Thinking of making a new character that’s a Dragonborn chef. He gets exiled from his clan since his cooking skills are so bad they give everyone the worst case of food poisoning ever, like so bad it goes down in the history books as the plague of the brown rain or something like that. So then he goes on an epic adventure to become the greatest chef ever. He’s basically a neutral evil dude who thinks he’s neutral good, always looking for people to try his new recipes which is actually a form of torture for the person in question, kinda like Vogon poetry, Since his wisdom stat is fairly low he genuinely doesn’t understand why people don’t appreciate his culinary genius.
Also his dragon ancestry will be poison, obviously.
I’m thinking of making him be a warlock but haven’t really thought of the specifics yet though. Maybe he can have a magic cookbook that messages from his patron appear in and he has to fill out with interesting recipes to please some bored fey that’s grown tired of their usual fare. Or a magic club frying pan to bludgeon people with or something...
Anyone else here use some of their free time to work on older edition RPG's so that they can run on newer editions? It's rather fun when there's no games going on to work on older D&D 3X stuff to work with Pathfinder, or Tunnels & Trolls to work with AD&D, or WION to work with Westend Games D6 games.
See that's why I think it's funny, because whatever those 'Dark Powers' are, they probably get called out all the time by bigger meaner things ready to stomp their shit in. Like they steal Soth and he just sits there and doesn't do shit, so now all the cool evil powers are laughing at them.
Thinking of making a new character that’s a Dragonborn chef. He gets exiled from his clan since his cooking skills are so bad they give everyone the worst case of food poisoning ever, like so bad it goes down in the history books as the plague of the brown rain or something like that. So then he goes on an epic adventure to become the greatest chef ever. He’s basically a neutral evil dude who thinks he’s neutral good, always looking for people to try his new recipes which is actually a form of torture for the person in question, kinda like Vogon poetry, Since his wisdom stat is fairly low he genuinely doesn’t understand why people don’t appreciate his culinary genius.
Also his dragon ancestry will be poison, obviously.
I’m thinking of making him be a warlock but haven’t really thought of the specifics yet though. Maybe he can have a magic cookbook that messages from his patron appear in and he has to fill out with interesting recipes to please some bored fey that’s grown tired of their usual fare. Or a magic club frying pan to bludgeon people with or something...
I played it way back in the 90s for a few sessions and had a ton of fun with it, but my comparisons at the time were D&D 2e, Shadowrun, Rifts, Deadlands
How could you say a system whose combat rules require die types from d4s to d20s, paper clips, poker chips and cards (which also may need to be used for some of the magic rules too) could possibly be clunky? Madness I say!
So I want to try running a Ravenloft campaign with my friends one day. There's a couple things standing in my way though.
1. I've only DM'd once in my life, and it was a shitty little 5e dungeon crawl that my group immediately raped to high heaven (though I was more amused than anything).
2. We've played Curse of Strahd already, so that's out
3. I'm bad at improv (though that can be improved with time)
4. My voice is super high pitched, which would probably ruin any semblance of horror.
5. My group doesn't want to try out the older D&D editions
How do I go about running a Ravenloft campaign? Also, which older Ravenloft adventures would be best to convert to 5e?
So I want to try running a Ravenloft campaign with my friends one day. There's a couple things standing in my way though.
1. I've only DM'd once in my life, and it was a shitty little 5e dungeon crawl that my group immediately raped to high heaven (though I was more amused than anything).
You're going to want the old Ravenloft splatbooks. Pick a domain, learn it forward and back and turn the PCs loose. There's also dungeons and haunted woods and stuff outside of the domains you can use for raising your PC's levels. Taking on a Darklord too early is going to end in a wipe every time. As for specific adventures, I don't know of any off the top of my head. My groups didn't really do modules much.
It was more that I was a bit too permissive with my players. That, and they spent less time on my dungeon's puzzle than I thought they would. It took me a couple days to figure it out at the time, so I thought it would be a challenge.
