Ultimate Ravenloft: Design Goals

Coordinating community projects
User avatar
Strahdsbuddy
Evil Genius
Evil Genius
Posts: 555
Joined: Fri Apr 25, 2008 4:02 am
Gender: Male
Location: A Finger Lake

Post by Strahdsbuddy »

DOuble post, my apologies
Last edited by Strahdsbuddy on Wed Sep 10, 2008 5:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Get the Core Genesis Project V4 in the Mausoleum.

Check out the Ravenloft Cartographic Society on Facebook
User avatar
Zettaijin
Evil Genius
Evil Genius
Posts: 667
Joined: Fri Apr 11, 2008 2:30 am
Gender: Male
Location: Himeji, Japan

Post by Zettaijin »

Good points DeepShadow.

But then, you need magic and some potent Deus Ex Machina and heavy handed plot devices to ensure that Azalin can still reach them. Which figures, seeing as how he's a Lich cum something not unlike a Death God. A real empire eventually crumbles due to the tension between its borders and its core - especially when technological means can't support contemporary population control and mass communications - but Darkon prevails because its ruler has transcended mortality and can change reality on a whim.

Which brings up another contradiction - fans complain about magic yet they love Azalin. Azalin is all about magic and lots of it. His huge, sprawling domain's integrity is maintained by magic and his fearsome agents in the Kargat are all given magic as a tool of the trade (some are by their very nature infused with special powers). S' bracers are almost FR level magic, yet you won't hear a single voice complaining that it's "too high fantasy" for the "realistic" Ravenloft.

At least Azalin gets off the hook by being a near Death God and we all know that you can't escape death. More mundane creatures such as puny mortal humans would have a much more difficult time controlling a huge domain EVEN with helpful dark gifts (say D'Honnaire's mind control).

I guess the whole darklord/domain system is slightly broken unless said darklord is a powerful supernatural creature with access to powerful magics or the domain kept very small.
User avatar
impworks
Agent of the Fraternity
Agent of the Fraternity
Posts: 70
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2008 5:29 pm
Contact:

Post by impworks »

I'm with the make it bigger brigade however I don't think you can apply this uniformly. Some domains work well at the small scale they were set at and I'd suggest keeping them at that size on a redrawn map.

I don't think you need magic or Deus Ex Machina for an effective ruler to be able to excerpt power. Ravenloft Domains are tiny compared to real world countries. Mordent is (if memory serves me right) smaller than Yorkshire if the original scale is used. Medieveal rulers had little difficulty in excerpting control over countries and empires far larger than that for varying lengths of time.

If the map is scaled up and the current major settlements expanded with smaller ones interspersed there is possibility to create rich new environments. My take on Mordent that I've used in a scaled up RL for a long time still includes the bogs but it now has windswept moorland with farmed river valleys running through them. The valleys produce beef and cheese for export, grain and milk for the local economy. The moors are the home to sheep farming producing mutton, lamb and wool.
S' bracers are almost FR level magic, yet you won't hear a single voice complaining that it's "too high fantasy" for the "realistic" Ravenloft.
Well we don't really know a lot about those bracers other than them being a plot device to make the production of the gazetteers with a single author make sense. If they were to appear in a book with stats and a way for PCs to get hold of them I'd be complaining. Anyway I don't have to complain publicly about the high fantasy / fantastic elements that creep in. I simply don't use them in my game - problem solved. In the same way I don't tend to have adventures that end up in Darkon and the Shadow Rift is a conceptual explanation of fairy lands that mostly break through into reality around the central range of mountains but can influence anywhere (a bit like the nightmare lands) in my take on RL.
User avatar
Rotipher of the FoS
Thieving Crow
Thieving Crow
Posts: 4683
Joined: Sat Dec 06, 2003 4:18 pm

Post by Rotipher of the FoS »

impworks wrote:I don't think you need magic or Deus Ex Machina for an effective ruler to be able to exert power. Ravenloft Domains are tiny compared to real world countries. Mordent is (if memory serves me right) smaller than Yorkshire if the original scale is used. Medieveal rulers had little difficulty in exerting control over countries and empires far larger than that for varying lengths of time.
The "siege mentality" of the setting's inhabitants may also be a factor in keeping some of the non-Renaissance domains intact, politically. Staying under the nominal rule of the regional authority-figure -- even a tyrant -- may well feel safer than having no one at all who can stand between your village and the Legions of Night. At least the tyrant has a vested interest in keeping your community healthy enough to pay taxes; the monsters in the woods have no such restraints.
"Who [u]cares[/u] what the Dark Powers are? They're [i]bastards![/i] That's all I need to know of them." -- Crow
User avatar
WolfKook
Evil Genius
Evil Genius
Posts: 573
Joined: Tue Oct 03, 2006 2:10 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Bogotá, Colombia
Contact:

Post by WolfKook »

To be honest, the problem doesn't seem to belong to the Domain/Darklord relationship per se, but to its execution. There really shouldn't be any Deus Ex Machina to justify any Darklord's power over his domain. It should be a plausible explanation, be it magic, political power, economical power, etc. And that should be taken into account in the darklord write-ups.

