D&D General Reading Ravenloft the setting

[Bedrockgames]

That's already what Ravenloft does. Barovia and Verbrek are the horror of being hunted and turned into something other. Tepest is the horror of being tempted by the other. Lamordia is the horror of being reduced to nothing more than a lab rat. Kartakass, Darkon, and Dementlieu are the horror of paranoia. Sithicus is the horror of decay and loss. Richmulot is the horror of contamination. Hazlan and Falkovnia are the horror of human cruelty and unfairness.

The fact that TSR decided to put this into a gothic-fantasy setting is irrelevant to the type of horror each domain embodies.

Lamordia is Frankenstein. Barovia is Dracula. Tepest is the hags from Shakespeare mixed with some brothers Grimm. Sithicus is about as gothic romance as you can get (an undead knight pining and tormented by the woman he loves). Richemulot is all about desolate ruins, and its filled with were rats (not were wolves, but very much in line with classic monster stuff). You obviously have other themes going on in these settings that make them work. Anything like that is going to have other themes. These are not discrete types of horror. These are discrete classic horror domains. If Lamordia was the toxic avenger domain, Sithicus the Saw Domain, Barovia the Dracula Domain, Tepest the slasher domain, Dementlieu the body horror domain, Kartakass the dark fantasy domain, then you'd have a patchwork of horror subgenres. But most of the domains you mention, if not all, are based on classic horror tropes and sources (not on new subgenres of horror)

 

[Bedrockgames]

Just to show I am not projecting here:

That is from the black box.

This is where you start to see a shift towards Fantasy Horror in the DoD book (but even here they adhere to the gothic roots of the setting). Still it is a distinctly different feel from the Black boxed set and the line up to that point (and to be fair lots of people were happy with this change, DoD is popular for a reason: I just always preferred the distinct style of the black box):

 

[Stormonu]

There were several reasons the original Ravenloft used Gothic, and I think one of the biggest reasons was the TSR Code of Conduct, which would have outright rejected a lot of the slasher & hammer films of the time. Now, without that burden, as well as other changes and development in people's attitude towards horror and suspense, they have a broader palette to work from, and more stories to tell.

I do like the tales of Poe, Stoker, Shelley, Pierce and the others and have no desire to lose many of the iconic existing darklords, but I think some of the pillars they have clung too tightly to for Ravenloft have hobbled the setting. Most especially the humanocentricism of the campaign world - the idea put forth that a darklord can only exist if it has rejected or lost its humanity and therefore "inhuman" races and creatures (that could not disguise themselves as human) could not feature prominently - as is apparent by the 90%+ human populations of all the realms with perhaps the exclusion of Sithicus (and to a lesser extent, Forlorn - but it's not like you could ever play a goblyn). As far as I am concerned, the humanocentricism can be shifted away to Masque and left there, and Ravenloft can better incorporate the demihumans and whatnot of typical D&D.

 

[Bedrockgames]

There were several reasons the original Ravenloft used Gothic, and I think one of the biggest reasons was the TSR Code of Conduct, which would have outright rejected a lot of the slasher & hammer films of the time. Now, without that burden, as well as other changes and development in people's attitude towards horror and suspense, they have a broader palette to work from, and more stories to tell.

I do like the tales of Poe, Stoker, Shelley, Pierce and the others and have no desire to lose many of the iconic existing darklords, but I think some of the pillars they have clung too tightly to for Ravenloft have hobbled the setting. Most especially the humanocentricism of the campaign world - the idea put forth that a darklord can only exist if it has rejected or lost its humanity and therefore "inhuman" races and creatures (that could not disguise themselves as human) could not feature prominently - as is apparent by the 90%+ human populations of all the realms with perhaps the exclusion of Sithicus (and to a lesser extent, Forlorn - but it's not like you could ever play a goblyn). As far as I am concerned, the humanocentricism can be shifted away to Masque and left there, and Ravenloft can better incorporate the demihumans and whatnot of typical D&D.

I actually asked Steve Miller about this (because I thought the code had something to do with it) but he said flat out it had nothing to do with it. According to him Nesmith and Heyday were all in on the gothic thing. According to him it was a creative choice. They freely drew on hammer through the line. Also if you take a close look at Ravenloft you see it kind of skated by the code (the black box talks about sensuality, has an adventure seed where a character gets pregnant alien style and has sone suggestive imagery).

I realize lots of folks want semi humans in Ravenloft. I maintain that the humancentric approach, the gothic and classic horror approaches are not weaknesses or holding it back, but strengths. Again it worked because it wasn’t typical D&D

 

[Shadowedeyes]

My problem with the humancentric thing is that first, it's weird from a cosmology standpoint. I'm supposed to believe that the dark powers overwhelmingly only choose human evildoers and adventurers in a multiverse filled with other beings? The second is that it definitely feels like it is that way specifically because the source material didn't have non-humans, except for the monsters themselves. Even if you want to keep it more to a gothic/classic horror style, it might be novel to put a D&D spin on it rather than just trying to repackage the exact story of Dr. Frankenstein's monster into tabletop.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Sure but that is more Jack the Ripper

Because a real life serial killer who brutally eviscerated at least five young women and was never caught is so much less disturbing than a fictional one...

and Sherlock Holmes stuff than Jason

Have you actually read A Study in Scarlet? You do know it's polemic attack on Mormonism? And that's before you get to the character of Tonga in The Sign of the Four!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Ravenloft doesn't really have many orcs.

The point is your average adventuring party is unlikely to be freighted by some dude with a kitchen knife and a rubber mask.

It's when they find out they have been slaughtering innocent teenagers that you get horror.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think this is a giant miscalculation. My guess is they are underestimating the intelligence and discernment of younger gamers and only listening to the most vocal and intense critics.

I've met humans. It's impossible to underestimate their intelligence.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

not an atomic bug or the Thing setting

A curious choice for your gatekeepering (movies, novels and TV under 50 years old will not be admitted into this setting), given that most people would consider The Thing (1982) a prime example of a classic horror movie, and was based on The Thing from Another World (1951) and the novel Who Goes There? (1938).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

On Hammer films

Hammer never set out to make "Gothic Horror" or "Classic Horror", they set out to make "popular horror", and to do it as cheaply as possible. They adapted novels that where more than 60 years old because the copywrite had expired and they didn't have to pay the authors anything. They used darkness and fog because it disguised cheep costumes and sets, they used London locations because they where local. They kept the violence and sex to what the censors of the time would let them get away with - most obvious towards the end of the cycle when the censors loosened up on sex.

Nevertheless, the films still stood up quite well in the 1980s. Something they don't do in the hi res post computer graphics movie world of the 2020s. Chances are, the target audience of the new Ravenloft book have never seen one.

Some notable Hammer films:

• The Quatermass Xperiment (1955). Science fiction body horror.
• The Gorgon (1955). Classic D&D monster, not so much a classic gothic monster....
• The Plague of the Zombies (1966). Invented the zombie movie.
• One Million Years BC (1966). Dinosaurs and fur bikinis. Horrific for anyone who cares about historical authenticity! Where is Ravenloft's dinosaur domain?
• The Devil Rides Out (1968). From the Dennis Weatley novel, dealing with Satanism. A forerunner of The Exorcist.
• Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter (1974). Pretty much the archetypical Ravenloft adventure...