BedrockBrendan
Legendary Pubber
- Joined
- May 3, 2017
- Messages
- 2,658
- Reaction score
- 7,676
So I started preparations to run Book of Crypts, an adventure anthology that came out for Ravenloft 2E in 1991. It has been many years since I ran any of these adventures. There were three adventures I remember running pretty regularly from it: Bride of Mordenheim, which I used very often as an introductory adventure; Blood in Moondale and The Dark Minstrel. When I've gone back to 2E Ravenloft in the past, I ran stuff like Feast of Goblyns and The Created (the module not the supplement). Because I wanted to do a campaign leading up to Halloween and I was hoping to give my players a glimpse into the history of this line from the 2E era, I thought it would be fun to run Book of Crypts entirely as written, on its own terms.
This week I re-read Bride of Mordenheim and it was fun going back to something I haven't run in a long time. There is also a short introduction on Fear and Horror at the start of the book, which I might get more into later as this is a key feature in many of the Ravenloft adventures (Feast of Goblyns has a similar section). These are just some initial observations. I will post again after I run it next week.
The book is written by Dale Henson and J. Robert King (I loved his Ravenloft Novel Heart of Midnight when I was young). It is edited by Anne Brown, J. Robert King and Jean Rabe.
I used to run Bride of Mordenheim a lot. It is a very good introductory adventure (though it is meant for characters levels 2-4: so not an adventure suitable for 1st level characters). This definitely comes from a very different period in D&D history, and not all the books are the same, nor are all the adventures in this particular book the same in terms of adventure structure. Bride of Mordenheim is very much about getting into the action and there is an adventure that is going to unfold.
One of the things I like about this opening section and the paragraphs that follow is they do a good job, at least for me, of capturing a surreal dream like monster of the week style adventure (which I do enjoy). It can be heavier handed than I would normally run things, but with Ravenloft I find it works pretty well. I do plan on explaining to my players this is different from how I normally run things and I think they are all pretty good about playing something as it was originally intended.
A good example of some of the heavier handedness would be a moment like this:
Some of this stems from it being an introductory adventure. I used to use this adventure in a similar way to the Aleena adventure in the in red box. It is a useful way to walk the players through many of the key elements of Ravenloft, and to give them exposure to the fear and horror mechanics. Overall it is very focused on story and atmosphere.
There is more room for choices as the adventure goes on, but it tends to anticipate things in terms of if players do A, if players do B. It can easily be made more flexible, but for my purposes I am going to run it purely from the text.
It is also an interesting choice to start the Anthology with Mordenheim (who is the setting's Victor Frankenstein analog), and to lean into the Bride of Frankenstein as inspiration in the title. It starts the anthology on a very clear note, and one of the strengths of Book of Crypts (at least from what I remember) is its variety of tones. The adventures are all pretty distinct.
Another aspect of this short halloween campaign is I will be using the 2E revised PHB and DMG. Personally I prefer the 1989 edition, but that is difficult for my players to find (the revised PHB and DMG are readily available on Drivethru). This is a system I like going back to on occasion, because it was the main system I grew up playing (I played 1E for a few years prior to 2nd edition being released, but all through middle school and high school we played 2E).
This week I re-read Bride of Mordenheim and it was fun going back to something I haven't run in a long time. There is also a short introduction on Fear and Horror at the start of the book, which I might get more into later as this is a key feature in many of the Ravenloft adventures (Feast of Goblyns has a similar section). These are just some initial observations. I will post again after I run it next week.
The book is written by Dale Henson and J. Robert King (I loved his Ravenloft Novel Heart of Midnight when I was young). It is edited by Anne Brown, J. Robert King and Jean Rabe.
I used to run Bride of Mordenheim a lot. It is a very good introductory adventure (though it is meant for characters levels 2-4: so not an adventure suitable for 1st level characters). This definitely comes from a very different period in D&D history, and not all the books are the same, nor are all the adventures in this particular book the same in terms of adventure structure. Bride of Mordenheim is very much about getting into the action and there is an adventure that is going to unfold.
One of the things I like about this opening section and the paragraphs that follow is they do a good job, at least for me, of capturing a surreal dream like monster of the week style adventure (which I do enjoy). It can be heavier handed than I would normally run things, but with Ravenloft I find it works pretty well. I do plan on explaining to my players this is different from how I normally run things and I think they are all pretty good about playing something as it was originally intended.
A good example of some of the heavier handedness would be a moment like this:
Some of this stems from it being an introductory adventure. I used to use this adventure in a similar way to the Aleena adventure in the in red box. It is a useful way to walk the players through many of the key elements of Ravenloft, and to give them exposure to the fear and horror mechanics. Overall it is very focused on story and atmosphere.
There is more room for choices as the adventure goes on, but it tends to anticipate things in terms of if players do A, if players do B. It can easily be made more flexible, but for my purposes I am going to run it purely from the text.
It is also an interesting choice to start the Anthology with Mordenheim (who is the setting's Victor Frankenstein analog), and to lean into the Bride of Frankenstein as inspiration in the title. It starts the anthology on a very clear note, and one of the strengths of Book of Crypts (at least from what I remember) is its variety of tones. The adventures are all pretty distinct.
Another aspect of this short halloween campaign is I will be using the 2E revised PHB and DMG. Personally I prefer the 1989 edition, but that is difficult for my players to find (the revised PHB and DMG are readily available on Drivethru). This is a system I like going back to on occasion, because it was the main system I grew up playing (I played 1E for a few years prior to 2nd edition being released, but all through middle school and high school we played 2E).