A lilypad doubles in size each day.
In 28 days, the lilypad will cover the entire pond.
In how many days will the pond be half covered?
You're going to want the old Ravenloft splatbooks. Pick a domain, learn it forward and back and turn the PCs loose. There's also dungeons and haunted woods and stuff outside of the domains you can use for raising your PC's levels. Taking on a Darklord too early is going to end in a wipe every time. As for specific adventures, I don't know of any off the top of my head. My groups didn't really do modules much.
Makes sense. I was thinking either Falkovnia (with Vlad Drakov) or The Wildlands (with King Crocodile). Actually, I did notice something as I was reading through them and other domains. I can split them into four categories, I think.
1. Domains that are best for a weekend in hell adventure. The mists kidnap the characters from a normal setting, they dick around for a bit, and the mists take them back once they beat the adventure. This is good for stuff like The Wildlands (because of its lack of humans), Sithicus (because of its majority-elf population and the novelty of facing Lord Soth), and Odiare (because Maligno killed all the adults in his domain).
2. Domains that are best for its residents. These are obviously best for characters that are actually (or ostensibly) from that domain. This includes stuff like Darkon (because of its gimmick where after a while, you believe you've always lived there, making for a good twist when you realize your memories are a lie) and Falkovnia (rebelling against a military dictator becomes that much more terrifying when he and his men can rape and kill your young children for your crimes)
3. Domains that are good for either. Run them for residents, run them for outsiders, run them for a mixture. It doesn't matter, because you'll probably have fun anyway. These seem to be the majority, and include stuff like Lamordia, Barovia, Mordent, and Richemulot, among others.
4. Domains that are bad. Don't do these. These include stuff like The Necropolis, which will turn you into a zombie when you walk into it.
Oh my god, guys I had a tangential hand in this. It’s from the Westmarch server I used to play in where it was made as a joke for a warlock who was basically a black Guy Feirri named Buddy Flaymes
Edit: Just remembered the name of our group, The Flavor Town Griffon Slayers. There were even t-shirts
People have the strange idea that a horror game would have the players cowering in fear as if they were watching a scary horror movie, alone, at night, with the doors open. That's not how it plays out. People will laugh, joke, and make fun of horror cliches. The closest I've seen to that is when I unknowingly triggered one of the players phobias.
As long as you play it straight, you should be fine.
People have the strange idea that a horror game would have the players cowering in fear as if they were watching a scary horror movie, alone, at night, with the doors open. That's not how it plays out. People will laugh, joke, and make fun of horror cliches. The closest I've seen to that is when I unknowingly triggered one of the players phobias.
As long as you play it straight, you should be fine.
this. don't forget, big part of the "horror" is usually being alone. sitting around with a bunch of mates shooting the shit it's very hard for spoopy atmosphere got come up.
of course you can always combine it with a seance or a ouija board session to get people into the mood...
People have the strange idea that a horror game would have the players cowering in fear as if they were watching a scary horror movie, alone, at night, with the doors open. That's not how it plays out. People will laugh, joke, and make fun of horror cliches. The closest I've seen to that is when I unknowingly triggered one of the players phobias.
As long as you play it straight, you should be fine.
Horror is in the players' (and the characters') heads, and it usually comes out of the fear of the unknown. If you provide them with a spooky setting in which they know they're missing something, even if no one is outwardly scared you'll get a good amount of suspense built up and you can get pretty memorable moments out of it.
One of the big tricks to horror is to ensure the players actual power is limited while also ensuring they are still have full agency. One of the best gothic horror games I played had a strong emphasis on how outclassed we were as vampire hunters 1 on 1 with those things.
It was more that I was a bit too permissive with my players. That, and they spent less time on my dungeon's puzzle than I thought they would. It took me a couple days to figure it out at the time, so I thought it would be a challenge.
A lilypad doubles in size each day.
In 28 days, the lilypad will cover the entire pond.
In how many days will the pond be half covered?
