mikerand
2012-09-07, 04:41 AM
Hi, I am starting a new campaign (3.5) and I was hoping to get some input. This is the email I sent to my players explaining this - does anyone have any ideas to make this work better together? I am open to any criticism on this.
The first game is on September 23rd.
"The Ways of the World - Ravenloft / Taint Combined
I was a bit vague before on the rules, but I want you to have a better understanding of exactly how the rules will work for this particular home-brew (since they don't work together RAW). But while for this genre of gaming it is better to conceal than reveal, I felt that is more appropriate for the plot and story. For the rules it would be more fair to simply be upfront about the rules now than to have you find out later.
If you aren't familiar with these systems to begin with, it isn't that big of a deal. All of the tracking of this will be done by me. For all of these rules, you don't need to memorize or really even worry about any of this. It is actually a lot simpler than it may sound. You guys don't need to track anything and I will inform and warn you as your conditions change. I will probably give Makai and Dan the most leeway on this since they may be more unfamiliar, but I know Bret and Cory are Ravenloft veterans and both of them own the Heroes of Horror book so they can handle it better. This is more of a FYI so you know what I am doing behind the scenes in case you were curious. The rules listed here are actually A LOT simpler than they appear. I actually made a sheet too that makes it very easy to track these for me too that I can show you at the 1st game.
I wanted to also state that I am not going to require rolls every time you see a spider in a dusty corner or anything like that. These rules are meant to emphasize roleplaying and to give a hard mechanic in a fantasy horror setting like Ravenloft to simulate how it feels to be there. The rules will only be used to aid roleplaying and will not take precedence over the story. Your characters will be the ones in the spotlight and given the tools needed to tell your personal story of adventure and horror.
Alignment / Taint - You will still pick an alignment that will reflect your general behavior and attitudes, but only the ethical side of your alignment matters (Law / Chaos) for magical purposes. The alignment system is mostly being replaced by the Taint system from Heroes of Horror. All of the various detect, protect, magic circle against, smite, etc. spells and abilities for the moral side of alignment (Good / Evil) are replaced with Taint (and it's absence). So there is Law, Neutral, Chaos, and Taint. That's it - it's that simple.
Acquiring Taint - The Taint of Evil (as it is called) is not quite like absolute good and evil. Instead of two abstract diametrically-opposed concepts, you have a numerical score that shows how "tainted" you are. The higher your Taint score the more you evil you are and the more you are affected by it. You can acquire Taint in one of five ways:
1) Entering a location suffused with evil.
2) Coming into contact with an evil object.
3) The attacks of certain monsters.
4) Failing Fear, Horror, or Madness saves.
5) Committing evil acts.
Thus you can become tainted involuntarily. Taint manifests itself in two ways - as physical Corruption and mental Depravity and you have two different scores for both Corruption and Depravity. Anytime you gain Taint that puts your Corruption is half of your Constitution score you will make a save to determine if you gain a physical Corruption trait. Anytime you gain Taint that puts your Depravity is half of your Wisdom score you will make a save to determine if you gain a mental Depravity trait. For both of these the save DC is 15 + your current Corruption / Depravity score. Naturally it is a Fortitude save for Corruption and Will save for Depravity.
These traits are not really positive things and they are measured as mild, moderate, and severe - this is VERY similar to Ravenloft's minor, moderate, and major. I will make full use of both systems trait effects as appropriate.
Taint CAN be cleansed though so you can lower and lose your Taint ratings. So gaining some Taint isn't the end of the world and it can be fully reversed. There is never a point of no return... Unless you become a... Well, we'll leave some things to the imagination.
New Will Save Types / Dread & Fear - Ravenloft introduces three new Will save types for specific Will saves: Fear, Horror, and Madness. The Taint system includes Dread and Fear. Fear is obviously the same as Fear for both systems. Not so intuitive is that Horror and Madness is Dread for them combined (even though with a dictionary they are all different). Thus you will make Fear saves against Fear effects (alternating degrees of fear, escalating fear, phobias) and you will Horror checks against Dread effects of shock, illness, and despair and Madness checks against the Dread effects of weariness and obsession.
