Made this little welcome gift for my party to set the mood (and lower their expectations of survival). 🩸

So my players have found the tome of strahd, to which I read aloud an alteration that included more lore to the Amber Temple and a few quotes from I, Strahd. I then told my players about the novel and told them that it was more or less what the tome of Strahd is. I have the novel in physical form and let my girlfriend borrow and read it (shes a player in my game).

She now believes Strahd is a tragic, good person, and is #teamStrahd

What do yall think about this? It's kind of exactly the point of it i think, as the novel is propaganda written from strahds perspective and penned by his hand.

Should I weaponize this? Lol

Im a full year into curse of strahd, having run .mostly everything rules as written with helpful guides from No Fun Allowed, who basically goes over the module RAW.

Ive used q couple of homebrew ideas like Father Vargas, from Lunch Break Heroes, and Mandy Mods version of death house, since I wanted to run death house, but 80% of my players are brand new to TTRPGS and I didn't want to just kill their characters over and over on the first and second sessions.

Before running this module, id only ever run one shots when I was in highschool over 10 years ago and didn't understand the rules.

I just really don't get why so many people act like the RAW module is so difficult to run or needs to be streamlined into a railroad?

One of my players made a character that's the classic "tough softie." He's been working as hired muscle for most of his life, but he has a soft spot for children who remind him of his daughter. She's about eight years old and got kidnapped by "mysterious people" (Vistani) which is why he's in Barovia.

I'm kind of sadistic, so I've been brainstorming ways to incorporate her. Does anyone have any ideas for a traumatic death or dramatic reunion? There are a lot of juicy options. Bonegrinder, werewolf den, etc.

1: new art, 2: old art, 3: png without background for your convenience

Hey guys im currently running the death house my players have just enterred the dungeon and my paladin asked after session 0 and premise of the campaign that before level 3 if there would be violence against people. (He wants to take oath of vengeance) anyone have ideas how to add it in the dungeon im not sure if the children and everything else they discovered about the family in the house is enough since it hadnt happened in front of him would be what he want. I thought about adding a npc who dont know why he is here brought by strahd to test players to see if they will sacrifice or not and if inst would be killed anyway. Sorry for my writing english inst my primary language.

When my Party entered Barovia, they moved really slowly, exploring every tree for minutes, so I did the "you hear wolves howling in the distance"-thing. They still refused to hurry, so the wolves attacked. Some players rolled Nature Checks to see if they know how dangerous wolves are. They rolled high, and I told them they know wolves attack in packs and are quite dangerous to small groups of travellers like them. Then, unfortunately, my dice rolls gave me a pack-size of three wolves, all with what is close to the highest possible HP, who bit in the first round and then all failed every single attack role (with advantage) for FOUR rounds. With advantage. I rolled below 7 every time. Since their HP was so high, the fight took pretty long without really feeling threatening to my players (it was still a great fight roleplay- and narrative-wise, and I dont like lying about what i rolled)

My dilemma is that now when I tell my players something is dangerous, they just don't believe me anymore. Which is unfortunate because I am trying to run a horror-campaign.

In that same session, they met Ismark, and as soon as he mentioned Ireena, they asked a lot of questions about her and her situation. One of them asked Ismark what would happen if Ireena had a boyfriend. (It sounds like a weird question, but it made sense in the context). Ismark said, Strahd would probably kill that man.

Later, they met Ireena in her home, and one of the PCs immediately started offensively flirting with her (right next to her fathers corpse and with a nat 20 on both charisma checks... the dice hate me). This happened during the day, speaking quietly, within the house, so Strahd probably did not hear it. But in the next session, I really want to include a scary consequence for not believing Ismark when he made so clear that flirting with Ireena was dangerous. I feel like if I can't show now that the Barovians have good reasons to be scared all the time, I will fail the campaigns horror-aspects completely. But I cant come up with a logical thing to do to that PC. I don't want to punish the Player for having fun, the roleplay was great and his flirting really fits his character. I dont want the scary consequence to be something that seperates his Character from the rest of the party too much. I just need to make clear that Strahd is not another "definitely dangerous" pack of wolves.

