Getting players to travel through the domains

[Chess Lane]

Hello there,


It's been many years since I've run a full fledged RL campaign and back then I used the sudden appearance of the mists to transport the PC's where I wanted them to be if they were headed in a direction other than where the next adventure was planned. After a few quests, it got annoying for them and while I sometimes changed the names of towns/npc's on the fly to account for their decisions, I always wanted a better method of doing things.

I am curious as to how you good people deal with situations like this. Do you just plan out adventures in the same domain and surrounding regions or do you ferry them along via a morning fog or dream sequence etc.? Do you stay away from a lot of published modules to avoid the problem I was having?

Thanks for your time

[Starscream]

I would prefer not to abuse on the use of the Mists as a mean of teleport

In my future campaign I've planned so far only two uses of the Mist: in the intro, where the players from their homeland will finish on Ravenloft (Souragne) and after NotWD, where they will be teleport on Mordent for the true strarting of the campaign.
From that point i will want to use the Mist very scarcely, my player (and their characters) are new in Ravenloft so they must discover what lies on this new land

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

The Mists are a great tool, but can of course be over-used.

The best way I've found is to give the PCs a goal beyond the adventure at hand. This is ideally something brought to the table by the players, something in their PCs background that they want or need to find. Barring that, a recurring nemesis is another good tool. In either case, plant rumors that point to the thing they are looking for in the next place you want to run an adventure. If you want to go for a more sandbox feel, pick a few different adventures you want to run and drop a few different hints that point to each one. Whichever one the PCs follow, run that one next. If they hear that the guy that killed PC1's mother was seen in town X, and that a friend of PC2 went to town Y in search of something and never returned, and that the local herbalist once read a book about PC3's life goal in the library of town Z, they've got options. They'll probably do all 3 eventually, but the order can be up to them.

[Joël of the FoS]

In our 15 years of campaign, I used the mist as a transport device for the whole party only once (as requested in the Evil Eye adventure for the encounter with Nathan Timothy to work).

What Ron said, indeed. Added benefit is that they think they are in control

To answer the qustion : I had the players make friend with a few knowledgeable persons (non adventurers), who tell them about things to do or investigate (aka adventures), and they usually take the cues.

Summary of my campaign, showing hooks for travel :

After a few adventures in their hometown in Barovia, I DMed Evil Eye.

In Karina they meet Tara Kolyana who ask them for an escort to Levkarest (I planted an adventure during travel - Ashington Manor), and then adventures in Levkarest with the beautiful people there. Many seeds planted for later.

Then they get a letter from Gennifer Weathermay Foxgrove, whom they recently met , telling them that the problems they discussed the last time they met (A PC and Tara having bad dreams, and two PCs being lycanthrope thanks to Nathan) needs consultation with Van Richten in Mordent. To get there, they pass through Falkovnia and get into trouble with demi humans.

Adventures in Mordent: they meet VR and do a few things there, then they go back to Karina as they need to kill Nathan Timothy (to cure the two PCs are cursed with lycanthropy).

Adventures in Karina and Verbrek, where they eliminate Nathan.

Than back to Mordent to bring back Van Richten and the twins (end of Howls in the Night, Horror's Harvest, stuff with Godefroy and the transubstancial halo, Azenwrath, strange feys, and more little adventures).

Then James Martigan the local Ezra head of church tells them about a message he got from a good friend in Valachan about heretic texts found there. He ask to retrieve them and bring them to safety in Mordent. But they were stolen, chase to retrieve these. They find it north of Mordentshire (coupled with the great PF's Skinsaw thief adventure). They retrieve the texts, but Martigan wishes them to deliver it to a Vault in Levkarest.

Back to Levkarest, where more beautiful people mingle in.

Then they go to Darkon (the corpse of a dead woman they found during Skinsaw thief told them she wishes to be buried in Martira Bay). Hop, we go to Darkon. Lots of adventures there.

Start of the Whispering Way evil cult chase, that will lead them from Darkon to Barovia (insert Midnight Market and Sea Wolf adventure on the boat) to Levkarest to Karina (insert rescue of a vistani friend in a Falkovnian brothel) to Hunadora in Barovia. There, they jump into an opened gate (the cult did it) and get to Siberia Then into the gate again back to Hunadora. Evil cult adventure cycle finished.

Then they see a mysterious message written by a ghost on the dust of a table, and they run back to Mordent.

There, they learn that VR is in an asylum to get cured. They go enquire to Dominia, then Martira Bay, then Rivalis (that was Bleak House, with lots of other stuff inserted)

Then they go back to Levkarest, as one of the last time they were there, they got a raise dead from the church in exchange for the PCs to investigate the Cathedral disappearance.