The DC's and save modifiers are remarkably similar between the two systems. You can also gain Taint the same way as listed above. These traits are not really positive things and they are measured as minor, moderate, and major - this is VERY similar to Heroes of Horror's Taint system of mild, moderate, and severe. I will make full use of both systems trait effects as appropriate.
Very Important: No one has stated they will be a cleric of a good (untainted if you prefer) deity or a paladin, but if Taint gets to moderate you will displease your deity (lose spellcasting and turning) and / or become a fallen paladin.
Tainted Characters - There are some positives to Taint such as feats, prestige classes, and spells that can only be used with a certain amount of Taint. So while I am not completely against Tainted characters, I don't want it to be the starting point and it needs to be done tastefully and for story purposes. So I would like the characters to start out without Taint and if you fall to the dark side of Taint it should feel tragic. There should be characterization present and for it to be an organic process.
Bottom-line:
Psychopathic characters who want to be tainted for evil's sake and detonate the whole campaign - not okay.
Fallen anti-heroes or sympathetic villians - A-Ok.
Dark Powers Checks - This is really almost entirely behind the scenes for a normal Ravenloft game anyways. But that said, I will inform you now that you never make a Dark Power check because of Taint alone (now your behavior from Taint, even involuntary behavior, is another story). Just rest assured I will not pull any unfair tricks on anyone. I would really prefer no metagaming as far as the Dark Powers are concerned unless a successful DC 30 Knowledge (Ravenloft) check is made and a slightly lower DC for the Dark Lords. If you can make those checks, then feel free to open Pandora's box. As long as it can be justified by an in game reason for you to know it, I have no issues. As Cory and Bret can tell you very few of Ravenloft's inhabitants are familiar with this and it would be better to preserve the mystery of this for new players to explore (exploring CAN include a player character explaining it, that is fine). I only mention it here for completeness.
Please let me know if any questions or suggestions for how this could work better. I am open to any input.
- mikey"
The first game is on September 23rd.
"The Ways of the World - Ravenloft / Taint Combined
I was a bit vague before on the rules, but I want you to have a better understanding of exactly how the rules will work for this particular home-brew (since they don't work together RAW). But while for this genre of gaming it is better to conceal than reveal, I felt that is more appropriate for the plot and story. For the rules it would be more fair to simply be upfront about the rules now than to have you find out later.
If you aren't familiar with these systems to begin with, it isn't that big of a deal. All of the tracking of this will be done by me. For all of these rules, you don't need to memorize or really even worry about any of this. It is actually a lot simpler than it may sound. You guys don't need to track anything and I will inform and warn you as your conditions change. I will probably give Makai and Dan the most leeway on this since they may be more unfamiliar, but I know Bret and Cory are Ravenloft veterans and both of them own the Heroes of Horror book so they can handle it better. This is more of a FYI so you know what I am doing behind the scenes in case you were curious. The rules listed here are actually A LOT simpler than they appear. I actually made a sheet too that makes it very easy to track these for me too that I can show you at the 1st game.
I wanted to also state that I am not going to require rolls every time you see a spider in a dusty corner or anything like that. These rules are meant to emphasize roleplaying and to give a hard mechanic in a fantasy horror setting like Ravenloft to simulate how it feels to be there. The rules will only be used to aid roleplaying and will not take precedence over the story. Your characters will be the ones in the spotlight and given the tools needed to tell your personal story of adventure and horror.
Alignment / Taint - You will still pick an alignment that will reflect your general behavior and attitudes, but only the ethical side of your alignment matters (Law / Chaos) for magical purposes. The alignment system is mostly being replaced by the Taint system from Heroes of Horror. All of the various detect, protect, magic circle against, smite, etc. spells and abilities for the moral side of alignment (Good / Evil) are replaced with Taint (and it's absence). So there is Law, Neutral, Chaos, and Taint. That's it - it's that simple.
