The best advice is the one about Ireena: Strahd wants her to come to him by her own will. That's what gives him the most trouble, and that's the tragedy of his character. He COULD capture her, and charm her with his vampire powers, but he won't, because he sincerely thinks he loves her, and she might love him back. He doesn't, and she won't.
Bro, I've done the same thing and for real dude; read through the whole book before you even think about starting. I made that mistake a while ago and I have been hating myself because of it
yeah that broke my heart. i wanted to start DMing with this and bought it, looked up guides on youtube before i start reading and this is my 3rd video about the adventure
I like having Strahd return. I took another DM's suggestion and had a wolf emerge from the dark of night with a letter in it's mouth. The letter was written by Strahd. Following insults and self praise ( appropriate for Strahd) I had him threaten their descendents. "You may be capable warriors, but I doubt your children will be as capable or your children's children. One way or another I will avenge myself on your bloodline". It kind of makes for a looking darkness always in the back of your mind
Im palinning in doing something like that. Once they kill Strahd they will travel to de normal world (a hombrew setting im being working on for a long time) and mayvbe 4-5 months since they arrival they will now that Strahd still alive and that he is even more evil, seking revange. Thats if the characters that killed him still alive obiously.
And the map, my gosh. I’ve spent lots of hours studying this map, first for the original Castle Ravenloft module and again for Curse of Strahd. The printed map is very cool indeed, but also too complicated to understand. The castle should be confusing to the players, but the DM must know its layout perfectly for a smooth gameplay. It’s a great adventure but really hard to prepare.
Look up "Taking a tour of Strahd's Castle Ravenloft in Minecraft" on RUclips. It's 50 minutes of a guided tour, but still blocky looking. You get used to the weird visuals.
For Stradh's death, I made it possible to permanently kill him. They had to delve into the Amber Temple, and cast a binding ritual. During this ritual, all of the casters are trapped outside a magic circle, and the melees are trapped inside the circle. They must survive 1 minute against Vampyr (Stradh's Dark Power) After this is completed, Stradh can't be brought back after.
Since my group went to his crypt instead od going where the Tarokka card said, when they were leaving Barovia Madame Eva approached them and, after learning that fact reacted in a very "oops"-like fashion, so the Vistani hurried elsewere after the conversation. It was a perfectly good reason for him to come back.
Recently finished COS after 2 years as a player, our DM used somethinf similar to this, when we went to amber temple we disovered a ritual, but we needed to defeat Stradh first Then we had to go to his resting place, and there 3 castes needed to focus during 10 minutes on the ritual to call Vampyr, while the rest of us watched/defended. After those 10 minutes Vampyr appeared and one of the casters had to roll a D20 as a bonus action 3 times on a row (3 turns) to sucessfully seal Vampyr on the Amber, with a DC18 wisdom roll while the rest of us "tanked" Vampyr without killing it. Ending was Epic as on tje last roll the caster rolled a 6+5 and the rest of the party gave her all the luck wr had left and was just the 18 we needed (wr didn't know how high she had to roll) Another think I liked that our DM did, one of the players had his character died, she created a Dhampyr whose mother a father was killed by Stradh, but before dying, her father, who was a craftmen gave her a special arrow with the name "Stradh", so when we fighted Stradh we managed to get him bleeding, and then this Dhampyr hit him with the special arrow, killing Stradh on one shot and burned him
Personally, I enjoyed watching my players squirm when they realized they couldn't get all the Winery seeds. It felt... Like an extra bit of madness inducing in a campaign that deserved to have such.
A big problem with ANY campaign, as you have mentioned here is, DM's revealing too much to their players. This becomes a bigger issue in CoS, a story that relies on mystery and suspense & fear of the unknown.
So essentially: (1) Curse of Strahd is Deadly. - That's your players fault (2) Strahd is immortal. - No one needs to know (3) Death House is Deadly - That's your fault (4) Death House indestructible. - Not a problem, just spooky! (5) Missing Wizard of Wines magic gem seed. - Just make it up (6) Castle Ravenloft map is too confusing. - Get good and have a hidden map in hardest location in game (7) Combat Encounter is too difficult. - Don't combat all the time. (8) Small groups in the Adventure. - Don't play in small groups (9) Mordenkainen is in the Game - Get rid of him or pretend he's not powerful (10) Too Much Sandbox - Have them rescue children in the direction of the plot (11) Higher level Characters become powerful - Yes, that's how levelling works (12) Why doesn't Strahd just take Ireena. - Strahd is a drama queen who just wants to play at chess-master (13) Hard adventure to Dungeon Master. - Yup! Deal with it.
This sums up a lot of the problems i've been facing running the game! Thanks :D It would be awesome to see videos on: 1-how to pull the module together into a coherent story as threads are spread across the whole module and don't always reference back to each other. 2-how to use Strahd, what are his actual motivations, what does "playing with the characters" look like, how does he behave as the characters grow in power and when does he decide to kill them outright.
Thank you Tim. I have noted the second item, which is complex multiple questions. The first request is much more involved and requires multiple specific issues, characters and location to be addressed in multiple videos.
@@HowtoRPG Oh thats a good point, as DM's we need to do some of the work ourselves too haha :D For both I was more thinking your tips and ideas about how to deal with these problems, not a detailed guide.
It is a real shame that there is no official CoS online module that just reprints all mentions of specific NPCs like Ezmeralda, Rahadin, Rictvario in a single place along with their stats. It would cause bloat in the book, and you can just do it yourself, but it would save a lot of work if you could just print out the 'Rahadin page' and have everything you need right there. I'm sure people have compiled this stuff on places like Reddit, but still. The original module gave multiple options for Strahds motivation, but it was also a lot less reliant on Strahds motivation for the module to work. He was just an evil vampire who terrorized everyone you meet in the one village you go to before trecking to the castle that is a massive dungeon and contains loot helpful to kill him. He wants Ireena and fears the blade of the sunsword the players brought with them. That is all you need to explain his caution and since there are not a lot of places that interact with Strahd his motivation doesn't factor in too heavily. I think the CoS book should have made a clear choice in what Strahds motivations are in CoS, and then perhaps made some suggestions for alternative motivations for DMs that had already run CoS once and want an alternative experience, with the express warning that stuff might require fundamental rewriting. By sticking with a concrete motivation, it becomes easier to write helpful advice for the DM. For instance, I made it so that Strahd has already taken reincarnations of Tatyana by force many times before. I also extended the timeline a little to allow Strahd to have had time to try all sorts of things with Tatyana reincarnations. He has sometimes let her live out her life, tried to court her as a man appearing human, mind contolled her, performed experiments on her, both magical and scientific in nature. This time he wants her to fall for him by saving her from danger. Once such a motivation is clear, you can start introducing complications. For instance, the underused brides might not like all the swooning and brooding Strahd is doing Scrying for that perfect opportunity, and they decided to speed things up. That is why the Burgomaster died, something Strahd had not planned for (and perhaps banishes that bride from his castle for, allowing a nice early antagonist to harass the party). I had Strahd show up at the funeral to pay his repects to the fallen Burgomaster. That really put the players on edge, but it also shows that Strahd is the master of the realm and considers the denizens his subjects. They should have either committed to Barovia being part of the Ravenloft realm (and been more explicit about travel between dark realms etc), or committed to placing it physically back into whatever setting you're already playing in. I get that Ravenloft has all this world lore and it uncool to get it yanked out of there, but the 5e CoS is also taking a lot of inspiration from the original module, in which stuff like the letter from the Burgomaster was meant to reach a people outside the gate. That makes no sense when the mists have been abducting people for ages. By not committing they are getting the worst of both worlds. The 'abducted by mists' version of the entrance robs players of the physical choice of entering Barovia and seeing the gates shut behind them. It makes the alternative solution to the problem proposed by the burgomaster a bunch of nonsense (which is a shame because CoS could have been the ultimate version of 'the only winning move is not to play'). It means the people of Barovia are not part of the 'real world', and so their tragedy is lessened a ton. It means the Vistani travelling in by Strahds permission a lot more complicated than him literally opening gates only for Vistani, which also makes regular people coming in and out without his knowledge a lot more suspect, as just having come along with a Vistani group is now not as clear. On the other hand, you can get a lot out of the world of Ravenloft that CoS leaves on the table because it wants to wall everything off. The big thing here is that you gain a central antagonist to Strahd. He isn't really fighting the adventurers, he is fighting the Dark Powers that cursed him, and their fundamental altering of the world serves as a great glue to bind everything in the setting. I would have added a segment on how Strahd has learned over the centuries that any move he makes that takes away all opportunity for adventurers to 'win', always backfires. Because the Dark Powers feed off of the tragedy in the Dark Realms, they need adventurers to have a semblance of hope, as tragedy requires the possibility of a good ending. So that is why Strahd doesn't break any of the items, or puts them in unreachable places, or mercilessly hunts down potential allies. Now the players never need to be told this, but it helps create a consistent Strahd when the DM is aware of what Strahd is fighting. Additionally, the Ravenloft setting allows for invasion by other Dark lords, which Strahd might enlist adventurers to fight on his behalf (I really like the idea of a lich lord wrestling over control over everything to the west of the western gates of Barovia, but you could make it anything). Anything that undead are just not a great matchup for will do. Strahd is inherenty protective of Ravenloft as it is his connection to Tatyana and his past happiness. Anything that threatens that is a danger to him. Strahd needs functional villages for people to grow up in, reproduce so he can consume them, and reincarnate Tatyana from. An invading army is a threat to those things, so Strahd is more than happy to invite adventurers over to duke it out with them. All of a sudden you have this much more complex relationship with Strahd that can evolve over time to be more hostile depending on what the players do. All of a sudden the dinner invitation isn't just a power move, but actually an attempt from Strahd to bond with allies. (having an external power wrestling control from Strahd also helps give people motivations other than 'they're crazy'). Victor can be hearing whispers from another world that lead him to complete his teleportation circle, Fiona Wachter might be trying to get Vallaki to get out of Barovia and into another Dark Realm where she will then be the leader of Vallaki, the druids are split into a faction that wants to return the land to its older dark realm home while others want to pledge loyalty to Strahd, building a Wickerman of him and fighting his enemies as a demonstration of loyalty. All sorts of motivations fall into place when there are concrete forces at play to ally with or against.
Great video, I'm about to run session 0 and your vids have been very helpful. I really like Lunch Break Heroes answer to why Strahd hasn't just grabbed Ireena yet. He basically removed the point that she's been bitten twice and said that Strahd is trying to get her to come to him willingly, so instead of openly attacking her he tries to remove her support structures so she has nowhere else to turn to. Similar to what you were saying but with a little more work required from the DM.
It's not that Strahd isn't smart enough to realize Ireena may not come to him, it's that in hundreds of years of attempts to take Tatyana as his bride, she always ends up killing herself or getting killed. He wants her to come to him willingly (as you said) because if she doesn't see him as her only savior, it will end badly.
My experience is that if you are an experienced dungeon master who understands the nature of Ravenloft and Curse of Strahd, it is not too difficult to work around many of the problems presented here. I ran this for a group of 3 new players. They had a blas, but also understood that it was going to be deadly, and that sometimes it was best to run away. Also, as far as destroying the Death House... you can absolutely include a method of permanently destroying the Death House, while still keeping it impervious to conventional methods. I included a short term DM NPC: a paladin who knew the secret top destroying the Death House. He had to sacrifice himself on the alter in the final chamber! This illustrated that evil could be vanquished, though sometimes at a hefty cost. It also removed the DM NPC from the encounter with the Shambling Mound. The house started to fall apart around the players, the Shambling Mound attacked, and the players quickly realized that they needed to run! I ran it as a modified chase sequence (altered the rules presented in the DMG), and they only had one death just as they escaped. I allowed the player who haff the medicine skill to user a healer's kit in combination with a skill check to perform a crude CPR to resuscitate the player, since it hadn't even been one round since she died. It was a great moment.
@@HowtoRPG Oh do I ever. Fortunately, I've run plenty of campaigns before, so I'm not a rookie. But you're right, I've had to make major modifications already. I've considered getting rid of the death house, and I'm definitely getting rid of the powerful ally that aids the party against Strahd, since they clearly don't need extra numbers. Hell, I've even considered heavily nerfing Esmeralda for that reason as well.
Session zero. And for those in the back: SESSION ZERO! It's CoS, don't kick down the door and run in, you'll probably die. Killing players in Death House is fun though.
A general problem with Curse of Strahd and the Ravenloft setting is that The Dark Powers and the Mists are essentially the last word in railroading. You're trapped in Barovia and can't leave until you complete the quest, the mists of Barovia will stop you from going anywhere you aren't supposed to, and in the end everything will reset itself as if this were an MMO quest.
It's not railroading when the entire set of Ravenloft is controlled by Strahd and the Shadowfell itself. The point of CoS is to either kill Strahd or die trying. You can do every other mission or quest in whichever way your party sees fit and you can even add in your own ones could fit into the module. Strahd comes back because The Dark Powers he signed a pact with won't let him stay dead. This is a horror module and is supposed to make the players feel hopeless in many scenarios, letting them know that they are not in control, Strahd is. Calling it "Railroading" and an "MMO quest" Is just missing the point. Is Having to kill Tiamat in RoT railroading? How about having to kill the Big Bad in any other campaign you've run? And, if you don't like the fact they're stuck in a realm or the fact it resets after they win, be a creative DM and homebrew a whole world around Ravenloft and retcon the Dark Powers for your campaign. It's not like these issues are even a big deal.
