D&D General Ravenloft: Monsters vs Darklords

[Paul Farquhar]

Some of my very favourite Ravenloft material was the 3rd Ed gazetteers which really made the place feel lived in and real

That's exactly the problem with it. Ravenloft isn't supposed to feel real. Gothic horror as a genre isn't supposed to feel real.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Um... excuse me? Did you not read the FIRST paragraph too?

Excuse you, did you read the rest of what you wrote? You can't say "well, there are two sides to this" and then basically declare that one side are a bunch of morons. Nothing you wrote, in any paragraph, is a Get Out of Jail Free card for the rest of it.

Just because you don't happen to agree with or like one of the sides doesn't mean me pointing out that that side exists is wrong.

I don't particularly care about Ravenloft one way or another. I do think people running around declaring that playing a certain way "isn't Ravenloft" is gross and incredibly toxic.

 

[Bedrockgames]

That's exactly the problem with it. Ravenloft isn't supposed to feel real.

These are obviously subjective but I agree with you here. The 3E Ravenloft felt too real in many ways for me. I get for some that could have been a draw (and I have noticed there is a split around this in the fandom). But for me I liked that almost soundstage and dreamlike quality that Ravenloft had. It is counter intuitive but I found it more immersive. And I liked that you had the freedom to not feel like everything had to be naturalistic in it

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't particularly care about Ravenloft one way or another. I do think people running around declaring that playing a certain way "isn't Ravenloft" is gross and incredibly toxic.

I like to be cordial in talking about games but I also think this is overstating things when it comes to people expressing a passionate opinion. Ultimately any expression of "this isn't x" when you are dealing with media is subjective. I think even the person saying that knows this. But we can also have robust debates about whether something captures the spirit of a setting or not. On the one hand, I don't want people feeling bad for liking other versions of Ravenloft, on the other it would be dishonest for me to say that I don't think there is a true spirit of Ravenoft that some versions don't capture or don't capture as well. That is still just my opinion. But let's not act like people having a strong preference for one incarnation of media over another are 'gross' or 'toxic'. When we do that we are putting them into he same category as creeps and abusers, something as innocuous as thinking Superman I with Christopher Reeve was the best version of Superman.

A lot of people think real Ravenloft is the original module (and maybe also the House of Gryphon Hill). I don't agree, but I get why they think that. And if they say "That is the only real Ravenloft" I don't think it makes them bad person. Just makes them a passionate fan of the first two modules

 

[Minigiant]

This is some straight up badwrongfun nonsense, although not as aggressively so as Minigiant's take on it.

You can have all of those themes in Ravenloft without ever having a Darklord show up. Given that Ravenloft is just Gothic fiction with the names not even particularly well filed off, I'd say that Poe, Shelley, Stevenson and company all showed that it's 100% doable.

"You're not using the setting right unless you're doing it the way I and my fellow gatekeper say" is hot garbage. Negative internet points for both of you.

Ravenloft is not the only way to run Gothic horror D&D.

One can do Gothic or Cosmic horror in D&D outside of Ravenloft. Nobles, vampires, mad scientists, and werewolves exist outside Ravenloft. Ravenloft IMHO has a bit more than just being a horror plane.

It's not "you are doing it wrong" as much as "how are you keeping Ravenloft unique and identifiable if you lessen the darklords?"

For example, if you lessen the involvement or impact of darklords, how does Ravenloft feel different to your players than Innistrad?

 

[Bedrockgames]

Ravenloft is not the only way to run Gothic horror D&D.

One can do Gothic or Cosmic horror in D&D outside of Ravenloft. Nobles, vampires, mad scientists, and werewolves exist outside Ravenloft. Ravenloft IMHO has a bit more than just being a horror plane.

It's not "you are doing it wrong" as much as "how are you keeping Ravenloft unique and identifiable if you lessen the darklords?"

