Curse of Strahd: Opinions?

[Guardian of Twilight]

The post office decided that my copy didn't need to be shipped from one of their locations late last night, so I'm having to wait until tomorrow to receive my copy. Amazon did their best, but the post office dropped the ball on me. Again.

I will say though, that I downloaded the Adventurers League module Suits of the Mist after being awake ten full minutes, and I've read it through twice now. It looks like I'll be running this for my family (all of whom play) this weekend. With it all printed out, in sheet protectors, and stored safely in one of my brand new Five Star binders, it's a thing of beauty. There are a few typos, but I'm easily able to ignore them and enjoy it for what it is. I encourage all of you to pick it up if you're able to do so, even if it's just to run in your home game and not a part of the Adventurers League. I'll likely do that at least once, and I know that I'll be running this again several more times. I'm also thinking about mentioning my family's characters in passing should characters from Suits of the Mist be in the Curse of Strahd hardback as well. They'll be playing both, so they should really enjoy that.

Out of curiosity, are the other Adventurers League modules from past seasons still valid to run for the Adventurers League and legal, or is that over and done? I came to be a DM for the AL late, and I can't find an answer to that anywhere. Any help you could give would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[Dion of the Fraternity]

I like it.

For me it's like when I first bought "Vampire of the Mists," and all I thought about "Ravenloft" was everything in that novel.

It does read like a reboot, but I'm okay with it; they're doing the exact same thing to my other favorite campaign setting (Legends of the Five Rings) when it comes out in 2017. The complications of the Mantis and Spider Clans, the Clan War, the Toturi/Iweko Dynasties...they're all gone when Fantasy Flight releases the L5R LCG.

Or, for more familiar pop culture references, just like when Star Wars VII erased the Expanded Universe. It's a loss that may have needed to happen, and there will be things I'll miss, but it's a new perspective on what came before.

So yes, I like it.

[Ender]

Although I only got mine yesterday and have been skimming, reading bits I want, I've come away with the same general impressions as alhoon and Strahdsbuddy. So far, it looks like a very well-designed adventure with interesting NPCs and locales(I can't yet compare it to Out of the Abyss). But my problem is that I cringe and twitch my way through the setting changes. And that's not because I'm necessarily enamored by the way things were before, but rather that it feels like the adventure goes out of its way to make unnecessary changes. Things could easily have been left mysterious, giving the readers one or more hints as to the nature of things instead of being explicit (soulless shells and Dark Powers are only a couple of the instances where I felt this).

*SIGH*

Look, the most common explanation for this is "it would have taken too much effort to keep the timeline straight". But that's simply not true. It takes as much or less effort than it did for them to keep the Realms timeline straight. The Sundering was their way of rebooting while still advancing the setting. No such thing was done for Ravenloft. And really, all that means is they didn't care to try. They threw a couple nods in for the old fans, but that's not who this adventure is targetting. I'd be fine with that if it didn't strike me as blatant disregard of former fan investment. I bet that any number of us could easily go through the adventure and fit it into the previous timeline. And if we can do it, they can do it. We even have a wiki they could reference to check things.

Long story short: I like the adventure, but I'm upset at how little they seem to care about former fans, even if I like some of the changes.

[dead]

Hi folks,

I've got no problem with reboots but is anyone concerned about the continuity problem of linking Curse of Strahd (and the Adventurers League modules) with 5E Forgotten Realms?

Let me explain...

Curse of Strahd, being a reboot of I6, would be set in 528 BC, I imagine.

The Ravenloft / FR cross-over adventures Castle Spulzeer and The Forgotten Terror place the setting dates to be roughly 1367 DR = 751 BC

Current 5E Realms are set in about 1489 DR.

So, any Ravenloft adventure tying in with 5E Realms would not only have to acknowledge all the metaplot that has come before - the Grand Conjuntion, the Grim Harvest, etc. - but also FR's 100 year time advance after the Spellplague. The Barovian calendar year should be more like 851 BC or thereabouts (assuming roughly 100 years has passed since The Forgotten Terror).

Of course, the passage of time can be mysterious in the Domains of Dread but the spirit of what I'm saying is that time has passed and things have happened in the RL / FR shared multiverse since I6: Ravenloft.

If 5E Forgotten Realms were also a reboot - let's say back to the original 1357 DR era - then there wouldn't be an issue. But 5E FR isn't a reboot - adventures like the Castle Spulzeer / Forgotten Terror cross-over have taken place.

[Mortavius]

The Ravenloft / FR cross-over adventures Castle Spulzeer and The Forgotten Terror place the setting dates to be roughly 1367 DR = 751 BC

Doesn't the Forgotten Terror take place completely within Aggarath? And it doesn't interact with the rest of Ravenloft? You could then safely ignore the timeline for Ravenloft and it wouldn't matter.

Either that, or you could explain it by saying there is a time effect in the Mists; they can transport you places and times.

[Nachtjarl]

While my feelings toward Curse of Strahd are unkind at best, I'll point out that there are definitely any number of points at which the Demiplane has shown that a person or place's location in time is whatever the Dark Powers want it to be: the Kreutzers can certainly attest to that...

Too bad that this "Barovia" isn't just a sphere of the Nightmare Court.

[Ken of Ghastria]

Or, for more familiar pop culture references, just like when Star Wars VII erased the Expanded Universe. It's a loss that may have needed to happen, and there will be things I'll miss, but it's a new perspective on what came before.

So yes, I like it.

I had similar thoughts yesterday, although my point of comparison was the "Doctor Who" TV reboot last decade. Consider that Doctor Who had been off the air for YEARS at that point (15 years if you don't count the TV movie), and producer Russell T. Davies had to take that into account. So when the series returned in 2005, it studiously avoided strong ties to the past, since a good chunk of the viewing audience had no experience with the classic series. A year later, "New Who" was an unquestioned hit, and the connections to the past became stronger and stronger, and many of the newer fans actually went back and started watching the classic episodes they'd never seen.

