DDAL Running DDAL04 (Ravenloft) Adventures as a Campaign

[jayoungr]

I've begun running season 4 of the DDAL adventures ("Misty Fortunes and Absent Hearts," the ones corresponding to Curse of Strahd) as a short campaign for a home table (i.e., not worrying about being AL compatible). There are 14 adventures in the season, and while they basically fit together into a single storyline, they're designed as discrete incidents that can be played in any order, so there isn't a lot of interconnectivity or foreshadowing. There are also some aspects that wouldn't be noticed when playing the adventures one at a time but that raise some questions when they're strung together campaign style. So I'm making this thread to record my process in turning the adventures into a campaign. I'd welcome suggestions and tips from others on the board as well.

Order of Adventures:
DDAL04-02: The Beast
DDAL04-06: The Ghost / DDAL04-01: Suits of the Mists (blend)
DDAL04-03: The Executioner
DDAL04-04: The Marionette
DDAL04-05: The Seer
DDAL04-08: The Broken One
DDAL04-07: The Innocent / DDAL04-11: The Donjon (blend)
DDAL04-09: The Tempter
DDAL04-10: The Artifact
DDAL04-12: The Raven
DDAL04-13: The Horseman
DDAL04-14: The Darklord

 

[GlassJaw]

I'm definitely interested in your experience. I'm thinking about running CoS for my group and have looked at other sources to add to the campaign. I don't play in AL but and I've looked closely at the adventures and have read many posts on how others have ran them.

The general consensus is that the overall story is good but some of the adventures are absolutely awful and require a lot of editing (and cutting) to make them work. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend Merric's blog:

https://merricb.com/category/curse-of-strahd/

If you search, you can find some other threads in here on them as well.

 

[jayoungr]

I'm definitely interested in your experience. I'm thinking about running CoS for my group and have looked at other sources to add to the campaign. I don't play in AL but and I've looked closely at the adventures and have read many posts on how others have ran them.

If you have any links to posts or blogs about other people's experiences, especially external links, please share them! I'd love to read them.

The general consensus is that the overall story is good but some of the adventures are absolutely awful and require a lot of editing (and cutting) to make them work.

Oh yes. I'm grateful that my players are taking a detour to the Quivering Forest because it gives me time to figure out how to handle the notorious DDAL04-03, "The Executioner."

If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend Merric's blog:

https://merricb.com/category/curse-of-strahd/

Yes, I have been checking it! Very useful.

 

[jayoungr]

DDAL04-01, "Suits of the Mists"

I skipped DDAL04-01, "Suits of the Mists," because it's essentially just an excuse to get the characters to Barovia via the mists. My players have a longstanding tradition that Barovia is a known location in their homebrew world, so the mists aren't necessary for that. (Things still work oddly in their Barovia, though--Strahd keeps returning no matter how many times he's killed, for example.)

This is going to have some ripples for the rest of the campaign, starting with the fact that Gur aren't a thing in the world where we're playing. I'm thinking of changing Sybil to a Vistani. Similarly, at least some of the other elements that are supposed to have come from Faerûn will need to be modified.

I'm also planning to cannibalize "Suits of the Mists" for some later encounters to insert into other adventures. For example, I'm planning to put the encounter with the mad elves into DDAL04-06, "The Ghost."

 

[jasper]

Here is my writes of season 4.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...questions-and-rants-Spoilers&highlight=season
Some of the modules I would just drop.

 

[GlassJaw]

After all the edits and cuts, I'm not sure how much content will actually remain. For starters, a couple of the adventures aren't in the same timeline so I'll definitely be cutting those. There is also a lot of repetition in the battles and monsters, many of which feel like filler because of the AL format. I also won't need Suits of the Mists because the players will already be in Ravenloft (although some is probably worth salvaging).

I like the idea of a village in the northeast corner of Barovia that has been cutoff from the rest of the land. Not sure how to get the players there though... I'm considering adding an overgrown and forgotten path that leads from the Village of Barovia through the woods along the edge of the base of the mountain (hmm, could also be a place for one of the Fortunes of Ravenloft). There are also some cool role-playing opportunities and situations with multiple ways for the players to solve. Plus, Jenny Greenteeth is an awesome NPC.

