The adventure areas that comprise the Barovian sandbox utilize Gothic tropes particularly well it details accursed temples, a mobile witch's hut, an asylum wherein horrible deeds are committed, et al. And it is a proper sandbox though certain sequences of events are more likely than others, the players are given the room in the adventure to travel where they want, explore where they want, and generally take agency over what comes next for their characters. Curse of Strahd makes Barovia (Strahd's valley domain of bleak villages, perilous mountains, and dark forests) a proper sandbox for in-game exploration. Although there are additional NPCs and new situations to encounter within Castle Ravenloft, the content surrounding castle is even more expansive and noteworthy.
I6: Ravenloft is generally regarded as a classic, and justifiably so.Ĭurse of Strahd preserves the experience of exploring Castle Ravenloft (as well as its randomized elements)-with some canny additions. Although the module plays out in a fairly typical way, it did innovate a bit by adding randomized story elements, such as the placement of important magic items and the main villain's motivation. The adventure centers on defeating a vampire lord, Strahd von Zarovich, and exploring his haunted Castle Ravenloft. If you're unfamiliar with the original Ravenloft, it brought a heavy dose of Gothic and Hammer Horror-inspired atmosphere to the usual S&S-meets-Tolkien "milieu" of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. To give you a sense of how much Curse of Strahd is intended as a love letter to Ravenloft, note that they brought I6 's authors, Tracy and Laura Hickman, on-board as consultants for the book. Curse of Strahd lovingly recreates the original Ravenloft adventure it also expands on the ideas of the classic module and crafts a thematically-cohesive sandbox that should give you enough material to run a 5e D&D campaign that spans levels 1-10. And yet, it's hard to escape the feeling that Curse of Strahd is a love letter to I6: Ravenloft. Replay-ability: 3 (Good for Curse of Strahd, it will last awhile, but rather useless for other campaigns."X is a love letter to Y" has become the tired workhorse of RPG product reviews. Theme: 4 (This screen is mapped to the Curse of Strahd campaign) I was happy with it though and would recommend it to newer Dungeon Masters, that are trying to run this campaign as their first.Įntertainment: 3 (Nice to have but is only utilized by the DM) Overall the screen is a nice to have but is not really needed as I would expect most of these screens to be. Which I didn’t use so much but is nice to have.
There is also a random encounter name bank for Barovian themed names. The final portion is day and night random encounters tables for monsters and events that players will encounter in the campaign. There is a random encounters table for the castle on the side as well. This is good cause a general layout makes using dungeon tiles to reveal rooms of the castle very effective. The other side is a bunch of the castle Ravenloft maps. Ironically, 2/3 of the whole screen can be found on that handout, just in a shrunken down form. The map on the screen is a nice addition and has a lot of what a DM would need on it. If you read my review on that map, I said that it would not last very long and break after probably 2 campaign runs through the game. The first being a map of Barovia that goes with the handout map from the campaign book. The inside of the 4 panels contain 3 sections. The art on the outside is nothing fantastic and after looking at a couple other designs for the DM screens seems like a lack luster job. So what does this screen all contain? The screen is a 4 panel fold out screen made of some thick board that is laminated like the cover of a dungeons and dragons hard cover book.
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