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Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft Review Round-Up – What the Critics Say
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<blockquote data-quote="Remathilis" data-source="post: 8284169" data-attributes="member: 7635"><p>Ravenloft, true to it's genre, was an unholy mashup of two play styles: weekend in hell and living world. They designed a bunch of individual domains that obeyed thier own logic, then stitched a bunch together with not a lot of thought as to thier neighbors. Tepest would kill demihumans for being "fey" yet it's northern neighbor is Darkon. How do those nations conduct trade? The moon changed in number, size, color and phase simply by crossing the border. The Sea of Sorrows disappeared when you were walking the coast from Mordent to Valachan. Things like this made the idea of a living world difficult. Even if you were iron out these inconsistencies, you still have dozens of domains that are floating in the Mists that don't connect to anything and don't have any of the trade or intrigue access. Often, those Domains were second class citizens as far the setting was concerned. </p><p></p><p>Ravenloft had two choices: rebuild it like a real campaign setting with fixed nations, trade, commerce and faiths akin to a spooky Forgotten Realms, or break it apart and make each it's own haunted playground. <em>I</em> would have loved the former (borrowing the design from Masque of the Red Death but making it a fantasy world rather than Earth) I respect the fact they went back to weekend in hell with nods to the interconnected settings.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Remathilis, post: 8284169, member: 7635"] Ravenloft, true to it's genre, was an unholy mashup of two play styles: weekend in hell and living world. They designed a bunch of individual domains that obeyed thier own logic, then stitched a bunch together with not a lot of thought as to thier neighbors. Tepest would kill demihumans for being "fey" yet it's northern neighbor is Darkon. How do those nations conduct trade? The moon changed in number, size, color and phase simply by crossing the border. The Sea of Sorrows disappeared when you were walking the coast from Mordent to Valachan. Things like this made the idea of a living world difficult. Even if you were iron out these inconsistencies, you still have dozens of domains that are floating in the Mists that don't connect to anything and don't have any of the trade or intrigue access. Often, those Domains were second class citizens as far the setting was concerned. Ravenloft had two choices: rebuild it like a real campaign setting with fixed nations, trade, commerce and faiths akin to a spooky Forgotten Realms, or break it apart and make each it's own haunted playground. [I]I[/I] would have loved the former (borrowing the design from Masque of the Red Death but making it a fantasy world rather than Earth) I respect the fact they went back to weekend in hell with nods to the interconnected settings. [/QUOTE]
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Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft Review Round-Up – What the Critics Say
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