D&D | Running Curse of Strahd | DM Tips
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- Опубликовано: 11 сен 2024
- One of the greatest modules in 5e, what can possibly be improved!
Here are my tips for running this adventure into the dark heart of Barovia. Advice on players, dm prep, additions and an overview of the book.
I’ve been looking for decent tips on RUclips for the last few days and so far this is one of the best videos for it. Thank you
One of the way I combatted the slight railroading at the start of the campaign was by making them meet Strahd immediately as they enter Barovia. When they find the dead body with the letter, I had two wolves eating the corpse, and gave them the choice to get the letter, or pass by the distracted wolves. Either way, during the fight or if they pass by, they see a massive dire wolf with glowing red eyes. When/if someone attacks it, the wolf reacts with counter spell or shield, and basically one shots them with a spell, before chuckling and leaving. It gets the players hyped to get out of there, and explore what else Barovia has to offer, as well as setting them up to expect wolves to be a bad deal.
Then, in the cursed House, I basically did weeping angels with the stuffed wolves in the house. Whenever they didn't look, the wolves moved. There are 7 different wolves, 3 in the hunting lounge (room 3) and 4 in the second level main hall. I role played the wolves to make sounds whenever the party wasn't looking. Then, if there were 4+ wolves in an unbarricaded room, they would knock down the door (which scares the bageezes out of a party which are on a different level.) If a single party member tried to stare at the wolves by themselves, I'd warn them they'd have to not blink, and then every now and then, with a harder DC every time they don't get a break, make a constitutional saving throw. The wolves weren't stupid, either. They would sneak up, hide behind corners, and do all manner of scary things. If a party member got snuck up on, that member would make a perception check against the wolves stealthed advantage. Fail meant automatic Knockout, no loss to health. The wolves would then drag the unconscious player to a fire place, and get a tinder box to light the fire and burn the player alive. Nothing's scarier than an unconscious party member in a fire place with a nearby wolf statuewith a tinder box in it's mouth. Part of the fear, and something to remember and reinforce in curse of Strahd, is that not knowing exactly how everything works is the scariest thing ever. Mystery plants fear which can be reinforced with threatenings.
That being said, this module is a TON of fun, and I'm looking forward to the rest of it. Thanks for reading my ramblings!
those are some great ideas, thanks for sharing!
The way I set the stage was by starting the players of by instead of using theirs own characters, for the very first session I had them playing as children who had wandered of from the nearby village and stumbled upon the castle. It was very dark out, and there was a thunder storm. At the gate of the castle they saw Strahd. He had a smile. A flash of lightning, and he was gone. They then heard a voice inside their head. “It appears I have guests tonight.” Strahd proclaimed. “And you are invited.” The commoners were then brutally killed
I'm gonna have to steal this :3
Sounds fun but stuffed wolfs just sounds silly
In my reality, a group of 4 players is huge. If I can get 2 players to sit and play consistently, its a victory.
My fluctuating group of 6 or 7 is now down to 2 or 3
100% agree about the beginning, really the weakest part of the adventure is the village of barovia. In my experience the players begin to frantically search the area thinking they are missing something.
my take on Madame Eva's prophecy included describing each item as presenting themselves to a devotee of the 'Path of Arms/Faith/Knowledge'(feel free to use other words) with all three paths recommended for certain victory.
This scene doubles as additional backstory for the characters; who may not know each other very well apart from huddling together trying to survive.
Have Eva relate the Path of XYZ to a character who at first glance may not be the party member picked first for dodgeball in that domain; maybe your Sorcerer had to kill a rival in school in self-defense and can secretly swing steel, the Rogue DOES have honor and there is no one more faithful, the Druid is book smart etc etc. Foster a seed of hope/confidence in your PCs that may have them doubting Eva is talking to the right party member...? That way any party member can help form Voltron in the final battle once they eventually find their confidence.
Having those private traits revealed can be embarrassing but sometimes having a secret among 'friends' can build bonds; it also serves to shake off some of the railroad elements that drop any individual in their role without giving them the chance to step up to the role or spite the fates for such an unfair trick that will certainly doom them all.
