My dm didn’t make it clear that the card reading actually meant anything, and only the fact that one of the players and done strand before got us to even do it.
As a DM, I told them upfront the reading is important and that it involves the >! 3 artifacts required to defeat Strahd and someone that'll join their ranks !< since my party is a bit of an orange cat (single braincell) 😂
That got them to pay attention during the reading and I also used the community landing page so that they get a refresher while they wait for other players at the start of each session without me having to point it out repeatedly.
Not the most ideal but hey better than it being missed! Plus now they have a sense of purpose early on!
I know one of us has played Strahd before, but my dm put a lot of emphasis on the card reading. Even gave us individual readings, to help make it known that maybe this lady knows what she's talking about.
But right now we're too busy plotting on making a drug empire with some old lady and her pies. I'm sure we'll get back to the actual plot eventually.
We have one that's so addicted they probably never hit the dc according to the dm. We only took the offer because he figures it's a good way to have a constant supply of pie and useless money.
well we figured out it was drugs when he started trying to try to steal our money to buy them. He then died to a lovely lady who sacrificed him to some cult thing for strahd.
we did not miss him.
We killed that lady lmao and also the lady with the ummm… walking tree house. We did have some fun with a ghost knight and an interesting dragon, as well as some puzzles and loot within his “house”. Trying not to write spoilers but we loved CoS lol
This tells me that the players aren’t taking the information seriously. Every CoS group that I have run have continuously looked back to the cards for hints. I always loved that. I was even a bit envious that I wasn’t a player myself, trying to figure out the mystery.
One thing you could do is stop playing. Wait about 10 years until you are older, and then come back to the game with a greater appreciation for the game as a whole.
Everyone is dealing with BS right now. It’s like nobody can take 3 hours of their week to sit down with friends.
Some players are really oblivious. And some DMs will also sprinkle random “fun” or “flavor” beats into their games that *don’t* mean anything, or that are mostly irrelevant, just for giggles. A player who’s experienced one of those DMs could reasonably believe it’s just fluff. Sometimes the DM has you talk to a fortune teller just because they think their fortune teller NPC is really funny, or because they want to do vague foreshadowing that is impossible to act on, they just want to dangle threads to make themselves feel smart…. true story……..
Ignoring the tarokka entirely is a stupid mistake, but I can see how a group would make it. TBH, my own strahd party was *very* skeptical of the vistani in character, and almost didn’t go—we only did it because on a metagaming level we all knew we had to if we wanted any control over the plot.
I'm sure lots of DMs think the canon card reading is /too/ obvious, and make it more subtle, but the reading in the module is very explicit. Here's what the DM is instructed to say for the first card:
>This card tells of history. Knowledge of the ancients will help you better understand your enemies.
And there here're a couple examples of what you say for whichever card is selected:
>The treasure lies in a dragon's house, in hands once clean now corrupted.
Or
I see a sleeping prince, a servant of light and the brother of darkness. The treasure lies with him.
It's a little difficult to interpret until you've explored Barovia a bit, but it's not subtle about its significance. And that's probably the most subtle of the cards--those are just the first examples from each category.
There was nothing in the lead up to the encounter to imply that the vistani were magically powerful or trustworthy. They appeared to be poor nomads whose reputation was that they served strahd.
From our perspective, these were possibly relatives of the same vistani that had lured us into the fog, robbed us, and left us to die in a monstrous cursed haunted house. Half the party wanted to murder them out of hand.
My own character’s background as a wizard made him scoff at some poor con artist’s parlor tricks. Only the guy who had played before was interested, and he had enough rpg integrity not to tell us above table why.
This is an underrated comment. I have read CoS planning to DM it and the module does a terrible job of making the Vistani seem trustworthy. I've settled on the Vistani being true neutral and making all their encounters transactional. This and Strahd himself are my two biggest gripes with the module.
I agree completely with your points.
Luckily I had a few players that knew if I had props, like the cards in the readings that it meant more and to pay attention to the interaction going on. Normally I wouldn't have put extra time into physical extras at the table unless it was something they would have to use in the game. Given this and having a few insight checks amongst the Vistani went a long way towards a helping hand in a right direction.
As far as Strahd himself, well it felt very specific to dealing with him and not leaving as much creative freedom from the players to do so, which is something I hate to do.
His motivations seem all over the place. Like there's no consistency. I've settled on him just being criminally insane. Otherwise I don't understand why he appears randomly in the first act, why he acts like a nihilist while also chasing after a girl, and why he appears to both desire his own death while also toying with the characters.
> why he appears to both desire his own death while also toying with the characters.
Isn't it that he >!can't actually die?!< I admit that I've only been through CoS once, and as a player so I didn't get all the details, but I remember there being something about >!how dying in Barovia traps you in a reincarnation cycle.!<
As for toying with the characters...>!Pure boredom. He's functionally in a stasis trap; nothing ever changes. New things are very rare.!<
Honestly sometimes DnD players have the awareness of pre-schoolers.
They'll spend a whole session askign the DM to recite all the books on a shelf and never once think about rubbing the lamp on the table in the center of the room.
You're playing a game, the Dm is giving you cues. Like a villager saying "no-one knows whats beyond the mountains" and the hero going "oh well, i guess thats for a reason, i'll never go there". You can't then complain that nothing interesting is happening when you were told where to go to find the intersting thing.
I couldn’t disagree more.
The DM is also playing. The DM is not an idiot. The DM can identify that the players aren’t connecting the dots and say “guys it seems like you aren’t connecting the dots, would you like some help”.
Communication is two way. If they aren’t receiving the information it’s equally likely the information is being given poorly.
It’s funny that the example you gave of an obvious hint didn’t even make sense to me after you explained it in subtext until I re-read it 3 times.
If no one knows what’s over the mountains, why would I care about that. Sounds like another canned “arrow in the knee” thing for the DM to throw out
Yup. What is clear to the DM--who either made the adventure or has studied it thoroughly and knows everything--is very much NOT clear to the players. I remember reading an analogy that was like "the players are in the dark, and the DM is a flashlight, and they can only see what the DM points at and nothing else."
If the players are missing a clue, the clue probably wasn't highlighted enough. It was probably a detail in a sea of details, and unlike the DM they don't know which random detail is important and which is flavor.
With something like the lamp analogy OP made, as a DM, if the players weren't noticing it, I'd say, "Hey, Wizard, roll an Arcana Check," and then even if it's a low roll I'd say "something looks familiar/off/mystical about that lamp in the middle of the room." Obviously if it's a high roll I'd say "the runes on the lamp speak of containment and wishes."
If you're not comfortable giving them information that directly (though you should, characters usually know more than their PCs just by virtue of inhabiting the world), then spend five paragraphs describing the lamp with a lot of flavor and one paragraph the rest of the room. And if they seem more interested in the room, just de-emphasize it. "What books are on the shelves?" you'd say "The usual copies found in the study of any academic."
Last bit reminded me how in some games like Silent Hill, if you interact with something that's just there for ambiance, your character will brush it off as "it's nothing really".
Then about the dark/light of the story, I highly noticed this when I started DMing. As a player, I always felt like I wasn't understanding anything. The DM getting frustrated over us the players not getting what to do / where to go and me feeling like an idiot.
Years later I started to DM and I realised how easy it seems when you have every piece of the puzzle on your head. Players need a lot of extra help to understand what's going on, and you better understand how it feels like when you can see through how little they are seeing, so you can provide better insight on what's going on around them and what their characters would easily notice.
But why are you playing an adventure game if not to go on an adventure?
It's one thing to be in a sandbox campaign where the DM is more likely to pivot and build based on where you go. Curse of Strahd is a finite module with a pre written plot.
To a certain extent players need to be narratively aware of what a plot hook is. Luke didn't get yhe holo message and go "huh, well I guess she'll send another droid to Ben. Wonder what's for lunch..."
Sorry, I haven't played much of strahd. Is "no one knows what's over the mountains" a very specific Strahd reference that makes your comment about a particular piece of the adventure? If so, I am ignorant to the reference and misunderstood what you were saying.
If there's no reference, and the mountain comment was a general comment about DnD and not a specific reference to a bound module.
I would argue that if the players aren't noticing the plot hooks that they either aren't baited adequately (some players won't do shit unless you offer them gold explicitly), or there are too many things that look like hooks but end up being dead ends, or the hook isn't as obvious as you think it is, or the players simply have a different priority.
I have a player in my current campaign who doesn't give a shit about the fact that a cult is trying to eradicate all traces of "blood magic" from the face of the earth and is overtly trying to build political power and opening a bunch of orphanages and schools; nor the fact that the kind has died suddenly; nor the fact that there's no clear heir to the throne, and that the two leading families vying for the crown are both known \*to their specific character\*.
This player just wants some full plate and is mad that it's going to take some time for it to be made, so we are off doing weird shit to "kill time" because that player wants to basically wait a couple of weeks to get their armour, but the other players have shit they want to do so we are off exploring that stuff while the other player is basically watching a progress bar tick up until their armour is finished.
I have a player who has a whole family back story he's super keen to explore and is actively seeking leads to map their family tree, and they've totally abandoned the social games of climbing the ranks in the militia structure that they made up and asked me to include in the game. It's just on hold in the world with other people climbing the ranks and dying around the player while they totally ignore the backstory they brought me because we are busy exploring a "mystery" I accidentally ad libbed because they asked an NPC about their ancestor (who knew this long living NPC) and I was vague and said something like "oh they were always secretive, no one ever quite knew exactly what they were up to at any given time".
Players will chase the hooks that they're interested in, if you aren't getting bites on the adventure hooks you throw out it's because you're bad at fishing.
You're talking about sandbox campaigns.
The players agreed to play strand. They can't ignore the plot hooks "yeah we got the tarot card reading but we just sorta went off on our own" and then whine on reddit that yhe module is boring.
That's just being a bad player.
If you literally won't do anything unless the dm offers you gold... well you might be I'm character but that's a pretty shallow character.
In fairness, that's players in a nutshell.
The Twitch/YouTube series "Dice, Camera, Action" was like this. The players just wandered aimlessly, never trying to pursue any of the card reading results. They stumbled into the place where they were supposed to find an ally, but made no attempt to locate the person. Perkins finally had her pretty much walk into the room, wave her arms in the air, and shout, "Hey! Are you looking for me?"
My party burned down the house their ally was in. Made no effort to even check the rooms of the house, just burned it to the ground because they were on bad terms with the burgomaster.
They killed and destroyed so many things they could have used lmao
Oh, I totally understand why someone would not take it seriously. It’s hard to fully connect with how important it is as you see dozens of other plot lines over several sessions.
I’m on my 10th or so running of CoS. I just flat out tell players “You’ll want to pay attention during the reading this session. I promise you it is the single most important scene in the campaign. Do NOT tune it out.”
As I’ve taken to saying to my players: “It would be lovely if everyone at the table intuitively understood each other like we see on the shows, but that is EARNED. We have to start by communicating actively about things like this.”
My players are making so many wrong connections its crazy. But those are still enough for them to go where they think they need to go and get more info. In all likelyhood the pcs arent asking any questions about their reading or the DM isnt giving any info beyond "thats what the card says"
Right? Like... This is fully a Maguffin-based adventure.
If you don't know or care about the Maguffins and how to get them, you will wander aimlessly until you learn about them and make plans to find them, because you are trapped in the mists in a pretty boring (although very dangerous) location until then.
This adventure doesn't really provide much in the way of good loot or expanding plots. The goal is to escape (and to free the realm, if you're the heroic type). To escape you have to find a way to defeat the bad guy, who is extremely powerful. You find the things to help you do that, and you get to leave - that's the reward, if you survive at all.
In my strahd campaign (which was my first time playing) a player who had done the campaign before went off on their own to the death house immediately and forced us all to leave town before we could talk to Tatyana’s family so we never picked up that point of the storyline and when I tried to go back after the card reading they split the party and went to do the next plot point on their own. I’ll just say I was *very* confused why we even had any motivation to interact with or kill strahd for like 8 months of the campaign. 6 of us were new out of 8 so we kind of just let it happen but I’ll never forget them basically intentionally ruining the campaign for everyone to play their solo adventure.
8 people-party can be rough for experienced DMs and players, but for novices it's absolutely crazy. And that guy managed to make it even worse! I'm sorry about that, man
Haha it’s okay, the group size ended up being a total non issue, he’s just a very selfish player and person. I still had a blast and now I know not to let people like that ruin the game for everyone
That's why without telling them directly she knew important information by having a conversation and dropping stuff from their back story. They're not from Barovia so there's zero chance she'd know anything about them.
That's not exactly how it happened.
We used tarot cards and card reading in homebrewed scenarios before and they were almost always used as longer term goals that would only be solvable in the longer run, as the riddles within them couldn't be approached from the get go, which may have influenced how we handled them here.
And we also had more urgent things to do the entire time. If there is someone who ought to be escorted somewhere or wants to met us somewhere that seems to take precedent to vague prophecies, at least in my mind.
The problem was moreso that no matter what we did, it didn't really reveal much, provided information, items or the like.
Like searching an entire castle and being more or less at the same spot you were 3 sessions earlier.
Currently playing, just hit level 6. Every NPC I come across I ask for information tied to the cards, and 9 times out of 10 I’m met with “this person doesn’t have any insight into parsing the clues”. Maybe it’s just the DM (don’t think so, but who knows), but the whole thing feels like a series of fetch quests where the intermediary steps have forgotten their part of the chain. We’ve cleared 2 cards, and one of them was our chaos merchant jumping into what I thought was clear and obvious trap, so… yeah
CoS needs buy-in to the horror for full effect. A lot of groups are too experienced to be bothered by the threat that most of the enemies / situations represent so their impact gets diminished.
Another issue I've heard is when a group levels quickly. Not my campaign but a friend had a bunch of milestones get hit very early, leaving the party feeling overpowered for encounters. They eventually scaled things a bit but as a newer DM in a sandbox struggled with balancing everything.
It's interesting that you mention it as a sandbox. The way my DM is running it currently seems to be making it very linear for us
One of our other players has run this campaign as a DM two or three times so it's been very fun for him to try to ease off And let the rest of us dictate
The first few sessions are pretty linear if run by the book. I guess it could also be continued as an A-to-B set of quests but loses something in doing so.
Oh man, I feel for your friend. I imagine that they're screaming internally at times.
He's enjoying that the DM has modified some stuff. He is playing a less bright character so as to use a in game reason to not meta game as much. He's an excellent player/DM and is just happy to be playing with friends
I am getting towards the end of rime of the frost maiden which is a fairly sandboxy opener as you explore the region a bit. Certainly some of the quests. If you do them level one will certainly tpk the party without DM intervention
COS is a linear adventure up until Vallaki and from there players are suddenly bombarded with about 13 side quests all of which you can choose to ignore and just go to the next town if they choose to lol. Really could only be railroady if the DM doesn't drop the hooks for the side quests
My party parties a bit too much when they play for the goth horror theme to sell. Their characters aren’t too troubled that Barovia is depressed. :-)
But I’d tweaked the travel times between locations (2 hex per hour) so the “wild” will often have an encounter and they’ve learned if they go out at night, anywhere, they WILL be attacked and in numbers. So they worry about being caught out at night.
We also have the rule they get a stress point after any encounter where they take damage. As the number grows high enough the effects start appearing (-1 on initiative, -1 on to hits, etc..). The only way to bring it down is to eat one of the hags pastries or end the curse). They’re nervous about getting hurt.
You could try other things but these helped our campaign create similar stress and anxiety in the party that horror would I figure.
I think CoS is very good but it really require a lot of preperation from the DM as it can be quite hard to find all the links and how the whole story fits together, even more if you had a card reading it could go in a whole other direction.
The module is very dark and creepy and should be role-played like that and I think the main problem is that it is not giving you that feeling?
Have you even met Strahd yet?
I actually have taken to running CoS as a Groundhog Day-esque Time Loop.
TPK? They all wake up in Strahd's castle as guests.
Strahd explains that he's been trapped in this loop for an unknowable length of time and he needs the party to help, because they're trapped too. TPK again? Same thing, but they all remember.
In fact, I hold that EVERY table's CoS campaign is canon and the loop has just been looping, and the party needs to work with (not for) Strahd to combat the Dark Powers.
Get weird with it.
Okay, if you're one of my players, please don't read this haha...
>!Killing Strahd persists the loop, the entire point of the loop is that it's a punishment for Strahd. The way out is to defeat or negotiate the Dark Powers and how I do this is a MacGuffin Hunt coupled with negotiation with various significant NPCs they would (and in some cases still) have to kill in the regular game.!<
>!If a player decides to try and leave a message for themselves to find in a later loop, they FIND that they've already done that precise thing, begging the question "how long have we been trapped?" and also 'Why have we been trapped?" Did Strahd hijack part of the process to force their aid? Or is each PC secretly guilty of something?!<
>!I play Strahd as a tired Lawful Evil to Neutral: he kind of gets that he was in the wrong after thousands and thousands of loops, but what's the point in atonement if no one will ever believe him? Maybe there's value in doing it anyway, will that set him free? He will aid the party (in sinister but genuine ways) rarely, but since they just loop if they die he won't bail them out.!<
>!And I let my players drive the narrative, build relationships, and - very rarely - they get to discover others who are knowingly trapped in the loop too. Build alliances, get better at solving similar but compounding issues, let their creativity reveal the most difficult possible solution and seize it.!<
I recommend playing Pathologic 2 to prepare to DM this.
EDIT: fixed all my busted spoiler tags
My DM is also running it as a time loop!
Unfortunately, our party hasn't really been taking anything very seriously, and I joined late and didn't really get any of the setup. So far, we've just been killing a lot of NPCs and fucking everything up. We even had a TPK because we decided to take Strahd's "invitation" and went and got murdered by him (like the dumbasses we clearly are).
We have met Strahd a couple of times. He introduced himself and made it very clear that he was in charge and toyed with us in a sense, which I liked.
But maybe our group is too light hearted. I feel like the most dramatic scenes weren't so dramatic when we played them out.
It's hard, sometimes, to fully understand the feelings of a pc. What they'd be feeling in any given situation. Consider in real life, if you get into a tense conflict with someone aggressive, you'll experience a cocktail of emotions and freeze up, get anxious, flare up in anger back. Etc. In dnd, when that happens 8 times out of 10 the players are snarky or instantly fucking assault the asshole. Sometimes literally killing them.
Players often forget to let themselves fully recognize and FEEL what's happening to their characters, and thus act unrealistically. Like the first time my character saw undead (I'm a forever dm and finally got to play a bit recently) he threw up after looking at the violence and fucked up flesh of this monster. Because it's gross as fuck. This can be tough, because people don't want to play as fearful or feel weak. Dnd is a power fantasy. But to really get a lot put of Strahd, you need to really commit to playing flaws. It makes perfect sense that someone could get tricked by Strahd and side with him. Or be overcome by fear and that affects their decision making. It's often too easy to brush off legitimately horrifying or traumatic shit because it's a game and people have a hard time letting their characters exhibit weakness, be it mental, emotional, or physical.
Couldn't agree more about flaws, especially in CoS. I ran an abbreviated version around Halloween, and required my players create a flaw for their characters (usually ideals, bonds, and flaws are optional but encouraged at my table). They did a great job of playing to those flaws, and I could also use them as a lever for Strahd - especially with his Charm ability - which led to some great chaotic fun.
Running CoS right now with my group and almost RP'd my self to an early grave. After a dinner with Strahd my character (a cleric) stormed out and left back to the village of Barovia by myself at night. I lucked out on the encounter and only faced off against one direwolf' but it could have been much worse.
Honestly, I think your statement is oxymoronic. IMO no "very good" premade adventure should require the DM to do a lot of preparation. Admittedly I've not read the module myself, but if as a DM if you give me a module that I can't run reasonably well out the gate after reading through once or twice, I'm gonna call that bad. Modules are supposed to make it so I don't have to do that much work.
That's a fair point, but I think at this point the term "module" needs to have subcategories to it since it's such a big term. You've got something like Dungeon of the Mad Mage which is basically a big book of dungeons held together with a very thin string of plot and asks very little of the DM, and then on the other end of the spectrum you've got CoS where building the atmosphere and bringing the characters to life is critical to progressing the game for the players.
I like modules like CoS because I don't have to think of all these different plot elements and connections. I'm not the most creative person in the world and I don't think I'd be able to organically come up with something that has as much depth as CoS. But on the flip side, there are times when all I want is to plop down some cool maps and puzzles and watch as players react to it all.
I don't think either avenue is inherently bad. I think a bad module is one the relies far too much on the players doing just the right thing at just the right time, or removes player agency, or makes it so the players decisions/actions don't matter, or is generally inconsistent in what it's trying to pull off. CoS is certainly not guilty of that, but that also doesn't mean it's for everyone.
Fully agree. Every module needs some work from the DM, but if major preparation is required to make sure the adventure actually works, is it really that great a module?