I was talking 2e, since thats when the Ravenloft stuff came out.
Makes sense. I was thinking either Falkovnia (with Vlad Drakov) or The Wildlands (with King Crocodile). Actually, I did notice something as I was reading through them and other domains. I can split them into four categories, I think.
1. Domains that are best for a weekend in hell adventure. The mists kidnap the characters from a normal setting, they dick around for a bit, and the mists take them back once they beat the adventure. This is good for stuff like The Wildlands (because of its lack of humans), Sithicus (because of its majority-elf population and the novelty of facing Lord Soth), and Odiare (because Maligno killed all the adults in his domain).
2. Domains that are best for its residents. These are obviously best for characters that are actually (or ostensibly) from that domain. This includes stuff like Darkon (because of its gimmick where after a while, you believe you've always lived there, making for a good twist when you realize your memories are a lie) and Falkovnia (rebelling against a military dictator becomes that much more terrifying when he and his men can rape and kill your young children for your crimes)
3. Domains that are good for either. Run them for residents, run them for outsiders, run them for a mixture. It doesn't matter, because you'll probably have fun anyway. These seem to be the majority, and include stuff like Lamordia, Barovia, Mordent, and Richemulot, among others.
4. Domains that are bad. Don't do these. These include stuff like The Necropolis, which will turn you into a zombie when you walk into it.
OK, here's a really good one to use. It'll fuck with your players big time.
First of all, don't worry about monsters or stats. Take the stuff from the MM and file the serial numbers off. Trust me, you don't want to try to port over the 2E stuff from the Ravenloft Compendium if you aren't REALLY experienced at conversions.
Second: Monsters ALWAYS outpower the characters, or strike from the shadows, or are never what they are appear.
Werewolves don't leap through windows and crash through doors. They paw at the wall, tap on the windows, scrape a rune onto the door. They lure the PC's into the woods and strike, get them alone. Dig a pit trap and the like. A vampie doesn't swoop down and spend two hours posing. He moves to the side, uses hypnotism, is always back in the shadows.
Even the strongest monster rarely comes crashing through like a bull in a china shop.
Third:
This is GOTHIC horror, not fucking SAW. Remember that. Watch a couple of episodes of the old Dark Shadows TV show.
The carriage driver ALWAYS has a seizure and dies, gets lost, gets eaten, vanishes from the carriage seat, is found dead in the stable.
The maiden is ALWAYS pale and washed out, with a whispery voice, and a dark secret.
The butler has ALWAYS strangled a man and buried the body in the moors.
The serial killer is NEVER the sheriff or the hunchback. It is the upstanding cleric being framed by the quiet nun who has never forgiven him for making her drink an abortion potion.
Fourth: Even the terrain and weather hate the PC's. It will always start to rain and put out torches. The fog will always come up at the worst time and thin out when they're trying to hide. It will snow so they leave footprints and will end up shivering.
Fifth: SPELLS DON'T WORK RIGHT! Look at the core 2E Ravenloft book, even if you have to... umm... find electronic copies to read. Spells are the PC's biggest edge, and the Dark Powers are NOT going to let the PC's use magic like they think. Light spells flicker and go out and NEVER provide enough light, purify food and drink leave the food and water bland and tasteless and borderline tepid, IF it doesn't fill it with maggots and insect larvae. Detect Evil/Good/Law/Neutral/Chaos DOES NOT WORK at best, gives false positives at worse.
And sixth: Evil is rewarded, good is tortured. Once a PC hits Powers Level IV or V, they're yours.
Seventh: They nerfed Fear and Horror checks. Bring them back. Player Empowerment and Ravenloft go together like troons and humility. They don't.
Lastly, here's your introductionary adventure.
The PC's get lost in the fog DESPITE having a guide. The weather turns shitty. They find a farm. Before the old couple living in the house will let them in, they demand each PC pricks their finger on a silver needle point embedded in a block of wood. Any who refused and the old couple will shut the heavy iron banded door. The PC's are offered food, shelter, wine. The weather is terrible. The old couple will talk about how wonderful it is to have someone to feed, their children went to Gaustlaus years ago.
