D&D 2E Let’s Look At The Old Ravenloft Boxed Set!

I pulled this old gem off my shelves and delved inside for the first time in years. Let's take a quick look at the Ravenloft boxed set for AD&D 2E, from way back in 1990!

It has four big full-colour poster maps!

And tons of colorful card handouts.

The back of the cards have tons of useful information. NPCs, maps, charts.

Poster map of Ravenloft. You can see Barovia just below the centre.

Some things just work different in Ravenloft.

Rawr! I'm a monster!

It's the good old doctor himself!

Dark gifts....

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[SerHogan]

Now where's the Ravenloft: Masque of the Red Death boxed set? Was a big fan of that as well. D&D and Ravenloft's Cthulu attempt.

 

[Alzrius]

Now where's the Ravenloft: Masque of the Red Death boxed set? Was a big fan of that as well. D&D and Ravenloft's Cthulu attempt.

Why, it's right over here (affiliate link). Or did you mean a 5E version?

All joking aside, I wish they'd at least re-release the 3E version of the book. What I really would like would be for them to start releasing the Living Death organized play modules as PDFs, since it actually brought the story of Gothic Earth to a proper conclusion, but I know that will probably never happen.

 

[DaveMage]

In my mind, you just can't beat stuff like what they had in the black box, in the original van richten series and in Feast of Goblyns (just an amazing adventure/supplement).

I loved running Feast of Goblyns and introducing my players to Ravenloft. My munchkin players didn't like Ravenloft so much.

 

[DaveMage]

Now where's the Ravenloft: Masque of the Red Death boxed set? Was a big fan of that as well. D&D and Ravenloft's Cthulu attempt.

Do not speak it's name! Both times a Masque of the Red Death product was released the line soon ended!!!!

 

[Nebulous]

God I miss boxed sets and giant poster maps

 

[GreyLord]

Everything is always new to somebody. Not everybody is middle-aged, you know!

And to add on top of that, not everyone got Ravenloft stuff when it came out.

I know very little about Ravenloft in that arena, and never really got into it so if I get the Ravenloft stuff for 5e, most of it will be completely new to someone like me.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I used to own it. Never ran anything using it though. I have no idea what became of it.

 

[Zardnaar]

I wonder how many complaints we are going to get that the lore of the 30 domains in the new 5E book doesn't end up equaling the amount of lore you got from the 2E boxed set. But yet if anyone then just says "Well, then buy the 2E boxed set on DMs Guild and you can use it to supplement the lore from Van Richten's Guide"... they're gonna say "No! I shouldn't HAVE to!"

Basically complain they aren't getting what they want, without actually doing
In theory they should be a

I used to own it. Never ran anything using it though. I have no idea what became of it.

Our group all bought different stuff. One player had Darksun, I went for FR and Mystara but mate had the FR boxed set.

Another one had Ravenloft another bought Birthright. After 1999 everyone went their own way.

 

[havard]

Heh heh, oh sure. But the people who are saying they wanted Greyhawk or Mystara or Spelljammer are the people who already know what Greyhawk and Mystara and Spelljammer are. And they're the ones who are going to complain when the 5E book that eventually comes out doesn't match up to what they thought they wanted back when they were asking for it.

Complain perhaps.

But WotC have name dropped Greyhawk, Mystara and Spelljammer enough through 5E books, videos etc that some newcomers are going to be curious about them.

This is how a much younger version of me discovered Blackmoor, through scattered hints here and there.

-Havard

 

[havard]

That art was so important to the line IMO

Yes. Huge fan of Fabian's art

-Havard