Thank you all, your feedback and experiences are
really helpful
The game concept is taking shape! I have fleshed out a lot of the story and the way the game will work, as well as quests, characters and places. The focus of the game will be on storytelling, dialog and choices as this is what makes Ravenloft such a great setting. I aim to give the player the power to shape their own story with interesting characters and stories, as opposed to fighting orcs and getting the phat loot (I understand this thanks to you guys). I aim to do this by using a hub structure of quests that can be completed in any order before unlocking the final hub. The experience i'm aiming for in every quest is that you can't save everyone.
The choices will be hard to make as there will be pros and cons (pros: gain powerful allies, item rewards that help in some way, for example a family heirloom amulet that makes you trustworthy + the feeling that it was the "right" choice. Cons: Strahd is displeased, doesn't give you dark powers, takes away something, maybe if you made a good choice earlier, takes item?) . I have taken some inspiration from My Life With Master when it comes to this mechanic (player is in service of an evil master, following orders or not = their humanity vs becoming a monster/villain).
The characters are currently: (although not 100% decided) Strahd, Tatyana and Sergei (ghosts), Van Richten (at the time he was writing his guide to vampires, so still alive! ) and Revan ( at the time he is struggling to break free from being a werewolf, so he doesn't have the title Wolfbane yet). I wanted to use some familiar characters and give the player a chance to impact how their stories unfold as well as their own.
I'm currently working on a combat system, dialog system and environment interaction system (such as climb, pick lock). I'm pondering which of them that shall be skill-based (assignment requires me to make at least one of them skill-based, but I feel something like real-time, skill-based combat doesn't fit the setting very well, but on the other hand, how does skill-based dialog work? I can only think of L.A Noire as something comparable).
Your assignment.