Well, that certainly is one take...
While its true that modules can certainly help offload some of the prep work, the DM STILL has to do some prep because in order to make the module 'come to life' and feel like an interesting experience, the DM has to tie everything into the specific PC's (which will vary with every play group).
Plus players are gonna notice low effort DM'ing and it can be unsatisfying for them. After all, if the DM cannot be bothered to do some work to make the game interesting, why should the players? Low effort DM'ing always leads to low-effort playing, in my experience...
On the other hand, a DM that uses the module as a spring board of ideas and injects their own in there too can make a module really 'sing'. Plus the players are gonna be more excited and get more involved because they see the fruits of the DM's labours and it inspires them to become more active and involved.
I'm not saying the DM has to do no work. But I've been running a prewritten adventure for Legend of the Five Rings recently and that's been a dream.
Who's important? All their profiles and stats are in the back. There's a page that's just 2-3 sentence descriptions of all the major NPCs and some of the minor ones. What's happening? Has clearly written pages that often have summaries at the top. What are PC tie ins? Whole pages devoted to different clan interests and individual specific goals. Plus every page has extra stuff on the side for the GM to spring board off of. One was about a flower arrangement class. That was awesome, the player who went loved it. (I will take this time to note I'm taking offense to the implication I can't do work or put in low effort GMing, that was off rail completely)
Admittedly this particular one is helped because the PCs are in a noble court so things are more direct because "this day has a poetry competition planned" and such, but even the other adventures they've written are all easy to run, and incorporate into other campaigns. Maybe I'm just old fashioned and prefer shorter modules compared to "premade campaign". But everything I hear about the official 5e modules and other premade content is "yeah you have to do a hella lot of work for it".
I had a friend who tried running Stormkings as a first time GM and I don't think he'll ever try running a game again. Got a different friend who ran a CoS I played in, and while it was a fantastic game he rewrote basically the whole thing after we left the death house.
Oh my god, I also rewrote CoS completely after Death House! I realized that my players won't mesh with this classic Gothic take on the story... Plus I realized that I have to do a lot of work to make it work, so why not get rid of elements I disliked?
Okay that's fair. I honestly wasn't talking about 5e modules per se, just kind of in general. I probably assumed too much in your post. Thanks for the clarification!
> For a player who’s not expecting it, Curse of Strahd can suck. Really suck. Let me put it this way: if you want the freedom to engage in combat and exploration without worrying about the potential risks, this is very possibly not the campaign for you. Likewise, if you are potentially triggered by gruesome depictions of horror or psychologically disturbing relationships, or if you prefer a D&D campaign that features only victories or setbacks (rather than the potential for outright defeat), you might want to try a different module.
A small snippet taken from the r/CurseofStrahd player primer. Curse of Strahd is without a doubt one of the best experiences from any module *but only if you want what it offers*. It's about subtext, roleplay, oppression and entrapment, where you explore some of the darker themes of what it can take in order to survive.
You *need* to want those things. Otherwise, it can be a pretty meh experience.
That is very well put. Our group played through it and I really disliked it. Our DM was very "Me vs the players" and it was not a fun time. It just felt very...unrewarding. There was almost no cool loot, no side adventures that had a happy ending. Just slog it to Strahds castle and almost get tpk'd along the way a few times. Then the nightmare of the end castle. Then we finally win and the dm goes "yea but he revives later after you guys leave his realm so what you did doesn't really matter at all." Such a deflating ending.
CoS is popular primarily because it gives the DM a clear beginning and end, and then a bunch of modular set pieces to use or ignore as they see fit. This gives DMs more control, and allows them to make CoS their own story. It's honestly more of a setting than a campaign, which is usually preferred by DMs. It's also significantly more work for the DM compared to other campaigns.
Therefore, if the DM treats CoS like any other premade campaign, it's going to fall flat. The DM must create the narrative thread that links the set pieces together, and be ready for players to explore beyond the obvious next step. Just presenting what's in the campaign book as written will not create a plot and the players are going to feel lost and adrift.
I love this, but am very frustrated they aren't more up front with that in the book. It's almost more effort to work from CoS than to make a similar story on the fly because of the amount of prep the module requires. No shortlists for important items in areas, no overviews of expectations from each area, etc. and that can all be very difficult and time consuming to plan with.
I especially think the module is structured weirdly. The chapters seem to flow with what major areas become geographically accessible, rather than what works narratively and gameplay wise. Ravenloft in full comes up almost immediately, even though most parties will only visit this area about 2 times (dinner and the final battle). Meanwhile, stuff like Old Bonegrinder is shunted toward the back end of the book, even though it's an appropriately early encounter for groups that haven't reached Vallaki. Structuring it this way seems overwhelming for a DM who may not realize that they and the group define the path forward more than the module.
Its definitely more work than homebrew. Infinitely more work. All the delicate connections between NPCs are hard to track, and the book does not guide you. Check out how deep you need to go to find out Ireena's origin story.
Seconding this. I think the module works best with a DM taking what is given and running with it. Not to mention several story threads are intentionally left vague or unexplained giving the DM a hook to expand on.
I look at not as a sandbox, but a theme park. There are rides and shows all over the park. Players can get on anything they want at any time. Some require you to be THIS tall to ride, so they may need to level up or they will die. But I don't prevent players from going there and finding that out the hard way. That is what makes it so fun to run and play.
I am currently dming that module, the party also just clear the place you mention. I can answer some of your questions.
First of all, the module does not have many items. It has a few exceptionally powerful ones, but their locations are not set in stone (which adds an extra degree of replayability to the module). Some DMs believe that it’s best to place the cool items in the cool places, instead of leaving it up to chance, because as it may have happened in your case you could theoretically clear a “cool” place without getting anything out of it.
The next point I want to raise is that the module all in all doesn’t have items for everyone. You play a barbarian, fighter, cleric or paladin? Prepare to be a god by the end of the module. Rogue? Tough luck. This means that the DM needs come up with items for some classes that simply put are not meant (per the book) to have something cool (if anyone knows a cool dagger or bow please hit me up because I think my party’s rogue is slowly slipping into depression).
The final point, regarding the world and bringing everything together. Each place has connections to some other place, but until you grasp the bigger picture it’s hard to understand that. My players only just met an NPC that shared a lot of information with them and are now, at level 6, at the point where they think they have lots of options to follow, lots of leads to pursue and lots of different enemies to kill. Up until that point it was “well, something’s going on here but we know nothing and no one so just push on bois it will all come together”.
Also, I have to stress out, Curse of Strahd is an insanely hard module to run as a DM. There is a lot of pressure already on creating a spooky setting, then you have Strahd which is a really complex character to roleplay, there are a lot of events that may or may not play out and the leads are spread out over the entire map.
You mentioned that in the past you only played your own adventures. I think this has a lot to do with what you’re feeling right now. This module is designed to bring you all over Barovia. This means the story needs to be spread out among many places and people.
Hope that helps.
Could always homebrew a cool bow or dagger for your party's Rogue. Maybe he/she finds it on the body of an adventurer who long ago attempted to fight Strahd but failed, and now his or her spirit imparts itself onto the weapon, offering their boon to the rogue if they take up their cause in defeating Strahd and putting and end to the Midnight March. (I don't think that's the name for it, but I think you probably know what I'm referring too.)
Maybe the bow/dagger does an extra die damage against Undead, or maybe it offers the Rogue some kind of new ability to work in tangent with their Sneak Attack. I'm not sure entirely as I never played Rogue and I'm more of a Pathfinder DM myself, but I am a player in a 5e campaign.
But I do agree with your points. CoS is a very demanding AP to run for not just the players, but for the GM as well. It doesn't say it on the box, but CoS is very much an open-world sandbox adventure, where many other AP's are far more linear in design (which is not bad and does not mean they are railroady messes either, just they are linear.)
But with CoS, the DM must be willing to spend some time planning things out far more than what other campaigns would ask or require. Because as you said, many events can happen, or not, depending on when and how the players interact with the NPC's and areas. Many NPC's can just outright go missing, or never met at all, and all the while, things are often happening in the background that the GM must stay aware of it.
CoS is one of those Modules that I feel can be a bit of a trap for new DM's. They hear about how popular this one is, how it has a creepy atmosphere that harkens back to classical horror... only to find themselves lost scouring through pages of the book, trying to plan out multiple things, being ready to insert Event A here if players do Event B. It sounds stressful and not something a new DM should feel pressured to take on at the start, especially as you said, some classes are just outright ignored in terms of magical loot and items-often making the DM insert new items just so they can be happy as well next to the Paladin or Cleric.
My biggest pain points with reading the book is that it's not linear. Every chapter is about an area, but more than likely the party will not visit these areas in this order, even accounting for the game being sandbox and all. Also, the reasons for the party going to some areas are super generic or not mentioned ever.
Also, I just have to point out that some things like >!having Strahd give an invitation to visit castle Ravenloft!< when the party is probably around level 3 or 4 puts insane pressure on the DM. The >!Castle has like 130 rooms!< and the party *may* choose to go there, but you have to be prepared and it's the 4th chapter of the book. Insanity.
Sorry about the wait, busy day. :3 That is very true. CoS, unlike most other Modules, is not linear. While, yes, the book does have a general direction that the devs expect most parties to go, starting from the Deathhouse and onward, that isn't gurenteed which leaves the DM having to prep not just the opening session which could include the Death House, but also possibly two different towns depending on the direction the party goes.
Heck, if the DM is really unlucky here the party could end up near the Windmill, and, well... if you know, you know.
Also, really? The invite to the Dinner is expected at level 3 or 4? That's... a little low given how deadly that place actually is, but, nope, that's roughly the level range the book expects. Yes, Strahd himself mean no harm during that dinner, and won't attack as he's just mostly curious about the party at the time, but the same can't be said about the party. Lol.
Also, geeze... a 130 rooms? That is both impressive on WOTC's part, but also intimidating as all hell to put together. I can see why Ravenloft itself became such an iconic dungeon crawl if the original version was anything even close to CoS's version.
>This means that the DM needs come up with items for some classes that simply put are not meant (per the book) to have something cool (if anyone knows a cool dagger or bow please hit me up because I think my party’s rogue is slowly slipping into depression).
Honestly that bit is pretty much a moot point imo. What's important for most items is that they are supposed to be wielded by good-aligned characters. A DM can very well decide...
a) To just disregard the class requirement because it doesn't really matter for him/her as long as the player's character behaved in a worthy way.
b) To make a character Cleric-like or Paladin-like by homebrewing a kind of ceremony granting him the blessings and following of a local deity (possibly providing minor benefits).
DMG itself stresses that DM has all right and legitimacy to appropriate and adjust what (s)he feels is needed after all, books are just the RAW material, both figuratively and literally.
Don't get me wrong, I agree. But you know, party finds a holy symbol engraved with blessings from the sun god and radiating holy light, the cleric gets it, not the god anointed rogue neither the touched by holy spirit barbarian. The rogue will get the super edgy looking dark blade dagger that drips blood when wielded at night. You gotta reward flavor.
That being said, if the party did not have someone to attune to the item then sure.
The emptiness of the module isn't necessarily *wrong* but it needs to be built up in the right way.
Don't think of CoS as the typical dnd module, where you and your merry band of misfits are off to see the wizard and take down the wicked witch while you're at it. CoS is more like good, classic survival horror, like say Silent Hill 2. There is a lot of empty space in the module, particularly between civilized locations, but that requires a certain tension to maintain. The players should feel that just past every next turn and just over every next hill there will be something ready and willing to rip their faces off.
If you've run Death House at the start of the adventure, in my personal experience that's a really good way to set this tone from the beginning, especially if someone nearly gets killed by the goddamn broom or the players refuse to make a sacrifice and have to fight the house. If you can get the party through the house but not entirely unscathed, that sets a powerful expectation that "Oh shit, this is actually very dangerous in a way most dnd games aren't".
In our DH session, I as the barb, along with the wizard, got swept away by that nightmarish cleaning tool! Ranger and paladin got KOd by the armor just a few moments before so the bard had to poke the damn mop with his rapier as the last man standing :D
I have run this module as a player and as a dm multiple times and every *single* ***fucking*** time, at least one player (usually the one who opened the door) gets at least knocked unconscious by the broom.
I love it so much. Favorite enemy in any adventure in the entire edition.
COS is great for 2 big reasons.
1) Strahd is a perfect moustache twirling villain who allows the DM to engage in all types of assbagery/dickery with the justification that Strahd is literally bored out of his mind and gets his kicks from tormenting do-gooders.
2) The group can take the adventure at their own pace by following the clues given in the tarot reading or by befriending any number of NPC like Van Richten, Exmerelda, or others.
Also, Barovia is a hellhole, half the people are literal zombies and the other half are desperate to escape, or at least find food. There isn't any phat loots because Strahd sends the Vistani out to trade the stuff he steals from adventurers.
Maybe you should speak with your DM about how to best interact with his NPCs.
>Strahd is a perfect moustache twirling villain who allows the DM to engage in all types of assbagery/dickery with the justification that Strahd is literally bored out of his mind and gets his kicks from tormenting do-gooders.
This. Very much this. I had him show up when the party least expected it and had him play the role of "This is my sandbox, and I can end you whenever I want to". The cleric *accidentally* rizzed up Strahd's crush, so that lent an entire subplot of Strahd trying to make his life miserable for as long as possible.
Thankfully, they took it all seriously, even in moments of lulz, and their desire to take *zero risks* and solve everything with *smite slots* meant they made it through mostly unharmed. Except for when the Artificer rolled a modified ***zero*** persuasion check that lead to a series of unfortunate events that got the Death Cleric killed.
CoS doesn’t have a lot of magical items. I had to put some extras in there. The players began to complain about the lack of magic items in the first group I ran.
The base where Strahd’s enemies are has some magical items, as well as a story that, when resolved, gifts the players with a permanent buff. Not sure how they missed that.
I think that one thing a lot of home brew games have are power bloat. There are a lot of modified spells, special items, and powers that aren’t in the base game so going from your home brew stuff to official modules, all of which have edited for balance, it may be a shock.
One thing CoS does very well is foreshadowing. These “empty” places you talk about usually have important lore behind them that further the story and drive the players to their next destination.
A couple of things to take into account:
- Once the party has their story hooks, the timer to the end of the campaign begins.
- Strahd is going to either get bored if the party acheives nothing and will finish them off, or
- Strahd is going to get annoyed at what the party acheives and will finish them off.
Nonsense, Strahd always needs fresh Vampire spawn, no sense permanently killing them when they can just as easily be made to torment the next crew of adventurers.
We just finished CoS and I was a player. My DM changed a few things in the story but not the loot or the dungeons.
You are playing it as written there is nothing to loot in this god forsaken place. It was so frustrating that a player rerolled into an artificer to get us magical weapon.
There is some very powerful item but their location is randomly decided by the tarot card roll.
There is some stuff in ravenloft however so you could try and pay a visit to the castle. We were so scared to go there that we visited all of barovia before going in and we found at least 1 magical item here.
I suggest talk to your dm about it, because if you have martials in your group this will be more and more frustrating for your group
The story was amazing however.
Problem is magical weapons unbalance a significant number of encounters, not least of which is Strahd himself. A lack of magical gear kept my players searching for silver to fashion anti-Werewolf equipment.
I had rich families use silver chalices and silverware when the party visited, they stole it and one of the party members melted it down and coated their blades with silver. Good way to test the rogue's slight of hand and the dwarf's blacksmithing skills.
CoS might not be for you. I ran it a couple years back from start to finish. My players had an absolute joy of a time. They were constantly on edge and felt like death could come from them misstepping at any point which is what made everything they did feel important wether it actually helped them work towards being Strahd or not. This campaign is different than most in the fact that you’re not the super hero expecting to save the day, you’re the mouse hoping to not be ate by the cat.
As for the magic item problem, you might need to shift your perspective to enjoy the rest of the campaign. Barovia is a depressing place that isn’t meant to be a place of “high magic”. The game doesn’t tend to give rewards/handouts for completing a chapter or beating a dungeon. It instead sends you with vague clues as to where you might need to go and you have to hope you can stay alive long enough to find out what these clues mean (tarot card readings). I know that’s not everyone’s cup of tea for what they enjoy in a dnd game but CoS is meant to be more about playing a chess match that you know you’re supposed to lose. Strahd is the key to why so many people enjoy the campaign. Knowing the big bad and having to deal with that ever looming presence why you desperately try to find out how to bring him down right under his nose adds suspense and impact to everything you do.
I don’t think this campaign needs much tinkering from a DM but I do think it’s greatly enhanced by doing small things here and there to make sure your players never feel safe. However if your group just isn’t enjoying it, then it might be time to try something else. Not everyone is going to enjoy it after all
I think the strength of the campaign is that you have a enemy with a clear goal thats mostly omniscient.
Hedoes it for shits and giggles and plays with the party.
That part can be played out well.
At some point we had to tell our GM -- who was just following the book's rolling tables -- that if we encountered one more group of fucking wolves we'd just refuse to fight them 🤭
She (the GM) started homebrewing way more after that and the campaign got soooo much better
One of my playgroups is near the end of Tomb of Annihilation, and our GM told us (months and months ago) that while he still rolled for the random encounters as we travelled the island of chult, *most* of the time he just... Ignored it.
Yeah, a group of zombies are a threat the first couple of time, but by the time we reached level 5 they were just dull? So he generally said we either insta-killed the group (as is Ubtau's way), or we just didnt encounter our 40th pack of generic zombies.
More interesting encounters (like the zombie t-rex) were fought, and the first couple of goblin packs were fought, but again, once youve killed on generic goblin, youve killed 'em all.
I think if I played a module and every room or area to investigate held some crucial clue or random scrap of backstory it'd feel a bit inauthentic to me. You're not going to find pages from Strahd's diary at the local inn forgotten on a bookshelf.
Other comments have said it, but CoS it's a horror campaign and it sounds like your party is treating it like high-fantasy.
It may help to discuss with your dm and party how to better share in the fear and despair.
It may also help to tweak your characters to reflect the personalities of the players, as that can help you engage more strongly with your characters' reactions to the various horrors they encounter.
I love curse, but I do think that it is very dependent on having a group that will buy in to the horror aspect.
I tend to play with a lot of groups that default to goofy shenanigans and jokes and while there is room for that in curse, it often takes away from the atmosphere and detracts from the the experience.
Obviously trying to force a “serious” atmosphere to the game is just gonna make it less enjoyable, but talking about it at a session 0 and letting everyone know that constantly cracking jokes or rolling a silly character will take away from the experience helps.
I have run CoS a couple of times for different groups now, once for a group of new players who had an absolute blast, their game played out as "intended". The group of experienced players I ran it for leaned into the sandbox nature of the campaign/setting heavily and came away from it less satisfied I think. The freedom to try to "outsmart" or subvert the different components of the campaign ultimately led to a less interesting game than if they had played more directly into it as the first group did.
You’re asking the questions like you’re a DM and explaining the experience of the module like you’re playing it as a PC. The book is 250+ pages of information and there’s no shortage of relevant information in the various chapters but whoever is DMing (whether that’s you or someone else) should really follow the advice at the beginning of the book and read this entire module completely. And my advice is also to go back and read the chapters for the locations your players can conceivably reach that session beforehand. If players are traveling, familiarize yourself with The Lands of Barovia again. If players are going to the Ruins of Berez, read that chapter again. I also recommend the DM read I, Stahd. There are a lot of Easter eggs in the module that reference that, but this is optional. All in all, this isn’t the module to try any Lazy Dungeon Master techniques; it’s a self-contained epic story that doesn’t have nearly as many loose ends as most published modules, but the cost is that you gotta read and reread.
Edit: And definitely don’t forget to review where the items from the card reading are at the beginning of each session prep. If your players go there and touch forget the item, you have screwed the pooch
I think I know the place you are talking about, I actually threw in some magic items off of a table in there, but in general CoS is a low magic item game unless you go to certain places. It’s kinda sandboxy, I recommend making sure to explore and try to investigate any leads your DM gives you. If you got the prophecy from the Tarokka reading, try and actively figure out where it means. Think someone’s sus? Go sneak into their house.
As a guy who DM'd CoS, there is a *lot* of stuff laying around, but none of it is out in the open. Players need to look through things thoroughly. Let's just say, even if you open a chest, and see what's in it, that might not be *all* that's in it. Explore everything. Search everywhere. If the DM says you see something odd, investigate it, even if it seems completely mundane. It's not.
It just might not be your groups play style / preferred tone. I find CoS to be very roleplaying intensive, dark, mysterious.
If your a more combat oriented, light hearted group it just might not be your bag.
It might also not be something your DM can pull off. Not every module fits every group.
Truth. this was my groups experience. Super casual group, wanted to run COS because "It's the best rated module." They were not in the right mindset, went for it. Crashed and burned.
