Curse of Strahd starting adventure

[MustaKrakish]

Hello everyone.

I am going to run the Curse of Strahd module for my group, and I had this idea of making them commit a horrible act, and this is why they are taken to Ravenloft.

The first part of the campaign is the characters' memories. It is levels 1 through 3 (they recommended to run Death House but I don't like it), and we will explore the last events they remember before they were taken by the mists.

The first chapter of this adventure (Level 1 to 2) is about exploring the wilderness around their home village. Hunters and lumberjacks are attacked by feral beasts and barbarians in the forests. The village will send the party to investigate, they will encounter a pack of wolves and later some barbarians, confirming the rumors.
The thing is that some of those wolves are werewolves and the party is infected by lycanthropy.

The second chapter (Level 2 to 3): A month later, the village is preparing for war, as barbarian activities are growing. Once again the party will be sent to scout ahead. This time they will be lost in the mists, only to return back to their forces as they are being attacked from every direction.
At this point, the characters will try to defend the village militia. In the end, they will find themselves surrounded by corpses, but they won, and the enemy is dead. Then the mists will take them.

What actually happened is that the players turned to werewolves and killed everyone, but they won't remember it that way. I will write down exactly what each player did during their combat rounds and as they will progress in Barovia, they will have nightmares that will hint of what really happened.

In the end, when they will defeat Strahd and pass through the mists they will finally remember what really happened and confront their memories. Then they will find themselves in a perverted version of their land, and as they watch over a village that looks a little bit like their own, they will feel the hunger and rage, they will see the full moon, and they will change. Now they are trapped in their own domain of Ravenloft forever.

What do you think about my idea? and do you have tips on how should I run it?

[Chugger]

To be honest, I'd rethink this. A campaign (CoS is a hardcover, not a module) is a story or event created between you and the players. This is you railroading all sorts of stuff - I hate being told I did stuff that I never chose to do, when I'm a player. I would not like this. I recommend you _include_ the players: let them have say in how this unfolds.

What's wrong with Death House? It's "welcome to Barovia". /shrug

[MustaKrakish]

What if when they turn to werewolves I let them play it. And during CoS they will work on redeeming themselves?

I am looking for a way to add tragedy and regret. This is a very strong part of many of the Ravenloft novels. I don't want it to be only about the heroes who took down Strahd but also about their own demons and shortcomings.

Edit: The reason I don't like Death House, is not because it's bad. I want to use the first levels of the characters to somewhat connect them with their home and the place they lived in. Because when the mists take them I want them to miss their homes.

[Mr Adventurer]

I am looking for a way to add tragedy and regret. This is a very strong part of many of the Ravenloft novels. I don't want it to be only about the heroes who took down Strahd but also about their own demons and shortcomings.

This is the contract you agree with the players.

[Brookshw]

Why not just tell the players that you want them to have some tragic or dark act that pulls them in the design it together? They'll probably be happier if they get to help design it.

[Odessa333]

I would have to echo the 'work with your players' on this. For me, I love to make happy go lucky bards, and finding out I'm an evil character with a dark backstory thrust on me would be a real immersion breaker. It may work for a show where you watch other people's characters, but for it to happen to your own character, it takes away your input, your choice. For me, that's a hard no to do that without player input. I'd tell them your ideas, or suggest a 'lost' like game where memories/identity is an issue, and see if they are ok with something like that first.

[Keravath]

Yep, I would join the chorus and say work with the players on this.

If I was playing this and you took the paladin character I created, enjoyed playing, and turned them into the embodiment of evil as a plot device in which I had no choice and then trapped them in a demiplane forever as punishment for something the players had absolutely no say over ... I think it would be the worst possible ending ever for an investment of game time on the order of a year to play through the hard cover. This is one of those ideas that may sound "cool" to a DM but would be just considered railroading, unfair, and basically undermine all the efforts the players had put in to building their characters over the length of the campaign.

Personally, if a DM dumped a surprise like that on a party, then I'd probably not play with them again. I'd certainly never trust them in terms of world building.

One of the fundamentals of role playing games is that the DM and the players work together. The DM sets the world, the players build and grow their characters in response to in world events. In this case, the DM has already plotted to completely subvert all the efforts the players put in to character development over the entire length of the campaign.

Start session 0: "I have a plot twist at the very end of the campaign that will completely subvert and make meaningless all character decisions that you make during the campaign. Everyone good with that?" I'm not sure how many YES answers you will get.

Basically, many folks do not want to role play tragic heroes which is what you are suggesting. Everyone is a tragic hero, they are all werewolves that slaughtered their village and don't remember, they even somehow lose the curse going to Barovia since I am pretty sure you don't plan to allow them to remain lycanthropes throughout the campaign.

Anyway, I don't think most players would appreciate this plot line so you may want to revise it.

[MustaKrakish]

First of all, I totally understand what you guys are saying and I agree. I am DMing for many years now, and the last thing I wanna do is to railroad my players. This was the main issue I had with the idea. Recently I rad many Ravenloft novels, so I thought that I should introduce tragedy and a little more darkness than the usual D&D heroic theme.

