Why players don't like Ravenloft...

[BigBadQDaddy]

By reading this thread I have come to realize I am not alone in being the one person in a large group of gamers who wants to share everything wonderfull about Ravenloft with the rest of the group.
That in a way is the worst thing about Ravenloft. Here is IMO, probebly the most intriging campaign setting, full of limitless possibilities, due in part to its massive cultural miljoo it covers, and the PCs are so used to having things a certain way, they can't function in RL.
For instance, I am currently running my first campaign, seasonally, for my weekly game group(seasonally as we switch games every couple months). Now when we are not playing RL, we are playing everything under the sun from 2nd ED D&D, Rifts, Earthdawn, Palladium Fantsasy RPG, Heroes Unlimited, Shadowrun 3rd & 4th Ed. Etc, Etc. So when it comes time for me to run Ravenloft I get the all to common "Oh here we go, time to play RL, hope you don't like your characters too much."
It is really unfortunate though, as I find games like Ravenloft to hold the highest potential for good role players. I mean, in what other game can you truly pour your heart into every aspect of your characters emotions? Granted, you could totally play up that very aspect in any game, but what other game is that style of play so greatly encouraged?
I have never looked at Ravenloft as having a theme of heroism. The theme I beleive drives Ravenloft is passion and fullfilling the requirements of a great story. And that is the hardest thing to drive home to your PCs. That completing a story is more of a reward than a magical ring, or playing an emotionally charged game is more thrilling than any encounter with a high CR.
You definatly need passion to play and run this game, and alot of players let there true passion for playing go a long time ago, around the time they got comfortable with the workings of the games they play, and it can definatly be hard to bring them back to that time in there lives when it wasn't about gaining that next level.

[tec-goblin]

For me, Ravenloft has three drawbacks:

Too much power to the DM.

Look, it's almost like WW was writing Ravenloft from the beginning: a lot of DM devices (borders, mists transposing players, restrictions to magic), tons of metaplot, DM-friendly books (how many books about Ravenloft a player actually needs? part of the PHB, HoL, CoD, VRAv1 and one gazetteer if he is a native. Add to this that CoD has boring mechanics and anything cool in HoL has been bashed so much from Kargatane that we needed to wait for Legacies of Blood to see anything new player-friendly). 3e Ravenloft has done a job to limit the advances to metaplot, but 2e loyalists do not understand why :S.

It seems like old WoD to me. And so it has the same two problems:
a) Only DMs buy the books (ie less revenue)
b) You need a good DM to play Ravenloft. An average one is not enough. That's exactly what killed WoD (particularly old one) in where I was leaving. Because good DMs are a lot rarer than you think. Instead a lot of bad DMs think Ravenloft it's a wonderful opportunity to be sadists and railroad the plot.
For me, playing Ravenloft in storytelling system is moving this to the wrong direction (storytelling let's say has an amazing potential - and need - for DM's calls, while in d20 he acts more like the neutral rule sage). Of course, if your players like you a lot and they encourage you switching to storytelling, and you like it (something I don't), then you're probably a DM good enough, so go for it .

Too niche setting
Ravenloft has variety. It has immense variety compared to most other worlds. But the mood of "evil wins, there's no joy" is almost everpresent. There's only so much the players can do to fight this, and this everpresent mood is not for everyone's taste for long. This limits the amount of players who can play the setting for long.

3e here also cheered up a bit the setting, and made RL a wolrd worth to save, but the setting had bad reputation already to some circles. Unfortunately, these changes have not been promoted enough.

IMC, I always crossover ravenloft to something else. The whole issue of getting back and forth from something exotic with different mood every some months, while it's not great for a constant ravenloft mood, is necessary to keep players from quitting during my life-long campaign (when I say life-long, I mean that some things are interconnected in a huge 5-year plot).
In that way I can drop some "pure" ravenloft for some months every one or two years and the players enjoy it without being too tired.