Acquiring Taint - The Taint of Evil (as it is called) is not quite like absolute good and evil. Instead of two abstract diametrically-opposed concepts, you have a numerical score that shows how "tainted" you are. The higher your Taint score the more you evil you are and the more you are affected by it. You can acquire Taint in one of five ways:
1) Entering a location suffused with evil.
2) Coming into contact with an evil object.
3) The attacks of certain monsters.
4) Failing Fear, Horror, or Madness saves.
5) Committing evil acts.
Thus you can become tainted involuntarily. Taint manifests itself in two ways - as physical Corruption and mental Depravity and you have two different scores for both Corruption and Depravity. Anytime you gain Taint that puts your Corruption is half of your Constitution score you will make a save to determine if you gain a physical Corruption trait. Anytime you gain Taint that puts your Depravity is half of your Wisdom score you will make a save to determine if you gain a mental Depravity trait. For both of these the save DC is 15 + your current Corruption / Depravity score. Naturally it is a Fortitude save for Corruption and Will save for Depravity.
These traits are not really positive things and they are measured as mild, moderate, and severe - this is VERY similar to Ravenloft's minor, moderate, and major. I will make full use of both systems trait effects as appropriate.
Taint CAN be cleansed though so you can lower and lose your Taint ratings. So gaining some Taint isn't the end of the world and it can be fully reversed. There is never a point of no return... Unless you become a... Well, we'll leave some things to the imagination.
New Will Save Types / Dread & Fear - Ravenloft introduces three new Will save types for specific Will saves: Fear, Horror, and Madness. The Taint system includes Dread and Fear. Fear is obviously the same as Fear for both systems. Not so intuitive is that Horror and Madness is Dread for them combined (even though with a dictionary they are all different). Thus you will make Fear saves against Fear effects (alternating degrees of fear, escalating fear, phobias) and you will Horror checks against Dread effects of shock, illness, and despair and Madness checks against the Dread effects of weariness and obsession.
The DC's and save modifiers are remarkably similar between the two systems. You can also gain Taint the same way as listed above. These traits are not really positive things and they are measured as minor, moderate, and major - this is VERY similar to Heroes of Horror's Taint system of mild, moderate, and severe. I will make full use of both systems trait effects as appropriate.
Very Important: No one has stated they will be a cleric of a good (untainted if you prefer) deity or a paladin, but if Taint gets to moderate you will displease your deity (lose spellcasting and turning) and / or become a fallen paladin.
Tainted Characters - There are some positives to Taint such as feats, prestige classes, and spells that can only be used with a certain amount of Taint. So while I am not completely against Tainted characters, I don't want it to be the starting point and it needs to be done tastefully and for story purposes. So I would like the characters to start out without Taint and if you fall to the dark side of Taint it should feel tragic. There should be characterization present and for it to be an organic process.
Bottom-line:
Psychopathic characters who want to be tainted for evil's sake and detonate the whole campaign - not okay.
Fallen anti-heroes or sympathetic villians - A-Ok.
Dark Powers Checks - This is really almost entirely behind the scenes for a normal Ravenloft game anyways. But that said, I will inform you now that you never make a Dark Power check because of Taint alone (now your behavior from Taint, even involuntary behavior, is another story). Just rest assured I will not pull any unfair tricks on anyone. I would really prefer no metagaming as far as the Dark Powers are concerned unless a successful DC 30 Knowledge (Ravenloft) check is made and a slightly lower DC for the Dark Lords. If you can make those checks, then feel free to open Pandora's box. As long as it can be justified by an in game reason for you to know it, I have no issues. As Cory and Bret can tell you very few of Ravenloft's inhabitants are familiar with this and it would be better to preserve the mystery of this for new players to explore (exploring CAN include a player character explaining it, that is fine). I only mention it here for completeness.
Please let me know if any questions or suggestions for how this could work better. I am open to any input.
- mikey"