It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like RAVENLOFT

On the Down With D&D podcast, writer Shawn Merwin (who is writing at least one adventure for the next D&D Adventurers Guild season) responded to a query about whether the next season was "gothic" in nature -- "I can neither confirm nor deny that, although I've heard that much was talked about at Gamehole Con in Chris Perkins' seminar ... I think people who have heard that seminar know what's going on, but I still cannot say anything." That seminar, which I largely transcribed here, hinted really strongly at Ravenloft. (thanks to darjr for the scoop)

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In response to comments about Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolfman, Merwin said "You like that kind of stuff? I get misty-eyed about it myself."

Of course, none of this is conclusive. But it's hard not to think that - if not Ravenloft itself - something Ravenloft-inspired is coming with the next D&D storyline.

They went on to discuss Baldman Games' (hosts of Winter Fantasy) announcements about D&D events at the convention in February. Regarding the Epic adventure being used to launch the upcoming season, which will debut at that convention, they have the following exchange:

Shawn Merwin: ...if you're into D&D at all, or if you're into Adventurer's League specifically, you will not want to miss.

Christopher Sniezak: I hear there may be blood and stakes involved?

Shawn Merwin: It's definitely possible.

It sounds a little to me like they have discussed this subject in more detail off-air. Whatever the case, these are not the first "gothic" hints we've gotten - it's certainly Beginning To Look A Lot Like Ravenloft, as Bing Crosby once famously sang.

If you want to listen to the full podcast, click here or on Strahd up above.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Still not much of a "trapped" feeling when you have to fit the being snatched by the mists, orientating in your new "home", discovering and completing your mission of the week and escaping the "trap" all within 4 hours.

Totally possible. Bottle episodes of TV shows do it a half hour.

Not much respect for the entraping nature when you are about to do it for the 8th time

Pretty easy to give very specific conditions for returning - stuff like "if you don't put the MacGuffin in the Whatits by sundown on the third day, you'll be stuck there forever!" This becomes part of the win condition for the adventure - don't do it, your characters "die." Or maybe you can save them by spending downtime on a sidequest or maybe a future adventure lets you return with them. Lots of ways to thread that needle.

 

[Remathilis]

They could, but it would throw S4 out of sync with all other AL content there is. Big problem is that AL is not played in order by most people who just sit down at whatever table is offered where they're currently at. So if they do a trilogy where you escape at the end, what about people who play part 3, 1 and 2 in that order? And how many people would want to be forced to put their character on time-out for month just because they happened to play the first RL mod and the next part is only released in 3 month, while the store is running plenty of suitable S1-3 mods during that time the character has not done yet?

Closing off a season from the rest of the content like that just would not work for AL.

I don't play AL, so forgive me for asking...

How did that work with Rage of Demons? Seriously, in OotA you start captured by the drow and must escape. How is that handled? Likewise, the RoD AL adventures all happen in Hillsfar, which AFAIK has no connection to OotA. It seems to me I can start a one week captured by drow slavers, then next week be in Hillsfar, and then... back in the Underdark?

To me, it seems like the best way to handle the AL is to have the "preview" adventure be in RL, but the AL stuff be just "gothic" themed FR adventures in the Moonsea area. Seems no different than how RoD handled it. (Unless I'm missing something).

 

[MerricB]

They could, but it would throw S4 out of sync with all other AL content there is. Big problem is that AL is not played in order by most people who just sit down at whatever table is offered where they're currently at. So if they do a trilogy where you escape at the end, what about people who play part 3, 1 and 2 in that order? And how many people would want to be forced to put their character on time-out for month just because they happened to play the first RL mod and the next part is only released in 3 month, while the store is running plenty of suitable S1-3 mods during that time the character has not done yet?

Closing off a season from the rest of the content like that just would not work for AL.

Mirtek, I think you're confusing two styles of D&D AL play.