Falling behind in marketing
What's the evolution of Ravenloft since Gaz I and VrA? What did Arthaus learn about how to promote ravenloft, what the players want or anything?
It me it seems like they had left it to the autopilot.
Of course great books were published (Gaz IV and V, and Legacy of Blood, VrG to Mists are all among my favourites), but the rest of the market had advanced to:

a) great artwork. The quality of print and artwork from all WW and WotC editions since 3.5 is steadily on a very high level. Arthaus, instead of following, published (because of WW decisions I think) the awful rip-off revisions of RL PHB and Denizens. No change in the artwork, the same boring reuse of the maps...
b) new, flavourful format for PrCs, NPCs etc. It is a SHAME that the new PrC format came from the WotC site and not from Ravenloft side. All this "how this fits in the world" was lacking from Ravenloft books. Some things, particularly the PrCs in HoL and CoD needed a lot of work to fit in, which made people less accepting of them.
In general, there was a merging of system and rules in a new way. That's what Eberron brought to the game. Had Arthaus to wait from us in fos to first use the "what do you know" sidebars in the Player's Guide to Ravenloft? Are we so much smarter or something? No, we are just not bored.
c) Minis. And if not minis, at least tactical battles. How many tactical maps exist in Ravenloft products?
Zero
Is it so strange if we want to know for example how's the crypt of a darklord or something mentioned in a Gazetteer? Ravenloft has battles, it's not pure politics and we know it (even though I've played a half Ravenloft pure politics campaign). Not offering something that helps people play the battles is a problem.
d) Online material. What you buy is not just the material product. Don't let me get started on this.

Nothing of all these factors is so much an intrinsic problem to Ravenloft. A fresh mind by lovers of Ravenloft who dare to make a step forward would save it. But, for me, the three big steps in the way I played Ravenloft were:
1) Ravenloft 3e
2) D20 past (I switched to modern)
3) Heroes of Horror

And steps 2 and 3 were not under the Ravenloft brand, which IS a problem. I hope step 4 will be Player Guide to Ravenloft, a project that, for me, promises to bring players back into the equation.[/b]

[Mortepierre]

Basically, RL as a setting was ruined (sort of..) for many players by a combo of these:
- week-end in Hell session (used to be the norm before playing natives became possible)
- DM who mistake RL for a licence to kill any (and all) PC without giving them a speck of a chance
- DM who completely misunderstand what "horror" is about (and, no, it's not proportional to the body count at the end of the game)
- players who mistake darklords for the end boss of a video game
- players who think that being in RL means you'll end up cursed, a lycanthrope, or both with no means of escape or recovery

I'm part of the DMs who have tried to turn around the reputation of the setting, especially in light of the 3.Xe rules and the excellent Gazetteers but we're fighting a constant uphill battle against prejudice and years of ill repute.

[Le Noir Faineant]

For me personally, it's more the point that many players want to find a Tolkienesque idyl when they play a fantasy game. Mature or shocking themes are not what they are looking for; so RL is not too appropriate for the usual dungeon-crawling community that enjoys to loot the ruins of Rauxes and Kalstrand.

[Charney]

From my experience, here what kills Ravenloft for some players

1-Not enough treasure and magic items. That's the main complaint I had over the years, both be power hungry players and from those interested in roleplay. I must admit that even in my high fantasy games, I don't like giving too many magic items.
2-Too much mysteries. Some of my players complained that I ran too many mystery solving games. It was easily fixed when I then sent them on a vampire hunt. Still Ravenloft= puzzles in the mind of several players
3-You can't play an evil character: some of the players I had don't like Ravenloft cause you can't be evil without risking loosing your character.
4-You can't kill darklords. Some see the darklords as the end of level villains à la Final Fantasy. These players don't get that a darklord isn't there to be killed.

[tec-goblin]

For me personally, it's more the point that many players want to find a Tolkienesque idyl when they play a fantasy game.

Unfortunately yes, Tolkien has too much of an influence in the genre. That's what makes a lot of players dislike Eberron (too modern for their taste).

