Kitchen sink approaches play against what make some campaign settings so appealing. Otherwise? The flavor of a setting is in what makes it unique, what makes it stand out, what makes it different. It works when doing a one-shot, it works as something Strahd can do or undo, but it doesn't work as something that's always there and that can only be circumvented with a magic potion. I also thought Barovia the village being permanently locked behind mists rather.logic breaking. Deciding that they were distinct from human was always gross, and the setting played too much into stereotypes. My main tweaks would be to some of the more problematic elements in the setting. I think of Ravenloft as primarily a 3e setting - while native Ravenloft characters weren't completely unknown in 2e, 3e is when some game developers really sat down to make it into a cohesive campaign setting that people were born in, lived in, and died in, rather than using the weekend in hell as the main or major focus. How would you go about updating the original setting? Would you switch around some darklords, add domains, remove domains, change things, etc? How would you integrate new classes like artificers and warlocks? What about dragonborn and the like? Any of the post-2e undead that you think would be especially appropriate?Īlternatively, assuming a third-party route that's unlikely to ever be approved, what Pathfinder monsters and concepts would you add?
To the best of my knowledge, there's no full Ravenloft campaign setting that's been announced yet, though. There's also references to Azalin in an upcoming book, and there might be some more Ravenloft content in the future. They did incorporate some new 4e setting concepts, such as the more demonic gnolls and the Shadowfell itself, but they weren't really connected to each other and weren't really the same setting.ĥe has Curse of Strahd, which is mostly just the original Ravenloft adventure again but includes Rudolph van Richten as a character.
Since it was third-party, it didn't really get to use much of the new 3e setting concepts or material, and it didn't last until the end of the edition.Ĥe had a few individual Domains of Dread in the Shadowfell, but other than Barovia, they were all entirely new as far as I can remember. The 3e version was a third-party product with some special licensing agreements and privileges, but had to drop all explicit references to other settings (which I found more immersive) and had to rename some deities (Bane becomes the Lawgiver, for instance). Ravenloft is primarily an AD&D 2e setting, culminating in the Domains of Dread book that put all of the previous material into a unified whole and put the focus on local characters instead of "weekend in hell" scenarios about PCs from other worlds trying to get back out.
I've been running some of the original adventures and I've been in a general Ravenloft mood and thinking about expanding it after my campaign's version of the Grand Conjunction happens. This is about the entire campaign setting, not the adventure set in Strahd's castle. So, just a fun little Halloween-themed thread, ideally.