Ravenloft alternatives

[Jimsolo]

So I was thinking about running the Ravenloft module (the second ed one, converted for 3rd ed) at a convention. However, it got me thinking about possibly in the future running essentially the same adventure in a different game setting.

Deadlands - the PCs receive invitations to a ball at a plantation in the deep south, but when they arrive they discover the manor to be old and decrepit, lorded over by the undead CSA Major, Stewart Zarroville. Hijinks ensue.

D20 modern - the PCs investigate a skyscraper that has long fallen into disrepair, home to the Japanese Karasu family, who are of course just a single vampire, the vampire samurai Karasu Rofuto. Hijinks ensue.

I'd even keep the floor plans and encounters the same, just alter them slightly to fit the theme. What do you guys think? Enjoyable adaptation, or deplorable hackwork?

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

very neat ideas, but I'd worry about running it at con without letting people know what it was to begin with. I wouldn't want them to feel, well, conned into playing something they might have played before. The last thing you want is for someone to get 20 minutes and go.... wait a minute! This is Castle Ravenloft! I've run this every halloween for my friends for the past 10 years. This way to the crypt, everyone!

But maybe I worry too much about such things.

[Dark Angel]

Whatever you gotta do, go for it. I have taken adventures from single scenes from Game of Thrones (season 1, episode 1; undead beyond the wall anyone?), the Justice League TV cartoon, and even WWII missions for Star Wars RPG (as well as the Firefly RPG). Pulling from other RPGs works well (just make sure the orcs turn into gangbangers, unless it is Shadowrun), but switching a few things up plotwise cannot hurt. Many times my players fail to recognize the source material as it is too obscure or just unfamiliar to them. Depending on your luck (and hope you have an 8 am timeslot), pulled materials may not be realized for what they are. Even so, nothing ever works out on paper with every group (especially with unfamiliar players).

I played a Merc:2000/Twilight:2000 adventure at GenCon years ago where we had to insert covertly along a beach. I cannot remember what was the objective because we were spotted on the water and all died from gun shots or drowning in the Adriatic Sea (that I remember!). I told my home group later that I felt like I never made out of the inn of a D&D adventure, but I believe the GM had an adventure for us. Battle plans never survive contact with the enemy and the moment the players sit down, everything you plan for and go in crazy directions.

[Jimsolo]

very neat ideas, but I'd worry about running it at con without letting people know what it was to begin with. I wouldn't want them to feel, well, conned into playing something they might have played before. The last thing you want is for someone to get 20 minutes and go.... wait a minute! This is Castle Ravenloft! I've run this every halloween for my friends for the past 10 years. This way to the crypt, everyone!

But maybe I worry too much about such things.

Oh, I was going to be totally upfront about it. Title it Ravenloft: the Reckoning and so forth.

[ScS of the Fraternity]

That's not bad.
Deadlands is my second favourite setting ever, and I have to say that I just love the idea of Strahd wreaking havok in the West, yes sir-ah!

[Jimsolo]

I think it might be WAY more lethal in Deadlands than in D&D.

[Dark Angel]

I think it might be WAY more lethal in Deadlands than in D&D.

Never played Deadlands, but if it is anything like Boot Hill then it pretty much guarantees a high body count. My group's best skill used in Boot Hill (original edition) was PC generation.

[herkles]

A good alternative to Ravenloft would be Shadows of Esteren.

[Jimsolo]

Yeah, a low damage threshold, open-ended damage dice, and the fact that hit points/wounds didn't increase with experience combined to make it an incredibly lethal system.

[Le Noir Faineant]

Ravenloft is still one of my favorite settings - but I haven't run a pure RL campaign since, probably, 2010.

My own take on fantasy is always very dark, though, and apart from the stuff you know about me, I treasure the following settings a lot:

(...And most of them are very similar in tone to RL.)

• Midnight - essentially, The Lord of the Rings series, with Sauron winning in the end.
• Thieves' World - the gods are evil, and the world is an illusion.
• Shadows over Esteren - anime-style fantasy meets Call of Cthulhu.

[HuManBing]

Second the Midnight proposal: it's a good setting that inverts the automatic assumption that the players are on the winning side. It's much more of a "fight the doomed fight" feeling - which is incidentally how I lean towards running the Ravenloft setting anyway.

I go with low hit points, skill-focussed, and generally combat-light or combat-deadly gameplay. I like conspiracies and realpolitik and growing dread of forbidden revelations over spell-chucking and head-lopping. My game system has already permanently shifted away from the heroic cinematic staple of d20 to the grimmer and grittier GURPS system. In terms of setting flavor, my Ravenloft is more like Cold War paranoia, some Lovecraft horror, and a constant Gothic fear that civilization's advances remain ever vulnerable to a subversion, corruption, or outright collapse.

Darkon is the dark magic fantasy setting, Falkovnia is the paranoid dictatorship with low magic (and, given how deadly combat is, it's actually more focused on diplomacy and intrigue than necessarily smiting thine foes). There was a partial steampunk influence in Nortenmark (Lamordia) too, with dirigible and gunpowder tech.

A bit of a grab bag. The canonical "weekend in hell" wasn't doing it for me. Nor was was the default assumption of "Demiplane as prison camp" all that compelling. I think I find the proposal of people causing their own misery to be compelling enough without attributing it to a divine source.

[Jimsolo]

I go with low hit points, skill-focussed, and generally combat-light or combat-deadly gameplay.

*coughcough*Deadlandsclassic*coughcough*

[HuManBing]

I never did get to properly "interview" that game system. In the end, I wanted something universal, so it boiled down to Basic RPS, TriStat dX, and GURPS - which won the day.

[Hazgarn]

Not the original module, but I had the crazy idea run through my head that it might be possible to adapt the Grim Harvest into a cyberpunk setting, with Azalin as the head of a shady multinational tech corporation, obsessed with the idea of consciousness uploading.

[Le Noir Faineant]

To be quite honest, guys, for me, rules-wise, and flair-wise, it's been Thieves' World ever since I got the boed set back in 2006. It's the usual grimdark, but not as one-dimensional as Cthulhu, and not as generally artificial as BTB-RL.

That one, a gem of fantasy literature, for sure, and a gem of fantasy gaming, as well.