Ideas for running Ravenloft in other systems

[Zugor]

Good evening!

I've been planning a one-shot for Ravenloft, mainly struggling to find a system I want to use to run it in. I've experimented with 5e, and ShadowDark for other ttrpgs, but neither really checked all the boxes I was looking at. I'm currently looking through Basic Role Playing, but I've been also considering dusting off my sister's ex-husbands old Warhammer 2e books. (Long story, he left them when he moved out.)

My main struggle is that I'm looking for something that has support for the kind of guns, swords, and both combat and non-combat roles. I know there's been some talk of a "RavenHammer" campaign elsewhere in the forum, but the topic has been dead for sixteen years. All in all, I'm open for most anything. Thank you for your time!

[doctornecrotic]

Warhammer is easily hackable to Ravenloft. Falkovnia is practically a Warhammer campaign in itself. In terms of WFRP support, you're probably best looking for wider communities dedicated to that. Through that, you'll no doubt have all manner of homebrew to expand on what's there. Though, most homebrew threads I've noticed for a while are WFRP4E with a little 2E.
BRP has a bunch of setting content you could farm from already. Pulp, Gaslamp, and Dark Ages Cthulhu should prove a gold mine alone.

[Seven]

Amusingly, I found great success for several years in running Ravenloft games using the Exalted mechanics, more specifically the 3e "Mortal" system (meaning, for those in the know, the actual base mechanics of the system, before Charms and stuff muck it all up)

Characters in Exalted 3e are simultaneously low-powered enough to "work" in a horror setting, while still being capable enough to be fun to play. In addition, the base Exalted mechanics make combat interesting (and frightening, no Cure -x- Wounds here!), social interactions actually a mechanic, sorcery/magic weird and more in-depth than D&D, etc.

[Le Noir Faineant]

After the end of 3e, I eventually switched to Shadow of the Demon Lord and Black Sword Hack for Ravenloft/Creepy Fantasy.

"Demon Lord" is the more detailed game, but these days, I almost exclusively run the very "Stormbringer"-y "Black Sword Hack". Both don't quite emulate the Ravenloft of the Kargatane and the Frat - but they get close enough:

"Demon Lord" is basically a horror-themed 5e custom built, and notably is also built around what's very much the same premise as RL. (The name-giving "Demon Lord" is basically a "Dark Power", sort of like the Red Death on Gothic Earth.)

"Black Sword Hack Ultimate Chaos Edition" (BSHUC), a much more basic fastplay game, is probably closer to "Stormbringer" (the old Chaosium game) than to D&D. However, it syncs surprisingly well with Ravenloft, and with Warhammer as well. I am currently running my version of Warhammer 1e's "Doomstones" campaign with it, and the players are definitely having fun.

Warhammer 2e for Ravenloft I have tried once - a brief campaign set in Tepest. Might have been the DM's fault, back then that it didn't work out all too well. (Well of course I know that DM. He's me.) My main problem with Warhammer 2e for an emulation of Ravenloft is that WHFRP is not written to run a longer series of encounters:
Speaking as a guy who has played (not DMed) and survived multi-year campaigns built around both "Paths of the Damned" and "The Thousand Thrones", the main difference between FoS-style Ravenloft and Warhammer 2e is that running a longer series of encounters without a lot of strategic rests and slowdowns is nearly impossible. Even a D&D-style wilderness run ("track the wild animal down to their lair") is too tough under Warhammer 2e rules, unless you give your players a lot of leeway - leeway that the system does not plan in, usually. If you want a story that feels like 2e/3e Ravenloft, I am not sure I personally would pick WHFRP again.


TLDR - long games, "Hyskosa's Hexad", "Grim Harvest": "Shadow of the Demon Lord", almost definitively. Shorter/one-to-three-sessions games, BSHUC.

