D&D 5E Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft Table of Contents

As shared by DMs Guild brand manager Lysa Penrose.

D&D 5E - D&D Van Richten's Guide To Ravenloft showing up in the wild!

Here's the first one I saw by the fantastic Lysa Penrose! Any others folks have seen?

www.enworld.org

 

[Weiley31]

Although, I gotta say: I like the hilarious image of like almost all of the party holding the door shut to the horde of zombies while one of the party members gets their Long Rest nap and then everybody just rotates holding the door shut and napping.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yeah but if the Train is a Dark Lord, then it could then shunt the extradimensional space into another Extradimensional Chaos Pocket and that just made things turn for the worse. Or it just regurgitates the extradimensional space into another one of its cars.

This kind of stuff needs to not fall on pure dm fiat for ravenloft though because there is only so much room for the gm to start changing things before it's no longer d&d. Even vague guidelines the GM can point at expands the remaining room for the gm to operate within

 

[Faolyn]

This kind of stuff needs to not fall on pure dm fiat for ravenloft though because there is only so much room for the gm to start changing things before it's no longer d&d. Even vague guidelines the GM can point at expands the remaining room for the gm to operate within

Ravenloft is built entirely within extradimensional space. The notion that a train might also use it isn't going to make it stop being D&D.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I strongly recommend people check out the Dimension 20 and Not Another D&D Podcasts to expand their ideas of what D&D can include.

 

[tetrasodium]

Ravenloft is built entirely within extradimensional space. The notion that a train might also use it isn't going to make it stop being D&D.

indeed but players shouldn't feel like they are playing calvinball by foisting the entire responsibility onto the gm to avoid some optional stuff aimed at the dm's needs. we've got page 62 "magic & metaphysics" but that could turn out to be little more than a rehash of tcoe's "personalizing spells" & I haven't seen or heard anything from wotc to uggest that might be an unreasonable prediction as much as I hope it is.

 

[Faolyn]

indeed but players shouldn't feel like they are playing calvinball by foisting the entire responsibility onto the gm to avoid some optional stuff aimed at the dm's needs. we've got page 62 "magic & metaphysics" but that could turn out to be little more than a rehash of tcoe's "personalizing spells" & I haven't seen or heard anything from wotc to uggest that might be an unreasonable prediction as much as I hope it is.

"DM makes stuff up to fit their world or adventure" isn't Calvinball; it's what DMs do.

 

[tetrasodium]

"DM makes stuff up to fit their world or adventure" isn't Calvinball; it's what DMs do.

The plyers can look at solid guidance from wotc & reasonably infer what kind of things their gm is likely to make up to fit a world based on ravenloft. The players can not look at an absence of that where someone scribbled "rulings not rules" in crayon to make similar inferences. that scribbled note in the empty void also basically ensures that every table will do it differently with few if any good commonalities being a seriousy strong likelihood. Giving good guidance is how wotc can avoid that unpredictability.

 

[Stormonu]

Although, I gotta say: I like the hilarious image of like almost all of the party holding the door shut to the horde of zombies while one of the party members gets their Long Rest nap and then everybody just rotates holding the door shut and napping.

Visions of Hodor (and his fate...) dance through my head.

 

[Faolyn]

The plyers can look at solid guidance from wotc & reasonably infer what kind of things their gm is likely to make up to fit a world based on ravenloft. The players can not look at an absence of that where someone scribbled "rulings not rules" in crayon to make similar inferences. that scribbled note in the empty void also basically ensures that every table will do it differently with few if any good commonalities being a seriousy strong likelihood. Giving good guidance is how wotc can avoid that unpredictability.

There's a huge difference between a DM changing a rule because they don't like it and a DM changing a bit of the way a setting works or adding or removing some of its elements. Heck, it's perfectly OK for a DM to make major changes to the actual rules of the game--half of those "rules", like feats or multiclassing, are actually just options. You want to disallow certain races or classes? Perfectly fine! You dislike part of a world element? Perfectly fine! The only actual issue is making sure your players know about what changes you make.

Ravenloft has always had an enormous amount of fan content specifically because it's perfectly OK for DMs to add or remove things. Doing so doesn't make it "not D&D." The rules for D&D aren't written in stone, after all.

 

[tetrasodium]

There's a huge difference between a DM changing a rule because they don't like it and a DM changing a bit of the way a setting works or adding or removing some of its elements. Heck, it's perfectly OK for a DM to make major changes to the actual rules of the game--half of those "rules", like feats or multiclassing, are actually just options. You want to disallow certain races or classes? Perfectly fine! You dislike part of a world element? Perfectly fine! The only actual issue is making sure your players know about what changes you make.

Ravenloft has always had an enormous amount of fan content specifically because it's perfectly OK for DMs to add or remove things. Doing so doesn't make it "not D&D." The rules for D&D aren't written in stone, after all.

It's not like WotC has absolutely no possible way of knowing what kinds of changes are likely to be needed or justified and no possible way of speaking about the pros & cons of making those kinds of changes.