There we are. You see what kind of leads I used to make them travel. In my game, I use all travels as opportunitied to add atmospheric detals and cool side trecks, so my players love to travel

[Chess Lane]

Thanks for all your advice!

You've given me plenty of ideas. I'll throw little clues pertaining to character background here and there in the adventures as well as some helpful dialogue with NPC's they trust. It's fun being a little puppet master behind the DM screen like that (insert villainous laughter).

[brilliantlight]

I simply gave them a boss. An investigation agency that gives them various jobs. It does make for an episodic campaign though.

[Chess Lane]

Yeah, that's a good idea, too, thanks.
Van Ritchen, The Church of Ezra, George Weathermay before his exile, the twins or even the Keepers of the Black Feather (for Barovian tasks) could work.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Yeah, that's a good idea, too, thanks.
Van Ritchen, The Church of Ezra, George Weathermay before his exile, the twins or even the Keepers of the Black Feather (for Barovian tasks) could work.

Since the topic's come up, I hope you don't mind a blatant plug for one of my own articles on finding a patron for a Ravenloft party.

[brilliantlight]

Yeah, that's a good idea, too, thanks.
Van Ritchen, The Church of Ezra, George Weathermay before his exile, the twins or even the Keepers of the Black Feather (for Barovian tasks) could work.

Since the topic's come up, I hope you don't mind a blatant plug for one of my own articles on finding a patron for a Ravenloft party.

I think people should blatantly plug their own ideas wherever it fits in, I do. How is anyone going to know of your idea if you don't plug it when it fits in?

[Chess Lane]

Thanks for the info, Deep Shadow. I've never heard of some of those characters/organizations. I'll take a look at them soon.

[Dark Angel]

I once had my group make camp, go through the night, and wake up in a completely different locale than where they were. They had no idea what happened outside of the 'Mists retreating' as they woke up, had to find their bearings, and had no clear reason why they were transported. My reason? I had none. There wasn't any specific thing they needed to do. I honestly cannot recall where they were and where they went. The reason was simple: the Mists moved them from one place to another. That was all.

[ewancummins]

BALLOON


I floated this idea a couple of years ago.

The PCs come into the possession of an alchemical balloon. Have they been hired to do aerial mapping? Is this an expedition to the Moon? Something else?
In any case, the balloon provides a good excuse to move the party about the map in a fashion that doesn't negate the players' choices as you would by just dropping the Mists on them every time you want them to go someplace. They may get lost in the Mists, of course! That's a hazard of flying in Ravenloft. The balloon may spring a leak and come down in unfamiliar territory. Winds may easily blow it off course.
This mode of travel/exploration allows for great swathes of countryside to be skipped over in a short space of time but tightly restricts the party's room for henchmen and extra/bulk supplies and mounts and such.
It also can bring in aerial encounters.

The balloon may not be a good fit for the OP's campaign idea, though.

[Mistmaster]

I usually have these two rival Vistani/Giorgio joint venture guilds: the Mist Striders and the Red Owls which give safe travel throught the Mists

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Since things have gone in that direction, here's another relevant article of mine to consider.

I'm hoping to get the LE variation of the Soldiers of Truth to play a role IMC soon.

[Five]

I like to think that travel in Ravenloft is largely defined by what edition of Ravenloft is being used, or, how Ravenloft is being used.

In 2E, where the focus was largely put on the whole "Weekend in Hell" thing (abstract Ravenloft), and especially if PCs are being imported from other worlds, then Mist Travel is ideal. It oozes atmosphere like the undefinable peripheral of a dream, it blurs the line between reality and nightmare, it's the curtain to the horror within...

In 3E, where the focus shifted more to world continuity (static Ravenloft), Mist Travel is rather cheesy if you don't treat it almost as a one-off. I'd personally limit Mist Travel to the scattered ocean-going vessel, where the fog/mist can be a logical explanation for going off course/being transported to a place that wasn't planned. Doubt is good as it's the foundation to madness, a means of regular travel is bad as it serves no real purpose but to break that continuity. Roads work fine in getting people to other domains in this context, so why go supernatural when you don't have to? If anything overuse of Mists will only tip your hand in telling your players that something RL is about to happen (outside of the fact that you're playing a game set in RL!).

Taking the bus to that new movie theatre that just opened up is mundane. But when you turn around, all bloodied and panting for breath, to give one last blast of shit to that house of Madness that you just barely survived (sorry Mark, sorry Sal!), only to see the last vestiges of it melt into the fog...

As for stringing PCs along adventure to adventure, I use whatever means I would normally use for my table as if we weren't playing in Ravenloft. In that sense, I view Ravenloft as no different from any other campaign setting. Structure is structure, content is content. If you limit either to single genre emulation (horror, high/low/dark fantasy etc) then you may miss out on some truly great storytelling.

That's just me though. To each their own.