Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 8265816" data-attributes="member: 5948">A lot of Ravenloft setting material in older editions seems to have been written on the unspoken assumption of a Ghostbusters (or Scooby Doo...) type campaign, where PCs are a wandering group of investigative monster hunters.  The choice of making Van Richten and the Weathermay-Foxgroves (and to a lesser degree S) the faces of the setting tended to emphasise this, as this is pretty much exactly the sort of people that they were.  Whereas the modules were generally of the 'you had a reason to be travelling to place X, and on the way, by complete coincidence Y happened (which often left you temporarily dead or turned into a monster in a shamelessly railroady way...) which led to adventure Z'. Personally, I'd probably focus on a small group of thematically and aethetically similar domains.  Probably go with a vaguely British theme, using Paridon/Zherisia, Mordent, Lamordia, maybe Nosos, with Forlorn acting the part of Scotland, a version of Sithicus tweaked to be Arthurian rather than Dragonlancey, and perhaps an anglicised Dementlieu (with travellers, traders and so on from Souragne, I'Cath, the new Indian-themed domain whose name I can't remember, Har'Akir etc to add a bit of variety).What I'd be looking to do in a Ravenloft campaign is to really deeply establish recurring NPCs.  Make the PCs deal with mundania like property management, family issues, the Mordent marriage market, making a living.  Horror is more effective if it threatens people you care about, and darkness has more impact when it's contrasted with light.  If the players were agreeable i'd even suggest they might consider creating PCs from a common background because starting small in a closed enviroment would make it easier to establish a solid group of familiar NPCs for later.  The Ravenloft Bennett family, or the girls of Ravenloft St Trinians, or soldiers in Ravenloft Sharpe's regiment, or the crew of the Ravenloft Black Pearl, etc.  Have the PCs as regular people who become immersed in the world of monsters progressively and by accident rather than have them be a stereotypical D&D party full of friendless orphans who decide to 'go adventuring' one day.Probably have a sandbox-type game initially, maaaaaybe working up to maybe confronting a darklord as a campaign climax, but only if that's with what the PCs seem to be most interested in and the decisions they make (probably combined with a pre-campaign survey).  The long-term plot should grow from PCs decisions rather than be a choice the DM makes at the start.  Ravenloft is all about the consequences of one's own actions, after all, and a customised plot that grows organically has more room to integrate treasured NPCs into.  If a darklord confrontation was required, Godefroy might be a good possibility if that's the way it went, or Tristan apBlanc, or even Soth or whatever Jack the Ripper analog is the 5e Zherisia darklord (Sodo never really did anything for me,, to be honest).</blockquote>

Verification