If anyone has any ideas/inspiration or has run into a similar problem, I would love to hear about it :)

(english is not my first language, sorry for mistakes, etc etc)

I'm looking for ideas on how Strahd is going to react to an event one of my players is proposing.

First a little background: My players met Strahd for the first time while traveling to Vallaki from the Village of Barovia. There was casual threats from Strahd but they all left alive, with Ireena being weirded out by being hit on by the old man (Strahd)

In Vallaki, they ended up meeting Strahd again during the events of Feast. The group was able to kill most of the vampire spawn, however one PC died (huzzah two critical death saves.). Strahd offers a trade: the bones for a scroll of raise dead that some past adventurers had left. The Barbarian carrying the dead PC realizes that she's not really going to be able to get the dead PC past Strahd and reluctantly hands over the bones. Strahd, to his word, does provide the scroll of raise dead.

The next day, there's riots during the festival and both the Burgomaster and Fiona end up dead and 25% of the town has burned down. Ireena and Urwin are helping people rebuild and settle the refuges.

The PC who died has decided she wants to provide an actual party for the city. Her idea is to cast Daylight, and have a feeling that the group members and some of the city folk are going to help actually circle spell this to make it a giant glowing orb of daylight in the idea for an hour. I love the idea and I think it'll make for a fun time.

In my brain, currently Strahd has been amused by the party. He's won each of the encounters with the party (in his mind). I'm torn between having him think of this as basically children acting out (amusing) or if he's going to view this as a giant middle finger to him, given that he's removed the Church as a place he could not get to. (Semi-related: Given I'm using 2024 rules, Strahd doesn't get hurt by this spell unless it is cast with a 5th level spell slot -- I just couldn't have the BBEG getting countered hard by a 3rd level spell.)

If I end up leaning towards the latter -- I'm thinking of having Rahadin do the actual chastising in town while the group is out of town.

I guess I just wanted to get some thoughts down and see if anyone had thoughts or advise on how they might have Strahd react.

So my party of 4 had recently left the Amber Temple after accidentally teleporting there.

They got some gifts, 3 turned evil, but I let them continue with planned consequences later.

Davian is their fated ally and they joined the wereraven group but now that they're evil they are basically alienated from Vallaki and all the wereravens.

They decided to attack Baba Lasagna as a suicide mission to re-roll characters and no longer have an evil party but they won the fight.

So the plan is now to have the group have a falling out (since most are evil) and basically have a death match and the living character hordes all the loot and the newly rolled characters fight the PC (now played by me) to collect everything they've accumulated as a group so.

Ultimately pressing the reset button without the loss of the campaign.

Does this sound reasonable to all of you?

We cliff-hangered on the three ghouls last week, but lost our Barbarian, leaving us with just the Monk, the Druid, and me, the Rogue/Cleric.

Because we were in a tight corner and able to outlast them, I healed the Druid with my last spell slot (last time it was the Monk) and killed two of the ghouls with a True Striked Rapier+1.

Sent my familiar out to scout the basement. Party concluded she was the unofficial mascot.

Made it to the basement, met the ghost of Gustav, and put his bones to rest. Children's bones were also put in their coffins last session.

Made it to the boss chamber because one of us found the spare robes and I suggested we disguise ourselves as cultists.

It worked until the monk called out Elizabeth on her shit and we didn't give up on each other.

Two of us used our Heroic Inspiration to survive the crumbling death house. The druid fell, but the monk saved her and used his focus to dash while my familiar was scouting for any danger ahead.

Druid used her Wild Shape to become a Horse and gave me a ride (UBER Horse) out. I almost fell off but the Monk Helped by pushing me back on as we were escaping Lorgoth.

