RL Natives' View On The Change From 2E To 3E

[Lord Cyclohexane]

Preface: This topic is going to seem inane to many people. If this applies to you, feel free to look elsewhere.

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How have Ravenloft's natives viewed the change from 2E to 3E, with the slight shift in reality that occurred? Or, in fact, have they even noticed?


I've been thinking about this ever since my Drigor posting in JWM's "Teeny Tales of Terror: D is for Dread":

In 3rd Ed's Fiend Folio, page 45, "Shators ... stand 10 feet tall and weigh nearly 700 pounds," but in 2nd Ed's Planescape Monstrous Compendium, page 45, "Shator are 6' tall, squat and broad ... and they weigh 560 pounds." No mention of any paralytic slime in 2nd Ed either...

So on the minus side, Drigor gained 140 lbs changing from 2nd to 3rd Ed. On the plus side, by gaining 4 feet in height, he's actually wearing it better than before.

Obviously, Drigor experienced a change when reality shifted from the 2E rules to the 3E rules, seeing a massive physical change. He no longer fits the physical description Van Richten gave in VR's Guide to Fiends, as he now towers over every member of VR's party, and the paralytic ichor dripping from his skin might put a damper on his writing career.

Now the big question is, how did these changes work in-game? How did Vecna's reshaping of the multiverse (as per Die, Vecna, Die) affect the perceptions of Ravenloft's inhabitants? Using Drigor as the example, I figure there are four basic possibilities:


1) No change. Vecna's vengeance was to remove the Demiplane from its spot in the multiverse, hurling it into the outer void. Because of this, Drigor retains the description from VRGtF, becoming a unique shator purely by virtue of not changing as the rest of the multiverse changed. Vecna's multiversal alterations are completely unnoticed in the Demiplane of Dread, as none occurred in the Demiplane of Dread.

2) Reality changes such that things were *always* the 3rd Ed way. Vecna's alterations of multiversal laws are applied at the beginning of time, such that, effectively, things have always been the way they are now. As such, Drigor has *always* fit the 3E description. Van Richten's Guide to Fiends has been altered in this feedback, such that the description of Drigor found within has *always* been of a 10 foot monstrosity that drips slime all over; curiously, however, Van Richten never questions how an ichor-dripping fiend is able to write without its own slime destroying the paper.

3) Reality changes from that point in time on. At the stroke of midnight, August 24th 753 BC, Drigor feels as the world changes and notices the alteration in his physical body and powers. Picking up a battered copy of Van Richten's Guide to Fiends and flipping the yellowed pages to his battle with Van Richten, he notes that the text remains the same, describing his old squat weak form. Flexing his powerful new muscles, he cruelly grins with the thought of meeting Van Richten again, considering Van Richten's ignorance of just how much Drigor has changed in the meantime...

4) (Combines 2&3) Reality changes from that point in time on, but changes such that things have *always* been the 3E way. However, only the most powerful of beings notice the changes Vecna has wrought. At the stroke of midnight, August 24th 753 BC, Drigor feels reality blink. While he notices his new bodyform, and knows that he has always had this bodyform, he also knows that just a moment beforehand, reality and history were different. Feeling the changes in the time/space grid, ones that only few others would even notice, perhaps this time he could make good his plans for escape, abusing the changes in physics without competition. Or perhaps, feeling the land begin to churn lightly like a sleeper's shifting, he should take part in the upheaval as Darkon's Once and Future King awakes...

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Anyway, sorry for the horrendously huge opening post and sorry to all of you who are completely uninterested in considering the in-game story of the change from 2E to 3E that could follow after Die, Vecna, Die resolves. But to those of you still reading, which of the four do you like best? Or do you have another possibility that you like better? My vote is on #4, but I'd like to hear other people's ideas.

[ScS of the Fraternity]

Nice idea, but it does lean on the 4th wall a little heavily.
I ike how you tied Vecna into it, which would create an in-game explanation as to why things we reshuffled in 3rd edition.

[Lord Cyclohexane]

But isn't that the point of Die, Vecna, Die? I mean, maybe I misunderstood it, but I thought that the point of that whole adventure, with Vecna escaping Ravenloft, going to the City of Doors seeking to remake the multiverse in his own image, that that was supposed to give an in-game reason for the out-of-game rules changes. That it was Vecna's meddling that caused the change in multiversal physics represented by the change from 2E to 3E.

Or was I perhaps reading too much into that adventure? It wouldn't be the first time, after all. But I honestly see Die, Vecna, Die as having fulfilled that purpose, though I might be wrong or, as I said, be reading too much into it.

But anyway, holding the assumption that Die, Vecna, Die really does give an in-game reason, it still only represents the "2E to 3E" side. So I was thinking, it'd be interesting to have a "3E from 2E" side as well. Hence the above.

[The Wannabe]

a'le The Order of the Stick, anyone?

Actually....if one was running a 2e campaign it might make for an amusing and possibly creepifying mini-adventure to actually role-play the switch. Maybe the characters have just returned from someplace like Bluetspur or the Nightmare Lands and reality doesn't seem quite......right......or have they in fact returned? Other possibilities would be the Tome of Terror, or even the classic Mistwalk.

3ewannabe