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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SteveC" data-source="post: 9249028" data-attributes="member: 9053">Could not agree more with you. I ran Strahd and it was one of the best campaigns I've ever done because of how omni-present the bad guy is before you ever meet him. Everyone knows about "the Devil" and they also know that he can hear you if you say his name so it's in hushed tones.So much of the adventure is figuring out what you can actually do. Do you just want to get out? Do you want to beat Strahd? And if he invited you here, what was up with that? Do you want to save Ireena? Can you? And what about the Mad Mage you heard about?What helped me was that I had players who bought into the adventure and did were willing to do some unusual things. One of them absolutely loved the Dream Pastries for instance and went out of there way to keep eating them. I was running the game with the idea that the plot of the adventure happened periodically and was essentially a loop to please the Dark Powers. Strahd wanted to get out of the loop and was playing the long game to escape with the help of the characters. What I would recommend for the campaign is watching the Puffin Forest series on how he ran the adventure and take some of those ideas to heart.But strong villain + locations you can freely explore + ticking clock + player buy-in = a great adventure. And the bad guy is the most important part.</blockquote>