To Retcon or Not Retcon: That is the Question

[Algaris]

I would rather we didn’t retcon. I love the flavour of what Ravenloft has developed into, and that it has moved away from the Weekend in Hell type scenario.

Now releasing some netbooks on different optional flavours for Ravenloft would be quite a nice idea. As some people have suggested, a newbies guide to Ravenloft, Guide to Weekend in Hell, a guide to different time periods, etc would nicely compliment the setting, all without tearing down everything that Ravenloft has become.

As for the Gazetteers that are being pumped out by the FoS, I would like them to stay in the spirit of 3E Ravenloft (such as the recent Souragne one) and the Gazetteers that WW published.

[CorvusCornix]

I believe Rotipher is right, a Vintage 528 Barovia might be the best way to draw new players into the Mists. I started my journey into the Mists over a year ago, and I still consider myself a newbie, there is so much you have to read to get a half-decent idea of what is going on, let alone understand the conversations in some of the threads here . So yes, you have to be quite determined not to give up - but all the articles and reviews here helped immensely. Thanks a lot everyone!

Another possibility might be a "Player's Guide to Barovia" (or other domains), something you can actually give your players to read, in contrast to the official Ravenloft Player's Handbook - I'd rather let my players read the Denizens of Dread than the RPH. And, in addition, a DMG to Barovia with Dread Possibilities and lots of Background Knowledge. The DMGtB might also give a short overview of the surrounding domains, or even the whole core, to let a new DM decide whether he'll take the time to delve deeper into the official material, and which books he would need to learn more about which domain.

[alhoon]

Why hasn't anyone yet proposed that we make a "FoS guide to Ravenloft"?
A short netbook (15-20 pages most, with pictures) that accompanying the Ravenloft book would bring the newbie DM up to date and enable him/her to play without fear and intimidation.

For the rest of us that like tons over tons of info the Gazs are already here, along with the Guides etc

[Dion of the Fraternity]

Here's my take (aside from the one I already gave previously):

The Gaz's are fine. I love the Gaz's. Even if I play RL more in the Storytelling system format than in d20, I LOVE a lot of stuff in the Gaz's.

But there's still this overwhelming feeling among many diehard fans that Ravenloft is a small realm in the physical sense, and many still feel anchored to the Domains of Dread measurements that would total the land area of the entire setting to half the size of Switzerland.

How could so many ideas found in so many 3e RL books find fruition in so small a landmass, with many diehard fans leaving out the 3e premise that RL's total landmass in 3e is mutable? Maybe this is what makes RL so intimidating nowadays: too many things to do in so little a space.

Three solutions (IMO) would be:

1 - to either accept a "large" Ravenloft that would measure more than half the size of Europe (so as to accomodate a lot of the ideas in the Gaz's and the other 3e material);

2 - (God forbid) throw out large sections of the Gaz's and accept the DoD immutability;

3- leave the setting as it is in 3e and create a simple Player's Guide to Ravenloft, just as what Wizards did to Faerun and Eberron.

Maybe a simplified WiH version of Ravenloft, without the massively intricate storylines, without the overarching end-of-the-world metaplot, could bring back the fans to a classic campaign setting.

Maybe that's why I can't wait for EtCR to come out. Because it sounds simple, and it sounds fun to play on a cold gaming night with friends.

[Jonathan Winters]

I don't think ''we'' should retcon. Especially not because the setting is too ''complex''.

That's probably why Eberron & FR are so unpopular...

If you want a simple game, just use the campaign setting: No need for Gaz, VRA or anything else really.

I think the WiH option can be of interest. Not for me to be honest, but I think it could work. (My PCs play natives.)

I think a RL lite is also interesting the way it was presented here. (I have been thinking for a while now about incorporating various periods to play in as some kind of test into a homebrew of my own. But that is another topic in itself.)

To Dion, about this: ''Ravenloft has nothing significant going on in its history at the moment ..."

Hum... The setting IS DEAD right now. I'm not sure what you mean by this. I would really like to hear more. (And come to think of it, by its very nature, RL is pretty static because of its darklords...)

Thinking of this, I just realized that a lot of RL stuff is aimed at DMs (not sure how it compares with other settings). Maybe that's one of its main problems (?).

A RL player's guide is probably a very good idea.

I do have to mention this (this is for you Joël...), but MONTE COOK has put up a FREE Player's Guide to Ptolus on RPG DriveThru. It's 30ish pages long and explains the world in a way a native would know. It is very well done.

Just some ideas.

Patrick

[Jester of the FoS]

The more I muse over the idea the more one opinion grows in my mind: I think this is a really bad idea.

It took years for Ravenloft to break away from Weekends in Hell, to be a place for actual campaigns not revolving around escape and featuring characters born in the land who have an emotional stake with the people and places. To be a real world.
I don’t like the idea of taking a step back. I don’t like the idea of reverting to “come in, kill the Lord, go home” style adventures. I don’t have anything against them, but they’re bland and there’s enough of them already.

We don’t need to make a book describing the world more simply. That’s already here. It’s called “The Black Box”. And we don’t need a book giving advice on play styles; the Ravenloft Dungeon Master’s Guide already has sections on this, including “Weekend in Hell”.