@@HowtoRPG you do have a point there. However, I believe that no matter who the DM is, if they're experienced enough, they can run CoS just fine. So beginner DMs should, of course, try cutting their teeth on something smaller than CoS before trying to run it.
I also dislike how the characters are assumed to level during the module. I, for one, expect the characters to spend a certain amount of downtime training or assimilating their last adventure before they go up a level; but the sense of urgency this module imparts on the players makes it very difficult to implement. On an unrelated note, if the PCs are to do every quest in the book, they would end having a spare key of the castle; so many of them has the group going there
@@HowtoRPG The idea is after the party kills Strahd they are pulled back into Borovia after a time of peace. Strahd has upgraded himself thanks to an Artificer he's held prisoner. Strahd is now a CR 26 (27 in Ravenloft) Construct Undead bent on destroying the adventurers that managed to defeat him. Adventure goes from level 10-20 with a legendary final encounter at level 20 against Strahd, finally ending his evil for good.
My advice for CoS is add vampiric mists, if a player is absent have them temporarily turned into a creepy doil with a pull string which is a caricature of that player and if you manage to get the hand of Izek for Lady Fiona, have her turn it into a crawling hand with the fire olt feature that Izek has. I tormented the party with that last one. For the the showdown at Strahd's coffin i had the real coffin 6 feet under with a spawn in the top one. There were tubes under the soil for airflow and he can get in and out in mist form. The kicker was there were rotgrub swarms in the soil and an uncorked eversmoking bottle in the lower coffin. They beat him but they hae a tough fight.
Like, I know the "real objective" is to escape, but the problem is the adventure does a real bad job of communicating that to the players. Yes, it is a horror adventure, it is hard, but the first thing you do on it is essentially have DESTINY tell you you can defeat Strahd. That's why the ending is anticlimactic. It isn't bad, but Ravenloft itself isn't a 5e scenario yet, and you can't expect everyone to understand its a) in the Shadowfell and b) doomed forever and the PCs are not as special as the book specifically tells them in the begining. The players do not have the module, and if you're doing the job right, they have no idea about the Dark Powers until like 80% is completed. So you either: change the begining so it is more "you will need this to leave" or you change the ending. Curse of Strahd isn't the only official horror/escape adventure. Players on Out of The Abyss know they can't save the Underdark, so if you want to stick to the true ending, players should KNOW they can't save Barovia.
I really like your content and how well-thought well-written it is. You just grasped my main issue with CoS, that can easily be described in the way: if I perfectly know about them indistructible immortal villains, fact that I cant save anyone even if I will tear my ass in halves thrice, etc related... I just stop caring. If I cant do shit about the situation I just no more care and get bored. Being seriously sick and living with constant pain I can just say: it stops meaning anything slowly and turns into a routine. You just go and eat your tablets in a ton, watch how your body falls apart and you don't care. Because thinking that you are doomed is a boring business. Even more boring than being doomed. And thats why I refuse to play CoS, I will not give a shit no matter whats gonna happen because I know none of our dms will go easy on that. I have zero reason to feel bored during entire presumably multiple moths of sessions.
That’s why I always gave my players just a sliver of hope. Even if things seemed helpless, I always made it sound like there was a way to save everyone, to kill the indestructible. Because without that thread of hope then you’re right about them not trying.
Very much appreciate the video sir! When you mentioned towards the end of the video that this is a module not for beginning dungeon masters I agree with you, but I was wondering what your thoughts are on the best way for the dungeon mastered to juggle the many potential npc's that can join the party? Being able to bring those npc's that journey with the party to the foreground and have each one do something memorable or relevant was a struggle. I found that to be one of the most challenging things for me as I ran this module last year. Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
@@HowtoRPG Got it! Dump their exposition ...hand out some items and equipment to the players....Kill them, and then bring in new ones! It's a strategy...lol
@@HowtoRPG Ok, when you say 'I target NPC's' my mind goes to combat. Would it be closer to what you mean to say 'I select NPC's one at a time, and find ways to cycle them out of the party' ?
I had one player heading through the death house as the last one left. They had the objective met and they just had to get out. They saw an orb on the statue and they went for it...even though they were a rogue with their dash, the 5 shadows hunted him down at their leisure. It was exquisite. I don't enjoy TPKs but the death house is a freebie that sets the tone for Barovia.
I gave the mad mage the regular mage character sheet rather than archmage. Then i made him an old friend of the groups wizard, instead of mordenkainen. He isn't as strong, they have personal motivation to cure his madness and because of the card reading they had a nice teaser.
I don't mind the module being hard, I minded the module being so damn hopeless all the time, horror works ona tension and relief cycle CoS is just all tension. Also the Irena issue is annoying there's no way of saving her as I can see it. And if the players get invested in helping her they're basically in a no win scenario. And that doesn't lend itself to horrorit lends itself into "Let's play something else because why should we care".
I felt this exact way playing through this campaign. I also found that when the motivation is to "escape barovia" it actually runs at odds with everything the campaign is trying to do. If the players don't want to kill strahd, but want to escape, it doesn't set the right tone.
Did you watch the video? You don't seem to understand that what appears to be a problem is infact a feature. I do offer solutions for everything if applies, but clearly you did not like them.
Strahd coming back is easy to deal with. Either: don’t even worry about it, ignore it. If the characters are never brought to be aware of his ultimate fate, then there is no need to make the players aware of it. OR: now the players recognize, having successful escaped with their lives, some neat loot, maybe some more money, and substantially more adventuring experience/skills but come to realize that there are greater threats in the world. If they want to re-engage with that world, now that they have gained power to, at least as a party, rival Strahd, they can move on to working towards the goal of dealing with the dark gods that watch over him. Especially as three months have passed and then most likely it has taken more months for rumors to reach the party that means they have likely gained more equipment, become more experienced and capable. Now Strahd can be treated as being a nuisance, as a moderate threat that just slows them down on their way to discover the powers over him and how to deal with him. The only thing more satisfying than destroying an enemy is relegating them to this position. As for the death house, I imagine a lot of folks think it’s too hard because they think players should go from 1st to 3rd level in a single “session.” Instead think of it like a prolonged experience in which the party becomes trapped and has to struggle to survive and eventually escape over many days. This not only reduces the mechanical difficulty, but if handled correctly it can give the DM so many opportunities to apply pressure to constantly make the party feel unsafe as they cling to survival and become more and more desperate to escape.
I got really lucky. The DM for our Curse of Strahd game, my first D&D game ever, was a very dear friend... who also happened to be the guy who wrote the Curse of Strahd: Reloaded from r/CurseofStrahd. SO most of these problems were never problems at all.
I am a long time DM. Had the Ravenloft box set in the 90's. One of my players now played in it then. 2 of my players have been playing since 2nd ed with me. And the 3rd has been playing with us since 3.5 ed. My question is this. .. Do you think 3 of them could pull it off? I think i will give them hirelings. One is a Paladin of Tempest. One is a Cleric of Pelor. One is a Rogue. Right now they are in the Death House.. So far so good.
Been in 4 games about to go on 5 campaigns of curse of Stradh... every single one gets canceled by like level 5. This campaign is so hard to keep a group together for. I'm not even DMing just a player in it too
My players drew Mordenkainen as their ally and were able to cure him. But he left them the morning after to find his spell book and staff. He has only assisted them reluctantly with sending stones.
If you don’t have 5 or more PCs what about increasing the level of the party? For example starting the PCs at higher level rather than level 1 & let them be 2 or three levels higher than as adventure is written. More powerful & more hit points might offset the smaller size of the PC party.
My own reason for why Strahd doesn’t just grab Ireena or slaughter the PCs right away, is because of one of his secondary goals: find and eliminate Van Richten and the Mad Mage, who are the actual threats he cares about. He knows bumbling adventurers are very likely to lead him straight to his enemies. Better keep them alive until they outlive their usefulness. ;)
Player's been trying to "destroy" Strahd for thirty years now. You can't, just give up trying to put that notch on your belt. You have better odds of "destroying" a bloody Tarrasque.
Im being running the module with 4 veteran players, tough its our first 5e experience, and i think they are the perfect amount of players. They could still be in danger in a lot of situations but they, now at lvl 7, can easily take a lot of the encounters i throw at them. Per example they clean the winery with ease and destroy the tree, the berserkers and the druids in the hill with just one character going unconsciuos.
There will be groups who can manage with 4 players, but it's not a common experience. The Roc and Amber Temple will make veteran's struggle with good DM tactics. Glad to hear it's going well.
@@HowtoRPG My group had 4 characters too. The roc was manageable because I used the old 2e flying mobility rule so that it only could attack every three rounds. It killed Kasimir, though. And two other characters died at the temple after turning against their companions (they accepted the deals of the amber sarcophagi)
0:59 Off the bat, I hugely disagree with shifting the entire weight of player characters dying onto the players as if the DM has no agency in the matter and as if the module was built around fleeing from fights. I can agree that players share some responsibility, but to pretend the onus is solely - or even primarily - shouldered by the players is complete poppycock.
It is definitely a shared thing, but it's primarily on the player in almost every occasion. Unless you've got the DM constantly fudging rolls help out and stopping every 5min to drop meta warnings it's out of their hands. Players get MC syndrome in a module where they're decidedly _not_ supposed to, that's all on them.
@@Chance57 I disagree. There are narrative tools and mastery over the entire world at the DM's disposal. Foreshadowing isn't against the rules, but it's a thing many DMs fail to do adequately. D&D is, for the most part, collaborative storytelling for many people, and that requires good storytelling technique, too. I'm not saying the players don't have responsibility, but it's far from primarily being on them. When things go awry that could have been avoided, everyone needs to look at themselves, but for a DM channel/video to suggest the DM needn't is seriously flawed and deeply wrongheaded, imo.
@@RashidMBey actions have consequences and usually those consequences are higher in a horror story. It's a horror module, it smacks far too much of railroading when your DM is going out of his way to make sure you have a guardian angel over your shoulder every second of the day just to save you from death that any cautious players who're aware of their mortality and alert to the danger of the setting wouldn't suffer from. Let your player do as they will without constant manipulation and come up with a story that suits their choices. 35 warnings about how "your PC knows to challenge them means death. Do you continue" is too much training wheels for a horror setting. It is collaborative story telling and I disagree with DM plurality over it. Session zero does it need to be anything more than "hey guys, this will be far less power fantasy than you're used to. You're adventures, and even if your character considers themselves a superhero, the world doesn't have to agree with them. Be careful." If they then fail to practice caution at all, waltz up Strahd and take a piss on his leg, only a poor DM starts warping reality to make sure they make it out Scott free.
The great thing about DnD is that you’re free to cut out anything that is too difficult, or confusing, or boring. A beginner DM can absolutely run Strahd, they just need to simplify things. Also, use the MandyMod “fleshing out curse of Strahd” guide and it will fix 99.99% of the problems with this campaign. Give the players plenty of warning before they come to an encounter that is going to be deadly for them. Don’t just let them walk in blind and get TPKd, that’s bad DMing
I agree with everything EXCEPT the party size. A small party is IDEAL to effectively convey the horror setting. 1. If there are 5, 6 or more PCs, it will still be dangerous up until 5th level, but after the power jump of 5th level they will have a small army that can deal effectively with most encounters. 2. There is safety in numbers, so it's much harder to scare them if they have a crowd. You want them to feel isolated and alone and it's much harder to do that if, again, they are a small army. 3. the more players at your table, the higher the likelihood that someone is going to crack a joke and ruin the mood. The DM should be able to adjust for party size. I have effectively run CoS with 2 players, and with 3 players. I found those run-throughs FAR more effective for pulling off the mood and theme than the time I ran for 6 players.
Should the castle be the last scene? Or can they go early, leave and return later? When Strahd invites them to dinner is to kill or just know them and let them leave?
Personally as a GM I love Mordenkainen in the game! He is not a problem at all. You just have to properly nerf him. Make getting to him difficult by having Stradh's minions suround the area around were he is. Have Mordenkainen rain fireballs at them as they try to approach then assuming they get to him they need to restore his mind. Restoration helps but isn't enough for a full recovery, he is only able to recall a few spells each day and returning his missing staff and spellbook as well as helping him remember more about himself complete his recovery. I'm running a game now and we aren't there yet but at some point I'm gonna have the players face an encounter that they cannot handle and Mordenkainen is gonna show his prowess by stopping time for the entire party for 4 rounds. While time is frozen they wont be able to harm the opposing creatures and cant move more than 30 feet away from Mordenkainen and he can do anything other than maintain the spell for the duration. So mid fight they will get 4 rounds to heal and buff before the fight resumes. He will also offer support during the final battle with Stradh but again will have a limited selection of spells and I'm gonna have him make a wisdom save each time he is casting a spell and fail to cast the spell if he rolls low, with low levels spells more likely to suceed.
