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

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wombat" data-source="post: 1221461" data-attributes="member: 8447">In many ways, I should be a Ravenloft fan, but ultimately I am not.I love Old School gothic literature -- Goethe, Radcliffe, Lewis, and the like.  I like the "decayed" setting material.  I love Poe.  I listen to old Romantic classical music.  An old vampire or, better yet!, ghost story really tickles my fancy.On the other hand, I have many basic problems with the setting of Ravenloft.First up, I am not a fan of D&D planes; the notion of a demi-plane I find outside my general tastes just in general.  Either it is "reality" or it is not.  But more importantly, the concept behind the Demi-Plane of Dread I find ridiculous.  If the Dark Lords are there to be punished, why are they given so much authority?  They can close down borders, meddle in the affairs of the people of the realms, and generally terrorize others at will, albeit under the problem of never being able to leave their realm.Equally, why are the people of the realms there?  Are they mere constructs (in which case being an adventurer is equivalent to being Rimmer in Red Dwarf) or are they real?  If they are real, what did they do to deserve such a punishment?  They would all have to be guilty of something less than the horrors of the Dark Lords, but sufficiently heinous to deserve such an address, which ultimately means none of them can be Innocents.I like the low magic aspect.  I like the moral ambiguities.  I like the tint of corruption.  All of this could lead to good gaming, but ultimately I think Ravenloft works best, not as a whole demi-plane, but as a single country (choose one of the realms) placed in context of a larger campaign.  Make it one kingdom (or duchy or whathaveyou) that creates its own rules regarding magic, gods, etc., and then you have something truly creepy.</blockquote>

Verification