Ravenloft - Nostalgia Time

Twenty-something years ago I ran my first genuine campaign in a tabletop RPG. The game was Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition, the campaign itself took place in the official "Ravenloft" setting.

"Ravenloft" was a Gothic Horror setting in a different plane of existence. It was composed of Domains, very much like states or countries, each of which was ruled by a Darklord. The Darklords were also prisoners of the Domains that they ruled, and the lands reflected the central myth behind the villain. There was a purgatorial quality to it, the Darklords being unable to leave their Domains. Each was based on a classic horror character, or drawn from other AD&D settings, the main one being Strahd Von Zarovich, the equivalent of Count Dracula. Frankenstein, Vlad Tepes, Werewolves and Mummies were all represented in their own Domains.

The idea was that players would pass through a mist from their own worlds into one of the Domains, so "Ravenloft" sessions could be added on here and there to other games or campaigns. I took a different approach and based my campaign entirely in the setting itself, with each chapter taking place in a different Domain. I used published scenarios as the basis. The beauty of this approach was the variety it presented. We had encounters with zombies in marshlands, Egyptian deserts and adventures on ships. On the other hand, the radical shifts in geography and storylines made it hard to maintain a consistent tone through the campaign.

"Ravenloft" also has it's own tweaks to the established rules. The polarity between good and evil is more pronounced and extreme with game mechanics added to reflect that. Acts of evil could manifest in a physical change in a character. The party Thief, for example, grew horns! These changes remain should the character return to their own world. The game had rules for fear as well, so in some ways it was closer to "Call of Cthulhu".

Some of the sessions simply didn't work well, I was extremely inexperienced at the time and my preparation should have been much better than it was. Occasionally though, it worked wonderfully. There was one game were the villains were werewolves. I'll never forget the atmosphere that we,as a group, captured that night. The characters were very powerful at this point and yet were extremely intimidated by the locals in the town inn. Great roleplaying all round and it's something I try to recapture in other games.

I need to get a copy of the game again to see how it reads after all this time. I have no doubt that I could do a lot more with it now, though I'm not sure what system I'd use. I did love AD&D 2E at the time, though again, it's been decades since I've looked at it. Even though I'm primarily a "Call of Cthulhu" GM these days, "Ravenloft" was my first signature game and will always hold a special place.