![]() ![]() If a dark mist coalesces into a human form, I don't want to be playing a game where the logical things to think include whether your magic sword has a high enough bonus or if that it'll probably provide enough XP to hit your next level. It's a positive thing to ham it up a little.īut really? What I want from gothic horror has little in common with AD&D. The widgets like drawing cards were pretty cool for flavor. It's good to have consistent visual themes and a story that draws from atypical media. That said, I think that the gothic paint coating was a good thing. So you get more spooky monsters and spooky settings and haunting vistas overlooking dark forests than is typical, but when you come right down to it you're fighting monsters with X hit dice in a room mysteriously composed of 10 foot sections, etc. Puzzles and traps and monsters (oh my!) whose main difference was that they were gothic horror themed. My experience is that most of the moment to moment game play was typical of other AD&D modules of the time. So I hope you'll forgive me that my memory of the fine details is a bit sparse. I ran the module once at some point around 1990-1991, and I haven't run it since. Overall, I'd say that Ravenloft I is the one of the most inspiring modules of all time, but it's better to steal from it and do your own version than try to run through the actual map, room by room, 1d6 gargoyles by 1d6 gargoyles. The return to Heather House is really creepy, in particular, and the dramatic ending is neat. It had some of the same problems, but way more atmosphere and a really good plot idea. Oh, and I'm not a big fan of the racist depictions of "gypsies" either. In the 5e version, Tracy Hickman mentions in the opening that he rolled his eyes when his GM had a vampire show up in a normal dungeon (which is really rude), and then rushed home to do it right and wrote this with Laura Hickman, but this isn't all that different. ![]() The castle map is godawful and confusing, the castle is always full of grindy hack and slash, classic D&D was actually very bad at gothic horror because most undead had unfun mechanics like aging and energy drain, and the 1e-isms get in the way of the atmosphere it's going for. The randomizer is neat, the atmosphere is neat, and the execution is disappointing. Have you GMed this module? How did it's design influence you?ĭo you think it still stands up today? If you were to run it today, what would you change? Would you even use DnD? Have you played this module? How did it pan out for you? Not only does this act as a plot randomiser, but it also mean that the apparently random fortunes that are drawn actually provide accurate predictions. The players act this out by actually drawing cards from a real deck, and the genius element is that the cards drawn actually determine the location of key items, and even the motive of the antagonist, Strahd, himself. The PCs visit gypsies to have their fortunes read (I'm not sure what happens if they don't - hence the railroad). But the genius move that I've not seen used elsewhere (except in the follow up Ravenloft module) was the use of tarot cards to actually determine the plot. The adventure seems very rail-loaded nowadays - the adventurers are effectively trapped in Barovia because of poison gas fog, and physical gates. It was the first module I saw that used isometric maps - a pretty simple change but very effective, as it allowed a bit of the castle exterior design to be shown along with the floorpans. (If you haven't played it yet, and intend to, obviously there are spoilers ahead) I've had this in my possession since it was new, but I've never had the chance to run it, so I enjoyed listening to their review of this module. The Plot Points podcast just re-issued their review of the DnD Ravenloft module.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |