D&D 5E Horror and Ravenloft adventure poll

[MerricB]

Just to get a feel for how the audience is split, which of these options would be your preferred format for a horror Adventure Path...

#1: Horror in a regular campaign setting
There are places in the Realms (or Greyhawk, or Eberron, or wherever) where the forces of darkness are just a little stronger. Where things are going wrong. There you have to deal with some unsettling problems.

#2: A visit to Ravenloft
Ravenloft, the Demiplane of Dread, holds many forms of Gothic Horror, and occasionally it ensnares people from your regular world. The adventure finds your PCs drawn through the mists, where they must survive, deal with the problem, and escape!

#3: A full Ravenloft campaign adventure
Your characters are natives of the setting. There's no escape, but perhaps your actions can make the darkness a little less bleak. For a while, at least!

#4: Please, not a horror adventure!
You dislike horror adventures and would not use or play one.

 

[I'm A Banana]

My preference is definitely #3.

My prediction would be #2.

But I would absolutely prefer #3. Part of what I like about other settings is the possibility to play different kinds of heroes and tell different kinds of stories. A "weekend in Hell" or "you're trapped, now escape!" plotline doesn't carry that appeal -you're tourists. As a New Yorker, I don't want to be a tourist.

Think of how different Out of the Abyss would be if the players were underdark natives! Think of drow and svirfneblin and duergar heroes fighting against their own madness as they liberate their homes from the Demon Lords! That story's got some meat on its bones, some character motivation that "you're all flung into the Underdark for a while, figure out how to escape!" doesn't have.

Not that a tourism standpoint is bad, per se, just that it doesn't have part of what I love about other settings: that they enable fundamentally different heroes with fundamentally different stories. It's weak, it's unconnected, it's not really invested.

Give me a native's perspective any day! From a Ravenloft perspective, give me a chance to be those native characters. Let me be the person who has lived their lives under the shadow of Strahd. Let me be towns-person paranoid, but motivated to change something. Let me be a character who knows that evil cannot be defeated, but it can be quieted. Let be be the sister or the father of Strahd's latest victim. Let me be a member of the clandestine organizations. I don't want to hear about their stories as a rootless murderhobo with a shiny sword and shiny flaming sword and decide to do something about it, I want to be the characters with some investment in the setting.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

My group just doesn't do horror gaming well, the atmosphere doesn't really work with us. Zero chance of me running this AP but that was probably the case regardless.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I'm in full agreement with the anthropomorphic plantain on this one.

 

[Saeviomagy]

How about #5 - what's a horror adventure? To me I never really saw much difference between ravenloft and your everyday average adventure.

 

[MerricB]

My preference is #1. I like using horror as something unexpected and wrong with the world you understand. Horror - for me - loses its impact if its in a setting where you expect that horror. You expect Ravenloft to be horror. It's the point of the setting. But it's not as shocking.

When you have an established world where you can slowly bring the players' attention to the fact things are not as they expect, it's a far better experience in my opinion. The Ravenloft setting mainly denies the possibility of hope if you know anything about it, but that's not the case in (say) Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms.

Cheers!

 

[darjr]

I'd actually love a bit of #1 and #3. As in that bit of horror IS Ravenloft sort of taking over.

But I also predict it'll be #2. As long as it's done well I'd be happy with that.

 

[Psikerlord#]

I hate AP's, but if I am going to be playing in a horror like theme, I prefer the whole campaign to be that way, with supporting madness/sanity mechanics.

 

[Sunseeker]

Ravenloft is more film noir than horror. At least, by modern standards it's no more horror than the original 1931 Dracula is today. I enjoy Ravenloft more for the politics (same reason I like the Underdark) than whatever "horror" value it has. I agree with [MENTION=1013]Flexor the Mighty![/MENTION], my group doesn't do horror well because 1: they're not scardey-cats and 2: they're genre savvy; heck, one of them is a horror fan. It's just not going to work out well.

 

[Huntsman57]

I'd rather it be a full source book and campaign setting. I rather don't like how 5E has been focusing on adventures. I can create my own adventures. I want the framework.