Café de Nuit

Ive looked over this site from time to time and liked work done a few years back, but never registered. I posted on the RL WoTC site during 3-3.5 editions and lost interest when they converted to 4.

Just curious if people here have current campaigns running on 3-3.5 (Im sure there are still tinkering with 2) or have made the the switch to 4 and are satisfied or not and went directly back.

I have no illusion of buying 4 material, but there is one of our players with the new base core books. I was planning on running a summer RL game if my DM doesn't run our main campaign and would appreciate some feedback on the compatibility of 4 to a sensitive setting such as RL.

The second line of your post implies you aren't too excited about 4E. If that's the case, why switch editions?

3E, IMHO, handles Ravenloft as well as or better than any version of D&D. Of course, you can use the setting with any edition, or even with non-D&D game rules.

One of the guys here runs a 4E PbP game, Shattered City, which looks pretty cool.

I run 3.5 (Mists over the Musarde- now on its ninth chapter).

Skybolt and Tarlyn are also running 3E games- maybe with some material from Pathfinder.

I haven't run a RL game in a long, long time, but if were to start one up now for whatever reason, I'd use Pathfinder. It's what I use in my non-RL game.

Not to do too much shameless self promotion, but I just completed a conversion guide for pathfinder.

That can be found here.

My upcoming campaign will unsurprisingly be in Pathfinder and paizo's advanced players guide will have some great ravenloft feel. Especially the witch and inquisitor classes. (paizo still have their playtest documents for these classes avaiable online for free)

sPtJanly wrote: Just curious if people here have current campaigns running on 3-3.5 (Im sure there are still tinkering with 2) or have made the the switch to 4 and are satisfied or not and went directly back.

I do have campaigns running in 3.5. Occassionally, for a few days I play 4th. I like 4E but usually I prefer 3rd. For high level bashing of baddies though, like in fantasy movies 4E is better.


As for Pathfinder, I can't say I'm too excited about it. Seems there are some good ideas in there, but basically it's buying the same game again.

I run Ravenloft in 4E; yes it can be done, and it can be done extremely well while retaining the fantasy horror feel.

Other than that, I use White Wolf's World of Darkness Storytelling system for a few of my Ravenloft games. Yes, it can be done, and it can be done extremely well while retaining the fantasy horror feel.

I use a mishmash of 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder in my longrunning campaign.

If I were to start over, I'd use pure Pathfinder, probably (with a few house rules, of course).

In addition to the rulesets mentioned, we've had people around here using Call of Cthulhu and Warhammer Fantasy, as well as d20 Modern, off the top of my head.

If you do decide to use 4th, you might want to take a look at Jester's unofficial conversion pamplets in the Library.

Dion of the Fraternity wrote:I run Ravenloft in 4E; yes it can be done, and it can be done extremely well while retaining the fantasy horror feel.

You can run Ravenloft and preserve the horror feel even with a system like:
"Roll 2d6+mental modifer or 2d6+physical modifier vs a DC set by the DM." That doesn't mean that such a system works as good or as realistically as 3rd edition.

I.e. the horror feel etc is in the descriptions and the setting, not the system. The system that helps more IMO is 3.5. The others are too hero-oriented.

After all, a 1st level rogue in 4E can throw a barrage of daggers to anyone in 15' in front of him and run 30 feet at the same 6 seconds. That's a ninja, not a starting man in his path to face the horrors of the world.
On the other hand, this ninja can do that only once every 5 mins. It's not a technique he has mastered so he can use reliably in a battle, it's something he can do only ONCE every five minutes. The circumstances that allowed him to do that, surface only once every five minutes. There's no chance it will happen again.

That's like a board game.

Just as a note the Masque of the Red Death 3.5 rules are also a great option for running many scenarios in. They are surprisingly robust, I've even played in a 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' campaign with those rules.

Gonzoron of the FoS wrote:I use a mishmash of 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder in my longrunning campaign.

If I were to start over, I'd use pure Pathfinder, probably (with a few house rules, of course).

In addition to the rulesets mentioned, we've had people around here using Call of Cthulhu and Warhammer Fantasy, as well as d20 Modern, off the top of my head.

If you do decide to use 4th, you might want to take a look at Jester's unofficial conversion pamplets in the Library.

My ears are burning. LOL!

In all seriousness, IMHO, D&D 3ed and D20 are the greatest systems ever made. Especially because the system can fit nearly any type of campaign.

Its ability to fit hack n' slash as well as "thinker" campaigns is unmatched.

That being said, the 3&3.5 material put out for Ravenloft was garbage (again IMHO, don't flame me).

As for 4ed, although an okay game, I don't see how it could ever work in Ravenloft.

My advice is this. Take the 2ed Ravenloft materials and update them to 3ed rules. Its not hard. Any DM worth his DM screen can do it. If you get stuck, make things up yourself on the fly.

