The lord of Ravenloft is having guests for dinner.

And you're invited. | Running games since 2009 | Tabletop / Ravenloft sideblog of whywalkwhenyoucanride

[backyard-trinkets]

Played around with wigglypaint and did the main vamp man himself

[castle-ravenloft]

Crows, a survival horror dungeon-crawling roleplaying game.

Art by Nick De Spain

[dreamsrecurring]

[70sscifiart]

Kow Yokoyama

[utilitycaster]

in honor of the recently passed 8 year anniversary of the start of Campaign 2 I do have to just note that I feel the vast majority of complaints about Campaign 2 and particularly the ones that gained traction within the CR fandom that aren't "I don't vibe with the characters" (valid, I obviously do but like, if you don't, you don't) or shipping complaints (required people watch and enjoy the show for like 100 episodes before giving up, which is to say, they liked Campaign 2 until they didn't get a very specific thing out of it) boil down to "I don't really like it when they play D&D on the actual play D&D show."

I've been thinking about how a lot of actual play in recent years kind of keeps trying to break the bounds of what you can do in actual play D&D and frankly it always kind of fails because it tries to tell a story that D&D isn't suited for telling. And it's fine if C2 isn't what people are into, but I think it is perhaps one of the most perfect marriages of the dice telling their story with ample character agency that still has DM intent I've ever seen (though C1 is not far behind), to the point that if someone truly cannot stand it for reasons other than the not vibing with characters reason it's just like. I don't think you want to be here.

[utilitycaster]

the thing is. D&D is a game that ultimately requires a fairly not-woke perspective. I'm not even talking the racial essentialism portions; even if you managed to eliminate that utterly, you are telling a story about people who have more ability and power at L1 than most people will see in their lifetimes. Even your most poor disadvantaged sad sack tragic backstory PC is going to be leagues stronger, or smarter, or wiser, or more dextrous, or charismatic, or tougher than the people around them. and then they're also going to know magic or weaponry way better than the people around them. and instead of becoming the leader of their village and giving back, they are going to go on a monster-killing gap year in which the unstated goal is to get more powerful in order to kill the biggest monster of all. They will see more money from one low-level pest-control job than most people in the world will see in their lifetimes. They will not just have the audience of kings and queens; they will be able to ask favors and unless they really screw up they will not get immediately killed because that's "disrespecting player agency."

I love D&D and I think its detractors are mostly acting out of jealousy, and I love Actual Play and I think its detractors are mostly just unbridled haters, but it is not going for realism either in the vaguely renaissance era-ish but magic worlds in which it is typically set; nor in terms of how the PCs specifically are treated. D&D actual play is great and also it is a study in cognitive dissonance because the goal is to simultaneously make the players feel like cool guys who feel empowered to make interesting choices; and to make the characters feel like they're up against impossible odds. So as a result you end up with a story where some of the objectively most powerful and good-intentioned (usually) people in the world have to be like "I don't know if we can make it...I don't know if we can kill the BBEG. who would believe in us?" And there are ways to manage this, like those perspective illusions where the ball appears to roll uphill, and I think Campaign 2 of CR is actually exceptionally good among D&D Actual Play efforts at doing this, but it's really hard to tell a story in most D&D settings that is particularly woke because even if capitalism is the BBEG or whatever, you're probably telling this in a world with rough gender/sexuality equality (bc otherwise it really sucks to be told you're a woman and can't play a fighter or whatever) and with exceptional class mobility. The camera in D&D is always following the heartwarming tale of the small town kid who succeeded and not the person who never got a chance because Player Characters by definition Got A Chance And Probably Succeeded And Even If They Didn't, Got Pretty Far.

None of this is bad but it is pretty true and I think we are running into a situation where people were drawn to actual play D&D for character/ship/representation reasons (all great things) and are not doing a good job of handling that D&D tells a very specific sort of story.

[re-dracula]

Be diligent and check your child’s candy this year, just found COUNT DRACULA shoved inside a Twix bar.

[aruefulstage]

Vanquishing of Dracula

Reference: The Death of Julius Caesar by Vincenzo Camuccini

[castle-ravenloft]

look me in the eyes. you need to understand this. strahd is not metaphysically unable to "get" ireena/tatyana. it is spelled out in plain text what ireenas "bad ending" is in cos. please.

[vintage-sweden]

Konrad Elméus, 1941, Sweden.

[oldschoolfrp]

From r/StainedGlass, posted by u/Narkareth -- the moathouse from AD&D modules T1: The Village of Hommlet (1979) and T1-4: The Temple of Elemental Evil (1987)

[solitairians]

watching buffy makes me feel like i'm darwin on the galápagos islands but for pop culture vampires. like obviously louis & lestat are the first (popular) iterations of the modern vampire but angel & spike are the crucial evolutionary step between them and every other sexy vampire that came into existence in the 2000s. for example it's hard to see much of louis in edward but then when you realise it went louis -> angel -> edward it all makes so much sense you forget 9/11 even had anything to do with it at all

[shopkeeper]

[silvermoonharry]

Mugs taken from the Black Temple

[oldschoolfrp]

When you signed on to fight orcs but your DM puts his Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robot on the table (Clyde Caldwell cover for D&D Companion level module CM4: Earthshaker! by David "Zeb" Cook, TSR, 1985)

Earthshaker stands 1280 feet tall, which the text points out is taller than the Empire State Building's roof or the Eiffel Tower, and would be 17' 6" if scaled to match a 25mm miniature. Most of the adventure takes place inside Earthshaker, in spaces divided into many levels, where a clan of gnomes lives to maintain its workings.

[redstonedust]

welcome to my epic fantasy world. we have many developed fantasy kingdoms with 2000 years of rich lore and history. and to the south you can see the evil sand people and to the east theres japanchina.

[castle-ravenloft]

we are inching closer to the complete first draft of the guide

[virusvisal]

Spot art I made for @strahdzine in collaboration with @barovianballads for her Fanfic "Split Silk". There is a third illustration on these series but you need to go get the zine and read the fic to see it u3u.

[ghost-from-retro]

"The saved. The cursed." - my piece for Memento Mori: A Curse of Strahd Fanzine vol. 2 🩸🧛 NSFW edition!

The spread art I've made while inspired by reading the last chapters of "I, Strahd: The War Against Azalin". Sadly I can show only one part of the spread, but hope it's teasing you to check out full artwork in the @strahdzine NSFW edition. And maybe you'll be motivated to read the novel, it's definitely VERY good one🫡❣️

[strange-house-art]