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6 1/2 months ago I started a new group to help sate my addiction. 1 of my 5 players gamed for 4 months back in '03 but the others had never played; 1 had never even heard of D&D! So I taught my house-rules, helped roll up some PCs, loaned some novels and started wowing 'em w/ goblins, orcs, potions and an intelligent sword -- ahh, to be a newbie again! The group's 1st hated enemy were Kobolds (showed 'em the full page picture in the old MM - still the best illustration of Kobolds) and my newbies now connote these softies (after a 40% PK) with the same wide eyed terror the rest of us have of Drow. Ahh, to be a newbie again. It's been a blast.
Well a couple months ago I let them retire their first PC party (9th lvl) and start experimenting. I've run some stand alone Dungeon crawls and plot intrigues with higher level PCs and begun to expose them to a wider spectrum of the D&D experience. They're learning fast. Now their nemesis is a Rakshasa Priest of Vecna with ties to the 9 Hells!
Anyway, I'm starting this thread seeking advice and nostalgia for a campaign I'm about to start writing for them. We'll start it, 1st lvl, in late Sept and the campaign will be called... Ravenloft. None of my players have ever heard of Ravenloft. They have no idea.
So everyone, imagine you're about to do Ravenloft w/ some newbies; what are some things you would do? What scared you back in the day? I've thought about having their fortunes read -- just like the original. I've thought about just wisking them away like Jander Sunstar. In return for your help I'll let you know how I've started effective Ravenloft campaigns in the past to longtime, jaded players who know all.
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I did a Ravenloft sidetrek in a Rifts campaign. I wanted to do some stuff without lasers and robots. So I had the characters wake up in the bodies of their other-dimensional twins in the Domain of Dread. I tried to make their twins' existence there, drawing on their personalities and characteristics, a warped mockery of their waking existence.
The Domain of Dread thus becomes so intrusive that it pervades on their very psyche.
Take a cleric. In the real world, he is a traveling warrior priest meting out divine justice at the end of a mace.
Now this same cleric in Ravenloft is a cloistered scribe.
His character is a bookkeeper in a monastery. Not a dig against accountants mind you, but what a horror on a metagame level if you know nothing about balance sheets, or debits and credits. And a former foe of the party is the prior of the monastery, asking you to justify some balance sheets.
And I knew enough from college accounting classes to make it seem somewhat authentic to the uninitiated. I was trying to invoke the same insecurity you feel in a dream, when you realize you are at school in your underwear on a Saturday, and you had no idea, but now you have a trigonometry final.
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Another thing I like to do is try to come up with a few good psychological red herrings.
Anything the dungeonmaster describes in any detail must have some bearing on the events at hand, right? Get them jumping at shadows by describing the masonry of a building's interior, and a loose brick, ready to fall at the slightest jostling. Or a cat stalking something into an alcove adjoining of an alley; there's nothing there but a pile of refuse when they round a corner and walls which will not tell what they've just seen.
Check out This thread.
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Paranoia is useful in ravenloft campaigns. Maybe you could utilize a were npc within a town or the classic gypsy camp encounter with the palm readings and foreshadowing of future peril leaving the pcs with much to think about.
6 1/2 months ago I started a new group to help sate my addiction. 1 of my 5 players gamed for 4 months back in '03 but the others had never played; 1 had never even heard of D&D! So I taught my house-rules, helped roll up some PCs, loaned some novels and started wowing 'em w/ goblins, orcs, potions and an intelligent sword -- ahh, to be a newbie again! The group's 1st hated enemy were Kobolds (showed 'em the full page picture in the old MM - still the best illustration of Kobolds) and my newbies now connote these softies (after a 40% PK) with the same wide eyed terror the rest of us have of Drow. Ahh, to be a newbie again. It's been a blast.
Well a couple months ago I let them retire their first PC party (9th lvl) and start experimenting. I've run some stand alone Dungeon crawls and plot intrigues with higher level PCs and begun to expose them to a wider spectrum of the D&D experience. They're learning fast. Now their nemesis is a Rakshasa Priest of Vecna with ties to the 9 Hells!
Anyway, I'm starting this thread seeking advice and nostalgia for a campaign I'm about to start writing for them. We'll start it, 1st lvl, in late Sept and the campaign will be called... Ravenloft. None of my players have ever heard of Ravenloft. They have no idea.
So everyone, imagine you're about to do Ravenloft w/ some newbies; what are some things you would do? What scared you back in the day? I've thought about having their fortunes read -- just like the original. I've thought about just wisking them away like Jander Sunstar. In return for your help I'll let you know how I've started effective Ravenloft campaigns in the past to longtime, jaded players who know all.
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Hi there,
I don't want to do the ads for WotC, but this coincidence is just too big to be ignored. ;-) You mentioned that you intend to start a Ravenloft campaign in september. Have a guess which new WotC product is coming out in october: Expedition to Castle Ravenloft
Already available and certainly of use for a new Ravenloft campaign is the the following original TSR adventure which is freely downloadable on this WotC site: Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill
Apart from that Swords & Sorcery published some 3rd edition hard cover books for Ravenloft (including a new 3rd edition campaign setting). I don't know if they are still available, though.
Unfortunately I never DMed Ravenloft - one of my players still craves for taking over and leading some new PCs from Krynn to Ravenloft... :-) I am curious what this will be like...
Hope the links are of some help,
Günther
A p.s. is not necessary anymore thanks to DitheringFool. ;-)
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P.S.
Can anyone tell me how to create links in here?
I just can insert links in plain text...
Check out the FAQ.
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Check out the FAQ.P.S.
Can anyone tell me how to create links in here?
I just can insert links in plain text...
Thanks, DitheringFool! :-)
Greetings,
Günther