I messed up the Curse of Strahd story again

[Arm of God]

If you are a homocidal 9 year old girl, D&D Kiritsugu, a dog nerd, an herbalist with a taste for gothic architecture, or a maniac that carves cthulu symbols on every structure he passes by: stop reading, back out, and go enjoy another thread.

Now for the rest of you; my ability to think ahead has diminishing returns as my games continue into the night.

During my late night hijinks, I accidently allowed Strahd to hand over his invitation when he first encountered the players at level 3. I don’t want them to be invited into castle Ravenloft until they’re at least a little more prepared for the horrors inside, so, with a spark of genius, I had Strahd curse the letter to where it can’t be opened until the seal breaks. Now I, as the DM, have time to figure out how I’ll salvage this situation.

I was thinking about possible conditions to break the seal, the few I have listed are:

-A Remove Curse spell, of course.
-The players solve some sort of riddle or challenge presented to them via the letter or one of Strahd’s servents.
-The players reach a milestone that satisfies the letter and it opens for them.
-Srahd breaks the seal himself after the party does something of note to him, like if a party member displays some of the possible traits he desires in an heir.
-The original letter is a red herring, a trick played by Strahd in order to confuse and maybe hurt the party.
-As a last resort, an NPC steals or destroys the letter, requiring Strahd to give the players another invitation at a more appropriate time.

I had the Vistani warn the players that they need to present an open invitation, or else upon entry, Strahd’s carriage will sweep them off into the ravine around castle Ravenloft. This should add tension when the enter the carriage for the first time.

None of them played in CoS before. Does my plan seem contrived, or can I use my mistake to tell a better story? I’d love your input and ideas.

[Man_Over_Game]

A couple things that come to mind:

The Letter is a valid invitation, but it's not "confirmed". Until it's dipped in vampire's (or some sufficiently hard thing to kill) blood, it is inactive. When it's dipped in the required blood, it becomes a blood red letter and shows the actual invitation information. Until then, Strahd knows where the person who first opened the letter is, and they know that he's always watching them.
-Alternatively-
It's not an invitation to his castle, yet. For now, it's an invitation for his "greeter" to greet the new "guests". Occasionally, the letter will say "My greeter looks forward to meeting with you", when the players catch wind of something dangerous tracking them. They have to kill the thing before the invitation becomes valid.

[jaappleton]

Just don’t allow it to be opened. You’re really overthinking this a bit.

If they try to force it open, they roll a Wisdom saving throw. DC 20. If they fail, they take 1d6 Psychic damage. And the damage increases by 1d6 every attempt.

Roll the damage openly so they catch on more dice are being added.

And if they make the save? No damage but the seal can’t be broken. It’s against Strahd’s will. And his will is powerful, indeed.

[Seekergeek]

I mean, just because they have the invite doesn't mean they will act on it immediately. Our party, knowing the goal for the group was to...you know...murder him, opted not to answer the invitation until we had gathered everything laid out in our card reading. Seemed perfectly logical to us at the time.

[Waterdeep Merch]

It's not that big of a deal, depending on how you play Strahd himself. My players took the invitation and went to Castle Ravenloft at level 4, and it was fine. Strahd's invitation is supposed to be earnest and legitimate, the players have his protection during their visit so long as they don't trespass where they're not supposed to be. And it gives you a great opportunity to roleplay the big bad ahead of the showdown.

When I ran it, I had Strahd very pointedly lay out that he would keep their little 'game' in Barovia somewhat civil so long as they did nothing further to help Ireena. He tried to seduce the party elf, reminding him of Patrina, and let her visit his library to pick a book as a gift. He attempted to subvert the paladin and the cleric by goading them into a rather high stakes game of Tarokka, starting with insignificant odds and escalating from there to eventually include servitude. The players won, though, so Strahd gave up some vital information on where to find the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind. He didn't actually care that much, and he technically got what he wanted in corrupting the pair.

The fun part came when they elected to spend the night. They were brought to the guest rooms, and met Escher. Escher grew insanely jealous of the elf and tried to murder them, first through Piddlewick II, then by activating the dragon gargoyles at the front entrance and attacking directly. The players were brought to their knees before Escher was slain by Rahadin for spoiling his master's good name by assaulting his guests in his home. He gave a final cryptic threat, and then the players were back out into Barovia again.

[Seekergeek]

It's not that big of a deal, depending on how you play Strahd himself. My players took the invitation and went to Castle Ravenloft at level 4, and it was fine. Strahd's invitation is supposed to be earnest and legitimate, the players have his protection during their visit so long as they don't trespass where they're not supposed to be. And it gives you a great opportunity to roleplay the big bad ahead of the showdown.

When I ran it, I had Strahd very pointedly lay out that he would keep their little 'game' in Barovia somewhat civil so long as they did nothing further to help Ireena. He tried to seduce the party elf, reminding him of Patrina, and let her visit his library to pick a book as a gift. He attempted to subvert the paladin and the cleric by goading them into a rather high stakes game of Tarokka, starting with insignificant odds and escalating from there to eventually include servitude. The players won, though, so Strahd gave up some vital information on where to find the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind. He didn't actually care that much, and he technically got what he wanted in corrupting the pair.

The fun part came when they elected to spend the night. They were brought to the guest rooms, and met Escher. Escher grew insanely jealous of the elf and tried to murder them, first through Piddlewick II, then by activating the dragon gargoyles at the front entrance and attacking directly. The players were brought to their knees before Escher was slain by Rahadin for spoiling his master's good name by assaulting his guests in his home. He gave a final cryptic threat, and then the players were back out into Barovia again.

That. Sounds. Awesome.

[ad_hoc]

In the adventure the characters are invited straight away. There is a stagecoach that stops and will take them to the castle if they get in.

Most players don't of course...

[Finback]

The envelope will only open under certain moonlight conditions, so you can just describe the scene when they do get to open it, with a full moon shining down on them, and the letter glows a bit. Unless they're actively checking stuff like this, you can always say "clearly, it wasn't the right time when you looked", and I doubt they're keeping a track of the lunar cycle. (Unless one is bitten by a werewolf!)

[1Pirate]

Just have the seal break whenever you're ready to let the players go to Castle Ravenloft. Maybe when they acquire one of the treasures, or defeat a particularly hard opponent. You don't even need to make a big thing about it. Just have one of the PCs notice the seal is broken when they're going through their things.