NOW LIVE! The Weather Outside is Frightful: Chilly D&D Resources! Chilling monsters, cool sublasses, dangerous encounters in the frigid wastes, and a cold-hearted adventure for DnD 5E.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8766225" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 118: April 1996part 3/5World Under Construction, or The Kargat Wants You!: Ravenloft continues to be one of their most popular settings, getting the second greatest number of reader submissions after the Forgotten Realms, with even it's spin-off exceeding expectations and getting it's own Living setting. They're not planning on cancelling it any time soon. Quite the opposite, they're doing a new edition and welcome feedback on their directions, particularly using the internet. The big change from last time is trying to make the place more of a setting you can spend an entire campaign in, focussing on creating native PC's rather than ones sucked in by the mists, with new kits & races appropriate to the setting. So this is the start of the approach they'll keep all the way to the end of the 2e era and through the licensed out 3e books, trying to make the place feel more like an internally consistent world rather than a theme park created purely to torment people, only going the opposite direction again when they intentionally reject simulationism in their game design in the 4e changeover. If a world is all horror all the time the scares soon lose impact. You've got to have the bright clear days to set off the dark and stormy nights. (although they still go by suspiciously quickly) It also reminds us that a big part of Ravenloft's survival through the 3e era was due to a strong hardcore fanbase that was given the leeway to create their own websites and netbooks without WotC getting all stompy with the cease & desists. The Kargatane and Fraternity of Shadows websites are still alive to this day and you can download all sorts of interesting things from them to liven your game up. I mostly approve of all this, as even if it is a promotional article, it shows that their hearts are in the right place, and they're approaching their audience with a spirit of collaboration, not just writing something in-house and expecting us to follow their railroads, then being shocked when the line doesn't review or sell well and winds up getting cancelled.</blockquote>

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