Thank you for highlighting these things, I'm currently running this adventure & I'ts been very fun but very challenging. I would love to know more about how you deal with monsters, how many is too much?
'Don't play this adventure with 4 players..' Me: *laughs nervously as my DM keeps us going with only 4 players and we're lvl 8 and almost to the amber temple, only because we've been paranoid and tactical the whole game.*
I wrote a pretty big response comment then accidentally deleted it so I'm going to address a couple of things in more bite sized portions to avoid a damned wall of text if possible. First thanks for the video , though I do like some parts of COS there are some huge flaws. I am a huge Ravenloft fanboy and most of my experience playing and being a DM is from 2nd ed Ravenloft, I have read vast amounts of the lore/novels/etc and feel I'm a bit of an expert on the setting, so here are problems I have with COS,. 1. If the players end up destroying Strahd and Tatiana's soul escapes then there is absolutely no reason for Strahd to be trapped in Ravenloft anymore. She is his ultimate obsession and without the dark powers having her to dangle in front of Strahd every so often as to give him hope then Strahd loses what torments him then he has no reason to keep going. I highly suggest anyone wanting to DM this adventure first read I, Strahd by P.N. Elrod, it is a great story and shows how to play Strahd.
2. I think you missed the mark a little when you brought up why Strahd doesn't just grab Irena when the real answer is fairly simple. Strahd has watched as Tatiana's soul has been reborn a hundred times only to be snatched from him every time . He knows his smallest actions will cause her to be lost to him yet again. He doesn't care in the least about the players other than if they can be used to help gain Tatiana.
3. The story can't get Strahds title correct! Is he a prince from another land?;A king in Barovia? A count? They never should have changed his parents noble rank! 4. Unfortunately a lot of players have no idea what playing in a game where permagodeath play with extreme caution. I have lost many characters in D&D 2 but nothing beats surviving a tuff adventure with your favorite character!
josephskiles Hi, I don’t agree with your statement of point #1 at all. I have only read this 5th edition version of Ravenloft and even though I have been playing D&D since 1st edition I never had any DM run the previous adventures. Also I have only been a DM for about a year so this is my only exposure to the lore. According to this edition Strahd is stuck in the realm of Borovia because of his evil past deeds, and completely not dependent upon Tatiana in any way. She has never been his “ultimate goal” his reason for being there is because the dark lords feel he deserves to be there, it’s not up to him in any way. He is a prisoner there and weather or not Tatiana exists has absolutely no bearing on his fate. The book actually describes Strahd as not having any emotion or desires of the heart in any way and that his interest in Tatiana is nothing more than the equivalent of a sort of shadow of an emotion he once had for her. It says her death is the only regret he has, but that there is no real emotional investment in it, more like an empty thought. The true reason Strahd is in no hurry to turn Ireena, is deep down he doesn’t really care, its just loose end from a previous life he used to have.
@@BaritoneUkeBeast4Life I'm not trying to be rude but if you haven't read the old lore then it's really hard to get an idea of just how much she effected Strahd, He had his faults before his pact with death/ the dark powers/ whatever retcon they call it now but the major influence on Strahds fall to evil is his obsession with Tatiana , it is because of her he began to regret how much of his life he had squandered ,and while Strahd did envy Sergei's you he only killed him because of Tatiana ( though it was part of the pact to make him imortal). I suggest reading the novel I, Strahd it builds greatly on the lore and I really think if you did some research into it you will come to my way of thinking. If you can't get the book or just are not interested there are numerous sites that dwelve into the original lore for him and most of the other dark Lords free on the net. Another point is almost no darklord gains the attention on the dark powers just because they did some evil crap , Ravenloft works on a kind of Twilight Zone or Tales from the crypt karma system where the Lord although gaining great power they are constantly tormented by never getting what the want most in life/ unlife. Take Mordenthiem (who is basically Dr. Frankenstein ), he is obsessed with finding a way to save his wife with his experiments in raising the dead but his creation Adam hounds his every move. Or lord Godfrey a ghost who had killed his wife and daughter now they hunt him down every night and tear him to fish bait. I hope you do look into the lore, Strahd is one of my all time favorite villans
I do admit that first time i rolled this campaign i made strahd capture ireena straight away like as she and players leave the village xD. At second thought it's maybe be better that Strahd meet her and players multiple times maybe even help them again hags or werewolves to get her approval, respect and maybe love.
Ah... Too late. I've only dm'ed like 2 one shot and I need to run a duet with curse of strahd. So... Single player with a new dm. Hope I run this well. I'll try my best to adjust accordingly.
This is a great video and I'm a big fan of Fred's work. That being said...what I don't like about 5e's modules is that they continually break the Dungeon master guid rules when it comes to making encounters. I haven't been a DM since Advanced Dungeons and Dragons but I never tried to outright kill my players. Lost mine of Phandelver is such a great adventure because it balances the right encounters with the parties level. As a former DM I don't like murder hobos but that is up to the players and they should always have a reasonable chance for success.
Well. Baptize me in blood and fire cuz I'm running the game starting next week as a rookie DM for 2 rookie players. I've watched a lot of videos like this, read a lot, gathered resources. I'll let you know how it goes? Lol
How is it going? I started it a few weeks ago with 6 players and they aren't even finished with death house and they had two characters die. The guy was okay with it, and apparently didn't like his second character so he wanted that one to die. But the encounters have been brutal. I am also a new DM.
@@HowtoRPG they only have the last two left. They just like to charge in and do stupid stuff. The specter on the 3rd floor killed one of them when it was 5 people at 2nd level. I explained that sometimes disengaging is a good idea. So far they just face tank everything. I will watch them though!
Thanks. Some adventures were designed for beginners and some for more advanced Dungeon Masters and Player's. Some rule sets had the same approach. I am not confused.
@@HowtoRPG Either lost mines or I go acapella which is my DM superpower or so I'm told. I've even once thrown CoS with a twist at a higher level group and it was a blast.
I had the death house burning in the escape they get out collapsing onto the road, look back on a damp long burned out and overgrown. Strahd is a bored demigod Trapped in his kingdom prison Of papper dolls and minions Long driven mad by memory and boredom so much so he is pulling in people to try and kill him just to relieve the monotony.Go over the top at times bounce from lex to joker between encounters.
That depends on more factors than I have time to ask questions of you. I will make a basic Guide on recommend character levels for sections of the adventure in the future.
Personally, I think that destroying the Amber Sarcophagi should have freed Barovia for good. The players deserve to have that power in their hand, but that should not be easy given that the Amber Temple is pretty high level anyway and destroying these vessels takes away the power the players may have gained from them.
@@HowtoRPG We found locations we thought were safe but after we used them for a while they always turned out to have some flaw which allowed them to come after us.
I have 8 player who are all experienced and ingenious. The have made it through the death house met Strahd twice already and have made it through to Vallaki. They had their Tarroka reading, i chose not to give them an ally. Matter of fact any ally they meet will die brutally right after the befriend them or will be kidnapped and turned into vampires. Most likely, this will happen to Esmerelda and Van Richten. The were reavens will be dropping slowly as they are all being hunted down by Baba Lysaga.
I had the Mad Mage perished in his fight on Mt Baratock and the Bergomasters son found his staff and spellbook. His npc is useless but I kept his backstory
On the Irena front... What about, Strahd is looking for another player to take over, so his hopes are that a player will be worthy and that Irena will choose him so he can be with her... But his arrogance won't let him admit the player(s) are worthy. Might also add a bit of tragic relatability to him?
I like the premise of Curse of Strahd... but they don’t explain what the curse actually is, how it actually works, what the Dark Ones want or why they gave the curse. His character can, in the hands of a new DM, easily come across as a “Nice Guy” meme. What I worked with a new DM to do, is to make it so that Demon Lords we’re letting Strahd run an experiment for them. They kept bringing him back, but it was the Demon Lords that were in charge. Devils could also work. Also, giving players the opportunity to kill Strahd permanently is good. If a DM wants continuity with previous editions and future editions, they can make Strahd come back, but if there is nothing characters can do to him, then there’s no reason to fight him. It only takes a single legend in Barovia of Adventurers that killed him, and he came back 3 months later and brought them back. It instantly removes the motivation, and places players in a state of powerlessness. If that’s what they are ok with playing, that’s fine, but most players in my experience want to feel heroic and accomplished, not powerless and meaningless...
How to D&D true, but I would personally guess that Strahd would be bragging about his apparent immortality and invincibility. It might even be part of how he messes with the players, taunting them with it. He may let them kill him for kicks and giggles, but it also seems like people would remember that he can’t die, even if it is only the characters in the module who have been around that long. They might say it’s pointless... and at that point, I usually ask why I’m telling this story in particular? Is the only memorable thing about it in Strahd’s timeline the characters? Strahd could be at a breaking point, making this adventure something worth telling out of all the times adventurers have come and gone. I guess in the end, it seems like his invincibility would heavily play into how he approached situations. What if he let the players kill him after the 3rd or 4th session, just so they could try and unite Barovia against him, allowing him to relive his youth of conquest in a few months when he resurrects? That might make this particular adventure more worth telling. There would be a larger problem for players to deal with then, raising the stakes and creating an adventure for even higher level adventurers. Does that make sense? Sorry for rambling by the way 😅
open worlds can be a problem.... BUT a DM can guide them with NPC's.... And the ONE HOUSE everyone talks about not liking. Drop it. use more random encounters to make up the leveling. Or have them meat some a couple of higher level NPCs to help them fly thru it. Players can play the NPCs even. I hadnt played in years but getting back into it. I have the original strahd. So probably not going to buy the new book. Will find something else to get them to that level.
I need advice: as a DM I dont buy this plot, and I cant stand the dinner shennanigans... Seems to me this adventure would be much better if Strahd and his Minions had some limits. Have anyone done something like that? I am considering Strhad being unaware of the PCs at first
The biggest problem with Curse of Strahd is that its 5th edition. Pick up a copy of the 2nd edition Ravenloft box set, a copy of 1st edition Ravenloft, and a copy of House of Strahd from 2nd edition. Problem fixed.
The problem with all the 5th edition DND adventures is they are too railroady .. Wizards should of made adventure packs and locations not full blown lead by the nose campaigns but stuff to help Dms craft their own adventures
Character death is NOT a problem, it’s a plot hook. They can be brought back by Barovia’s Dark Powers. Having a Dark Patron/Matron can be a way to gain insights. It’s not all gravy, at adventure end the dark powers may not let you leave, or may try and put you on the throne to take Strahd’s place as Lord/Lady of Barovia.
@@HowtoRPG These people need to get over it. The threat of death is what keeps the game in general interesting. That said, you don't always have to go for killing the characters. Like the hags at the mill may want to spare the PCs to enlist them in their dream pastry operations. Both selling the addictive treats in town and bringing children back to be baked into the pastries. Or if the players face Strahd early, he may drop them off in the nearest town with a taunting message to either give him an actual challenge next time or learn their place under his boot.
I just got done with Curse of Strahd with a party of 5, plus their followers. Honestly... Party was too strong for the campaign. A cleric of Selune; a paladin of Tempes, a warforge battle master, and a dragonborn barbarian had a few tough encounters, but overall had minimal threats to them. They were level 9 by the time it finished, but dropped Strahd as early as 5th level at the Wintersplinter grove.
Did Strahd have a big enough force of troops and minions. A Vampire alone is no match for 5+ characters, particularly if the players are highly experienced. What tactics did you use with Strahd. There a lot of reasons why this could of happened.
My 4 players (plus werewolf ally Zuleika) kicked Strahd's ass in two rounds. They got the Sunsword from the armory, and got the Helm of Radiance in the same place, so they just focused on him. I had decided that, at this point of the module, Strahd using his lair power to ran away would lead to a tedious pursuit (the players were pretty tired from almost 2 years playing, with a toxic player and a newbie DM, so they wouldn't have liked it at all).
Watched through all these CoS a couple times to refresh, ran it back in the olden days :) Thanks so MUCH for this and the players guide (and the others of course) *Grin*
Your solution for 9 the mad mage isn't terribly satisfying. Just remove him seems like a big missed opportunity. What I've done is make each of the players significantly unique and powerful in their own way. Thanks in no small part to u/MandyMod on r/curseofstrahd and her implementation of the dark powers
Thanks for sharing your solution. What your doing with the Mad Mage will not appeal to a lot of Dungeon Masters. But if it works for you, great. I don't actually worry about changing or removing elements from Curse of Strahd.
