What do your Ravenloft campaigns usually look like?

[BedrockBrendan]

What approach do you usually take to planning and running a Ravenloft Campaign? What I am after is not only the overall shape of you campaign but also the kinds of things you like to include over the course of it (i.e. Vampire hunt, murder mystery, etc). Alsi what domains do you generally gravitate to?

[ewancummins]

What approach do you usually take to planning and running a Ravenloft Campaign? What I am after is not only the overall shape of you campaign but also the kinds of things you like to include over the course of it (i.e. Vampire hunt, murder mystery, etc). Alsi what domains do you generally gravitate to?

I usually begin by designing a villain; history, personality, methods, goals, etc.

Sometimes I start with a mental image instead, like a young woman fleeing masked thugs down a dark city street.

I then write up bullet form notes, to be expanded later. When writing notes, I try to avoid rigid plotlines and too many fixed events. Instead, I work up a basic framework with a lot of contingencies covered.

The adventure always begins with some kind of hook to get the PCs involved of their own free will, rather than forcing them into the action.

Our games thus far have included gangster-cultists, a ghostly queen, a evil pimp, necromancy, portals to what might have been the past or maybe just another domain, woman-killers, tricky gyspies, a soul sucking dog, mind-bending fungus, werewolves, family secrets, etc. It's been pretty Gothic. No vampires yet...

Domains used thus far: Richemulot (used the most), Sithicus, Farelle, Invidia, some homebrew places

I can't comment on the current phase of the campaign.

[Goose Bone]

I usually writes only the keywords (werewolves, forest, village, winter), simple situations and encounters (great hunt, fight on the iced lake, crawl in the castle's dungeons), usually some places (Pig's Eye Taverne, Major's House, Creepy Cellar) and few NPC's (Mayor, Barber, Doctor, Red Widow) - and that's all, we start to play - and the adventure is created during play, without any hard frame. That's our way to eat the cookie and still had a cookie^^ I'm happy DM, because I know (more or less) what I do - and my players are happy Players, because they don't have feeling that something MUST happen because it was writed in pre-defined scenario.

I just starting my adventure as a Ravenloft DM - 'til now we play only in Paridon, Carnival and Vorostokov... And I want to take my players to Ghastria, Souragne and Sri Raji.

[Blot]

I go Character up. Character gen can take anything up to a month. I negotiate with players individually, then get them to discuss with each other, do a few solo 'preludes' to get a feel for how the characters breathe, followed by a crappy by the book one-shot dungeon crawl or wilderness trek just to get a feel of the group dynamic.

I'm a strong believer plot doesn't just happen, it's something that characters define and create.

After that the consequences of the choices the players make tend to define exactly where the campaign goes.

[Strahdsbuddy]

I am taking a macro view based on something I read in Dragon Magazine years ago: The DM should be creating the world, the PLAYERS should be writing their own story. I have finally put this sort of sandbox theory into practice in my current campaign, the 3rd installment of which is happening on Saturday. Ravenloft is a great setting for this kind of approach because you can pick a domain, scour canon and non-canon sources to populate it, fill in the cracks with your own creative mortar then just turn your PCs loose.

Something I have also found helpful is to have your own story as a backdrop, which does not necessarily require any interaction to play out. Imagine historical fiction, where the time period helps to tell the story because someone who has studied it knows a bit about what is going on. This allows you to tell a love story while bombs are falling on London. It also allows you to tell a ghost story while a colony is falling apart...

As far as style, I'm pretty combat-light as a DM, which I have noticed is off-putting combined with the above method, and it took my players a little while to realize they were driving the story as well as not just mowing down everything in sight.

Domains I have used have been Mordent, Dementleiu and Forlorn. Castles Forlorn was a gazeteer-type adventure that lead well into this style, even though I wasn't using it at the time. Mordent in particular is well-populated and can come alive rather quickly.

[MichaelTumey]

While I don't specifically create Ravenloft campaigns, I do create horror campaigns in varying settings, so this may or may not help your question.

You could consider more like I'm creating new/unique domains and lords. I create a map of a region as a setting where the campaign is intended to take place. Create the ruler, his government, the varying supporting factions the control the government, then I create opposition factions to the domain ruler/government, as well as specific NPCs that are leading members of each faction. Then towns, wilderness and all the other details of kingdom building.

After this I concoct, what manner of horror specifically caters to the domain, ruler, factions and goals - whatever best fits.