No one said this was an easy task :wink:

Anyway, one thing Creepy Old Woman pointed out in the initial thread was that there should be a reduction of unreliability in the travel methods. The creators of 3E already noticed that (hence the mistways), but just as she said, there should be some certainties to prevent abuse by sadistic DMs.
"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom"
William Blake
User avatar
impworks
Agent of the Fraternity
Agent of the Fraternity
Posts: 70
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2008 5:29 pm
Contact:

Post by impworks »

...there should be some certainties to prevent abuse by sadistic DMs.
Just my experience but the best protection from that is that an abusive DM rapidly has no players.

That said my "big" revelation in running Ravenloft was when I spent a chunk of the summer vac after my 1st year at University drawing my own map of Ravenloft with a lot more of the domains in the core. I moved from running disjointed series of adventures that used the mists to move the players from one adventure to the next to a geographically consistent campaign without mists. However that's just my personal take and if you want to use RL as a drop in to other campaign worlds the mists are a neat way of doing it.
User avatar
A G Thing
Evil Genius
Evil Genius
Posts: 1205
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2008 5:41 pm
Gender: Female
Location: Currently the Frozen Wastes of Mount Pleasant Michigan

Post by A G Thing »

I've been looking at the arguements of small and large countries for the core and I see flaws in some...

Small countries do not seem confining, in point of fact they are less so because I can reach the boarder quicker and that I could travel around a smaller less desirable country easier than a larger one.

Large countries are more confining because I have to travel further to escape the country and I must perhaps travel through more perilous areas to simply go around such a country.

As for closed domain boarders, well both small and large countries/domains may have them, but all they are is a plot device and not a fact of reality... If the DM says it's closed then it is and you most of the times cannot avoid it or bypass it. If it is a normal mountain you could climb it, but if it is a magical connection between an evil being and the mysterous dark powers you could end up climbing an infinite mountian never getting any higher in any real sense.

So here it is... If your Darklord is a mover and a shaker and is not being punished for that exact reason then he should have a economically viable land of a decent size for the population he is ruling. If however he or she is not actually calling the shots of the empire or is only in charge of a small group then it is reasonable that while he is sovergne on his land he must tip his hat to those surrounding him for trade to survive, possibly to his eternal dislike and annoyance if he was being punished for being a mover and a shaker...

Very few Darklords are in their lands alone or with only monsters or such and those usually have small pocket domains or large wastelands that are not desirable to normal folk anyway.

Also of note is that people of the Domains of the Core would not, once they hear of better things stand for less if they could have more. Families could move or bussiness could demand expansion and humans will progress if allowed...

Also since this is a reinvention of Ravenloft, just make the ones that need to be bigger, BIGGER... Certain areas are more active in the core and have to have a reasonable population to atain such and maintain such especially with the high level of TtGBitN...

So to be reasonable give them the land to grow crops, the people to farm or produce what they need, and establish what government holds sway over their coinage and taxes... I am still confused on what governing body runs some of the smaller Domains.

So establish these first...
Size of Country/Domain, Geography and Geology: Pretty standard but includes local flora and fauna of use, local predators or hazards to civilization, Mineral Resources, and possible trade options and difficulties...
Goverment Body, System and level of involvement in Affairs: How the Government will manage, Social Rights, Rate of further Cultural Expansion, and any resources it comes across...
Needs of the Government: Economic, basic needs, and manpower in all forms and shapes to run government...
People required to fill those needs: Basically the minimum of people to fund those needs through labor and taxes...
Total Possible Population: People the country could reasonably contain in surplus to the limit of overpopulation...

and finally the current state of the Domain and its people after the events of the new history you are writing are applied should be easier to establish...