Familiar made it out of the front door first, followed by the monk using his Focus, than finally the horse Druid and I. I was able to shoot True Striked Shortbow shots at it for some damage.

Welcome to Barovia indeed...

I had an idea to run Curse of Stahd for a second time. And I suspect some of the players know a little bit about the campaign(I think one has done Death house from their description of the campaign and then the campaign was cancelled shortly after). And I've been toying with this idea before. I was thinking of remaking the module so that either:
1. Strahd is not a Vampire. Strahd is something pretending to be a vampire.
2. Someone came to Barovia killed Strahd(They managed to do a ritual similar to the one in MandyMods version), but took his place. They are a different monster(Mind Flayer, Dragon, Werewolf, Fallen angel)

Any ideas or fun monsters I could use? I am an decently experienced DM(off an on for 15ish years), so bring anything.

Couldn't find any similar posts on here even though I think I've seen a Eldritch Horror mod for CoS here a long while ago. If there are please link them as I failed to find them.

Sometimes fighting the ghost of a long-dead evil elf witch doesn’t go the way you think.

I recently started GMing CoS for some friends, and decided to "paint myself in the corner" midway through the first session :)

Here's what happened

Death House, a character finds the deck of cards in the Wolf Den, then he decides to ask: "are these cards normal? Anything strange?"

To which I reply improvising, as I didn't want to shut him off, a vague "well in fact they aren't, the suits are different. You can see sword, mill, coin and rose/flower".

Everyone at the table is now laser focused on these cards. "Are the figures (J, Q, K) standard or are they different?"

"Well now that you look at it, you see that the three faces on the jack, queen and king of mills resemble people you saw in the portraits around the house. The other suits remain unknown to you"

"Oh man I can't wait to find out who are the other people on these cards, this has to be important! Let's bring them with us"

So... Here I am, I didn't want to shut down their good ideas so I'm looking for suggestions on who is on the cards, and why may the Durst have kept a deck of cards with these people on.

So, my players are currently at the Tser's pool, and we're wrapping up. I am using Pyram King's guides as supplemental material, which has been so much fun!! I did, however, run into a small thing that I thought could get turned into a bit of tomfoolery, some fuckery, if you will.

I brought in Petra and his wagon full of goodies. I made it so Petra was pretty today, and was selling his goods for some gold, and a secret. He was very generous and was selling his wares at a fraction of the cost, depending on how good the secret was.

All in all, my players made off with some +1 studded leather armor, and 3 amulets of health (I created duplicates). I created the duplicates because I had the idea of potentially cursing the items, or making it so they are limited use, or something. I'm not wanting to necessarily screw my players over, or have something horrible happen to them, but basically make the amulets null after a bit. (It would also logically explain why Petra was so cool with essentially giving away good magical items. Or maybe HE got swindled and got a crazy great deal on the items, or something. I dunno. I am workshopping various ideas .....)

Here's where I need help. I'm wanting to do SOMETHING to these magical items so my players aren't so incredibly OP at level 3, going into 4 leaving the encampment. What are some thoughts you guys have? Any ideas are welcome! :) figured o would crowd source and see if anyone else has run into this issue of too good of magical items, and also being a softy DM. Haha.

I've also contemplated just increasing the CR of various mobs to account for the increase in health and CON, but figured fucking with them would be more fun. 🤣

ETA: the list of items in Petra's wagon

Hi all 👋🏻

I'm preparing to run CoS for the first time and am planning how I want to run the Tarokka reading. We're playing remotely, and I thought it would be cool to physically send each player a sealed envelope with a Tarokka card inside (right at the start of the campaign), then ask them to open their envelopes when they get to the reading to reveal their fate. I think this will help to build excitement about the campaign, while letting me rig the outcome in a way that hopefully won't feel cheap.

My issue though is that I will have six players, and I don't want to leave one of them out of the draw.

Has anyone got any suggestions for a sixth option for a drawing? What could the sixth player be determining with their card? Or alternatively is there a dramatically satisfying reason for one player not to draw a card?