The D&D Encounters/Published Adventure is what Greg and I are mainly discussing - the long adventure path which is played over the course of several weeks. You enter Ravenloft when you begin it, your character is then trapped there, and you leave at its conclusion, several levels later. There's no dropping in and out there.

D&D Expeditions are what you're wondering about. (The short 4 hours adventures) They would be handled quite differently; I think the AL would probably make them horror-themed (with perhaps a quick jaunt into Ravenloft once or twice), but the majority of the season would take place around the Moonsea. Yes, you would have them getting the full Ravenloft experience, but you'd maintain a better continuity with that line of adventures. But that's theorising on my part; I don't actually know.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

I don't play AL, so forgive me for asking...

How did that work with Rage of Demons? Seriously, in OotA you start captured by the drow and must escape. How is that handled? Likewise, the RoD AL adventures all happen in Hillsfar, which AFAIK has no connection to OotA. It seems to me I can start a one week captured by drow slavers, then next week be in Hillsfar, and then... back in the Underdark?

In general, you don't switch from the middle of a published adventure to an Expedition adventure and back again. I don't think it's explicitly forbidden (there are times when the flexibility is useful, especially when having a player join an existing group, having them play a few Expeditions adventures can build up their level), but it's not recommended.

Cheers!

 

[rooneg]

Mirtek, I think you're confusing two styles of D&D AL play.

The D&D Encounters/Published Adventure is what Greg and I are mainly discussing - the long adventure path which is played over the course of several weeks. You enter Ravenloft when you begin it, your character is then trapped there, and you leave at its conclusion, several levels later. There's no dropping in and out there.

That may be the case in your store, but when I was regularly playing in an encounters game (around when it started up for 5e) we had a LOT of week to week variation in who showed up, sometimes including people going to different stores from one week to the next. That, combined with availability of expeditions games, could easily lead to characters playing in various different seasons worth of adventures intertwined with each other. It's clearly not in the spirit of the encounters program, but it's not disallowed by the rules as far as I can tell. Having it suddenly be against the rules for a Ravenloft based encounters season seems super weird to me, not to mention hard to enforce.

 

[Remathilis]

If the expeditions portion still happens on Faerun, it shouldn't matter were the AP happens. Makes as much sense as Hillsfar/Underdark.

 

[MerricB]

That may be the case in your store, but when I was regularly playing in an encounters game (around when it started up for 5e) we had a LOT of week to week variation in who showed up, sometimes including people going to different stores from one week to the next. That, combined with availability of expeditions games, could easily lead to characters playing in various different seasons worth of adventures intertwined with each other. It's clearly not in the spirit of the encounters program, but it's not disallowed by the rules as far as I can tell. Having it suddenly be against the rules for a Ravenloft based encounters season seems super weird to me, not to mention hard to enforce.

We don't really need to enforce it if a player isn't interested in the continuity. We can offer it as an option.

Cheers!

 

[Mirtek]

It seems to me I can start a one week captured by drow slavers, then next week be in Hillsfar, and then... back in the Underdark?

Yes, that's it in a nutshell. If you want you can freely switch and mix between encounters and expeditions and expeditions from different seasons (which means playing an adventure in Mulmaster were the fall of Phlan is discussed and then play an adventure in Phlan before it's fall and met NPC already considered dead in the mumaster timeline)

 

[rooneg]

We don't really need to enforce it if a player isn't interested in the continuity. We can offer it as an option.

Cheers!

Sure, but that's why I find it strange that people are talking about a Ravenloft season as a "once you're in you can't get out till the end" sort of thing. That's never been the case for any other AL season, and if the rule is optional (as I think it should be, since character portability is super important to people like me who only play occasionally) then why bother having it at all.

 

[Alzrius]

You can't Plane Shift in and out of Ravenloft.

You can if it's a major artifact doing the planeshifting; that major artifacts can freely break the laws of the demiplane has always been right in the campaign rules for the world.