D&D 5E Looking for a generic dark gothic style setting. Not Ravenloft.

DEFCON 1

Legend
Supporter
And before you try and spin this around on me, just know ahead of time: I'm not interested. I wasted my time on this post because I had the time to waste, but I'm not especially interested in following it up, what with not caring enough to and all. So I don't know, maybe let people ask questions and try to start a discussion on a message board without having to call them out on it for literally no reason.

There *was* a reason. They didn't answer the question they were asked and I made a joke about it. Had they just fulfilled an extremely simple request it would have gone without comment or been poked fun at.

It is amazing to me how many times people make extremely simple threads either to talk about something specific or to ask a question for their own edification, and how many people then take the time out to respond without anything close to what the thread was about. If you want to change the direction of the thread, at least give the slightest semblance of interest in it first.

"Setting X could work for you. But if you don't mind me asking, what do you find wrong with Ravenloft?" At least then you can say you at least participated before trying to change the subject of the thread away from what the OP made it for in the first place. ;)
 

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DEFCON 1

Legend
Supporter
They won't have to respond to your post... I will. Who exactly appointed you thread police?

Oh, and just for future reference, I'm not the thread police. Those are the Moderators. Their names are in Green. Maybe someday Morrus will appoint some new ones, but until then, I'm just your friendly neighborthread watch. :lol:
 

For a gothic setting I would personally make an alternate history Victorian London/Europe. Take actual Earth history and then sprinkle in inspiration from Dracula and the mass of fiction inspired by the book.
Sorry that I don't have a recommendation for a published setting. Ravenloft is the only gothic setting I've actually had any experience with.
 

G

Guest 6801328

Guest
Why not making your own? ;)

The needed elements are pretty much there in the core books. Work backwards by eliminating what doesn't fit.

While you're at it, you should design your own gothic-inspired classes. In fact, you might want to rework 5e rules completely to better fit the setting. Then write your own VTT because Fantasy Grounds and d20 are, well, NIH.

...

Anyway, for once I find myself agreeing with corpsetaker. I'd love an extensively developed gothic campaign setting. I'd buy it. And, yes, I would certainly add my own elements, but I'd much rather benefit from the creative brilliance of other people, also.

I'm actually picturing a mix of gothic horror, "dark fairy tale", and a bit of La Morte d'Arthur. So lots of little kingdoms separated by especially dark and dangerous forests, scattered villages full of terrified commoners, and adversaries consisting largely of undead, fey, giants, and dragons. No BBEG responsible for this state of affair; it's just the way the world is.

If somebody kickstarts that, let me know.
 

Li Shenron

Legend
While you're at it, you should design your own gothic-inspired classes. In fact, you might want to rework 5e rules completely to better fit the setting. Then write your own VTT because Fantasy Grounds and d20 are, well, NIH.

...

Anyway, for once I find myself agreeing with corpsetaker. I'd love an extensively developed gothic campaign setting. I'd buy it. And, yes, I would certainly add my own elements, but I'd much rather benefit from the creative brilliance of other people, also.

I'm actually picturing a mix of gothic horror, "dark fairy tale", and a bit of La Morte d'Arthur. So lots of little kingdoms separated by especially dark and dangerous forests, scattered villages full of terrified commoners, and adversaries consisting largely of undead, fey, giants, and dragons. No BBEG responsible for this state of affair; it's just the way the world is.

If somebody kickstarts that, let me know.

What I meant, is that while you're waiting for someone else to publish such setting, it's possible to achieve a fairly good result without really having to design a lot of new stuff, but instead just cherrypick from PHB and MM what is a good match, and remove the rest.

"Gothic" has a lot to do with fear and mystery, and less to do with battle. It is also characterized by specific iconic foes which in fact D&D originally stole from "gothic literature" such as vampires, lycanthropes and golems. Here's a handful list of elements to recreate in such setting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_fiction#Elements_of_Gothic_fiction

Probably the biggest challenge would be de-emphasizing combat. Not completely eliminate it, but at least I don't feel it should be the common way of defeating enemies and overcoming challenges, and definitely shouldn't be "flashy". I'd probably remove the vast majority of damaging spells because of that, and instead keep more subtle spells into the game. Perhaps the general presence of magic should be lowered, so you might consider removing some spellcasting classes or restrict them in level (e.g. force multiclassing), as well as avoid any magic item that is too straightforward in combat (such as a +1 weapon) and focus on items that are more situational (such as silvered weapons).

I am not sure what I would do with classes. You can keep them all or remove some... actually you can get away with just Rogue, Warlock, Fighter and Paladin. Not having a full spellcaster means magic won't solve all your problems, but you could keep the Warlock and emphasize that its magic has a price.

On the other hand, I would probably just allow human PCs. Everything else would be considered a fey or a true monster. Although this is not strictly necessary, you can definitely keep the traditional races as PCs as well.

As for monsters, for me the key would be that they should rarely operate in an open confrontation. So I would avoid the usual monstrous humanoid races such as orcs or kobolds or goblinoids or gnolls. There is a lot more "fear effect" in monsters that exist behind the curtains and mingle with humans, suggesting the possibility that humans may become those monsters as well, or that sometimes it's hard to tell them from a regular human. Vampires and lycanthropes are no-brainer of course.