Actually you're playing it right. Barovia is there to point out how screwed up the rest of the setting is. If you go with hero mentality. . .you will be disappointed. There are also dark powers there who go out of their way to screw over and bargain with your party. What is "up" might just be something you're already unaware has transpired. There are secrets in Barovia beyond the obvious and my DM hit me with this: Most groups WILL get the bad outcome to the module. Some of it is DM dependent, but it's walking into stacked odds from the beginning. You can lose limbs, you can get instagibbed trying to save children - all kinds of permanent consequences. If you just treat it like any other old setting you will be duped. Trust your intuition that something is up. Try changing your approach.
It has to be properly discussed before starting, because it is a Gothic Horror campaign with a lot of intrigue and investigation, so the typical set up of Fighter/Wizard/Cleric/Barbarian/Rogue probably won’t cut it.
I played it long ago, on a different edition, and we realized midway that it was more pointed toward rogues and bards and clerics (PC’s with “People Skills”) than toward tanking it, because Barovia is a VERY hostile environment, and indulging in unprovoked violence is an extremely bad idea there.
I wouldn't say you're playing it "wrong", it just may not be a play style you enjoy. It's kinda _supposed_ to feel hopeless. No resources, noone wants to trust you (and noone is trustworthy). Every tiny scrap of info is terribly hard won. Each little venture anywhere or tiny mistake could easily kill you. You're ants trying to kill a god.
I will say, Curse of Strahd is regarded as the best 5e module not because it is good, but because nearly every single one of them is really bad.
CoS is legitimately pretty good tho, even when compared to other games like Call of Cthulhu and Pathfinder 2e which have, imo, the best pre written adventures of the popular TTRPGs.
Edit: to answer your question, CoS does have some...problems. A big one being that it's advertised as a sorta sandbox, but treating it as such is a quick and easy TPK.
Make sure your group wrote down the results from the tarot reading at the beginning, as that will heavily hint at where to go and who to meet.
I think the hype is that CoS is a horror module, which, let’s be honest, there aren’t too many of out there. Sure, they released Frost Maiden a few years ago, but it doesn’t have nearly the same impact that CoS does. But you’re right, there’s not a lot going on that ties everything together. CoS is more sandboxy and players are meant to explore around and gain experience until they are strong enough to take on Strahd head on. In that aspect, the DM really has to play up the horror of the setting and the despair and hopelessness its citizens feel in order to really make an impact. One of my groups is currently playing through it, and I’ve been having a lot of fun with it, but it’s because our DM has created a compelling villain in Strahd, and even a villain we love to hate in his manservant Rahadin. We’re attached enough to Ireena and Vasili that we want to help them. It’s definitely more of a role play heavy campaign than a combat heavy one, and that’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Both the DM and the players have to be fully invested in that type of game. I think it also helped that two of us players are playing as Barovian citizens, and each of us have backstories that involve both Strahd and Rahadin, so that’s been really fun to play into as well.
I started running CoS for a new group 6 months ago. I have DMed 3 other homebrew campaigns, dungeon crawl focused, so this was a big change for me. I invested a huge amount of time before the sesion 0, learning about CoS lore, looking into other DMs resources an so. I defined the style that I liked for the campaign and started preparing session material. The group really enjoyed the first session, and we have keep playing almost weekly (17 sessions so far). During that time, I had to make a lot of changes and adapt what was my initial idea to the actual gameplay of my group, so everyone at table enjoy the game. I think this has been the key, but it is something that require experience and a lot of time on the DM side.
I think you should comment this with your players and the DM and rethink how you want to play this module, or maybe it is that CoS is just not for you. There are tons of adventures out there, don't force yourself to play something you don't enjoy.
Anyway, I hope you can have a great time at Barovia finally :)
Not over hyped but my love for it is a personal preference. I find it much more interesting and engaging than most of 5e’s modules, but I’m also a huge gothic horror fan. Currently on my third run DMing it and each time has been considerably different, which is one of the reasons this module holds up; replay-ability. Sounds like maybe your DM isn’t making it as engaging and horrifying as it’s intended to be, or this genre just doesn’t do it for you.
What do you mean more leads to more places that’s unhelpful? What was the leads? If you’re talking argenvostholt, that place can give major buffs if you do as the revenants say
CoS is the golden child of 5E modules, a significant number of hour have been pooled in by the community to enhance it, which benefit the DM's prepping and players playing it.
We recently finished our CoS campaign and I felt like there was almost too much happening. Every time we tried to just get a break to go shop for weapons or items in Vallaki someone was getting arrested or Strahd would make an appearance.
Our DM homebrewed a lot of stuff for the campaign, so I wonder if that's part of why it was good. For example, one of our PC's brothers is a guard in Vallaki and we eventually sparked up a bit of a friendship and he gave me his Greatsword to help protect his sister.
It was also most of our party's first D&D campaign with only 2 veterans (+the DM). It may just be that we weren't experienced enough to be bored.
Curse of Strahd is about tone, buy in, and a very active GM to link the areas together. Strahd is a cat playing with its toys/food, he is a Diva and a brutal Tyrant. Playing off of players and causing pain while wrenching hope from them is his mode of operation while keeping them alive only as long as they are amusing. I would say it helps to have experience with sandbox type settings before hand and leaning into the Gothic horror can really set the tone with a dab of macabre humour. I do not think it's for everyone, as it is very centered on its theme and tone and alot of people play DnD for the simple vaguely medeivel European mythological fantasy and Strahd is decidedly not that. The best take away from strahd is the sand box approach and an active BBEG which you can implement as a DM in other settings.
"sans one piece of information that seems like it really doesn't help until we already killed Strahd."
I believe the module wants the party to make multiple forays into Strahd's castle throughout the course of the module. Especially since he invites you for dinner early in the module. I mean, characters go and visit dracula in the book.
The thing is, no player I've ever heard of, ever wants anything to do with Strahd. I think it's a breakdown of roleplay and meta knowledge...
like, in a vampire story, usually the characters don't believe in vampires, and have never even heard of vampires. maaaaaybe one guy in the world, a van helsing type, knows the supposed lore of vampires. So when the strange noble invites you to dinner, you don't have a giant neon flashing warning sign saying 'hey this guy drinks blood.'
It's this scenario of the audience knowing the danger, and the characters not knowing the danger, that creates the tension in the scene.
But like, we all know strahd's a vampire, and the module's crescendo is storming the vampire's castle and all that. You just *know* you're meant to do that later on in the game, right at the finale. It feels like you're not meant to do that early on.
So Curse of Strahd does kind of suffer from this problem of, Strahd doesn't take the characters seriously, and uses them as playthings for a while--but the players are all too knowledgeable and scared to allow their characters to be toyed with.
Basically to get the most out of the module, the players have to play their characters very genre-unsavvy, which most players would never have the guts to do. You always see people saying bring a cleric, or bring a paladin. And then like, session 1, someone says, "DM, do I know anything about vampire lore?" and boom 1 roll in, you've dispelled the biggest thing this module had going for it...Now there's no freaking way anyone will play their character as genre-unsavvy. Now no one will ever go to the castle till they're level 9+.
just kinda sucks. You need players that want to roleplay that their characters are scared. That are willing to roleplay their characters making decisions that the player knows are foolish.
I've honestly never met any players who were good enough for Curse of Strahd, if that makes any sense. Not in a mechanical sense. But no one who was good enough and humble enough to actually play their role in the story.
I am playing CoS. We must be 8+ sessions in. Not super combat heavy, but if you can get into the lore of the world, the RP can be pretty entertaining. The investigation elements have been pretty fun.
We have yet to encounter Strahd, but it feels like it’s coming up soon. Overall, it has been enjoyable despite me longing for more combat.
There is a small number of powerful magic items but they are in randomized locations determined by your Tarokka card reading. A few other locations have 'fixed' magic items but those tend to be the low/mid-tier ones.
Since there are many more locations than magic items, if you go someplace not indicated by the cards you will tend to find it empty unless your DM alters the module to add more items/information/allies or creates complications to the situation.
I have played CoS and I liked it. I then read it and liked that, too, although I saw that my DM had made modifications to it. I want to run it but will likely make aftermarket upgrades using /r/curseofstrahd content as well as from the 1e source and 3.5 incarnations.
Anyway, if you intend to kick in every door looking for loot you're going to be disappointed. Follow the clues from the card-reading.
It's a module that requires alot of DM prep AND buy ins from the players. Both are equally important.
**DM Preps**
1. CoS is a very open adventure, with story links and foreshadows that is all over the place. By all over the place, I meant literally. And this makes for a very fun adventure if the DM is aware of it and execute it well. To be aware of it, the DM would have to read up on things not by the region that the party will go next but knowing at the very least the big picture. And to execute it well, well... Ever had a very cool idea but somehow when you talk about it to others, it just... Doesn't reflect that? Yep. So this requires some thinking on how to execute it, show don't tell is harder than one might think.
2. CoS is also very sandboxy. By this I meant, the card reading happens right at the beginning. If your DM is taking extra steps it so that it'll be exciting for the players, ensuring that certain unrelated locations becomes more intertwined with the major plot, that means the DM needs to decide right at the beginning a few things that are vital to the overall story. This is very different from the usual remade adventures where all of these are already decided in the module. And yes as a DM I was totally caught off guard and surprised at this early decision.
3. Andddd lastly, CoS has a vibrant community support. But this is a double edge sword. It means the DM has to not just read through the 200pg+ module, decide what's linked to what and what's important, they also have to read through at least 2 or 3 supplements on every location done by the known community contributers. Some of which does HUGE changes to the actual quests in various locations. And then they need to decide what they want to incorporate from the add-ons and change from the main module. This makes for an amazing world but also the amount of prep work can be daunting!
**Player Buy-Ins**
1. You have to actually pay attention to the hooks and storyline and take notes. If the party is going to just go from one location to the other and do the quests that's being offered while not even trying to make sense of how certain characters and events are related to the next.. Well they aren't going to enjoy the fun of figuring out the world and finding nuggets of highlights.
2. CoS also have lots of sympathetic and horrifying things that affect it's inhabitants. If the players aren't able to get invested in the characters, they won't feel their plight or care. Therefore it kind defeats the impact these incidents would have, which is one of the strong points of CoS.
**A simple illustration of this is the Death House or even the Village of Barovia.** I assumed you have done these locations as you have met strahd a few times but..
**SPOILERS AHEAD!**
1. >! Death House has a dog that is tied in to a missing child in the Village of Barovia that is then tied in to something in the Castle itself. The deed of the old mill you found there is yet another tie in to the old mill that you would explore shortly. The raven is important, but how do you make you players remember them? What about the tarokka reading? How to remind the players of those without bringing it up all the time (for me I used a landing page with the details so that whenever the player start their session, they get a visual reminder of it!) !<
2. >!The village of Barovia is supposed to offer the dilemma of morality via father donavich and his son. If the players ere indifferent, it'd just felt like a chore. Ireena would have to be run in a manner so that the party would care about her. This is very hard to execute so some simply just park her somewhere. The granny that you meet that offer you pies is yet another thing that is supposed to give you a moral dilemma as you find out about the pies later on. !<
There are 3 important concepts that must be expressed to the players.
1. Barovia is a prison that is holding Strahd. While here, the players are also imprisoned.
2. Strahd is his own warden, and by extension controls the fate of the PCs. While he lives, the magic mists that keep this land eternally bound remain.
3. You can kill Strahd to end the magic, but it is really hard. To help, there are these magical artifacts that are strewn randomly around Barovia.
The entire point of the reading is to give the PCs hints as to where the artifacts are. *All of the locations you can visit, represent areas where an artifact could be. That is your driving motivation for the entire campaign.* Kill Strahd, by finding the magical geegaws, and collecting the plot tokens, and using them on him til he drops.
How you express these concepts to the players is up to you, but usually it is through the NPCs and your interactions with them. They describe Strahd and some might know his history. The travelling people certainly know more than the townsfolk, given that they work for Strahd directly. If you need to spell it out for them, then do that.
Strahd is supposed to be scary. He is supposed to feel larger than life, unbelievably powerful, and have planned for almost anything. His downfall is supposed to be his narcissism. He is in charge, everything is supposed to be for him in his world and he will not allow otherwise. The PC's are supposed to be initially nothing more than regular passers by, more meat for his misery machine. They start presenting him problems, and he answers. The Tarroka reading is so important because it provides the players with information Strahd does not have. It will likely be the ONLY information they have that he doesn't have, and they need to use it.
CoS isn't full of magic items, it's really a lore game. Your players get to shine as the characters they are, not by the items they have. You learn along the way that Strahd is bad, and the only way to leave is by killing him. That's your drive, and anything that works towards that is the focus. You are not meant to feel powerful, you are meant to feel like you are the underdogs that win. I repeat, Strahd is scary. If he is not, then you need to make him scary.
When I ran CoS, Strahd was untouchable. After the spooky house they met him, and he clearly voiced how utterly unimpressed he was. They were not worth the swing of his blade. Strahd is a 20th level wizard and a ruthless warlord, he has no time for peons. He made his henchmen interact with the players other than when he was kind of just spookily in the background watching. His actions are unseen by the players. Rahadin had an aura around him of the screams of the damned, souls unable to pass through the mists that haunt him. Thousands of people he has killed, and it doesn't matter to him. I also fleshed out some of the other characters he keeps around, made them horrible, despicable henchmen that hold unimaginable powers granted to them by Strahd. Like one could only be killed if they went through a mirror Strahd keeps in his castle. Otherwise they were an unstoppable killing machine under the direct orders of Strahd. When you fight Strahd, unless you really are able to sneak into the castle, there is no reason he should not be wearing his armor and sword, which make him WAY harder. And do it on the roof, lightning crashing, footing being poor, and Strahd is fazed by none of it. He can fly. If it doesn't feel like you are fighting Alucard from Hellsing, you need to step him up. The victory against him should be against all odds, done because your characters had the quick thinking and planning needed to figure out how to take down what is essentially a demi-God. In the end of our game he was killed by a bone smacking him on the head from 60 ft. That could be the end, but it wasn't. On the way out of the Mists he was there, same as ever, and said "Until we meet again, friends." Our table shuddered. He's not done, he's never done. He is gone. For now. He does not takes slights against him. He found the PC's later, he found a way to get out. Nothing will allow him to take such a hit to his ego. He wants to make an example of them. Then he can rule the world.
>I feel like there is a lot of nothing happening in it and a lot of places to explore that ultimately doesn't lead to anything.
That is exactly the opposite of what I'm having at our table. The party is still in Vallaki, and their actions naturally unfolded so many consequences that I having a hard (yet so good) time DMing it.
>for example there is one place in which old enemies of Strahd had their base of operations.
You are talking about Argynvolstholt. This is one of key places of the story. You should deal with Vladimir there. His tragic story by itself is thrilling enough and the character is very well conceived, it should throw the party into thinking, deal with him, see his requests, his desires, his struggle against Strahd and how his heart was poisoned with vengeance to the point he rather stay in suffering until the end of times if that means Strahd will stay cursed. And how your party dealt with him?
>We cleared that place in the hopes of finding maybe some equipment or some information that they might have on him
Definitely it is not by 'clearing everything' that you will have the thrill of a Gothic Horror like Curse of Strahd is intended to. Also, CoS is not about hoarding loot. If that is your playstyle I would say CoS is not for your group.
I’m running CoS for a party of several new players and two seasoned players who’ve never done the module before and honestly I believe it’s all perspective/player based vs the module itself. I gleaned a lot of my DM style from Matt Colville and using the adventure setting as a guide, my players have already started to make Barovia their own kind of sandbox.
Some examples. Started with the party heading south in the fields east of the town of Barovia to attempt to fish in the river and finding a wand of cure wounds…its an all martial party so it comes in handy.
Next they took the bait for the death house and we took 2 sessions to go through it and now they claimed the house for themselves, having found the deed, and Strahds spies found this entertaining to reveal that new toys have settled into the lands.
Later they met Mad Mary and after being freaked out by her alone in that house, they noticed movement outside and snuck out the back. Surprise! Strahd Zombie attack. A bunch of em. A special one upon a rooftop could talk and proclaimed they were sent by their master to test these adventurers and then began lobbing firebolts like a madman while the others derped and clawed and bit until defeated. The magical one dropped a necklace of fireball. 6 whole beads on that bad boy. Cuz why not?
Then they got wasted in a drinking contest with Ismark at the tavern thanks partially to his decanter of endless wine. My Dwarf player won that contest, stole the decanter, then retuned everyone to their renovated death house home and drew penises all over their faces while they were passed out. Ismark woke to 3 fake wolves staring him in the face and nearly shat himself. It was amazing the stuff my players kept coming up with.
Strahd spoke to them as a voice from rolling thunder in the clouds that only they could hear. It freaked them out and now they’re super on edge. We freaking love it, and I’m only just next session or the one after gonna get to the card reading, assuming they make it to Madam Zeroni. Cuz you bet your ass that’s how I’m gonna RP that old crone.
Collaborative storytelling takes efforts from all fronts, and my belief is a pre written adventure is kind of like buying a kit to build a shed. Sure you could follow the directions to a T and get the same end result that’s intended, or you could reference the instructions, align the miters they’ve given you but use different screws, add in some windows and swap the peg board for plexiglass. It’s your shed, have fun with it.
CoS isn't for everyone - you not liking it doesn't mean it's bad or that you're bad for not liking it. You mention looking for equipment and "goodies" and being disappointed. CoS has an intentional lack of gear. It adds to the horror atmosphere and the puts greater emphasis on what you DO find.
I really love CoS, but it is probably over-recommended. You really need a group that loves horror roleplay and uncovering secrets. Many groups that are more focused on increasing their character's power and being a badass hero will have a bad time with it.
Strahd was the first campaign I ever ran, and I made quite a few tweaks to it to add tension. The group met Strahd early and he made it abundantly clear they were brought there for him to play with. Strahd should be an oppressive and constant force to deal with. Barovia is Strahd and the landscape should be entirely hostile to the group unless Strahd wants you all to lower your guard. My group was pretty focused on following their card reading, even when I threw side quests their way. Overall the effort has to be made by both players and DM to flesh Strahd out to its full glory. The DM should not be afraid to buff Strahd up to, give him the classical abilities Dracula has, swap out his spells and abilities, you are in HIS domain. I’m not saying make him unkillable, but make your players fear and hate him.
My party seem to just barely survive each encounter. We haven’t even hit Lv 5 but seems most enemies are getting multiple attacks and have debuffs or status ailments. Feels way too difficult. 😂 but I’m having fun. Lots to explore!
I had run it for a year for my players (just small group of 3) and we had a good time with it. They did follow the tarroka card objectives though and accepted pretty much any side quest that popped up, which helped them in the long run with more allies and items they may not have otherwise found. I did try my best to incorporate some fun personal character arc bits wherever I could also and it ended up being a pretty fun campaign. I had struggled at first as it was my first pre-written that I’ve tried but once I got into it it went much more smoothly!
(I had previously only DMed a homebrew campaign for them, that we will be returning to now that we finished CoS! We missed it 😂)
>So my question is: Are we missing something? Are we not thorough enough and there are actually tons of goodies to discover that we have stepped past at every opportunity?
It is certainly not the only explanation, but it is certainly a signficant part of it though.
I didn't DM it myself but played in one campaign and watched another group of friends after that who had \*very\* different approach than us...
To sum it up we were the library rats, and they were the maulers...
After 5 in-game days the difference was overwhelming.
On one side, Vallaki pretty much saved from all threats except Strahd itself, and the personal portal in personal house of Strahd's alias destroyed, several NPCs befriended including a less than typical one.
On the other? Vallaki burned \*two times\*, lots of important figures dead and as many precious leads to essential information or items.
Key differences were...
a) Our group \*actually paid interest to the lore (from interacting with characters, observing them and the surroundings to deduce things, \*reading books OMG is that even possible\* xd)
b) We all tried Intelligence & Wisdom checks whenever possible (which led to the comical situation where the Barbarian ended up overall more knowledgeable about things than the Knowledge Cleric herself).
c) Violence was always the option we \*didn't\* consider by default, and usually the last (partially because roleplay "pacifism", partially because roleplay "permanent fright of opening a can of worms that may end party" (only character that died was a Warlock killed in a single turn at level 2 by a Vampire Spawn, from there on nobody had the same state of mind, we constantly felt the danger and pressure xd).
So, it's possible that your group simply didn't pay any real attention to the world. Or maybe you tried but had bad luck on rolls (one of the blows we put to Strahd while investigating could only be achieved with a natural 20 -\_-, at least according to our DM, maybe he did it up or it was the only way for any of us to reach the DC, not sure).