As far as Charney's game is concerned:
1) Hopefully my players don't have that much problem. A game with fewer magic items is easier for all of us to handle. They do complain as a sport, but I think they don't really object, as long as there is no inequality between them and the opponents in that regard
(so, when my 7thSea/Ravenloft players finally went for a planescape ride in level 20, they managed to hoard some items after the first bloody battles - nothing was there as a "dm-only plot device" - but they did complain about the spaceships, but that's another issue )

2) Too many mysteries, too much rp, too much of the one-or the other. IMC it was difficult to persuade players to plan ahead for most batles (they did it for the epic and very important to the campaign confrontations). I used actually the Weathermay twins to show them a good example of how to do things. They didn't have problem with mysteries or politics (my campaigns always had the second, now they also have the first).
Ravenloft has a bit of everything, but it isn't suited for players who want only power playing or butt kicking styles (as for DMG II). In my experience, new players, particularly girls or adult boys can be easily taught not to expect butt kicking. So the solution is one: play ravenloft with girls.

3) You can play an evil character in ravenloft. You just shouldn't do evil for its own sake. Refrain from necromancy and too-many pacts with the mists. You can play a moderate ne or le for a quite long period. Trust me .
The problem is when you hit step 3 and your party realizes you have been corrupted by the marks of corruption... But you could have enjoyed it up to then.

4) Well, I think that every GM should allow his players once in a while to defeat or kill a darklord. They should have a great plan, someone to back them up, and it should be rare and very special. It's not a players fault when he/she doesn't want to know that there are things he should never hope to win. Hope is the best tool in the hand of the GM. Give away things, slowly enough to believe they can change something.
IMC, in a total of 4 years of intense gaming, the following had happened: (In that order)
1) They burned down Mordenheim's tower. He didn't die, but it was a victory.
2) They learned after a magnificent dungeon crawling (I am proud about that), and then a long discussion some truths [and "truths"] about the Mists. They did a WONDERFUL job of saving a young (home made) darklord from her corruption. They did realize that someone would take her place in the domain, so they executed a great plan to locate him and constraint him BEFORE the other left "darklordship".

Later, though, the cursed "saved" darklord died, and some of them realized that some months after, someone else, more horrible, had taken her place and he was free. But for a while (which translated in more than a year of gaming time), they believed they had won, and this urged them to go on.
3) They constraint the evil Hildegaard with an unbelievable curse (the PC took a step in the path of corruption for her use of curses, and still she's trying to fight off her corruption, though)
4) (one of the most epic moments): they defeated Gwydion

(I don't add what happened with Strahd IMC, who is allegedly dead, because the PCs had very little to do with that. They still don't believe he's really dead - "he must have escaped" they say)

That's it. One darklord per year is all the players need to hope, to feel that they are not playing-to-lose.

[Guardian of Twilight]

In my game, the way I run Ravenloft, is it isn't so much about the Darklord. Sure, later on there may be a few hints about a certain person involved in the story, probably dabbling from afar, but it is mostly going to revolve around putting a bit of hope back in a persons life, even if only for a while. Letting the dark forces that cry out in the night know that they won't go unchallenged by a few brave, valiant souls. There are several magnanimous people in the world, and the PCs are part of that group. They aren't the only group doing something after all...

[Undead Cabbage]

The way I run Ravenloft so as to avoid some of the problems the setting can have, some of my players argue that its not even Dungeons and Dragons any more. d20, yes, but not D&d. And from what I've seen, they're pretty cool with it.

4-You can't kill darklords. Some see the darklords as the end of level villains à la Final Fantasy. These players don't get that a darklord isn't there to be killed.

Depends on the Darklord, and depends on how you play them. Really, you're better off just not letting your players know there is such a thing as a Dark lord, and MAYBE after a while of playing let them figure it out on their own. But there is no universal definition of what role a Darklord can play in a game. Strahd might have ORIGINALLY been designed as the untouchable Bowser of Ravenloft, but he's been changed and different DLs have been added ever since.

Ravenloft is what you make of it. If you want Ravenloft to be a meat grinder, then it will be. If you want Ravenloft to be just a series of certain game mechanics, then it will be. If you want Ravenloft to be a series of canon names and locations, then it will be.

But what I feel is the case with most people on this form, Ravenloft is a style of gameplay. It's a campaign setting that brings your players to tears, smiles, frowns and laughter at the right moments. It involves NPCs as more than just paper thin statistics. It whips out questions of morality and ethics, daring to express whether one can define what is good or evil.

At least, that's always been my take on it. And frankly, it's a GM's decision how ANY campaign is, and not the fault of the setting itself.

