Ravenloft, Buy-in, Style of Play, a Sort of Review, and Birthdays.

  As I have mentioned before, October is one heck of a month for my family because we have 4 birthdays and a Holy Day of Obligation in just 15 days. Toss in that I am teaching this year, the teenagers want lives (the jerks), and the fact that I am working on my own OSR clone and, well.

  I'm back.

  Another family tradition is the Annual Halloween Classic Module; I run the Clan through an old-school module. We've done Tamoachan, Ghost Tower, Castle Amber, and more. 

  This year?

  Ravenloft!

  

  The crew had never read the module in any of its forms, but knew about it (of course). Everyone was pumped and looking forward to a killer dungeon with a high body count.

  Each player (five people) made three 7th level characters using 3d6 in order, swap 2, and being equipped via the charts from the DMG on making instant characters and Magic Items for Everyman in Dragon #45. They divided into three teams; Scout, Strike, and Emergency, and we started play on Saturday evening, a bit late.

Spoilers for the module follow

  I had Ravenloft digital on two tablets and the maps printed out for notes and references. I had tweaked the module a bit (explained below) and had a modified deck of cards at hand. I had already run the Fortunes of Ravenloft as per the module. 

  The entire group of 15 PCs travelled together into Barovia after getting the call for help. They encountered the dead body that showed the call for help was fake, and continued. They had a random encounter with Barovian woodcutters and travelled with the men to the village, learning a great deal from them via high charisma and roleplay. They ignored damn near everything in the village and headed straight to the church, meeting the priest well before sunset.

        My modifications: The villagers explained that every few years more people, sometimes adventures and sometimes merchants. were lured into Barovia to ensure the village always had a certain minimum population and could still get clothing, food, etc. The gypsies also brought needed items. The priest at the chapel was convinced that God was protecting the people because there was always a cleric for the church in town, all through the ages.

  I also introduced Father Gabriel, the priest of the church in the village when the Curse of Strahd first struck. Inspired by the phantoms of dead adventurers and the 'helpful spirits' encounter I had Fr. Gabriel as a "mechanic"; his spirit was invisible and undetectable. He would travel with the party and if they failed report all that was seen, heard, and done to the survivors. Thus player knowledge after character death was explained.

  The party slept as the cleric prayed, and set out the next morning. Straight on target, the party headed directly for the castle. They hit the gypsy camp fairly directly and, after a lot of party discussion, went for the fortune telling. We played out the Fortunes of Ravenloft with the party taking careful notes, and then before too long they reached the entrance to the castle at nightfall (taking the carriage, after a wrangle).

  They entered and heard faint organ music. Focused on one of the fortunes (that of the Tome, which the Fortunes had placed in the tower) they decided up was best. They went straight, more organ music. Turned right, louder. They saw the double doors with the organ music obviously on the other side (I was playing Widor) and the spiral stairs up opposite the doors...

  ...and took the stairs. Jack said the organ music was 'over the top' and 'too obviously a trap, illusion, or something'.They went to the next floor, opened a door into the throne room, checked their notes, went to the throne, and recovered the Holy Symbol. Travelling to try to define the dimensions of the castle they found the chapel overlook, killed the zombies in a round, and descended with a Rope of Climbing, finding the Icon of Ravenloft. They uncovered the altar, left the Icon, and took the stairs up a tower.

        Let the Dice Roll as they May: I really strongly favor letting the dice roll and stand as they land. I don't fudge a number, re-roll, throw in five more monsters or have 2 run away, etc. Party curb stomps kobolds? Sure. Bunch of kobolds curb stomp the party? Sure. I have found that the results of this are far more dramatic than anything I can railroad.

  All this time I rolled zero random encounters. 

  At this point we broke it off for the day. All the talking and walking in Barovia ate up some time. We reconvened the next day with a large volume of snacks and drinks for a long session.

  They continued up, up, up, then found the bridge to the other tower. Midnight and Strahd sent 40+ bats. The party locked themselves away in a room, waited 10 minutes, then came out with a Potion of Fire Breath, wiping out the bored stragglers. They crossed to the other tower, it animated, the party used a Wand of Lightning Bolts, the tower's heart shattered, and the party inexplicably (to me; they insist it made sense) abandoned their plan to find the knowledge in the tall place and headed straight back to the Chapel. They finally had a random encounter, a group of 4 gypsies. The gypsies were cut down in 4 rounds, the party healed minor damage, and they kept on to the chapel. 

  Just at the Chapel they had another random encounter. Roll, cascade, roll, and - Strahd himself! He leapt out, struck the toughest fighter, and drained two levels while the party was surprised!

