These will be adventures worth winning! I am looking to run a DnD 5e campaign based on the Gothic Horror that is Ravenloft, using Curse of Strahd as my baseline for the adventure. I am the best teacher, so new players are absolutely welcome. I find they tend to think more "outside the box" which is an element of old school games where you aren't able to roll your way out of a situation. Constance vigilance will be required. Please be able to commit to a weekly game of 4 hours. Saturdays at 3pm PST. The game will be for ages 18 and up. I will stream audio and video from Facerig because I think it is funny and my face scares little children. You can do whatever you want as long as it includes audio. We’ll use discord as a backup in case there are issues with roll20. Summary of Setting Ravenloft is an oppressive place. The citizens have been demoralized to the point that they don't realize how dreary their situation is. Sunlight is a forgotten pleasure and creatures haunt the night. A think fog surrounds the area and chokes the joy out of every nook and cranny that it wafts into. Creatures and beasts come out at night to feed, leaving scratches on buildings to mark their territory. Feel of the Game Your characters will be small fish in a big pond. So it will not be like Critical Role where wherever the players go they that the world has been specially crafted just for them. The world will be the world and players will fit into that. It will be up to the players to be the agents of change. The ratio of roleplay:battle will lean more towards battle. This does not mean hours of endless meaningless battle. The fights will be used to emphasize the feeling and mood of the world. Fights will be fast and we won't be spending hours thinking up strategy. Character Creation Player's Handbook (PHB) only, standard stat array, no feats. One character will need to be a longsword wielding Fighter. If you need help making a character we'll set up a time to walk through that together. It will require constant vigilance. No evil or chaotic neutral characters. All characters are assumed to be friendly and on the same team. Ravenloft is a separate demiplane. Your character may be a resident of the demiplane or you may be from a different world that got sucked in by the mists for some reason. We can work on this together. Character customization will primarily be done via the narrative. So the player will be responsible for earning boons and magical items. These will be what will make the characters unique, so extra classes and archetypes are unnecessary. Boons could be things things that act similarly to feats or class features or abilities that exist outside the PHB, but don't come in planning on getting something specific. Boons will fit in with the narrative and character choices and are often at the will of the gods who are quite capricious. This means that some part of character development will be outside your control so you will have to take that risk if you want a possible reward. Paladins are Lawful Good. If you want to play a non-Lawful Good “Paladin” then pick a different name for your class. Warpriest, for example. Or Knight of the Angry Charter. I don’t care. But you are not a Paladin. However, any spell that states, “Does an extra 3d6 damage to a paladin”* will still deal the extra damage to you. Rangers People on the Internet believe they PHB version of rangers is too weak. Others believe the Unearthed Arcana version is quite strong. If you are interested in playing a ranger I will make a slight buff to the PHB ranger, but will have to look into it further, depending on what you're going for. Rests Will use the alternative rules. Short rest is overnight sleeping and a long rest is a week of downtime. Magic Ravenloft is a demiplane so magic users and clerics are affected by this. Clerics will feel a weakened connection to their god, with higher level spells primarily being affected (eg, resurrection is not an option). Summon spells won't work. My view on illusions is strict as I feel they can be too powerful if too much free reign is allowed. So it is my recommendation to not make a wizard focused on illusions but the occasional illusion spell is fine. Old School Style DM None of the NPCs follow the rules for PCs. Rules rulings: I am typically fairly linear in my thought process so odds are that I will make rulings consistently. (eg, there may exist a race feature where the frog-people have the ability to jump away without provoking attacks of opportunity. Such things are not put in to screw the players but are to push the narrative of how awesome these frog-people are, if they even truly exist). However, I have more experience in other systems so I may get some things wrong about 5e and will welcome corrections. DM will still always maintain final control. Some areas will be above your power level and running away may be the only choice. To Join Respond here to keep all replies in the same spot. You don't need to create the character in this forum, just have it ready by Tuesday. I just need a short paragraph (maybe two) of backstory on the general concept of your character. Character can be developed and expanded upon during play. So a sprawling backstory is not necessary. (or put another way: long backstories are better left for novels) I like the Personality Traits concept on page 123 of PHB. So make sure you include an ideal, bond, and flaw that you like. It creates a really compact character concept. If you have seen Dice, Camera, Action (on twitch or youtube) then you are familiar with Simon and his personality traits are quite good. He is a court jester construct who has some... issues. Here is his personality traits: Ideal: "I wish I could make people happy." Bond: "I would like to find someone--anyone--who isn't afraid of me and who enjoys my company. Flaw: "When I'm upset, I do bad things." Thanks for listening! *may or may not applied to every spell with the evil descriptor