For example, if you lessen the involvement or impact of darklords, how does Ravenloft feel different to your players than Innistrad?

I get where you are coming from but I think what makes Ravenloft unique is the process that creates dark lords, and the fact that the land reflects the dark lords. You can have a whole campaign that never features a darklord at all but their presence is felt. Not having them face Dark lords used to be quite standard. Back when I was running the game people viewed adventures where the players took them on almost as a lazy session by the GM. this is because the process that creates dark lords in the setting also creates all other kinds of monsters and villains with connections to the realm of terror of their own. The problem with Dark Lords is they are like celebrities. Having them show up too often can make the world feel very small sometimes. I am not saying peopel are wrong to use them more. Just the game can be run without relying on them and still completely feel like Ravenloft

That said, while I usually use a lot of restraint, at some point it is usually pretty likely Harkon Lukas shows up because I have I like running him. And Ivan Dilisnya is a close second for me

 

[Micah Sweet]

Hammer was, for the most part, played straight, and most of the cheesiness was due to low budgets. But anyone who deliberately tries to emulate that low budget fog machine cheesiness is clearly aiming for comedy.

Yeah, I can't tell you how many times I laughed out loud reading Ravenloft material, especially all those hilarious novels back in the 90s.

Come on man. You know they weren't going for comedy. Just admit your preferences. It's pretty clear to me that you just don't care for Ravenloft as a setting. That's fine, but claiming they were aiming for comedy with it is ridiculous.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Ravenloft is not the only way to run Gothic horror D&D.

One can do Gothic or Cosmic horror in D&D outside of Ravenloft. Nobles, vampires, mad scientists, and werewolves exist outside Ravenloft. Ravenloft IMHO has a bit more than just being a horror plane.

It's not "you are doing it wrong" as much as "how are you keeping Ravenloft unique and identifiable if you lessen the darklords?"

For example, if you lessen the involvement or impact of darklords, how does Ravenloft feel different to your players than Innistrad?

Why should any given person care about a comparison to Innistrad? That's just barely an RPG setting at all, and has nothing to do with Ravenloft other than possibly taking some inspiration from it.

 

[Minigiant]

I get where you are coming from but I think what makes Ravenloft unique is the process that creates dark lords, and the fact that the land reflects the dark lords. You can have a whole campaign that never features a darklord at all but their presence is felt. Not having them face Dark lords used to be quite standard. Back when I was running the game people viewed adventures where the players took them on almost as a lazy session by the GM. this is because the process that creates dark lords in the setting also creates all other kinds of monsters and villains with connections to the realm of terror of their own. The problem with Dark Lords is they are like celebrities. Having them show up too often can make the world feel very small sometimes. I am not saying peopel are wrong to use them more. Just the game can be run without relying on them and still completely feel like Ravenloft

That said, while I usually use a lot of restraint, at some point it is usually pretty likely Harkon Lukas shows up because I have I like running him. And Ivan Dilisnya is a close second for me

I'm not saying a DM has to make the party face a darklord to make it Ravenloft.


What I am saving is if you make the darklords a true background character with no impact on the party, what other things must a DM do to make it still Ravenloft.

If Strahd and Ivan sit in their castles and do jack squat, is it still Ravenloft if the party only interacts with Joe the Random Serial Killer and Jane the Random Cultleader, both who have little connection to their domain's darklord?

 

[Shardstone]

Setting purity tests don't really float with me. If you want to use Ravenloft just for the vibes and aura that comes with saying something is in Ravenloft, that's good enough reason IMO to say it's in Ravenloft.

I'm not saying a DM has to make the party face a darklord to make it Ravenloft.


What I am saving is if you make the darklords a true background character with no impact on the party, what other things must a DM do to make it still Ravenloft.

If Strahd and Ivan sit in their castles and do jack squat, is it still Ravenloft if the party only interacts with Joe the Random Serial Killer and Jane the Random Cultleader, both who have little connection to their domain's darklord?