D&D 5E Nananananananaaaa BATMAN! (about vampires in D&D and in general, Ravenloft/Curse of Strahd etc.)

[PMárk]

In a fantasy setting with loads of different species of creature, there's plenty of room for both characters that are evil for nuanced individualistic reasons and characters that are supernatural embodiments of pure evil. It's not as though running vampires as unearthly things in human skin means we can't also run villains who are driven by human motives and struggling with human anxieties... we just run them as humans. Or dwarves, or goblins, or stone giants, or whatever. There are so many different options if you want a creature with a soul, and making vampires into just another one of them seems like a waste. In my mind, the realization that the being you're speaking with in truth is utterly alien and unsympathetic, that all its charm is just cold manipulation, that it is going to drink your lifeblood with no more emotion than you would drink a Diet Coke, all that contributes to the horror that the vampire presents. It's a glimpse into the abyss. And it doesn't really work if you know that in the same setting, just a few cities over, there's another vampire who is not acting and really is basically just a human with an unusual addiction. Cheapens the brand.

So, basically every humanoid and monster could be a nuanced person, good, or bad, but vampires couldn't. I think we're disagreeing here. That kind of definitive pure evil, I reserve it for outsiders, especially demons. Note, that I'm not saying vampires are in general poor, brooding misunderstood antiheroes. No-no. In general they are amoral, inhuman predators, indeed. Both in D&D and in Vampire. Especially in D&D, vampire is much more elaborated and I'm not ashamed to admit that game and the stories that inspired it and was inspired by it shaped my view on the topic in a large way. Yet, I still like truly monstrous vampires as antagonists. I just think there's room for, even in a fantasy game for the oddball contrary, and I think relatable, understandable backstories just makes better villains than "he is evil because he's a vampire and always been evil". That's just a bit boring to me.

Another example: Cardinal Richeliou. In the earlier movies he was a one-dimensional, sniveling weasel. In the novels he is a much more complex character and not even what I'd consider a bad guy, just someone whose interests happened to contradict the protagonists'. The last movie and the recent tv show pictured him more like that and I'm preferring vastly that approach.

Is this supposed to be an example of how you prefer characters with "different shades"? If you don't think intense religious faith can be a ripe field for many-shaded character development, I fear it may be you who is being inflexible here. I could throw a dart in a library of literary classics and be fairly assured to hit a book that explores the nature of piety and goodness in some manner or another. *throws dart* Oh look, it's Les Misérables. *throws dart* Yup, Moby Dick. *throws dart* All-Star Superm -- wait, how did that get there? ...eh, still works.

Again, no, I didn't say that religion couldn't be a backdrop for nuanced characters and deep character development. Look, I'm not a religious person, never was. The whole mindset is alien to me. I'm not saying that there couldn't be perfectly fine religious characters. Of course there could. I'm just not into the whole speaking from the moral high perch, because my god said what is wrong and what is right and condemning others based on what they are (like, vampires or witches, etc.) not on what they do thing. Especially when not considering their circumstances. I just prefer moral dilemmas, grey areas, not clear-cut truths, things like that. Yes, I prefer antiheros in contrast to knights in shining armor, because stories about a character with flaws, who nonetheless does the best she could, even when grudgingly so, or with a good amount of selfishness are more interesting than paragons to me. That said I also read novels, in which there was sympathetic priests/clerics, or paladins/paladinlike characters. But I read a lot more when I just groaned at them.

What should I say? I always liked Jarlaxle and Entreri more than Drizzt, especially in the later books.

That aside, I'm still not saying that paladins for example are necessarily one-dimensional. I just don't like zealots.

Oh, and picking up older literature is not entirely fair, because at those times there wasn't really such thing in the western world as non-religious ethics and philosophy.

 

[PMárk]

I read the comment but I still don't get it it's too vague. I am not familiar with the Ravenloft setting so I don't know what changed. As a result I don't understand at all how it is rejecting it. I want to understand your view on it.

I ran Strahd how it recommends I run him in the book. Arrogant and prone to toying with the players. big on Hit and run and looking for a successor in the group.

