Manual of the Planes Excerpt: Shadowfell

[Joël of the FoS]

I think that if Shadowfell has some Ravenloft traits, it's quite cool. It's a good idea.

But if WotC just uses the Ravenloft setting for spare parts in 4e, that's totally uncool.

Ravenloft parts in Shadowfell, great, as long as there is a 4e RL setting also.

Joël
Ravenloft fan

 

[JesterOC]

The Dead

Anyone know how the dead are depicted in the SHadowfell? If all souls end up there (at least as a jumping off point) there must be tons of dead showing up all the time. What do they look like, are they like ghosts or are they solid. Do they act like the ghosts in the 6th sense?

Any ideas?

JesterOC

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Nice. I really like 4E's take on the planes, and this looks like good things to come.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think that if Shadowfell has some Ravenloft traits, it's quite cool. It's a good idea.

But if WotC just uses the Ravenloft setting for spare parts in 4e, that's totally uncool.

Ravenloft parts in Shadowfell, great, as long as there is a 4e RL setting also.

I don't think there will be a 4e gothic horror campaign setting.

I think that instead tieflings and dragonborn and 3/4lings will be pulled into Barovia to kill Strahd in order to escape.

"It's not a campaign setting, it's a dungeon!"

 

[Shroomy]

I don't think there will be a 4e gothic horror campaign setting.

I think that instead tieflings and dragonborn and 3/4lings will be pulled into Barovia to kill Strahd in order to escape.

"It's not a campaign setting, it's a dungeon!"

I'm far from sold on this notion. The first 4e Domain of Dread that was detailed in Dragon was an interesting locale in and of itself, and killing its darklord is probably the worst choice that the PCs could possibly make in an attempt to escape it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm far from sold on this notion. The first 4e Domain of Dread that was detailed in Dragon was an interesting locale in and of itself, and killing its darklord is probably the worst choice that the PCs could possibly make in an attempt to escape it.

You could be right. Still, Strahd had stats and killing him to liberate Barovia from his tyranny was a pretty solid plan in the 3e module, so there certainly is precedent.

My greater point was that I don't think there's going to be a 4e "Ravenloft Campaign Setting" that focuses on Gothic Horror as a variant fantasy milieu for all sorts of adventures. Rather, the Domains of Dread will be more like dungeons: You enter them, you solve their puzzles, you fight their monsters, you probably make your way back home at the end.

Ravenloft won't exist to bring the worlds of Bram Stoker and Mary Shelly to life in D&D, allowing you to play troubled heroes in a land of oppressive fear.

Rather, it will exist to tack on different kinds of dungeons that might give some particularly horrific flavor.

It's a Ravenloft designed as an enhancement to your ongoing D&D campaign, rather than a Ravenloft designed as a replacement for your typical D&D campaign.

There are good things and bad things about this choice, just like there were good things and bad things about the choice to make it a stand-alone setting.

Good thing about making the Domains dungeons? You can stick your characters in, give them a good horror challenge in a world where they can stake Dracula and wrestle Frakenstien's Monster and kill the Mummy and take it's stuff. There's a lot of fun in that.

Bad thing about making the Domains dungeons? You loose the more powerful message of the genre. Ideas of science run mad and predatory royals and barely repressed Victorian sexuality and Mysteries Better Left Mysterious and such get a bit weaker when you're playing a tiefling warlock who has pledged his soul to the dark forces of Hell as a heroic character.

You get to change your games up a bit, but you don't get to re-define what it means to be a hero. It's still D&D -- it's still "kill things and take their stuff." Strahd or Tiamat or Grazz't or Orcus or Asmodeus or the Mummy or a physical manifestation of scientific hubris gone mad, that's what you do to these things. Kill them, take their stuff. It's not gothic horror (which isn't generally so much about killing things and taking their stuff as it is about opulent awfulness). That's how you resolve conflicts, in D&D.

That's not expressly a negative thing, though many trufans of old school Ravenloft will probably be disappointed. Really, it's designing to D&D's strengths. I think a "Ravenloft" setting that focused on gothic horror's true zeitgeist might be better suited for a d20 Modern-style interpretation, anyway.

They're not going to re-define what D&D is for Ravenloft.

That's a choice with both some positive and negative aspects.

And right now it's just rampant speculation, anyway, so who knows, I could be shocked by WotC yet.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Still, Strahd had stats and killing him to liberate Barovia from his tyranny was a pretty solid plan in the 3e module

And the original Ravenloft module, for that matter.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I'm torn on this particular choice.