And of course be sure to throw in some red herrings just to mess with them, like a preordained betrayal or abandonment.
If you give out too many positive vibes they might start believing they're going to live through this.
Bonus points if you can weave in a story that corresponds with the last known location of each treasure; because the Tarokka card descriptions are so brief.
eg. a story tells of a bishop who fell in battle while not having lacked in devotion but was simply stabbed through the heart by a swordsman of volcanic fury and ashen soul. The SoR now a mere trinket festooned on his bier, after living over a hundred years; with never an hour of sleep lost to thoughts that his black heart could be weighed or measured.
Really nice suggestions. Cheers! (Good to hear a fellow Welshman dm)
I explained that its like say fallout, where there is the first quest which sets up the story then its sandbox
“The Sanguine Rose” rmade me think of Quentin Tarantino’s “From Dusk Till Dawn”.
Makes me think of Bordello of Blood from Tales from the Crypt XD but also what you said.
Great video! One question: how did you inform the players of the nature of the tome of strahd (being able to lock him up so he won’t rise again)?
@@NerdKingdom2018 Thank you!
Thing i didnt like about the video is that he said that Strahd keeps coming to kill the players. No, he doesnt, he toys with them by trying to turn them against each other or make them spawn. Simply making this about just killing takes away from the intrigue of Strahd. Read the book, and reread the lore in it, and really push the rp, not just the fights. Sure, if all the players want is to kill stuff, then go that route, but if you have people that want story and rp I think they will be disappointed.
I cringed when he creased the pages as he opened the book. 😬
It still haunts me, the camera was in the way!
LOL small and consistant players is a unicorn for online games now
That's a real shame
don't think brothel works well for a horror campaign unless it's in the first city the PCs visit before the reveal
once my group figured out they are in a nightmare land, no one goes off alone or wanted to see the sights
CoS suffers a bit from economics & logistics fallacies where no one has jobs, customers, money(unless it's ancient inherited wealth) or grows food
great module nonetheless; it has all the tropes I love
rr ww as far as the food bit goes, I changed things a bit to have the druids of Yester Hill responsible for much of the food grown in Barovia. Run right, it slightly complicates the player’s involvement in the events at YH, and can raise a lot of questions about Barovia’s future should the problem be approached with violence.
Make your party eat/consume bats and werewolves. Simple :)
That's fair, it could be placed anywhere or not used at all 🙂
I was thinking about purchasing it since I don't have the time or creativity to write my own stuff. And it does look really good imo.
But you said it's a horror adventure.. and I'm a giant wimp when it comes to that. Is it spooky if you're the DM as well? Or would you recommend it at all as a first time DM-campaign?
Any advice would be much appreciated!
@@NerdKingdom2018 Thanks for the swift response!
If that's the case it definitely sounds like it would be fun with the people I have in mind.
Most of us actually played phandelver within the starter set when we first got into D&D 😊. But I'll look into the other adventures from the yawning portal and maybe let my players choose what kinda setting they want to play in.
Thank you for the input!
@@miriam7872 It's perfectly possible as a first or second adventure for a beginning DM. I even think it's far more better than Lost Mines of Phandelver. You just have to read the story thoroughly, you have to spend time to prepare things, but that's all part of the fun. Be sure to keep a tracker as a DM too, so you know what's been said/found -- a crucial tip.
Good advice. Nice video. subscribed. ;)
You have to find the 3 items and give them to the person on card 4 in order to kill strahd.
meektheshy that sounds pretty awfull tbh, we found these 3 really cool magical items and now we have to give them all to this random chucklefuck (some of the persons you can draw are just stupidly uninteresting)
@@silmeerman9471 right? Like a random child, some old guy, or literally no one
Hello, how can i pre-prepare my adventure if all encounters are random? like ... how can i prepare the place, npcs and creatures using tarokka deck, without losing the felling of a random encounter?