Also I will say this Strahd really is not different at all from how he has been portrayed in the past and in Curse of Strahd. Don't get why people think he has been.

Ok, I'd write a list as soon as i get the time. Or otherwise if anyone has the incline to do so, feel free!

 

[TheCosmicKid]

So, basically every humanoid and monster could be a nuanced person, good, or bad, but vampires couldn't. I think we're disagreeing here. That kind of definitive pure evil, I reserve it for outsiders, especially demons.

D&D may make a sharp distinction between undead and outsiders, but the vampire tradition is much older than D&D. In many mythoi (including B:tVS), vampires literally are demons. Even when the identity is not so explicit, the connection is clear: as a rule, if something recoils from religious iconography and is burned by holy water, it's not on the cosmological up-and-up. And their role in the story is that of definitive pure evil. There is nothing sympathetic or redeeming about Dracula. That's what makes him scary.

I just think there's room for, even in a fantasy game for the oddball contrary, and I think relatable, understandable backstories just makes better villains than "he is evil because he's a vampire and always been evil". That's just a bit boring to me.

Any character is boring when reduced to a single sentence. "He's evil because he's sad because his wife died" isn't exactly riveting reading either. It's the execution that maintains the audience's interest. There are pure evil characters who capture the imagination and attain iconic status, and there are conflicted anti-hero characters who are flatly written and immediately forgettable. Every single damn adaptation of The Wizard of Oz since the 1938 movie has tried to give the Wicked Witch of the West some tragic backstory or other, but none of them has even come close to dethroning the Margaret Hamilton incarnation in the popular consciousness. And the same goes for Dracula. There may be some competition between Bram Stoker's literary original and Bela Lugosi's take on the character for the title of Most Iconic Vampire, but it definitely doesn't go to Gary Oldman or Luke Evans.

Oh, and picking up older literature is not entirely fair, because at those times there wasn't really such thing in the western world as non-religious ethics and philosophy.

I've got a degree in this thing you're telling me doesn't exist.

Just sayin'.

 

[Parmandur]

I mean, there may be a memo by wotc that any official book, in house or not, is not to endorse materials not made for the 5e product line, which would extend to older edition materials. It may be done to keep the focus of their marketing to the 5e books, rather than having the DMsGuild stuff detract from it.

Definitely not the case: Princes of the Apocalypse has a preface by [MENTION=697]mearls[/MENTION] explaining that they didn't re-do ToEE because not the original and Retirn were available on (then) DNDClassics.

At any rate, they opened up Ravenloft in the DMsGuild for general use, which is likely the amount of setting support to be expected outside of maybe an "Art of D&D: Ravenloft" book, ala Zandikar or Innistrad (probably how they will support settings in the future).

 

[Yunru]

Innistrad

Innistrahd. They weren't very creative naming the plane.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Innistrahd. They weren't very creative naming the plane.

Whereas Strahd von Zarovich is a completely Original Character, Do Not Steal, amirite?

 

[PMárk]

D&D may make a sharp distinction between undead and outsiders, but the vampire tradition is much older than D&D. In many mythoi (including B:tVS), vampires literally are demons. Even when the identity is not so explicit, the connection is clear: as a rule, if something recoils from religious iconography and is burned by holy water, it's not on the cosmological up-and-up. And their role in the story is that of definitive pure evil. There is nothing sympathetic or redeeming about Dracula. That's what makes him scary.

BUT we're talking about D&D and other rpgs to some extent. Ok, vampire were just monsters in the old folklore and stories. Never argued about that. However, things happened since , which things didn't invalidates the monstrous vampire trope, but opened up space for more complex vampires, which is a good thing, IMO, because i like both approach.

Oh, and "burned by faith" doesn't necessarily means the thing is evil, it's just means that the god doesn't like the thing. Since in the western culture faith/God was equal to good that was a no-brainer, but we don't live in those times, fortunately. Oh, and on that base, every non-divine magic user is evil, or at least the servant of evil. I'd argue that even outsiders could be interesting and complex characters, Like Lorcan in the Brimstone Angels. Or, there's an entire WoD gameline, Demon: the Fallen. Those characters could be protagonists, or at least ambiguous.