  He won initiative and struck the fighter again, effectively crippling him, as the cleric fumbled in her bag. The rest of the party was trying to get to where they could fight. Third round the fighter, who was weakened where any blow would kill him, missed - and the Cleric activated the Holy Symbol....

   ...and rolled a 10 on a d10.

  Sunlight blazed from the Holy Symbol, instantly rendering Strahd immobile and helpless. In short order the party staked him, cut off his head and stuffed his mouth with holy wafers, and let the 10 rounds of sunlight annihilate him, hitting the combo that kills a vampire the first time every time.

  The storms broke, the mist cleared, the sun rose shining and bright, and the party headed to the chapel with only 3 of 15 characters taking any damage. The party cleric read a scroll with Restorations on it and the drained fighter was good as new.

  The session ended so fast the pizzas weren't done.

My History with the Ravenloft Module

  When Ravenloft came out there was a fair amount of buzz. My friend Brice, who had his own D&D group, invited me to guest DM it in return for food and my own copy of the module. I did, we had a ton of fun over a 4 day weekend, and lots of characters died before Strahd went down.

  A month later I ran it for my own group. George's group asked me to run it for them, etc. The year after it came out I ran it at least 5 times. I ran it at the Presidio of Monterey in '86 and at Bragg in '88, twice in '89, and at an airbase in '90. So this was at least the 10th time I have run the module making it the classic module I have run most often, very easily.

My Opinion of the Ravenloft Module

  ...I don't like it much. The setup is odd, the optional 'girl reincarnated, brother in love past the grave' is clumsy, the timeline of the curse versus the status of the village requires the DM to fix a ton of things, the 'mist' mechanic is lazy DMing of the first water, and I really, really dislike the maps. While iconic and eye catching, the maps are damn hard to use at times. And I think the 'assume an identity' motivation is ridiculous and possibly outside the rules.

  And the tone is so uneven! The big sell is 'Gothic Horror' yet the tombs are chock-a-block with terrible puns that would make Piers Anthony roll his eyes.

  I do like the Fortunes concept, although the assumption that modules will be played over and over is... odd, to me.

Tone, Buy In, and Style of Play

  I think that my most recent party was actually the one to finally match the Gothic Horror tone of the main module. My party is rather 'murder hobo avoidant' - they slam through dungeons with a time limit because they seem to have time-suck radar, they often start with parley, and avoid all combat they think is a waste.

  When they were in Ravenloft they got the Fortunes, which are direct clues that are meant to lead the party to the tools they need to defeat Strahd. The party focused on the Fortunes and they basically led them straight to the tool they used to defeat Strahd on the very first night in the castle. I believe this is more 'true' to the idea of the party being a force for good versus evil rather than looters searching for high-value swag.

  Looking at the module after the 'cleared Ravenloft with a dead Strahd in 270 real-world minutes' sessions and I realized the castle is a murder hobo graveyard. Don't open every tomb in the vault? Suddenly a huge number of undead aren't to be encountered. Carefully follow the clues and get the sword, holy symbol, etc? You have multiple tools that can kill Strahd quickly in the group. 

  Again, the style of play of my party (heroes opposing evil rather than bandits looking for loot) plus the tone of the module may have very well allowed them to skip a lot of death.

  But at the same time, the players did not buy into the Gothic Horror part. At all. Empty house with the sound of a woman weeping drifting out in the village?

  "If I was trapped in a vampiretown I'd cry, too."

  And they walked on by.

  Learned that the daughter of the burgomeister was adopted when she was found wandering the forest as a very young child?

  "A reincarnated woman from the vampires past, obviously. Who has bets on mother, fiancée, or unrequited love?"

  The players weren't in a Wuthering Heights mood.

  Don't get me wrong, they emotionally invest into adventures. I have had them actually panic for real and have been told that my description of a subterranean lake with the sound of someone singing in the distance over the water gave players nightmares.

  Just not Ravenloft.

  But they played like it. 

  I think I need to write more about this!

Play Report: Castle Amber - into Averoigne

 Part one and part two.

  Spoiler heavy for the module and for Clark Ashton Smith stories!

  The party had woken up in Averoigne with their pack animals, riding and war horses, and soon learned that they had been sent back in time from 1250 to 1100.
  Since their characters were from the region (or had lived there) the hints they had from the chateau were enough for them to create a plan and begin executing it immediately. They first headed straight for a Potion of Time Travel and encountered the bishop's men. After some serious roleplaying and zero combat (a ton of fun with PC assassins having tense faceoffs with local cultists, and the like) they were able to trade a magic item for a potion and leave. They then encountered people looking for the Beast of Averoigne. The party had already found the aftermath of a slaughter by the fell creature, but they found nothing.

