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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 9468400" data-attributes="member: 85555">Definitely something I think people might not realize is how these modules were hacked, adapted, and used for parts for peoples campaigns. So when people praise a given module from that era, they may not always be talking about things like the adventure structure, but about its individual elements I played through the 90s and was a Ravenloft GM. I also had a lot of Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance material from TSR. And I was playing quite a wide variety of games. I think there was definitely a heavier tendency towards GM as storyteller and railroads, but this existed alongside other styles. in terms of TSR modules, those could vary a lot. Ravenloft is probably not the best indicator of the 2E line, because it was trying to do something very specific and very different form a lot of the other settings. It was also used differently at most tables. For example it was typically run more as a weekend in hell for special occasions like Halloween. It prioritized atmosphere and capturing a classic horror and gothic mood as well as many of the literary tropes. So a GM might run Ravenloft very different from their campaign set in Faerun. Another thing, maybe the most important thing, that drove Ravenloft was a goal of achieving fear and horror, and to do that, it was baked into the setting that the rules of the universe operated differently than they did other campaigns. Player agency was not the focus because it wasn't about exploring dungeons as much as it was about realizing your 10th level character, who on paper should be able to stand to to toe with the Vampire tracking the party, can't because setting emphasized customizing monsters in order to thwart expectations and reduce metagaming. And this was done often with a spirit of bending to rules to achieve that. That said, even the Ravenloft line wasn't purely about Railroads. But they often happened in modules (they even happened in some of the better modules). And there was a lot in the line that worked towards a more open structure of play (the living adventure concept in Feast of Goblyns for example and the way the Van Richter books gave you tools to run monster hunts). But it was done in a time when story was more important than rules To give an example, at the start of From the Shadows, the players are pretty much set up against an impossible foe so they can be decapitated and awaken with their heads separated from their bodies in Azalin's lab in Darkon. It actually does say not to fudge, but that is only because the combat is already so heavily weighted against the players: [ATTACH=full]380947[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]380948[/ATTACH]It has been a very long time since I ran this (and I have been considering running it again, as written, this month if I have time). I remember the castle exploration portion of the adventure actually being quite good. When I ran it in the 90s, I also remember my players not minding the heavy handed hook, but I think today most players would object to it unless you informed them ahead of time you were running a 90s adventure without changes just to play it on its own terms and that might include some railroads (this is what I have been doing when I run 90s Ravenloft adventures without alterations) The other thing is the main reason to get this module, at least in my opinion, was the map and description of Castle Avernus (the Ravenloft maps were often exceptionally good)</blockquote>

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