[WolfKook]

Falling behind in marketing
What's the evolution of Ravenloft since Gaz I and VrA? What did Arthaus learn about how to promote ravenloft, what the players want or anything?
It me it seems like they had left it to the autopilot.
Of course great books were published (Gaz IV and V, and Legacy of Blood, VrG to Mists are all among my favourites), but the rest of the market had advanced to great artwork, new, flavourful format, Minis and Online material

I certainly have to agree... I have long thought that WotC granted permission to Arthaus to use the setting under the condition that they left everything as it was before they did. Perhaps the only real change I saw was the return of Azalin, and I guess the idea didn't come from Arthaus at all. Perhaps the setting is lacking new novels to keep the story going.
IMC, Ravenloft is a little more dynamic, even more as we are approaching the ToUD: Elena Faithhold and Ivan Dilisnya are about to die and their domains to change, Jackeline Renier is about to be imprisoned and replaced by her "evil twin", Azalin is about to lose one third of his realm and the war between Dominic D'Honaire and the Brain is about to erupt, while Malocchio disappears and Ezra gets incarnated. Player's don't like a stale setting, and they would thank any change to it, even if it makes it grimmer.
As for the rules material, I've introduced so many changes that the 3.Xed rules are no longer recognizable: The races are not the core 3.Xed, I've changed the classes, introduced changes from Unearthed Arcana and Iron Heroes (And a whole bunch of other "alternative rule" books). Finally, I have recently purchased HoH and I'm thinking on introducing taint and using the "taint as alignment" rules... The 3.Xed rules, as they are, do not lend themselves easily to a horror setting and, sadly, the people at WotC saw that there were adjustments to be made even before the guys at Arthaus.

[Dion of the Fraternity]

As a solution to the Darklord problem, I took out ALL their stats entirely. In my campaigns I emphasized the fact that since it's a long shot they'll be defeated anyway, why not just remove their stats altogether (like the Great Old Ones in Call of Cthulhu).

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Perhaps the only real change I saw was the return of Azalin, and I guess the idea didn't come from Arthaus at all. Perhaps the setting is lacking new novels to keep the story going.

I respectfully disagree. First, what campaign setting change in 2e came from a novel? Soth is the only one, and the ramifications to him leaving only hit the campaign setting in 3e. The only other one I can think of is Alexi Shadowborn becoming the prison for Ebonbane, which was only acknowledged in a BoS framing fiction, as far as I know. Carnival might count, but honestly aside from Hermos, the two iterations of Carnival could be separated entirely. Minor inspirations here and there, yes (NPCs like Jander and Larissa, Cult of the Morninglord, etc...) but the world-shaking stuff all came out of modules. (Evil Eye, Grim Harvest, Grand Conjunction)

Second, I think a Campaign Setting is more useful when big sweeping changes are left for the DM to make. The sweeping changes always step on current running campaigns. If I was running an Il Aluk city campaign when Requiem came out, how is that helpful to me? I have to diverge from canon and ignore it or completely change my campaign to acknowledge it. (Note that the largest change in 3e was universally panned: the Ebon Gargoyles)

Third, there were more changes in 3e than Azalin's return. Soth's exit, already mentioned. Hazlik's plan to kill all Mulans in the universe. Jackie R's plan to turn everyone into wererats. The WF twins getting into adventures of their own (and getting corrupted in the process in VRGMists). Godefroy controlling Jules Weathermay through extortion. Gabby had another baby and has joined forces with the Gundarakites. Eva Mordenheim is alive. Ebb has a mate and a clutch of eggs. The Ezrans are raising an army. The Vistani have a new enemy, the Vehrteig. The Gentleman Caller has 4 more children, and Azalin's planning on using them for... something.

IMC, Ravenloft is a little more dynamic, even more as we are approaching the ToUD: Elena Faithhold and Ivan Dilisnya are about to die and their domains to change, Jackeline Renier is about to be imprisoned and replaced by her "evil twin", Azalin is about to lose one third of his realm and the war between Dominic D'Honaire and the Brain is about to erupt, while Malocchio disappears and Ezra gets incarnated.

