Bringing outsiders to RL

[Jester of the FoS]

I've never been fond of using Outlands and prefer to stick to natives. Especially since using the word "mists" around D&D gamers tends to invoke chills and threats.

I much prefer to use other weather elements, snow and fog and storms. If pressed I might use a 'Wonderland' effect where someone enters a hole or cavern and emerges in another world, a very fey effect. I like describing gradual changes to the environment from shifting grip or temperature and slow realization things are different rather than abruptly being bodysnatched while napping.

[Undead Cabbage]

I much prefer to use other weather elements, snow and fog and storms. If pressed I might use a 'Wonderland' effect where someone enters a hole or cavern and emerges in another world, a very fey effect.

I dub it, the Chronicles of Ravenloftia!

A good time to use an outsider campaign is when your players are totally new to RL. By that point, they don't know about the mists, and simply assume that they are background. That is, until it's too late...

This way, as the players learn about Ravenloft, the characters learn about it to.

[Gurthoron]

Deepshadow's Reckonings campaign is my first experience with RL. We're playing outsiders who went through the mists. All I've learned about RL so far is that bad stuff happens for no apparent reason and they never let you get any sleep.

[Nathan of the FoS]

Deepshadow's Reckonings campaign is my first experience with RL. We're playing outsiders who went through the mists. All I've learned about RL so far is that bad stuff happens for no apparent reason and they never let you get any sleep.

Hey, Gurthoron. Your post has been edited slightly for content; no profanity, please.

Thanks.

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

One I used once was the PC was playing an assassin and went to stab someone in the bed, but tripped. They fell and got tumbled into the blanket. When they tried to pull the blanket off their heads, it just seemed to go on for ever.

When they finally thought they where never going to get free, they found the end of the blanket. The PC looked up and found themselves sitting by the wall to the garden of the House of Lament, the blanket mysteriously disappearing.

[TwiceBorn]

I much prefer to use other weather elements, snow and fog and storms. If pressed I might use a 'Wonderland' effect where someone enters a hole or cavern and emerges in another world, a very fey effect.

I dub it, the Chronicles of Ravenloftia!

A good time to use an outsider campaign is when your players are totally new to RL. By that point, they don't know about the mists, and simply assume that they are background. That is, until it's too late...

This way, as the players learn about Ravenloft, the characters learn about it to.

Back to our regular program...

I agree with the Cabbage. All but one of my players are fairly new to both D&D and completely unfamiliar with Ravenloft, so the weather and mists bringing them as outlanders into Ravenloft has worked well. If I were to run subsequent Ravenloft campaigns with the same group, it definitely would be with native 'lofters.

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

I much prefer to use other weather elements, snow and fog and storms. If pressed I might use a 'Wonderland' effect where someone enters a hole or cavern and emerges in another world, a very fey effect.

I dub it, the Chronicles of Ravenloftia!

A good time to use an outsider campaign is when your players are totally new to RL. By that point, they don't know about the mists, and simply assume that they are background. That is, until it's too late...

This way, as the players learn about Ravenloft, the characters learn about it to.

Back to our regular program...

I agree with the Cabbage. All but one of my players are fairly new to both D&D and completely unfamiliar with Ravenloft, so the weather and mists bringing them as outlanders into Ravenloft has worked well. If I were to run subsequent Ravenloft campaigns with the same group, it definitely would be with native 'lofters.

I think that's the best way: Natives for those who know the setting.

It's like Planescape, you wouldn't take newcomers to the setting in as planars, you'd start them as primes, so they can learn about the setting as their characters do.

[Undead Cabbage]

Idealy, if your running a campaign of new players who are running outlanders, it's usually good to have an 'anchor' character, be it player or NPC, to help them adapt to the ways of the realm of dread. It's what my player called a 'Han Solo' of the group.

And if you're landing new players into RL, try to keep their first campaign restricted to either one or two domains. Otherwise, it's just going to be too much information, all to fast.

Mordent is a great realm to land outlanders in. It's got the Van Richten Society to help teach the players how to properly monster hunt. It's got ties with Ezra, a religion that the players should understand at least in a general sense. It's leader is not oppressive, thus allowing room for the players to adjust. And however not the same, Ghost hunting in Mansions isn't as far from Dungeon hoping as some of the other types of adventures there are in the setting.

The only draw back to Mordent (which hasn't really been a problem for me) is that new players might think 'hey, house on griffon hill, sure, of course we can take it...'. It needs to be established that The House of Griffon Hill isn't a dungeon mop up.

Otherwise, I would definately reccomend the sleepy realm for anyone introducing new players.

[Gemathustra]

Has anyone tried the idea where the PCs fall asleep, and then dream that they're in some particular domain in Ravenloft, but, as the dream progresses, they realize that they can't wake up?

[the_unnamed]

A wanderer appears in the inn that the players are staying in, and tells a terrible story about the Demiplane of Dread. That night there is a storm outside. When the players leave their rooms that morning they notice that the land about has changed...

[MatthiasStormcrow]

Hmm, now I have to remember what I was going to say...

Let's see, in the Reckonings campaign we basically got sucked in through a whirlpool - also notable in that it was a predictable entrance to Ravenloft - we didn't know exactly where we were going, but we knew we were going somewhere, and we were actually trying to get there. Anyone else ever had anyone intentionally try and get to Ravenloft?

Some transitions I've personally used were exploring a mine, where the rough-cut tunnel slowly became more and more smooth and square, the deeper they got - until they found themselves in a brick sewer instead of a mine. I also did one in the middle of combat, once - the party was pursuing a fleeing undead creature through a swamp, and I did the whole thing in initiative rounds, and when they finally left combat they said, "Ok, we should head back to the inn and rest" at which point I said, "You all just ran top-speed into the swamp about 800 feet...looking around, you're not quite sure where you are anymore...."

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Not exactly deliberate, but in the Seven Lives campaign one PC discovered he'd been born in Ravenloft and that his parents had escaped with him via the Grand Conjunction. Azalin was furious that his plan had failed, and used magical means to seek out the few who had escaped for study. Ostensibly he wanted to figure out why and how they had escaped, but deep down he was just insanely jealous.

[Lord Cyclohexane]

One of the cool ones I ran across was from (I believe) Andrew Cermak back on the old Ravenloft mailing list. He ran a campaign where he required that all of the PCs start as Darkonian natives. Then, over the course of the campaign, the PCs found out that they were all victims of the memory wipe of Darkon and were in fact outlanders (I believe from the Greyhawk setting, but don't quote me on that). I felt that one was a pretty cool "entering the Mists" idea, even though it doesn't directly have the PCs entering the Mists.

[Brandi]

I've liked that idea even with natives, but you'd really have to have players who wouldn't resent having such a big change inflicted on their characters-- and many would.

[Fuzzball]

How about an ElDorado, or Lost City of Atlantis type story. Send the PCs in search of a legendary place or a place that disappeared. They can just walk into RL. Of course, it should be more difficult than that, involving lots of nasty monsters and traps.