Hope that makes sense to you cause I think it does!
"There is only one true answer to any and every question. The rest are just vagaries and obfuscations."
User avatar
WolfKook
Evil Genius
Evil Genius
Posts: 573
Joined: Tue Oct 03, 2006 2:10 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Bogotá, Colombia
Contact:

Post by WolfKook »

Well, trying to summarize the Ultimate Ravenloft design goals, refined along the lines drawn by the discussion in this thread, we have:
  • Keep the setting original staples: Horror, Madness, a Gothic Feel, the Dark Powers, the Mists, the Darklords, the Domains, the Vistani, the Legends, a degree of grittiness, frightening monsters, oppression and prophecies.
  • Increase playability, making each domain "richer", giving them plenty of rumors and adventure hooks, making the setting encouraging and exciting for new players, allowing them to have some information and some (small) chance to win
  • Solve consistency problems and eliminate Deus-ex-Machina explanation for inconsistencies, creating a real, believable world with population and ecologies which are logically able to support the amount of predators, a climate that makes sense, economical viability, and a believable source of political and darklord power, all within the altered laws of a fantasy world with mists, magic and dark powers, making each domain's size, population and ecology compliant with this rule (We could A G Thing's suggestions as a guideline).
  • Solve temporal problems and timeline inconsistencies: Create a unified timeline which allows for easy reference in the creation of the world's backstory, make the timeline longer, allowing beings like ancient dead to be really "ancient", etc.
  • Include fan-created material (Domains, characters and other ideas) along with newer setting information (Church of Ezra, Carnival, the Dukkar, Fugued, Oubliettes, etc.) and everything we consider worthy of being included, integrating them to the mainstream.
I ignored the idea of updating the setting to 4E, because there is no agreement yet on the matter. Some want to make it 4E, but there are also opinions favoring GURPS, the Storyteller System and Pathfinder. So, I guess the rules will be postponed for a later date, and would not be set as a design goal from the beginning.

The discussion is still open. I just wanted to summarize the changes prompted by the discussion.
"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom"
William Blake
User avatar
Desertrising
Evil Genius
Evil Genius
Posts: 230
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2004 9:30 am
Location: Cedar City Utah
Contact:

Post by Desertrising »

First I want to say I am very much in agreement with this project. I think it could serve as a very valuable tool to the players of Ravenloft. It also has the advantage of not having a sticker so no one has to feel like they need to use it.

I agree that we should go with combination of making some domains larger, making some smaller, keeping some about the same and eliminating a few (the shadow rift comes to mind.). So in the interest of moving this forward a bit, I think we need to decide what we are going to focus on first. I think remaking the map would be our first priority. Kind of start large then get smaller.

I also really like the idea of grouping domains by horror theme, I also think the core should be primarily gothic horror and as that would seem to be the most logical starting place we should probably start deciding which domains stay and which domains go.

Also are we going to use a whoever wants to input can and someone eventually compiles it all, or should we start developing a team? I think that allowing board members to give input is very important but I also know that if we get too many people in the project very little will get done.

My thoughts anyway
Vote Cthulhu! At least then we know we are going to get screwed.
User avatar
Igor the Henchman
Evil Genius
Evil Genius
Posts: 789
Joined: Tue Dec 02, 2003 6:50 pm

Post by Igor the Henchman »

Personally, I'd seriously consider re-including the "make it compatible with 4E" goal. This is the system that currently supports the largest audience. This audience is interested in "D&D with a horror twist" stuff, and not a lot of products exist to satisfy the need. This could really open the notoriety of the project (and the Fraternity site) to new proportions. Several other features of the system make it furthermore attractive: easy to learn, easy to design for, less time-consuming during game preparation, near-infinite flexibility for custumizing monsters and NPCs (compared to previous iterations of D&D, anyway).
Last edited by Igor the Henchman on Sun Oct 12, 2008 11:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
Lucien Doomdark
Conspirator
Conspirator
Posts: 37
Joined: Fri Oct 10, 2008 4:12 pm
Location: Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

Post by Lucien Doomdark »

Personally, I'd seriously consider re-including the "make it compatible with 4E" goal. This is the system that currently supports the largest audience. This audience is interested in "D&D with a horror twist" stuff, and not a lot of products exist to satisfy the need. This could really open the notoriety of the project (and the Fraternity site) to new proportions. Several other features of the system make it furthermore attractive: easy to learn, easy to design for, less time-consuming during game preparation, near-infinite flexibility for custumizing monsters and NPCs (compared to previous iterations of D&D, anyway).
I personally agree with Igor on this...but...I have an alternate suggestion?