Note that you say "about to" a lot above. I'm sure that's just because of the timing of this post with respect to your campaign, but that's exactly the sort of thing a campaign setting should have. War "is about to" erupt between Falkovnia and the Four Towers. Gabby Aderre "is about to" find out who the father of Lucia is, and thus make an enemy of the other of her lovers. With enough "about to"'s, the DM has adventure opportunities where the PLAYERS can have an influence on how the setting changes, rather than having the changes passed down from on high.

What's happening in your campaign is exactly what's supposed to happen IN INDIVIDUAL CAMPAIGNS, but not in the published setting.

All IMHO, of course...

[Mangrum]

Regarding the lack of "dynamism" in 3E Ravenloft:

The post immediately preceding mine basically has it right, but I'll add this:

One of the first and best bits of personal advice I received as a fledgling game designer came from David Wise, who passed this wisdom on to me:

"Your job [as an RPG designer] is not to tell a story. Your job is to give the DM the tools to tell a story."

The 1990s/2E era was, if anythying, a far too dynamic period for game design, with many products being rendered obsolete within a few years of their release. TSR was far from the worst offender at this, and Ravenloft was one of its setting least beholden to metaplot ("game designer as meta-DM," as Steve Miller once put it), but it was hardly immune. Grand Conjunction, I'm looking at you. (For 2E TSR settings truly shackled to their non-interactive tie-in novels, see Forgotten Realms and the mother of them all, Dragonlance.)

As game designers in 3E, we felt that if the first Gazetteer had been retconned by the time the final Gazetteer was published, then we'd have done something horribly wrong. Ultimately, readers would have discovered that even the simmering metaplot in the Gazetteer series wasn't about reshuffling the setting yet again -- it all came down to S and her journey as an individual.

Now, of course, we didn't do everything with the line that I would have personally liked as a consumer -- as a DM, I was reliant on modules, and I know I'm not alone -- but leaving the Big Changes as Dread Possibilities for DMs to tackle with their own stories is not one of my regrets.

[LordGodefroi]

The one thing that grabbed my attention was him saying thaat he would rather play CoC, as the characters had more of a chance to save the world.

That's the thing that had me scratching my head. CoC, and the works of HP Lovecraft, were all about the insignificance of man in the cosmos. The Elder Gods were coming and there was nothing to do about it but die trying to save the world or fail and go insane.

How's that any different from his view of Ravenloft ?

[tec-goblin]

The way I run Ravenloft so as to avoid some of the problems the setting can have, some of my players argue that its not even Dungeons and Dragons any more. d20, yes, but not D&d. And from what I've seen, they're pretty cool with it

I tended to run it the same way. D20 Modern actually: a focus on high CLs, no dragons and rare dungeons, a lot of politics. Rarely they ever confronted a darklord in battle - he/she was a force to be reckoned, but with alliances and care. The story objectives were not to kill a Darklord, they were not to kill anyone, in that matter.

[tec-goblin]

[
I certainly have to agree... I have long thought that WotC granted permission to Arthaus to use the setting under the condition that they left everything as it was before they did. Perhaps the only real change I saw was the return of Azalin, and I guess the idea didn't come from Arthaus at all. Perhaps the setting is lacking new novels to keep the story going.

For me that was good. Ravenoft was too metaplot-driven. When domains come and go at a regular basis, it is a problem. Some story should evolve, but I do not refer to that. I was referring to marketing as what the players need, how you can use every book in your campaign, customer support etc.

Third, there were more changes in 3e than Azalin's return. Soth's exit, already mentioned. Hazlik's plan to kill all Mulans in the universe. Jackie R's plan to turn everyone into wererats. The WF twins getting into adventures of their own (and getting corrupted in the process in VRGMists). Godefroy controlling Jules Weathermay through extortion. Gabby had another baby and has joined forces with the Gundarakites. Eva Mordenheim is alive. Ebb has a mate and a clutch of eggs. The Ezrans are raising an army. The Vistani have a new enemy, the Vehrteig. The Gentleman Caller has 4 more children, and Azalin's planning on using them for... something.

Thanks for collecting this info. I wanted to know what had changed from the 2e story. And I agree with you that that's the kind of evolution we want to know: things that are about to happen and we can choose to put into our campaigns or not.