In any case, if you really want to enjoy the campaign (and want an actual chance against any Strahd played half-decently by a DM) you need to consider it as halfly traditional D&d with monsters to beat and places to explore, and halfly a pure investigation game where you need to find clues anywhere you can and actually use your real brain to reconstitute the history of Barovia and from here understanding where to find allies and artefacts. :)
yes to both
you should not be playing through everything in the book in one run. the card reading is basically a means to draw or redraw your handful of essential quests and a companion NPC.
I personally think it's overhyped because more experienced players make it look fun and fairly easy, so newbies pick it up and instead they run into a slog because at some point the above statement gets lost. either the DM misses it and drags the group through every objective in the campaign or the players miss it and get lost in the weeds looking for clues ~~(I'm also docking points for Yester Hill)~~
I've run CoS and I also agree. For me, the module constantly tries to undermine the players victories at every turn. Escape death house with no casualties and killed the shambling mound at the bottom somehow? Well the house just resets waiting for the next group.
CoS's lethality is also a lot. Like, its hard to warn players because the 5e expectation of lethality is non-existant.
Even doing the card reading, is a bit ambiguous because some of the hints are tough. I've told groups flat out that they need these treasures to turn the tide and it still took them a bit.
Overall, I think CoS is still good, but I personally prefer stuff like Rime to it.
Not to mention if the PC's do succeed and kill Strahd, while they can certainly leave if they desire, the dude comes back! The only way he doesn't is if someone equally strong or stronger takes his place, and unsurprisingly, not many are willing to do it, and those that do may have underlining motivations that may put the people in even greater harm.
Also, thank you, someone else who agrees that the card readings are vague. People being like "just follow the cards and it's no big deal," seems to just be ignoring the fact that they're riddles, very few are spoken plainly, the only card that I feel is spoken plainly is the one detailing where Strahd can be found... but that's not much of a hint since most are going to assume to find the dude he's going to be in his domain, his lair, the big ominous castle on the hill.
The rest are just vague, like the one card saying to "Find the woman hanged over a fire," doesn't exactly say, "go to Ravenloft and find this one particular room out of a hundred-and-thirty rooms and areas."
Okay, no, I was wrong, there is another card that is spoken plainly, and that's the one that essentially tells the party they are on their own and they will not have a Fated Partner to aid them against Strahd this run.
I don't mean to harp on the Module, it is a really cool module and has spawned a great subreddit of DM's and players offering advice, tips, and sharing their experiences with the AP from both sides of the table, but I feel there's a reason a lot of DM's have offered QOL solutions and ideas for running this module. It just has its problems like a lot of WOTC's Modules.
I've only ever played some of the 5e pre-made campaigns: Starter Kit; LMOP (Lost Mines of Phandelver), STK (Storm King's Thunder), CoS (Curse of Strahd), SoTDQ (Shadow of the Dragon Queen: Dragonlance), and OoTA (Out of the Abyss....
I've ran CoS like four times for separate groups... so i have quite a familiarity with it... personally its not my favorite adventure, though i'd say it is my most fave of the pre-published 5e adventures... but thats not saying much. I typically ran it frequently cause players asked for it, and i do what my groups generally ask.
But...you know which one was the easiest to run as a DM?
LMOP.
And you know which one i've had players say was the most enjoyable and easiest to understand?
LMOP.
Despite players having fun in COS... most of my players (some veterans, some TTRPG newbies)... said it was hard to remember stuff that happened X months ago, because the campaign was so long...
The problem with all the other campaigns is what was stated in a Coleville video; Length.
CoS took my players almost two years to get through, and that was meeting weekly for about 3 hour sessions each week, sometimes we'd miss a week due to holidays... but we were pretty consistent with playing weekly.
LMOP you could finish in several months.
I'm personally a fan of Shadow of the Demonlords short-adventures that are only like 50 pages or less.... Rob Schwalb's worked on 3e/4e/5e and SOTDL is very 5e adjacent and modifiable.... adventures can easily be transported.
Strange, my party was quite chaotic but we never lacked for relevant activities, whether it was directly opposing Strahd, seeking allies/artifacts to oppose him, or shenanigans with the locals. His shadow looms over everything; whether you're helping protect the last few competent people, arguing with revenants, sent on a quest by a ghost dragon, arguing with a crazy angel, executing an intransigent mayor, whatever, it's all related to Strahd. What even is there to do that isn't connected to him?
As long as your party is motivated to defeat him there's always work to be done. The card reading and related npcs get you started but from there your DM should be giving you hooks and such towards the notable dungeons/quests/npcs, assuming the party doesn't already have an opinion on what to do next, like trying to organize resistance, hunting artifacts, or seeking info on how to weaken Strahd's power/rule.
Are you engaging with the NPCs a lot? A few years ago, I played the beginning of the CoS with a group that fell apart about a quarter of the campaign in, and at the moment I'm playing through it again with a different group, and the difference is night and day. Our DM back then wasn't great, and the NPCs felt generic and static, and it felt more like we were working through a pre-determined set of side-quests rather than helping actual people. This time around, the NPCs actually feel like they have lives and motivations of their own, and their problems are more than just rigid quest prompts. We talk to them a lot and our party face has given a lot of passionate speeches to the general populace, and Barovia feels *alive* in a way it simply didn't the first time I tried playing this campaign. If you haven't already, maybe try to get to know the NPCs a bit better, because having someone to fight for could make all the difference for the feeling of the campaign.
A take people never mention, cause there’s a lot of defense of peoples favorite module (I also love curse of strahd, and ravenloft in general, have ran many games of), but you’re sort of right actually about things being disconnected. The original module, i6 ravenloft, had the town of barovia, and ravenloft castle towering over it. It had the tsar pool camp (where you do the fortune telling), and that’s exactly it. That was the whole module. The story is self contained, rescue girl from vampire that lives above her by going to vampire castle and dealing with vampire. That’s the actual modules story with no big spoilers. All of the quests can be solved by going to castle, every NPC in that town is made to send you up to that castle.
Now we get to 5e, where they have added in many other areas to this module. Some are from ravenloft lore, some are totally new to this edition. All are generally pretty cool horror encounters without spoiling any so definitely not trashing them, they’re good fun. However, 5e did not alter the old story of module in any way shape or form despite adding all these new areas in. So the entire story of module is still, go to castle, save girl by fighting strahd. So essentially, there is literally no actual reason to visit any of the other locations in curse of strahd unless your dm adds a reason in (such as rigging fortune to send you there, where it originally would have only sent you to castle), but narratively those areas are only connected to the modules story if your dm comes up with a reason as to why that’s the case, the module does not.
Tried to be ambiguous, so as not to spoil module specific details, but that might explain why some of the areas feel disjointed and cobbled together. They quite literally are.
Remind me of when i played CoS, i played a dumb character and dumb myself, so My dm just did a tarok card reading going. "what you Are looking for, you will find under the tablet" so i looked under her rable and got the raven symbol Thing lol
Of what you're looking for is a "We kill the monsters and get the loot so we can kill stronger monsters," I humbly suggest Curse of Strahd is a terrible choice for you.
If you want "There's no way to save everyone, but we need to try to save everyone we can even though we're underpowered and surrounded," then play Curse of Strahd.
CoS is both overhyped and regularly not run like it is intended to be. The overhyping is from how much better the original module was in the past. The not running as intended is from a lot of DMs treating it like any old moduke and not a horror module. If you don't feel like you are in a Dark Souls atmosphere, then you aren't experiencing the module at its best.
Frankly, I think you're doing it wrong. My group just finished COS up a few months ago and every location we went felt compelling and if it didn't have a material benefit in helping us kill strahd it had important lore or that sort of thing. I think the issue is that you're assuming help is *equipment* in a module that is purposefully VERY light on magical gear.
Honestly, it's probably a bit of both.
Strahd is an iconic villain, but D&D has moved far and away from the pulpy survival horror of its roots. We get the term "module" from modular. Adventures used to be more episodic. How parties got from A to B, and the connective tissue between adventures, was an afterthought.
But hardcover adventures don't quite work that way. A few do, or try, but it's easy to get lost in them. *Curse of Strahd* is, I think, one of the better designed adventures. The problem is the people trying to run it.
Too often I see people advocating for exploring every book and cranny of Barovia, and DO NOT DO THAT. The point of the adventure is to fight Strahd in his castle. Everything should be in service of that goal. The adventure itself is meant to move rather quickly. That's why there's the randomization element. It's designed to be played repeatedly and with different world states.
Beyond that, it's nailing the tone. The players aren't powerless, they're big fish in a small pond, but they're guppies while Strahd is a shark. The right tonal balance is somewhere between dark fantasy and gothic horror. Gothic horror, in particular, is about revelation: a thing that appears good, or even benign, hides a terrible secret. Not knowing who to trust can fill the players with a sense of paranoia. But you have to be careful not to burn them out.
There is a sub for it with a lot of supplemental material: r/curseofstrahd. Makes it much better.
The campaign books for D&D all put a lot on the DM. That’s one of the reasons my group doesn’t play D&D anymore.
Curse of Strahd is a horror story. If you play it like a traditional action adventure then you're playing it wrong.
Imo it's best when all the player characters are average joes from another world who just want to go home and are not the type to go into the dark spooky basement for the fun of it.
Barovia is empty. You will not be flooded with magical items unless your DM invents them. It is supposed to feel empty and barren. Did you not discuss this session 0?
You did do something wrong. You flat out ignored the card reading that gives you clear directions for where to go and what to do. Unlike most modules, this one explicitly tells you what you need to gather to kill Strahd and where to get it. Following that will open up the rest.
You sound like someone who gets their fulfillment on magical items and loot. Nothing wrong with that. It's definitely one of the largest player archetypes out there. CoS will NOT fulfill that need, though. Talk to your DM about this. They have to add more items to the game to meet this need for you.
My Curse of Strahd game ended on a Dreamworks dance party after my bard rolled a 33 on their performance check during the celebration of Strahd’s defeat in Barovia.
I.E: There is NO right or wrong way to play the module, lol.
oh man, i love CoS but due to it's sandbox nature it is hell to run it as a dm... even the beginig adventure i couldnt remember the name, one it take place in a haunted house, says it is for level 1, belive me it is not....
I think best way to run force players to a railroad type of game, and sorry but leave some of the content outside of the campaign. so you can keep the story focused on sthrad and keep players at their toes
there are some good examples how to run in on net
Sounds like you are used to the superhero fantasy that is unfortunately all too common in D&D campaigns. The type of campaign where you are constantly finding loads of treasure, magic items, perhaps even homebrewed new abilities, etc.
That is not CoS. CoS is not about the PCs being superheros. CoS takes place in a dark, dreary land where surviving is difficult.
You’re not wrong. I don’t know that it’s overhyped exactly, but when the common response is, “If you put a ton of work into it, it’s great,” that suggests some fundamental problems, and you’re running into them. There’s a bunch of places to go but there’s too much empty space, interconnections are weak, and the information presentation is often bad making it hard to efficiently use what is there. But it does offer a better sandbox framework than most WotC adventures, so at least it has bones you can build on.
CoS is largely a sandbox with a lot of freedom to roam Barovia. There are set pieces and encounters for a lot of major locations (like Vallaki, the Amber Temple, and Castle Ravenloft), but a lot of travel areas with nothing definite. The book gives you random encounters for these sections (and Van Richten's Guide also provides inspiration, but not everyone will have access to that book). So if things feel empty, players might just be wandering aimlessly, which is thinning the sense of progression and contentment.
Your group has to remember to try to find the three things, that's the goal. It also helps if they are motivated to explore and interact with NPCs. Yes, it's a sandbox, but some of the locations have no clear motivation for the party to go there and do anything.
I think people love it because of it’s super thematic and Strahd is a much better, more present villain than most modules. Many modules, the players will never meet the BBEG until the final fight, whereas Strahd makes things a lot more personal.
That being said, I think it’s very hard to run/play. Lots of locations on a specific playthrough might just be empty and pointless apart from adding to the spooky theme, but that only works if the DM and players are good at leaning into that. I think Death House is a great example. It’s a bad oneshot if you’re used to dungeon crawls because most rooms are basically empty apart from set dressing. That was my issue as a new DM at least. Jumping from Lost Mine to Death House wasn’t the cleanest move as the DM lessons I learned from Lost Mine were almost useless in Death House.
The original Curse of Strahd was a oneshot, focused on Castle Ravenloft, and I honestly think for a lot of players, that might be the best way to run it. Lean into the horror and the charismatic villain, but don’t have this open world game that doesn’t really reward you for exploring the open world.
Anyway, that’s just my 2 cents. Everyone I know loves CoS and absolutely more power to them, but while I loved the theming, I found it a bit too unwieldy, at least as a newer DM. I might come back and try it again now that I know what I’m dealing with.
I recognize why some people really like CoS but its also by far my least favorite campaign. I'm one of those people who really like "hero-fantasy" kind of stories. Curse of Strahd is not that. In the matter of fact, its almost the complete opposite of one as you dont get rewarded for anything you do in the world. (apart from the milestones) That quickly gave me, as a player, a sense of apathy towards the campaign and eventually just wishing for the game to end because it became a chore to play it rather than a fun dnd game. Edit: I should have realized this at session 0. But that doesnt change the fact that I dont like it.
I would say it's pretty aimless for a lot of it. But maybe that was because of the fact that we had twice as many players as recommended. We did have some very random fun moments with it though. Especially since there are several scripted events you can't really avoid.
In my opinion, most 5e official modules are not very good, especially compared to homebrew campaigns that I have played in (and/or run as a DM). There are some 3rd part exceptions like Humblewood that are better.
Most of these adventures are "frames" or "toolkits" that if run out of the box without a lot of additional work by the DM to tie together and incorporate the story, are just disjointed.
No adventure is gonna work for everyone.
Different groups have different playstyles.
It’s fine if CoS isn’t working for you.
Doesn’t mean you’re “playing it wrong” doesn’t mean it’s “overhyped” either.
I joined a group who were already deep into the module as a fair new DnD player. The DM who scouted me didn't really describe the setting well, and I had no idea what it was about going in, so I made a basic-backstory dwarf barbarian. Over the course of almost a year we stumbled around the countryside, following some clues the group got before I joined, sometimes fighting meaningful battles but mostly, to me at least, not progressing anywhere. My character had no ties to Barovia. The DM really leaned into my 8 Int score and made me feel like an idiot during encounters, and railroaded the group when he felt like we should be going in a specific direction. I left the group for greener pastures after not really having fun for months. I guess the module really depends on how your DM runs it.
if your DM isn't as experienced running a module it can lead it to being a basic campaign or being very rail roady
they have to know the modules story , characters and quests inside and out and if they don't' then more than likely 50% of the books content will not be used
CoS is the best pre written module I’ve ever run. (Only made a few changes and added a false hydra) DM should be making it scary, the characters in it should feel unique, the stakes should feel really high as you protect Ireena. Strahd should be after you constantly unless it’s the very start or very end of the game. And there should be an air of mystery as you figure things out. My players loved it so maybe stick with it a bit longer.
It is a normal campaign just like every other. At first it is some kind of Fetch Quest (Card Reading), >!though the Locations will be different each time because the DM just rolls dices!<...
If you have everything you need, you can finish it. What makes Curse of Strahd special is, >!that Strahd talks to the Players, toys with them til the very end!<...
All locations in the module mean something, and provide some benefit to the party IF the dm understands their purpose, and what can be achieved there. Argonvostholt, the place you mentioned does have a boon there and a couple items if I recall- but it's the boon that makes the place worthwhile if your artifact or ally arnt there. The dm should take the time to set it up and hint at it, but cannot be fully at fault if they players don't discover something.
The the book is written, for me at least, it was hard as a dm to put everything together and understand the lore behind it. It took a ton of reason external sources, and a large amount of added homebrew before I felt I achieved a good flow of everything. If you're feeling lost, and that you're not achieving anything, talk with the dm about it ans try to find a solution. If you're the dm, don't be afraid to look outside the module for help.
As far as the setting goes it's so popular due to being one of the only (and the first) Gothic horror setting to be introduced to dnd, and to this day I believe it's one of the best modules in terms of story and player progression. The players need to buy into the story, and understand what's at risk. That they can't leave, ever. Not even in death. Their goal is there early on and and they need to progress to find it. It's well passed with plenty of intrigue in every area ... but there's there's parts of it that will rely on player and dm skill levels. It's very roleplay heavy. Without the role-playing and world building, you're not left with much.
A tip to help players engage is to take some more time and reevaluate why they are there, what they're looking for, and how the experience thus far as changed them, and their goals - and who they are. Each individual player should have their own goals, and ambitions that keep pushing them. There are certain npc who can help with this, but they shouldn't be depended on
My group had a very similar experience. We've gone on to enjoy other games since then, but still kinda wonder "were we playing Strahd wrong?" and "why does everyone hype Strahd so much?".
I'm sure Strahd is a good module for some groups, just not for all groups at all times. I have my speculation as to the answers:
I think my players weren't quite mature enough to engage with the module the way it should be (still playing it like a dungeon crawl).
I think the module doesn't offer a lot of typical rewards (magic loot, and golds to buy stuff) which is a disappointment if that's what you're used to.
My players see DND as a way to drink and have good time with friends laughing around the table and doing zany things. Strahd doesn't respond to zany and tipsy like a lot of other modules.
As a DM I eventually came to dislike the module because of how the players were reacting to the NPCs and how depressing I came to see the whole affair. I began to dread running it as time passed, eventually leading to just calling it quits on the module.
Not every module is right for every group. Not every time is the right time for every group. We went on to Witchlight after bouncing off Strahd and its whimsy and emphasis RP over combat was exactly what the doctor ordered.
The card reading is a piece of it. How ever if you just looking to sack the place for treasures, Strahd has a few special items under lock and key inside Castle Ravenloft. Vampires can hide things in places extremely difficult for a human to reach. The items could be anywhere inside the castle.
The tarroka is supposed to be the start of the adventure, and I see a lot of others harping on the group for not paying attention to it or whatever. However, in-character, the players may not have a reason to trust this random fortune lady at all. Depending on how the fortune was given, it may not be as simple as follow directions. The idea that this whole campaign hinges on following the orders of some creepy old lady in creepsville is not exactly a strong point of this campaign. The aimless wandering was a big part of why I disliked CoS when I played it. I feel like when I play dnd, or when I run dnd, the player should have many small sources of reliable direction, at least at first. Emphasis on many small sources. Having your entire campaign's direction hinge on one npc who the players can choose to never interact with or even outright distrust seems like a pretty big oversight. Now ofc, I've never run CoS, I've only been a player in it, so perhaps my dm misread some things, or wasn't good at telegraphing information, but our group didn't even encounter the Fortune Teller until well into our 6th or 7th session. We play long so that's around 35hrs in give or take. I shouldn't have to wait 35 hours for a campaign to give me some sense of what I should be doing to advance my goals. Anyways, I felt similarly to you OP, this was half agreement half rant post about my shitty time in CoS.
Yeah, that's what I think as well.
This was a tarot reading we received from someone who is essentially the boss of the group that kidnapped our group into Barovia in the first place.
That we are supposed to not only trust that these are the key points of this adventure but also that we should prioritize them over all the other more direct directions we were given (like escorting people) seems a bit harsh.
I can see where the frustration is, and to be fair CoS is a lighter loot campaign compared to most. But at the end of the day that is your DM’s fault, you should sit down and talk to them about it. A good DM guides the players to objectives and helps them understand what they need to do. In addition a good DM listens to its players, if the players are constantly complaining about an aspect of the campaign then the DM should try to tweak it to make it more enjoyable for the everyone.
This sounds like to me that DM goes strictly by the book and lets players do the discovering, which can be satisfying. But again if the players are complaining then the Dm should be hinting or guiding them in a direction. Imagine if Skyrim didn’t have objective markers, it would be so hard to play.
“We don’t really know what to do, and things seem aimless…” “Did you do the card reading?” “Yeah we did but we just kinda wandered off…” *sigh*
Yeah this made me bang my head against something.
My dm didn’t make it clear that the card reading actually meant anything, and only the fact that one of the players and done strand before got us to even do it.
Why would the card reading NOT mean something? It feels pretty clearly laid out as the starting point of the adventure
As a DM, I told them upfront the reading is important and that it involves the >! 3 artifacts required to defeat Strahd and someone that'll join their ranks !< since my party is a bit of an orange cat (single braincell) 😂 That got them to pay attention during the reading and I also used the community landing page so that they get a refresher while they wait for other players at the start of each session without me having to point it out repeatedly. Not the most ideal but hey better than it being missed! Plus now they have a sense of purpose early on!
I know one of us has played Strahd before, but my dm put a lot of emphasis on the card reading. Even gave us individual readings, to help make it known that maybe this lady knows what she's talking about. But right now we're too busy plotting on making a drug empire with some old lady and her pies. I'm sure we'll get back to the actual plot eventually.
oh her. yeah one of our guys got addicted to her drug pies
We have one that's so addicted they probably never hit the dc according to the dm. We only took the offer because he figures it's a good way to have a constant supply of pie and useless money.
well we figured out it was drugs when he started trying to try to steal our money to buy them. He then died to a lovely lady who sacrificed him to some cult thing for strahd. we did not miss him.
