A Big Hello from MandyMod! Ask Me Anything!

Hi yourself!

1. Read the campaign book cover to cover. And then read it again. XD It sounds a lot like homework, but honestly that's the very first step I take when approaching any campaign. Know your base material and then move on from there. Otherwise, my Fleshing Out series starts with a few posts about prepping the adventure. You might find those useful. :)
2. First, the villains. CoS has a wonderful cast of villains, which can make or break a campaign. Second, the emotional stress. In dnd, a good simulation of horror is getting your players to feel stressed about the moves they make. CoS has a plethora of difficult encounters and NPCs who are not as they seem. The constant intrigue and fight for your life can really bring out that horror. And Third, that good ol classic horror. Modern horror, which I love to pieces, sometimes lacks those swell old fashioned vampires and werewolves and such. CoS brings those elements of horror to the forefront.
3. Castle Ravenloft, Vallaki, and the Amber Temple. In my games, those three locations are the cornerstones on which the whole campaign stands.
4. Not really. XD I mostly just use a selection of tracks from youtube or very obscure instrumentals from lesser know games and movies. I don't like music in my games to be recognizable.

Omg, yes!

Tactics. I know that sounds like an arbitrary answer, but truly. Tactical combat is so important to making fights engaging to your players. I've already put some notes in the answers to a few other replies here about tactics specifically, if you'd like to take a peek.

On Strahd specifically, I'll be releasing a whole bunch of notes in my Ravenloft pt 3 post on fight the big man. My players' fight with Strahd went on for 3 sessions. It went up and down, had lulls and exciting dashes, and never once got boring. I think that fight is one my greatest achievements as a DM to this day. So hopefully I can get those notes out soon! <3

Thank you for reading! I'm glad to have helped you and hope your future games turn out great!

Sounds like your game has been going great! Glad that you've found my write-ups helpful. :)

I actually didn't use a map for Luca's sheep pen. There's not much of a battle encounter there, so I played that as theater of the mind. Even if the coming mob starts a fight, as soon as one Kreskite dies, the crowd retreats. So I didn't see much need for a map.

And as for Ilya's fight, I believe I just used a larger scale town streets map that I found on Pinterest. I have about a dozen city/town/village street set-ups that I use in a pinch for such fights.

Sorry I don't have anything more specific for you, but I hope that helps!

I find that the enjoyment of a horror game comes from the challenge. If you make encounters, whether they're combat encounters, RP encounters, or otherwise, difficult, the players will always be on the edge of their seat.

Gosh how do I describe it? Umm..... Say the players just finished an encounter and it ended poorly. If they immediately start to review their actions and try to figure out what went wrong, that means that they're recognizing that their actions have consequences. And that means that maybe if they prepped better or payed attention more or whatever else, that bad outcome could have been avoided. Maybe it couldn't have been avoided lol, but the point is that you want the PCs to think it could have been.

If you consistently put in combats and story beats that go badly for the party, but not badly enough to count as complete failures, they'll be constantly looking to improve their own game play. That means that they'll be paying attention to every session, hanging on every word an NPCs says, taking diligent watches, etc. because they want to get better.

And if you see your party getting really worn down by defeat, throw in a major win for them here and there. If they've just spent like 10 sessions in Vallaki and watched it all implode, and then go to the winery and flipping save the day and have the Martikovs love them, that win will feel friggin amazing for them. That'll make all the horribleness feel worth it. Because all their hard work with paying attention and listening to the NPCs finally paid off.

That emotional tension is what I find really makes dnd engaging. I generally want my players to succeed, but only by the skin of their teeth. Make them sweat, and they'll be engaged. XD

Well, to totally plug ma boi, u/DragnaCarta, he's got a whole excellently done chapter on random encounters for CoS. If you're having trouble picking enemies that are thematically relevant or are of a fluctuating difficulty, I would totally reference that. As to when to actually run an encounter, I personally don't roll for them. Instead, I plan out appropriate encounters that I'd like to run along with battle maps that have interesting terrain.

If the party is actually out in the woods, away from established roads, I would want to really wear them down. Like you said, make good on the promise that the wilderness is dangerous. Exhaustion is a great way to pressure them. If a long rest is interrupted by combat, it doesn't count. So you could potentially just make the natural predators of the woods feel relentless. While they're moving, they feel watched. High perception rolls mean they spot movement from behind a tree or boulder, but when they investigate, whatever is there is gone. At night, low rolls on watches means that something might get to start a combat with a surprise round.