What Do You Mean, 'What Is It For?'?!

  Ah, the internet, where you can argue over all sorts of things. The most recent internet argument I got into was with someone explaining that monsters with a no-save level drain are badwrong and there is no reason to have them other than,

  "...imbecilic blind worship of the past..."

  Uh-huh.
  Of course, I had already pointed out some reason for having such monsters in your game, to wit;

• Instilling terror in the players
• Driving quests for spells, etc. to get Restoration
• To 'throttle' level progression without nerfing XP/raising the bar or railroading players

  Now, I guess I might have just tossed in a link to a past article of mine, but there is that to say and more, so here we go.

What Do You Mean, 'What Is It For?'?!

  Ah, the internet, where you can argue over all sorts of things. The most recent internet argument I got into was with someone explaining that monsters with a no-save level drain are badwrong and there is no reason to have them other than,

  "...imbecilic blind worship of the past..."

  Uh-huh.
  Of course, I had already pointed out some reason for having such monsters in your game, to wit;

• Instilling terror in the players
• Driving quests for spells, etc. to get Restoration
• To 'throttle' level progression without nerfing XP/raising the bar or railroading players

  Now, I guess I might have just tossed in a link to a past article of mine, but there is that to say and more, so here we go.

Play Report - the Isle of the Ape

  Every Halloween I run a classic module for the party/my family. Sometimes they are integrated into a campaign world (like the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan), usually they aren't (like the Ghost Tower of Inverness).
  Since the party had done relatively well (is in, there were a few survivors) in the Tomb of Horrors I figured this time I would hit them with EGG's other 'killer module', Isle of the Ape.

  In my opinion, Isle of the Ape is a 'sister' to Tomb of Horrors; the Tomb will slaughter entire parties with traps, the Isle will slaughter entire parties with combat encounters.

Brief Aside: I have read in a few forums and blogs about people who think Isle of the Ape is a walk in the park. One guy said his party simply flew on a Carpet of Flying to the lair and they killed Oonga with a spell. If this is true, the DM who ran that session should be cast into the outer darkness. Isle of the Ape is lethal to any party.

  My family/party is savvy and made holograms (Lew Pulsipher's term for characters created at levels above 1st) and I told them a combination of:

• How many XP each PC could have

• Maximum levels for particular classes

• How much gp value they could spend on magic items with a cap on cost of a single item 

• Maximum number of henchmen per character (and the XP, etc. limits for henchmen)

• I then sat with each spell caster and we determined their spell books

• And I finally sat with each player and we created their list of 'high power' magic items.

  They made two complete parties of 5 PCs and about 12 henchmen/followers for each of the two 'teams'. They created a 'Team 1' that would land fiorst and 'Team 2' waited 'on a rocky islet near the Isle' to replace losses. Team 1 consisted of:
  Mom: A 22nd level Old School Bard
               -Art, 8th level cleric henchman
               -Bill, 10th level thief henchman
               -Joey, 9th level fighter henchman
  J: A 17th Level Magic-user
               -Amy, 8th level cleric
               -Betty, 8th level cleric
               -Cindy, 8th level magic-user
  A: A 17th level Fighter
               -Abe, an 8th level cleric
               -Bob, a 9th level magic-user
               -Clark, an 8th level paladin
  S: A 12th//16th level Magic-user//Thief dual class
               -Dwarf, an 8th level fighter
               -Elf, a 6th/6th Cleric/Magic-user
               -Frank, an 8th level cleric
  N: A 16th level Ranger
               -George, an 8th level cleric
               -Harry, a 9th level fighter
               -2 Pixie warrior followers
  Notice anything odd? Look again.
  The only clerics are henchmen!
  Of course, there are 6 henchmen clerics high enough level to build a cathedral, but it was very interesting.
  Now that we have met the party, let's get to the adventure!

Spoilers for Isle of the Ape Follow!

  Now that that is out of the way.

  The party get's briefed by Tender and then use their own Folding Boat and the one Tenser provides to go to either the rocky islet of the Isle itself. The party deployed into a sensible marching order with scouts out. The pixies were constantly relaying messages between the Isle and Team 2 to explain how follow on characters would know about the adventure.
  The party spotted the village and began their approach with caution - but not enough of it - they were ambushed by the entire tribe!