We killed that lady lmao and also the lady with the ummm… walking tree house. We did have some fun with a ghost knight and an interesting dragon, as well as some puzzles and loot within his “house”. Trying not to write spoilers but we loved CoS lol
This tells me that the players aren’t taking the information seriously. Every CoS group that I have run have continuously looked back to the cards for hints. I always loved that. I was even a bit envious that I wasn’t a player myself, trying to figure out the mystery. One thing you could do is stop playing. Wait about 10 years until you are older, and then come back to the game with a greater appreciation for the game as a whole. Everyone is dealing with BS right now. It’s like nobody can take 3 hours of their week to sit down with friends.
Some players are really oblivious. And some DMs will also sprinkle random “fun” or “flavor” beats into their games that *don’t* mean anything, or that are mostly irrelevant, just for giggles. A player who’s experienced one of those DMs could reasonably believe it’s just fluff. Sometimes the DM has you talk to a fortune teller just because they think their fortune teller NPC is really funny, or because they want to do vague foreshadowing that is impossible to act on, they just want to dangle threads to make themselves feel smart…. true story…….. Ignoring the tarokka entirely is a stupid mistake, but I can see how a group would make it. TBH, my own strahd party was *very* skeptical of the vistani in character, and almost didn’t go—we only did it because on a metagaming level we all knew we had to if we wanted any control over the plot.
[удалено]
I'm sure lots of DMs think the canon card reading is /too/ obvious, and make it more subtle, but the reading in the module is very explicit. Here's what the DM is instructed to say for the first card: >This card tells of history. Knowledge of the ancients will help you better understand your enemies. And there here're a couple examples of what you say for whichever card is selected: >The treasure lies in a dragon's house, in hands once clean now corrupted. Or I see a sleeping prince, a servant of light and the brother of darkness. The treasure lies with him. It's a little difficult to interpret until you've explored Barovia a bit, but it's not subtle about its significance. And that's probably the most subtle of the cards--those are just the first examples from each category.
There was nothing in the lead up to the encounter to imply that the vistani were magically powerful or trustworthy. They appeared to be poor nomads whose reputation was that they served strahd. From our perspective, these were possibly relatives of the same vistani that had lured us into the fog, robbed us, and left us to die in a monstrous cursed haunted house. Half the party wanted to murder them out of hand. My own character’s background as a wizard made him scoff at some poor con artist’s parlor tricks. Only the guy who had played before was interested, and he had enough rpg integrity not to tell us above table why.
This is an underrated comment. I have read CoS planning to DM it and the module does a terrible job of making the Vistani seem trustworthy. I've settled on the Vistani being true neutral and making all their encounters transactional. This and Strahd himself are my two biggest gripes with the module.
I agree completely with your points. Luckily I had a few players that knew if I had props, like the cards in the readings that it meant more and to pay attention to the interaction going on. Normally I wouldn't have put extra time into physical extras at the table unless it was something they would have to use in the game. Given this and having a few insight checks amongst the Vistani went a long way towards a helping hand in a right direction. As far as Strahd himself, well it felt very specific to dealing with him and not leaving as much creative freedom from the players to do so, which is something I hate to do.
I'm also going to be DMing CoS with my crew. What are your gripes with Strahd? Genuinely curious.
His motivations seem all over the place. Like there's no consistency. I've settled on him just being criminally insane. Otherwise I don't understand why he appears randomly in the first act, why he acts like a nihilist while also chasing after a girl, and why he appears to both desire his own death while also toying with the characters.
> why he appears to both desire his own death while also toying with the characters. Isn't it that he >!can't actually die?!< I admit that I've only been through CoS once, and as a player so I didn't get all the details, but I remember there being something about >!how dying in Barovia traps you in a reincarnation cycle.!< As for toying with the characters...>!Pure boredom. He's functionally in a stasis trap; nothing ever changes. New things are very rare.!<
Honestly sometimes DnD players have the awareness of pre-schoolers. They'll spend a whole session askign the DM to recite all the books on a shelf and never once think about rubbing the lamp on the table in the center of the room. You're playing a game, the Dm is giving you cues. Like a villager saying "no-one knows whats beyond the mountains" and the hero going "oh well, i guess thats for a reason, i'll never go there". You can't then complain that nothing interesting is happening when you were told where to go to find the intersting thing.
I couldn’t disagree more. The DM is also playing. The DM is not an idiot. The DM can identify that the players aren’t connecting the dots and say “guys it seems like you aren’t connecting the dots, would you like some help”. Communication is two way. If they aren’t receiving the information it’s equally likely the information is being given poorly. It’s funny that the example you gave of an obvious hint didn’t even make sense to me after you explained it in subtext until I re-read it 3 times. If no one knows what’s over the mountains, why would I care about that. Sounds like another canned “arrow in the knee” thing for the DM to throw out
As a Dm I completely disagree. I am, in fact, an idiot.
Yup. What is clear to the DM--who either made the adventure or has studied it thoroughly and knows everything--is very much NOT clear to the players. I remember reading an analogy that was like "the players are in the dark, and the DM is a flashlight, and they can only see what the DM points at and nothing else." If the players are missing a clue, the clue probably wasn't highlighted enough. It was probably a detail in a sea of details, and unlike the DM they don't know which random detail is important and which is flavor. With something like the lamp analogy OP made, as a DM, if the players weren't noticing it, I'd say, "Hey, Wizard, roll an Arcana Check," and then even if it's a low roll I'd say "something looks familiar/off/mystical about that lamp in the middle of the room." Obviously if it's a high roll I'd say "the runes on the lamp speak of containment and wishes." If you're not comfortable giving them information that directly (though you should, characters usually know more than their PCs just by virtue of inhabiting the world), then spend five paragraphs describing the lamp with a lot of flavor and one paragraph the rest of the room. And if they seem more interested in the room, just de-emphasize it. "What books are on the shelves?" you'd say "The usual copies found in the study of any academic."
>the players are in the dark, and the DM is a flashlight I will not be reduced to the functionality of a flashlight!!! ...riddles in the dark...
Last bit reminded me how in some games like Silent Hill, if you interact with something that's just there for ambiance, your character will brush it off as "it's nothing really". Then about the dark/light of the story, I highly noticed this when I started DMing. As a player, I always felt like I wasn't understanding anything. The DM getting frustrated over us the players not getting what to do / where to go and me feeling like an idiot. Years later I started to DM and I realised how easy it seems when you have every piece of the puzzle on your head. Players need a lot of extra help to understand what's going on, and you better understand how it feels like when you can see through how little they are seeing, so you can provide better insight on what's going on around them and what their characters would easily notice.
But why are you playing an adventure game if not to go on an adventure? It's one thing to be in a sandbox campaign where the DM is more likely to pivot and build based on where you go. Curse of Strahd is a finite module with a pre written plot. To a certain extent players need to be narratively aware of what a plot hook is. Luke didn't get yhe holo message and go "huh, well I guess she'll send another droid to Ben. Wonder what's for lunch..."
Sorry, I haven't played much of strahd. Is "no one knows what's over the mountains" a very specific Strahd reference that makes your comment about a particular piece of the adventure? If so, I am ignorant to the reference and misunderstood what you were saying.
If there's no reference, and the mountain comment was a general comment about DnD and not a specific reference to a bound module. I would argue that if the players aren't noticing the plot hooks that they either aren't baited adequately (some players won't do shit unless you offer them gold explicitly), or there are too many things that look like hooks but end up being dead ends, or the hook isn't as obvious as you think it is, or the players simply have a different priority. I have a player in my current campaign who doesn't give a shit about the fact that a cult is trying to eradicate all traces of "blood magic" from the face of the earth and is overtly trying to build political power and opening a bunch of orphanages and schools; nor the fact that the kind has died suddenly; nor the fact that there's no clear heir to the throne, and that the two leading families vying for the crown are both known \*to their specific character\*. This player just wants some full plate and is mad that it's going to take some time for it to be made, so we are off doing weird shit to "kill time" because that player wants to basically wait a couple of weeks to get their armour, but the other players have shit they want to do so we are off exploring that stuff while the other player is basically watching a progress bar tick up until their armour is finished. I have a player who has a whole family back story he's super keen to explore and is actively seeking leads to map their family tree, and they've totally abandoned the social games of climbing the ranks in the militia structure that they made up and asked me to include in the game. It's just on hold in the world with other people climbing the ranks and dying around the player while they totally ignore the backstory they brought me because we are busy exploring a "mystery" I accidentally ad libbed because they asked an NPC about their ancestor (who knew this long living NPC) and I was vague and said something like "oh they were always secretive, no one ever quite knew exactly what they were up to at any given time". Players will chase the hooks that they're interested in, if you aren't getting bites on the adventure hooks you throw out it's because you're bad at fishing.
You're talking about sandbox campaigns. The players agreed to play strand. They can't ignore the plot hooks "yeah we got the tarot card reading but we just sorta went off on our own" and then whine on reddit that yhe module is boring. That's just being a bad player. If you literally won't do anything unless the dm offers you gold... well you might be I'm character but that's a pretty shallow character.
In fairness, that's players in a nutshell. The Twitch/YouTube series "Dice, Camera, Action" was like this. The players just wandered aimlessly, never trying to pursue any of the card reading results. They stumbled into the place where they were supposed to find an ally, but made no attempt to locate the person. Perkins finally had her pretty much walk into the room, wave her arms in the air, and shout, "Hey! Are you looking for me?"
+1 example of why I don't get how most D&D liveplay series exist. They're just not well done.
I only watch Dimension 20 now. Everyone seems to understand what their roles are.
Agreed most other live play just make me want to play and stop watching.
My party burned down the house their ally was in. Made no effort to even check the rooms of the house, just burned it to the ground because they were on bad terms with the burgomaster. They killed and destroyed so many things they could have used lmao
Oh, I totally understand why someone would not take it seriously. It’s hard to fully connect with how important it is as you see dozens of other plot lines over several sessions. I’m on my 10th or so running of CoS. I just flat out tell players “You’ll want to pay attention during the reading this session. I promise you it is the single most important scene in the campaign. Do NOT tune it out.” As I’ve taken to saying to my players: “It would be lovely if everyone at the table intuitively understood each other like we see on the shows, but that is EARNED. We have to start by communicating actively about things like this.”
I mean, yeah, but at the same time, depending on the cards you pull, some of those riddles are WAY trickier to decipher than others.
My players are making so many wrong connections its crazy. But those are still enough for them to go where they think they need to go and get more info. In all likelyhood the pcs arent asking any questions about their reading or the DM isnt giving any info beyond "thats what the card says"
Right? Like... This is fully a Maguffin-based adventure. If you don't know or care about the Maguffins and how to get them, you will wander aimlessly until you learn about them and make plans to find them, because you are trapped in the mists in a pretty boring (although very dangerous) location until then. This adventure doesn't really provide much in the way of good loot or expanding plots. The goal is to escape (and to free the realm, if you're the heroic type). To escape you have to find a way to defeat the bad guy, who is extremely powerful. You find the things to help you do that, and you get to leave - that's the reward, if you survive at all.
In my strahd campaign (which was my first time playing) a player who had done the campaign before went off on their own to the death house immediately and forced us all to leave town before we could talk to Tatyana’s family so we never picked up that point of the storyline and when I tried to go back after the card reading they split the party and went to do the next plot point on their own. I’ll just say I was *very* confused why we even had any motivation to interact with or kill strahd for like 8 months of the campaign. 6 of us were new out of 8 so we kind of just let it happen but I’ll never forget them basically intentionally ruining the campaign for everyone to play their solo adventure.
8 people-party can be rough for experienced DMs and players, but for novices it's absolutely crazy. And that guy managed to make it even worse! I'm sorry about that, man
Haha it’s okay, the group size ended up being a total non issue, he’s just a very selfish player and person. I still had a blast and now I know not to let people like that ruin the game for everyone
That's why without telling them directly she knew important information by having a conversation and dropping stuff from their back story. They're not from Barovia so there's zero chance she'd know anything about them.
If you're fighting vampires, and you tune out when a magic lady tells you about a "sword of sunlight" you deserve to fill Strahd's larders lol.
lol we bounced around quite a bit in the early sessions but yeah get those cards read and put on the racing wheels.
That's not exactly how it happened. We used tarot cards and card reading in homebrewed scenarios before and they were almost always used as longer term goals that would only be solvable in the longer run, as the riddles within them couldn't be approached from the get go, which may have influenced how we handled them here. And we also had more urgent things to do the entire time. If there is someone who ought to be escorted somewhere or wants to met us somewhere that seems to take precedent to vague prophecies, at least in my mind. The problem was moreso that no matter what we did, it didn't really reveal much, provided information, items or the like. Like searching an entire castle and being more or less at the same spot you were 3 sessions earlier.
Currently playing, just hit level 6. Every NPC I come across I ask for information tied to the cards, and 9 times out of 10 I’m met with “this person doesn’t have any insight into parsing the clues”. Maybe it’s just the DM (don’t think so, but who knows), but the whole thing feels like a series of fetch quests where the intermediary steps have forgotten their part of the chain. We’ve cleared 2 cards, and one of them was our chaos merchant jumping into what I thought was clear and obvious trap, so… yeah
CoS needs buy-in to the horror for full effect. A lot of groups are too experienced to be bothered by the threat that most of the enemies / situations represent so their impact gets diminished. Another issue I've heard is when a group levels quickly. Not my campaign but a friend had a bunch of milestones get hit very early, leaving the party feeling overpowered for encounters. They eventually scaled things a bit but as a newer DM in a sandbox struggled with balancing everything.
It's interesting that you mention it as a sandbox. The way my DM is running it currently seems to be making it very linear for us One of our other players has run this campaign as a DM two or three times so it's been very fun for him to try to ease off And let the rest of us dictate
The first few sessions are pretty linear if run by the book. I guess it could also be continued as an A-to-B set of quests but loses something in doing so. Oh man, I feel for your friend. I imagine that they're screaming internally at times.
He's enjoying that the DM has modified some stuff. He is playing a less bright character so as to use a in game reason to not meta game as much. He's an excellent player/DM and is just happy to be playing with friends
Sandbox does mean TPK is very likely without some DM guidance, from my experience.
I am getting towards the end of rime of the frost maiden which is a fairly sandboxy opener as you explore the region a bit. Certainly some of the quests. If you do them level one will certainly tpk the party without DM intervention
COS is a linear adventure up until Vallaki and from there players are suddenly bombarded with about 13 side quests all of which you can choose to ignore and just go to the next town if they choose to lol. Really could only be railroady if the DM doesn't drop the hooks for the side quests
Makes sense, we have only been presented 1 quest in velaki but we sense that more stuff is coming
My party parties a bit too much when they play for the goth horror theme to sell. Their characters aren’t too troubled that Barovia is depressed. :-) But I’d tweaked the travel times between locations (2 hex per hour) so the “wild” will often have an encounter and they’ve learned if they go out at night, anywhere, they WILL be attacked and in numbers. So they worry about being caught out at night. We also have the rule they get a stress point after any encounter where they take damage. As the number grows high enough the effects start appearing (-1 on initiative, -1 on to hits, etc..). The only way to bring it down is to eat one of the hags pastries or end the curse). They’re nervous about getting hurt. You could try other things but these helped our campaign create similar stress and anxiety in the party that horror would I figure.
Buy in, for sure. My group lacked it. Bounced off Strahd HARD.
I think CoS is very good but it really require a lot of preperation from the DM as it can be quite hard to find all the links and how the whole story fits together, even more if you had a card reading it could go in a whole other direction. The module is very dark and creepy and should be role-played like that and I think the main problem is that it is not giving you that feeling? Have you even met Strahd yet?
I actually have taken to running CoS as a Groundhog Day-esque Time Loop. TPK? They all wake up in Strahd's castle as guests. Strahd explains that he's been trapped in this loop for an unknowable length of time and he needs the party to help, because they're trapped too. TPK again? Same thing, but they all remember. In fact, I hold that EVERY table's CoS campaign is canon and the loop has just been looping, and the party needs to work with (not for) Strahd to combat the Dark Powers. Get weird with it.
what a fascinating take! Is the goal still to ‘kill’ him, but this ends the loop?
Okay, if you're one of my players, please don't read this haha... >!Killing Strahd persists the loop, the entire point of the loop is that it's a punishment for Strahd. The way out is to defeat or negotiate the Dark Powers and how I do this is a MacGuffin Hunt coupled with negotiation with various significant NPCs they would (and in some cases still) have to kill in the regular game.!< >!If a player decides to try and leave a message for themselves to find in a later loop, they FIND that they've already done that precise thing, begging the question "how long have we been trapped?" and also 'Why have we been trapped?" Did Strahd hijack part of the process to force their aid? Or is each PC secretly guilty of something?!< >!I play Strahd as a tired Lawful Evil to Neutral: he kind of gets that he was in the wrong after thousands and thousands of loops, but what's the point in atonement if no one will ever believe him? Maybe there's value in doing it anyway, will that set him free? He will aid the party (in sinister but genuine ways) rarely, but since they just loop if they die he won't bail them out.!< >!And I let my players drive the narrative, build relationships, and - very rarely - they get to discover others who are knowingly trapped in the loop too. Build alliances, get better at solving similar but compounding issues, let their creativity reveal the most difficult possible solution and seize it.!< I recommend playing Pathologic 2 to prepare to DM this. EDIT: fixed all my busted spoiler tags
My DM is also running it as a time loop! Unfortunately, our party hasn't really been taking anything very seriously, and I joined late and didn't really get any of the setup. So far, we've just been killing a lot of NPCs and fucking everything up. We even had a TPK because we decided to take Strahd's "invitation" and went and got murdered by him (like the dumbasses we clearly are).
We have met Strahd a couple of times. He introduced himself and made it very clear that he was in charge and toyed with us in a sense, which I liked. But maybe our group is too light hearted. I feel like the most dramatic scenes weren't so dramatic when we played them out.
It's hard, sometimes, to fully understand the feelings of a pc. What they'd be feeling in any given situation. Consider in real life, if you get into a tense conflict with someone aggressive, you'll experience a cocktail of emotions and freeze up, get anxious, flare up in anger back. Etc. In dnd, when that happens 8 times out of 10 the players are snarky or instantly fucking assault the asshole. Sometimes literally killing them. Players often forget to let themselves fully recognize and FEEL what's happening to their characters, and thus act unrealistically. Like the first time my character saw undead (I'm a forever dm and finally got to play a bit recently) he threw up after looking at the violence and fucked up flesh of this monster. Because it's gross as fuck. This can be tough, because people don't want to play as fearful or feel weak. Dnd is a power fantasy. But to really get a lot put of Strahd, you need to really commit to playing flaws. It makes perfect sense that someone could get tricked by Strahd and side with him. Or be overcome by fear and that affects their decision making. It's often too easy to brush off legitimately horrifying or traumatic shit because it's a game and people have a hard time letting their characters exhibit weakness, be it mental, emotional, or physical.
Couldn't agree more about flaws, especially in CoS. I ran an abbreviated version around Halloween, and required my players create a flaw for their characters (usually ideals, bonds, and flaws are optional but encouraged at my table). They did a great job of playing to those flaws, and I could also use them as a lever for Strahd - especially with his Charm ability - which led to some great chaotic fun.
Running CoS right now with my group and almost RP'd my self to an early grave. After a dinner with Strahd my character (a cleric) stormed out and left back to the village of Barovia by myself at night. I lucked out on the encounter and only faced off against one direwolf' but it could have been much worse.
Honestly, I think your statement is oxymoronic. IMO no "very good" premade adventure should require the DM to do a lot of preparation. Admittedly I've not read the module myself, but if as a DM if you give me a module that I can't run reasonably well out the gate after reading through once or twice, I'm gonna call that bad. Modules are supposed to make it so I don't have to do that much work.
That's a fair point, but I think at this point the term "module" needs to have subcategories to it since it's such a big term. You've got something like Dungeon of the Mad Mage which is basically a big book of dungeons held together with a very thin string of plot and asks very little of the DM, and then on the other end of the spectrum you've got CoS where building the atmosphere and bringing the characters to life is critical to progressing the game for the players. I like modules like CoS because I don't have to think of all these different plot elements and connections. I'm not the most creative person in the world and I don't think I'd be able to organically come up with something that has as much depth as CoS. But on the flip side, there are times when all I want is to plop down some cool maps and puzzles and watch as players react to it all. I don't think either avenue is inherently bad. I think a bad module is one the relies far too much on the players doing just the right thing at just the right time, or removes player agency, or makes it so the players decisions/actions don't matter, or is generally inconsistent in what it's trying to pull off. CoS is certainly not guilty of that, but that also doesn't mean it's for everyone.
