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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Irda Ranger" data-source="post: 3972350" data-attributes="member: 1003">I'm not sure if there's a place for that, or if it's just distracting from the Transylvanian feel that it's going for.  Cthulu certainly isn't necessary to scare PC's; if vampires aren't scaring PC's, it's because the DM is doing something wrong. Anything can be scary. I mean, Cujo is about a dog.Ravenloft is hard to DM because, like Planescape and Dark Sun, it's as much about mood as any rule or setting sourcebook.  You have to work at making sure that everything you do supports this mood, and doesn't detract from it.  DM's who use vampires or were-wolves as just another monster to fight (and gives the PC's all the magical gear they need to dispatch them easily) shouldn't be surprised if the "Ravenloft mood" never materializes.  You have to use pacing and word choice and all those other "writers tools" to keep it working.The least scary story is the one you know the ending to.  The key is suspense.  At first you don't even know what your enemy is (people just disappear).  Once you figure out it's a vampire, you don't know who or where it is.  Once you do that, you still can't know if you'll win (this is important; the fights should be hard, and any PC that falls to a vampire or were-wolf or necromancer, and gets left behind, should be used by the DM to come back and attack the remaining PC's to remind them of the price of failure).  And all along you don't know if you solve the puzzle in time to save your allies, your friends or yourself.I suspect that Ravenloft's greatest diversion from 4E may be the return of near-instant kills.  Part of playing in a horror game is the reminder of your own mortality, and that just can't happen when you have 100+ HP and no way of losing them except slow attrition.  To do his job a DM needs to be able to kill you with a silent knife in the dark, or a single soul-sucking kiss.</blockquote>

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