After about two days, with the old man sharing gossip and the like, the players will probably be getting bored. Tell them the guide comes down sick, in bed with a fever and a runny nose. That night the dinner is suckling pig.
When the characters finally get around to searching, they don't find anything threatening. Even the piglet is missing from the barn. If they try to leave, they keep getting turned around in the snow and end up back at the house. Yes, you're railroading them that way, because that's what Ravenloft does. You don't get to just leave.
You have your part to play, and the Dark Powers ensure you're going to play it.
By now, they should be "fuck this..."
After the pig feast, the next time they try to leave, or the second night, tell them it's the full moon. Roll a d4. Point at one player. Send the rest of the players out of the room. Ask him if there's anything he wants to do that night. When done, have them roll a Fort save (or whatever faggy shit 5E uses) note it down, send him into the frontroom to watch TV or some shit. Do this for each one. THe one you rolled, save for last. This time, tell them they wake up to see the old man over them with a pillow and the old woman has a jar of paint with a paint brush in the other hand. Let them fight. Make it tough. You don't have to explain shit about these old people's immense strength, high HP, the fact the old man can tank a battleaxe to the face. If they wake up the other players, those that passed the Fort Save wake up and can come back in. Pause what's going on, just tell them that they hear their friend screaming from the other room. Those that failed, take 1 round for each 1 they missed the save by to wake up.
When they kill the old couple, let them search the house. They don't find shit saying their evil.
Remember, though, this is Ravenloft, and evil never dies. Have one of the old couple come charging at them, blood soaked, frenzied, but only needing one good hit to drop.
But in the guide's bed is a pig. In the guide's pajamas.
The guide is hanging in the slaughter/smoke house, gutted and harvested.
If you really want to have fun, tell them the panicking pig knocked over the oil lamps, now the house is on fire, and they have to run in and save their gear. Do a few HP of fire damage, smoke damage, make it tense.
Leave them standing out in the snow, their rations missing, scorched, coughing, shivering, watching the house burn down.
About then, they should see stumbling tracks from the house to the snowy forest, vanishing into the dark.
One of the couple got away. Even if they had to put their head back on.
All right: Throw everything from 3E on in the fucking garbage. The Grand Conjuction and beyond was shit. Use the modules for the domains, the maps, the monsters, the Dark Lords, and make your own shit. Tailor it to your group. Read the Van Richten Guides to get the mood.
First of all, you're an adversarial GM now. You represent the Dark Powers, the Land itself, the monsters, and the superstitious and easily frightened villagers. Let your players know this. That it isn't personal, but this is the campaign setting. You will be keeping track of food, ammunition, spell components, all of it. Feats or powers that eschew materials no longer work. The Dark Powers hold sway over EVERYTHING, including magic, feats, skills, everything. Let them know they are the beleagured heroes of a gothic tale, and just surviving is an accomplishment. Magic items are not a thing. They won't find potions of healing and magic swords and scrolls for sale. Magic is to be hoarded, even spells.
Let the players know, their PC's are just as disposable as a character in the Walking Dead. Let them make a couple of backup characters. That will help them relax a bit. Don't do level penalties, let them have characters the same way the one who died was. For particularly in-story deaths give rewards.
Villagers in Ravenloft are superstitious and suspicious and wary. They live in a world where someone with pointed ears or a deformity draws in the dark powers and evil. Curses are real. Babies are stolen. The wolf the boy was warning everyone about was him, he was werewolf. They will react with fear and superstition to elves, dwarves, gnomes, anything non-human. A half-orc will be driven out of town with stones. (A common player thing for elves was to crop their own ears and have dirt on their face) Speaking of stones, a barrage of stones from villagers is either a touch attack that does 1d6 stones for 1d4 hps each, or an automatic 2d6 of damage a round. Anyone brought to zero will have one of the village goodwives come up and crush their fucking skulls with a paving stone. Villagers will refuse service to most non-humans, meaning no store, no inn, no stable. Villagers are ALWAYS Squidward. All of them. Friendly barmaids tend to give birth to deformed monsters, punished for the sin of adultry or promiscuity, so they don't exist. Villagers dress in somber clothing, because life is to be endured. Suicides always come back as something evil, their soul lost forever, so there is no choice but to endure life.
