Café de Nuit

I was reading this thread about the soon-to-be released Ravenloft novel ... and it got me thinking.

I remember the 2E days where the setting was incredibly human-centric and players needed to be advised/warned that the demi-human character that they had proposed would meet a certain level of roleplayed insensitivity. I do see the benefits DM's keeping tight control over the demographics of their setting. Tone-wise, I agree, it can really play up on the isolation of the setting.

But I'm not opposed to loosening up a bit, either.

Recent versions (in my opinion) have gotten a bit less gothic and a bit more ... I dunno ... dark fantasy. Arcane magic and non-human races are more prevalent and have become less of a 'oh, grab the pitchforks, this guy needs to be burned at the stake' kind of thing.

I'm not opposed to the change necessarily but I find the current version of the game and setting to be incongruous with some of the previous edition's assumptions.

For my two coppers, my go-to trick was to 'reskin' the game a bit. That is, the character functions exactly as described ... spells, supernatural abilities, etc. But there was less overt visible evidence of something magical happening. Or perhaps the race you had selected had all of the mechanical benefits ... but could pass for human (other than one weird mark or something, a tiefling could appear human ... no tails, no horns in other words ... maybe just unnatural eyes or something).

The mechanical crunch would work as advertised, in other words, but the narrative fluff would be more toned down, and in line with the setting.

I also appreciated the way the S&S folks preserved the 3E half-orc option by reskinning the entire race as caliban. That way ... both things could be true. Namely, there are no orcs in the setting (and therefore no half-orcs), but simultaneously the option was kept available to players that had a hankering to play one.

I know that this can be a tricky topic. I'm not trying to start an edition war, or say that one style of play is right and another is wrong.

I guess what I am saying is ... I would still love to enjoy the setting and introduce new-ish players to it (I do most of my playing online via PbP), but it is becoming more and more common to get an interested player that wants to do the whole [kenku, drow, orc, tiefling, fill-in-the-blank] previously unworkable species and I'm struggling with how to allow it and still do the setting justice.

Anyway, it got me thinking, how do other DMs handle this in their games?

Ban certain options outright, by restricting certain class/species options? Allow the 'weird' choices but narratively tweak them until they fit? Allow the choices as-is ... but let the player know up front that they are in for a heap of trouble on the roleplaying front?

Well, the Mistworld is less overtly hostile to weird characters, but an amount of trouble is always possible. But all must be decided in session 0 and declaration of intent.

Drow - I’d just say the character is an elf with dark skin and none of the mechanical changes from a normal elf. Kenku and orcs I’d allow, but the character is a monster and will be treated as such until some real character defining acts become well known in the area. Teiflings would be monsters and no amount of good deeds are likely to change that.

Actually, I would not assume that most know the difference between an elf and a drow in Ravenloft.
That said, Gothic Horror doesn't have to be human-centric in my opinion. "Forbidden love" between a naive elf/half-elf and a drow - evil given elf form, smart enough to play nice and try to corrupt the other elf or get from the naive elf information about the elf's family/settlement, their defenses etc., literally seduce the elf that thinks he/she can change that drow, that this drow is different etc. etc. only for the drow to bring others and murder is Gothic, in my opinion.

That elf thought he/she knew better. That evil was subjective. That an evil creature had the desire to change (when even the capacity of a drow to change would be questionable in Ravenloft) or to not do evil. The tragedy that follows.
Hits a lot of boxes.

Why a Drow should be iremeedable in Ravenloft?

In the Cartulary of Nartok, and then again in this year's Quoth the Raven, a lot of effort was made to let a game master "file off the ears" of the demihuman races in Darkon so that a DM could re-skin the races as tribes instead if that matches their game. The xenophobic bent of the classic setting can certainly have its struggles in a modern game, particularly since a lot of people play the game to escape all that real-world awfulness. While I don't get it personally, I wouldn't want to ruin someone's experience either. Clear discussion about this during character creation is vital, and should allow a DM to run a game their players want to play. A new Ravenloft could have a bit more understanding of the planes and the different creatures that inhabit them, so when a kenku shows up they don't immediately think it is a lycanthrope.

I missed the memo on the Cartulary of Nartok.

Just spent a few moments skimming it. Wow. Looks to be a great resource. Thanks for contributing/sharing it.