I would really love to come up with an idea that will make the players face with something they have done. And along the journey apart from fighting Strahd and looking for a way out, also solve that issue with themselves. And then, in the end, maybe some will achieve peace with themselves and find their way out, while others will roam the Demiplane of Dread forever.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

[djreynolds]

A good backstory from players will allow the DM (as Strahd) to taunt them.

IMO werewolf could make running the campaign difficult, how much control do players have over their actions as a chaotic evil werewolf?

I like the idea of the past, but have players make invested backstories first and see what you can gather from that.

And try to individualize the reasons Strahd has brought each one to Barovia

[MustaKrakish]

Okay, okay. Let's drop the werewolf thing. What about this.:

On the last encounter of the adventure the party and the village militia breach the barbarian camp, there they find not only warriors but also elders and children. The captain of the militia orders the soldiers to kill everyone, to wipe the barbarians out.

The characters were scouting around the barbarian camp and were lost (more mislead) by the mists, and finally, enter the camp only to witness the horrors the captain and his loyal sergeant are committing.
Here the players will have options, they can either do it, aid their captain to kill everyone at the camp, and thus commit an evil crime, or try and stop the captain, but, the militia now without their leader and maybe some of his loyal sergeants. The barbarians will use the chaos to push the village soldiers out of their camp, leading to more dead soldiers and maybe even risking the safety of the PCs home. The players can still struggle with their decision on this encounter, they might even come up with a totally different option to deal with this scenario and I will try and escalate it and have dire consequences.

And now, along their travels in Barovia, and they attempt to read the land from great evil they also have to make peace with themselves, and the nightmares that will visit them, because of the events at the barbarian camp.

Is it better?

[Spo]

At the very beginning of Decent into Avernus, the Dm tells the players they all have a joint secret. Couple options given were 1) we all committed a murder together ;2) we all were involved in a theft; 3) forgot the others ...

We picked the theft and the dm read us the part we played in it and that we know that someone discovered our involvement and that a team of assassins were sent to investigate the matter. Now each npc encounter we have during the actual campaign is mixed in with a good dose of paranoia.

TLDR version: work with players to choose their tragedy. I didn’t want to do the murder option above bc that would REALLY change my feelings towards my pc.

[Spore]

You don't need any prewritten "tragic non-optional choices" for your group imho. In my experience a group does do suboptimal choices throughout a game on their own. You may want to sway them into easier, evil choices by offering easy solutions with a emotional backdraft.

Maybe make Doru the last thing Donavich clings to. If the vampire spawn is killed, Donovich is gonna go into the woods to never come back.

Switch out Morgantha for an actual old lady selling dream pastries. Have her be ugly and extremely shifty. If they kill her, they still killed a defenseless old woman.

Maybe add a combat encounter with a wandering Vistani group complete with children. Their parents go hostile. And if not killed, they WILL report a strategic weakness to Strahd. If you kill the parents, well, congrats, you just created orphans.

CoS has so many organic ways to create drama you don't need to superimpose a tragic history on it.

[djreynolds]

You don't need any prewritten "tragic non-optional choices" for your group imho. In my experience a group does do suboptimal choices throughout a game on their own. You may want to sway them into easier, evil choices by offering easy solutions with a emotional backdraft.


100%.

CoS is a sandbox, that you as a DM can control. You expose the party to what you want.

I'm running it right now, there is no way the party gets through with a happy ending

They cannot save everyone, even with rolling all 20's

Just let the party make choices.

[micahaphone]

If you want your players to have some traumatic backstory, why not meet with them 1 on 1 or in a group. Workshop something with them. If you want a reason to have them know each other, you could still do your level 1-3 barbarian/wolves/werewolves vs the village thing, and they were all conscripted into the village. Or better yet as a part of the backstory.

Werewolf still tore through the village's ramahackle defenses. They all fell in battle or ran. Instead of dying/ getting lost in the forest they find themselves in Barovia. You can work with the players to determine how they ended up in the village where they were forced into an emergency militia.

[GreyBlack]

I don't know if werewolves is the route you wanna go with, but if you're looking at that having them be trapped in Barovia for something they did, I'm going to suggest instead looking at the appendices for Descent into Avernus. In there, the players choose a type of crime that they were all involved in and what roles they each played. If you want to make this a redemption story, maybe start the players at level 3, have them pick one of these crimes, and make them have to atone for it in order to get out?

[Laserlight]

Putting some dark deed in their back story won't have much emotional weight; they're reading about it instead of experiencing it.
Railroading them is worse. It breaks immersion and they are likely to feel "I'm getting stuck with the consequences of a decision that I didn't actually make, the DM just used my character as a puppet."
If you want them to really feel it, give them choices. Don't make it "all choices are evil", because the response is likely to be "yeah, it sucks but it's not like we had a better choice". Give them real choices, but tempt them with evil. Here's something good, but it comes with a price. "If you want to make omelets, you gotta break some eggs". Perhaps the choice is between losing some PCs (who are, after all, the only ones who can stop Strahd) and losing some innocent NPCs. "Are you going to doom all Barovia over your ethics qualms?"
And if someone gets to that point and says "Sod that, I am a paladin, I'm sticking to LG regardless", then yes, make him pay the price that he accepted for that decision, but don't pull a switch and say "Ha ha, that decision was actually even more evil! “ Your job is not to screw the players, but to give them the chance to screw themselves.