This is my general experience with strahd, click Read More and scroll to the bottom for my general tips on DMing the game As someone who's first GM was a 3.5 and CoS fan with Dice luck the first two campaigns I played in were brutal. We were given ample warning, but overall the party was too greedy or foolhardy, and focused almost entirely on destroying Strahd, responding to each interaction with him with endless aggression. It was a toxic, short sighted group (Spoilers: They said okay to getting the wedding dress and were shocked and horrified of what they were using it for.) Both games ended poorly, we had one true character death, and that was mine because I was moving my piece around while the GM was in the bathroom and wandered into a hyper deadly trap. Overall, I got the module and tried to run it out of sheer spite, the game fell due to a number of things, but we had a good time and I have a few tips. 1: Try to give your players a effective content warning before playing. Yes the amount of gore and puss and spiders are plentiful. but you also need to consider what kind of evil Strahd (and vampires in general) are. possessive, controlling, abusive, and socially and physically untouchable, in a land where everyone relays to him. I've never encountered a player who had a problem with it, but I also don't think I've seen a player realize (besides a few jokes about him getting #MeToo'ed) just what kind of monster Strahd is, and I wouldn't want anyone to experience this hard modual where the main presence reminds them of their own "Strahds". 2: At the start, Strahd should call your players "Contestants", not meat, or playthings. Strahd is already a difficult, oppresive game with out the constant fear of a vampire lord swooping in and fireballing the party out of sheer "I'm the bad guy, lol." and having a at least civil relationship to the bad guy till the players do something real bad is good to have early game. 3: There's a message in the Module to add some levity to the game.. Not alot of people read that, maybe read that. 4: XP to lvl 3 has a few tips about Strahd, you can look at them, I find them interesting. I hope this was useful to someone, or at least entertaining, thank you for reading my comment, good luck with your games :)
"Curse of Strahd is not a beginner Dungeon Master adventure" *laughs/cries in First-time DM* FR though it's not been too bad so far, but I have been very willing to put a lot of time into prep, so that might change things
@@HowtoRPG Likely very true! However my group had already played through that so it wasn't an option. Prep time isn't too much a factor as I have no life
Up to 5 Direwolves appear at the beginning. That is not a "very hard adventure". That is 100% total party kill for any number of level 1 adventurers with no chance to flee. What the actual F. When the solution to the Death House is "they don't have to enter the Death House", then it is an indication that it is overtuned. So many monsters in the Death House are resistant to non-magic damage or have incredible AC - but level 1 characters likely don't have magic items. What the actual F. The Invitation to Dinner is a hook placed in 3-4 places. But there is no description of the dinner or why the players should go. Or what happens if they don't go. It is a lame "go here" push in the middle of a sandbox campaign. So so lame.
I hate seeing so much gatekeeping BS in these videos. “CoS is not suitable for new players.” “CoS is not suitable for new DMs.” Curse of Strahd is perfectly suitable for new players and DMs if they are properly prepared. Players need to be made aware of what they are getting into. Not just the deadly encounters and knowing how to run away, but the tone of the setting. It’s not your classic hero’s journey kind of adventure. It’s a story of survival in a land where nowhere is safe, and nothing is truly as it seems. Knowing that going in, everything else can be overcome with communication with your players and preparation as a DM. The best advice I can give any DM of any experience level running any module is to read the ENTIRE module cover to cover before even starting the campaign. Then review each chapter at least once before you come up on it in session. This is all especially true for CoS. Familiarize yourself with important locations and NPCs. Don’t be afraid to call a session early if they complete what you have prepared. No D&D is better than bad D&D. If you get stuck, reach out to your community for help. Reddit has an amazing community of DMs in r/CurseofStrahd.
People keep saying that CoS is not suitable for new DMs, but then don’t give specific examples of why. I started CoS as my first ever campaign as a DM at the start of quarantine and I’ve had a blast. I guess I’ve just been confused as to why it’s bad for newbies? The prep work has been no trouble and it’s been really fun to tie together some of the disconnected threads scattered throughout the module. Plus, I feel it’s easier because the characters are stuck in the demi plane of Barovia. I just have to worry about this one valley, rather than dealing with an open world where the players could drop the story and go off literally anywhere. It’s great. :)
How to D&D You really think new players and DMs don’t know how to read and communicate with each other? That’s literally all it is. What exactly is so daunting about this module that makes it such a forbidden prize only for use once you’ve paid the troll at the gate?
Sounds like very strict and combat-focused way of DMing this module inspired this guide - especially parts about being deadly ( as many other adventures are for careless adventurers). 5+ players, companions, etc soudns liek AL or very old-school HnS approach. There are few good points, but most are either combat-focused approach, or could be put down for any module. Few plot-points (like gem from WoW) were not very creative or surprising - example of better idea was (found somewhere on reddit) to put this gem in hands of Abbot from Krezk, then into his "Creation"
These issues where taken from the Internet. Common problems Dungeon Masters experienced and asked for help with. These issues with Curse of Strahd are often a product of inexperienced Dungeon Mastering and playing. Which is why the common calls for help are around combat.
I’m a Curse of Strahd DM and I’m basically rewriting it at this point. There’s so much contextually wrong... the Vistani are a racist depiction of Roma people. 2e Ravenloft even gave Van Richten a venue to ask for forgiveness from their people, and in 5e they’ve regressed this character to a genocidal maniac. His story doesn’t add up with Ezmerelda’s. In general, there’s With so little explained in their politics. They tried to bite off so much and everything is half written. I’m pretty much expanding it, rewriting it, and trying to make it more player centric.
@@NoThanksGirlyPop that's not always the case, i interpret the vistani at Tser Pool as cheerfull, colourfull, happy and generally misterious, though they do have a problem with drinks and there are some of them who are spies of Strahd. This depiction of "vistani is all bad" is more a racist interpretation of what other people in the Dominions of Dread think about them, but it isn't always the case.
My players teamed up with Strahd to fight Vampyr and free him/Barovia of his curse They are now level 18 and have Strahd, Mordenkainen, Argynvost, and an army of Barovian soldiers at their disposal
As a player, I hated curse of Strahd. It all felt overly scripted and contrived, more like an amusement park ride than a Dungeons and Dragons adventure. Dreary, punishing world, unsympathetic NPCs, unfair challenges. Lame "story," I was glad when it was over. Maybe fun for some masochistic goth edgelord.
This was exactly how I felt. My character tee had no reason to like anyone in barovia. Everyone we met were unsympathetic assholes. It felt like the module wanted us to just murder everyone. The big one I’m still mad about is the module expects you to go have dinner with the evil vampire everyone tells you is going to kill you. The module also spends all its time reinforcing how pointless your actions are, and how Strahd knows everything and is super powerful, which just makes it all pointless. There’s almost no loot, nothing to buy if you get some, and he whole thing just made me feel awful unless we were in combat.
I respect the research you did but I disagree with this entire video. And your speculation I.e. "strahd probably knows where everything is". Also don't let the players know that strahd resurrects after the adventure? I think your message is for dms running this for new players. Rather than dms running this for seasoned or mature players. Either way. Upvote for research and links.
Thanks. Personally, I don't think there are problems with the Curse of Strahd, but my opinion is not the video topic. I selected common problems that Dungeon Masters and Player's had with the adventure. I then give a quick and dirty solution to their issue with the adventure. Most of the time it's new Dungeon Masters and Player's that have problems with the Curse of Strahd, but not always. We can disagree if you like.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have a player in my game who is basically Frankenstein's Monster. He's just a stitched monstrosity of many men and has never played this module. I've made him out of the parts of people of Barovia and given him expertise in skill checks related to their skills in life. Such as Gustave Durst's arm gave him harpsicord proficiency in the Death House and Izzek's arm gave him proficiency in charcoal drawing which was a proficiency he chose for himself and I just decided Izzek can draw well. I put the 3rd seed in him as his power source and he was constructed by the Abbot and Blinsky. He's searching for two little girls from a farm he lived on and served as a guardian of the place. The girls were both brought to Barovia and mixed together full metal alchemist Nina style. They have replaced Piddelwick 2 and I've rigged my Tarroka Deck to make the girls the party's fated npc. These "holes" are just room to homebrew to me. I enjoy putting my personal touch on games I run and welcome these perceived oversights as room to do my work.
Click bait title. Curse of Strahd don’t really have problems. All the points you describe are DM’s problems and dumb/newbies players problems (yeaaah kill and burn everything). Ravenloft is a gothic horror world. All is based on ambiance and gothic horror, fears and weaknesses of the characters and the way they will fight them. The best advice is to read first the Von Richten guide, Dracula (as Strahd is an allegory of him and Irena of Mina Harker), and watching old hammer movies. The fact Strahd cannot be destroyed is just simple. He is Barovia and Barovia is him, each world, region of Ravenloft is linked and created for his dark lord and by consequence each dark lord is prisoner of his world but cannot really die. But it seems you didn’t understood this.
The best advice is the one about Ireena: Strahd wants her to come to him by her own will. That's what gives him the most trouble, and that's the tragedy of his character. He COULD capture her, and charm her with his vampire powers, but he won't, because he sincerely thinks he loves her, and she might love him back. He doesn't, and she won't.
Thanks. I think this point is a bit hard to unpack in the short time I gave it. Glad you get my point.
I view it as he's tried to take her by force many times but it never works out so he's looking for a different solution this time.
@@toshomni9478 Yes. Unfortunately he's not smart enough to understand he will never get her.
Oops lol you said what I just said basically... Guess I should have read more first ;-)
@@FalcorDragon lol. Not a big deal.
One, don't call it death house, call it Durst house, or anything but death house.
It's just called the house.
Why?
Durst Estate if you will
And bone grinder can be Durst Mill
"Not for beginner DMs"
Me, never DMd, planning COS for over a year now 🙃
Bro, I've done the same thing and for real dude; read through the whole book before you even think about starting. I made that mistake a while ago and I have been hating myself because of it
@@GloriainMorte I've probably read it at least a dozen times now😅 that's not even counting partial reads & online research
Did u run it? Same boat.
yeah that broke my heart. i wanted to start DMing with this and bought it, looked up guides on youtube before i start reading and this is my 3rd video about the adventure
@@Neth91 You can still run an intermediate (or even advanced) adventure if you're a beginner dm.
I like having Strahd return.
I took another DM's suggestion and had a wolf emerge from the dark of night with a letter in it's mouth. The letter was written by Strahd. Following insults and self praise ( appropriate for Strahd) I had him threaten their descendents. "You may be capable warriors, but I doubt your children will be as capable or your children's children. One way or another I will avenge myself on your bloodline".
It kind of makes for a looking darkness always in the back of your mind
Interesting ending, Rob.
Im palinning in doing something like that. Once they kill Strahd they will travel to de normal world (a hombrew setting im being working on for a long time) and mayvbe 4-5 months since they arrival they will now that Strahd still alive and that he is even more evil, seking revange. Thats if the characters that killed him still alive obiously.
My character shoves a letter back into a wolves mouth.
A letter: Sorry, I am childfree, friend
@@viktorgray7425 even better: Jokes on you, I'm sterile. Checkmate.
And the map, my gosh. I’ve spent lots of hours studying this map, first for the original Castle Ravenloft module and again for Curse of Strahd. The printed map is very cool indeed, but also too complicated to understand. The castle should be confusing to the players, but the DM must know its layout perfectly for a smooth gameplay. It’s a great adventure but really hard to prepare.
The Original Castle Ravenloft map drove me nuts. The new map was a slight improvement. There are a few tricks, but I know your pain.
There's a few top down maps of castle ravenloft makes it a lot easier to track
@@OutOfPrintGM really? Didn't know about this. I will look for them, thanks.
@@OutOfPrintGM Thanks for sharing Simon. Not something I had available when I ran it.
Look up "Taking a tour of Strahd's Castle Ravenloft in Minecraft" on RUclips. It's 50 minutes of a guided tour, but still blocky looking. You get used to the weird visuals.
For Stradh's death, I made it possible to permanently kill him. They had to delve into the Amber Temple, and cast a binding ritual. During this ritual, all of the casters are trapped outside a magic circle, and the melees are trapped inside the circle. They must survive 1 minute against Vampyr (Stradh's Dark Power) After this is completed, Stradh can't be brought back after.
Good for you.
Since my group went to his crypt instead od going where the Tarokka card said, when they were leaving Barovia Madame Eva approached them and, after learning that fact reacted in a very "oops"-like fashion, so the Vistani hurried elsewere after the conversation. It was a perfectly good reason for him to come back.
4:58 Httth54😊h3 4:59
Recently finished COS after 2 years as a player, our DM used somethinf similar to this, when we went to amber temple we disovered a ritual, but we needed to defeat Stradh first
Then we had to go to his resting place, and there 3 castes needed to focus during 10 minutes on the ritual to call Vampyr, while the rest of us watched/defended.
After those 10 minutes Vampyr appeared and one of the casters had to roll a D20 as a bonus action 3 times on a row (3 turns) to sucessfully seal Vampyr on the Amber, with a DC18 wisdom roll while the rest of us "tanked" Vampyr without killing it.
Ending was Epic as on tje last roll the caster rolled a 6+5 and the rest of the party gave her all the luck wr had left and was just the 18 we needed (wr didn't know how high she had to roll)
Another think I liked that our DM did, one of the players had his character died, she created a Dhampyr whose mother a father was killed by Stradh, but before dying, her father, who was a craftmen gave her a special arrow with the name "Stradh", so when we fighted Stradh we managed to get him bleeding, and then this Dhampyr hit him with the special arrow, killing Stradh on one shot and burned him
You took that idea from somewhere else
Personally, I enjoyed watching my players squirm when they realized they couldn't get all the Winery seeds. It felt... Like an extra bit of madness inducing in a campaign that deserved to have such.
lol
Me, who started CoS and is not only new to DMing but to D&D altogether: oh no
I hope it went well :)
A big problem with ANY campaign, as you have mentioned here is, DM's revealing too much to their players. This becomes a bigger issue in CoS, a story that relies on mystery and suspense & fear of the unknown.
