Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zombiegleemax Nov 02, 2003 15:31:31	One thing about Ravenloft I have noticed is that it encourages a certain type of gaming style -- heavy atmospheric roleplay, spiced with real emotions which stem from the game, but affect the players on their own. I find it to be the most fun way of roleplaying. I recently discovered that this style "poisons" my other campaigns too. I somehow manage to slip in horror details even into the most hack-and-slash'ish parody campaign I have ever ran (and probably ever will). I realized it when my players were scared still in the parody just because I thought it would be a cool thing to have Illithids living under the city who come out only at night and only attack those on the streets. (Needless to say - burglaries by night are almost unheard of and there is probably a secret pact between the city council and the Illithids.) My players started investigating and the parody somehow slipped into the realm of the dreadful. Have you experienced something like that too in your campaigns? Do you play, for example, Forgotten Realms like Ravenloft with a lot of magic and different monsters? I now think that practically anything can be played like this but Ravenloft is perhaps a good catalyst and somehow brings it out. It just has the right tools.
#2 zombiegleemax Nov 02, 2003 15:33:53	Yes it happens to me all the time. Not that I often DM out of Ravenloft but when I prepare more fantasy games, I tend to want to inspire dread and a heavy atmosphere.
#3 platinumwarlock Nov 02, 2003 15:49:14	Definitely. When not running RL, I tend to pick and choose little bits from the setting and drop them into whatever other game I'm running. My last big campaign had an Elven Vampiress Druid as one of the main villains.....another one was a psychic demon, trapped within a planar power node that the PCs had to access. Turned out very nicely, actually. However, I have more of a penchant for ripping Call of Cthulhu stuff, and putting it into games. Way too many options with this one.... ;)
#4 zombiegleemax Nov 02, 2003 15:50:20	I make reality wrinkles the rule of the day. Nothing accentuates the inherent EVIL of a demon like having it twist the very fabric of reality.
#5 scipio Nov 02, 2003 16:03:21	I've started using reality wrinkles in all my campaigns, as well as fear, horror, and madness checks. Also, most of my campaigns have gotten decidedly darker in recent months.
#6 zombiegleemax Nov 03, 2003 2:00:49	I've only tried a couple of other games, but I have noticed that no matter what the game, the 'dark' feeling creeps in, and the focus is always more on the character interactions and roleplaying. It's a biased opinion but I reckon every setting could do with a touch of Ravenloft.
#7 zombiegleemax Nov 03, 2003 5:50:00	i have no desire to take ravenloftish atmosphere to other campaigns or worlds. sure, in every campaign, a strong emphasis must be laid on atmosphere, but it doesn't necessarily have to be dark or gothic. just because it's not gothic (although, gothic is my favourite), doesn't mean a campaign is without atmosphere. for example, dark sun has a strong theme of hard physical survival, whereas planescape has a great emphasis on "worldliness". atmospheres can be created from such themes on quite a different basis. i take great care not to spill the essence of ravenloft to other worlds. that's what, for me, makes ravenloft ravenloft. but a campaign without atmosphere is not an enjoyable campaign
#8 trebor_minntt Nov 03, 2003 18:03:31	I don't run Ravenloft, i run my own homebrew world of Generica but Ravenloft has influenced my game in many ways. It taught me the darker side of DMing, the parts the players don't like, but that make them feel like their earned their rewards, like curses. I included Ravenloft in my last campaign but the players hated it, which is probably me not running it right, but they found it too difficult and couldn't handle being bastions of light in the sea of darkness. Still in my new campaign (just 6 weeks old) I have already begun to include ravenloftien themes, and a darker edge to the world. As a DM I love the place as a player I hate it but it is by far the most atmospheric world i have ever read about and I love adding little bits of it into my normal game.