This is often played off with when the adventure first starts, the non-humans in the group will be immediately under suspicion, and the antagonist will work to frame one of the non-human PC's so they can continue their evil work.
Mages and those will spells and otherworldly powers will frighten villagers. There will be mutters of dark pacts with evil forces, possibly aligned with demons or evil spirits. Even clerics and those with divine magic will find that people are suspicious of them. What price was that healing? Will they wake up to find their child's arm withered? Will their sheep sicken? Will they be tormented by evil fey?
Do a little reading on medieval beliefs about fey. Fey are NOT the dance around the forest having orgies and fagging it up. Fey steal children. Fey lead you into swamps to drown. Brownies might fix shoes and stuff if you leave them treats, but if you don't, they'll make your life a living hell.
The monster should NEVER be seen clearly until the very end. Redheads are never to be trusted.
Bad guys always have a plan. We're talking the guy from SAW level plans. They've got backup plans for their backup plans, go to hell plans, from hell's heart plans, and even plans to win even if they lose. They'll lose on THEIR terms, not the PC's. The PC's should be nervous as hell about confronting the bad guy. He's going to be tougher than they are, with serious plans, and probably be able to tank the entire party. Worse yet, if they're powerful enough, they never die once.
Evil never dies. Even if they're dismembered and burned, they can come back held together by hatred, dark magic, and bad stitching.
Don't let the PC's rely on gear. Magic armor is VERY rare, almost unheard of. That means don't have your bad guys rely on magic armor or magic items. It will feel weird to have 5th level characters where one person has a +1 magic sword, the mage has a silver dagger, the rogue has a +1 AC ring, and that's the entirety of the PC's gear, while the 6th level evil necromancer has no magic items at all, but after a while, you get used to it. The thing you have to ask, is are your players up to this challenge? They'll have to rely on skills, planning, teamwork, maximizing their assets, taking advantage of terrain, and seeking out strange and unlikely help.
Which is where the clannish, suspicious, and wary Vistani come in. They can provide a scroll with most of the spell that will put the evil to sleep, banish the dark figure of the past, or give hints to stop the evil from flourishing.
Which leads to: Everything should come at things at an angle. The monsters should only rarely come in to faceroll the PC's. They should jump out of the woods, punch the wizard in the back of the head, and jump back into the bushes. They should damage things, not go face first. And the PC's need to be the same way. It might not be the PC's running at the werewolf face first but instead sneaking into the woodsman's hut while he's asleep and stealing the wolf-skin belt he uses to turn into a wolf. (Old Germanic) Or they have to wrestle the werewolf down and cut three slashes across the forehead above the eyes. (Old French) Or, for greater werewolves, capture them while they are human, bind them to stake, force them to drink wolvesbane, then have 6 girls (MAIDENS, not town sluts) clad in white dance around them with wreaths of flowers in their head, reciting a poem. (Old English) Describe how the wolf spirit leaves the body, or have a big ass wolf tear free of the victim, and let the PC's fight it until, wounded, it bounds into the woods to lick its wounds and wait for another victim.
The PC's can't take the vampire in a straight up fight. They have to hide inside at night, then look for the vampire's coffin during the day, braving his horrific guardians.
Play up the 7 Deadly Sins. Play up Gothic tropes.
When the PC's rescue a village, let them come back after one or two more adventures and stay in the village to heal up. Or, in some cases, the PC's aren't wanted around, as they're a reminder of those terrible dark days (especially if it was a particularly bad set of circumstances) and people just want to forget.