Yes.
"Increase your party size" I took that personally and have a party of 9 people...
lol. Maybe not that many...
So essentially:
(1) Curse of Strahd is Deadly.
- That's your players fault
(2) Strahd is immortal.
- No one needs to know
(3) Death House is Deadly
- That's your fault
(4) Death House indestructible.
- Not a problem, just spooky!
(5) Missing Wizard of Wines magic gem seed.
- Just make it up
(6) Castle Ravenloft map is too confusing.
- Get good and have a hidden map in hardest location in game
(7) Combat Encounter is too difficult.
- Don't combat all the time.
(8) Small groups in the Adventure.
- Don't play in small groups
(9) Mordenkainen is in the Game
- Get rid of him or pretend he's not powerful
(10) Too Much Sandbox
- Have them rescue children in the direction of the plot
(11) Higher level Characters become powerful
- Yes, that's how levelling works
(12) Why doesn't Strahd just take Ireena.
- Strahd is a drama queen who just wants to play at chess-master
(13) Hard adventure to Dungeon Master.
- Yup! Deal with it.
Agreed. Stop th wining
lol. and?
@@HowtoRPG Just not particularly insightful, or even all that helpful is all.
This sums up a lot of the problems i've been facing running the game! Thanks :D
It would be awesome to see videos on:
1-how to pull the module together into a coherent story as threads are spread across the whole module and don't always reference back to each other.
2-how to use Strahd, what are his actual motivations, what does "playing with the characters" look like, how does he behave as the characters grow in power and when does he decide to kill them outright.
Thank you Tim. I have noted the second item, which is complex multiple questions. The first request is much more involved and requires multiple specific issues, characters and location to be addressed in multiple videos.
@@HowtoRPG Oh thats a good point, as DM's we need to do some of the work ourselves too haha :D
For both I was more thinking your tips and ideas about how to deal with these problems, not a detailed guide.
@@NoThanksGirlyPop There is no easy answer that's quick for any of the requests you made.
It is a real shame that there is no official CoS online module that just reprints all mentions of specific NPCs like Ezmeralda, Rahadin, Rictvario in a single place along with their stats. It would cause bloat in the book, and you can just do it yourself, but it would save a lot of work if you could just print out the 'Rahadin page' and have everything you need right there. I'm sure people have compiled this stuff on places like Reddit, but still.
The original module gave multiple options for Strahds motivation, but it was also a lot less reliant on Strahds motivation for the module to work. He was just an evil vampire who terrorized everyone you meet in the one village you go to before trecking to the castle that is a massive dungeon and contains loot helpful to kill him. He wants Ireena and fears the blade of the sunsword the players brought with them. That is all you need to explain his caution and since there are not a lot of places that interact with Strahd his motivation doesn't factor in too heavily.
I think the CoS book should have made a clear choice in what Strahds motivations are in CoS, and then perhaps made some suggestions for alternative motivations for DMs that had already run CoS once and want an alternative experience, with the express warning that stuff might require fundamental rewriting. By sticking with a concrete motivation, it becomes easier to write helpful advice for the DM. For instance, I made it so that Strahd has already taken reincarnations of Tatyana by force many times before. I also extended the timeline a little to allow Strahd to have had time to try all sorts of things with Tatyana reincarnations. He has sometimes let her live out her life, tried to court her as a man appearing human, mind contolled her, performed experiments on her, both magical and scientific in nature. This time he wants her to fall for him by saving her from danger.
Once such a motivation is clear, you can start introducing complications. For instance, the underused brides might not like all the swooning and brooding Strahd is doing Scrying for that perfect opportunity, and they decided to speed things up. That is why the Burgomaster died, something Strahd had not planned for (and perhaps banishes that bride from his castle for, allowing a nice early antagonist to harass the party). I had Strahd show up at the funeral to pay his repects to the fallen Burgomaster. That really put the players on edge, but it also shows that Strahd is the master of the realm and considers the denizens his subjects.
They should have either committed to Barovia being part of the Ravenloft realm (and been more explicit about travel between dark realms etc), or committed to placing it physically back into whatever setting you're already playing in. I get that Ravenloft has all this world lore and it uncool to get it yanked out of there, but the 5e CoS is also taking a lot of inspiration from the original module, in which stuff like the letter from the Burgomaster was meant to reach a people outside the gate. That makes no sense when the mists have been abducting people for ages.
By not committing they are getting the worst of both worlds. The 'abducted by mists' version of the entrance robs players of the physical choice of entering Barovia and seeing the gates shut behind them. It makes the alternative solution to the problem proposed by the burgomaster a bunch of nonsense (which is a shame because CoS could have been the ultimate version of 'the only winning move is not to play'). It means the people of Barovia are not part of the 'real world', and so their tragedy is lessened a ton. It means the Vistani travelling in by Strahds permission a lot more complicated than him literally opening gates only for Vistani, which also makes regular people coming in and out without his knowledge a lot more suspect, as just having come along with a Vistani group is now not as clear. On the other hand, you can get a lot out of the world of Ravenloft that CoS leaves on the table because it wants to wall everything off. The big thing here is that you gain a central antagonist to Strahd. He isn't really fighting the adventurers, he is fighting the Dark Powers that cursed him, and their fundamental altering of the world serves as a great glue to bind everything in the setting. I would have added a segment on how Strahd has learned over the centuries that any move he makes that takes away all opportunity for adventurers to 'win', always backfires. Because the Dark Powers feed off of the tragedy in the Dark Realms, they need adventurers to have a semblance of hope, as tragedy requires the possibility of a good ending. So that is why Strahd doesn't break any of the items, or puts them in unreachable places, or mercilessly hunts down potential allies. Now the players never need to be told this, but it helps create a consistent Strahd when the DM is aware of what Strahd is fighting. Additionally, the Ravenloft setting allows for invasion by other Dark lords, which Strahd might enlist adventurers to fight on his behalf (I really like the idea of a lich lord wrestling over control over everything to the west of the western gates of Barovia, but you could make it anything). Anything that undead are just not a great matchup for will do. Strahd is inherenty protective of Ravenloft as it is his connection to Tatyana and his past happiness. Anything that threatens that is a danger to him. Strahd needs functional villages for people to grow up in, reproduce so he can consume them, and reincarnate Tatyana from. An invading army is a threat to those things, so Strahd is more than happy to invite adventurers over to duke it out with them. All of a sudden you have this much more complex relationship with Strahd that can evolve over time to be more hostile depending on what the players do. All of a sudden the dinner invitation isn't just a power move, but actually an attempt from Strahd to bond with allies.
(having an external power wrestling control from Strahd also helps give people motivations other than 'they're crazy'). Victor can be hearing whispers from another world that lead him to complete his teleportation circle, Fiona Wachter might be trying to get Vallaki to get out of Barovia and into another Dark Realm where she will then be the leader of Vallaki, the druids are split into a faction that wants to return the land to its older dark realm home while others want to pledge loyalty to Strahd, building a Wickerman of him and fighting his enemies as a demonstration of loyalty. All sorts of motivations fall into place when there are concrete forces at play to ally with or against.
Great video, I'm about to run session 0 and your vids have been very helpful. I really like Lunch Break Heroes answer to why Strahd hasn't just grabbed Ireena yet. He basically removed the point that she's been bitten twice and said that Strahd is trying to get her to come to him willingly, so instead of openly attacking her he tries to remove her support structures so she has nowhere else to turn to. Similar to what you were saying but with a little more work required from the DM.
Thanks Drew. Lunch Break Hero does a good job of Homebrewing and explaining the adventure.
I had DM Death house as a “witch train” narrative, mood setting, warming up adventure. The real deal was Strahd Castle.
Both are very tough.
@@HowtoRPG true, I agree, what I meant is the real deal should be Strahd castle, not the death house.
@@Anderson_101 Yes.
It's not that Strahd isn't smart enough to realize Ireena may not come to him, it's that in hundreds of years of attempts to take Tatyana as his bride, she always ends up killing herself or getting killed. He wants her to come to him willingly (as you said) because if she doesn't see him as her only savior, it will end badly.
It's going to end badly in any case.
My experience is that if you are an experienced dungeon master who understands the nature of Ravenloft and Curse of Strahd, it is not too difficult to work around many of the problems presented here. I ran this for a group of 3 new players. They had a blas, but also understood that it was going to be deadly, and that sometimes it was best to run away. Also, as far as destroying the Death House... you can absolutely include a method of permanently destroying the Death House, while still keeping it impervious to conventional methods. I included a short term DM NPC: a paladin who knew the secret top destroying the Death House. He had to sacrifice himself on the alter in the final chamber! This illustrated that evil could be vanquished, though sometimes at a hefty cost. It also removed the DM NPC from the encounter with the Shambling Mound. The house started to fall apart around the players, the Shambling Mound attacked, and the players quickly realized that they needed to run! I ran it as a modified chase sequence (altered the rules presented in the DMG), and they only had one death just as they escaped. I allowed the player who haff the medicine skill to user a healer's kit in combination with a skill check to perform a crude CPR to resuscitate the player, since it hadn't even been one round since she died. It was a great moment.
Experienced Dungeon Masters can handle the adventure for sure.
Very much agree, and I HIGHLY recommend running CoS for smaller group sizes. It's too difficult to scare a full-size party.
@@vichraev.5386 not if you know your party
About to run my first COS and your videos have been a godsend for me and my party of eleven. Thank you!
You are welcome. A party of elven is going to require major modification of the adventure. You have your work cut out for you.
@@HowtoRPG Oh do I ever. Fortunately, I've run plenty of campaigns before, so I'm not a rookie. But you're right, I've had to make major modifications already. I've considered getting rid of the death house, and I'm definitely getting rid of the powerful ally that aids the party against Strahd, since they clearly don't need extra numbers. Hell, I've even considered heavily nerfing Esmeralda for that reason as well.
Session zero. And for those in the back: SESSION ZERO! It's CoS, don't kick down the door and run in, you'll probably die. Killing players in Death House is fun though.
Yes. Session zero is a must.
3rd Seed, I put it in the Heart Of Sorrow
Thanks for sharing your experience. That sounds like something Strahd would do.
The third seed is actually in the hut of baba lysaga, it states it in the book. She stole it and used it. It’s underneath the floorboards.
@@RESIDENTNINTENDO Actually that is one gem of the three known gems, the other is at Yester Hill with the Druids. The third is till lost.
@@HowtoRPG perhaps I misremember the adventure then.
I put it under the stone circle next to Old Bonegrinder
A general problem with Curse of Strahd and the Ravenloft setting is that The Dark Powers and the Mists are essentially the last word in railroading. You're trapped in Barovia and can't leave until you complete the quest, the mists of Barovia will stop you from going anywhere you aren't supposed to, and in the end everything will reset itself as if this were an MMO quest.
Yes.
It's not railroading when the entire set of Ravenloft is controlled by Strahd and the Shadowfell itself. The point of CoS is to either kill Strahd or die trying. You can do every other mission or quest in whichever way your party sees fit and you can even add in your own ones could fit into the module. Strahd comes back because The Dark Powers he signed a pact with won't let him stay dead. This is a horror module and is supposed to make the players feel hopeless in many scenarios, letting them know that they are not in control, Strahd is. Calling it "Railroading" and an "MMO quest" Is just missing the point. Is Having to kill Tiamat in RoT railroading? How about having to kill the Big Bad in any other campaign you've run? And, if you don't like the fact they're stuck in a realm or the fact it resets after they win, be a creative DM and homebrew a whole world around Ravenloft and retcon the Dark Powers for your campaign. It's not like these issues are even a big deal.
@@theinformantky9332 None of these issues are a big deal for the right Dungeon Masters. But is every Dungeon Masters right for the Curse of Strahd?
@@HowtoRPG you do have a point there. However, I believe that no matter who the DM is, if they're experienced enough, they can run CoS just fine. So beginner DMs should, of course, try cutting their teeth on something smaller than CoS before trying to run it.
@@theinformantky9332 Yep.
I also dislike how the characters are assumed to level during the module. I, for one, expect the characters to spend a certain amount of downtime training or assimilating their last adventure before they go up a level; but the sense of urgency this module imparts on the players makes it very difficult to implement.
On an unrelated note, if the PCs are to do every quest in the book, they would end having a spare key of the castle; so many of them has the group going there
True that the adventure doesn't really allow for downtime, but a DM can fix that.
Curse of strahd 2
Mecha strahd
?
@@HowtoRPG The idea is after the party kills Strahd they are pulled back into Borovia after a time of peace.
Strahd has upgraded himself thanks to an Artificer he's held prisoner.
Strahd is now a CR 26 (27 in Ravenloft) Construct Undead bent on destroying the adventurers that managed to defeat him.
Adventure goes from level 10-20 with a legendary final encounter at level 20 against Strahd, finally ending his evil for good.
@@meektheshy Oh, I see.