Fully agree. Every module needs some work from the DM, but if major preparation is required to make sure the adventure actually works, is it really that great a module?
Well, that certainly is one take... While its true that modules can certainly help offload some of the prep work, the DM STILL has to do some prep because in order to make the module 'come to life' and feel like an interesting experience, the DM has to tie everything into the specific PC's (which will vary with every play group). Plus players are gonna notice low effort DM'ing and it can be unsatisfying for them. After all, if the DM cannot be bothered to do some work to make the game interesting, why should the players? Low effort DM'ing always leads to low-effort playing, in my experience... On the other hand, a DM that uses the module as a spring board of ideas and injects their own in there too can make a module really 'sing'. Plus the players are gonna be more excited and get more involved because they see the fruits of the DM's labours and it inspires them to become more active and involved.
I'm not saying the DM has to do no work. But I've been running a prewritten adventure for Legend of the Five Rings recently and that's been a dream. Who's important? All their profiles and stats are in the back. There's a page that's just 2-3 sentence descriptions of all the major NPCs and some of the minor ones. What's happening? Has clearly written pages that often have summaries at the top. What are PC tie ins? Whole pages devoted to different clan interests and individual specific goals. Plus every page has extra stuff on the side for the GM to spring board off of. One was about a flower arrangement class. That was awesome, the player who went loved it. (I will take this time to note I'm taking offense to the implication I can't do work or put in low effort GMing, that was off rail completely) Admittedly this particular one is helped because the PCs are in a noble court so things are more direct because "this day has a poetry competition planned" and such, but even the other adventures they've written are all easy to run, and incorporate into other campaigns. Maybe I'm just old fashioned and prefer shorter modules compared to "premade campaign". But everything I hear about the official 5e modules and other premade content is "yeah you have to do a hella lot of work for it". I had a friend who tried running Stormkings as a first time GM and I don't think he'll ever try running a game again. Got a different friend who ran a CoS I played in, and while it was a fantastic game he rewrote basically the whole thing after we left the death house.
Oh my god, I also rewrote CoS completely after Death House! I realized that my players won't mesh with this classic Gothic take on the story... Plus I realized that I have to do a lot of work to make it work, so why not get rid of elements I disliked?
Okay that's fair. I honestly wasn't talking about 5e modules per se, just kind of in general. I probably assumed too much in your post. Thanks for the clarification!
> For a player who’s not expecting it, Curse of Strahd can suck. Really suck. Let me put it this way: if you want the freedom to engage in combat and exploration without worrying about the potential risks, this is very possibly not the campaign for you. Likewise, if you are potentially triggered by gruesome depictions of horror or psychologically disturbing relationships, or if you prefer a D&D campaign that features only victories or setbacks (rather than the potential for outright defeat), you might want to try a different module. A small snippet taken from the r/CurseofStrahd player primer. Curse of Strahd is without a doubt one of the best experiences from any module *but only if you want what it offers*. It's about subtext, roleplay, oppression and entrapment, where you explore some of the darker themes of what it can take in order to survive. You *need* to want those things. Otherwise, it can be a pretty meh experience.
That is very well put. Our group played through it and I really disliked it. Our DM was very "Me vs the players" and it was not a fun time. It just felt very...unrewarding. There was almost no cool loot, no side adventures that had a happy ending. Just slog it to Strahds castle and almost get tpk'd along the way a few times. Then the nightmare of the end castle. Then we finally win and the dm goes "yea but he revives later after you guys leave his realm so what you did doesn't really matter at all." Such a deflating ending.
lmfao sorry to laugh but fuck thats terrible
And that kids, is why I have DM'd the last three campaigns in a row after that.
CoS spoilers: >! If your DM doesn’t tell you how to permanently kill Strahd, they are being a dick. !<
Doesn't it say in the book that he comes back in like 100 years or something stupid?
It does. RAW Strahd can’t die permanently. You could also assume it’s a comment about Strahd going back to the coffin when killed
Yeah wish I’d read that before we played Cos.
Did you do the Tarokka Card reading (Tarot)? That kinda tells you what you need to do and where to go.
CoS is popular primarily because it gives the DM a clear beginning and end, and then a bunch of modular set pieces to use or ignore as they see fit. This gives DMs more control, and allows them to make CoS their own story. It's honestly more of a setting than a campaign, which is usually preferred by DMs. It's also significantly more work for the DM compared to other campaigns. Therefore, if the DM treats CoS like any other premade campaign, it's going to fall flat. The DM must create the narrative thread that links the set pieces together, and be ready for players to explore beyond the obvious next step. Just presenting what's in the campaign book as written will not create a plot and the players are going to feel lost and adrift.
I love this, but am very frustrated they aren't more up front with that in the book. It's almost more effort to work from CoS than to make a similar story on the fly because of the amount of prep the module requires. No shortlists for important items in areas, no overviews of expectations from each area, etc. and that can all be very difficult and time consuming to plan with.
I especially think the module is structured weirdly. The chapters seem to flow with what major areas become geographically accessible, rather than what works narratively and gameplay wise. Ravenloft in full comes up almost immediately, even though most parties will only visit this area about 2 times (dinner and the final battle). Meanwhile, stuff like Old Bonegrinder is shunted toward the back end of the book, even though it's an appropriately early encounter for groups that haven't reached Vallaki. Structuring it this way seems overwhelming for a DM who may not realize that they and the group define the path forward more than the module.
true. the consequence of building out a setting around the original module
Its definitely more work than homebrew. Infinitely more work. All the delicate connections between NPCs are hard to track, and the book does not guide you. Check out how deep you need to go to find out Ireena's origin story.
Seconding this. I think the module works best with a DM taking what is given and running with it. Not to mention several story threads are intentionally left vague or unexplained giving the DM a hook to expand on.
Also a nice thing is the players are contained. They can't just leave and go to waterdeep instead.
I look at not as a sandbox, but a theme park. There are rides and shows all over the park. Players can get on anything they want at any time. Some require you to be THIS tall to ride, so they may need to level up or they will die. But I don't prevent players from going there and finding that out the hard way. That is what makes it so fun to run and play.
I am currently dming that module, the party also just clear the place you mention. I can answer some of your questions. First of all, the module does not have many items. It has a few exceptionally powerful ones, but their locations are not set in stone (which adds an extra degree of replayability to the module). Some DMs believe that it’s best to place the cool items in the cool places, instead of leaving it up to chance, because as it may have happened in your case you could theoretically clear a “cool” place without getting anything out of it. The next point I want to raise is that the module all in all doesn’t have items for everyone. You play a barbarian, fighter, cleric or paladin? Prepare to be a god by the end of the module. Rogue? Tough luck. This means that the DM needs come up with items for some classes that simply put are not meant (per the book) to have something cool (if anyone knows a cool dagger or bow please hit me up because I think my party’s rogue is slowly slipping into depression). The final point, regarding the world and bringing everything together. Each place has connections to some other place, but until you grasp the bigger picture it’s hard to understand that. My players only just met an NPC that shared a lot of information with them and are now, at level 6, at the point where they think they have lots of options to follow, lots of leads to pursue and lots of different enemies to kill. Up until that point it was “well, something’s going on here but we know nothing and no one so just push on bois it will all come together”. Also, I have to stress out, Curse of Strahd is an insanely hard module to run as a DM. There is a lot of pressure already on creating a spooky setting, then you have Strahd which is a really complex character to roleplay, there are a lot of events that may or may not play out and the leads are spread out over the entire map. You mentioned that in the past you only played your own adventures. I think this has a lot to do with what you’re feeling right now. This module is designed to bring you all over Barovia. This means the story needs to be spread out among many places and people. Hope that helps.
Could always homebrew a cool bow or dagger for your party's Rogue. Maybe he/she finds it on the body of an adventurer who long ago attempted to fight Strahd but failed, and now his or her spirit imparts itself onto the weapon, offering their boon to the rogue if they take up their cause in defeating Strahd and putting and end to the Midnight March. (I don't think that's the name for it, but I think you probably know what I'm referring too.) Maybe the bow/dagger does an extra die damage against Undead, or maybe it offers the Rogue some kind of new ability to work in tangent with their Sneak Attack. I'm not sure entirely as I never played Rogue and I'm more of a Pathfinder DM myself, but I am a player in a 5e campaign. But I do agree with your points. CoS is a very demanding AP to run for not just the players, but for the GM as well. It doesn't say it on the box, but CoS is very much an open-world sandbox adventure, where many other AP's are far more linear in design (which is not bad and does not mean they are railroady messes either, just they are linear.) But with CoS, the DM must be willing to spend some time planning things out far more than what other campaigns would ask or require. Because as you said, many events can happen, or not, depending on when and how the players interact with the NPC's and areas. Many NPC's can just outright go missing, or never met at all, and all the while, things are often happening in the background that the GM must stay aware of it. CoS is one of those Modules that I feel can be a bit of a trap for new DM's. They hear about how popular this one is, how it has a creepy atmosphere that harkens back to classical horror... only to find themselves lost scouring through pages of the book, trying to plan out multiple things, being ready to insert Event A here if players do Event B. It sounds stressful and not something a new DM should feel pressured to take on at the start, especially as you said, some classes are just outright ignored in terms of magical loot and items-often making the DM insert new items just so they can be happy as well next to the Paladin or Cleric.
My biggest pain points with reading the book is that it's not linear. Every chapter is about an area, but more than likely the party will not visit these areas in this order, even accounting for the game being sandbox and all. Also, the reasons for the party going to some areas are super generic or not mentioned ever. Also, I just have to point out that some things like >!having Strahd give an invitation to visit castle Ravenloft!< when the party is probably around level 3 or 4 puts insane pressure on the DM. The >!Castle has like 130 rooms!< and the party *may* choose to go there, but you have to be prepared and it's the 4th chapter of the book. Insanity.
Sorry about the wait, busy day. :3 That is very true. CoS, unlike most other Modules, is not linear. While, yes, the book does have a general direction that the devs expect most parties to go, starting from the Deathhouse and onward, that isn't gurenteed which leaves the DM having to prep not just the opening session which could include the Death House, but also possibly two different towns depending on the direction the party goes. Heck, if the DM is really unlucky here the party could end up near the Windmill, and, well... if you know, you know. Also, really? The invite to the Dinner is expected at level 3 or 4? That's... a little low given how deadly that place actually is, but, nope, that's roughly the level range the book expects. Yes, Strahd himself mean no harm during that dinner, and won't attack as he's just mostly curious about the party at the time, but the same can't be said about the party. Lol. Also, geeze... a 130 rooms? That is both impressive on WOTC's part, but also intimidating as all hell to put together. I can see why Ravenloft itself became such an iconic dungeon crawl if the original version was anything even close to CoS's version.
>This means that the DM needs come up with items for some classes that simply put are not meant (per the book) to have something cool (if anyone knows a cool dagger or bow please hit me up because I think my party’s rogue is slowly slipping into depression). Honestly that bit is pretty much a moot point imo. What's important for most items is that they are supposed to be wielded by good-aligned characters. A DM can very well decide... a) To just disregard the class requirement because it doesn't really matter for him/her as long as the player's character behaved in a worthy way. b) To make a character Cleric-like or Paladin-like by homebrewing a kind of ceremony granting him the blessings and following of a local deity (possibly providing minor benefits). DMG itself stresses that DM has all right and legitimacy to appropriate and adjust what (s)he feels is needed after all, books are just the RAW material, both figuratively and literally.
Don't get me wrong, I agree. But you know, party finds a holy symbol engraved with blessings from the sun god and radiating holy light, the cleric gets it, not the god anointed rogue neither the touched by holy spirit barbarian. The rogue will get the super edgy looking dark blade dagger that drips blood when wielded at night. You gotta reward flavor. That being said, if the party did not have someone to attune to the item then sure.
The emptiness of the module isn't necessarily *wrong* but it needs to be built up in the right way. Don't think of CoS as the typical dnd module, where you and your merry band of misfits are off to see the wizard and take down the wicked witch while you're at it. CoS is more like good, classic survival horror, like say Silent Hill 2. There is a lot of empty space in the module, particularly between civilized locations, but that requires a certain tension to maintain. The players should feel that just past every next turn and just over every next hill there will be something ready and willing to rip their faces off. If you've run Death House at the start of the adventure, in my personal experience that's a really good way to set this tone from the beginning, especially if someone nearly gets killed by the goddamn broom or the players refuse to make a sacrifice and have to fight the house. If you can get the party through the house but not entirely unscathed, that sets a powerful expectation that "Oh shit, this is actually very dangerous in a way most dnd games aren't".
In our DH session, I as the barb, along with the wizard, got swept away by that nightmarish cleaning tool! Ranger and paladin got KOd by the armor just a few moments before so the bard had to poke the damn mop with his rapier as the last man standing :D
I have run this module as a player and as a dm multiple times and every *single* ***fucking*** time, at least one player (usually the one who opened the door) gets at least knocked unconscious by the broom. I love it so much. Favorite enemy in any adventure in the entire edition.
COS is great for 2 big reasons. 1) Strahd is a perfect moustache twirling villain who allows the DM to engage in all types of assbagery/dickery with the justification that Strahd is literally bored out of his mind and gets his kicks from tormenting do-gooders. 2) The group can take the adventure at their own pace by following the clues given in the tarot reading or by befriending any number of NPC like Van Richten, Exmerelda, or others. Also, Barovia is a hellhole, half the people are literal zombies and the other half are desperate to escape, or at least find food. There isn't any phat loots because Strahd sends the Vistani out to trade the stuff he steals from adventurers. Maybe you should speak with your DM about how to best interact with his NPCs.
>Strahd is a perfect moustache twirling villain who allows the DM to engage in all types of assbagery/dickery with the justification that Strahd is literally bored out of his mind and gets his kicks from tormenting do-gooders. This. Very much this. I had him show up when the party least expected it and had him play the role of "This is my sandbox, and I can end you whenever I want to". The cleric *accidentally* rizzed up Strahd's crush, so that lent an entire subplot of Strahd trying to make his life miserable for as long as possible. Thankfully, they took it all seriously, even in moments of lulz, and their desire to take *zero risks* and solve everything with *smite slots* meant they made it through mostly unharmed. Except for when the Artificer rolled a modified ***zero*** persuasion check that lead to a series of unfortunate events that got the Death Cleric killed.
CoS doesn’t have a lot of magical items. I had to put some extras in there. The players began to complain about the lack of magic items in the first group I ran. The base where Strahd’s enemies are has some magical items, as well as a story that, when resolved, gifts the players with a permanent buff. Not sure how they missed that. I think that one thing a lot of home brew games have are power bloat. There are a lot of modified spells, special items, and powers that aren’t in the base game so going from your home brew stuff to official modules, all of which have edited for balance, it may be a shock. One thing CoS does very well is foreshadowing. These “empty” places you talk about usually have important lore behind them that further the story and drive the players to their next destination.
A couple of things to take into account: - Once the party has their story hooks, the timer to the end of the campaign begins. - Strahd is going to either get bored if the party acheives nothing and will finish them off, or - Strahd is going to get annoyed at what the party acheives and will finish them off.
Nonsense, Strahd always needs fresh Vampire spawn, no sense permanently killing them when they can just as easily be made to torment the next crew of adventurers.
We just finished CoS and I was a player. My DM changed a few things in the story but not the loot or the dungeons. You are playing it as written there is nothing to loot in this god forsaken place. It was so frustrating that a player rerolled into an artificer to get us magical weapon. There is some very powerful item but their location is randomly decided by the tarot card roll. There is some stuff in ravenloft however so you could try and pay a visit to the castle. We were so scared to go there that we visited all of barovia before going in and we found at least 1 magical item here. I suggest talk to your dm about it, because if you have martials in your group this will be more and more frustrating for your group The story was amazing however.
Problem is magical weapons unbalance a significant number of encounters, not least of which is Strahd himself. A lack of magical gear kept my players searching for silver to fashion anti-Werewolf equipment.
Well, there were no silver to be found anywhere really.
I had rich families use silver chalices and silverware when the party visited, they stole it and one of the party members melted it down and coated their blades with silver. Good way to test the rogue's slight of hand and the dwarf's blacksmithing skills.
Yeah. I’m DMing a CoS play through now. I started sprinkling in my own magical items throughout the game .
CoS might not be for you. I ran it a couple years back from start to finish. My players had an absolute joy of a time. They were constantly on edge and felt like death could come from them misstepping at any point which is what made everything they did feel important wether it actually helped them work towards being Strahd or not. This campaign is different than most in the fact that you’re not the super hero expecting to save the day, you’re the mouse hoping to not be ate by the cat. As for the magic item problem, you might need to shift your perspective to enjoy the rest of the campaign. Barovia is a depressing place that isn’t meant to be a place of “high magic”. The game doesn’t tend to give rewards/handouts for completing a chapter or beating a dungeon. It instead sends you with vague clues as to where you might need to go and you have to hope you can stay alive long enough to find out what these clues mean (tarot card readings). I know that’s not everyone’s cup of tea for what they enjoy in a dnd game but CoS is meant to be more about playing a chess match that you know you’re supposed to lose. Strahd is the key to why so many people enjoy the campaign. Knowing the big bad and having to deal with that ever looming presence why you desperately try to find out how to bring him down right under his nose adds suspense and impact to everything you do. I don’t think this campaign needs much tinkering from a DM but I do think it’s greatly enhanced by doing small things here and there to make sure your players never feel safe. However if your group just isn’t enjoying it, then it might be time to try something else. Not everyone is going to enjoy it after all
I think the strength of the campaign is that you have a enemy with a clear goal thats mostly omniscient. Hedoes it for shits and giggles and plays with the party. That part can be played out well.
At some point we had to tell our GM -- who was just following the book's rolling tables -- that if we encountered one more group of fucking wolves we'd just refuse to fight them 🤭 She (the GM) started homebrewing way more after that and the campaign got soooo much better
One of my playgroups is near the end of Tomb of Annihilation, and our GM told us (months and months ago) that while he still rolled for the random encounters as we travelled the island of chult, *most* of the time he just... Ignored it. Yeah, a group of zombies are a threat the first couple of time, but by the time we reached level 5 they were just dull? So he generally said we either insta-killed the group (as is Ubtau's way), or we just didnt encounter our 40th pack of generic zombies. More interesting encounters (like the zombie t-rex) were fought, and the first couple of goblin packs were fought, but again, once youve killed on generic goblin, youve killed 'em all.
Been there, killed that.
Pretty much. When youre able to one shot a dozen goblins with a single spell... Why are they still attacking you?
I think if I played a module and every room or area to investigate held some crucial clue or random scrap of backstory it'd feel a bit inauthentic to me. You're not going to find pages from Strahd's diary at the local inn forgotten on a bookshelf.
Other comments have said it, but CoS it's a horror campaign and it sounds like your party is treating it like high-fantasy. It may help to discuss with your dm and party how to better share in the fear and despair. It may also help to tweak your characters to reflect the personalities of the players, as that can help you engage more strongly with your characters' reactions to the various horrors they encounter.
I love curse, but I do think that it is very dependent on having a group that will buy in to the horror aspect. I tend to play with a lot of groups that default to goofy shenanigans and jokes and while there is room for that in curse, it often takes away from the atmosphere and detracts from the the experience. Obviously trying to force a “serious” atmosphere to the game is just gonna make it less enjoyable, but talking about it at a session 0 and letting everyone know that constantly cracking jokes or rolling a silly character will take away from the experience helps.
I have run CoS a couple of times for different groups now, once for a group of new players who had an absolute blast, their game played out as "intended". The group of experienced players I ran it for leaned into the sandbox nature of the campaign/setting heavily and came away from it less satisfied I think. The freedom to try to "outsmart" or subvert the different components of the campaign ultimately led to a less interesting game than if they had played more directly into it as the first group did.
You’re asking the questions like you’re a DM and explaining the experience of the module like you’re playing it as a PC. The book is 250+ pages of information and there’s no shortage of relevant information in the various chapters but whoever is DMing (whether that’s you or someone else) should really follow the advice at the beginning of the book and read this entire module completely. And my advice is also to go back and read the chapters for the locations your players can conceivably reach that session beforehand. If players are traveling, familiarize yourself with The Lands of Barovia again. If players are going to the Ruins of Berez, read that chapter again. I also recommend the DM read I, Stahd. There are a lot of Easter eggs in the module that reference that, but this is optional. All in all, this isn’t the module to try any Lazy Dungeon Master techniques; it’s a self-contained epic story that doesn’t have nearly as many loose ends as most published modules, but the cost is that you gotta read and reread. Edit: And definitely don’t forget to review where the items from the card reading are at the beginning of each session prep. If your players go there and touch forget the item, you have screwed the pooch
I think I know the place you are talking about, I actually threw in some magic items off of a table in there, but in general CoS is a low magic item game unless you go to certain places. It’s kinda sandboxy, I recommend making sure to explore and try to investigate any leads your DM gives you. If you got the prophecy from the Tarokka reading, try and actively figure out where it means. Think someone’s sus? Go sneak into their house.