On the one hand, I'm glad to see the domains reappear in 4E, and I like the ability to use them as and where appropriate. I think the old Ravenloft "vibe" can work even with the domains being separate, rather than clumped together into a single setting. Heck, I may even use some of the domains as darker regions of the mortal world, rather than the Shadowfell.

That said, I do hope that not all the domains are presented with the "weekend in hell" default. All my best RL campaigns were played with natives, rather than visitors.

So long as there's at least the occasional nod to playing natives--even if it's only in one out of every handful of domains--I think it can work. But if Ravenloft is reduced to just a "not-so-nice place to visit," I think it'll be a missed opportunity.

 

[Shroomy]

KM, I can't really say that I disagree with your assessment, but for me, the apparent 4e treatment of Ravenloft hearkens back to how I initially conceived of that setting back in the early days of 2e, as well as how I felt TSR presented it (remembering back to the first Ravenloft adventure in Dungeon). That was fairly close to what you are now describing (a horror interlude to your standard D&D campaign; your characters just want to find a way out), and for me personally, I think that it definitely meshes better with the core D&D game and is certainly what I want to see out of Ravenloft. IMO, it also increases the horror quotient, since its different from the ordinary.

Unfortunately, we only have one Domain of Dread to go of off, and based on comments that I've read, its definitely higher fantasy then the standard Ravenloft domain, but it was dripping with atmosphere, tragedy, and mystery. Killing stuff wasn't always the best option (in fact, it seemed to be among the worst options), and taking their stuff seemed to be a distant thought to escaping. If WoTC continues to follow this type of philosophy, I think a lot of your concerns may go away.

 

[I'm A Banana]

That said, I do hope that not all the domains are presented with the "weekend in hell" default. All my best RL campaigns were played with natives, rather than visitors.

So long as there's at least the occasional nod to playing natives--even if it's only in one out of every handful of domains--I think it can work. But if Ravenloft is reduced to just a "not-so-nice place to visit," I think it'll be a missed opportunity.

Well, that's something of a 4e mantra: Miss an opportunity now to "get it right!" later.

It kind of boils down to D&D and "gothic horror" being very different in terms of what each one teaches. Games teach you things. D&D 4e as it exists now teaches you to crunch numbers to kill things and take their stuff. That's satisfying and fun and can be woven into a fun story, too.

"Gothic Horror" isn't about that, though. That's not what you do, in Ravenloft. In Ravenloft, you save innocents. You defend purity. You struggle with inner and outer demons. You see horrible things happen to everyone you love and you soldier on to stop it from happening to others. Heroism is re-defined: you're not slaying monsters, you're overcoming evil. That would be rewarding with different mechanics, different rewards, different heroic archetypes, than D&D is built to contain. That's why a more generic and flexible system (something like d20 Modern or T20) might be better for it: it doesn't have the same expectations that D&D 4e has, so you can put your own expectations into it a little bit easier.

D&D (and 4e especially) is about action and motion, power and prestige, luck, progress, and physical rewards.

Gothic Horror is more about corruption, innocence, brooding evil, flawed heroes, ideas gone too far, old customs haunting the modern day, moral fortitude, endurance, and deeply personal success (family members, loved ones) at great personal price (...usually the same things). Remember that the protagonists of Gothic Horror are usually villains, and they aren't overcome by courageous heroes as much as they are overcome by their own flaws. Like in any horror movie, there are only two classes of good guys: the lucky and the victims.

To do Ravenloft "right," I'd say you'd need to create a game that evokes all of those feelings in the very structure of the mechanics itself. This runs right aground on some of the ideas of D&D, and makes it hard for them to be compatible.

You could do Ravenloft and compromise on some of those aspects to make room for D&D, but you run the risk of making a tepid soup that doesn't really do either aspect right except in the hands of a strong DM with a strong sense of purpose and atmosphere. I think 2e RL (and 3e) suffered a bit from this. It was good with a good DM, but without a good DM, a lot of the point of it was lost.

Or you could do D&D and just add Barovia in as a "dungeon of the moth" that your group can play through October. Just as characters could probably come from Winterhaven or Freeport or the Free City of Greyhawk, they could come from Barovia, too, but they're going to fit the model of a D&D hero, not a gothic horror hero.

I'd rather see the two extremes than see the middle ground, because the middle ground is very shaky, always working at cross-purposes to itself, and results in some heavy dissonance when one person brings in his dragonborn barbarian who worships the god of slaughter and another person brings in her Mina Harker-esque innocent townsgirl who only took levels in "rogue" because she needed some sort of class in order to play in this week's zombie invasion adventure.

But, again, this is all theory-level speculation. The Coasties might have a trick or two up their sleeve with this one. I kind of hope they can prove my speculation wrong.