@@HowtoRPG you like the idea? It wasn't mine lol
My advice for CoS is add vampiric mists, if a player is absent have them temporarily turned into a creepy doil with a pull string which is a caricature of that player and if you manage to get the hand of Izek for Lady Fiona, have her turn it into a crawling hand with the fire olt feature that Izek has. I tormented the party with that last one. For the the showdown at Strahd's coffin i had the real coffin 6 feet under with a spawn in the top one. There were tubes under the soil for airflow and he can get in and out in mist form. The kicker was there were rotgrub swarms in the soil and an uncorked eversmoking bottle in the lower coffin. They beat him but they hae a tough fight.
Like, I know the "real objective" is to escape, but the problem is the adventure does a real bad job of communicating that to the players. Yes, it is a horror adventure, it is hard, but the first thing you do on it is essentially have DESTINY tell you you can defeat Strahd. That's why the ending is anticlimactic. It isn't bad, but Ravenloft itself isn't a 5e scenario yet, and you can't expect everyone to understand its a) in the Shadowfell and b) doomed forever and the PCs are not as special as the book specifically tells them in the begining. The players do not have the module, and if you're doing the job right, they have no idea about the Dark Powers until like 80% is completed. So you either: change the begining so it is more "you will need this to leave" or you change the ending.
Curse of Strahd isn't the only official horror/escape adventure. Players on Out of The Abyss know they can't save the Underdark, so if you want to stick to the true ending, players should KNOW they can't save Barovia.
It requires a thinking player to understand what is going on.
I really like your content and how well-thought well-written it is.
You just grasped my main issue with CoS, that can easily be described in the way: if I perfectly know about them indistructible immortal villains, fact that I cant save anyone even if I will tear my ass in halves thrice, etc related... I just stop caring.
If I cant do shit about the situation I just no more care and get bored.
Being seriously sick and living with constant pain I can just say: it stops meaning anything slowly and turns into a routine. You just go and eat your tablets in a ton, watch how your body falls apart and you don't care. Because thinking that you are doomed is a boring business. Even more boring than being doomed.
And thats why I refuse to play CoS, I will not give a shit no matter whats gonna happen because I know none of our dms will go easy on that. I have zero reason to feel bored during entire presumably multiple moths of sessions.
Thanks.
That’s why I always gave my players just a sliver of hope. Even if things seemed helpless, I always made it sound like there was a way to save everyone, to kill the indestructible. Because without that thread of hope then you’re right about them not trying.
Very much appreciate the video sir!
When you mentioned towards the end of the video that this is a module not for beginning dungeon masters I agree with you, but I was wondering what your thoughts are on the best way for the dungeon mastered to juggle the many potential npc's that can join the party?
Being able to bring those npc's that journey with the party to the foreground and have each one do something memorable or relevant was a struggle. I found that to be one of the most challenging things for me as I ran this module last year.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
You are welcome. Frankly I target NPC's and find different ways to cycle them out.
@@HowtoRPG Got it! Dump their exposition ...hand out some items and equipment to the players....Kill them, and then bring in new ones! It's a strategy...lol
@@WilliamSlayer That is not what I said.
@@HowtoRPG Ok, when you say 'I target NPC's' my mind goes to combat.
Would it be closer to what you mean to say 'I select NPC's one at a time, and find ways to cycle them out of the party' ?
@@WilliamSlayer Yes,. But sometimes you will have to target NPC's in combat, just not all the time.
I had one player heading through the death house as the last one left. They had the objective met and they just had to get out. They saw an orb on the statue and they went for it...even though they were a rogue with their dash, the 5 shadows hunted him down at their leisure. It was exquisite. I don't enjoy TPKs but the death house is a freebie that sets the tone for Barovia.
Thanks for sharing your story and experience.
I gave the mad mage the regular mage character sheet rather than archmage. Then i made him an old friend of the groups wizard, instead of mordenkainen. He isn't as strong, they have personal motivation to cure his madness and because of the card reading they had a nice teaser.
Thanks for sharing your solution, Anders.
@@HowtoRPG No problem, and nice video! I'm a first time DM running Curse of Strahd, so this was very helpful!
@@AndersMurberg Glad to hear it.
I don't mind the module being hard, I minded the module being so damn hopeless all the time, horror works ona tension and relief cycle CoS is just all tension. Also the Irena issue is annoying there's no way of saving her as I can see it. And if the players get invested in helping her they're basically in a no win scenario. And that doesn't lend itself to horrorit lends itself into "Let's play something else because why should we care".
I felt this exact way playing through this campaign. I also found that when the motivation is to "escape barovia" it actually runs at odds with everything the campaign is trying to do. If the players don't want to kill strahd, but want to escape, it doesn't set the right tone.
A lot of these solutions are just "Don't worry about it. Ignore it and it'll go away."
Did you watch the video? You don't seem to understand that what appears to be a problem is infact a feature. I do offer solutions for everything if applies, but clearly you did not like them.
Strahd coming back is easy to deal with. Either: don’t even worry about it, ignore it. If the characters are never brought to be aware of his ultimate fate, then there is no need to make the players aware of it. OR: now the players recognize, having successful escaped with their lives, some neat loot, maybe some more money, and substantially more adventuring experience/skills but come to realize that there are greater threats in the world. If they want to re-engage with that world, now that they have gained power to, at least as a party, rival Strahd, they can move on to working towards the goal of dealing with the dark gods that watch over him. Especially as three months have passed and then most likely it has taken more months for rumors to reach the party that means they have likely gained more equipment, become more experienced and capable. Now Strahd can be treated as being a nuisance, as a moderate threat that just slows them down on their way to discover the powers over him and how to deal with him. The only thing more satisfying than destroying an enemy is relegating them to this position.
As for the death house, I imagine a lot of folks think it’s too hard because they think players should go from 1st to 3rd level in a single “session.”
Instead think of it like a prolonged experience in which the party becomes trapped and has to struggle to survive and eventually escape over many days. This not only reduces the mechanical difficulty, but if handled correctly it can give the DM so many opportunities to apply pressure to constantly make the party feel unsafe as they cling to survival and become more and more desperate to escape.
I got really lucky. The DM for our Curse of Strahd game, my first D&D game ever, was a very dear friend... who also happened to be the guy who wrote the Curse of Strahd: Reloaded from r/CurseofStrahd. SO most of these problems were never problems at all.
That's what an experienced Dungeon Master can achieve. These problems are not issue for all people.
I am a long time DM. Had the Ravenloft box set in the 90's. One of my players now played in it then. 2 of my players have been playing since 2nd ed with me. And the 3rd has been playing with us since 3.5 ed.
My question is this. ..
Do you think 3 of them could pull it off? I think i will give them hirelings.
One is a Paladin of Tempest.
One is a Cleric of Pelor.
One is a Rogue.
Right now they are in the Death House.. So far so good.
I would allow them one Hireling. They sound like experienced players.
Been in 4 games about to go on 5 campaigns of curse of Stradh... every single one gets canceled by like level 5. This campaign is so hard to keep a group together for. I'm not even DMing just a player in it too
I am not surprised. A very tough campaign for Dungeon Master's and players.
My players drew Mordenkainen as their ally and were able to cure him. But he left them the morning after to find his spell book and staff. He has only assisted them reluctantly with sending stones.
Thank you so much for sharing a different solution to the mad mage.
If you don’t have 5 or more PCs what about increasing the level of the party? For example starting the PCs at higher level rather than level 1 & let them be 2 or three levels higher than as adventure is written. More powerful & more hit points might offset the smaller size of the PC party.
My own reason for why Strahd doesn’t just grab Ireena or slaughter the PCs right away, is because of one of his secondary goals: find and eliminate Van Richten and the Mad Mage, who are the actual threats he cares about. He knows bumbling adventurers are very likely to lead him straight to his enemies. Better keep them alive until they outlive their usefulness. ;)
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
What if strahd bit ireena and left her in the town so that when she turns she would have to feed on her fellow townsmen, to break her mentally.
Try it out.
Player's been trying to "destroy" Strahd for thirty years now. You can't, just give up trying to put that notch on your belt. You have better odds of "destroying" a bloody Tarrasque.
Both of which are indestructible in different ways.
Tarrasque in 5e is one shottable. The count is like orcus. You can never get rid of him.
Im being running the module with 4 veteran players, tough its our first 5e experience, and i think they are the perfect amount of players. They could still be in danger in a lot of situations but they, now at lvl 7, can easily take a lot of the encounters i throw at them. Per example they clean the winery with ease and destroy the tree, the berserkers and the druids in the hill with just one character going unconsciuos.
There will be groups who can manage with 4 players, but it's not a common experience. The Roc and Amber Temple will make veteran's struggle with good DM tactics. Glad to hear it's going well.
@@HowtoRPG My group had 4 characters too. The roc was manageable because I used the old 2e flying mobility rule so that it only could attack every three rounds. It killed Kasimir, though. And two other characters died at the temple after turning against their companions (they accepted the deals of the amber sarcophagi)
@@carlosmingorance2110 That Roc can kill a whole party.
0:59 Off the bat, I hugely disagree with shifting the entire weight of player characters dying onto the players as if the DM has no agency in the matter and as if the module was built around fleeing from fights. I can agree that players share some responsibility, but to pretend the onus is solely - or even primarily - shouldered by the players is complete poppycock.
It is definitely a shared thing, but it's primarily on the player in almost every occasion. Unless you've got the DM constantly fudging rolls help out and stopping every 5min to drop meta warnings it's out of their hands. Players get MC syndrome in a module where they're decidedly _not_ supposed to, that's all on them.
@@Chance57 I disagree. There are narrative tools and mastery over the entire world at the DM's disposal. Foreshadowing isn't against the rules, but it's a thing many DMs fail to do adequately. D&D is, for the most part, collaborative storytelling for many people, and that requires good storytelling technique, too.
I'm not saying the players don't have responsibility, but it's far from primarily being on them. When things go awry that could have been avoided, everyone needs to look at themselves, but for a DM channel/video to suggest the DM needn't is seriously flawed and deeply wrongheaded, imo.
@@RashidMBey actions have consequences and usually those consequences are higher in a horror story. It's a horror module, it smacks far too much of railroading when your DM is going out of his way to make sure you have a guardian angel over your shoulder every second of the day just to save you from death that any cautious players who're aware of their mortality and alert to the danger of the setting wouldn't suffer from. Let your player do as they will without constant manipulation and come up with a story that suits their choices. 35 warnings about how "your PC knows to challenge them means death. Do you continue" is too much training wheels for a horror setting. It is collaborative story telling and I disagree with DM plurality over it.
Session zero does it need to be anything more than "hey guys, this will be far less power fantasy than you're used to. You're adventures, and even if your character considers themselves a superhero, the world doesn't have to agree with them. Be careful." If they then fail to practice caution at all, waltz up Strahd and take a piss on his leg, only a poor DM starts warping reality to make sure they make it out Scott free.
That is not entirely what I said.
The great thing about DnD is that you’re free to cut out anything that is too difficult, or confusing, or boring. A beginner DM can absolutely run Strahd, they just need to simplify things. Also, use the MandyMod “fleshing out curse of Strahd” guide and it will fix 99.99% of the problems with this campaign.
Give the players plenty of warning before they come to an encounter that is going to be deadly for them. Don’t just let them walk in blind and get TPKd, that’s bad DMing
I agree with everything EXCEPT the party size. A small party is IDEAL to effectively convey the horror setting. 1. If there are 5, 6 or more PCs, it will still be dangerous up until 5th level, but after the power jump of 5th level they will have a small army that can deal effectively with most encounters. 2. There is safety in numbers, so it's much harder to scare them if they have a crowd. You want them to feel isolated and alone and it's much harder to do that if, again, they are a small army. 3. the more players at your table, the higher the likelihood that someone is going to crack a joke and ruin the mood.
The DM should be able to adjust for party size. I have effectively run CoS with 2 players, and with 3 players. I found those run-throughs FAR more effective for pulling off the mood and theme than the time I ran for 6 players.
We can disagree on party size.
Should the castle be the last scene? Or can they go early, leave and return later? When Strahd invites them to dinner is to kill or just know them and let them leave?
It can be all of that.
Personally as a GM I love Mordenkainen in the game! He is not a problem at all. You just have to properly nerf him. Make getting to him difficult by having Stradh's minions suround the area around were he is. Have Mordenkainen rain fireballs at them as they try to approach then assuming they get to him they need to restore his mind. Restoration helps but isn't enough for a full recovery, he is only able to recall a few spells each day and returning his missing staff and spellbook as well as helping him remember more about himself complete his recovery. I'm running a game now and we aren't there yet but at some point I'm gonna have the players face an encounter that they cannot handle and Mordenkainen is gonna show his prowess by stopping time for the entire party for 4 rounds. While time is frozen they wont be able to harm the opposing creatures and cant move more than 30 feet away from Mordenkainen and he can do anything other than maintain the spell for the duration. So mid fight they will get 4 rounds to heal and buff before the fight resumes. He will also offer support during the final battle with Stradh but again will have a limited selection of spells and I'm gonna have him make a wisdom save each time he is casting a spell and fail to cast the spell if he rolls low, with low levels spells more likely to suceed.
