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Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft Review Round-Up – What the Critics Say
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<blockquote data-quote="Levistus's_Leviathan" data-source="post: 8284015" data-attributes="member: 7023887"><p>I don't know why they would be taking a jab at either of those things. New Ravenloft and Curse of Strahd (the most popular 5e adventure) wouldn't have existed without Old Ravenloft. WotC has also made it clear that they love classic horror stories, they mentioned it several times in interviews about Rime of the Frostmaiden that the writers of the adventure watched a ton of classic horror movies to draw inspiration from them. (Which, I know seems hypocritical due to that warning they provided, but I read that as more a warning to avoid ripping off characters instead of just drawing inspiration from them. Being inspired by It to have a creepy clown monster is completely different from making your villain be a complete rip-off of Pennywise.)</p><p></p><p>I'm not speaking for WotC, but I would imagine that it's because "outdated" is often a more bleached term than "offensive". It's a way to say, "certain outdated tropes may be problematic" instead of "the people who made this were bigots". It's politer and more respectful, while also getting their guidance across that most outdated tropes are better left undisturbed in their dusty graves. </p><p></p><p>A ton of outdated tropes are offensive, and the rest of the bunch are mostly clichés that have been overdone. They're trying to recommend how to run unique and fun horror adventures, which is difficult when you're using clichés, and it's completely counteracted if you genuinely offend someone. </p><p></p><p>It could be judgmental, but as none of us have the ability to speak for WotC, we probably won't know what they were specifically meaning in that case. It could have been "Strahd is/was just a boring copy of Dracula in D&D, make him and your characters more interesting", or it could have been something "horror tropes are typically one-and-done. Once people experience a horror trope, they typically know what's coming if something similar to it happens another time, which completely negates the fear of the unknown factor of horror. Avoid these tropes because horror doesn't work if you know what's going to happen". I'm guessing they were thinking more of the latter than the former, but both are fairly valid interpretations of that reading.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Levistus's_Leviathan, post: 8284015, member: 7023887"] I don't know why they would be taking a jab at either of those things. New Ravenloft and Curse of Strahd (the most popular 5e adventure) wouldn't have existed without Old Ravenloft. WotC has also made it clear that they love classic horror stories, they mentioned it several times in interviews about Rime of the Frostmaiden that the writers of the adventure watched a ton of classic horror movies to draw inspiration from them. (Which, I know seems hypocritical due to that warning they provided, but I read that as more a warning to avoid ripping off characters instead of just drawing inspiration from them. Being inspired by It to have a creepy clown monster is completely different from making your villain be a complete rip-off of Pennywise.) I'm not speaking for WotC, but I would imagine that it's because "outdated" is often a more bleached term than "offensive". It's a way to say, "certain outdated tropes may be problematic" instead of "the people who made this were bigots". It's politer and more respectful, while also getting their guidance across that most outdated tropes are better left undisturbed in their dusty graves. A ton of outdated tropes are offensive, and the rest of the bunch are mostly clichés that have been overdone. They're trying to recommend how to run unique and fun horror adventures, which is difficult when you're using clichés, and it's completely counteracted if you genuinely offend someone. It could be judgmental, but as none of us have the ability to speak for WotC, we probably won't know what they were specifically meaning in that case. It could have been "Strahd is/was just a boring copy of Dracula in D&D, make him and your characters more interesting", or it could have been something "horror tropes are typically one-and-done. Once people experience a horror trope, they typically know what's coming if something similar to it happens another time, which completely negates the fear of the unknown factor of horror. Avoid these tropes because horror doesn't work if you know what's going to happen". I'm guessing they were thinking more of the latter than the former, but both are fairly valid interpretations of that reading. [/QUOTE]
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