[Ravenloft] Curious

[Azure Trance]

First, I should tell you I never played in a Ravenloft campaign. Second, I noticed (out of the blue, last night) I own all the 3rd Ed supplements so far. More of a collector then I thought, as I thumbed through the pages for the first time. I wondered, how would one run a campaign?

Surely there are different factors - they were born there, they were misted there, they want to stay, or leave; but how do you combine each adventure into a Ravenloft adventure? It shouldn't just be good hearted at the end, it should be fearful at the same time.

I know that each session can't be some sort of sanity losing CoC plot, though the atmosphere of fear and horror should still be there. I learned in English class during High School that Shakespeare, in Macbeth, included the scene of a drunk guard at the gate for comic relief. It has to have valleys as well as peaks. How would a DM apply that to Ravenloft? While it shouldn't be suspenseful all the time ... it feels from reading it as if it should be.

 

[Quinn]

This is an simplification but I think it's effective for Ravenloft. Ravenloft is far more dangerous at night than in the day. Let that form the peaks and valleys of an adventure. The daytime can be about investigation, talking with townsfolk, perhaps even allowing PC's to think that everything in their world is relatively normal. Humor is fine in Ravenloft, I think. At night, though, things take a much darker bent. NPC's are less friendly, and the whole gothic atmosphere of the plane is heightened.

 

[Argus Decimus Mokira]

Hey

I've been running Ravenloft adventures since 1989 (!) and completely agree that the books make it seem like evry villager is a werewolf, a vampire is under every rock, and every single house is haunted by 6 or 7 dozen ghosts, each more tragic than the last. I feel its important to trim the material from the books down to a point where the PCs don't expect the inn keeper to be a 1/2-Frankenstein-monster shogguth. Sure, a little comedy relief makes it into my campaign ... but only as often as maybe one generally funny scene or character in the time span of 4 or 5 sessions. Instead I like to offset the darkness of the world with bright spots of hope, beauty, love, and other gothic-ness like that. In fact, often my adventures don't even approach scary ... instead they embody the mood of a gothic story. I feel that only in this way can a convincing story line evolve. If the game were one scare after another it would lose so much very quickly.

Hope I've helped.
-Matt

[Edit] Check these guys out (especially their message boards): Secrets of the Kargatane

 

[Drawmack]

I played in a year long ravenloft campaign at one point (2e).

Some of the party was misted there and trying to get back home. Some of us were born there, but had a reason for adventuring. The thing to remember about Ravenloft is that anything, and I mean anything, can show up.

Here are some of the things we encountered.

A traveling medieval carnival, that you didn't want to be in at night.

The rift valley as an enchanted forest.

An egytian realm run by an evil asimar who entchanted the people to treat him as a god.

A mansion from Resident Evil.

Dwarven Rock Vampires.

My character's parents souls trapped in a crystal ball called Source Sight.

You must remember that a lot of he domains are 95% normal people who lock themselves inside at night but go about their business as normal in the daytime.

 

[Azure Trance]

Thanks for answering; I was curious as to how you would respond. One more question though - is Rudolph Van Richten really dead/permantely gone? (Oddly enough; when I first read the name Rudolph Van Richten I immediately thought - Van Richten has a first name?) What were the circumstances of his disappearance (perchance in a novel?) and, I suppose, the Weathermay-Foxgrove twins will be the new RvR in Ravenloft?

 

[Argus Decimus Mokira]

Hey

Ruddy Van Richten met his demise in the Bleak House module. This was a boxed set containing three seperate adventures concerning past foes of the good doktor allying to finally dispose of him. There are four different endings to the adventure, one of which hints that van Richten will be reborn/reincarnated to stand with the forces of light during the prophesized Time of Unparalelled Darkness (the ending relies on the use of the tarokka deck, a plot device included in the original Ravenloft boxed set that vaguely resembles a real-world Tarot deck). IMO the adventure itself reeks ... it involves liberal plot railroading, one of the aforementioned ghost-in-every-room haunted houses, and, perhaps the worst offence of a Ravenloft campaign (though the most frequent in 2nd edition) a crummy dungeon crawl. The first third of the adventure, however, is absolutely brilliant, involving the PCs being trapped in an insane asylum, treated by a twisted psychologist (in the game he's a vampire I changed that for my campaign). Using the tarokka deck was also very cool, though it took me awhile to learn how to palm cards so I could get the ending I wanted
As far as the twins, they are continuing van Richtens work, as seen in the recent addition to the Ravenloft line (van Richten's Guide to the Walking Dead). The great thing about these books is that they give you game rules while forwarding the campaign time/plotlines. The twins have taken over the publishing business, using their small amount of monster-hunting knowledge and a large amount of correspondence with van Richten's previous acquaintances ... it's a good read. Hope I was of help.

