Ravenloft 4e Next Month

[Philosopher]

In Digital Insider #6) on WotC's website, Randy Buehler discusses some of the content that will be seen in October's issue of Dragon. He makes the following comment:

October will also see the Domains of Dread return to D&D, with the long-time Ravenloft concept being folded into the core now.

I suppose it remains to be seen how they handle it exactly, but I figured some Ravenloft fans may be excited by this.

[Hugin]

Certainly an intriguing comment. I'm very interested to see what they do with it. Hopefully it is a , "Ravenloft fans, rejoice!" affair.

[agathokles]

Two things don't ring good. First is "folded into the core". The concept of Ravenloft is specifically meant to be outside the typical (core) D&D gameplay even in AD&D 2e -- indeed, the first attempt to fold it into the core was not especially successful, AFAIR.
Second is that Ravenloft doesn't fit well with 4e concepts -- in 4e, it is very difficult for PCs to die or suffer permanent or at least long-term disabilities. Also, the lack of immunities and other special qualities of monsters makes it so that reproducing the same concept is almost impossible.
Thus, I do not hold great expectations for a 4e Ravenloft.

GP

[Big Mac]

Two things don't ring good. First is "folded into the core". The concept of Ravenloft is specifically meant to be outside the typical (core) D&D gameplay even in AD&D 2e -- indeed, the first attempt to fold it into the core was not especially successful, AFAIR.

I was never a major fan of Ravenloft, but one thing I did like (ironically) was the thing you didn't like - the ability to connect it to other campaign settings. I don't think it should be core in the generic sense, but I do think that a GM should be able to suck characters from any D&D or non-D&D campaign setting and thrust them onto the Demiplane of Dread. I loved the idea of Ravenloft as a trap that PCs need to invent their escape route from. And I really loved the concept that PCs could meet characters like Lord Soth, who hail from totally different campaign settings to them.

One off topic thing...

I want to spend some more time this week talking about the magazines that we’re currently showing off in our free trial.

I hardly think that a bunch of web pages constitues a magazine. Do these things at least come out as PDFs?

[agathokles]

I was never a major fan of Ravenloft, but one thing I did like (ironically) was the thing you didn't like - the ability to connect it to other campaign settings.

I didn't say I don't like to use Ravenloft with PCs from other worlds. I said that the attempt to market it as generic was not successful.

I don't think it should be core in the generic sense, but I do think that a GM should be able to suck characters from any D&D or non-D&D campaign setting and thrust them onto the Demiplane of Dread.

I fear that the first sense will be the one chosen, though

I want to spend some more time this week talking about the magazines that we’re currently showing off in our free trial.

I hardly think that a bunch of web pages constitues a magazine. Do these things at least come out as PDFs?

Yes, they do. Actually, the Dragon and Dungeon articles, except for a few columns like Ampersand, only appear in PDF.

GP

[Havard]

Wow,
it's going to be interesting to see what this will look like. I am surprised that RL shows up this soon. It would be nice if all the settings could get Dragon/Dungeon updates to 4E even if not all get their own books. Does this mean RL will be the third setting to get its own books once FR and Ebberron are done?

Havard

[Philosopher]

I hardly think that a bunch of web pages constitues a magazine. Do these things at least come out as PDFs?

Yes, they do. Actually, the Dragon and Dungeon articles, except for a few columns like Ampersand, only appear in PDF.

GP

Plus, they (eventually) get compiled into one PDF file, with table of contents, for each issue.

[Philosopher]

Wow,
it's going to be interesting to see what this will look like. I am surprised that RL shows up this soon. It would be nice if all the settings could get Dragon/Dungeon updates to 4E even if not all get their own books. Does this mean RL will be the third setting to get its own books once FR and Ebberron are done?

Havard

That's a good question. I had assumed that making it core meant that it will not get its own setting guide, but I may be wrong.

[agathokles]

That's a good question. I had assumed that making it core meant that it will not get its own setting guide, but I may be wrong.

I find the first option most likely: we'll probably see an "Ravenloft"/"House of Strahd" type adventure in Dungeon Magazine, set in the 4e pseudo-setting, without the associated setting. Another likely option is that they will introduce into the core a location type similar to the Island Domains.