Villains love to give the PC's nothing but bad choices. "My minions are in the Maiden Duchampe's barn, right now, waiting to kill her. My other minions are outside the orphanage, ready to burn it down. You have ten minutes to reach one or the other, or you can fight me. In which case, everyone else dies. CHOOSE NOW!" is a favorite staple.
And villagers and townsfolk will remember the PC's failures long after they've forgotten their victories.
Hacking their way through charmed villagers, when they KNOW the villagers are under the bad guy's thrall is a power check. It's sloth, plain and simple.
Give the players a way to sneak in. Vanity and hubris define a Ravenloft villain. Nobody would be daring enough to scale the wall and climb in that little window, so why guard it?
A big thing is, your players need to trust you. Big time. When you tell them that their weapons bounce off, or the wounds instantly heal, or have no effect, or the spell peters out or fails, they have to trust that you're following RAVENLOFT'S rules, not just being an asshole or being lazy. When you tell them that the claw wound is infected and healing isn't working on it, their instinct should be to seek out a vistani or a midwife or a wise woman, not call bullshit. When the mage's spellbook comes up missing, they should feel confident that it's in the lair of the bad guy, not being used as asswipe or tinder by the village retard. Oh, and the village retard probably drowned a little girl and is killing people to keep his secret because of his tard strength. It means not doing things for grautity sake, but doing it to further the story.
And on that...
Contrasts. During the day, Ravenloft can be beautiful. Sprawling meadows and hills of flowers and sparkling brooks, cool mossy forests with huge trees and birds singing, a rainbow in the distance, a full moon lit night with an eerie beauty. The town should have a pall of suspicion and the clothing and outside of the houses should be somber, dour even, but inside should be brightly colored. They should have wealth like Faerun or Golarian or Ebberron don't have. Grandfather clocks, wood stoves, heavy quilts, cuckoo clocks, cast iron cookware, silverware, china plates, well maintained tools. It's part of the Dark Lord's torture, his people would be happy without him, have abundance, but are victimized by his evil. The villagers should have bound books, glassware. The inside should be polished wood and bronze. Comfortable, warm, and wealthy. The babies should be plump, rosey cheeked, and laugh a lot.
Ravenloft will put your descriptive abilities to the test. Don't worry about funny voices. Leave that to YouTube faggots. You're involving your players in a gothic storyline. The descriptions matter. Don't be afraid to write stuff down.
Speaking of which, here's your asshole rule: If the players interrupt the description at ANY TIME, it ceases. Right there. You move directly to asking them what they do. Don't let them constantly interrupt you with questions. Tell them what they see, what they hear, what they smell, any temperature fluctuations, then allow 2 questions each (or 1 question per level or per point of Int Bonus) going around the table or by order of entry into the room. If it is an instant combat, don't allow questions until their initiative turn. If they interrupted right before combat, go DIRECTLY to combat and the Fear/Horror Checks.
They only have to get their shit kicked in a couple times before they'll let you finish the description.
If someone is playing on their phone or tablet and misses part of the description, tough shit. Do NOT repeat the description. If they ask for you to repeat it with "Sorry, was on my phone" just stare right at them and say "It's your turn. What are you doing?" Don't give in. They'll either learn to pay attention after the mummy breathes a cloud of bees up their ass or they'll quit.
Don't be afraid to ramp up the paranoia and have a dog or a cat or a bird burst out of the foliage and scare them. Don't overdo it, but do it now and then.
Red herrings and misunderstandings are good tools too.
Last but not least, remember, in Ravenloft, even a single 1HD goblin can be scary as fuck. Play up how they look, their deformed features, their burning red eyes, their slavering mouths full of razor sharp teeth, their unnatural limbs, their hideous laughter as they spring out of the closet with a butcher knife while the PC is telling the child there is nothing under the bed.
Or worse, the character looks under the bed to see the child, who says: "There's something on my bed."