Why are we doing this? Because we’re afraid the community is dying. There’s been a drop in traffic and attention lately as people have moved elsewhere to still ‘living’ settings and product lines. I’m sure Midnight, Dragonlance and others saw a spike last year. Now we see WotC putting out a new ‘Ravenloft’ book and we want to take advantage of it and bask in the inevitable rush of people now curious about the setting. Really, we’re panicking and grasping at straws.
Only… I don’t see many people moving from Expedition to Castle Ravenloft to the campaign setting. Why would they? There’s no reason to assume that because they like the adventure they’ll like the setting. There’s very little in common between a lengthy dungeon crawl through a gloomy castle while being harassed by a vampire lord and a gothic world controlled by Dark Powers with cursed rulers and classic monsters.
WotC is also unlikely to publish more similar adventures; this is a one-shot deal. They’ve already announced the follow-up: Expedition to the Demonweb Pits. Future follow-ups are expected and will likely update other classic adventures, I expect Slavelords, Keep on the Borderland and Castle Greyhawk shortly as the Temple of Elemental Evil was already done. We're not going to see a Gryphon Hill or Grand Conjunction hardcover.

Speaking of Greyhawk, you can see similar anticipation on that setting’s various sites and boards. As they equally expect people to flock to the setting with the rumoured release of Expedition to Castle Greyhawk. Will it? Most likely not.
Like Ravenloft there may be one or two converts but everyone else will pick it up, possibly steal an idea or two and maybe, just maybe, run the adventure through once, then slide the book to the side. It’ll sell well enough but, like adventures, only DMs will buy them and discourage their players from picking them up so they don’t cheat.
They did this once before when they reprinted earlier mods (it’s happened twice before to I6); only now they’re putting a little more *oomf* into the update. It’s the company simply running out of ideas and using a couple old one’s. It’ll likely do as little for the setting as the Player’s Guide to the Planes did for Planescape, which was a far more popular setting than Ravenloft ever was.

I don’t think a Weekend in Hell book is a good use of our resources. A guide to Ravenloft is unnecessary; we’d have to reprint too many rules (Dark Power checks, fear and horror, etc) and descriptions (lands, people, places) that are already published, which would toe us that much farther over the line towards lawsuits. A quick newcomer’s guide directing them to books is a good idea, but I wouldn’t spend too much time on this. Expanding Wikipedia is our best bet; most people will turn there first.

[cure]

A thought on size and claustrophobia.

In fine summer weather, with well maintained roads, honest city, town and village guards, and efficient measures taken against highway men and roaming monsters, how long would it take to ride from the Nocturnal Sea to the Sea of Sorrows through Barovia? A week perhaps? Not a very big land. But gothic weather does not cooperate. Gothic roads are not well maintained. Honest guardsmen are the exception. Highway men are king or at least are holding their own. And monsters are ever a loaming threat. Forget seven days. One may not make it across the core in one's lifetime.

Ravenloft is small but its transportation arteries are very carefully clogged. The Old Slavic road is closed at least 6 months of the year at the very least. The wilderness of Hazlan and of Kartakass discourage whatever essentially pointless traffic might exist to the south. The road to the north is cut by the Shadow Rift. The Stigos Road is a grand delusion as pack animals will go mad in Keening.

North south transport is little better. Tepest is a dead end with Keening a deader end. The Mountains of Misery are and should remain impassable. There is Ebb and family after all. Falkovnia wants to keep Darkon bottled up. And Falkovnia is in turn bottled up by its neighbours. Travel down the Musarde is fast and effective, assuming the werewolves don't get you in Verbrek, the wererats don't get you in Richemulot, and the fascists don't get you in Falkovia. And then you end up in a swamp in Lamordia. And of course up river is only worse, given the current, paddlewheelers or not.

Does such a land need to be expanded in its dimensions to make eveythinf fit? Or simply the difficulties and horrors of it that keep farmers from ever quitting their own villages made abondantly clear to adventurers who would dare go further.

[alhoon]

A thought on size and claustrophobia.

Does such a land need to be expanded in its dimensions to make eveythinf fit? Or simply the difficulties and horrors of it that keep farmers from ever quitting their own villages made abondantly clear to adventurers who would dare go further.

It should become larger because:
The Core has 485000 people. It should have about 3-5 12th+ level wizards/sorcerers/etc, 5-7 12th+ level clerics/druids/etc.
Still the Core has more than 20 spellcasters of high levels even in the published material. Azalin, Hazlic, Strahd, The Lady of Ravens, The necromancer of the Noctural sea, Balfour de Castelle, etc.

Where are the normal people living? The Supernatural should be the exception, not the norm. "Yeah, we have werewolves here. Still, we don't have so many restless and hungry dead as the other 150 people hamlet over the hill. Or as many ghosts as the village by the river. The Shadow fey? They are not that big a problem as the dread golem the madman in the old farm made. No you silly! Not that abandoned farm! There live only a covey of hags! The other one.
oh! Hi telling man. No you missed the prideful witch that killed girls to remain young. Jaquiline Montari got her head a few hours ago."

