Why DMs don't like Ravenloft or Cannon powder and fine wine

[wolfgang_fener]

My second sort of 'beef' with Ravenloft (and it isn't just RL, Forgotten Realms is TERRIBLE for this), is that the campaign setting in certain areas is just to concerned about what happened in the novels. .

FR is purely a commercial product of TSR. Absolutely no logical planing went into it, they just plugged one product after another to build a world. The purpose was never to build a well balanced credible world. The only reason I started this campaign in FR is because it gave me a chance to draw from the background of another campaign in which I was a player. I was also aware this would become a RL campaign and I didn't care to take a chunk of FR and throw it into the sea of Sorrow and I don't care what's happening on the FR ends of that event. It was just convenient.

Anyway, thanks for your comments.

[wolfgang_fener]

I guess we all have our own places we like to focus. I'm sure I spend more time than most people think necessary doing stuff like: reconciling my campaign timeline with the canon one, figuring out where Dr. Van Richten was at a particular date and who was traveling with him, searching for and photoshopping NPC pictures to look as I picture them, finding the perfect piece of background music for a location or event, researching all the known people and locations in a particular town, etc.

Glad to see I'm not the only lunatic spending so much time in preparation

About the timeline, that's another detail I should figure out soon. Actually I'm late on this one because I already introduced a new player who's playing the first RL native PC. The guy should already know which year it is ! So far we're still on the FR calendar. As soon as they will reach the Core, I'll need to switch to Rl calendar.

I even need to keep track of lunar cycles both in RL and FR because in my campaign, the (very rare) lunar conjunction in both world create a gate. This will be important later.

The new PC is also from Dementlieu (an alienist wizard ... officialy an engineer... he will probably become another mad scientist soon enough). Before they reach that land, I need to feed this player with all the informations his character should know about Dementlieu.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, all this preparation work is a lot of fun.

IT is very nice to have this forum to rant. It's sometimes difficult for a DM to keep everything for himself sometimes for months before actually telling the players.

[wolfgang_fener]

About ressources, I'l actually place the gold mine deep under Port-A-Lucine. Knowing that some poor folks have to go down the very deep shafts leading under the city to get the gold while the nobles are having fun drinking fine wine and listening to the Opera may provide an interesting contrast.

I also need to figure out where the elements for the balck powder come from.

Finally, charcoal comes from the mines under Chateaunoir (with a name like that, I had to put the coal mine over there), they also mine nice diamonds in the same mine once in a while. Saltpetre is manufactured also in Chateaunoir (a dirty process involving manure and piss if you care to look at the wikipedia information...). Sulfure come from natural caves in the north near Carlion-le-Duc.

Of course the production of saltpetre leads to the production of nitric acid, interesting to know in a world where mad scientists are nor so rare .

[Le Noir Faineant]

I think Wolfgang is essentially right with his complaints. As a consistant gaming world, Ravenloft will never work - but it was never intended to be it.

High-concept Ravenloft is just not similar to D&D any more, because rules and concepts just don't apply as one would like them to fit; playing long RL campaigns might lead to heavy player-punishing, since the concept of the world does grant them only limited success in their doings.

I see RL more in comparison with Cthulhu fantasy like *Dreamlands*, *Dark Ages* or *Averoigne*. - If the party knows that the adventures and that happy endings are not granted, the games are much more enjoyable.

What I would comment on the whole discussion of why players don't like Ravenloft, is another thing that has bothered me reading through all that was written so far: Most people did answer defending why they think RL is the one best fantasy world for them and in the end, sounded a bit like blaming others for not getting it.

Now, I don't want to sound to much
, but instead of complaining that people don't respond too well on adventures one has spent time and energy preparing for it, I think the question should be: "How enhance our setting for players that don't like it?"

[Archedius]

I've had some of the problems Wolfgang has had with the setting but I 'fixed' them by making the core mutable in size as in the size is never exactly constant but my core tends to be far larger on average than the presented cannon core. 'Course I also emphasize desolation and emptyness when my chars travel. IMO if you make travel in RL dangerous enough in the right places that alone can account for the indescrepencies.
Sorry if I made this post haphazardly, but I do feel your pain! I prepare a great deal myself when I DM!

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

FR is purely a commercial product of TSR. Absolutely no logical planing went into it, they just plugged one product after another to build a world. The purpose was never to build a well balanced credible world. The only reason I started this campaign in FR is because it gave me a chance to draw from the background of another campaign in which I was a player. I was also aware this would become a RL campaign and I didn't care to take a chunk of FR and throw it into the sea of Sorrow and I don't care what's happening on the FR ends of that event. It was just convenient.

Anyway, thanks for your comments.

Actually, the Forgotten Realms was the home-brew world of its creator Ed Greenwood. He created the world in its entirety in the 70s and 80s and sold it to TSR. Most of it is planned out and there is a method to the world and a consistency.

I'm not a fan of the Realms, mind, but it did start as more than a cash-cow to TSR.

[Undead Cabbage]

Now, I don't want to sound to much
, but instead of complaining that people don't respond too well on adventures one has spent time and energy preparing for it, I think the question should be: "How enhance our setting for players that don't like it?"

Ok peoples of the Ravenloft court, Daisy's got a pretty good idea here . I say we all join in.

Higher Tech Levels: One way I enhance Ravenloft is by heightening the technology level. A big beef that players can have with RL is the inability to 'make their characters better' by weighing themselves down with obscene amounts of magical items. Frustration often seeps in, and they can at times begin to feel like its pointless to even try to have a cool character.

