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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Thanael" data-source="post: 4665290" data-attributes="member: 22734">The thing is the Dark Powers are not on the side of the darklords! They are their greatest tormentors. And the darklords are the most tormented beings in the whole of Ravenloft. Every single one of them has a tragic sad tale about human choice and evil, a tale of gothic horror. The darklords are not revelling in their evil they are tormented and every single one of them hates his torment. The DPs won't rain death down on the PCs if they fight against a darklord and unmake all their efforts. Rather they will study the choices and evil everyone commits and give a nudge here and there and produce more gothic horror and tragedy in the end. But there's no gothic horror and no tragedy without hope. It is Gothic horror after all and not just slasher-horror.It is a common misconception of the setting that stems from running a campaign in an antagonistic mindset. That same mindset can be applied to any campaign world and all the arguments would apply to that campaign too. Heck Gygax sort of ran his Greyhawk that way. But in the end in D&D you can't win against the DM. The game is about telling a story together or providing challenges to overcome and in Ravenloft the theme of these stories and challenges is Gothic Horror, and the challenge is to hold out against the Darkness and achieve small victories while keeping the stain of evil from oneself. The goal is not ultimate pawnage and defeating the DPs. All arguments that arise from this mindset are equally applicable to every campaign world that is run in this mindset if you substitute gods for the DPs and BBEG NPCs for Darklords.Fighting and defeating the Dark Powers is not the goal. The DPs are just Ravenlofts personification of DM fiat. And the darklords all have a weakness for the PCs to exploit. This weakness is the central defining theme of the darklord and always hidden in their tragic backstories. But exploiting that and defeating them doesn't necesarily equal killing them. It is not that simple in Ravenloft and winning is more complicated than killing things and taking their stuff.</blockquote>

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