[Tawmis]

Question -

Do you know all the races and classes of your players already?

If so - as other said - work on their backgrounds as the focal point of "tragedy" if that's what you'd like to start with.

If you know the character class/race/genders - I'd be happy to help develop backgrounds for their characters (if they're open to it) - that would tie them all together.

[MustaKrakish]

Question -

Do you know all the races and classes of your players already?

If so - as other said - work on their backgrounds as the focal point of "tragedy" if that's what you'd like to start with.

If you know the character class/race/genders - I'd be happy to help develop backgrounds for their characters (if they're open to it) - that would tie them all together.

No, I don't know it yet. And sure, I would love to have input when I'll have this information, this is an alternative I would really like to explore farther. :smallsmile:

The whole idea of making the level 1-3 adventure, before they enter Barovia, was to make the players experience the events rather than just write it down as their background. I own Baldur's Gate: Decent into Avernus, and as much as the idea of the crime is amazing, it's also quite hollow, I would rather actually run a session of them committing the crime, because there's nothing that can really replace on the spot decisions and the random nature of dice rolls.

I don't see why putting them in a difficult situation is railroading. It happens in real life all the time when we have to make hard decisions. In this case, they need to decide how they solve a situation where their fellow soldiers are committing atrocities, while they have to consider the safety of their home village. Yes, I understand that they might solve it perfectly and there won't be any tragedy, and if so they earned it.

I think that letting them shape the outcome of a difficult situation is much more rewarding than forcing them to enter Death House because everything else is covered by the mists so there's no other place to go.

[SirGraystone]

How about something like this, they start at level 1 with a seeming normal quest, the village priest sent them to recover a relic from a dungeon/ruin/mine but the priest is secretly evil and the relic is used in a ritual to raise undeads from the graveyard, killing most of the villagers. Until a powerful druid banish the evil, bringing a fog that take the undead away and of course the PCs. Of course the evil priest go to Barovia too, can be a recuring villain and tell everything to Strahd who can taunt the PCs in how they caused all those dead in the village.

[Spore]

I don't see why putting them in a difficult situation is railroading.

It is not. Preventing a player to come up with a genuine win-win situation that allows for a non-tragic solution however is. I am just as sick of "forced morally grey" as I am of "black and white" thinking.


Yes, I understand that they might solve it perfectly and there won't be any tragedy, and if so they earned it.

That is the right thing. You might however apply some kind of "time-gating" to think of a solution because I know a few people who overanalyze the situation for about 45 minutes for something the characters have but a few moments to think about.

[Kurt Kurageous]

You don't need any prewritten "tragic non-optional choices" for your group imho. In my experience a group does do suboptimal choices throughout a game on their own. You may want to sway them into easier, evil choices by offering easy solutions with a emotional backdraft. CoS has so many organic ways to create drama you don't need to superimpose a tragic history on it.

Agree completely!

As a guy who's now run CoS five times, I can tell you that almost every single encounter has an opportunity to become one the party will later regret. At the very least, everything they do Strahd could find out about and as lord of the land come and punish you for it. Zillion ways to go wrong, lose your moral compass, find your pure intentions produced an evil end, etc.
Most recently, party decided to take a hand in politics in Vallaki at the Festival of the Burning Sun. Just after the narrative, they decided to attack Stranzi. The Ranger decided to maim the mayor, not realizing that her damage might well kill him even if she shot him in the leg (sharpshooter). LSMS Mayor dies. You know Strahd cannot let this go and be the Strahd in the books and other sources. He forces the party into a fight or surrender situation, demanding the ranger go with him. The ranger heroically goes to her own death instead of allowing the party to fight on her behalf. And that's messed up!

[Kurt Kurageous]

Now, to be actually helpful, CoS suggests several ideas as reasons that themselves could be fleshed out into a 1-3 adventure. I assume you've read the book.

A faction agent (Lord's or Gauntlet) notices the potential of this adventuring band and attempts to recruit them as special deputies to Lady Daggerford's Shire Reeve. Money, fame, honor, and glory are all part of that deal.

Their first assignment? Track down and capture a middle aged mad who stole a tiger in a wagon from a travelling circus. The tiger would be a serious threat if it got loose in Townsville. Party is beset by angry circus acts.

While gathering clues as to whodunit and wheredtheygo, hey encounter woodland creatures.

Then they notice they have been followed by a gypsy. When confronted, they gypsy offers them a special mission in a land far away.

If they decline, Lady Daggerford sends them out to protect a group of farmers who beg for protection from wolves. But the wolves are not after their livestock, they are after their children. A climactic battle with wolves and werewolves results in a lot of XP, but the wolves don't attack the party, just the commoners, NPCs, and carry off the children.

That looks like at least four XP bearing encounters to me.