Players don't miss the magic weapons (at least not as much) when they have excess to things like Nitroglycerine, Shot guns, scatter rifles, dynamite, magnums, the works. My players often try to find creative ways to enhance their weapons, building sniper-rifle that can be dismantled into an instrument case. They custom craft magnum pistols that enhance the amount of damage their bullets do. They construct bullets with alchemists fire inside of them, adding a little explosion with every shot.

It requires some work, some broken rules, some creativity, and some knowledge on gunworks (in some cases, turning a blind eye to the physics of everything), but I've had some really positive results.

Limiting Character Death: Any campaign that has regular character deaths is going to either ruin the game for the players, or make everything a farce. Players are there to make a cool character, and so when you kill it part of that spark that makes them want to role play a character disappears. Again, it's a matter of making sure players don't feel like its 'pointless'. This is not to say that PCs should never die. But no player is going to want to come back if they died simply because of one crappy failed save. If I have a climactic PC death planned, I will take the player aside two weeks or so before the death and discuss it with him. This makes for a much more dramatic scene (something that is key when trying to maintain atmosphere), as well as overall happier players.

[Brandi]

I'm not a fan of the Realms, mind, but it did start as more than a cash-cow to TSR.

Sometimes I think it started as a way for Ed Greenwood to show off his uber PC/Gary Stu.

[Pamela]

Why criticise Greenwood for doing what Gygax also did? People went to the trouble of making characters and playing them for years, let alone creating their own worlds. Why not show them off?

I remember the first time that I saw the Forgotten Realms set, and I was impressed. Heck, I still own the set, and flip through it all, seeing how far it's come over the years. I'm no fan of Drizzt, Elminster or the novels- but then I don't read Ravenloft novels either. I take what I want and what I like, and FR at least gives a lot of details and history. I appreciate these things myself.

I think this attention to detail is the best way to enhance the setting for players and DM's. I don't mind making up some things, but I do like to have something to fall back on myself when I'm tired or stumped. The Gazetteers were the first RL books I ever bothered to buy. Talk about the Dark Powers and what they are- or give various characters' views on the matter. I've never liked open-ended mysteries that take years to resolve- I waited years to read the Wheel of Time series for that reason.

[Brandi]

Why criticise Greenwood for doing what Gygax also did?

Perhaps because EGG didn't feel the need to detail for us how Boccob/Zagyg/Mordenkainen/whoever got to have sex with the Goddess of Magic-- and has one of her avatars as a regular bed partner-- because he's JUST THAT STUDLY.

[alhoon]

Actually, I'm with Llana on this.

[Le Noir Faineant]

Thanks for the support, Cabby.

For my own campaigns, I have taken the following measures to enhance the game to my players:

- Leaving the whole demi-plane implications out; that's just to much for most players to bear. RL is simply a world that is slowly taken over by the mists.

- Limiting darklord powers and importance; if the PCs complete an adventure, let them really feel they're winning.

- Content with simpler plots; RL can be a splendid place for dungeon crawls. There's no need to start a n00b game with intrigue- and rpg-heavy sessions.

Why criticise Greenwood for doing what Gygax also did?

Perhaps because EGG didn't feel the need to detail for us how Boccob/Zagyg/Mordenkainen/whoever got to have sex with the Goddess of Magic-- and has one of her avatars as a regular bed partner-- because he's JUST THAT STUDLY.

Thank you so much for this phrase, Brandi! As a fellow Hawker, I really wouldn't know how to put the cheesiness of the realms more politely.

[Brandi]

The funny thing is, there's much in the kitchen-sink weirdness of the Realms that I do like-- but Elminster is just silly/annoying to me. (I will concede that Sam Wood did a nice illos of him for the 3.x book, though!)

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Why criticise Greenwood for doing what Gygax also did?

Perhaps because EGG didn't feel the need to detail for us how Boccob/Zagyg/Mordenkainen/whoever got to have sex with the Goddess of Magic-- and has one of her avatars as a regular bed partner-- because he's JUST THAT STUDLY.

Yes, ol' Ed really does need to take a lot of cold showers, doesn't he? Not exactly your stereotypical librarian....

[NeoTiamat]

Personally, I think Faerun has some good things going for, (I like the Thayvians myself. Szass Tam FTW!), but yes, Driz'zt and Elminster should be lowered slowly into a pot of boiling oil.

As for Ravenloft, well, speaking as a writer, my two main problems have always been size and history.

Thing is, what with the Gazeteers, I think Ravenloft is one of the most intricately detailed settings out there. And the reason I love it so much is because it gives these details. Economy, population, culture, thats what I find fascinating. (Well, that and the fact that its a low-magic setting where a werewolf is scary and not sword-fodder)

But with its size, its completely ridiculous. Remember that Wolves in Kartakass thread? I was the person who spent three hours looking up wolf statistics, densities, average hunting range, etc, etc. And even with relatively generous numbers for Kartakass (ideal wolf territory and all), I ended up with a grand total of 1.5 packs in all of Kartakass. And that's not counting Dire Wolves.

Generally, in my mind I multiply all the dimensions by about 8.333 (so as to get something a quarter the size of europe), and multiply most urban populations by fifty. I look at those in this way. My high-school had 2500 students. All in one building. This is the same as the entire population of Mordentshire. Call me peculiar but I don't think the largest town in a domain should be able to fit into a high-school auditorium.

As for history... False History has a tendency to become very confusing regarding the origins of really old undead. Mummies and Liches are routinely centuries old, sometimes even millenia (especially mummies), and yet the majority of domains are less then 90 years old.