@@NerdKingdom2018 Thank you very much.
@@TheYurimhk You can perfectly "stage" the reading, so as a DM you just decide where the special treasures/artifacts are located.
Can ı play it with 2 players
hey, quick question because im currently preparing this to run with a group of 8 players... whats yojr reasoning for making it a smaller group? couldnt find an explanation in the video :/
@@NerdKingdom2018 i was wondering this as well. Thank you for the clarification ☺
There's safety in numbers. I'm limiting my group to 5 at most, probably only 4 though. If this is meant to be a gothic horror campaign, can't have my players feeling safe.
8 is way too much, fucks with the pacing especially if people aren't quick af with their turns
Thanks for the tips. How long does the campaign take to run ? (Nber of sessions + time per session?)
If you have 2-4 sessions per level, then you can expect 20 to 40, but it can go for 50 or even 75 in some cases
omg i literally just realized i lost that big map that came with the book
Noooo! Hope you find it
@@NerdKingdom2018 I found it! Thank you so much 😄 this video reminded me that it existed
I have 8 players....is this gonna go well or should I divide them into two teams, add in some aspects of another module for filler and intersect them?
Divide!
Soooo I ran this with 16 but had to divide into 2 groups of 8 and do a lot of tweaking to make things work. All depends on you 🙂
Do you think having 5 players is ok?
@@NerdKingdom2018 So it is good enough for curse of strahd :)
So, I will run it with 5 players. Is that too many?
A party with 4 to 5 players is the best in my opinion.
4 seemed perfect for me.
But if a player was absent for a session every encounter was deadly; and strained DM non-interference
unless your group can have perfect attendance, 5 is a good idea.
Any advise on just 1 dm and 1 player? That's all I can get. :(
You can give him a sidekick that he can run or purchase the aide of a mercenary a that you can run to give him a fighting chance. Fortunately Curse of strahd has a ton of npcs that can join up such esmerelda, van richten, mordenkainen etc.
Some of my best sessions have been 1 DM and 1 player 😁
@@NerdKingdom2018 didn't expect a reply suddenly. I'm still playing, and it's still 1 DM and 1 player. Well. After 2 years I've gotten the hang of it. I still haven't experienced multiple players. But I must say it's still fun. Although I barely got 1 game a month. But I dare say I'm getting real good at adjusting on the spot, cause since it's 1 player. I barely have 10 seconds to think about how to react. Also combat is either simplified to bare bones cause there's only 1 player, or extremely complex as I had to run a bunch of NPC at the same time. Still, I hope 1 day I get to experience more players.
@@kinciscorner that's awesome! Glad to know you and your player are having so much fun with it 😁
Also read www.reddit.com/r/CurseofStrahd/comments/9bpzbh/curse_of_strahd_reloaded_compilation_thread/ . Invaluable information.
how many players do you think is good?
@@NerdKingdom2018 i have 4 regular players with interest from a 5th who was my CoS dm who wants to be a player in it
I would run it with 4 players, and about 2 or 3 underpowered NPCs that endear themselves to the PCs. Once the players get to 5th level, I would start killing off the NPCs one by one. And then I might haunt the PCs later with the NPCs as ghosts, varghouls, or zombies with a Wisdom save to be able to fight them.
I had 5 players and me as the dm when I did it
Hello, Mate! I’m new here, and I’m going to subscribe, but I think these videos would be way better in the future if you used essentially a slide show of relevant photos so we aren’t watching you flip between things quite so much. You should also know that you are technically in violation of Fair Use, but I doubt WotC will come after you for it.
Have a look at some other RUclips videos where they flip thru the books - and in most cases they were given them by WotC for just such purposes.
If you can pause the video and read anything on the above pages, then you should use your microscope vision superpowers for the greater good of mankind
I have pretty good eyesight and I can't make out any of the small print
Your accent sounds like Björk's accent
What is that
Eh? He sounds Welsh to me. Bjork is Icelandic.
The name is inspired by... No it's stolen, not inspired
All the best ideas are stolen 🙂