Thank you for highlighting these things, I'm currently running this adventure & I'ts been very fun but very challenging. I would love to know more about how you deal with monsters, how many is too much?
Thanks, Jerry. That question depends on lots of factors. I have a Curse of Strahd Live Stream today in one hour. Come and ask me then.
'Don't play this adventure with 4 players..'
Me: *laughs nervously as my DM keeps us going with only 4 players and we're lvl 8 and almost to the amber temple, only because we've been paranoid and tactical the whole game.*
Well that sounds like a sound approach. Your Dungeon Master is likely adjusting the adventure for you. All the best :)
@@HowtoRPG Most likely, but we've had a few close tpks~ The party is, at present, Ranger, Monk, Cleric and a Wizard.
I wrote a pretty big response comment then accidentally deleted it so I'm going to address a couple of things in more bite sized portions to avoid a damned wall of text if possible.
First thanks for the video , though I do like some parts of COS there are some huge flaws. I am a huge Ravenloft fanboy and most of my experience playing and being a DM is from 2nd ed Ravenloft, I have read vast amounts of the lore/novels/etc and feel I'm a bit of an expert on the setting, so here are problems I have with COS,.
1. If the players end up destroying Strahd and Tatiana's soul escapes then there is absolutely no reason for Strahd to be trapped in Ravenloft anymore. She is his ultimate obsession and without the dark powers having her to dangle in front of Strahd every so often as to give him hope then Strahd loses what torments him then he has no reason to keep going. I highly suggest anyone wanting to DM this adventure first read I, Strahd by P.N. Elrod, it is a great story and shows how to play Strahd.
2. I think you missed the mark a little when you brought up why Strahd doesn't just grab Irena when the real answer is fairly simple. Strahd has watched as Tatiana's soul has been reborn a hundred times only to be snatched from him every time . He knows his smallest actions will cause her to be lost to him yet again. He doesn't care in the least about the players other than if they can be used to help gain Tatiana.
3. The story can't get Strahds title correct! Is he a prince from another land?;A king in Barovia? A count? They never should have changed his parents noble rank!
4. Unfortunately a lot of players have no idea what playing in a game where permagodeath play with extreme caution. I have lost many characters in D&D 2 but nothing beats surviving a tuff adventure with your favorite character!
You are welcome.
josephskiles Hi, I don’t agree with your statement of point #1 at all. I have only read this 5th edition version of Ravenloft and even though I have been playing D&D since 1st edition I never had any DM run the previous adventures. Also I have only been a DM for about a year so this is my only exposure to the lore. According to this edition Strahd is stuck in the realm of Borovia because of his evil past deeds, and completely not dependent upon Tatiana in any way. She has never been his “ultimate goal” his reason for being there is because the dark lords feel he deserves to be there, it’s not up to him in any way. He is a prisoner there and weather or not Tatiana exists has absolutely no bearing on his fate. The book actually describes Strahd as not having any emotion or desires of the heart in any way and that his interest in Tatiana is nothing more than the equivalent of a sort of shadow of an emotion he once had for her. It says her death is the only regret he has, but that there is no real emotional investment in it, more like an empty thought. The true reason Strahd is in no hurry to turn Ireena, is deep down he doesn’t really care, its just loose end from a previous life he used to have.
@@BaritoneUkeBeast4Life I'm not trying to be rude but if you haven't read the old lore then it's really hard to get an idea of just how much she effected Strahd, He had his faults before his pact with death/ the dark powers/ whatever retcon they call it now but the major influence on Strahds fall to evil is his obsession with Tatiana , it is because of her he began to regret how much of his life he had squandered ,and while Strahd did envy Sergei's you he only killed him because of Tatiana ( though it was part of the pact to make him imortal).
I suggest reading the novel I, Strahd it builds greatly on the lore and I really think if you did some research into it you will come to my way of thinking. If you can't get the book or just are not interested there are numerous sites that dwelve into the original lore for him and most of the other dark Lords free on the net.
Another point is almost no darklord gains the attention on the dark powers just because they did some evil crap , Ravenloft works on a kind of Twilight Zone or Tales from the crypt karma system where the Lord although gaining great power they are constantly tormented by never getting what the want most in life/ unlife. Take Mordenthiem (who is basically Dr. Frankenstein ), he is obsessed with finding a way to save his wife with his experiments in raising the dead but his creation Adam hounds his every move. Or lord Godfrey a ghost who had killed his wife and daughter now they hunt him down every night and tear him to fish bait.
I hope you do look into the lore, Strahd is one of my all time favorite villans
I do admit that first time i rolled this campaign i made strahd capture ireena straight away like as she and players leave the village xD. At second thought it's maybe be better that Strahd meet her and players multiple times maybe even help them again hags or werewolves to get her approval, respect and maybe love.
You know they literally JUST announced a remastered version of CoS, right?
Just saw it now.
The SJW version lol
17:00 Well our DM sure as hell didn't play it like that, we had to be bodyguard for Irena during the entire adventure.
Dungeon Masters can run premade adventures differently.
Ah... Too late. I've only dm'ed like 2 one shot and I need to run a duet with curse of strahd. So... Single player with a new dm. Hope I run this well. I'll try my best to adjust accordingly.
I hope everything has been working out.
This is a great video and I'm a big fan of Fred's work. That being said...what I don't like about 5e's modules is that they continually break the Dungeon master guid rules when it comes to making encounters. I haven't been a DM since Advanced Dungeons and Dragons but I never tried to outright kill my players. Lost mine of Phandelver is such a great adventure because it balances the right encounters with the parties level. As a former DM I don't like murder hobos but that is up to the players and they should always have a reasonable chance for success.
Thanks Ray.
Well. Baptize me in blood and fire cuz I'm running the game starting next week as a rookie DM for 2 rookie players. I've watched a lot of videos like this, read a lot, gathered resources. I'll let you know how it goes? Lol
All the best. I will have a Curse of Strahd live stream once a month for sometime. I will also be doing more video's on the topic.
How is it going? I started it a few weeks ago with 6 players and they aren't even finished with death house and they had two characters die. The guy was okay with it, and apparently didn't like his second character so he wanted that one to die. But the encounters have been brutal. I am also a new DM.
@@TheBlackWaltz I now have two videos with recommendations for adjusting the Death House Encounters.
@@HowtoRPG they only have the last two left. They just like to charge in and do stupid stuff. The specter on the 3rd floor killed one of them when it was 5 people at 2nd level. I explained that sometimes disengaging is a good idea. So far they just face tank everything. I will watch them though!
@@TheBlackWaltz lol. Best of luck.
Biggest piece of advice RUN.......
Yes, there should be a lot of running at the beginning and middle.
Great video, but are you are confusing "basic adventures" and "advanced adventures" in the sense of Basic/Expert D&D and Advanced D&D rulesets?
Thanks. Some adventures were designed for beginners and some for more advanced Dungeon Masters and Player's. Some rule sets had the same approach. I am not confused.
Love the video, thank you!
You are most welcome Devil Dog.
Solutions is to do another adventure beforehand to get the party to level 5. Started at level five CoS is just amazing.
That's one way to do it. I assume you Dungeon Master? What adventure did you run?
@@HowtoRPG Either lost mines or I go acapella which is my DM superpower or so I'm told. I've even once thrown CoS with a twist at a higher level group and it was a blast.
@@dmstantastic3653 Thanks for sharing.
I had the death house burning in the escape they get out collapsing onto the road, look back on a damp long burned out and overgrown. Strahd is a bored demigod Trapped in his kingdom prison Of papper dolls and minions Long driven mad by memory and boredom so much so he is pulling in people to try and kill him just to relieve the monotony.Go over the top at times bounce from lex to joker between encounters.
And the crazy antics might drive the players or characters mad. lol
What’s the best level for a party of 4 in the final battle with Strahd?
That depends on more factors than I have time to ask questions of you. I will make a basic Guide on recommend character levels for sections of the adventure in the future.
@@HowtoRPG thank you
Personally, I think that destroying the Amber Sarcophagi should have freed Barovia for good. The players deserve to have that power in their hand, but that should not be easy given that the Amber Temple is pretty high level anyway and destroying these vessels takes away the power the players may have gained from them.
Thanks for sharing your perspective.
10:20 I don't recall there being any safe locaitons in Barovia.
There are safe locations. Maybe you didn't find them.
@@HowtoRPG We found locations we thought were safe but after we used them for a while they always turned out to have some flaw which allowed them to come after us.
I have 8 player who are all experienced and ingenious. The have made it through the death house met Strahd twice already and have made it through to Vallaki. They had their Tarroka reading, i chose not to give them an ally. Matter of fact any ally they meet will die brutally right after the befriend them or will be kidnapped and turned into vampires. Most likely, this will happen to Esmerelda and Van Richten. The were reavens will be dropping slowly as they are all being hunted down by Baba Lysaga.
That sort of group has to exist eventually, lol. Sounds like you have your hands full. Thanks for sharing your experience sofar.
I had the Mad Mage perished in his fight on Mt Baratock and the Bergomasters son found his staff and spellbook. His npc is useless but I kept his backstory
The digital organization is really challenging me.
I didn't have to deal with that, as I ran it from the physical book. Thanks for sharing your experience.
On the Irena front... What about, Strahd is looking for another player to take over, so his hopes are that a player will be worthy and that Irena will choose him so he can be with her... But his arrogance won't let him admit the player(s) are worthy. Might also add a bit of tragic relatability to him?
You can do what you like with the adventure. The original design was not trying to make Strahd a tragic hero.
I like the premise of Curse of Strahd... but they don’t explain what the curse actually is, how it actually works, what the Dark Ones want or why they gave the curse. His character can, in the hands of a new DM, easily come across as a “Nice Guy” meme. What I worked with a new DM to do, is to make it so that Demon Lords we’re letting Strahd run an experiment for them. They kept bringing him back, but it was the Demon Lords that were in charge. Devils could also work.
Also, giving players the opportunity to kill Strahd permanently is good. If a DM wants continuity with previous editions and future editions, they can make Strahd come back, but if there is nothing characters can do to him, then there’s no reason to fight him. It only takes a single legend in Barovia of Adventurers that killed him, and he came back 3 months later and brought them back. It instantly removes the motivation, and places players in a state of powerlessness. If that’s what they are ok with playing, that’s fine, but most players in my experience want to feel heroic and accomplished, not powerless and meaningless...
Explaining the Curse is a good idea. As I mention, better to say nothing about what happens after Strahd is defeated.
How to D&D true, but I would personally guess that Strahd would be bragging about his apparent immortality and invincibility. It might even be part of how he messes with the players, taunting them with it. He may let them kill him for kicks and giggles, but it also seems like people would remember that he can’t die, even if it is only the characters in the module who have been around that long. They might say it’s pointless... and at that point, I usually ask why I’m telling this story in particular? Is the only memorable thing about it in Strahd’s timeline the characters? Strahd could be at a breaking point, making this adventure something worth telling out of all the times adventurers have come and gone.
I guess in the end, it seems like his invincibility would heavily play into how he approached situations. What if he let the players kill him after the 3rd or 4th session, just so they could try and unite Barovia against him, allowing him to relive his youth of conquest in a few months when he resurrects? That might make this particular adventure more worth telling. There would be a larger problem for players to deal with then, raising the stakes and creating an adventure for even higher level adventurers. Does that make sense? Sorry for rambling by the way 😅
@@SpookyGhostIsHere Lots of ways to do it.
open worlds can be a problem.... BUT a DM can guide them with NPC's.... And the ONE HOUSE everyone talks about not liking. Drop it. use more random encounters to make up the leveling. Or have them meat some a couple of higher level NPCs to help them fly thru it. Players can play the NPCs even.
I hadnt played in years but getting back into it. I have the original strahd. So probably not going to buy the new book. Will find something else to get them to that level.
Thanks for the feedback 😀
I need advice: as a DM I dont buy this plot, and I cant stand the dinner shennanigans... Seems to me this adventure would be much better if Strahd and his Minions had some limits.
Have anyone done something like that? I am considering Strhad being unaware of the PCs at first
The biggest problem with Curse of Strahd is that its 5th edition. Pick up a copy of the 2nd edition Ravenloft box set, a copy of 1st edition Ravenloft, and a copy of House of Strahd from 2nd edition. Problem fixed.
lol. I have played the original adventure. Nothing is perfect. I know what you're trying to say.
I thought the third one is still buried in the vineyard?
It's been missing for a while.
The problem with all the 5th edition DND adventures is they are too railroady .. Wizards should of made adventure packs and locations not full blown lead by the nose campaigns but stuff to help Dms craft their own adventures
Yes. The Wizards of the Coast adventurers are much to long.
Character death is NOT a problem, it’s a plot hook. They can be brought back by Barovia’s Dark Powers. Having a Dark Patron/Matron can be a way to gain insights. It’s not all gravy, at adventure end the dark powers may not let you leave, or may try and put you on the throne to take Strahd’s place as Lord/Lady of Barovia.
Some people see Character death as a problem. I agree that death is not the end in Barovia.