Definitely going to give it a read later when I have the time.

Mistmaster wrote: ↑Sat Nov 23, 2024 11:02 am Why a Drow should be iremeedable in Ravenloft?

Hmm? I didn't say a drow should be irredeemable. I said it is questionable from Gothic-Horror standpoint whether it could be irredeemable or not. Personally, I wouldn't brand all drow "genetically evil" like fiends, hags or aberrations but it largely depends on how the DM plays the world.

Ah, Ok. Now it is clearer.

>Anyway, it got me thinking, how do other DMs handle this in their games?

Because I used to run Ravenloft campaigns using the Exalted ruleset (underneath the glitz and glamor of the Exalted, the rulesets base mechanics are actually quite grim-and-gritty), in which 'everyone" was presumed to be "human" and making wildly-nonhuman characters was mechanically rather difficult, I actually cut back severely on non-humans in my interpretation of the Ravenloft setting.

I changed domains to suit, either metaphorically-reskinning former-demihuman races to be instead different human subcultures, or changing/removing domains that no longer fit with my paradigm.

I actually quite liked my interpretation of the setting, if I can say so without tooting my own horn too much. It felt......more Gothic-y and less like a D&D setting. I've moved away from D&D for a while now..... which makes my current fascination with Worlds Without Numbers quite amusing.

I have to say that I am not a fan of the 5e!Ravenloft Mos Eisley Cantina, "dark fantasy" interpretation. Ravenloft is a world where the monsters very often look human, but are not. That doesn't mesh well with 5es apparently expected Kitchen Sink aesthetics.

Seven, what you describe sounds nice but not too... Ravenloft. Gothic horror, for sure. Ravenloft? Not too much.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying you did something bad or anything. It worked for you and your players and that's what matters.

SkiBird wrote: ↑Thu Nov 21, 2024 4:29 am setting was incredibly human-centric and players needed to be advised/warned that the demi-human

The best adventure were ever played, according to the players themselves, in Ravenloft involved a region where only humans were accepted and demihumans were considered as some sort of extremely dangerous (directly and indirectly as in bringing bad luck and curses) almost fiendish races.

The demihumans in the party (2, elf and half-elf) had to disguise, hide and use magic and other means to get around. The humans (3) in the party had to help their friends.

We in general most of the times, 7 out of 10, made parties composed of humans, though not on purpose. Demihumans were 1 or 2 when they were in the party.

This creates the capacity to appreciate elves and dwarves npc races and civilizations and see them as uniquely special. And the entire setting of course, any setting, is experienced much better with human eyes.

Not that we did not have fun with demihumans.

Using monsters or strange races as PC races never worked and it felt and played out as very awkward and did not really fit.

In Ravenloft of course this is even more intense or even absolute. If the heroes are weird and monstrous, some can be even stranger than the villains, then what is the point of going out into a world full of weirdness and monstrosity?

The torch and pitchfork crowd is supposed to hunt down the monsters and not the heroes. And if they look like monsters then its just rather silly.

Of course in Ravenloft Stone Prophet the computer game i had fun with the Wemic and Troll and the Undead npcs joining the party, but its not the same as in tabletop.

Mistmaster wrote: ↑Sat Nov 23, 2024 11:02 am Why a Drow should be iremeedable in Ravenloft?

The problem with Ravenloft and evil npc races is that according to the rules you would have tens or hundreds of darklords or tainted half-monsters on the way into becoming darklords in a very small amount of time if they are present there.

There is an army of 15th level drow fighters and 16th level drow mages and 12th level duergar fighters in bluetspur and even a half-vistani assasin there, a 17th level thief. Why are they not all mutated and deep into the darklord path or even darklords?
They should all have claws and yellow eyes etc.

So the "dark powers check" and darklord process has to get a few *asterisks that simply state that already evil races are largely ignored and do not progress into the darklord path and are just manipulated or accomodated by the dark power into committing evil.

Or something like that.

In my opinion, you need to be a special kind of evil to qualify for darklordship and even for requiring a Dark Power check. You need to do an act which is objectively evil, without justifications or mitigating factors, fully freely and with full understanding.

Mistmaster wrote: ↑Mon Mar 17, 2025 12:46 pm objectively evil

Indeed you have to be like a banker or politician or something along those levels of malice.