Café de Nuit

I saw something written in the welcome thread, saying "if you are able to leave this place", and I thought I'd make this thread, since I had this question for quite some time in my mind now.

Do you use the Escape from Ravenloft sense as a main plot, as a side quest or as a completely vague idea that hovers around the party/players but never lands? I will elaborate and explain.

I've run in 3 different occasions, with 3 different parties, the Grand Conjunction hexad of scenarios. Each party had a different amount of meta-ness, one was a seasoned Ravenloft playing party, the other was a seasoned Ad&d playing party and the third (running currently) are neither; they do like their powerful items, they like their roleplaying, but overall I don't think they have started thinking of escaping Ravenloft (yet - although I don't know if they will think of getting off, they are the kind of people who prefer to stay with the DM plot than try and deviate from it and "screw" everything up).

In the other two occasions I have tried different things. One was a vague "hanging over their heads" thing, that followed around as a rumor, but they knew the price they were paying for entering Ravenloft. The second party didn't like Ravenloft as a whole: they were trying to find a way to get out. Half of their players went mad, others became villains, a cleric started transforming into a Yugoloth (True Neutral cleric). It was a symphony of destruction.

What about you though? Do you give your players the option to escape? And how? Do you give them false hopes only to crush it out of them at the last moment? I was thinking of giving to the current party the option to travel through Planescape to the Prime Material again. Never tried it before, although I have played as part of a company that planewalked around a lot.

I assume that hundreds or even thousands of people "escape" every year by accident. The problem is escaping deliberately.

For whatever reason, some domains collapse, and there are probably hundreds of unknown, minor domains in the mists. When those domains collapse the residents probably find themselves on the Prime Material Plane.

tomokaicho wrote:I assume that hundreds or even thousands of people "escape" every year by accident. The problem is escaping deliberately.

For whatever reason, some domains collapse, and there are probably hundreds of unknown, minor domains in the mists. When those domains collapse the residents probably find themselves on the Prime Material Plane.

If a domain collapses the occupants are probably more likely just killed/destroyed or shunted to a random other domain if the DPs view them as something worth keeping.

Well, my Ravenloft is a Prime Material world, so I have not that problem.

I don't want to be an a-hole and be known as That DM, so if a character wants to leave I allow them the possibility.

When I've done a weekend-in-hell scenario, escape is a given, pending successful completion of the adventure. Yeah, yeah "no one ever leaves" except you can because you're special. A group of PCs can be the "only ones ever to leave," even if every other group of PCs in every other play group is also the "only ones", because every campaign's instance of the setting is separate.

On the flip side, when I've done native-only campaigns, escape isn't a goal, or even desirable. This is home. It's scary and dangerous, but it's still home. Where else would we go? I actually presented the opportunity for one PC to "escape" to a celestial realm, and she was horrified by the possibility of abandoning her friends and all the innocents of the world to take a "selfish" reward like that.

Lord Loren Soth wrote:What about you though? Do you give your players the option to escape? And how?

I would say most definetly. Though to be honest, I always have leaned heavily to outsiders as opposed to natives. Not the old 'weekend in hell' scenarios, but 'strangers in a strange land' types.

However 'escape' is a goal - the same way that the PC's can look for the gold at the end of the rainbow, give Demogorgon a wedgie, or turn 43 vampires at once is a goal. The PC's should be able to do whatever they like - wether it is practical or sensible is another matter. Just saying 'No' by fiat makes grumpy players.

As for non-meta reasons _why_ someone can escape when the general rule is the DP's can overrule any exit by fiat is another matter. For NPC generic peasant types, the DP's wouldn't care as there are plenty more of those around. Indeed having people 'vanish in the mists' is a way to remove minor troublesome types and keep populations stable.

One option is that the DP's let the special people (aka PC's) go because they can act as 'Talent Scouts'. One thing 'hero types' almost always do is chase 'evil guys'. As they roam around the DP's keep an eye on them to see if they come across any promising 'new recruits'. The PC's are radio tracked to see if they meet any potential darklords in the making - and if they come across a sufficiently evil villain, the DP's make a note to scoop them up.

And once the 'talent tour' is over, the DP's pull the PC's back in to play with the new talent they scooped up.