D&D General Reading Ravenloft the setting

[Bedrockgames]

2021 horror movie can't be like the ones from 1990, the year when the boxed set was published, or 1983, the original module. Not only because authors and players are a different generation, but the audence is used to decades of movies and teleseries. Now they are lots of new sources of inspiration, for example videogames, but also other TTRPGs.

But this is what Ravenloft rejected. When it came out, Ravenloft explicitly rejected modern horror and said: the classics can work. It wasn’t inspired by contemporary horror, it was inspired by gothic horror, classic horror stories and older horror movies (from Universal to Hammer). Were people so different in 1990 that we can accept that challenge but people today somehow can’t? I think a lot of popular media (for instance Stranger Things) shows there is a desire for older aesthetics

 

[tetrasodium]

But this is what Ravenloft rejected. When it came out, Ravenloft explicitly rejected modern horror and said: the classics can work. It wasn’t inspired by contemporary horror, it was inspired by gothic horror, classic horror stories and older horror movies (from Universal to Hammer). Were people so different in 1990 that we can accept that challenge but people today somehow can’t? I think a lot of popular media (for instance Stranger Things) shows there is a desire for older aesthetics

At the time modern horror tended to be a lot of slasher flics & the occasional reskin like the thing. It wasn't until more recently that we got a good bit of popular movies & tv that redo the old tropes in new & interesting ways like being human, TWD, & true blood, or brought up new ones like dark city, the matrix, zombieland, or many others. I thought about including things like interview with a vampire& shaun of the dead but despite a new era that changes a few things those still largely follow the old tropes

 

[Paul Farquhar]

But this is what Ravenloft rejected.

That was then. This is now.

When it came out, Ravenloft explicitly rejected modern horror and said: the classics can work. It wasn’t inspired by contemporary horror, it was inspired by gothic horror, classic horror stories and older horror movies (from Universal to Hammer). Were people so different in 1990 that we can accept that challenge but people today somehow can’t?

Thanks to the internet the world has changed rapidly since 1990, a time when only a few people had internet access.

And the main way it has changed is the 19th century worldview that was part of "the classics" is no longer acceptable.

 

[Bedrockgames]

And the main way it has changed is the 19th century worldview that was part of "the classics" is no longer acceptable.

The 19th century world view wasn't acceptable in 1990 either. That isn't the point. I think the difference was we could still enjoy 19th century literature and understood it came from a different time. Same with older movies. But that isn't the point I am making. I really don't understand the hyper-political, you are with us or against us mentality that is so prevalent in gaming now. We're talking about horror movie tropes. I was just told upthread by somebody, its okay to like problematic stuff. Wasn't that what was said? I don't know. I am as progressive and leftwing as they come. But I also can sit back and enjoy things. I don't have to constantly be in a state of reading into the content for messages. Like I said, a lot of the tropes in 90s Ravenloft were coming at it from a 90s, progressive mentality, or a totally non-political point of view. I really don't get this kind of moral posturing you are doing at all

 

[Bedrockgames]

And the main way it has changed is the 19th century worldview that was part of "the classics" is no longer acceptable.

This is such a misguided notion. You can enjoy classic literature and tropes, you can use classic tropes and monsters, without believing in the 19th century worldview. Just like 100-200 years from now, people will be able to watch our movies and read our books without embracing a 21st century worldview (I hope at least).

 

[Istbor]

It wasn’t inspired by contemporary horror, it was inspired by gothic horror, classic horror stories and older horror movies (from Universal to Hammer). Were people so different in 1990 that we can accept that challenge but people today somehow can’t?

I mean. That is fine, for then. A majority of people playing then had seen and experienced gothic horror, or classic horror in the normal pace of consuming media. With a widening selection of horror amongst a throng of genre's, where the current trend doesn't seem to be Gothic horror, this probably won't be the case. Yeah. There will be some younger people out there that found Gothic horror and love it, and many who are aware of it at least. Inspired and wanted to D&D in that particular horror genre? Unlikely.

And yes. People changed, and continue to change. How they consume media changes, trends change, world views change, and what is acceptable changes.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I mean. That is fine, for then. A majority of people playing then had seen and experienced gothic horror, or classic horror in the normal pace of consuming media. With a widening selection of horror amongst a throng of genre's, where the current trend doesn't seem to be Gothic horror, this probably won't be the case. Yeah. There will be some younger people out there that found Gothic horror and love it, and many who are aware of it at least. Inspired and wanted to D&D in that particular horror genre? Unlikely.

And yes. People changed, and continue to change. How they consume media changes, trends change, world views change, and what is acceptable changes.

I don't buy this. But even if we accept it as true: why put out a gothic horror setting like Ravenloft again at all then?

 

[Bedrockgames]

...world views change, and what is acceptable changes.

Again, I am not saying views and morality don't change. They were very different in 1990 versus the 19th century as well. You can still enjoy older material. Dear lord, how do you even deal with things like primary sources in history if a book like Dracula is a problem for you? We read lots of classics and old books we disagreed with in 1990, but we were able to contextualize them, extract meaning from them and use them to help us understand the evolution of art and expression over time. Definitely there were bad ideas in the past. History is filled with bad ideas, bad events, etc. One way to make sure those don't happen again, is to have a full awareness of the mentalities that were present during those times (for example you really can't understand something like the holocaust if you don't read material from the periods leading up to it that contained anti-semitic assumptions and racialist scientific theories). We are getting into real world politics here though, so I don't want to get into it more than that. But I think that is an important point to make because people seem to think folks like me, who came of age in the 90s, are saying you should read and enjoy old tropes because they are evil and we want you to be evil too. The point is you will have a real broken understanding of history if you aren't even able to contend with books from the past that contained ideas you don't agree with or are not considered acceptable any more. At the same time, you can enjoy a 19th century vampire without embracing the 19th century mindset of its writer. And you will also discover, humans are more complicated than just being products of their time. You will encounter things distasteful to modern readers but you will also encounter surprising ideas. There is still plenty of reason for example to read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or watch some of those old Universal movies based on her book like Bride of Frankenstein.

 

[tetrasodium]

I don't buy this. But even if we accept it as true: why put out a gothic horror setting like Ravenloft again at all then?

With what we recently learned about hazlan's mageocracy/dimentlyu from dragon talk or whatever it was it now spans a wide range of setting baselines to cover the needs of thay, some types of eberron adventures, dark sun(to a degree), Fey court & various planar adventuring etc. That gives gms room to build from and something to point at where they can say "like this but different " maybe along with some useful rules for really enabling it
In short, there are potentially a lot of good reasons

 

[Remathilis]

I don't buy this. But even if we accept it as true: why put out a gothic horror setting like Ravenloft again at all then?

If Ravenloft is only Gothic Horror, explain Kaliday. Explain Bluetspur. Explain the Wildlands.

Ravenloft has embraced the gothic, but it has also dipped it's toe into body horror, psychological horror, and slasher horror. I don't think much is going to change, to be honest.