Now, as this is more than likely to end up as a Wiki project, why not take a leaf out of Delta Green and publish two (or more) sets of mechanics? For example, you create a page on say...Barovia...which has a summary of all the fluff (history, geography, economics), which we then link back to as main articles. Then you can have key NPCs which have different linkable stat blocks in the text...3.5, 4th, Pathfinder, WoD, whatever. It sounds time-consuming...but personally, I'm keen on the mechanics being secondary anyway (I started playing White Wolf and it shows).
User avatar
WolfKook
Evil Genius
Evil Genius
Posts: 573
Joined: Tue Oct 03, 2006 2:10 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Bogotá, Colombia
Contact:

Post by WolfKook »

Desertrising wrote:......Are we going to use a whoever wants to input can and someone eventually compiles it all, or should we start developing a team? I think that allowing board members to give input is very important but I also know that if we get too many people in the project very little will get done.
I'd like to take advantage of the forum to create a brainstorm where everyone's involved and can help with valuable ideas and details, but I agree that eventually those ideas should be capitalized, and I'd propose that the developing team (Currently theArcanist and myself, but there are several seats still available :lol:) to be responsible for compiling them.

At the end, however, even though they would use those capitalized ideas, each write-up (especially domains/darklords) should be handled by a single person (hopefully an enthusiastic volunteer, not necessarily from the aforementioned team), to ensure writing consistency.

Sounds logical?
Igor the Henchman wrote:Personally, I'd seriously consider re-including the "make it compatible with 4E" goal. This is the system that currently supports the largest audience. This audience is interested in "D&D with a horror twist" stuff, and not a lot of products exist to satisfy the need. This could really open the notoriety of the project (and the Fraternity site) to new proportions. Several other features of the system make it furthermore attractive: easy to learn, easy to design for, less time-consuming during game preparation, near-infinite flexibility for custumizing monsters and NPCs (compared to previous iterations of D&D, anyway).
Well, I guess that could be reconsidered. As much as I'd like a totally system-independent setting (Taking advantage of the wiki to create a single fluff and several crunches on-demand, as Lucien says), I see a possible problem with the capabilities of each system to meet the needs of such a thing. We would have a hard time writing completely system-independent descriptions, and then we would have a hard time tinkering the systems to portray those in a consistent way.

Anyway, we're GMs, at some level, that's what we do.

However, there's a simpler approach that we should still consider, and that's making RLR compatible with a single system. However, 4E isn't our only option: There has been discussion about making it 4E, 3.5E, compatible with Pathfinder (I'd personally like that one), and I know there are people down there interested in making it compatible with GURPS, WoD or RuneQuest. And I'm pretty sure each one would be able to expose pretty good reasons to defend their system as Igor has promoted 4E. Which one should we indulge? That's a very hard question.

As for me, I have no problem. Except for GURPS, I know every system, and am comfortable with any of them. As long as there's the fluff, I would be happy with any crunch I get (If we make the several systems approach, I'd stick with Pathfinder, though).
"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom"
William Blake
User avatar
DeepShadow of FoS
Evil Genius
Evil Genius
Posts: 2916
Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2003 1:43 pm
Location: Heinfroth's Asylum

Post by DeepShadow of FoS »

I think the setting has too many problems to fix to worry about what game system it's in. Once we get stories straight on all the DL's, get a scale and believable populations, etc, maybe we can consider another system, but right now I think it's just a distraction.

Random though about something needing fixing--would anyone else like to see Yagno Petrovna become Yagno Petrovich? To some people, that's just a glaring bit of foolishness right there.
The Avariel has borrowed wings,
The Puppeteer must cut the strings
The Orphan Queen must take the throne
The Queen of Orphans calls them home
User avatar
Rotipher of the FoS
Thieving Crow
Thieving Crow
Posts: 4683
Joined: Sat Dec 06, 2003 4:18 pm

Post by Rotipher of the FoS »

Eh, it's not a problem IMO. We know that female heroes weren't unusual on the native world of the Barovian nobles: the Von Zarovich warrior who defeated the Neuroni and established that family's rule was a woman, if I recall the Gaz I history correctly. So why shouldn't Yagno's family have adopted a feminized surname, in memory of an ancestral heroine? It's no more jarring than an IRL woman's surname being "Nelson".
"Who [u]cares[/u] what the Dark Powers are? They're [i]bastards![/i] That's all I need to know of them." -- Crow
User avatar
WolfKook
Evil Genius
Evil Genius
Posts: 573
Joined: Tue Oct 03, 2006 2:10 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Bogotá, Colombia
Contact:

Post by WolfKook »

DeepShadow of FoS wrote:Random though about something needing fixing--would anyone else like to see Yagno Petrovna become Yagno Petrovich? To some people, that's just a glaring bit of foolishness right there.
That caused a lot of confusion over here. For years I thought Yagno was a woman.
"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom"
William Blake
Post Reply