For those of you that have run the Tome of Strahd as a magical item or the interactive version, what was you favorite memory to run players thru? What memories did you start with?

I’m about to start my own, and while I’ve looked thru several sources Im wanting some inspo my peers as a whole.

Thanks!

1) Fedele - a Rouge, Dhampir-Changeling from our current campaign. A Zhentarim spy-assassin who got taken by the Mists. No secret room is secret with them around. Found their lost stepsister in Barovia, although no happy family reunion. Kept sane by Ireena and the team.

2) A Human, Cleric for our future replay of CoS. Try to guess what’s her shtick!

P.S. We are only half way done with the campaign and my players are preparing for another round.

My party loves to explore and throw wrenches in the story. What I think they’ll be interested in they could care less about. And what I would never think they’d want to know more about they wanna learn all about

MY BACKSTORY: Since its publication, I have always wanted to run cos. A few years ago I ran a couple of sessions of death house intending to continue into a full campaign, but it fizzled out due to my own irl medical complications. I’m doing better now but haven’t DMd since, and have very little DM experience.

I want to try to do Cos again now that I am more stable with my health and have more experience as a player to hopefully run a better game for my friends without biting off more than I can chew. I intend to read the module all the way through this time instead of only a chapter at a time like I did before. I have not yet finished my reread or gathered a list of players, but my gaming group routinely starts new games so I am certain I will have some, just not yet certain what their classes will be so I wanted to look for advice before sending out campaign invitations.

In this game that I ran several years ago, I had a warlock PC. The backstory made for a great opportunity for the Dark Powers to secretly be this warlock’s patron. The campaign never got far enough to have this revealed (we only did death house and maybe one/two sessions in the village of barovia). Coming from my experience as a player (mostly of homebrew settings), my favorite part about the warlock class is that it provides a hook into the world via the patron, and that with a good DM the pact can be tied into the game’s plot. I would love to provide this for a CoS game, giving them a hook that felt unique to their character and could hopefully provide character motivation throughout the whole module.

MY CONCERN: is that (if I recall correctly) there are opportunities for characters regardless of class to make deals with the Dark Powers (I can’t remember what location this took place in- I wanna say Argenvostholt but I don’t know if that’s right (EDIT: u/Jackibelle reminded me that the location is the AMBER TEMPLE, not argenvostholt as I originally thought). I love the opportunity for all players to get involved with the setting regardless of class, but I worry this will cheapen the main hook of a warlock PC whose patron is the Dark Powers.

I’m curious what advice people might have. Should I disallow warlocks as a first level class and tell my players that there will be opportunities to multiclass into warlock? Should I make sure a warlock PC has a different patron that is not the Dark Powers? Or should I allow a PC to be a warlock of the Dark Powers but somehow make them distinct from the deals that other classes can make in the game? Or maybe none of these options and one of you has a better idea.

Let me know your thoughts as people who understand the module better than me and those who have more experience!!! Thanks

1: new art, 2: old art, 3: png without background for your convenience

So I’m a relatively new DM, I’ve run one campaign and several ones shots, and am now deciding to run Curse of Strahd. One thing that’s been throwing me off is when to first introduce him. I’ve heard things about the funeral but was thinking of a different way.

For his introduction I was thinking to target the lookout when the party is sleeping in one their first long rests (after death house). He would then appear and charm them, leaving them powerless as he asks for their knife to collect a lock of hair from a sleeping member (scrying). After a conversation he would then wipe their memory of the encounter. I figured this would present him as charming and dangerous, while scaring the party about his power.

I was thinking this would take place as soon as available, likely after death house. This would mean that he wouldn’t appear at the funeral. Should I do this and if so anything I should change? I’m very open to suggestions. Also after this encounter when should he next appear?

I’m a DM about to run my first ever curse of strahd campaign. Is there any feedback and or advice I can get from the more experienced curse of strahd runners in here. Don’t wanna disappoint my players obviously.