For example, right now, I am working on something akin to Har' Akir for a homegame (the Egyptian domain if I am remembering that right). So I have mummies, liches, deathknights (graveknights really, since I'm using PF) as the main evil forces. Unlike Har' Akir, I also have humanoid races I call the sacred sons (which I borrowed from Conan, sacred sons of Set), which are Set = serpentfolk, Anubis = jackal gnolls, and Geb = crocodilian humanoid race; these are the middle managers beneath the leadership undead. Also are several more normal NPCs of the realm which include undead bloodline sorcerers, evil clerics, etc. Finally the normal humans of the domain are all slaves. While most outsider humans/humanoids are merchants.

The party begins in possession of an ankh and a goal of returning to its rightful place, stolen from the sarcophagus of the Pharaoh, Akenhotep IX (technically the domain ruler of my Egyptian domain). So it's a long saga discovering how to get to the temple pyramid complex where the domain ruler's tomb exists. They need to cross desert, bypass sandstorm, sneak into a walled town (under watch by the sacred sons), then go on to the temple pyramid complex for the main adventure itself.

Right now I'm building specific hazards and special terrains for things like Sandstorms, 'quicksand' of the desert, as well as haunts and traps.

This weekend, our group will enter the desert heading towards the walled town.

[alhoon]

I usually went for mid-high fantasy, vampire-bashing etc game with few elements of horror. Mostly traditional D&D but with fewer magical items and wizards. I like the setting and the laws of the world, so I play Ravenloft often.

However: Mid-high fantasy monster bashing "Bob gets in and cleaves the horrific ghoul with his axe! Yeah!" thing works better in 4th edition. Yet, I can't bring myself to use 4th edition for Ravenloft.
So after 4th edition, I use Ravenloft with 3rd edition, for more "theme" oriented campaigns than traditional monster bashing ala D&D.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I go Character up.
...
I'm a strong believer plot doesn't just happen, it's something that characters define and create

This. Get your characters submitted first, then stare at them, and figure out the stories or antagonists that would be most meaningful to them. Then weave those all together. That's my technique.

[brilliantlight]

Mine is centered on the machinations of the various dark lords. My dark lords are mostly subtle and mostly unseen. Almost all of them have a very good reputation within their own domain . They are no less evil but they hide it better and put on a very good front. Because of this they tilt heavily to LAWFUL evil. I admit even outside of RL most of my big villians are LE as I see them as the most dangerous to societies at large. With lawful evil you get Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia while with CE you get biker gangs or small bands of marauding barbarians.

Any skullduggery my dark lords do is very hard to trace back to them. They are very charming and intelligent. In my campaigns for the dark powers to make you a dark lord you have signifigance in some way or another. A two bit assassin who mostly eliminates small time thugs or petty merchants who won't pay protection will have very little chance to becoming a dark lord although it is fairly likely he will fail a number of dark power checks. A top tier assassin who eliminates nobles and rich merchants is far more likely to become one even though he is no more or less evil than the first. He has far more potential though and is more likely to prove interesting to them.

None of them age which is seen as a sign by the public that they are a true lord of the realm. All of them are permenantly unkillible in one way or another. If they don't have some other way "come back from the dead" the Dark Powers will have them inhabit another body such as Harkon Lucas does. The Dark Powers won't let them die until they themselves want them dead. The plane is not refered by the inhabitants as Ravenloft but the Mistlands. Ravenloft is a castle in Bavoria not the name of the entire plane. The Mistlands are an entire plane not demiplane and "The Core" is only one of many cores but the people inside that core do not know that yet.

[Goose Bone]

A little add-on after brilliantlight post;) I see the Ravenloft as an potentialy infinite plane of existence - just like an Abyss, no one ever reach the end of it...
And the Darklords are always pity little humans, entangled in a web of their own sins and plots. They usually powerfull, almost omnipotent, but they cannot escepe their destiny - the harder they try, the harder their fails, and usually threat domain and citizens only as a tools to escape their fate. They interest in players or other persons only if they see them as a potentialy way out... And the one and only way to stop becoming the Darklord is to... stop giving a f*ck about it. When a Darklord do not try to escape, and become a boring, sad silhouette, the Dark Powers try to remove it and replace with a brand new, funny toy. And most of people are just a statists - when the Darklord changes, their changes with him, and do not rememberthe world was different before.

BTW - Someone say that "death of the one person is a tragedy, when the death of the thousands is only a sthatistic"...