If you really want to go brutal, you could also make sure to track rations and water. Make note of how much food they have when then leave a location and make sure they have just enough to reach their destination. And then, when a complication is throw in and they have to spend extra days in the wilds, they're slowly starving too.

I've found that no amount of storytelling is too ambitious so long as you have a sense for good pacing. Yes, you might have a lot of extra content to work though. But take it slow and give each player a chance to shine and see their stories to fruition. Just remember to keep plugging Mr. Strahd to keep them on the main plot and you should be fine. :D

Hi there! Glad you've enjoyed my write-ups! :)

Strahd being a good guy and/or redeemable is actually a pretty big pet peeve of mine. I believe that it's important to note that even though Strahd sees himself as the good guy (as everyone sees themselves) we cannot excuse his actions. And, I believe it's important that we never just excuse his crimes by saying that Vampyr made him do it. An intricate part of Strahd's backstory is that his own choices and mistreatment of others is literally what brought the devil to him, not the other way around.

So while Strahd believes that this time, he'll surely win Ireena's heart, it's just that: She's still a piece of his property to be won. Though he might write her poetry and send her roses, he only would do so to use a cultural norm to achieve his own selfish aims. He doesn't see Ireena a person and doesn't care what she wants, even if he himself believes that he does.

So instead of Vampyr causing a screw up, maybe it's Strahd's own impatience that does so. Maybe he writes some great poetry and Ireena stands her ground and Strahd suddenly loses his temper. He doesn't harm Ireena, but maybe he tries to force charm her to drink blood and that leads to something else and dominos until disaster strikes. Either way, Strahd's true nature as an abuser rears its head and now he has to work twice as heard to come back. It's no different than a real life abuser that hurts their spouse and then cries and begs forgiveness and promises it'll never happen again. And then it always does. It's not the victim's job to change their abuser and save them. That's part of what makes Ireena's story so powerful.

So anyway. That was quite a lengthy reply, but I hope that helps in some way or at the least gives you some considerations so that you can find a good way forward. Thanks for reading!

I'm a pretty big fan of the minion mechanic from... gosh I don't remember what edition lol.

Anyway, the minion mechanic basically is that you choose a low level enemy, like a skeleton, and then get rid of any weird abilities besides a basic attack. And then you only give them 1 HP a piece. And then you made a horde of them, that are never-ending, until their master is killed. They flood spaces, herding the party like cattle, and where one falls another just takes it's place. Meanwhile, the controller bad guy stands there and does big moves, maybe aoes or enchantment abilities. It will take a minimum of two or three turns before the party realizes that there's no end to horde. And that's two or three turns of damage already accumulating.

The minion mechanic isn't something you can use all the time, but gosh darn it's a fun trip when you do bring it out.

Otherwise, I would encourage you to try different tactics. Don't just make enemies run at the party and hit until they die. Use terrain to your advantage. Try to herd the party into groups so you can AOE them. Focus fire one PC at a time, starting with that pesky healer ;) Stuff like that. Maybe even introduce enemies with legendary actions and/or resistances earlier. After all, from a turn economy, your party get a whooping ten turns each round to themselves. Give the bad guys the opportunity to react in the middle of those turns and you'll find yourself much more powerful.

howdy!

1 -

I'm pretty challenging when it comes to my encounters. I like to mold my players as time goes on to makes sure they are always thinking about the consequences of their actions, and therefore thinking about what they can be doing to prevent poor outcomes. In this situation, I would personally be pretty harsh. The party knows one of their own is infected and has the potential to hurt people. And yet the only preparation they've done is new clothes. No chains or ropes or sedatives.

I would personally pile on that guilt. Make a passing family of Vistani in a wagon get mauled in the night. The party wakes up to screams and see the transformed cleric ripping into a child while his mother pulls fruitlessly at their fur. Then a fight ensues and I give the werewolf PC a new stat block which is way buff and encourage them to fight. The cleric is enraged and feels the need to kill as much as possible. Things start to look really bad for the party as their friend almost wipes them, and then Van Richten swoops in to save their butts. The cleric is knocked unconscious and transforms back, but the damage has been done. After that, VR verbally lays into the party telling them that the Vistani family's blood is on their hands because of their carelessness.

Now, with all that said, I have no idea how you've been running your game up until this point. If you've been pretty lenient and have had pretty easy combats, the party might feel horribly slighted by such an unforgiving challenge. But, if it were my game, that's something along the lines of what I would do.

