D&D General Ravenloft: Monsters vs Darklords

[Voadam]

That was just a quick example I pulled because afaik there is no Ripper darklord. I am aware of Paridon, though

Lord Sodo of Paridon ritualistically kills six victims with a dagger on six consecutive nights at midnight every thirteen years. He has done this every 13 years for 156 years. In the module the victims are a series of women. These murders are attributed to "Bloody Jack". Even though he uses a proxy to do this, I see him as a Ripper Darklord.

 

[Minigiant]

It sounds like folks are coming at this from two different perspectives... is Ravenloft a location, or is Ravenloft a theme?

Those that consider Ravenloft a location or a "setting" can accomplish any type of adventure they want-- with or without Darklord interference-- because so long as it takes place in or references any of the domains that the campaign book identifies, the qualities of the people, places, and locations reflect the domains as written in the setting book, and most of the tropes that the Ravenloft book gives to us are followed... then you are playing Ravenloft.

But if you consider Ravenloft to be a theme of a game and not just a location where adventuring takes place... that's when @Minigiant 's point take hold. Ravenloft is about cursed and evil dark lords forever being tortured by dangling what they utmost want in front of them but never giving it to them. Sisyphus in gothic horror. And the entire rest of the land and people that Darklord rules over are all there merely in service of the torture the Dark Forces have put in place to tantalize the Darklord. And anything you play that doesn't have that thematic thread underpinning the adventure, the characters, and the locations could basically just be considered standard Gothic Horror. Which is fine if that's what people want to play, but it's not "Ravenloft".

This argument is really no different than any other campaign setting discussion. Is an Eberron game an "Eberron" game if the Last War was not a thing and none of the Five Nations reference it or act as though they've just come out of it after 100 years and could see it all fall apart and plunge themselves back into it if their politics break down? Without that thematic underpinning is Eberron merely a generic magitech setting?

And this dichotomy is also exactly the same sort of thing that inspires some people to claim that there's "No difference!" between Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms campaign settings because they see them both merely as "bog-standard generic fantasy" settings-- while completing ignoring or being ignorant of the politics and thematic ties both settings have that make their worlds distinct.

Deciding on how one feels about what campaign settings are meant to do will go a long way in determining which way you might look at it.

Feels like there are 3 modes

Ravenloft with focused on the Dark Lords and Dark Powers

Bavoria, Darkon, Borsca, or other named dread prison plane which focuses on the Dark Lords and their locations

or
Domains of Dread which focuses on the location only.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Feels like there are 3 modes

Ravenloft with focused on the Dark Lords and Dark Powers

Bavoria, Darkon, Borsca, or other named dread prison plane which focuses on the Dark Lords and their locations

or
Domains of Dread which focuses on the location only.

I don't think any of those describes my current Ravenloft campaign.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

"Buffy the vampire slayer" was a horror and urban fantasy teleserie where not always the vampires were the monster of the week.

Some dark lords of 2nd Ed were desgined to be like one-shot adventures, and now in the 5ed the dread domains have been designed to can live different adventures without direct contact with the dark lords.

In 2nd Ed the dark lords were enemies with a high power level, but now in 5Ed there aren't challengue rating for the dark lords.

Other point is if the players have readen the wikis, then they could know too much about the dark lords, their past, background and even possible weak points. Where is the mistery then?

Some times the DMs rewritte the canon intentionally. For example the players find a way to escape toward the material plane, and this happens, but not in the way they imagined, and now they are in Innistrad(Magic: the Gathering) or the Athasian Tablelands(Dark Sun).

Some times the DMs have to use different type of monsters because players are too focused into hunting undeads and werebeasts, for example plants and constructs.

Any times dark lords aren't the true main enemies but these help PCs against a worse menace, for example Tharizdum cult, or Lvecraftian invader horrors from the Far Realm.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Ravenloft is equal parts horror B movie parody and mind screw.

Parody suggests they were going for funny, or at least light. Not how I see Ravenloft.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Parody suggests they were going for funny, or at least light. Not how I see Ravenloft.

That's because you didn't come in at the start with I6, which was clearly written as a parody (hence the punning names on the tombs).

And Gryphon Hill was the mind screw.

 

[Remathilis]

That's because you didn't come in at the start with I6, which was clearly written as a parody (hence the punning names on the tombs).

And Griffin Hill was the mind screw.

That was because AD&D didn't take itself too seriously, despite what the OSR wants you to believe. Joke names are as much a part of D&D as saving throws. It wasn't until 2e/3e when D&D went though it's edgy "I'm an adult mom!" phase when that stuff stopped being acceptable.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's because you didn't come in at the start with I6, which was clearly written as a parody (hence the punning names on the tombs).

And Griffin Hill was the mind screw.

Never argued mind screw, but I don't feel a tomb gag in one part of a larger adventure shows that Ravenloft was intended as a parody.

And I am quite familiar with the original module, thank you.

 

[Voadam]

That's because you didn't come in at the start with I6, which was clearly written as a parody (hence the punning names on the tombs).

And Griffin Hill was the mind screw.

I don't agree that the joke tombstone names made the whole thing a parody. The actual Strahd lore and plot and action from I6 seems fairly straight and not Young Frankenstein in flavor.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I never saw Ravenloft as parody. To me it was Gothic and Classic horror with Universal and Hammer aesthetics. It certainly lent itself more to occasional humor or cheese than Vampire, which is one of the reasons I liked it. But it never felt like a long running joke either