GP

[True_Atlantean]

Does anyone have an update on this? I'd be most interested to see how WotC decided to handle Ravenloft. Whilst I'm not part of the 4e crowd, I'd consider buying the books to reverse engineer anything of interest.

Thanks in anticpation.

[agathokles]

Does anyone have an update on this? I'd be most interested to see how WotC decided to handle Ravenloft. Whilst I'm not part of the 4e crowd, I'd consider buying the books to reverse engineer anything of interest.

Apparently, it was just one article in the October issue of Dragon Magazine. Here is the summary:

Domains of Dread: Sunderheart, the Funeral City
By Matthew Sernett
Ruled by a twisted darklord split in half by her terrible betrayal, finding this realm in the Shadowfell isn't that difficult, but escaping is almost impossible.

As foreseen, "Ravenloft" in 4e just means a set of island of terror-like domains within the Shadowfell, a plane that resembles both the Shadow World of Birthright and Mystara's Limbo (i.e., it's a shadow/undeath reflection of the prime material). As such, the evils of the Shadowfell, in contrast to those of Ravenloft, are quite apparent. Only Ravenloft's less populated (or more alien) realms could fit in this vision (e.g., the Shadow Rift, Forlorn, Keening, or Bluetspur). Darkon, Mordent or Dementlieu simply don't fit, being too mundane for the Shadowfell.

I can't say more, since I haven't read the actual article.

GP

[JoeNotCharles]

A little late, but I thought I'd give an update on this:

It's not true that the Shadowfell has no mundane bits in it, it's a world as big as the Prime Plane with lots of variation. Domains of Dread are now sort of "bubbles" in the Shadowfell that are hard to get out of. The main concept was described briefly in the Manual of the Planes (about a page or less, IIRC).

Dragon magazine has printed several "Domains of Dread" articles now, each of which describes the history of some place in the generic 4E campaign setting where a tragedy occurred and why this pulled it into the Shadowfell to become a Domain of Dread, followed by stats on the major NPC you'll find there including the place's ruler. I've found the individual Domains of Dread they've printed pretty uninspiring (one has a very cool villain, but I barely remember anything about the rest of the article), but as a framework for integrating and converting the older Ravenloft material it works great.

Oh, also, Strahd was given stats in the Open Grave undead sourcebook.

[Big Mac]

Dragon magazine has printed several "Domains of Dread" articles now, each of which describes the history of some place in the generic 4E campaign setting where a tragedy occurred and why this pulled it into the Shadowfell to become a Domain of Dread, followed by stats on the major NPC you'll find there including the place's ruler.

That sounds like an interesting way to do things. That would allow one evil person to pull everyone in a town over to Ravenloft.

[True_Atlantean]

Apparently, it was just one article in the October issue of Dragon Magazine. Here is the summary...

Thanks very much, more information is always good.

[blackaeon]

I'm not really holding out a lot of information for this to be a very viable product line, unfortunately, nor do I really have a lot of faith that they'll treat all of the old source material well. Every time I think of how they just said, for FR, "Eh, let's skip forwards a ridiculous amount of time", it reaffirms why I'm still playing 3.5. I'll take a look, but my rose-coloured glasses won't be on.

[Hugin]

Hey, blackaeon! Welcome to The Piazza!

[BotWizo]

ravenloft is set to be a self contained board game that is released in august.

it might be useful since it will have something like 30 some minis and probably some fluff you can use to run a real 4e ravenloft campaign.
the board game uses 4e rules.

I may have misunderstood, and all of you already know this and are talking about something completely different.

I loved the 1e module and we played in the world for a while, so I may have to pick this up once I find out more about what a board game with 4e rules really means.

anyway some more information.

[Big Mac]

Every time I think of how they just said, for FR, "Eh, let's skip forwards a ridiculous amount of time", it reaffirms why I'm still playing 3.5. I'll take a look, but my rose-coloured glasses won't be on.

I've not heard anything about Ravenloft, but I do know they said during the build up to Dark Sun, that they would not do another "spellplague".

ravenloft is set to be a self contained board game that is released in august.

it might be useful since it will have something like 30 some minis and probably some fluff you can use to run a real 4e ravenloft campaign.
the board game uses 4e rules.

Minis are good. They work for grognoid gamers as well as they do for people using the latest rules.

I've heard that people playing the World of Warcraft RPG bought up board games and used them for the minis (murlocs I think).