[Scipio]

I've tried converting the setting over to Savage Worlds, but that's a more pulpy feel to the system, didn't quite feel right. I was working with a former game designer who was on the Malodorous Goat boards on the Kargatane site, MagusRogue (She's like my non-biological sister now.)

[Rock of the Fraternity]

I think Ravenloft could be played just fine with Advanced Fighting Fantasy.

[doctornecrotic]

Savage can work, but it's best for more typical high adventure higher action D&D. I'd call Savage Fantasy/Savage Pathfinder my favorite edition of D&D even lol
But really, while it's a solid generic system, it certainly has its biases.

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

I’m running a Dragon Bane game for my group at the moment after our current GM had a RTC during his Star Wars game.

It’s a surprisingly gritty system that I think would fit well for Ravenloft.

Burning Wheel is another I think would work well for a game set in the Borca/Mordent/Richmulot/Dementlieu area pact.

[Le Noir Faineant]

FWIW, I started writing this post yesterday as I was sitting down to tinker with the Swedish game "Vaesen", and with a Ravenloft scenario. Obviously, "Vaesen" invites a connection to Gothic Earth, and that's where I want to go.

Now, Vaesen is 19th century Fantasy probably more than it is 19th century Horror, so I haven't quite found my personal enter key yet. They have a Transylvania book out, and it's not bad. ...But "it's not bad" is like saying "my brother's wife ain't ugly"; there is a reason why she ain't your type.

Circling a mix of the "Guide to Transilvania" and the classic "Dracula" adventures for "Chill". I will Ravenloft this up, though, the way I always tend to do. "Dracula" as the "Robin Hood" of horror has got so many different media treatments that it's impossible to tell that story BTB. So, my traditional recipe has always been to mix in Ravenloft stuff to keep things fresh. -- Like, already taking notes on Ratik Ubel's GE counterpart.

I want to use Vaesen because it allows nuance, and because it makes the confrontation with the horrors the players are going to find generally undesirable. As a DM, that means you can do more with less, and because of Vaesen's peculiar nature, supernatural things aren't universally pre-defined as the enemy. -- I like that. Got to of course see how it plays out, now.

[doctornecrotic]

FWIW, I started writing this post yesterday as I was sitting down to tinker with the Swedish game "Vaesen", and with a Ravenloft scenario. Obviously, "Vaesen" invites a connection to Gothic Earth, and that's where I want to go.

Now, Vaesen is 19th century Fantasy probably more than it is 19th century Horror, so I haven't quite found my personal enter key yet. They have a Transylvania book out, and it's not bad. ...But "it's not bad" is like saying "my brother's wife ain't ugly"; there is a reason why she ain't your type.

Circling a mix of the "Guide to Transilvania" and the classic "Dracula" adventures for "Chill". I will Ravenloft this up, though, the way I always tend to do. "Dracula" as the "Robin Hood" of horror has got so many different media treatments that it's impossible to tell that story BTB. So, my traditional recipe has always been to mix in Ravenloft stuff to keep things fresh. -- Like, already taking notes on Ratik Ubel's GE counterpart.

I want to use Vaesen because it allows nuance, and because it makes the confrontation with the horrors the players are going to find generally undesirable. As a DM, that means you can do more with less, and because of Vaesen's peculiar nature, supernatural things aren't universally pre-defined as the enemy. -- I like that. Got to of course see how it plays out, now.

It's a genuinely great game! It should be great for RL.

[Le Noir Faineant]

It's a genuinely great game! It should be great for RL.

Because I am going by another nickname here, I wonder if you realize you and I have an online penpal in common:

Rob of Blackmoor was the guy who ultimately convinced me to try "Vaesen". I have to say I don't entirely like the system - but it's a useful universal key to this kind of historical gaming; sort of like TOR is really a universal key for MERP. For shorter, crispier horror, I like stuff like "Rats in the Walls" (by Kobayashi) better - but I like Vaesen's slower pace for a proper "Victorian"-style horror, also because it doesn't force its mechanics on you. (Like CoC for example notoriously does.)