#9 zombiegleemax Nov 04, 2003 17:06:30	Ravenloft has also influenced my other games. My current d20 alternity science fiction campaign is heavily influenced by ravenloft atmosphere. For one thing in ravenloft there is often the feeling of being trapped. In most science fiction campaigns this is not true since one can pretty much go wherever they like. In my campaign the p.c's are pretty much stuck on one large city-ship and can not leave. In the campaign humans have been pretty much exterminated. Since one of the p.c's is a human they can't leave the ship without being in great danger and so the p.c's feel trapped. Also the general atmosphere of the campaign is dark. Also in my campaign the Fraal's homeworld was destroyed by a being known as the ancient evil, who is pretty much identical to the red death of masque fame. In fact the locolico from the BoS are in my campaign and serve the ancient evil exterminating Fraal's. but that's not really unusual I think most campaigns are influenced by a lot of things. In addition to ravenloft my campaign is influenced by Babylon 5, DS9, call of the cthulthu, beastmaster, etc... So I would find it strange if ravenloft didn't influence any of a person's other campaigns.
#10 zombiegleemax Nov 07, 2003 22:35:44	My games as well, I like Ravenlofts Low-Magic (some would disagree) and I like Ravenloft low Pc-Monster ( I usualy ask my players play core races) and the outcast feeling, plus the intrigue. I don't DM Ravenloft as much but I personaly don't care for D&D's all Humans, elves, Dwarves, Tarrasques, Dragon, Half-Fairy, drow and the weird combinations I want to be a Half-Sucubuss Half-Eriynes (yet I a Neutral Good) type creatures getting along all the time. Some do get along , some don't , some don't know... But the outcast rating in Ravenloft I a great Idea,
#11 zombiegleemax Nov 08, 2003 13:00:57	Every single time I run D&D, I feel the overwhelming urge to up and transform the campaign into a Ravenloft campaign. *sighs* Maybe I should just stick to running RL..... -- NB
#12 zombiegleemax Nov 08, 2003 18:09:47	I feel the overwhelming urge to transfer any campaign into Ravenloft but most of the time I'm able to resist. My current campaign I had planned (and warned the players) ahead of time we were going to start "normal" and then the mists would come. There is some influence and carry-over in my games I've been told. I know I consider how a very powerful NPC can screw with the party much like a Darklord would... and I do insert horror elements. Some things just can't be helped.
#13 zombiegleemax Nov 11, 2003 6:32:01	Ravenloft does, or did, carry over into my Forgotten Realms gig, and vice versa. It probally happened because I chop shop everything I read (D&D) and piecemeal things together...I dunno. I found that it didn't help things knowing that Ravenloft was created, on the majority, from all the other gaming worlds...it was just too easy to bring that element over (or, tap it), and when going back to those worlds (FR and a few homebrew), I just happened to bring some of the more unique elements that Ravenloft has to offer. Or, those elements that Ravenloft utilizes as foundation. Mainly, the world is against you/cares less about you vibe (Dark Power(s) = Nature), the helplessness of combatting those in political power (PCs are, more times that not, extremely limited in their influence on the political scale), the refined concept of heroism (a losing, or, self-doubting battle)...that sort of thing. You know, game depression. Maybe "Mortality" is a better term...? When it came to actual style...not really. Aside from the fact that, on average, Ravenloft characters are more developed (through limitation) than those of other settings. On average...from my own personal experiences. Maybe also on the amount of time/detail spent on scene presentation...but that's probally it.
#14 zombiegleemax Nov 17, 2003 17:11:21	Yeah I run a Campaign in the vast lands of Generica myself where I snip out good bits and pieces from other settings to add to my own original stuff (even Thay is in there, because let's face it, the Red Wizards rock.) Ravenloft is a heavy contributor to the atmosphere of the nations in the more central regions of the main continent, all heavily forested and murky. Madness and Horror checks are part of life in the campaign world, along with sinkholes of evil. Most prominently I adopt the rules for salient powers regarding powerfl undead like vampires and liches.
#15 manindarkness Nov 17, 2003 20:14:38	I've just had an undead blind aarakocra girl suffereing from a curse in my last FR session, so I think RL hasn't altered my games a bit. :P Did I mention that the main villian is rank 5 ancient dead?