2 - Wine. Kresk is short on wine and if the players have a shipment from the winery, they'll be allowed in. You could also plug that maybe Kresk has been having trouble with werewolves ;) But that location is of a much higher location, so maybe don't send them to the Den just yet. An implication is cool though. If the parties do try to fight their way in and kill guards, I'd lay on the guilt again. And if they don't feel guilty and go on up to the Abbey to treat their cleric anyway, they'll meet the Abbot. And the Abbot will not be happy innocent people in Kresk were murdered. He's corrupt and psychotic, but he still has a set of laws set by other devas...

Well, there's not much to say for her character raw, but I have a special love for Arabelle. I really like the idea of having a young girl who knows more than she should from her abilities as a seer, but also is too young to really understand the horror of the world. She's got a lot of dynamism and I find her quite compelling.

lol, yes Strahd will not be happy to find out the fanes are being restored. That's why I do like to make sure the fanes are an end game task that the party takes care of quite literally on their way to Ravenloft. Even then, Strahd doesn't necessarily have to feel the disconnect. If you make it apparent that this is dangerous work, maybe you can encourage the party to restore the first two fanes with an ability to help cloak them from scrying and other divination magics. Basically, you can help guide the party into planning the restorations so that Strahd doesn't notice. At least not until the final shrine is consecrated. ;) Or, if he does notice, maybe you can up the tension by having more enemies show up to stop them. Make them feel pressured because quite literally the devil himself is on their heels.

Once the third fane falls, Strahd only has so many options. The party has proven themselves formidable and if he goes after them in a blind rage, he's putting himself at risk. Why leave his castle, where he has the homefield advantage, just to spite the party?

While I haven't tried expanding any other modules as of yet, it's something that I'll likely pursue in the future. There are a few that I'm interested in, including ToA, Princes, and Avernus.

Remember that travel time is what you make it. If want to make the choice important, then make sure the threat is relevant. Make Davian heavily imply that something is wrong over at Yester Hill. So if the party decides to leave, they at least on some level understand they're leaving a threat unchecked.

Or, if you'd rather they do the delivery first, let them. Don't mention Yester Hill and when they return to the Winery (if they return though, you should make sure you have a hook or some reason for them to go back), Davian then mentions the newly developed threat.

Additionally, I personally lengthened the distance between location dramatically for pacing reasons. If you'd like more details on that, check out this post.

Well, I'm a big fan of making the party feel stressed and alone. In this game, which is so fundamentally horror, I have true good allies be few and far between. The constant paranoia is a also a good way to push the party towards corruption, which is a theme in CoS specifically. But the idea is to have those few good allies shine like beacons in the darkness, encouraging the party to persevere beyond their own corruptions.

Glad you got started! Good luck in your game! :)

1 - Oh, so many! Pidlwick was a big point of fun RP in my game. He and the Rogue hated one another, but Pidlwick and the warlock where super tight. So there were several instances when Pidlwick would do something mean to the Rogue while no one was looking. Then the Rogue would complain, like a slighted child, about Pidlwick, who did his best to look innocent. They would all roll insights and deceptions and whatnot, but luck never seemed to favor the poor rougue and no one ever believed him XD The two ended up in a pseudo-sibling rivalry that lasted most of the game.

2 - My players I know enjoyed the Abbey and the Werewolf Den particularly. I myself really love Berez. It's my favorite location in the game.

3 - Actually, I was very proud of the warlock in my game during the final battle with Vampyr. I do my best to provide tactical and challenging combats and... well, my Vampyr stat block was a doozy. XD And then, totally to my surprise, the warlock used a single spell that changed up the whole flow of the fight and let them win. It surprised the hell out me, which rarely happens in a fight nowadays.

Glad you like my work!

I haven't gone too in depth with other modules, but I do have an interest in Tomb of Annihilation, Princes of the Apocalypse, Rime of the Frostmaiden, and Avernus. Not sure where I'll go next, but I've considered doing Fleshing Out series for other modules, for sure. ;)

Glad to have helped! :D

You're very welcome! I actually have a little nerdy place in my heart for the Romani. Growing up, I had a little fangirl crush on Dick Grayson, the first Robin from the Batman universe. He was technically Romani and I spent a bit of time delving into their culture. When I saw their treatment in CoS, I couldn't help but change it. XD