Observe: When they talk about the lands near the middle to end of the book, it says that Ravenloft is a rich and beautiful world with majestic mountains, blah blah blah Don't let the forces of Darkness take over.
Um, much must have transpired between editions, because I don't recall Ravenloft having ever been a "beautiful" world. It seems like they decided to toss the creepy horror aspect out the window in favor of heroic high adventure, which, to me, was never what Ravenloft was about.
People may disagree with me on this, but myself and several of my fellow gamers deduced that the best way to play Ravenloft is to have the PCs be doomed to some sort of horrible fate by the end of a campaign, this was the pattern that the novels followed, and after playing a couple of campaigns as such, it worked really well that way- players just didn't know exactly what was in store for them. One player became the lord of his own domain, another joined with the Powers themselves in a symbiotic fashion.
We also found that playing common folk over any of the core classes worked best as a horror game. Players are from one of Ravenloft's cities or villages and are suddenly caught up in spookiness was great rather than having a party composed of 1 FR character, a DL character, 1 Mystara character and 1 Dark Sun character. What fear does a magic user feel if he has a shield spell ready when going into a dark cellar following a trail of blood?
The last 2E game we played, a player was running a noblewoman from Kartakass, another was a mountain hermit who kidnapped her for a ransom, and the other players were running common tradesfolk of the noblewoman's city who saw great rewards in rescuing her, only to have a Grim Reaper (monster compendium 1) stalking them. One nice addition to 3E is the half-Vistani race.
Have to read up on the 3E rules for powers checks and fear, horror and madness. If I like 'em, I'll use em, otherwise the rest of the material will be from the 2E boxed sets.
In the "old" days, most players visiting RL did so as foreigners drawn in by the Mists. Moreover, most scenarii back then involved "displacing" PC from one end of the Core to the other without plausible reason and pitting them against one darklord after another.
End result: veteran players started to run from the setting which rapidly acquired a reputation for being a Killer DM's heaven.
The new improved RL learned its lessons.
Now, most players begin as natives. Good thing because it means you can actually care for those you set out to save rather than simply running around looking for a way home.
Second, the whole RL universe (and, I am sorry to tell you, it was already so back in 2E) is based on the dichotomy between Day and Night. When the sun shines in the sky, RL looks like any other world. Scratch the surface or wait for dusk and its "real" face appears though.
If you don't believe me, simply reread the text under the Landscape heading, page 6 of the book found in the original 2E Realm of Terror boxed set.
No one likes to play in a 100% grim & gritty world where the best you can achieve is being cursed by level 3, being a lycanthrope by level 6 and on your way to darklord by level 9. Although, the new Midnight setting could prove me wrong on that count .. but that's another story.
Horror is best achieved when you find yourself suddenly facing it, not when it's a daily fact of life. Look at classical horror movies. Most don't depict the heroes facing fear, horror and/or madness 24/7. Pauses, rest, taking a break in what the heroes believe to be a safe environment only heightens the fear/horror of their next encounter with raw terror.
Um, much must have transpired between editions, because I don't recall Ravenloft having ever been a "beautiful" world. It seems like they decided to toss the creepy horror aspect out the window in favor of heroic high adventure, which, to me, was never what Ravenloft was about.
People may disagree with me on this, but myself and several of my fellow gamers deduced that the best way to play Ravenloft is to have the PCs be doomed to some sort of horrible fate by the end of a campaign, this was the pattern that the novels followed, and after playing a couple of campaigns as such, it worked really well that way- players just didn't know exactly what was in store for them. One player became the lord of his own domain, another joined with the Powers themselves in a symbiotic fashion.
I have to agree with Mortepierre. Moscone, you seem to be seeing a difference in style and opinion where there isn't any. Ravenloft has always been described as picturesque since the original Black Box. It's just terrifying underneath.
And as far as starting as natives? Yep. Third Edition Ravenloft starts you as natives, not as outlanders.
Sure, you can play Ravenloft as if it were Call Of Cthulhu -- or worse yet, like Paranoia -- and treat PCs as expendable victims predestined to go mad, get eaten, or betray one another to their deaths. But that's neglecting a lot of the setting's potential, because you forfeit the opportunity to explore one of the few D&D game-settings where moral victories truly matter more than tactical ones.
I would like to add that there is nothing wrong with taking RL in the direction of "you're all doomed" - especially if you have wonderful players on board. I think the 3.X rules are more supportive (and not less) to using NPC type classes and everyman heroes against the forces of the night.
-Eric Gorman
This was the style of my old group. They rather enjoyed facing different horrors each game, because they didn't know what myself or my fellow DM was going to toss at them. We gave PCs extra XP for RPing madness, and man, did they do it well. It's when they started facing Madmen and Quevari that things started to get spooky...and that was usually in the old cabin secluded in the woods when the PCs were wounded from previous encounters...
This does not mean the land is happy and sunny, just majestic. A king cobra is beautiful but still dangerous. If anything the late second edition products were far more about heroic high fantasy, such as the switch in Domains of Dread to Fantasy Horror from Gothic Horror as making it more fantastic fit with AD&D better (the half-Vistani race made it’s 1st appearance there).
I agree that tragic ends make a good finale to campaigns although I like to give the players a chance to make some difference, even if it is simply a small one. Holding back the darkness for one more night and making the difference in a few lives.
Impressive, picturesque, yet still deadly.
Now v.3.5 Ravenloft is just plain old corny a bunch of useless rules and such make it just a reason to get more money from the consumers.
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We also found that playing common folk over any of the core classes worked best as a horror game. Players are from one of Ravenloft's cities or villages and are suddenly caught up in spookiness was great rather than having a party composed of 1 FR character, a DL character, 1 Mystara character and 1 Dark Sun character. What fear does a magic user feel if he has a shield spell ready when going into a dark cellar following a trail of blood?
