I6 Ravenloft - Your Thoughts

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

What are your thoughts on I6 Ravenloft, or any of its remakes? The original is supposedly one of the best modules ever published and it ends up on Top 10 lists. But what do you think of it? Why does it work, assuming it works?

 

[delericho]

Great adventure. I only got to run about half of it, but even that was enough to be memorable.

Sadly, it has also spawned a whole host of lesser imitators. But that's not really the fault of this adventure itself, of course.

 

[Brock Landers]

Running around d Dracula's castle, but not turgid, what's not to like.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I do like the adventure (especially Expedition to Castle Ravenloft) and I think there are a number of reasons why it works:

1) Almost every room (and even many hallways/staircases) of this exceedingly large castle has something to interact with (beyond just simple combat). There's very few rooms where the PCs just move through without a second thought. Too many other modules have buildings or keeps that are just waypoints towards further locations, or else the occupancy is just random monsters to fight.

2) The Big Bad can and will appear several times over the course of the adventure, more often than not just to taunt the players... because he lets his castle do the exterminating for him. He's arrogant enough that he doesn't feel the need to get his hands dirty (until the very end.) Too many adventures don't have the party even know who the Big Bad is until the "final room", and by then there's been no reason for the group to care about the BB's demise.

3) Several items that help lead to the BB's downfall are scattered around the landscape and within the castle, giving a thrust to the group's movement forward. They aren't just traipsing around just to sightsee... there's a reason for their attentive exploration.

4) The Vistani card readings that give you different results each time not only keeps the players interested, it forces the DM to come up with new ways to get players from one place to another organically. Thus the DM can't just lay back and let the players drive the story... he/she has to always think about where they are going, how Strahd will react, and what occurs in each location after the players have journeyed there. Finding the Sunsword immediately in the Chapel will result in a much different adventure than the party needing to reach Strahd's tomb for it for instance.

 

[billd91]

I've run Ravenloft three times - in 1e, 2e, and in 3.5e. It has been awesome each and every time. There's a lot of atmosphere that players respond easily to.
I ran a little bit of the revision (Expedition to Castle Ravenloft) in 3.5 and it's OK, but I think too much got thrown into it, making it more of an action beatdown than the suspenseful ride of the original. The encounters themselves are reasonably atmospheric, but the whole is a bit too much. That said, some of the encounters taken out and run in the original work just fine.

 

[Wicht]

Why do I love I6?
First of all the maps were gorgeous and evocative. I loved the maps in I6.

Then there was the whole gothic story-line, with romance thwarted, a villain that you could care about, a people oppressed and in fear. The whole gothic-horror atmosphere of the adventure flowed naturally and concisely.

The Expedition to Castle Ravenloft was alright, but they spent a whole lot more paper to produce a similar feel to what I6 delivered in one nice little module. The Ravenloft setting, I always thought, in some ways, cheapened the module by adding too much onto the setting (though I did set one campaign in Ravenloft the demiplane and it went fairly well and the setting is not without value).

 

[Jan van Leyden]

I6 deserves its praises. Georgeous maps, gothic atmosphere, the cooles D&D villain ever - what's not to love about it?#

The only problem is the wrong information on the cover. Instead of "Levels 5-7" it should read "Levels 7-5".

 

[TerraDave]

Ya, its the best.

It obviously is strong in terms of theme and atmosphere, and strikes a perfect balance between story and player choice and exploration.

A balance which has turned out to be very hard to strike. At least perfectly.

 

[howandwhy99]

The best castle dungeon ever published it does many things well. However it does two very bad things, which need to be fixed by anyone running it.

1. It imprisons the players in a virtually ally-absent demiplane with no hope of escape except by succeeding against its ruler.
2. That nemesis is completely overpowered compared to the rest of the adventure. Level 10 PCs for Strahd, not 5-7.

Rewriting Strahd and dropping the demiplane schtick are the keys to the easy solution. However, dropping the demiplane and increasing the difficulty of the castle and vastly enlarging the ruled county / vampire's territory would make the adventure more campaign defining and no then rewrite for Strahd would be needed.

 

[Stormonu]

The original I6 is still the best. Dripping with atmosphere, a fantastical place to explore and a villian who is not just a stat block nor statically placed waiting for roving adventurers to off him.

Although Expediton attempts to bring coolness to the classic, I think it overstuffs the envelope to garishness. There's TOO much going on in it, and I feel it transforms the slowly growing suspense and replaces it with bash-in-the-door-and-see-what-we-fight-next expectations. Likewise, it trys too hard to transform it from Gothic to Lovecraft.