Expedition to Castle Ravenloft

[I'm A Banana]

This may very well be the first adventure product I EVER purchase. Because it looks like they did EVERYTHING right.

I'm sure they didn't, but it LOOKS good, and that should be supported.

 

[Mercule]

I plan on running this adventure and a Ravenloft campaign if, AND ONLY IF, this is a precursor to bringing more Ravenloft products to 3rd Edition...in other words, a return of the campaign setting.

Otherwise I'm not gonna bother getting it until I can get it used or something way down the line if I ever feel like running the adventure.

My translator interpretted this as "I'm not going to vote with my dollars unless I know my vote doesn't count." Just sayin'.

Anyway, I'm definitely getting this. I especially like the fact that it looks like it has suggestions for fitting this into a single "Special" session and/or a quick-play short arc.

 

[MerricB]

How did Ravenloft as a setting take away the possibility of doing horror adventures in "normal" D&D?

It didn't kill personal DMs creating horror adventures; it set back the art of generic horror adventures in published D&D many years. (Or maybe that was Jean Rabe's fault. See Terrible Trouble in Tragidore).

The original Ravenloft adventure could easily fit into a normal Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms adventure despite the framing mechanism (which makes it possibly part of a demiplane). By the time the ravenloft setting came along, TSR were in their phase of "anything worth doing is worth doing to excess."

Feast of Goblyns - an adventure I've run adapted for Greyhawk - in its original form, commits a terrible sin. "Who cares what happens?" The PCs want to survive, yes. However, what are the consequences of failure? Nothing. A new evil domain of Ravenloft is created. So what? There are dozens already. In my version of it, a new horror was unleashed on the World of Greyhawk when the PCs mucked up. (There'll be consequences down the track there...)

By making itself a closed world, the Ravenloft setting renders itself irrelevant to how D&D progresses.

Cheers!

 

[Aaron L]

It didn't kill personal DMs creating horror adventures; it set back the art of generic horror adventures in published D&D many years. (Or maybe that was Jean Rabe's fault. See Terrible Trouble in Tragidore).


Cheers!

Eh. Ive never cared for published adventures anyway, and I tend to completely ignore them, so I guess thats just something that wouldnt occur to me.


However, this looks less to me like an adventure module, and more like a mini campaign sourcebook. I'll definately be getting this, as soon as I can save up the money.

 

[BOZ]

definitely looks interesting - i'm going to have to check it out!

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Meh. Undead adventures are lame in 3e and always will be, no matter what classic name you throw on it. Until level draining comes back, undead will just be another monster. It might work as a low level adventure where characters don't have access to restoration spells, but otherwise, just another adventure. Maybe a GOOD adventure, but definitely not scary. When I ran Ravenloft back in the day, the players were scared out of their wits at every sound. They love their precious levels, heheh.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm starting to think I can work this into Ptolus as an outlying community that's normally cut off from the world. A lot of the religious iconography of the original module fits in very well with Lothianism, and Monte left a lot of the former kings in Praemal unnamed and has already expanded the Big Book's list of saints in the Delver's Guild, and adding a few more wouldn't be hard ...

Hmmm, this could be a lot of very evil fun.

The "new" feats look like Libris Mortis reprints, though, which is my only quibble. Well, that and I'd like to see a few more genre-appropriate new monsters, but that's a minor, minor complaint.

 

[BOZ]

Meh. Undead adventures are lame in 3e and always will be, no matter what classic name you throw on it. Until level draining comes back, undead will just be another monster. It might work as a low level adventure where characters don't have access to restoration spells, but otherwise, just another adventure. Maybe a GOOD adventure, but definitely not scary. When I ran Ravenloft back in the day, the players were scared out of their wits at every sound. They love their precious levels, heheh.

the DM can always give undead their energy draining abilities back, for the small price of bumping up the CR by +1 or +2.

 

[Arnwyn]

I'll definitely be getting it, as I've always liked the original Ravenloft adventure (the campaign setting, OTOH, can die in horrible flames).

However, I am very disappointed at the level range.

 

[Shemeska]

The ToC has my interest certainly.

I just hope it's not watered down and generic'ized to the point of not reflecting the actual domain of Barovia in Ravenloft. Hopefully they'll actually give a brief discussion of the mists etc, ways to incorporate the demiplane into various worlds, ways to strip it of its demiplane status and just use it as generic creepy place X, etc.

I worry that it'll try to model itself after just the 1e adventure to the ignorance of the massive detailing it got as part of a setting in 2e. Hopefully I'm proven wrong.

And yes, I suppose I'm still holding out a silly hope of some offhand reference to Inajiira. *chuckle*