Ultimate Ravenloft: Should we?

[WolfKook]

I think the key to such a project is to establish certain underlying rules for the setting tone and theme (...) So before we start assigning roles, how about we hammer out these rules?

Well, you point at something that was missing in my previous outline: The Design Goals. You're right indicating that they should be the first thing we should be discussing, not just to write the DLs, but to set a path for the whole project to follow. Speaking of which...

Once we reduce the choice to some set of rules codified into a Dark Power's handbook all we do is lose flavour from the setting.

I think that should not be the case. Creating such a "set of rules" would not necessarily ensure that each darklord follows a similar pattern (That would just make the setting booooring); on the contrary, if made right, that would guarantee that each one of them adjusts to the same flavour you want to keep.

For example, the rule outline we've got for the Darklords doesn't seem to steal away from the concept but to ensure that the tone we're trying to create is respected. I list some of those that were mentioned, plus a few I could think of (The names in parenthesis are those of the DLs that would need some editing under each new rule):

• Human aspect which grants understanding and (at least partial) sympathy (Illithid God-Brain)

• Deliberation and forethought in the execution of the dooming act (Malken, Easan)

• Must have a choice (Adam, Easan)

• Must make good villains for PC's to comfront (Ivana)

• Must have a concrete concept, which can be expressed in a simple way (i.e. Must not be a mish-mesh) (Von Kharkov)

• Being just "evil" isn't enough (Inza)

• Bodycount isn't enough (Draga)

• Must have a unique element that differentiates them from others of their kind: Being a stereotypical member of an evil monster species isn't enough (Three Hags, Althea)

• Must have a unique element that differentiates them from other darklords (Gundar)

Yes, this would mean some re-working of one or two existing darklords' backgrounds. But that's the sort of issue this revived version (Ravenloft 2.0?) is intended to resolve, isn't it?

Certainly, that's just what it is.

If you can get Drucilla on board you may get about 90% of the others convinced to follow her. She's pretty scary, just ask the FoS staff

C'mon, Wiccy!!! I know your game! You're just trying to fool me into going to talk to Drusilla all by myself!

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er... Drusilla...??? (Gulp!)

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Bring her a gift of paper and scissors, WolfKook, and Dru might go easy on you. She's already turned the whole FoS library into paper dollie chains, so she could always use some more materials.

Children's safety scissors for preference, of course.

[Nathan of the FoS]

We might want to make a list of complaints about the Darklords and consider how we might address them...

Here, let me chuck a spanner in the works.

I like the idea of a limited number of really, really non-human Darklords for the Cthulhu angle, and I think that the God-brain, Gwydion, and Ebonbane fill that role nicely. I definitely don't think we need more, but I think they occupy a nice intermediate slot between the human (human-like) evil of most darklords and the totally inscrutable Dark Powers.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

I like the idea of a limited number of really, really non-human Darklords for the Cthulhu angle, and I think that the God-brain, Gwydion, and Ebonbane fill that role nicely.

And here's how the rules won't get in the way, by guiding us toward solutions that probe the limits of the rules without breaking them. In the case of the God-Brain, it already has a human-ish backstory in the BoS series. Gwydion I'd argue shouldn't be a DL, but rather just a cosmic evil--he's really not very DL-ish in the Obsidian Gate, anyway. Ebonbane could go either way.

There are all kinds of critters that are well suited to a Lovecraftian game. My point here is that IMO the Cthulhu angle can work in RL, but it doesn't mesh well with Darklordship.

[Ryan Naylor]

I agree with Nathan about the God-Brain etc.

You don't want (or possibly, "I don't want you to") remove the sub-tropes of horror that the less gothic darklords fill. There is room in Ravenloft for eldritch horror (look at Ari's short story or the Forgotten Children character or the Illithids in Gothic Earth article in the BoS series - Book of Shadows I think), and there is room for fairy tale horror (the Three Hags). I think it would be a mistake to lose those aspects.

Also, I think you're missing the point of Malken and Adam. They're darklords mostly due to the hypocrisy of their creators. Mordenheim and Tristan both know about their counterparts, but Tristan refuses to do anything really constructive to oppose Malken, and Mordenheim blames every failing in his life on Adam while painting himself as an innocent victim. So Adam is in part the darklord because Mordenheim refuses to take any responsibility for him. Of course, Adam's also the darklord because even though he wants to be accepted by humans, he refuses to take on the downsides of civilisation, like not pursuing his vendetta with Mordenheim and not controlling his rage. He has made the choice to be as Mordenheim sees him and live as a monster.