I ran Isle of the Ape about a dozen times in the late '80's. 6 entire parties were wiped out to the last man by a villager ambush.

  For those of you who haven't read Isle the villagers are, on average, 6th level Barbarians (UA style) with giant carnivorous apes for muscle and some truly high-level leaders, including spell casters. And there are hundreds of them and they are tactically savvy.

  The initial volley of arrows injured almost everyone and made a few henchmen concerned. The volleys continued as giant carnivorous apes were sent in and the elite squads of warriors began to close from the flanks. Mages and Clerics rushed to the middle of the party as the combat types prepared to be encircled. 

  Then the bard used her bardic music to Fascinate the closest combatants, allowing the party a precious full round of spell casting without being disrupted by arrows or 12' tall apes.

  A was able to slaughter the biggest ape and a lot more damage was done to the groups closest, but this was a drop in the bucket for the swarm of villagers. The bard planted a Suggestion that the villagers retreat to regroup and enough failed that the leaders ordered a retreat to avoid a rout. Units that were outside the range of the bard continued to harass and stalk the party for some time as they fell back, but the party disengaged and found refuge to heal. The best thing was the party spell casters had killed a majority of the village shamans and the overall leader had fallen in battle to A's fighter.

  Healed up, the party pressed on to the village but avoided it to close with the massive gate. They used mounts and spells to ferry the party over the wall, searched the clearing, finding the note from Zagyg and some treasure. The ranger found that the ape or apes came from a particular trail, so the party moved down that trail and then camped for the night. Magic items, spells, and henchmen served to keep the dinosaurs out of the camp, although effort was required.

  The days were pretty similar for the next two weeks - march for 8-10 hours, camp, deal with 2-4 dinosaur or other attacks each day. Some of the highlights were;
  -At a river crossing J used Wizard Eye and spotted some large, hungry mosasaurs waiting to snack on them
  -Each attempt to fly that lasted more than a handful or round attracted the attention of the flocks of gigantic, carnivorous pterosaurs always on the wing.
  -Their first encounter with one of the female gargantuan apes, which they realized must be fairly weak compared to Oonga - and they had to camp immediately to heal up.
  -The giant crevasse which had hordes of giant insects at the bottom and that was spanned by a single mighty tree. the party used a Wall of Force to cross and the fight against the giant lizards was a bit easier because of this. 

  One major encounter was when the party realized that a she ape was hiding artop an 80' cliff where she could watch the entrance to their camp. They did their utmost to ambush her, but she was still able to throw boulders to devastating effect before they killed her; then they immediately had to face another she ape drawn by the war cries of the first!
  [see the notes from players, below, for more details].

  The final battle with Oonga was fierce and if it had not been for quick thinking and some luck they would have all died, easily. I will leave the intricate details to the players to tell!

Notes from Players

  While preparing for the adventure, we actually prepared two parties. The one we brought consisted of a 17th level magic-user, a very high level dual-classed thief/magic-user, a 22nd level old-school bard, a very high level ranger, and a very high level fighter with a wide range of utility. The one we left behind contained the Grand Druid, a 15th level paladin, a replacement for the bard who was never actually finished, a straight thief of horrendous level, and a hilariously munchkined fighter unceremoniously dubbed, "Grabnok the Destroyer." 

  This last figure became a running gag of epic proportions, as we continuously lamented the decision not to bring him when we realized things like the fact that he would be technically always hit armor class -10 with every blow, or that his minimum damage was 24 points per blow with 3 attacks per round. "If only Grabnok the Destroyer were here, this battle would have been over already. I mean, he can kill Lolth in single round!" continues to be a buzz phrase with us.

  We had this exchange upon realizing that the bard had more hit points than some of the giant apes:
J: "Wow Mom, you're beefier than that giant she-ape!"
N: "I, uh, think that came out wrong."

  In a particularly memorable moment, we were ambushed by a giant ape hurling boulders at us from a ledge 80 feet in the air, but succeeded in turning her to stone before any significant damage could be done.

   In order to prevent any chance of her being returned to an animate state, we immediately set out to lever her off the ledge, which would cause her to crash and shatter beyond repair. Immediately after we started this, another ape of even larger size charged the contingent of the party that we had foolishly left on the valley below; however, by exactly tying three rolls in a row, we succeeded in dropping the stone ape onto the charging ape, killing them both.
  As we remarked at the time, this meant that we killed two apes with one stone.