Players are more likely to catch a bad one if they play the weaker commoners in the Dungeons and Dragons role playing game. IMO commoners are just not built for adventuring, which is why they are not adventurers.
Also, who says you have to have characters get pulled in from all over the Dungeons and Dragons universe ? I find just having the players originate from the demiplane of dread, with maybe 1 or 2 of them from the other worlds, works wonders for the campaign. Mix it up. That is one of the things that Ravenloft is good for. You can have a player utilizing a Samurai from the Oriental Adventures accessory. Brainstorm. I mean come on how far is a 1st-level commoner going to really get unless your running a campaign with all bark and no bite ?
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Now v.3.5 Ravenloft is just plain old corny a bunch of useless rules and such make it just a reason to get more money from the consumers.
I beg to differ. Yes, the 3.5 RL PHB was - mostly - the same as the 3.0 with a few new rules that most fans of the setting didn't much care for (magic rating and weakness of each class). That said, I am still glad to have it, if only to have the most up-to-date version corresponding to the 3.5 Core rules (not to mention the upgrade of the Witch Hunter to Monster Hunter).
Besides, the newest gazetteers are 3.5E too, and I wouldn't call them corny ...
You can't get the worst of the worst, effect-wise, from two bad roles the first time you're jumped by a skeleton.
And I agree that only Denizens of Dread and the RL: PHB portray 3.5 in a bad light. The DMG was spectacular and the later suplements were also good, such as Gazetteers 4 and 5.
I try to ignore comments about 3.5 as it tends to be pent up hate from WotC releasing it in the first place and the waste-of-money that was the RL: PHB. The issue is 2-3 years old people, move on!
I do think 3rd has more fluff text. The Gazetteers are amonst nothing but fluff on the lands and they're masterfull. Expanding 5-6 pages total gathered from two campaign settings a few novels and a module and combining it into a 35 page description. That's alot of fluff. And the two VanRichten guides are something like twice the size of the old ones.
Plus ya always got to admire the view. You just know Strahd has a killer view from his towers.
Back in my RL DMing days, a couple of players wanted to run DS characters alongside FR and DL characters, to which I firmly said "no chance". First of all, DS characters start out tough, and the thought of a half-giant traveling through a domain like Barovia, or some other European -themed land seemed, again, out of place.
I like how they've laid RL out now, detailing tech periods for various lands...however, firearms didn't appear in the previous edition, and I don't feel they belong now... Mind you, I've never felt firearms belong in DnD period. It's sword and sorcery, not guns and ammo.
Well, as far back as revised Dark Sun, I'm glad they took Kalidnay out of Ravenloft. They gave it a Ravenloft feel, but it just wasn't...Ravenloft, you know? RL and DS are two different beasts, and Kalidnay just felt so out of place. I liked the background on Kalidnay, but upon returning it to Athas I don't like how Kalid-Ma seemed to suddenly develop a sex-change during the transition back to Athas, and the cool story they developed for the city-state get tossed out altogether. But that's a post for another message board.
They returned it to Athas?!? When? I must have missed the DS accessory dealing with that
I thought that Kalidnay was still out there in the mists, along with Nosos, I'Cath, Scaena, Staunton Bluffs, etc...
Just because those weren't included in the list of domains of the RL PHB doesn't mean they won't show up eventually. I certainly hope this is the case for Nosos!
Back in my RL DMing days, a couple of players wanted to run DS characters alongside FR and DL characters, to which I firmly said "no chance". First of all, DS characters start out tough, and the thought of a half-giant traveling through a domain like Barovia, or some other European -themed land seemed, again, out of place.
True, but his OR would be sky-high, making it almost impossible to deal with natives and probably leading to a "monster hunt".
I liked the concept of an Athasian templar shifting loyalty to a darklord, or an Athasian druid bonding with a nature spirit.
I mean come on how far is a 1st-level commoner going to really get
As far as you take them.
As far as commoners not being cut from the same cloth as adventurers, that's true in a sense. But some of the bravest heroes in literature were born of nothing more than common stock. A horror game does work best when the elements are against you. Some of that 'ol "fighter's cut on his sword hand/twisted ankle/stuttering wizard" izh from the Black Blox. But at the same time - like you said - this IS a d&d game. It's not Cthulhu or Masque - it's LotR meets Dracula. And of course you're going to be playing with badazz 3.5 d&d heroes. But it's paths taken and the journey received that is sometimes more gratifying than the destination. For some playaz, the opportunity to build a character from the ground-up isan exciting challenge. Meanwhile, there are others who cannot be denied their 10th level sorcerer or triple-18's warrior. But to each his own.
Nowadayz, we're trying to work with PCs that are "forced onto the road of adventure" due to circumstances beyond their control, just like it says in the books. That's easily accomplished when you're working with 0-1st moldable pieces of clay - as opposed to clearly defined mid-to-high level characters. Plus the adventures tend to more thrilling when you're wrestling with 5 hitpoints. It's a struggle and you will definitely see the "most commoners aren't cut out for adventure" bit in action. But chosen are the few that do rise above the commonor quagmire and graduate to self-made heroes. For some, this is a rewarding and enriching RPG experience.
Again, I'm not tellin you how it is - just how I see it.
Oh yeah, Jell-O Pudding pops SUCK!
MSD
As far as you take them.
That's the single best response I've read in awhile.
Its not the stats that make the hero, its the actions undertaken in the name of hope for a better world. Running NPC classes, especially the hapless commoner requires a DM to make different choices in how he or she structures their campaign. But even with a standard party the DM is still always making campaign choices.
-Eric Gorman
But we don;t hear as many complaints about it... can't think why.