And Ivana doesn't have to be a meat shield to be a good opponent for the PCs either. Cleverness and subtlety (and Borcan politics) can make her very difficult to overcome. After all, she's survived everything the Borcans can throw at each other for decades, still looks like a sweet and innocent girl, *and* is still more evil than her cousin.

I do agree that body count's not enough though.

[Ryan Naylor]

Sorry. Double post. How unprofessional.

[Antifascist]

What kind of decision making process/forum is going to be utilized for this project? I think that's the real place to start, before we even get going on what a DL is or is not. For instance, Impworks mentioned reversing the monikers for the political entities of Mordent and Mordentshire, and while I have no issue with that, but what if someone does? At what point can we as a group say "We've heard all sides to every story, and we're going with this at this juncture."

I love debate more than anyone I know, but I want to know for sure that there are solid mechanisms in place that enable us to hear all sides, but not get so encumbered by dialogue and debate that the project loses momentum.

[impworks]

Ryan and Nathan have covered a lot of points I'd make about the variety of DLs.

Personally I think one of the problems with having a set of rules is those rules can quickly imply the DP's purpose. I find Ravenloft far more interesting if the DP's are inscrutable. Maybe in the early '90s I'd have liked to know what the DP's grand scheme or purpose is. Now I'm more interested in them being a device for better story telling that is never explained.

Thats why I think they should be villains, well written and they should be unique or if not unique then at least distinctly differentiated.

Personally some of the example you list of bad Dark Lords in my book
come down to the villain not having been well presented well to date.
Certain villains, Strahd and some of the other DLs, have obviously had more work put in on them. With some work I feel that some of the DL had untapped potential - personally I think Von Kharkov and Three Hags both fall into that camp.

Just my 2p and I've got my own, long term, revised version of RL that I reshape official material to fit in the end anyway.

[Creepy Old Woman]

Being just "evil" isn't enough (Inza)

Why isn't being evil "enough"? I personally believe that some darklords should be straightforward no-nonsense evil. The Joker in The Dark Knight, for example, is purely, chillingly evil.

I have mixed feelings about the emphasis - overemphasis? - on the darklords when it comes to Ravenloft. The emphasis, I feel, should be on the players and the adventure, not the creation of an epic darklord icon. Some domains work best when the darklord is a one-dimensionally evil character. In fact, I feel that there are domains where the whole concept of the domain will be a failure if we focus solely on the darklord in order to determine how "good" the domain is.

For example, the much-maligned I'Cath wouldn't work if we focus on Tsien Chiang because she's just... there, big and nasty and evil. The concept of the domain, however, is heavily inspired by the Hong Kong movie A Chinese Ghost Story, and to play that domain well, therefore, the DM could get some inspiration from the movie as well. In this case, the heroes should be interacting with Nightingale to get the maximum effect of the adventure. The key NPC in that domain, therefore, is Nightingale, not Tsien Chiang. Tsien Chiang plays her role the most effectively when she's the mean bad treant monster woman of the island that makes a dramatic appearance at the climax of the adventure.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

You don't want (or possibly, "I don't want you to") remove the sub-tropes of horror that the less gothic darklords fill. There is room in Ravenloft for eldritch horror (look at Ari's short story or the Forgotten Children character or the Illithids in Gothic Earth article in the BoS series - Book of Shadows I think), and there is room for fairy tale horror (the Three Hags). I think it would be a mistake to lose those aspects.

I agree that there should be leeway for different styles of horror. OTOH, at a minimum, I think there should be stylistic consistency of the clusters within Ravenloft. If the Core is home to Gothic-style domains, and Lovecraftian horror clashes with Gothic horror, then Bluetspur's history should be revised so it was never part of the Core. If I'Cath does reflect a Hong Kong horror movie, and we want to merge it with some fan-brew domains to build an East Asian cluster, then the ones we invent should share the same cinematic style. If the Three Hags are representative of fairy-tale horror, they might well fit better in the Shadowborn cluster, a land of shiny-armored knights and unicorns, than in the Core.

[WolfKook]

WOW! First of all, please let me explain myself: I didn't write the list thinking in the darklords we should get rid of, but in the parameters that had already been mentioned in this thread, and in the "Lame Darklords" thread, including examples of the darklords who conflicted with each "rule".

