Good post, Ken, and fitting tribute to the coolest setting of them all. I did own, and run (clumsily), the original Ravenloft module, so when the Black Box appeared in a mall bookstore one day, I bought it immediately. The D&D games I ran back then (I must have been 13 or 14) were pretty disjointed and sporadically organized, but still memorable.
Feast of Goblyns was the first adventure I ran for the setting, and the artwork of Stephen Fabian really triggered something in me. Some years ago, long after Ravenloft disappeared from TSR's/WotC's interest, and I went into a frenzy acquiring everything I could via Ebay or other sources. In the end, I think there's only about 2 Ravenloft products I don't own. Got everything else and loved it all.
I always found some of the sidebar suggestions on how to make the adventures scary to be a bit unrealistic and silly, but in the end the premise for Ravenloft is amazing. The darklords, the Mists, Vistani...all so damned cool.
Back in '93, after the Red Box came out, I gave my Black Box to a friend at work. (She and her husband were gamers, and she was interested in the setting.) Years later, I had second thoughts about my decision, but in 2003, my late friend Brian surprised me when he showed up for our weekly game with an armload of early Ravenoft products, including the Black Box, that he and a pal found at a garage sale for about ten bucks. And he gave them all to me, because he loved the campaign that was running. (He was a caliban barbarian.)
Yeah, I agree that many of the sidebars in the early products didn't too much to help with horror DMing. To WotC's credit, the much-later Heroes of Horror did pretty well with this.
Right now, I'm in three PbP games, and I'm seriously considering running a Ravenloft PbP game when one or two of those (but hopefully not yours) runs aground.
Re: You've made me a happy personken_of_ghastriaNovember 2 2009, 17:02:25 UTC
Andrew,
Thanks for visiting the blog! You're the closest thing to a Darklord that I know, so it's a kick to see you here. :-)
The "Book of S___" netbooks from the Secrets of the Kargatane were -- and are -- brilliant. The work that you, John Mangrum, Andrew Wyatt, John Baker, etc. did on those books inspired a ton of great ideas for my campaign. Locknar Cove (from The Book of Sacrifices) became a focal point for the plot with the psionic vampire I mentioned above, and the Knife of the Ghoul (from that same netbook) became a sacred artifact for a ghoul cult in a Nova Vaasa story that spun off from Goodman Games' Dungeon Crawl Classics #5: Aerie of the Crow God. And John Baker's bio of Stezen D'Polarno in The Book of Souls is an all-time favorite of mine.
I'll be happy to show you the Red Box the next time we meet! It's an excellent product. With the Black Box, Ravenloft was still geared as a "Weekend in Hell" side trek for other D&D campaigns. With the Red Box, it started making the steps toward becoming a more realized world in its own right.
Yeah, 3 PbP games is a lot these days. I had been happy with two, but earlier this month, a friend in Quebec (who had run an excellent online campaign about five years ago) invited me to join his new game, the first he was running since those days. I couldn't turn him down! (I'm running a warforged cleric of nature. For obvious reasons, I was itching to try an unusual cleric!)
Nope, this is Forgotten Realms, but the DM said any 4e book was acceptable for character creation, so.... He accepted my PC, even though Faerun doesn't have warforged. He's established that my PC stumbled through some planar gate that formed, presumably during a conflict in the Last War, yet memories of his Eberron days seem to be fading the more time that he spends in Faerun.
I'd been considering a warforged cleric of nature as a backup PC for your game in case anything BAD happened to Belarin, so it seemed like a good opportunity. The only difference is that, for your game, I would've chosen some of the Nature prayers that we developed for the Clerics book.
I was hoping that WotC was going to produce a 4E Ravenloft setting (even though I felt pretty sure it was going to be Dark Sun, even before the official announcement). It's a great setting ... as you've noted, it just needs a little more care than a standard D&D campaign.