You can of course add some Fear/Horror/Insanity rules system, however IMHO it's better to achieve a sense of fear in other, less straightforward ways. For example, unbeatable monsters can be used to that purpose, with that meaning monsters that cannot be beaten in combat by hitting them with a weapon or spell, and instead you have to find another way (so ultimately they can be beaten, just not all in the same hack&slash way). In fact IMHO "hack&slash" is pretty much the death of the fear factor; when the heroes switch from running away from zombies to chopping them down, that's when a movie ceases to be a horror and becomes a popcorn ride.
 


S

Sunseeker

Guest
While you're at it, you should design your own gothic-inspired classes. In fact, you might want to rework 5e rules completely to better fit the setting. Then write your own VTT because Fantasy Grounds and d20 are, well, NIH.

...

Anyway, for once I find myself agreeing with corpsetaker. I'd love an extensively developed gothic campaign setting. I'd buy it. And, yes, I would certainly add my own elements, but I'd much rather benefit from the creative brilliance of other people, also.

I'm actually picturing a mix of gothic horror, "dark fairy tale", and a bit of La Morte d'Arthur. So lots of little kingdoms separated by especially dark and dangerous forests, scattered villages full of terrified commoners, and adversaries consisting largely of undead, fey, giants, and dragons. No BBEG responsible for this state of affair; it's just the way the world is.

If somebody kickstarts that, let me know.

Although the Greater Ravenloft Campaign Setting lacks dragons, fey and giants, I'm curious why this seems to be overlooked or even unwanted? The larger setting has almost nothing to do with Strahd, has volumes of material dedicated to the creatures therein and fairly well developed characters for every kingdom. Again, aside from dragons, fey and giants...it's pretty spot on as an "extensively developed gothic campaign setting with lots of little kingdoms separated by especially dark and dangerous forests with scattered villages of terrified commoners".

Heck, he's even got a little bit of "weird dark" in the form of an Illithid colony. I'm sure adding in some dragons, fey and giants wouldn't be terribly difficult.
 

robus

Lowcountry Low Roller
Supporter
While you're at it, you should design your own gothic-inspired classes. In fact, you might want to rework 5e rules completely to better fit the setting. Then write your own VTT because Fantasy Grounds and d20 are, well, NIH.

...

Anyway, for once I find myself agreeing with corpsetaker. I'd love an extensively developed gothic campaign setting. I'd buy it. And, yes, I would certainly add my own elements, but I'd much rather benefit from the creative brilliance of other people, also.

I'm actually picturing a mix of gothic horror, "dark fairy tale", and a bit of La Morte d'Arthur. So lots of little kingdoms separated by especially dark and dangerous forests, scattered villages full of terrified commoners, and adversaries consisting largely of undead, fey, giants, and dragons. No BBEG responsible for this state of affair; it's just the way the world is.

If somebody kickstarts that, let me know.

I dunno - that doesn't seem too hard: Have an Alps like mountain cluster in the center of an island with a deep forest covering the foothills and then 4 states surrounding it: NW state would be a Britain-like place for your Arthur stuff - marshes and fey, dragons and such (in fact the dragons could be the occupiers of the mountains making raids into the 4 kingdoms as they fancy - perhaps seasonally so the dread is always present of their expected return...). NE would be Germanic for little red riding hood/werecreatures, SE would be Romania-esque for your vampires + zombies and SW would be something Spanish-like for inquisitions and witches and stuff (perhaps I'm stealing a bit much from 13th Age :) but more oriented to the horror-side than adventure).
 

Allandaros

Explorer
While you're at it, you should design your own gothic-inspired classes. In fact, you might want to rework 5e rules completely to better fit the setting. Then write your own VTT because Fantasy Grounds and d20 are, well, NIH.

...

Anyway, for once I find myself agreeing with corpsetaker. I'd love an extensively developed gothic campaign setting. I'd buy it. And, yes, I would certainly add my own elements, but I'd much rather benefit from the creative brilliance of other people, also.

I'm actually picturing a mix of gothic horror, "dark fairy tale", and a bit of La Morte d'Arthur. So lots of little kingdoms separated by especially dark and dangerous forests, scattered villages full of terrified commoners, and adversaries consisting largely of undead, fey, giants, and dragons. No BBEG responsible for this state of affair; it's just the way the world is.

If somebody kickstarts that, let me know.

Sounds reminiscent of the Dolmenwood, as presented in the Wormskin series of zines.
 

jgsugden

Legend
While there are plenty of options out there to create a gothic setting, I would suggest that gothic worlds work best when you make them yourself.

1: Gothic settings usually involve mysteries, and any published or publicly available materials run the risk that a player may do some research into your mysteries.
2: They tend to be smaller and more intimate settings. You don't often span the globe or planes in a gothic campaign, so you can usually limit how much you need to build.
3: I think the best option for a gothic setting in 5E is one that doesn't have a lot of great support options: A Cthulhu style game with cultists, monsters from the far realm, and elder gods that are far too powerful for any PC to face down in battle at any level - foes that are forces of nature more than they are battle forces. If I were to create a gothic game, it would be a homebrew campaign where the PCs are hired to deliver something to a remote place of learning (temple to knowledge god, university, etc...) with a nearby town - where things are taking place behind the scenes and the PCs need to discover what is going on and stop it before an Elder God enters the Material Plane.
 

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