TSR How Did I Survive AD&D? Fudging and Railroads, Apparently

[SteveC]

Ravenloft may consistently reset itself, but so does Forgotten Realms. So does Greyhawk, whose default state is to perpetually be on the brink of war. So does Eberron. In fact, we want these things set in these unmoving states and when designers have tried to advanced timelines and materially change the tone of the setting, they generally are not well received as in the case of the Greyhawk Wars, or the various catastrophes that hit Forgotten Realms and are eventually undone.

I think this is a really good point. It comes from the fact that if the heroes keep winning, what is there left to do? Eventually you "win" and things genuinely do get better for everyone, at least in a game where characters reach the power to affect things on a global level. I think of Pathfinder's world, since that's what I'm running. If you've played Wrath of the Righteous (I've played the Video Game) or Kingmaker (ditto on the Video game) you end up making HUGE changes to the world. I guess another big bad just has to come along and start to wreck things in order to have another group of zero to hero adventurers fix it.

I think eventually you get to a deconstructionist game where you take that into account. Since I'm thinking about Ravenloft, I'll recommend Puffin Forest's Ravenloft campaign. In it, Strahd realizes that whatever happens, he's going to come back, the Mists are going to come back, and ... it's all going to start over again. He hatches a plan to change it.

I think that you can either just accept that a game has a starting point and start all of your games there, or take what happens into account and have the world really change. The problem with that second idea is that what comes next may not be nearly as interesting as what it used to be.

 

[Voadam]

You can run multiple big campaigns in the same world where the players win each time and the world goes on with your changes.

Ravenloft has lots of Darklords. One campaign beats Strahd? The next is set in the realm of Mordenheim and Adam. Or Har' Akir with a mummy theme. Or Darkon with the Kargat and the wizard king.

Golarion has lots of kingdoms with their own villains. Beat the apocalypse demon in Wrath of the Righteous and save the world from demonic invasion? Take on the Witch Queen of Irrisen in your next campaign. There are tons of different Adventure Paths set in the same world.

 

[Bedrockgames]

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Ravenloft took the heroic fantasy of D&D and upended it (something they did in a bunch of the 2e settings, really). Any victories the PCs might have were temporary. Evil could never be truly defeated in Ravenloft.

This is true, but you could still permanently kill dark lords.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

That's kind of point of setting imho. Land itself is evil. Darklords could be killed like normal creatures ( roll initiative, drop them to 0 hp, they die, same as any other monster) but they would rise again, or someone else would take their place. They could be defeated ( special ways unique to most darklords), but at best, domain closes down, fog comes in and everyone finds themselves in another domain. Escaping the mists (dark powers) is exercise in futility. That was true horror of Ravenloft. No matter how big hero you are, no matter how many monsters you defeat, no matter what moral choices you make, Evil still rules over land. To tell that kind of stories, players need to buy into it. They need to give away some of their agency and trust DM.

Running a proper horror game requires a whole lot of trust and buy-in, to be sure. All games do to some extent, but the needs of horror are particularly greater.

This is true, but you could still permanently kill dark lords.

My groups never got to that level of power (unless you count running the pre-setting I6), but my recollection of the 2e books is that that was a DM call, and that some Darklords would just eventually return, to continue their punishment. That being said, as @GrimCo pointed out above, the evil of Ravenloft goes far deeper than just the Darklords, and is not something PCs should be able to ever defeat.

 

[GrimCo]

This is true, but you could still permanently kill dark lords.

Some of them quite easily in straight up combat. Darklords of Borca are Ivana Boritsi and Ivan Dilisnya, both 0-lv humans. 8hp, AC10, THC0 20. Except poison kiss and poison touch, they have nothing special. Regular humans.

In 2ed Domains of Dread, when you read descriptions of domains, they explicitly say that domains are prisons for their Darklords and refers to Darklords as prisoners, which they are. Dark Powers, who control domains of dread, are true vilians of that setting. Also, you can't face them, can't fight them.

 

[Bedrockgames]

My groups never got to that level of power (unless you count running the pre-setting I6), but my recollection of the 2e books is that that was a DM call, and that some Darklords would just eventually return, to continue their punishment. That being said, as @GrimCo pointed out above, the evil of Ravenloft goes far deeper than just the Darklords, and is not something PCs should be able to ever defeat.

Ultimately it was the GMs call. But tt depended on the Darklord. They all mostly could be killed. But there were often strict requirements for doing so permanently or they would return in some form. However some were relatively weak and could be killed normally too. But killing them is not the stated goal. In the black box is recommends that escaping alive is more the point than destroying them. It even recommends creating lords away from the core if your intention is for them to be killed by the party

 

[Bedrockgames]

Some of them quite easily in straight up combat. Darklords of Borca are Ivana Boritsi and Ivan Dilisnya, both 0-lv humans. 8hp, AC10, THC0 20. Except poison kiss and poison touch, they have nothing special. Regular humans.

In 2ed Domains of Dread, when you read descriptions of domains, they explicitly say that domains are prisons for their Darklords and refers to Darklords as prisoners, which they are. Dark Powers, who control domains of dread, are true vilians of that setting. Also, you can't face them, can't fight them.

The dark powers were never meant to be confronted or even explained as I recall. It is a good point that the line shifted over time. The Domains of Dread book turns it more into a full setting and tweaks the flavor a bit too.

I think it might even call them prisoners in the black box. Not sure. But I don't take that to mean they can never die (possible I am forgetting a detail here of course). Though a GM who decided the mists wanted to restore a dead dark lord to keep them prisoner is well within their right.

 

[Umbran]

It really struck me yesterday listening to a podcast, but Ravenloft's default setting is one where evil is the dominant force, and so the heroes are fighting an uphill battle, but in reality, none of the official D&D settings ever evolve in such a way that demonstrates the impact of player agency.

Yes, well, how could they? The people who write the setting don't know what happens at your table, and cannot change the setting in response to the specifics of your agency - your own GM has to do that.

 

[GrimCo]

I have read only Ravenloft campaign setting and Domains of dread, Van Richten guides plus some novels from TSR era. Black box? You mean Ravenloft box set?

Personally, i like 2ed Ravenloft. It's solid world building. Sure better than sorry excuse we got in 5e (VR guide to Ravenloft is pure drek).

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I think this is a really good point. It comes from the fact that if the heroes keep winning, what is there left to do? Eventually you "win" and things genuinely do get better for everyone, at least in a game where characters reach the power to affect things on a global level. I think of Pathfinder's world, since that's what I'm running. If you've played Wrath of the Righteous (I've played the Video Game) or Kingmaker (ditto on the Video game) you end up making HUGE changes to the world. I guess another big bad just has to come along and start to wreck things in order to have another group of zero to hero adventurers fix it.

I think eventually you get to a deconstructionist game where you take that into account. Since I'm thinking about Ravenloft, I'll recommend Puffin Forest's Ravenloft campaign. In it, Strahd realizes that whatever happens, he's going to come back, the Mists are going to come back, and ... it's all going to start over again. He hatches a plan to change it.

Well, I did run a deconstructionist "regular" D&D game where the issue was that there were these roving bands of people who kept killing every thing indiscriminately, looted sacred tombs, operated as if they were above the law, and regularly wrecked the economy of entire countries by dumping gold and gems into it without any concerns for the severe economic shocks that this caused. Worse, they never even paid taxes on their ill-gotten gains.

The players controlled characters who were charged with tracking, finding, and terminating (with extreme prejudice) these scofflaws.