At Gen Con, WotC announced a Ravenloft cooperative board game, presumably along the lines of FFG's Battlestar Galactica game or Z-Man's Pandemic, which might be released at Gen Con 2010. As much as I'd like to see a new RPG version of Ravenloft, this will do for now! Besides, I have ALL the 3rd-edition Ravenloft books, and on some level, I'd be sad if they suddenly became obsolete.
Azalin's plot and the fate of "S" in the Gazetteersken_of_ghastriaNovember 2 2009, 19:21:41 UTC
For Ravenloft fans like me who read the Ravenloft Gazetteers and who, after that product line's termination, pondered the motives of the lich Azalin and the fate of his mysterious servant "S," there is a terrific thread running on the Fraternity of Shadows site. Comments from some of the talented folks behind those products reveal many mindblowing tidbits about "S," Azalin, and the Gentleman Caller that would have been exposed had the Gazetteers continued.
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Feast of Goblyns was the first adventure I ran for the setting, and the artwork of Stephen Fabian really triggered something in me. Some years ago, long after Ravenloft disappeared from TSR's/WotC's interest, and I went into a frenzy acquiring everything I could via Ebay or other sources. In the end, I think there's only about 2 Ravenloft products I don't own. Got everything else and loved it all.
I always found some of the sidebar suggestions on how to make the adventures scary to be a bit unrealistic and silly, but in the end the premise for Ravenloft is amazing. The darklords, the Mists, Vistani...all so damned cool.
>> Any takers? <<
I'm a taker.
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Yeah, I agree that many of the sidebars in the early products didn't too much to help with horror DMing. To WotC's credit, the much-later Heroes of Horror did pretty well with this.
Right now, I'm in three PbP games, and I'm seriously considering running a Ravenloft PbP game when one or two of those (but hopefully not yours) runs aground.
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Care to be in five? ;)
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There are some great RL netbooks on the Secrets of the Kargatane website, www.kargatane.com, including some of my own favorite game writing.
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Thanks for visiting the blog! You're the closest thing to a Darklord that I know, so it's a kick to see you here. :-)
The "Book of S___" netbooks from the Secrets of the Kargatane were -- and are -- brilliant. The work that you, John Mangrum, Andrew Wyatt, John Baker, etc. did on those books inspired a ton of great ideas for my campaign. Locknar Cove (from The Book of Sacrifices) became a focal point for the plot with the psionic vampire I mentioned above, and the Knife of the Ghoul (from that same netbook) became a sacred artifact for a ghoul cult in a Nova Vaasa story that spun off from Goodman Games' Dungeon Crawl Classics #5: Aerie of the Crow God. And John Baker's bio of Stezen D'Polarno in The Book of Souls is an all-time favorite of mine.
So you've helped make me a happy Ravenloft fan!
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3 pbp games now? Yikes. Well, if you ever DO start up a Ravenloft one, you can count me interested... :)
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Yeah, 3 PbP games is a lot these days. I had been happy with two, but earlier this month, a friend in Quebec (who had run an excellent online campaign about five years ago) invited me to join his new game, the first he was running since those days. I couldn't turn him down! (I'm running a warforged cleric of nature. For obvious reasons, I was itching to try an unusual cleric!)
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I'd been considering a warforged cleric of nature as a backup PC for your game in case anything BAD happened to Belarin, so it seemed like a good opportunity. The only difference is that, for your game, I would've chosen some of the Nature prayers that we developed for the Clerics book.
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You bet. :)
I was hoping that WotC was going to produce a 4E Ravenloft setting (even though I felt pretty sure it was going to be Dark Sun, even before the official announcement). It's a great setting ... as you've noted, it just needs a little more care than a standard D&D campaign.
Reply
At Gen Con, WotC announced a Ravenloft cooperative board game, presumably along the lines of FFG's Battlestar Galactica game or Z-Man's Pandemic, which might be released at Gen Con 2010. As much as I'd like to see a new RPG version of Ravenloft, this will do for now! Besides, I have ALL the 3rd-edition Ravenloft books, and on some level, I'd be sad if they suddenly became obsolete.
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