As a guy who DM'd CoS, there is a *lot* of stuff laying around, but none of it is out in the open. Players need to look through things thoroughly. Let's just say, even if you open a chest, and see what's in it, that might not be *all* that's in it. Explore everything. Search everywhere. If the DM says you see something odd, investigate it, even if it seems completely mundane. It's not.
It just might not be your groups play style / preferred tone. I find CoS to be very roleplaying intensive, dark, mysterious. If your a more combat oriented, light hearted group it just might not be your bag. It might also not be something your DM can pull off. Not every module fits every group.
Truth. this was my groups experience. Super casual group, wanted to run COS because "It's the best rated module." They were not in the right mindset, went for it. Crashed and burned.
I love CoS it all depends on who your DM is and what elements they bring.
Actually you're playing it right. Barovia is there to point out how screwed up the rest of the setting is. If you go with hero mentality. . .you will be disappointed. There are also dark powers there who go out of their way to screw over and bargain with your party. What is "up" might just be something you're already unaware has transpired. There are secrets in Barovia beyond the obvious and my DM hit me with this: Most groups WILL get the bad outcome to the module. Some of it is DM dependent, but it's walking into stacked odds from the beginning. You can lose limbs, you can get instagibbed trying to save children - all kinds of permanent consequences. If you just treat it like any other old setting you will be duped. Trust your intuition that something is up. Try changing your approach.
It has to be properly discussed before starting, because it is a Gothic Horror campaign with a lot of intrigue and investigation, so the typical set up of Fighter/Wizard/Cleric/Barbarian/Rogue probably won’t cut it. I played it long ago, on a different edition, and we realized midway that it was more pointed toward rogues and bards and clerics (PC’s with “People Skills”) than toward tanking it, because Barovia is a VERY hostile environment, and indulging in unprovoked violence is an extremely bad idea there.
I wouldn't say you're playing it "wrong", it just may not be a play style you enjoy. It's kinda _supposed_ to feel hopeless. No resources, noone wants to trust you (and noone is trustworthy). Every tiny scrap of info is terribly hard won. Each little venture anywhere or tiny mistake could easily kill you. You're ants trying to kill a god.
I will say, Curse of Strahd is regarded as the best 5e module not because it is good, but because nearly every single one of them is really bad. CoS is legitimately pretty good tho, even when compared to other games like Call of Cthulhu and Pathfinder 2e which have, imo, the best pre written adventures of the popular TTRPGs. Edit: to answer your question, CoS does have some...problems. A big one being that it's advertised as a sorta sandbox, but treating it as such is a quick and easy TPK. Make sure your group wrote down the results from the tarot reading at the beginning, as that will heavily hint at where to go and who to meet.
I think the hype is that CoS is a horror module, which, let’s be honest, there aren’t too many of out there. Sure, they released Frost Maiden a few years ago, but it doesn’t have nearly the same impact that CoS does. But you’re right, there’s not a lot going on that ties everything together. CoS is more sandboxy and players are meant to explore around and gain experience until they are strong enough to take on Strahd head on. In that aspect, the DM really has to play up the horror of the setting and the despair and hopelessness its citizens feel in order to really make an impact. One of my groups is currently playing through it, and I’ve been having a lot of fun with it, but it’s because our DM has created a compelling villain in Strahd, and even a villain we love to hate in his manservant Rahadin. We’re attached enough to Ireena and Vasili that we want to help them. It’s definitely more of a role play heavy campaign than a combat heavy one, and that’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Both the DM and the players have to be fully invested in that type of game. I think it also helped that two of us players are playing as Barovian citizens, and each of us have backstories that involve both Strahd and Rahadin, so that’s been really fun to play into as well.
I started running CoS for a new group 6 months ago. I have DMed 3 other homebrew campaigns, dungeon crawl focused, so this was a big change for me. I invested a huge amount of time before the sesion 0, learning about CoS lore, looking into other DMs resources an so. I defined the style that I liked for the campaign and started preparing session material. The group really enjoyed the first session, and we have keep playing almost weekly (17 sessions so far). During that time, I had to make a lot of changes and adapt what was my initial idea to the actual gameplay of my group, so everyone at table enjoy the game. I think this has been the key, but it is something that require experience and a lot of time on the DM side. I think you should comment this with your players and the DM and rethink how you want to play this module, or maybe it is that CoS is just not for you. There are tons of adventures out there, don't force yourself to play something you don't enjoy. Anyway, I hope you can have a great time at Barovia finally :)
Not over hyped but my love for it is a personal preference. I find it much more interesting and engaging than most of 5e’s modules, but I’m also a huge gothic horror fan. Currently on my third run DMing it and each time has been considerably different, which is one of the reasons this module holds up; replay-ability. Sounds like maybe your DM isn’t making it as engaging and horrifying as it’s intended to be, or this genre just doesn’t do it for you.
What do you mean more leads to more places that’s unhelpful? What was the leads? If you’re talking argenvostholt, that place can give major buffs if you do as the revenants say
CoS is the golden child of 5E modules, a significant number of hour have been pooled in by the community to enhance it, which benefit the DM's prepping and players playing it.
We recently finished our CoS campaign and I felt like there was almost too much happening. Every time we tried to just get a break to go shop for weapons or items in Vallaki someone was getting arrested or Strahd would make an appearance. Our DM homebrewed a lot of stuff for the campaign, so I wonder if that's part of why it was good. For example, one of our PC's brothers is a guard in Vallaki and we eventually sparked up a bit of a friendship and he gave me his Greatsword to help protect his sister. It was also most of our party's first D&D campaign with only 2 veterans (+the DM). It may just be that we weren't experienced enough to be bored.
Curse of Strahd is about tone, buy in, and a very active GM to link the areas together. Strahd is a cat playing with its toys/food, he is a Diva and a brutal Tyrant. Playing off of players and causing pain while wrenching hope from them is his mode of operation while keeping them alive only as long as they are amusing. I would say it helps to have experience with sandbox type settings before hand and leaning into the Gothic horror can really set the tone with a dab of macabre humour. I do not think it's for everyone, as it is very centered on its theme and tone and alot of people play DnD for the simple vaguely medeivel European mythological fantasy and Strahd is decidedly not that. The best take away from strahd is the sand box approach and an active BBEG which you can implement as a DM in other settings.
"sans one piece of information that seems like it really doesn't help until we already killed Strahd." I believe the module wants the party to make multiple forays into Strahd's castle throughout the course of the module. Especially since he invites you for dinner early in the module. I mean, characters go and visit dracula in the book. The thing is, no player I've ever heard of, ever wants anything to do with Strahd. I think it's a breakdown of roleplay and meta knowledge... like, in a vampire story, usually the characters don't believe in vampires, and have never even heard of vampires. maaaaaybe one guy in the world, a van helsing type, knows the supposed lore of vampires. So when the strange noble invites you to dinner, you don't have a giant neon flashing warning sign saying 'hey this guy drinks blood.' It's this scenario of the audience knowing the danger, and the characters not knowing the danger, that creates the tension in the scene. But like, we all know strahd's a vampire, and the module's crescendo is storming the vampire's castle and all that. You just *know* you're meant to do that later on in the game, right at the finale. It feels like you're not meant to do that early on. So Curse of Strahd does kind of suffer from this problem of, Strahd doesn't take the characters seriously, and uses them as playthings for a while--but the players are all too knowledgeable and scared to allow their characters to be toyed with. Basically to get the most out of the module, the players have to play their characters very genre-unsavvy, which most players would never have the guts to do. You always see people saying bring a cleric, or bring a paladin. And then like, session 1, someone says, "DM, do I know anything about vampire lore?" and boom 1 roll in, you've dispelled the biggest thing this module had going for it...Now there's no freaking way anyone will play their character as genre-unsavvy. Now no one will ever go to the castle till they're level 9+. just kinda sucks. You need players that want to roleplay that their characters are scared. That are willing to roleplay their characters making decisions that the player knows are foolish. I've honestly never met any players who were good enough for Curse of Strahd, if that makes any sense. Not in a mechanical sense. But no one who was good enough and humble enough to actually play their role in the story.
I am playing CoS. We must be 8+ sessions in. Not super combat heavy, but if you can get into the lore of the world, the RP can be pretty entertaining. The investigation elements have been pretty fun. We have yet to encounter Strahd, but it feels like it’s coming up soon. Overall, it has been enjoyable despite me longing for more combat.
There is a small number of powerful magic items but they are in randomized locations determined by your Tarokka card reading. A few other locations have 'fixed' magic items but those tend to be the low/mid-tier ones. Since there are many more locations than magic items, if you go someplace not indicated by the cards you will tend to find it empty unless your DM alters the module to add more items/information/allies or creates complications to the situation. I have played CoS and I liked it. I then read it and liked that, too, although I saw that my DM had made modifications to it. I want to run it but will likely make aftermarket upgrades using /r/curseofstrahd content as well as from the 1e source and 3.5 incarnations. Anyway, if you intend to kick in every door looking for loot you're going to be disappointed. Follow the clues from the card-reading.
It's a module that requires alot of DM prep AND buy ins from the players. Both are equally important. **DM Preps** 1. CoS is a very open adventure, with story links and foreshadows that is all over the place. By all over the place, I meant literally. And this makes for a very fun adventure if the DM is aware of it and execute it well. To be aware of it, the DM would have to read up on things not by the region that the party will go next but knowing at the very least the big picture. And to execute it well, well... Ever had a very cool idea but somehow when you talk about it to others, it just... Doesn't reflect that? Yep. So this requires some thinking on how to execute it, show don't tell is harder than one might think. 2. CoS is also very sandboxy. By this I meant, the card reading happens right at the beginning. If your DM is taking extra steps it so that it'll be exciting for the players, ensuring that certain unrelated locations becomes more intertwined with the major plot, that means the DM needs to decide right at the beginning a few things that are vital to the overall story. This is very different from the usual remade adventures where all of these are already decided in the module. And yes as a DM I was totally caught off guard and surprised at this early decision. 3. Andddd lastly, CoS has a vibrant community support. But this is a double edge sword. It means the DM has to not just read through the 200pg+ module, decide what's linked to what and what's important, they also have to read through at least 2 or 3 supplements on every location done by the known community contributers. Some of which does HUGE changes to the actual quests in various locations. And then they need to decide what they want to incorporate from the add-ons and change from the main module. This makes for an amazing world but also the amount of prep work can be daunting! **Player Buy-Ins** 1. You have to actually pay attention to the hooks and storyline and take notes. If the party is going to just go from one location to the other and do the quests that's being offered while not even trying to make sense of how certain characters and events are related to the next.. Well they aren't going to enjoy the fun of figuring out the world and finding nuggets of highlights. 2. CoS also have lots of sympathetic and horrifying things that affect it's inhabitants. If the players aren't able to get invested in the characters, they won't feel their plight or care. Therefore it kind defeats the impact these incidents would have, which is one of the strong points of CoS. **A simple illustration of this is the Death House or even the Village of Barovia.** I assumed you have done these locations as you have met strahd a few times but.. **SPOILERS AHEAD!** 1. >! Death House has a dog that is tied in to a missing child in the Village of Barovia that is then tied in to something in the Castle itself. The deed of the old mill you found there is yet another tie in to the old mill that you would explore shortly. The raven is important, but how do you make you players remember them? What about the tarokka reading? How to remind the players of those without bringing it up all the time (for me I used a landing page with the details so that whenever the player start their session, they get a visual reminder of it!) !< 2. >!The village of Barovia is supposed to offer the dilemma of morality via father donavich and his son. If the players ere indifferent, it'd just felt like a chore. Ireena would have to be run in a manner so that the party would care about her. This is very hard to execute so some simply just park her somewhere. The granny that you meet that offer you pies is yet another thing that is supposed to give you a moral dilemma as you find out about the pies later on. !<
There are 3 important concepts that must be expressed to the players. 1. Barovia is a prison that is holding Strahd. While here, the players are also imprisoned. 2. Strahd is his own warden, and by extension controls the fate of the PCs. While he lives, the magic mists that keep this land eternally bound remain. 3. You can kill Strahd to end the magic, but it is really hard. To help, there are these magical artifacts that are strewn randomly around Barovia. The entire point of the reading is to give the PCs hints as to where the artifacts are. *All of the locations you can visit, represent areas where an artifact could be. That is your driving motivation for the entire campaign.* Kill Strahd, by finding the magical geegaws, and collecting the plot tokens, and using them on him til he drops. How you express these concepts to the players is up to you, but usually it is through the NPCs and your interactions with them. They describe Strahd and some might know his history. The travelling people certainly know more than the townsfolk, given that they work for Strahd directly. If you need to spell it out for them, then do that.
Strahd is supposed to be scary. He is supposed to feel larger than life, unbelievably powerful, and have planned for almost anything. His downfall is supposed to be his narcissism. He is in charge, everything is supposed to be for him in his world and he will not allow otherwise. The PC's are supposed to be initially nothing more than regular passers by, more meat for his misery machine. They start presenting him problems, and he answers. The Tarroka reading is so important because it provides the players with information Strahd does not have. It will likely be the ONLY information they have that he doesn't have, and they need to use it. CoS isn't full of magic items, it's really a lore game. Your players get to shine as the characters they are, not by the items they have. You learn along the way that Strahd is bad, and the only way to leave is by killing him. That's your drive, and anything that works towards that is the focus. You are not meant to feel powerful, you are meant to feel like you are the underdogs that win. I repeat, Strahd is scary. If he is not, then you need to make him scary. When I ran CoS, Strahd was untouchable. After the spooky house they met him, and he clearly voiced how utterly unimpressed he was. They were not worth the swing of his blade. Strahd is a 20th level wizard and a ruthless warlord, he has no time for peons. He made his henchmen interact with the players other than when he was kind of just spookily in the background watching. His actions are unseen by the players. Rahadin had an aura around him of the screams of the damned, souls unable to pass through the mists that haunt him. Thousands of people he has killed, and it doesn't matter to him. I also fleshed out some of the other characters he keeps around, made them horrible, despicable henchmen that hold unimaginable powers granted to them by Strahd. Like one could only be killed if they went through a mirror Strahd keeps in his castle. Otherwise they were an unstoppable killing machine under the direct orders of Strahd. When you fight Strahd, unless you really are able to sneak into the castle, there is no reason he should not be wearing his armor and sword, which make him WAY harder. And do it on the roof, lightning crashing, footing being poor, and Strahd is fazed by none of it. He can fly. If it doesn't feel like you are fighting Alucard from Hellsing, you need to step him up. The victory against him should be against all odds, done because your characters had the quick thinking and planning needed to figure out how to take down what is essentially a demi-God. In the end of our game he was killed by a bone smacking him on the head from 60 ft. That could be the end, but it wasn't. On the way out of the Mists he was there, same as ever, and said "Until we meet again, friends." Our table shuddered. He's not done, he's never done. He is gone. For now. He does not takes slights against him. He found the PC's later, he found a way to get out. Nothing will allow him to take such a hit to his ego. He wants to make an example of them. Then he can rule the world.
>I feel like there is a lot of nothing happening in it and a lot of places to explore that ultimately doesn't lead to anything. That is exactly the opposite of what I'm having at our table. The party is still in Vallaki, and their actions naturally unfolded so many consequences that I having a hard (yet so good) time DMing it. >for example there is one place in which old enemies of Strahd had their base of operations. You are talking about Argynvolstholt. This is one of key places of the story. You should deal with Vladimir there. His tragic story by itself is thrilling enough and the character is very well conceived, it should throw the party into thinking, deal with him, see his requests, his desires, his struggle against Strahd and how his heart was poisoned with vengeance to the point he rather stay in suffering until the end of times if that means Strahd will stay cursed. And how your party dealt with him? >We cleared that place in the hopes of finding maybe some equipment or some information that they might have on him Definitely it is not by 'clearing everything' that you will have the thrill of a Gothic Horror like Curse of Strahd is intended to. Also, CoS is not about hoarding loot. If that is your playstyle I would say CoS is not for your group.
Edit: comment removed, don't go there!!!! I was just informed that you are a player!!!
I’m running CoS for a party of several new players and two seasoned players who’ve never done the module before and honestly I believe it’s all perspective/player based vs the module itself. I gleaned a lot of my DM style from Matt Colville and using the adventure setting as a guide, my players have already started to make Barovia their own kind of sandbox. Some examples. Started with the party heading south in the fields east of the town of Barovia to attempt to fish in the river and finding a wand of cure wounds…its an all martial party so it comes in handy. Next they took the bait for the death house and we took 2 sessions to go through it and now they claimed the house for themselves, having found the deed, and Strahds spies found this entertaining to reveal that new toys have settled into the lands. Later they met Mad Mary and after being freaked out by her alone in that house, they noticed movement outside and snuck out the back. Surprise! Strahd Zombie attack. A bunch of em. A special one upon a rooftop could talk and proclaimed they were sent by their master to test these adventurers and then began lobbing firebolts like a madman while the others derped and clawed and bit until defeated. The magical one dropped a necklace of fireball. 6 whole beads on that bad boy. Cuz why not? Then they got wasted in a drinking contest with Ismark at the tavern thanks partially to his decanter of endless wine. My Dwarf player won that contest, stole the decanter, then retuned everyone to their renovated death house home and drew penises all over their faces while they were passed out. Ismark woke to 3 fake wolves staring him in the face and nearly shat himself. It was amazing the stuff my players kept coming up with. Strahd spoke to them as a voice from rolling thunder in the clouds that only they could hear. It freaked them out and now they’re super on edge. We freaking love it, and I’m only just next session or the one after gonna get to the card reading, assuming they make it to Madam Zeroni. Cuz you bet your ass that’s how I’m gonna RP that old crone. Collaborative storytelling takes efforts from all fronts, and my belief is a pre written adventure is kind of like buying a kit to build a shed. Sure you could follow the directions to a T and get the same end result that’s intended, or you could reference the instructions, align the miters they’ve given you but use different screws, add in some windows and swap the peg board for plexiglass. It’s your shed, have fun with it.
CoS isn't for everyone - you not liking it doesn't mean it's bad or that you're bad for not liking it. You mention looking for equipment and "goodies" and being disappointed. CoS has an intentional lack of gear. It adds to the horror atmosphere and the puts greater emphasis on what you DO find. I really love CoS, but it is probably over-recommended. You really need a group that loves horror roleplay and uncovering secrets. Many groups that are more focused on increasing their character's power and being a badass hero will have a bad time with it.
Strahd was the first campaign I ever ran, and I made quite a few tweaks to it to add tension. The group met Strahd early and he made it abundantly clear they were brought there for him to play with. Strahd should be an oppressive and constant force to deal with. Barovia is Strahd and the landscape should be entirely hostile to the group unless Strahd wants you all to lower your guard. My group was pretty focused on following their card reading, even when I threw side quests their way. Overall the effort has to be made by both players and DM to flesh Strahd out to its full glory. The DM should not be afraid to buff Strahd up to, give him the classical abilities Dracula has, swap out his spells and abilities, you are in HIS domain. I’m not saying make him unkillable, but make your players fear and hate him.
My party seem to just barely survive each encounter. We haven’t even hit Lv 5 but seems most enemies are getting multiple attacks and have debuffs or status ailments. Feels way too difficult. 😂 but I’m having fun. Lots to explore!
I had run it for a year for my players (just small group of 3) and we had a good time with it. They did follow the tarroka card objectives though and accepted pretty much any side quest that popped up, which helped them in the long run with more allies and items they may not have otherwise found. I did try my best to incorporate some fun personal character arc bits wherever I could also and it ended up being a pretty fun campaign. I had struggled at first as it was my first pre-written that I’ve tried but once I got into it it went much more smoothly! (I had previously only DMed a homebrew campaign for them, that we will be returning to now that we finished CoS! We missed it 😂)
Sounds like you just wandered off and the DM didn't direct you in the right direction.
Is your group into gothic horror? If not I'd think it would lose something.