Later
-Matt

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

I'm planning on a future campaign where I'll pregenerate a few OA characters for the players, and run them through a very short adventure, culminating in the (DM pre-determined) assassination of Garuda, an uber-monk/loremaster in my world. Then I'm going to tell them that this was foreshadowing to the rest of the campaign, which will take place a few centuries in the future.

So I'll have them create new characters and such, and beginning in a very English-style realm that seems to be the future version of my world's Thane. Unbeknownst to the players, however, they're actually in Mordent, in Ravenloft (or maybe Shining Bay, the alt.Zherisia from a netbook). In my backstory I've developed, the assassins were actually a cabal of shadow mages who, in killing Garuda, removed the seals on a portal to Ravenloft. Over the intervening time, Ravenloft leaked out and overtook my world.

 

[shadow]

Some of the Ravenloft stuff was kind of hokey, but there are some cool ideas in there.

Cool Stuff:
1. The Nightmare Lands: Sleep becomes your worst enemy. Dreams that become so real that they can affect you physically and mentally during the day.

2. The Dark Powers: Who are they? What are they? Good or Evil? The biggest mystery of Ravenloft is left up to the DM.

3. Monsters: The standard D&D monsters with a twist. Glass Golems (Remember Young Sherlock Holmes?), Assassin Imps, Demihuman Vampires, Goblyns (Not the standard D&D goblin, but a horrible flesh eating monster) to name a few.

4. The Carnival: A twisted freak show that transforms people who dwell around it too long.

Hokey Stuff:
1. All the D&D crossovers: Sure it's cool to take characters from other game worlds to Ravenloft, but do we really need Domains based off of every published setting? Luckily White Wolf has done a good job untangling Ravenloft from the web of crossover fever.

2. Rokushima Taiyoo: Why do we need another generic psuedo-Japanese domain? Besides that it seems silly that all the islands of Rokushima Taiyoo are just names of real world countries in Japanese (e.g. Beikoku=America) Why couldn't they have used names that had sinister meanings in Japanese?

3. That generic Egyption domain: Another generic Egyption world. This has been done to death. First Forgotten Realms, now Ravenloft.

4. Trying to combine Medieval with Gothic: Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't. Sometimes it seems weird to have illustrations of NPCs wearing Victorian style garments while in a medieval world. Luckily White Wolf has done a fair job of making the world more consistant with the introduction of Cultural Levels applied to all the domains.

Just my 2 cps

 

[Ruined]

I've been considering this very question lately, as I still want to play in a Ravenloft campaign again. Unfortunately I know the only way I'll get into will be to run it myself.

I think an extended Ravenloft campaign needs to be one fairly on the move. The heroes are good-aligned, maybe the investigative type. Take them around from domain to domain, going up against minor enemies. Yes, the Darklords are very cool. They're also very powerful and an easy way to get those PCs killed. I think they are good to surreptitiously work against, subverting their plans without charging at them with swords drawn. A tough thing to engineer as a DM.

On that same note, years ago I played in a campaign where we went up against a number of the smaller darklords and bested them before coming to the Strahd-Azlain conflict in 'From the Shadows' and (that other companion module). It was a great amount of fun, but not really a good example of what Ravenloft is intended for, IMHO.

 

[Kesh]

First, consider where in Ravenloft you will be playing. Some areas are suited for medieval gothic play, while others are more Renaissance oriented.

So, it depends. Do you want the game more like traditional D&D, or more like "Dracula" or "Frankenstein"? Knights or Musketeers? An evil lich, or a human who thinks they're doing good by killing their citizens?

Or, you could go hog wild and toss them into Bluetspur. Mind Flayers... mmm...