 

[jayoungr]

After all the edits and cuts, I'm not sure how much content will actually remain. For starters, a couple of the adventures aren't in the same timeline so I'll definitely be cutting those.

Which ones are you thinking of?

There is also a lot of repetition in the battles and monsters, many of which feel like filler because of the AL format. I also won't need Suits of the Mists because the players will already be in Ravenloft (although some is probably worth salvaging).

At minimum, I'm going to use the Mist Zombies from that adventure whenever zombies turn up. They're a different flavor from regular zombies, which my players have already fought before.

Plus, Jenny Greenteeth is an awesome NPC.

She is, but as I read through the adventures, am I right in thinking that she only shows up at the very beginning and the very end? Seems like the main purpose of including her earlier on is to make her available for spellcasting services.

 

[GlassJaw]

Which ones are you thinking of?

The Donjon and The Raven. As I understand, they were sort of an "interlude" to the main storyline. As MerricB states on this blog:

"Both it and The Donjon suffer from being irrelevant to the main plotline, bringing in elements that don’t matter, and letting the tension that has been growing through the actions of Esmae and the Burgomaster drain away."

She is, but as I read through the adventures, am I right in thinking that she only shows up at the very beginning and the very end? Seems like the main purpose of including her earlier on is to make her available for spellcasting services.

She shows up in The Ghost as well. But yes, I definitely would introduce her earlier. Ideally, I would want the players to build an uneasy relationship with her. Certainly not one they feel good about one out of necessity.

 

[jayoungr]

The Donjon and The Raven. As I understand, they were sort of an "interlude" to the main storyline.

Yeah, those are going to be at minimum heavily edited and rearranged for me too. Or I might outright cut them.

She shows up in The Ghost as well. But yes, I definitely would introduce her earlier. Ideally, I would want the players to build an uneasy relationship with her. Certainly not one they feel good about one out of necessity.

I'm tempted to go the opposite route and just not bring her into the story at all until she actually plays a part. I'm not running an AL game, so spellcasting services aren't important in the same way. It would mean running "The Ghost" without the ghost, which is a shame because that's a pretty cool encounter, but there's no real payoff for it. The PCs have nothing they want from her at this stage in the story and no reason to consult her. Maybe I could put it in at the end (suitably ramped up) as something she wants them to do before she'll consent to help out with the main storyline.

 

[jayoungr]

DDAL04-02, "The Beast"

I started with this adventure because of the strong story. I originally intended just to run it as a one-shot, but the group's response to it was positive, so I decided to extend to the rest of the series. Had I known that I was going to run the campaign from the beginning, I would definitely have taken more time to introduce the town of Oraşnou and its inhabitants. I would also have run the four-hour version of the adventure, with some extra encounters. But missing those is not all bad; it means I have a bunch of easy random encounters that I can toss in anywhere.

The encounters I did use were "It Stirs in the Thickets" (the twig and vine blights) and "Bad Dogs" (the death dog encounter). My party are very genre-savvy when it comes to Ravenloft, so they made sure to burn the body they found in the first encounter. They were going to burn Laszlo's body too, but fortunately, they forgot about that part. If they had tried, I was going to remind them about the storm moving in, and if they still wanted to try, I was going to have the body dissolve into black mist, "taken by the Dark Powers."

Speaking of the storm, giving it the right amount of narrative weight is tricky. You want to use it to keep the group moving and stop them from having a long rest, but you don't want to play it up so much that they refuse to set out on the mission at all. It's supposed to be such a deadly storm that it even endangers a pair of experienced trappers like Alina and Laszlo, but then why should a bunch of low-level adventurers risk it? Also, my group wanted to find some shelter and take a long rest after finding the campsite. I had to prod them by reminding them that the storm would obliterate the trail of the wolf tracks if they did that. I did make it clear that if they didn't want to follow the tracks, they didn't have to, though.

If I'd known this was going to be a campaign, I might have also cut the encounter with the elves. They're mostly useful as eyewitnesses to confirm that Alina is a werewolf, but my group figured that out anyway. However, it does give me an excuse to send the group to the Quivering Forest next session, since they need to escort the elves back there.