Now, my intention was to compile the opinions which had already been expressed, not to say -in any way -that "The darklords must be written this way". I have no authority whatsoever to rule that, but perhaps I didn't express myself properly.

So, I won't dismiss Lovecraftian Horror, or Fairy Tale horror, or any kind of horror, right away (Again, I have no right to do that, and I love Fairy Tale horror... check the "Kingdom of Fairhafen" thread). I think there should be a space for every kind of horror, but the talk was circling around the darklords, and I do think the Illithid God-Brain should have an "official" write-up closer to what was done to it in the BoS, and that the Three Hags should have more to them than just being... three hags (Cause they're little more than that as they're written). Again, just my opinion.

As for the rest of the DLs mentioned, I totally agree with impworks in that they're not bad DLs, they just haven't been properly presented to date. Again, I don't think we should get rid of them, but I do think that at least those who make it to the core should be presented in more encouraging ways.

However, I also think that we're missing the point right now, because we haven't discussed on the design process and goals, and that should be clear before we should even start discussing the DLs. I'm with Antifascist in that we should be able to hear everyone interested, but also think there should be a moderator (or rather a moderator group) who takes the final design decisions, and starts compiling what's being done.

What do you think?

[Antifascist]

Precisely. This is a great concept, WolfKook, and I do not desire to see it turn into a thread where people just stop talking on it, and then someone remembers it and posts a "whatever happened to this" comment at the end, but that's precisely where this is headed until we hammer out how we want it done.

A Moderator sounds too centralized to me, but I could go for it as long as there was a process for removal by the participants if said participants felt like said moderator was abusing his/her post. I would prefer some kind of voting system (majority? half plus one? plurality?) by the particpants after a set period of debate on each topic, but that might not be feasible, if for no other reason than the amount of topics involved.

I guess, as is easily discerned from my nomenclature, that the idea of one person makes the final decision and nyah nyah! to everyone else just seems scary to me.

[DasSoviet]

Precisely. This is a great concept, WolfKook, and I do not desire to see it turn into a thread where people just stop talking on it, and then someone remembers it and posts a "whatever happened to this" comment at the end, but that's precisely where this is headed until we hammer out how we want it done.

(...)

I guess, as is easily discerned from my nomenclature, that the idea of one person makes the final decision and nyah nyah! to everyone else just seems scary to me.

Well, the best way to achieve something like that would be a separate forum where we could each have separate threads for each topic, and ideas could be logically sorted away so as to not confuse and clutter everything... a great example would be Tears of Bloodin the Giant in the Playground forum or this Wikithat was set up by a group of us world builders on WotC's old Homebrew Campaigns forum before they dropped the 4th-ed bomb on us...

But I digress... in the context of this thread as it is, a community project to institute a community alternate continuity for Ravenloft (not that most folks haven't done that at their own table...) I think a single moderator/small group of moderators would be the best option for streamlining debate, keeping the process going smoothly and sensibly. This is just option, one take, so nothing's stopping others from taking some ideas and putting it into their own worlds and leaving other parts out, right? Besides, some of the best decisions come from consensus, do they not? Throwing ideas back and forth until they've achieved a happy medium!

Besides, in the year (or so) I've lurked here, the FoS seems to work just well in that kind of manner, so there's not reason to doubt that this project can't do so as well, right?

Just my two pence, I'd love to see where this thread goes!

[impworks]

I think I'd agree with the idea of using a forum to kick the ideas around. Additionally to organise the information a wiki could prove to be a useful tool for compiling the information.

One question about the Ultimate RL - if its going to reset the timeline this will have quite an impact on certain aspects of the geography so the Nocturn Sea , the Nightmare lands, the shifted domain and the Shadow Rift would (amongst others) things be issues that need to be addressed fairly early on.

[WolfKook]

Ok. We should continue the project in the "Community Projects" forum then (I hope that doesn't mean a death sentence to the project, as the forum is not as visited as this one... Perhaps we should try to keep this thread alive to link to its ongoing development).

OTOH, I don't know where (or how) to create a Wiki. Does anyone have experience with this? I agree it would be a great way to keep the project information together.

I'm in favor of discussion and democracy, but I also think that in order to get things done, we should have someone (or a small group - three seems like a good number to me) who could direct the discussion and compile the information. I'm all in on having a process of replacement if such a post would be abused, but I am with DasSoviet in that the FoS doesn't have a record of such kind of abuse.