As the title said I was interested in reading up on the Ravenloft setting with the intention of maybe trying to run a game in it, but there seems to be multiple books and multiple versions of the setting, as the 3.0/3.5 version removed areas because of licensing issues or so I heard. I'm kind of at a loss as for which I should get; I'm more interested in actual background material for the setting than potential rules or enemy stats. Anyone familiar with the books feel like giving a recommendation?
2nd edition Domains of Dread, 3.5 Player's Handbook, Van Richten's Guide to the Shadow Fey, Dark Tales and Disturbing Legends, Van Richten's Arsenal, all 5 Gazetteers. Beyond that, I can recommend A LOT of 2nd edition stuff, since I own everything. If you need more advice, drop me a PM.
Cheers!
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The Gazetteers are pretty good.
The same goes for the Van Richten guides, the AD&D ones as well as the d20 ones.
Avoid Champions of Darkness and Heroes of Light.
Get either the Campaign Setting or the Player's Handbook, both contain pretty much the same information, with the Player's Handbook being a bad 3.5 conversion. The same goes for Denizens of Darkness and Denizens of Dread, although Denizens of Dread has some additional creatures. Just ignore the stat blocks.
Legacy of Blood has lots of information on the families of the core.
That leaves Dark Tales and Van Richten's Arsenal. They aren't bad, but not that necessary, especially if you're more interested in background than rules. Dark Tales contains premade scenarios and novellas.
That leaves out the islands and clusters, but most of those are rather one-dimensional.
The Fraternity of Shadows created some gazetteers for Souragne and Paridon/Timor.
And Kaidan is in my opinion superior to Ravenloft's Rokushima Taiyo.
If you're not so much looking for rules, I would second the 2e Domains of Dread as the most comprehensive look at the setting. The 3e Gazetteers are all very good and dig into each domain with detail. There is also Mistipedia, a Ravenloft wiki
link
Damn, can't believe I forgot Legacy of Blood. *fail*
And be sure to check the Fraternity of Shadows - these guys know what they're doing and have some BEAUTIFUL free products out there - I actually printed their books and had them professionally bound.
Thanks for the input guys :D. I'll look up your suggestions later tonight.
The Fraternity of Shadows website contains reviews for every product ever released for Ravenloft, and would give you a thorough review for most of them. More than worth a look.
I think the Gazetteers are rather bland and long-winded. If you get the 'Red Boxed Set', the 1997 Core Book, and/or the 3rd Edition Core Book, you can largely dispense with the Gazetteers, unless you want painful detail on the domains. The one thing the Gazetteers do have is the stats on some of the domain lords in 3.0 edition stats, which is readily convertable to Pathfinder stats, if you're using Pathfinder. The product Secrets of the Dread Realms has some domain lords stats for 3.0 Ed. also. Don't bother with the 3.0 RAVENLOFT Players Handbook or the Dungeon Master's Book. They both merely retread what the Core Rulebook for 3.0 already has. The Children of the Night series are just premade 2nd edition monsters with story lines, and not necessary, unless that's what you're looking for. The Van Richten guides are worth getting however. All the adventures are in 2nd Edition (with only several exceptions). You'll get differing opinions depending on the person reviewing. The adventures I think are the best are: Bleak House, The Evil Eye, Castles Forlorn, and Hour of the Knife (my players personal favorite). The adventure Feast of Goblyns is also very good, and a good one to start with. I recommend it. A fair number of adventures aren't very remarkable, so buy with care. Several are absolutely lousy, avoid these: When Black Roses Bloom (1995), Circle of Darkness (1995), Thoughts of Darkness (1992), The Shadow Rift (1998), Adam's Wrath (1994), The Awakening (1994).
Ravenloft is (and should be) an RP experience, and a character grind. Prepare for both and tell your players to leave their favorite characters at home...
I also vote for the Van Richten's Guides.
Personally, I LIKE thoughts of darkness and its chthonic, meat-grinding almost CoC-level deadliness. And the Shadow Rift. Both need DM-fixing - but so does Feast of Goblyns. The plot of that one makes no sense whatsoever to the PCs and turns railroady fast - when I ran this, I had to restructure just about everything. Other than that one, yes: Bleak House is still my favorite boxed set ever. Castle Forlorn is awesome. Hour of the Knife (and the free sequel) are neat indeed and the Evil Eye is a classic. FoG, though - Not recommended UNLESS you want to work - the maps, locations etc. are awesome, but the plot of that one sucks hard. That being said, every RL_DM imho should work with that one - it's hard, but also part of the grand conjunction-series... If you wnat to run this one, there's a way to restructure it to make sense level-wise.
"Neither Man, nor Beast" and "Howls in the Night" also aren't bad modules.
Personally, I LIKE thoughts of darkness and its chthonic, meat-grinding almost CoC-level deadliness. And the Shadow Rift. Both need DM-fixing - but so does Feast of Goblyns. The plot of that one makes no sense whatsoever to the PCs and turns railroady fast - when I ran this, I had to restructure just about everything. Other than that one, yes: Bleak House is still my favorite boxed set ever. Castle Forlorn is awesome. Hour of the Knife (and the free sequel) are neat indeed and the Evil Eye is a classic. FoG, though - Not recommended UNLESS you want to work - the maps, locations etc. are awesome, but the plot of that one sucks hard. That being said, every RL_DM imho should work with that one - it's hard, but also part of the grand conjunction-series... If you wnat to run this one, there's a way to restructure it to make sense level-wise.
"Neither Man, nor Beast" and "Howls in the Night" also aren't bad modules.
I wasn't aware that Hour of the Knife had a sequel. I assume it is online (as I've never heard of a published product to that effect). What is it called and where can it be located?
I think Ravenloft and horror games in general have a certain amount of 'rail-roadedness' involved. I don't see that as entirely bad. I think many elements of Ravenloft involve the feeling of the players that "the villain is really in control," and that their available options is at times compromised. I think that adds to the suspense of the game. Not necessarily a bad thing. My players are all to familiar with it...
The best parts of Feast are the Old Kartakan Inn and Dominiani's estate. Very unnerving places.
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K_GM, the sequel to "Hour of the Knife" is called "Shadow of the Knife" and it is a fan-made adventure that you can download at the old Secrets of the Kargatane website. It was done with loving care and a pretty good sequel. It was also meant to give the DM a glimpse into life in the "new" Zherisia cluster that the domain of Paridon joined with. It's a free downlaod, so you can't go wrong with that.
As to the question of which books are worth getting, I guess it depends on how much you want to adapt. Honestly, I think the setting was in it's prime in second edition, so I'd recommend the hardcover "Domains of Dread" book. It retains all the information of the setting while for the first time, it also makes the domains a place to actually use as a campaign base instead of "a weekend in Hell" adventure. Plus, this book still retains references to the various TSR worlds the darklords and domains come from.
If you'd rather have less to convert to Pathfinder, than I'd get a copy of the Sword & Sorcery (3.5) players handbook and the gazetteers. It's true many of the gazetteers are hit and miss, but they do contain a wealth of information. But the backgrounds on some things have changed to be more coherent and so as not to reference any old TSR/Wizard worlds for legal purposes.
Favorite adventures, I'd have to say the "Castles Forlorn" boxed set. It is massive but also gives you the best details on a small domain. And "Bleak House" was a great culmination of a wealth of stories and characters spread throughout other products on Van Richten as well as a great adventure. And as others have said, each gaming group has a favorite module that others may have totally hated. Good Luck!