@@HowtoRPG These people need to get over it. The threat of death is what keeps the game in general interesting.
That said, you don't always have to go for killing the characters. Like the hags at the mill may want to spare the PCs to enlist them in their dream pastry operations. Both selling the addictive treats in town and bringing children back to be baked into the pastries. Or if the players face Strahd early, he may drop them off in the nearest town with a taunting message to either give him an actual challenge next time or learn their place under his boot.
I just got done with Curse of Strahd with a party of 5, plus their followers. Honestly... Party was too strong for the campaign. A cleric of Selune; a paladin of Tempes, a warforge battle master, and a dragonborn barbarian had a few tough encounters, but overall had minimal threats to them. They were level 9 by the time it finished, but dropped Strahd as early as 5th level at the Wintersplinter grove.
Did Strahd have a big enough force of troops and minions. A Vampire alone is no match for 5+ characters, particularly if the players are highly experienced. What tactics did you use with Strahd. There a lot of reasons why this could of happened.
My 4 players (plus werewolf ally Zuleika) kicked Strahd's ass in two rounds. They got the Sunsword from the armory, and got the Helm of Radiance in the same place, so they just focused on him. I had decided that, at this point of the module, Strahd using his lair power to ran away would lead to a tedious pursuit (the players were pretty tired from almost 2 years playing, with a toxic player and a newbie DM, so they wouldn't have liked it at all).
Watched through all these CoS a couple times to refresh, ran it back in the olden days :) Thanks so MUCH for this and the players guide (and the others of course) *Grin*
You are very welcome Luck Dragon Lair. I hope you like what is coming in the future.
@15:30 What on earth is that art from?
Pathfinder Role-play Game.
@@HowtoRPG I was gonna say I didn't think it was D&D. That makes sense :) very cool.
So very helpful your advices please keep on doing 👍
Thanks. Oscar, once a month at the end of the month.
Do not skip Death House. It sets the tone for the whole adventure.
It can, but it's not vital in my opinion. I did run the Death House because I had a similar opinion when I started the campaign.
Your solution for 9 the mad mage isn't terribly satisfying. Just remove him seems like a big missed opportunity. What I've done is make each of the players significantly unique and powerful in their own way. Thanks in no small part to u/MandyMod on r/curseofstrahd and her implementation of the dark powers
Thanks for sharing your solution. What your doing with the Mad Mage will not appeal to a lot of Dungeon Masters. But if it works for you, great. I don't actually worry about changing or removing elements from Curse of Strahd.
This is my general experience with strahd, click Read More and scroll to the bottom for my general tips on DMing the game
As someone who's first GM was a 3.5 and CoS fan with Dice luck the first two campaigns I played in were brutal. We were given ample warning, but overall the party was too greedy or foolhardy, and focused almost entirely on destroying Strahd, responding to each interaction with him with endless aggression.
It was a toxic, short sighted group (Spoilers: They said okay to getting the wedding dress and were shocked and horrified of what they were using it for.) Both games ended poorly, we had one true character death, and that was mine because I was moving my piece around while the GM was in the bathroom and wandered into a hyper deadly trap.
Overall, I got the module and tried to run it out of sheer spite, the game fell due to a number of things, but we had a good time and I have a few tips.
1: Try to give your players a effective content warning before playing. Yes the amount of gore and puss and spiders are plentiful. but you also need to consider what kind of evil Strahd (and vampires in general) are. possessive, controlling, abusive, and socially and physically untouchable, in a land where everyone relays to him. I've never encountered a player who had a problem with it, but I also don't think I've seen a player realize (besides a few jokes about him getting #MeToo'ed) just what kind of monster Strahd is, and I wouldn't want anyone to experience this hard modual where the main presence reminds them of their own "Strahds".
2: At the start, Strahd should call your players "Contestants", not meat, or playthings. Strahd is already a difficult, oppresive game with out the constant fear of a vampire lord swooping in and fireballing the party out of sheer "I'm the bad guy, lol." and having a at least civil relationship to the bad guy till the players do something real bad is good to have early game.
3: There's a message in the Module to add some levity to the game.. Not alot of people read that, maybe read that.
4: XP to lvl 3 has a few tips about Strahd, you can look at them, I find them interesting.
I hope this was useful to someone, or at least entertaining, thank you for reading my comment, good luck with your games :)
Thanks Dylan for your advice and sharing your experience.
"Curse of Strahd is not a beginner Dungeon Master adventure"
*laughs/cries in First-time DM*
FR though it's not been too bad so far, but I have been very willing to put a lot of time into prep, so that might change things
All the best. I do feel for Dungeon Masters who start with Curse of Strahd as it's much more prep than Lost Mine of Phandelver.
@@HowtoRPG Likely very true! However my group had already played through that so it wasn't an option. Prep time isn't too much a factor as I have no life
Up to 5 Direwolves appear at the beginning. That is not a "very hard adventure". That is 100% total party kill for any number of level 1 adventurers with no chance to flee. What the actual F.
When the solution to the Death House is "they don't have to enter the Death House", then it is an indication that it is overtuned. So many monsters in the Death House are resistant to non-magic damage or have incredible AC - but level 1 characters likely don't have magic items. What the actual F.
The Invitation to Dinner is a hook placed in 3-4 places. But there is no description of the dinner or why the players should go. Or what happens if they don't go. It is a lame "go here" push in the middle of a sandbox campaign. So so lame.
Fun fact about curse if strahd: its not difficult in the least with an 8 man party.
lol
Thank you for this!
My pleasure, Steve.
I hate seeing so much gatekeeping BS in these videos. “CoS is not suitable for new players.” “CoS is not suitable for new DMs.” Curse of Strahd is perfectly suitable for new players and DMs if they are properly prepared. Players need to be made aware of what they are getting into. Not just the deadly encounters and knowing how to run away, but the tone of the setting. It’s not your classic hero’s journey kind of adventure. It’s a story of survival in a land where nowhere is safe, and nothing is truly as it seems. Knowing that going in, everything else can be overcome with communication with your players and preparation as a DM. The best advice I can give any DM of any experience level running any module is to read the ENTIRE module cover to cover before even starting the campaign. Then review each chapter at least once before you come up on it in session. This is all especially true for CoS. Familiarize yourself with important locations and NPCs. Don’t be afraid to call a session early if they complete what you have prepared. No D&D is better than bad D&D. If you get stuck, reach out to your community for help. Reddit has an amazing community of DMs in r/CurseofStrahd.
What you have stated as necessary for the adventure are not skill that new players or Dungeon Masters usually have. Thanks for proving my point.
People keep saying that CoS is not suitable for new DMs, but then don’t give specific examples of why. I started CoS as my first ever campaign as a DM at the start of quarantine and I’ve had a blast. I guess I’ve just been confused as to why it’s bad for newbies? The prep work has been no trouble and it’s been really fun to tie together some of the disconnected threads scattered throughout the module. Plus, I feel it’s easier because the characters are stuck in the demi plane of Barovia. I just have to worry about this one valley, rather than dealing with an open world where the players could drop the story and go off literally anywhere. It’s great. :)
How to D&D
You really think new players and DMs don’t know how to read and communicate with each other? That’s literally all it is. What exactly is so daunting about this module that makes it such a forbidden prize only for use once you’ve paid the troll at the gate?
Sounds like very strict and combat-focused way of DMing this module inspired this guide - especially parts about being deadly ( as many other adventures are for careless adventurers). 5+ players, companions, etc soudns liek AL or very old-school HnS approach. There are few good points, but most are either combat-focused approach, or could be put down for any module. Few plot-points (like gem from WoW) were not very creative or surprising - example of better idea was (found somewhere on reddit) to put this gem in hands of Abbot from Krezk, then into his "Creation"
These issues where taken from the Internet. Common problems Dungeon Masters experienced and asked for help with. These issues with Curse of Strahd are often a product of inexperienced Dungeon Mastering and playing. Which is why the common calls for help are around combat.
The most OVERUSED pre made module that EVERYONE USES
Maybe...
It's used so much because it's the BEST module released for 5e so far.
@@axemel I agree, but not for beginners.
@@HowtoRPG I could agree to that. I think Lost Mine of Phandelver is probably the best starting adventure published for 5e.
@@axemel Yep.
I’m a Curse of Strahd DM and I’m basically rewriting it at this point. There’s so much contextually wrong... the Vistani are a racist depiction of Roma people. 2e Ravenloft even gave Van Richten a venue to ask for forgiveness from their people, and in 5e they’ve regressed this character to a genocidal maniac. His story doesn’t add up with Ezmerelda’s.
In general, there’s With so little explained in their politics. They tried to bite off so much and everything is half written. I’m pretty much expanding it, rewriting it, and trying to make it more player centric.
That is generally the case with all adventures.
They are not a racist depiction. They are not depicted as all bad. Some ally with Strahd and some don't.
Interesting point about Van Richten
The God you never knew “habitually drunk” and “known scammers”. It’s... pretty bad.
Yeah they are constantly depicted as drunks, thieves, violent... its bad.
@@NoThanksGirlyPop that's not always the case, i interpret the vistani at Tser Pool as cheerfull, colourfull, happy and generally misterious, though they do have a problem with drinks and there are some of them who are spies of Strahd. This depiction of "vistani is all bad" is more a racist interpretation of what other people in the Dominions of Dread think about them, but it isn't always the case.
My players teamed up with Strahd to fight Vampyr and free him/Barovia of his curse
They are now level 18 and have Strahd, Mordenkainen, Argynvost, and an army of Barovian soldiers at their disposal
You have reshape the story into your own creation. Everyone can do that.
As a player, I hated curse of Strahd. It all felt overly scripted and contrived, more like an amusement park ride than a Dungeons and Dragons adventure. Dreary, punishing world, unsympathetic NPCs, unfair challenges. Lame "story," I was glad when it was over. Maybe fun for some masochistic goth edgelord.
Not everyone will like the adventure. I have had a player who had their own reasons for not liking it.
This was exactly how I felt. My character tee had no reason to like anyone in barovia. Everyone we met were unsympathetic assholes. It felt like the module wanted us to just murder everyone.
The big one I’m still mad about is the module expects you to go have dinner with the evil vampire everyone tells you is going to kill you.
The module also spends all its time reinforcing how pointless your actions are, and how Strahd knows everything and is super powerful, which just makes it all pointless. There’s almost no loot, nothing to buy if you get some, and he whole thing just made me feel awful unless we were in combat.
"You increase the party size to 5+ players". Right, you obviously never actually played DnD lmao. I'm lucky I have four players XD.
You sound like a DM I wouldn’t want to play with.
@@DJShears You don't know me. I don't know you. My home group consists of six people who Dungeon Master differently, and we accept each other's style.
I respect the research you did but I disagree with this entire video. And your speculation I.e. "strahd probably knows where everything is".
Also don't let the players know that strahd resurrects after the adventure?
I think your message is for dms running this for new players. Rather than dms running this for seasoned or mature players.
Either way. Upvote for research and links.
Thanks. Personally, I don't think there are problems with the Curse of Strahd, but my opinion is not the video topic. I selected common problems that Dungeon Masters and Player's had with the adventure. I then give a quick and dirty solution to their issue with the adventure. Most of the time it's new Dungeon Masters and Player's that have problems with the Curse of Strahd, but not always. We can disagree if you like.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have a player in my game who is basically Frankenstein's Monster. He's just a stitched monstrosity of many men and has never played this module. I've made him out of the parts of people of Barovia and given him expertise in skill checks related to their skills in life. Such as Gustave Durst's arm gave him harpsicord proficiency in the Death House and Izzek's arm gave him proficiency in charcoal drawing which was a proficiency he chose for himself and I just decided Izzek can draw well. I put the 3rd seed in him as his power source and he was constructed by the Abbot and Blinsky. He's searching for two little girls from a farm he lived on and served as a guardian of the place. The girls were both brought to Barovia and mixed together full metal alchemist Nina style. They have replaced Piddelwick 2 and I've rigged my Tarroka Deck to make the girls the party's fated npc. These "holes" are just room to homebrew to me. I enjoy putting my personal touch on games I run and welcome these perceived oversights as room to do my work.
Bruh...
You state the campaign is difficult to run as a DM yet suggest to run it with a 5+ party, which btw have the potential to recruit ally npcs...
You left out the context of those ideas I presented. I did not say that DM's should not run Curse of Strahd.
FIRST!
No tag-backs!
Ok
@@HowtoRPG - Meh. It loses something over TWO YEARS. =P
Click bait title. Curse of Strahd don’t really have problems. All the points you describe are DM’s problems and dumb/newbies players problems (yeaaah kill and burn everything). Ravenloft is a gothic horror world. All is based on ambiance and gothic horror, fears and weaknesses of the characters and the way they will fight them. The best advice is to read first the Von Richten guide, Dracula (as Strahd is an allegory of him and Irena of Mina Harker), and watching old hammer movies. The fact Strahd cannot be destroyed is just simple. He is Barovia and Barovia is him, each world, region of Ravenloft is linked and created for his dark lord and by consequence each dark lord is prisoner of his world but cannot really die. But it seems you didn’t understood this.
You took a lot of time to restate many of my own points, then insult me. What?