Similarly, this Strahd has to take into account the many D&D players who have never heard of the Black Box or Arthaus. As others have said, is Curse of Strahd the Ravenloft product that I would have wanted? Nah. Gimme the core setting! But Curse of Strahd was never intended to be that. And I'm not holding that against it -- it's a really cool adventure.

It's a good sign that a number of Ravenloft products are being created for the DMs Guild, and I'd like to see how well the classic Ravenloft products sell on DriveThru now that they've been released.

My hope is that Curse of Strahd does REALLY well, and shows the Powers That Be that there remains a passionate, strong audience for Gothic horror in D&D.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

but we can all accept that in the canon timeline, at a high level, these things occurred in the setting as a whole.

Did I read in somebody's review that there were some "discrepancies" in the timeline presented in CoS?

Well, the major one I see so far would be Van Richten hanging out in Barovia over a century before his own birth, and hailing from a domain that won't form for another 50 years. But this is kind of "Ultimate Ravenloft" if the comic fans get that reference. Plunder cool stuff from the history of the franchise, and use them even if the details have to change to fit. So maybe this Van Richten's history is different. We can come up with fan theories to explain it. But to most people who read the book, he's Van Richten the vampire hunter, and that's all they really need to know.

[Ender]

Or, for more familiar pop culture references, just like when Star Wars VII erased the Expanded Universe. It's a loss that may have needed to happen, and there will be things I'll miss, but it's a new perspective on what came before.

So yes, I like it.

I had similar thoughts yesterday, although my point of comparison was the "Doctor Who" TV reboot last decade. Consider that Doctor Who had been off the air for YEARS at that point (15 years if you don't count the TV movie), and producer Russell T. Davies had to take that into account. So when the series returned in 2005, it studiously avoided strong ties to the past, since a good chunk of the viewing audience had no experience with the classic series. A year later, "New Who" was an unquestioned hit, and the connections to the past became stronger and stronger, and many of the newer fans actually went back and started watching the classic episodes they'd never seen.

This is a decent point. I wonder though, if new players go back to old material, how they'll feel. We would rework Curse of Strahd to fit the setting we knew and new fans would have to rework the old setting to fit what they knew. RTD still built off of the old material in a way that didn't directly contradict the old series. Well, at least not in any way that Doctor Who didn't already constantly contradict itself anyway (I'm looking at you, Father's Day and your paradox-eating time pterodactyl things). New fans could directly connect the old series and the new without any extra work, but for fans of either Ravenloft "setting", they have to do work to piece together things they like. But I do hope it gets people interested in older material. Again, I still like this adventure. Just, you know.

[Five]

Well, the major one I see so far would be Van Richten hanging out in Barovia over a century before his own birth, and hailing from a domain that won't form for another 50 years. But this is kind of "Ultimate Ravenloft" if the comic fans get that reference. Plunder cool stuff from the history of the franchise, and use them even if the details have to change to fit. So maybe this Van Richten's history is different. We can come up with fan theories to explain it. But to most people who read the book, he's Van Richten the vampire hunter, and that's all they really need to know.

Hmm.

Is it Rudolph van Richten or just van Richten?

[dead]

Doesn't the Forgotten Terror take place completely within Aggarath? And it doesn't interact with the rest of Ravenloft? You could then safely ignore the timeline for Ravenloft and it wouldn't matter.

Either that, or you could explain it by saying there is a time effect in the Mists; they can transport you places and times.

Fair enough, maybe that isn't the best anchor point. But I'm sure RL scholars could pick out other anchor points. Many of these dates are probably implied but, like I mentioned, the spirit of it is that "things have happened" since I6: Ravenloft.

And you're quite right, for me to use this with 5E Realms, I would have to say that, not only do the Mists transport our 5E FR heroes to the Domains of Dread, but they also transport them back in time.

[alhoon]

The designers were pretty clear that this is not Ravenloft setting but a large adventure. Ravenloft has not been released yet (nor has FR for that matter, just the Sword Coast of FR, a large chunk of the Underdark of FR etc).

[Zilfer]

Doesn't the Forgotten Terror take place completely within Aggarath? And it doesn't interact with the rest of Ravenloft? You could then safely ignore the timeline for Ravenloft and it wouldn't matter.

Either that, or you could explain it by saying there is a time effect in the Mists; they can transport you places and times.

Fair enough, maybe that isn't the best anchor point. But I'm sure RL scholars could pick out other anchor points. Many of these dates are probably implied but, like I mentioned, the spirit of it is that "things have happened" since I6: Ravenloft.

And you're quite right, for me to use this with 5E Realms, I would have to say that, not only do the Mists transport our 5E FR heroes to the Domains of Dread, but they also transport them back in time.

I don't think the back in time is so unusual for ravenloft. I remember reading in one of the books distances could be changed to match your preference. Perhaps they leave one town one day and arrive within one day only to find it's been a week since they last left the other town or maybe a week before they've left....(Let them chew on that one. xD)

[mason]

I ripped my map when I pulled it out...

I really don't see the time discrepancies with FR being a problem, but the Van Richten thing could be, especially if you are trying to make it flow with the rest of the Ravenloft setting and canon--which already has problems.

[Zilfer]

I ripped my map when I pulled it out...

I really don't see the time discrepancies with FR being a problem, but the Van Richten thing could be, especially if you are trying to make it flow with the rest of the Ravenloft setting and canon--which already has problems.

You might be able to play with descendants or ancestors depending on which way you go with it. I have received this at home, just waiting to head home to i can peer into it.