  This also led to a Great Moment in Homeschooling when we briefly tried to learn the mass of granite by volume, then calculate the volume of a 50 foot tall female gorilla, then run it through the formula in the DMG for damage of dropped stones by weight to make sure that we had, in fact, legally killed the second ape. We did not complete this, however, because we gave up when we realized that one of us had just used the phrase, "roughly 7000d6 of damage."

  Upon reaching an area where the isle was split end to end by an immense rift whose distant floor was inhabited by swarms of giant insects and was crossed only by a single, massive (but narrow!) fallen tree, J's response was to throw up his hands and state, "Nope! We're done! The apes win! Where's the portal out of here?"

  When ambushed yet again by a giant ape and looking desperately through our equipment lists trying to find something that would give us an idea for a plan, we had this exchange:
Mom: "Uhh, I have a Staff of Withering. Would that be useful?"
(J, N, and S simultaneously turn their heads slowly away from their notes and towards Mom, and then shout, in near perfect unison): "You have a Staff of Withering!?"  Our continued disbelieving conversation after that consisted primarily of interjections such as, "How long have you had a Staff of Withering?" "Why do you have a Staff of Withering?" or, "When did you get a Staff of Withering", as well as highly detailed descriptions given to the previously-ignorant Mom of just what a Staff of Withering actually does.

  For some unknown and presumably unknowable reason, S saw fit to bring two Eversmoking Bottles to the adventure. (An Eversmoking Bottle is, for those who do not know, a magic item whose only effect is to produce 120,000 cubic feet of smoke when unstoppered). He proceeded to spend the entire adventure proposing the Eversmoking Bottles as a solution to nearly every problem, plan, ambush, or puzzle, regardless of the continuous complaints of the rest of the party.  

  When planning potential assaults on a native village, we came to the realization, oft revisited since, that DnD is so incomprehensibly awesome that sometimes the correct solution to the problem at hand is to create an artificial hill, unfold a full-size sailing ship at the top of it, and then use a bottle that produces infinite water to propel it down the hill and crash through the enemy gate, allowing you to launch a naval boarding action on a land-locked fortification.

  In one of S's greatest moments, during the initial ambush by the natives of the island, upon hearing the basic layout of their troop disposition, he immediately said, "Wait, these are classic Zulu battle tactics. Where's the flying reserve that's trying to flank us?", correctly preserving us from a flanking manuever.

  Our response upon passing an island that radiated good so intensely it nearly blinded the cleric, and was known to the bard as the Restful Reserve of Pik-Nik, a stable point in the planes where any may find rest? Travel around it, never go back, and do our best to not even cast spells towards it. After all, this is DnD.

  Upon realizing the sheer, ludicrous strength of the native islanders, we immediately began a running gag about the Magic Super Zulu. Forget Mind Flayers! Magic Super Zulu: scariest thing Gygax ever thought up.

  There were a tremendous number of henchmen on this adventure, leading to some interesting situations. For example, we were so short on name ideas that our henchman included Abe, Arthur, Bill, Ben, Charlie, and a dwarf known only as, "Dwarf." We also had one particular henchman fighter dubbed, "Joey," who quickly gained a justified reputation for bad luck. He was the only person hit during our first run in with a giant ape, was later swallowed whole by a giant lizard and only barely saved in time, and was actually attacked by the titular Ape himself. He did, however, also distinguish himself by doing more damage to the Ape in the final battle than some PCs, and somehow managed to survive the whole adventure. 

  Also of the note is the fact that J, deeply traumatized by a run-in with a Nereid in the Lost Shrine of Temoachan, was obsessed with bringing an all- or mostly-female complement of henchmen, causing him to be the target of many odd looks by the rest of the party.

  It really dawned on us just how powerful the party was when we realized that we just killed a tyrannosaurus rex in a single segment. (utilizing the disintegrate spell, for those in the audience who are curious).

During our second run in with a T.rex, we had this conversation:
J: "Don't worry, S, you'll survive the surprise segment. I mean, how many hitpoints do you have?"
S: "34."
J: "See? You'll be fine. N, how much damage does a T.rex do with its bite?"
N: (correctly quoting from memory) "8d6."
J: "Ohh, you're going to die, S."

  Early on in the adventure, N interrupted the rest of the party in the middle of a complex planning argument with the announcement, "Uh, guys, this might be important, but I've actually been riding a pegasus this whole time."

Gamemaster Observations

  Even high level magic users suck against armies of 200+ competent combatants.

  Creatures with 12+ HD usually make their saving throws.

  Almost every online discussion of the module seems to reveal that people son'tknow/forgot that Oonga has 100% magic resistance.

  1e bards are terrifying.

  I need more NPCs to have Wands of Enemy Detection.