Any character is boring when reduced to a single sentence. "He's evil because he's sad because his wife died" isn't exactly riveting reading either. It's the execution that maintains the audience's interest. There are pure evil characters who capture the imagination and attain iconic status, and there are conflicted anti-hero characters who are flatly written and immediately forgettable. Every single damn adaptation of The Wizard of Oz since the 1938 movie has tried to give the Wicked Witch of the West some tragic backstory or other, but none of them has even come close to dethroning the Margaret Hamilton incarnation in the popular consciousness. And the same goes for Dracula. There may be some competition between Bram Stoker's literary original and Bela Lugosi's take on the character for the title of Most Iconic Vampire, but it definitely doesn't go to Gary Oldman or Luke Evans.

Execution is important, but better backstory makes a more interesting character, IMO and helps the execution. And I'd argue, that often the backstory IS the part of the execution.

Oh, and I definitely like Oldman's Dracula better, exactly because he's more interesting as a character. And come on, those icons doesn't iconic because they're better, but because they were the most popular at their times and at the beginning of the entire phenomenon. That doesn't make them "better".

I've got a degree in this thing you're telling me doesn't exist.

I'm fully admit I don't have a degree about it, but it's one of my interests, and as I know it was classical philosophy (Greek/Roman), then religious philosophy for a long time. Even the works that are not-religious are mentioning, or referring to God, or faith in general. You couldn't even find a fencing manual from the medieval/renaissance (and there is a lot of them) which doesn't contain some referring to God. Religion and faith was the norm and it basically permeated every part of life.

 

[Remathilis]

I've always found the vampire as soulless monster dreadfully boring. Even Dracula was a tragic figure, cursed by his nature. Once a hero, now a creature of darkness, etc. that is a story.

I haven't read the whole thread yet, but has someone pointed out Dracula in the Stoker novel has no tragic back story? He's a monster when we meet him in Transylvania, picks Lucy because he's hungry and she's pretty, and targets Mina because she's Lucy's friend and Harker's wife. All of the tragic love story stuff is an invention of Hollywood.

That said, I like the change to Strahd because it stops making his decent to evil Tatiana's fault. The classic version implies Strahd would have remained a good man if not for Tatiana picking Sergei. The new one implies he might have followed this path to darkness no matter what, but Strahd things it's because Tatiana choose Sergei...

 

[PMárk]

I haven't read the whole thread yet, but has someone pointed out Dracula in the Stoker novel has no tragic back story? He's a monster when we meet him in Transylvania, picks Lucy because he's hungry and she's pretty, and targets Mina because she's Lucy's friend and Harker's wife. All of the tragic love story stuff is an invention of Hollywood.

Yes, because Dracula isn't really a character in the original story. He has very few dialogue lines and we know nearly nothing about him. He was just a monster, the impersonation of the British fears. Later works made him into a person and a real character and I like that even if the original book is among my favorites, because it has great atmosphere.

That said, I like the change to Strahd because it stops making his decent to evil Tatiana's fault. The classic version implies Strahd would have remained a good man if not for Tatiana picking Sergei. The new one implies he might have followed this path to darkness no matter what, but Strahd things it's because Tatiana choose Sergei...

Well, that's an awfully big can of worms...

 

[Mouseferatu]

That said, I like the change to Strahd because it stops making his decent to evil Tatiana's fault. The classic version implies Strahd would have remained a good man if not for Tatiana picking Sergei. The new one implies he might have followed this path to darkness no matter what, but Strahd things it's because Tatiana choose Sergei...

That is... not remotely how his original story was written. Tatyana was a trigger, not a cause; the fault was 100% his. He was envious of his brother, almost to the point of hatred, well before she showed up. And he wasn't remotely a good or nice guy even before then.

Jealousy, and especially acting on jealousy, is the fault of the one experiencing it, not the targets of it.