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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 8291167" data-attributes="member: 2629">Funny you should mention this - I am running a campaign where the PCs use an extraplanar mansion as a waypoint to look for the Rod of Seven parts amongst the various planes of the universe - and I dropped a piece in a Ravenloft Realm.  I decided this about 2 years ago, so the timing was very fortuitous that Ravenloft came out now when the PCs were ready to start looking for a new item.  They've spent 2 sessions in my version of the House of Lament.More generally responding to the thread: I don't feel like Ravenloft, however, is a great 'Campaign' setting.  It is an outstanding 'Adventure' setting.  Ravenloft relies upon intensity and dread to really work ... and players tend to desensitize to those techniques if they are consistently there through a campaign.  I've used Ravenloft 'Domains of Dread' for decades as part of my campaign setting, and my general rules are:1.) PCs travel there for a specific adventure, and then would have trouble returning.  It is never their choice to go there... they are lured or drawn there through outside forces.2.) The PCs will be given a specific goal to achieve there through the storyline - but that isn't the truth of why they are there.  They're there to gather information and I use Ravenloft realms to deliver that information.  For example, one of my realms is a place where the Greatest Calamity that ever took place in my setting occurs over and over and over and over every day.  The Darklord is a soul destined to relive his mistake over and over and over.  In the end, he always lacks the courage to step the tragedy.  When PCs go there, they are given hints that they can stop the calamity and break the pattern ... but they're really there to observe the key players in the story and their personalities, even though they go through a different variation on the story every day.  And, if the PCs do help the tragedy be avoided, the Darklord still dies and the loop resets.  There is no beating the Domains of Dread.3.) The session before the PCs encounter the Domain of Dread is always very joyful, playful and fun.  This gives that contrast to make the Domain of Dread feel dreadful.4.) I don't do random horror.  All of the horror elements I use are tied to the adventure in some way.  I don't throw wandering monster werewolves into a Haunted House, or example, unless I establish that werewolves played a part in the curse of the house.  5.) In my campaign world, the Domains of Dread are dark reflections of the real world.  The Dreadlords are not the real people trapped in Ravenloft, but instead are Simulacrums of them that give shape to the pain and anguish experienced in the real world.  This gives me the freedom to have horrific events from earlier in the campaign that took place in the Prime show up as a Domain of Dread later in the game - features earlier corrupted versions of the PCs themselves.  That is usually a hit.</blockquote>

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