[brilliantlight]

A little add-on after brilliantlight post;) I see the Ravenloft as an potentialy infinite plane of existence - just like an Abyss, no one ever reach the end of it...
And the Darklords are always pity little humans, entangled in a web of their own sins and plots. They usually powerfull, almost omnipotent, but they cannot escepe their destiny - the harder they try, the harder their fails, and usually threat domain and citizens only as a tools to escape their fate. They interest in players or other persons only if they see them as a potentialy way out... And the one and only way to stop becoming the Darklord is to... stop giving a f*ck about it. When a Darklord do not try to escape, and become a boring, sad silhouette, the Dark Powers try to remove it and replace with a brand new, funny toy. And most of people are just a statists - when the Darklord changes, their changes with him, and do not rememberthe world was different before.

BTW - Someone say that "death of the one person is a tragedy, when the death of the thousands is only a sthatistic"...

I see it largely that way. I see "The Core" as merely the newest core. For one thing Strahd is not nearly important enough for even a demiplane to be created. He was merely a high level fighter and lord who lusted after his brother's bride and killed him for it. Bad as that is there must be untold numbers of others in the multiverse that are just as bad and as powerful.

I would change "stop trying to escape the demiplane" to "stop trying to break their curse". That is what happened with Soth. He went into his own little dreamworld and became boring.

The quote is Stalin's and it is roughly "The death of one person is a tragedy, the death of MILLIONS is only a statistic." You were off by three orders of magnitude.

[Goose Bone]

By writing "stop trying to escape the demiplane" i mean more or less "stop trying to break their curse" - so I totally agree with your point^^
I thought a bit about "Why i.e. Strahd was sucked into RL, and not the Bane, or Belashyrra, or Irenicus..." And my answer will be "Because they do not want to go there".
For me, Demiplane of Dread is a kind of materialized guilty conscience. Domain is just a reflection of what happens within the soul of a Darklord - Ravenloft is in our heads, when a powerfull person cannot win against remorses and find itself guilty and evil, ID creates a kind of self-punishment, we called Domain. And whey you forgotyour sin, or accept it, or do not think this is a sin, you are free... But this is just my point of wiev;]

The quote is Stalin's and it is roughly "The death of one person is a tragedy, the death of MILLIONS is only a statistic." You were off by three orders of magnitude.

Thousands, millions - it is only a statistic in the end, isn't it?

[brilliantlight]

By writing "stop trying to escape the demiplane" i mean more or less "stop trying to break their curse" - so I totally agree with your point^^
I thought a bit about "Why i.e. Strahd was sucked into RL, and not the Bane, or Belashyrra, or Irenicus..." And my answer will be "Because they do not want to go there".
For me, Demiplane of Dread is a kind of materialized guilty conscience. Domain is just a reflection of what happens within the soul of a Darklord - Ravenloft is in our heads, when a powerfull person cannot win against remorses and find itself guilty and evil, ID creates a kind of self-punishment, we called Domain. And whey you forgotyour sin, or accept it, or do not think this is a sin, you are free... But this is just my point of wiev;]

The quote is Stalin's and it is roughly "The death of one person is a tragedy, the death of MILLIONS is only a statistic." You were off by three orders of magnitude.

Thousands, millions - it is only a statistic in the end, isn't it?

I think the distinction is important though. If Strahd would find Tatyana and could actually keep her for a while he wouldn't want to escape. If that did happen (which won't because of the curse) he would be happy, for a while. He would then find out that he was NOT in love with Tatyana but an idealized version of her. After a while he would see her as overly naive, uncultured and idealistic. He merely lusted after her and was jealous of his younger brother and not all of that was Tatayana. He was going through a mid-life crisis and was jealous of Sergi's youth and the fact that Sergi would have a much better early adulthood than he had as Sergi wouldn't spend all that time in a bloody war. Drakov would be perfectly content in RL if he could conquer it. Azalin would have no problems with RL if he could learn new magic.

The Superego (You used the wrong Freudian term, the ID is lusts and other basic drives while guilt is part of the superego. BTW Freud has long been on the way out. ) idea is an interesting one. I can see it working for you. With mine the dark powers are LE gods with the strongest ones being justice, secrecy and undead. The justice might take some explaining. As you know you actually have to do great evil to become a dark lord. They don't pick people at random but those who really did something very wrong. They are really into punishment and don't care if anyone outside the guilty get punished as well, indirectly. They don't hurt the innocent directly but if they don't care if they are hurt as a side effect of the punishment. For example, Strahd being a vampire is part of his punishment. They don't care innocent people are preyed upon by Strahd as a result. All they care about is Strahd being punished. Many innocent people are killed in Drakov's stupid wars but they don't care. The important thing to them is Drakov being punished.