Add it up and you'll find that there are more than 1 darklords/powerfull monster for every 10000 people out there.

[NeoTiamat]

I'm a fan of Ravenloft for a while, and the reason I like it personally, is the quality of writing (I got started when I bought I, Strahd at Barnes and Nobles), and the sheer richness of the setting.

I am tempted to say that Ravenloft has the best writing of any D&D setting, and it has a more unified mood. It's gothic horror. Creepy evil villains, who are at the same time emminently human. My Favorite FR villain is Sememmon, specifically because he is a three dimensional charcter, which makes him unusual there.

As for detail, Ravenloft feels to me like a living, breathing land. There are dozens of governments, all unique, numerous personalities of note, and it's a land where evil has sway. I love it. Much more so the Elminster, Khelben, and Driz'zt.

That said, I think that there are two issues with Ravenloft that should be fixed if at all possible. Time and Space.

Timewise, most of the Domains have been around for what, 70 years? Aside from a few of the oldest, very few domains are older then 200 years. Barovia has a good history, maybe 400 years, and thats about it. It makes trying to set up old or complicated plotlines a distinct pain.

The other is Space. In my mental imagery, Ravenloft is not a large land, but about a third or so the size of europe. In my mind, traveling from sea to sea should take months, not weeks. And yes, it is waaaay to crowded, small as it is. Gothic is what happens at night and is unusual, not the norm.

[alhoon]

My Favorite FR villain is Sememmon, specifically because he is a three dimensional charcter, which makes him unusual there.

Artemis Entreri. A 3D villain in his difficult road of redemption. Will he make it? Not even Salvatore has decided. Are you our old friend Tiamat BTW?

[BlackBoxGamer]

I'm not a prolific writer on these boards, but I felt I have to throw in my 2 cents.

I have to emphatically say No to retconning the setting. While alternate timelines are interesting (528 Barovia), to say that the setting is stifling the creativity of DM's because there is too much material detailing the setting is a tad absurd. The Gaz. are an excellent resource for a DM, laying out the world in enough detail to make a DM's life a lot easier. But they are light on detail compared to other setting books (Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Ptolus, etc.), providing a good solid framework for those of us who can't spend days pondering the political situation between Demntlieu and its neighbors, while leaving *plenty* of room for DM customization. My Mordent is dotted with small communities, ancient megaliths and hidden conspiracies that are not detailed in any sourcebook but found fertile soil for the seed to grow in from many of the descriptions in Gaz. 3. My Mordentshire, while still the same misty port described in the books, has been expanded upon to such a degree that I have over 45 pages of hand-written notes on its layout and inhabitants, from the lonely and faithful school marm desperately pining for romance to the hidden ghoul warrens beneath the ruined church who hold secrets on the Alchemists experiments.

My point is simply this: There is alot that has been written about Ravenloft, but it is nowhere near enough to warrant any sort of retcon. There is so much left unsaid and so many areas that beg description (Faiths of the Mists) that I find it bizarre anyone would want to wipe the slate clean for the argument that the setting is too detailed.

BBG

[Le Noir Faineant]

I think ScS has opened a worthy discussion.

Really, how much do those meta-plot things matter to you, fellow DMs?

Frankly, IMC, I do things just as I please... And I think because of the modular flavour of RL, it is easier do it with our misty setting than with many others.

[NeoTiamat]

Frankly, I love them. The way I see it, it basically gives you this massive detailed canvas, with all sorts of little things in the background. Then I just take my main villain, insert him/her/it into the canvas, and half the time, the adventure is already half written.

Entreri, I'll grant is interesting, but he has too much to do with that damn elf for my liking.

There's a Tiamat around? Sorry, not me. I've been NeoTiamat for the last 5-6 years or so.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I would be very much against a massive retcon. I think the only thing that would get Ravenloft to be renewed for a long life would be to open it to as many people as possible. While it may seem that a simplification would do that, it would alienate a core group of people like us, who love all the intricacy. The best thing to include everyone would be to put out products that both appease the hardcore fan, and also emphasize to the new fan that you don't have to know all the details. A bunch of characters trapped in a spooky house for the night is just as much Ravenloft as The Gentleman Caller or Azalin's latest scheme. You only need to use as much or as little of the backstory as you want.

(I think Dark Tales and Disturbing Legends was an excellent example of what I'm talking about, by the way.)

[Jasper]

I love all the mini plots that 3rd ed brought beacuse they are just mini plots. One of the things that turned me off of Forgoten Realms is that every couple of years a adventure comes out that is so world shattering that its allmost imposable to run a Fr campaign without them unless you want to ignore just about every suplimenmt that comes after.

With Ravenloft only two major events have happened and neither of them are so intrigal to the plot that that the other books that came after can't be used without the events. Yes the gaz's talk about Necroplis but I can easly revert it back to Il-Aluk without having to toss out the becoming plague hitting Richemulot. Try tossing out the Time of troubles and getting the same results.

And just the same I can never have the plague hit at all and throw out the entire plot about the Darkon cold war without fearing the next book that comes up have Vallaki being burned to the ground by the Kargat.