Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Remathilis" data-source="post: 8244311" data-attributes="member: 7635">So this is my take: Ravenloft was D&D's horror setting. It has some iconic characters, some really great ideas, settings, and some history. Ravenloft (the module) has seen printing for nearly every edition of D&D and there are plenty of products that have borrowed Ravenloft's name (such as the boardgame that came out in 4e). Any attempt to co-opt Ravenloft with a new setting (be in Innistrad or something completely new) would end up resulting in "Why didn't you use Ravenloft?" as the automatic retort. Clearly, the Ravenloft BRAND has some bite in it. (Pun intended).HOWEVERRavenloft, the settings LORE is kinda problematic. It wasn't well stewarded in the years it was active in TSR (ranging in some products of varying quality for excellent to WTF), its lore has numerous issues, retcons, and outright contradictions, and a fair amount of the domains have hooks that were fine in 1990's but doesn't fit WotC's 2020's ethos. In short, the details of the setting needed an overhaul, even if the concept of the setting is sound.[USER=5948]@humble minion[/USER] has pointed a number of these issues out as he's been going domain to domain; some ideas don't like they once did. There are issues with how women are portrayed (both as darklords and as tragic figures in the male darklord origins), with race (both in the D&D "every domain but a handful is overwhelming human" and in the "how domains portray other RW races and cultures" sense), and with how close certain domains mimic thier source material (Strahd, for example has had great pains taken to move him further from being a Dracula ripoff, especially in looks. Compare CoS Strahd to Realms of Terror Strahd visually). Some domains have a strong story, while others are fairly tame to the point of kinda boring. So WotC is trying to re-invent Ravenloft by keeping what has worked (strong thematic domains, classic horror monsters, Mists) and fix the things that don't anymore (Vistani as g*psies, redundant domains/darklords, representation issues). Obviously, this isn't going to work for everyone, but I think they can both keep to the spirit (again, pun intended) of the setting even if they have to do some major revision on the detail level.And Valachan would certainly be a more interesting domain if it was focused around ACTUAL African lore, perhaps written by someone who was familiar with it, rather than the strange mishmash of Africa and European it is now.</blockquote>

Verification