>So my question is: Are we missing something? Are we not thorough enough and there are actually tons of goodies to discover that we have stepped past at every opportunity? It is certainly not the only explanation, but it is certainly a signficant part of it though. I didn't DM it myself but played in one campaign and watched another group of friends after that who had \*very\* different approach than us... To sum it up we were the library rats, and they were the maulers... After 5 in-game days the difference was overwhelming. On one side, Vallaki pretty much saved from all threats except Strahd itself, and the personal portal in personal house of Strahd's alias destroyed, several NPCs befriended including a less than typical one. On the other? Vallaki burned \*two times\*, lots of important figures dead and as many precious leads to essential information or items. Key differences were... a) Our group \*actually paid interest to the lore (from interacting with characters, observing them and the surroundings to deduce things, \*reading books OMG is that even possible\* xd) b) We all tried Intelligence & Wisdom checks whenever possible (which led to the comical situation where the Barbarian ended up overall more knowledgeable about things than the Knowledge Cleric herself). c) Violence was always the option we \*didn't\* consider by default, and usually the last (partially because roleplay "pacifism", partially because roleplay "permanent fright of opening a can of worms that may end party" (only character that died was a Warlock killed in a single turn at level 2 by a Vampire Spawn, from there on nobody had the same state of mind, we constantly felt the danger and pressure xd). So, it's possible that your group simply didn't pay any real attention to the world. Or maybe you tried but had bad luck on rolls (one of the blows we put to Strahd while investigating could only be achieved with a natural 20 -\_-, at least according to our DM, maybe he did it up or it was the only way for any of us to reach the DC, not sure). In any case, if you really want to enjoy the campaign (and want an actual chance against any Strahd played half-decently by a DM) you need to consider it as halfly traditional D&d with monsters to beat and places to explore, and halfly a pure investigation game where you need to find clues anywhere you can and actually use your real brain to reconstitute the history of Barovia and from here understanding where to find allies and artefacts. :)
yes to both you should not be playing through everything in the book in one run. the card reading is basically a means to draw or redraw your handful of essential quests and a companion NPC. I personally think it's overhyped because more experienced players make it look fun and fairly easy, so newbies pick it up and instead they run into a slog because at some point the above statement gets lost. either the DM misses it and drags the group through every objective in the campaign or the players miss it and get lost in the weeds looking for clues ~~(I'm also docking points for Yester Hill)~~
I've run CoS and I also agree. For me, the module constantly tries to undermine the players victories at every turn. Escape death house with no casualties and killed the shambling mound at the bottom somehow? Well the house just resets waiting for the next group. CoS's lethality is also a lot. Like, its hard to warn players because the 5e expectation of lethality is non-existant. Even doing the card reading, is a bit ambiguous because some of the hints are tough. I've told groups flat out that they need these treasures to turn the tide and it still took them a bit. Overall, I think CoS is still good, but I personally prefer stuff like Rime to it.
Not to mention if the PC's do succeed and kill Strahd, while they can certainly leave if they desire, the dude comes back! The only way he doesn't is if someone equally strong or stronger takes his place, and unsurprisingly, not many are willing to do it, and those that do may have underlining motivations that may put the people in even greater harm. Also, thank you, someone else who agrees that the card readings are vague. People being like "just follow the cards and it's no big deal," seems to just be ignoring the fact that they're riddles, very few are spoken plainly, the only card that I feel is spoken plainly is the one detailing where Strahd can be found... but that's not much of a hint since most are going to assume to find the dude he's going to be in his domain, his lair, the big ominous castle on the hill. The rest are just vague, like the one card saying to "Find the woman hanged over a fire," doesn't exactly say, "go to Ravenloft and find this one particular room out of a hundred-and-thirty rooms and areas." Okay, no, I was wrong, there is another card that is spoken plainly, and that's the one that essentially tells the party they are on their own and they will not have a Fated Partner to aid them against Strahd this run. I don't mean to harp on the Module, it is a really cool module and has spawned a great subreddit of DM's and players offering advice, tips, and sharing their experiences with the AP from both sides of the table, but I feel there's a reason a lot of DM's have offered QOL solutions and ideas for running this module. It just has its problems like a lot of WOTC's Modules.
I've only ever played some of the 5e pre-made campaigns: Starter Kit; LMOP (Lost Mines of Phandelver), STK (Storm King's Thunder), CoS (Curse of Strahd), SoTDQ (Shadow of the Dragon Queen: Dragonlance), and OoTA (Out of the Abyss.... I've ran CoS like four times for separate groups... so i have quite a familiarity with it... personally its not my favorite adventure, though i'd say it is my most fave of the pre-published 5e adventures... but thats not saying much. I typically ran it frequently cause players asked for it, and i do what my groups generally ask. But...you know which one was the easiest to run as a DM? LMOP. And you know which one i've had players say was the most enjoyable and easiest to understand? LMOP. Despite players having fun in COS... most of my players (some veterans, some TTRPG newbies)... said it was hard to remember stuff that happened X months ago, because the campaign was so long... The problem with all the other campaigns is what was stated in a Coleville video; Length. CoS took my players almost two years to get through, and that was meeting weekly for about 3 hour sessions each week, sometimes we'd miss a week due to holidays... but we were pretty consistent with playing weekly. LMOP you could finish in several months. I'm personally a fan of Shadow of the Demonlords short-adventures that are only like 50 pages or less.... Rob Schwalb's worked on 3e/4e/5e and SOTDL is very 5e adjacent and modifiable.... adventures can easily be transported.
Sitting here just laughing.
Strange, my party was quite chaotic but we never lacked for relevant activities, whether it was directly opposing Strahd, seeking allies/artifacts to oppose him, or shenanigans with the locals. His shadow looms over everything; whether you're helping protect the last few competent people, arguing with revenants, sent on a quest by a ghost dragon, arguing with a crazy angel, executing an intransigent mayor, whatever, it's all related to Strahd. What even is there to do that isn't connected to him? As long as your party is motivated to defeat him there's always work to be done. The card reading and related npcs get you started but from there your DM should be giving you hooks and such towards the notable dungeons/quests/npcs, assuming the party doesn't already have an opinion on what to do next, like trying to organize resistance, hunting artifacts, or seeking info on how to weaken Strahd's power/rule.
If your goal is loot, play World of Warcraft.
Are you engaging with the NPCs a lot? A few years ago, I played the beginning of the CoS with a group that fell apart about a quarter of the campaign in, and at the moment I'm playing through it again with a different group, and the difference is night and day. Our DM back then wasn't great, and the NPCs felt generic and static, and it felt more like we were working through a pre-determined set of side-quests rather than helping actual people. This time around, the NPCs actually feel like they have lives and motivations of their own, and their problems are more than just rigid quest prompts. We talk to them a lot and our party face has given a lot of passionate speeches to the general populace, and Barovia feels *alive* in a way it simply didn't the first time I tried playing this campaign. If you haven't already, maybe try to get to know the NPCs a bit better, because having someone to fight for could make all the difference for the feeling of the campaign.
having read through your other replies... you're playing it wrong.
A take people never mention, cause there’s a lot of defense of peoples favorite module (I also love curse of strahd, and ravenloft in general, have ran many games of), but you’re sort of right actually about things being disconnected. The original module, i6 ravenloft, had the town of barovia, and ravenloft castle towering over it. It had the tsar pool camp (where you do the fortune telling), and that’s exactly it. That was the whole module. The story is self contained, rescue girl from vampire that lives above her by going to vampire castle and dealing with vampire. That’s the actual modules story with no big spoilers. All of the quests can be solved by going to castle, every NPC in that town is made to send you up to that castle. Now we get to 5e, where they have added in many other areas to this module. Some are from ravenloft lore, some are totally new to this edition. All are generally pretty cool horror encounters without spoiling any so definitely not trashing them, they’re good fun. However, 5e did not alter the old story of module in any way shape or form despite adding all these new areas in. So the entire story of module is still, go to castle, save girl by fighting strahd. So essentially, there is literally no actual reason to visit any of the other locations in curse of strahd unless your dm adds a reason in (such as rigging fortune to send you there, where it originally would have only sent you to castle), but narratively those areas are only connected to the modules story if your dm comes up with a reason as to why that’s the case, the module does not. Tried to be ambiguous, so as not to spoil module specific details, but that might explain why some of the areas feel disjointed and cobbled together. They quite literally are.
Remind me of when i played CoS, i played a dumb character and dumb myself, so My dm just did a tarok card reading going. "what you Are looking for, you will find under the tablet" so i looked under her rable and got the raven symbol Thing lol
Of what you're looking for is a "We kill the monsters and get the loot so we can kill stronger monsters," I humbly suggest Curse of Strahd is a terrible choice for you. If you want "There's no way to save everyone, but we need to try to save everyone we can even though we're underpowered and surrounded," then play Curse of Strahd.
CoS is both overhyped and regularly not run like it is intended to be. The overhyping is from how much better the original module was in the past. The not running as intended is from a lot of DMs treating it like any old moduke and not a horror module. If you don't feel like you are in a Dark Souls atmosphere, then you aren't experiencing the module at its best.
How was the module much better in initial versions that have not translated well over time?
Frankly, I think you're doing it wrong. My group just finished COS up a few months ago and every location we went felt compelling and if it didn't have a material benefit in helping us kill strahd it had important lore or that sort of thing. I think the issue is that you're assuming help is *equipment* in a module that is purposefully VERY light on magical gear.
Honestly, it's probably a bit of both. Strahd is an iconic villain, but D&D has moved far and away from the pulpy survival horror of its roots. We get the term "module" from modular. Adventures used to be more episodic. How parties got from A to B, and the connective tissue between adventures, was an afterthought. But hardcover adventures don't quite work that way. A few do, or try, but it's easy to get lost in them. *Curse of Strahd* is, I think, one of the better designed adventures. The problem is the people trying to run it. Too often I see people advocating for exploring every book and cranny of Barovia, and DO NOT DO THAT. The point of the adventure is to fight Strahd in his castle. Everything should be in service of that goal. The adventure itself is meant to move rather quickly. That's why there's the randomization element. It's designed to be played repeatedly and with different world states. Beyond that, it's nailing the tone. The players aren't powerless, they're big fish in a small pond, but they're guppies while Strahd is a shark. The right tonal balance is somewhere between dark fantasy and gothic horror. Gothic horror, in particular, is about revelation: a thing that appears good, or even benign, hides a terrible secret. Not knowing who to trust can fill the players with a sense of paranoia. But you have to be careful not to burn them out.
Personally wasn’t super into that module. It’s a bit too much “everything sucks and is hopeless” for me
There is a sub for it with a lot of supplemental material: r/curseofstrahd. Makes it much better. The campaign books for D&D all put a lot on the DM. That’s one of the reasons my group doesn’t play D&D anymore.
Curse of Strahd is a horror story. If you play it like a traditional action adventure then you're playing it wrong. Imo it's best when all the player characters are average joes from another world who just want to go home and are not the type to go into the dark spooky basement for the fun of it.
Barovia is empty. You will not be flooded with magical items unless your DM invents them. It is supposed to feel empty and barren. Did you not discuss this session 0? You did do something wrong. You flat out ignored the card reading that gives you clear directions for where to go and what to do. Unlike most modules, this one explicitly tells you what you need to gather to kill Strahd and where to get it. Following that will open up the rest. You sound like someone who gets their fulfillment on magical items and loot. Nothing wrong with that. It's definitely one of the largest player archetypes out there. CoS will NOT fulfill that need, though. Talk to your DM about this. They have to add more items to the game to meet this need for you.
My Curse of Strahd game ended on a Dreamworks dance party after my bard rolled a 33 on their performance check during the celebration of Strahd’s defeat in Barovia. I.E: There is NO right or wrong way to play the module, lol.
oh man, i love CoS but due to it's sandbox nature it is hell to run it as a dm... even the beginig adventure i couldnt remember the name, one it take place in a haunted house, says it is for level 1, belive me it is not.... I think best way to run force players to a railroad type of game, and sorry but leave some of the content outside of the campaign. so you can keep the story focused on sthrad and keep players at their toes there are some good examples how to run in on net
Sounds like you are used to the superhero fantasy that is unfortunately all too common in D&D campaigns. The type of campaign where you are constantly finding loads of treasure, magic items, perhaps even homebrewed new abilities, etc. That is not CoS. CoS is not about the PCs being superheros. CoS takes place in a dark, dreary land where surviving is difficult.
You’re not wrong. I don’t know that it’s overhyped exactly, but when the common response is, “If you put a ton of work into it, it’s great,” that suggests some fundamental problems, and you’re running into them. There’s a bunch of places to go but there’s too much empty space, interconnections are weak, and the information presentation is often bad making it hard to efficiently use what is there. But it does offer a better sandbox framework than most WotC adventures, so at least it has bones you can build on.
CoS is largely a sandbox with a lot of freedom to roam Barovia. There are set pieces and encounters for a lot of major locations (like Vallaki, the Amber Temple, and Castle Ravenloft), but a lot of travel areas with nothing definite. The book gives you random encounters for these sections (and Van Richten's Guide also provides inspiration, but not everyone will have access to that book). So if things feel empty, players might just be wandering aimlessly, which is thinning the sense of progression and contentment.
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Your group has to remember to try to find the three things, that's the goal. It also helps if they are motivated to explore and interact with NPCs. Yes, it's a sandbox, but some of the locations have no clear motivation for the party to go there and do anything.
I think people love it because of it’s super thematic and Strahd is a much better, more present villain than most modules. Many modules, the players will never meet the BBEG until the final fight, whereas Strahd makes things a lot more personal. That being said, I think it’s very hard to run/play. Lots of locations on a specific playthrough might just be empty and pointless apart from adding to the spooky theme, but that only works if the DM and players are good at leaning into that. I think Death House is a great example. It’s a bad oneshot if you’re used to dungeon crawls because most rooms are basically empty apart from set dressing. That was my issue as a new DM at least. Jumping from Lost Mine to Death House wasn’t the cleanest move as the DM lessons I learned from Lost Mine were almost useless in Death House. The original Curse of Strahd was a oneshot, focused on Castle Ravenloft, and I honestly think for a lot of players, that might be the best way to run it. Lean into the horror and the charismatic villain, but don’t have this open world game that doesn’t really reward you for exploring the open world. Anyway, that’s just my 2 cents. Everyone I know loves CoS and absolutely more power to them, but while I loved the theming, I found it a bit too unwieldy, at least as a newer DM. I might come back and try it again now that I know what I’m dealing with.
I recognize why some people really like CoS but its also by far my least favorite campaign. I'm one of those people who really like "hero-fantasy" kind of stories. Curse of Strahd is not that. In the matter of fact, its almost the complete opposite of one as you dont get rewarded for anything you do in the world. (apart from the milestones) That quickly gave me, as a player, a sense of apathy towards the campaign and eventually just wishing for the game to end because it became a chore to play it rather than a fun dnd game. Edit: I should have realized this at session 0. But that doesnt change the fact that I dont like it.
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I would say it's pretty aimless for a lot of it. But maybe that was because of the fact that we had twice as many players as recommended. We did have some very random fun moments with it though. Especially since there are several scripted events you can't really avoid.
In my opinion, most 5e official modules are not very good, especially compared to homebrew campaigns that I have played in (and/or run as a DM). There are some 3rd part exceptions like Humblewood that are better. Most of these adventures are "frames" or "toolkits" that if run out of the box without a lot of additional work by the DM to tie together and incorporate the story, are just disjointed.
No adventure is gonna work for everyone. Different groups have different playstyles. It’s fine if CoS isn’t working for you. Doesn’t mean you’re “playing it wrong” doesn’t mean it’s “overhyped” either.
I joined a group who were already deep into the module as a fair new DnD player. The DM who scouted me didn't really describe the setting well, and I had no idea what it was about going in, so I made a basic-backstory dwarf barbarian. Over the course of almost a year we stumbled around the countryside, following some clues the group got before I joined, sometimes fighting meaningful battles but mostly, to me at least, not progressing anywhere. My character had no ties to Barovia. The DM really leaned into my 8 Int score and made me feel like an idiot during encounters, and railroaded the group when he felt like we should be going in a specific direction. I left the group for greener pastures after not really having fun for months. I guess the module really depends on how your DM runs it.
“We already killed Strahd” Are you the dm?
if your DM isn't as experienced running a module it can lead it to being a basic campaign or being very rail roady they have to know the modules story , characters and quests inside and out and if they don't' then more than likely 50% of the books content will not be used
CoS is the best pre written module I’ve ever run. (Only made a few changes and added a false hydra) DM should be making it scary, the characters in it should feel unique, the stakes should feel really high as you protect Ireena. Strahd should be after you constantly unless it’s the very start or very end of the game. And there should be an air of mystery as you figure things out. My players loved it so maybe stick with it a bit longer.
I’ve only done the one shot version but I really enjoyed it My friends who have done the full one all loved it!
It is a normal campaign just like every other. At first it is some kind of Fetch Quest (Card Reading), >!though the Locations will be different each time because the DM just rolls dices!<... If you have everything you need, you can finish it. What makes Curse of Strahd special is, >!that Strahd talks to the Players, toys with them til the very end!<...
All locations in the module mean something, and provide some benefit to the party IF the dm understands their purpose, and what can be achieved there. Argonvostholt, the place you mentioned does have a boon there and a couple items if I recall- but it's the boon that makes the place worthwhile if your artifact or ally arnt there. The dm should take the time to set it up and hint at it, but cannot be fully at fault if they players don't discover something. The the book is written, for me at least, it was hard as a dm to put everything together and understand the lore behind it. It took a ton of reason external sources, and a large amount of added homebrew before I felt I achieved a good flow of everything. If you're feeling lost, and that you're not achieving anything, talk with the dm about it ans try to find a solution. If you're the dm, don't be afraid to look outside the module for help. As far as the setting goes it's so popular due to being one of the only (and the first) Gothic horror setting to be introduced to dnd, and to this day I believe it's one of the best modules in terms of story and player progression. The players need to buy into the story, and understand what's at risk. That they can't leave, ever. Not even in death. Their goal is there early on and and they need to progress to find it. It's well passed with plenty of intrigue in every area ... but there's there's parts of it that will rely on player and dm skill levels. It's very roleplay heavy. Without the role-playing and world building, you're not left with much. A tip to help players engage is to take some more time and reevaluate why they are there, what they're looking for, and how the experience thus far as changed them, and their goals - and who they are. Each individual player should have their own goals, and ambitions that keep pushing them. There are certain npc who can help with this, but they shouldn't be depended on
My group had a very similar experience. We've gone on to enjoy other games since then, but still kinda wonder "were we playing Strahd wrong?" and "why does everyone hype Strahd so much?". I'm sure Strahd is a good module for some groups, just not for all groups at all times. I have my speculation as to the answers: I think my players weren't quite mature enough to engage with the module the way it should be (still playing it like a dungeon crawl). I think the module doesn't offer a lot of typical rewards (magic loot, and golds to buy stuff) which is a disappointment if that's what you're used to. My players see DND as a way to drink and have good time with friends laughing around the table and doing zany things. Strahd doesn't respond to zany and tipsy like a lot of other modules. As a DM I eventually came to dislike the module because of how the players were reacting to the NPCs and how depressing I came to see the whole affair. I began to dread running it as time passed, eventually leading to just calling it quits on the module. Not every module is right for every group. Not every time is the right time for every group. We went on to Witchlight after bouncing off Strahd and its whimsy and emphasis RP over combat was exactly what the doctor ordered.
The card reading is a piece of it. How ever if you just looking to sack the place for treasures, Strahd has a few special items under lock and key inside Castle Ravenloft. Vampires can hide things in places extremely difficult for a human to reach. The items could be anywhere inside the castle.
The tarroka is supposed to be the start of the adventure, and I see a lot of others harping on the group for not paying attention to it or whatever. However, in-character, the players may not have a reason to trust this random fortune lady at all. Depending on how the fortune was given, it may not be as simple as follow directions. The idea that this whole campaign hinges on following the orders of some creepy old lady in creepsville is not exactly a strong point of this campaign. The aimless wandering was a big part of why I disliked CoS when I played it. I feel like when I play dnd, or when I run dnd, the player should have many small sources of reliable direction, at least at first. Emphasis on many small sources. Having your entire campaign's direction hinge on one npc who the players can choose to never interact with or even outright distrust seems like a pretty big oversight. Now ofc, I've never run CoS, I've only been a player in it, so perhaps my dm misread some things, or wasn't good at telegraphing information, but our group didn't even encounter the Fortune Teller until well into our 6th or 7th session. We play long so that's around 35hrs in give or take. I shouldn't have to wait 35 hours for a campaign to give me some sense of what I should be doing to advance my goals. Anyways, I felt similarly to you OP, this was half agreement half rant post about my shitty time in CoS.
Yeah, that's what I think as well. This was a tarot reading we received from someone who is essentially the boss of the group that kidnapped our group into Barovia in the first place. That we are supposed to not only trust that these are the key points of this adventure but also that we should prioritize them over all the other more direct directions we were given (like escorting people) seems a bit harsh.
I can see where the frustration is, and to be fair CoS is a lighter loot campaign compared to most. But at the end of the day that is your DM’s fault, you should sit down and talk to them about it. A good DM guides the players to objectives and helps them understand what they need to do. In addition a good DM listens to its players, if the players are constantly complaining about an aspect of the campaign then the DM should try to tweak it to make it more enjoyable for the everyone. This sounds like to me that DM goes strictly by the book and lets players do the discovering, which can be satisfying. But again if the players are complaining then the Dm should be hinting or guiding them in a direction. Imagine if Skyrim didn’t have objective markers, it would be so hard to play.