[Goose Bone]

1st of all: I am a philosopher (3rd year of studies) and I love to talk about different world conceptions, sense of life, understanding of the Universe, different conceptions of God/gods etc - and it is a great fun for me. I do not say that my vision of Ravenloft is true one nor the best one, do not try to insult or trolling anyone - I just want to show my point to everyone who is interested and see the point of the anyone who want to show it. If someone is tired or think this isn't the right topic - say it to me;)

I think the distinction is important though. If Strahd would find Tatyana and could actually keep her for a while he wouldn't want to escape. If that did happen (which won't because of the curse) he would be happy, for a while. He would then find out that he was NOT in love with Tatyana but an idealized version of her. After a while he would see her as overly naive, uncultured and idealistic. He merely lusted after her and was jealous of his younger brother and not all of that was Tatayana. He was going through a mid-life crisis and was jealous of Sergi's youth and the fact that Sergi would have a much better early adulthood than he had as Sergi wouldn't spend all that time in a bloody war. Drakov would be perfectly content in RL if he could conquer it. Azalin would have no problems with RL if he could learn new magic.

If you think about Ravenloft as a just another plane/sphere/dempilane, just like a Fernia, Limbo or Prime Material, where cursed people lives their pity lives - I'm perfectly agree with you;)
If you think - like me - about Ravenloft as a "punishment itself", it is impossible to separate Darklord, Domain and Curse - it is just the same thing for me, the one cannot exist without the rest. If you are free from a Darklord curse, you are free from Ravenloft - like if a judge decided you are unguilty, you are free from jail... And it corespondents quite good with my vision of "Dread realm inside your head", I think;)

The Superego (You used the wrong Freudian term, the ID is lusts and other basic drives while guilt is part of the superego. BTW Freud has long been on the way out. ) idea is an interesting one. I can see it working for you. With mine the dark powers are LE gods with the strongest ones being justice, secrecy and undead. The justice might take some explaining. As you know you actually have to do great evil to become a dark lord. They don't pick people at random but those who really did something very wrong. They are really into punishment and don't care if anyone outside the guilty get punished as well, indirectly. They don't hurt the innocent directly but if they don't care if they are hurt as a side effect of the punishment. For example, Strahd being a vampire is part of his punishment. They don't care innocent people are preyed upon by Strahd as a result. All they care about is Strahd being punished. Many innocent people are killed in Drakov's stupid wars but they don't care. The important thing to them is Drakov being punished.

Damn, you are right, I mean Superego, maby it's time to refresh my knowledge, its almost 3 years since my last psychology lesson, sorry for the mistake;) I know Freud is now a bit outdated, but I still like few of his ideas...
I understand your conception of Dark Powers, and if we take it as a base, everything is perfectly cool and do not needs any other explanations. In typical D&D we've got:
- Theoretical Gods - just like in Eberron or in our world, gods never answer to anythng directly, never do anything directly, and never been seen by the mortals. No one can be sure their even exist, but most of people believe they do.
- Practical Gods - I.E. Forgotten Realms, where god could be encountered, killed, turn into human and so on.
- Overgods - Like Ao, Lady of Pain, Eru and so on, only few know their truly exist, and their power is absolute, surpassing even logic (i.e. create a stone so heavy that they could not lift it, and then... Lift it. )
I believe that in your example the Dark Powers are a kind of Overgods (if they can judge gods, like Vecna). But I see the Dark Powers as something much more original than a "Gods over gods", something a bit more undefined... For me they are something much more similar to karma, or fate - not inteligent, self conscious being, more a bunch of ad hoc rules and exceptions, that cannot be contacted, encountered or understanded - Dark Powers are just the way the world is, nothing less, nothing more...

[brilliantlight]

If you think about Ravenloft as a just another plane/sphere/dempilane, just like a Fernia, Limbo or Prime Material, where cursed people lives their pity lives - I'm perfectly agree with you;)
If you think - like me - about Ravenloft as a "punishment itself", it is impossible to separate Darklord, Domain and Curse - it is just the same thing for me, the one cannot exist without the rest. If you are free from a Darklord curse, you are free from Ravenloft - like if a judge decided you are unguilty, you are free from jail... And it corespondents quite good with my vision of "Dread realm inside your head", I think;)

I actually largely agree with you here. I don't see it as a personification of the superego but you are right that you can't seperate the darklord, the domain and the curse as they are all tied up together. However, if Ravenloft were another plane where they could break the curse and remain then it would apply. Ravenloft in itself is NOT that bad a place to be if you are not a dark lord. I would rather live in most domains in RL, werewolves and undead notwithstanding, then a number of Real Life Third World countries such as North Korea, Somalia, Ethiopia, Rwanda etc. I would rather live there than virtually anywhere on Earth during the Dark and Middle Ages. War is virtually unknown and in many cases the governments are no worse or better than those eras.