I once ran a GURPS campaign for over a year without the players finding out I had absolutely no clue how the rules worked.

Also, even if you never run or play a 4ed game, all Ravenloft fans should own the 4ed book Open Grave. An awesome supplement that anyone into the undead will enjoy .

Welcome here!

Playing happily 3.5 since 2004, with a few changes when Pathfinder came out.

For me, Pathfinder solved the few glitches our team had with 3.5

Joël

The change from 3.5 to 4 was what finally galvanized me to migrate entirely to a different game system. 4 isn't bad, but it didn't solve any of the problems I had with 3.5 (and all DnD prior editions) and it introduced several more things I didn't like.

After interviewing about ten RPG systems, I narrowed it down to a shortlist including Call of Cthulhu, World of Darkness (Storyteller), TriStat dX, and GURPS. The lattermost ruleset won out.

Edit: I suppose I should point out what the problems were, systemically, for me.

1. Classes in d20 are too inflexible. Great for introducing players to RPGing. Bad for advanced players and DMs who want to mix-and-match PCs or NPCs without trawling through feats and arbitrary class restrictions. GURPS has no classes - every single ability imaginable under d20 rules is available to every player, and the players are expected to work with the GM in their character design concept and to make sure they're collaborating on the game, instead of trying to break the game in their favor.

2. Combat in d20 is too cinematic for a Gothic Ravenloft feel. It's fine for epic heroic "one man slays yon dragon" type adventures, but it's poorly suited to a Gothic "high risks, high dread, high threat level" style of play. GURPS derives most of its mechanics from a realism-based baseline, with optional rules to allow more deadly or less deadly play. As the standard rules apply, a single lucky swordthrust will usually kill or seriously wound even the most hardy non-supernatural person. It's uncommon for a person to have more than about 15 HP without some very unusual backstory.

3. d20's experience points are arbitrary and used purely as a measuring device. You don't actually spend them on anything. In GURPS they're used to buy abilities, skills, and other facets of your character. Because all abilities and skills are nominally available to all characters, points actually serve as a good measure of the character's versatility and power level. Unlike d20, where you'll have to take it on faith that the designers got the classes well balanced enough that 20,000 XP for one class happens to be roughly equal to 20,000 XP for another class. I lost faith in this rather heroic assumption long ago.

4. d20's magic system was Vancian for far too long - an arbitrary restriction that forced spellcasters to guess ahead of time what spells they would need. Additionally, the spell slots per day was an arbitrary number and bore little relation to anything apart from designer's whimsy. 4th Ed. DnD removed the Vancian magic problem, but retained the "trust the designers - they're professionals!" mentality with the use-per-day balance. GURPS treats spells as skills, powered by magical power (which costs separate points to build into your character). You can cast spells as you would use any skill, until you run out of magical power. Magical power recovers much the same as HP do.

5. d20's rules allow far too much of the intended setting feel to dictate its balance issues. Because d20 was born in Greyhawk, Blackmoor, and Faerun high fantasy styles, basic assumptions like how much money PCs make, how much magic they can use, how much damage they can take - are all built into the system to some degree. GURPS makes no assumptions about setting whatsoever and sets the bar closer to historical and current realism, with many optional rules to achieve different setting flavors. Oddly enough, GURPS' rules assumptions make it somewhat more suited to Gothic stories, in my experience, than the swords-and-sorcery roots of d20.

For more of a blow-by-blow breakdown, click the link in my signature line. I also go into a bit of mathematical analysis there. GURPS has a 3d6 roll, for a bell curve effect. d20 has a 1d20 roll, which is a flat probability curve with 5% granularity - a very crude mechanic for determining issues of chance with any normative expectations.

If it has to be D&D then Pathfinder is definitely the best option. I'm not a big fan of D&D though, and I never thought it was the right system for Ravenloft. D&D is for epic, high fantasy settings saturated with magic and really big fights. Ravenloft is NOT that kind of setting. Ravenloft is more like Bram Stoker's Dracula and D&D works best with settings that are more like a Bret Ratner "lets see how many big flashy 'splosions we can cram in" action flick. I just started a Raveloft campaign using Savage Worlds and so far it has been fantastic.

I've run Ravenloft in 2nd, 3.X, and one adventure in 4th. I will always prefer 2nd, though.

I personally run it 4e (going on 2 years now) and it works fairly well for my group. The main reasons I like it is:

#1 - I have a lot of brand new players to any RPG and its simplicity of play (and yes, similarity to MMO's) works in my favor.
#2 - One of my RPG veterans is more of a "wargamer" type, so he likes the tabletop combat style.
#3 - In my own storytelling style, when combat does come around it tends to be more cinematic, so the system actually aids that.

On the flip side, we are entering paragon levels and I am already noticing the jump in power having an impact on the game. So... The jury is still out on that front.