different flavours of horror all the time, the whole thing risks being cheapened into the most parody-worthy sort of grimderp. Horror lacks impact unless there's normality to contrast it against. Even in the most everything-is-awful settings like survivalist post-zombie apocalypse worlds, the normality exists in memory, and in scraps and artifacts and leftovers, to contrast with the present and remind people of what has been lost. But with a weekend in hell - my PCs have no investment in this place, they've probably never been here before, they don't know any of the people, their families and friends aren't here, it's just one evening it got a bit misty and suddenly poof, we're doing a Halloween-themed adventure today, and next week we'll be back to bashing orcs or whatever. There's no lasting consequences to the world, There's no slow burn. If you fail to stop your sister being turned into a vampire, (which you won't, because your sister is back in normality and didn't take the trip here with you) then you won't have to deal with the guilt and wrestle with the dilemma of what to do about her once she starts killing, or be horrified when she shows up smiling with a seat on the town council, or mourn her once she's gone. Meh meh and double meh. That's what the Core and Ravenloft-as-a-setting-rather-than-holiday-destination gave us. Context to the horror, and normality for the horror to lurk underneath. Now it's quite possible that new Ravenloft will still do this. This is fantasy, it's perfectly 'reasonable' fantasy to have fantasy world denizens live in a realm bounded by mists and only be able to travel to other lands with the aid of experienced guides etc, and to be able to live perfectly mundane lives like that and never think it was weird at all because that's just the way the world it where they come from. So I'm not going to chuck the baby out with the bathwater here. but CoS was probably a fun adventure, but i really think it's a bad template to use once WotC expand Ravenloft to something that's meant to resemble and actual coherent world. Wall to wall gonzo monsters around every corner, who seem to outnumber regular people many, many times, and regular people only exist for monsters to prey on, and the only people in the place with any agency seem to be the PCs. It's a theme park, not a [I]setting[/I]. [/QUOTE]
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