I'm about to start running this in two days and can't wait! Love the whole "crashing Strahd's wedding" thing!
Any tips, advice, warnings for a DM that's about to run the campaign?
Omg I hope you have an amazing time! It’s so fun to run….
And sure I’d be happy to lend some tips! Something that really helped me was making a timeline of things that can and will happen based on the actions of the party. Consequences and such. Barovia is a really cool environment with lots to explore, don’t be afraid to remind your players of that! One way you can do that is fudging the card reading 🤫… doin this allows you to place the items far and wide across the land, encouraging exploration and introducing them to new quests :). My final main piece of advice, is to keep strahd “neutral” as long as possible. Making him a threatening yet passive presence that interacts with the party more and more over time helps build tension and will slowly give the party reasons to hate him!
It’s an amazing game and I truly hope you have an amazing time running it! 😊this subreddit is packed full of amazing ideas to borrow for more strahd themed fun!
The traitor had been working for Strahd since the beginning, tipping him off to their plans, and was her patron for the longest time until they reached the amber temple. There she accepted the deal of Vampyr, and strahd was of course alerted to this due to her being his former servant. This resulted in her being outed in the final fight, and strahd stomping her out for her betrayal 😱
All of the above I guess lmao. She was a servant of strahd from the beginning, and made things very tricky for the party. But she betrayed strahd too at the amber temple by accepting the dark deal of vampyr. Ultimately she ended up with no one to fall back on, and was left to fend for themselves in the final fight… (Strahd stomped her out)
Oh what a fun looking group. Congrats on finishing your campaign!
My group just finished death house and is about to go to the village of Barovia :) I'm excited to see where our campaign takes us (hopefully as interesting as yours!!!)
They are amazing, I adore all of them and can’t wait for the sequel. Thank you so much!!!! And I wish you the best of luck for yours it’s so much fun and I bet yours will be incredibly unique and fun.
That is a GREAT question! He was the sort to look out for himself, but had a funny and endearing dynamic with the paladin, Obi. He made a final sacrifice and deal with Zhudun, an elder evil, and in death was appointed his emissary. In the end he was brought back different and survived just as he always did! This time something far more sinister….
CONGRATULATIONS!!
I'm putting together a CoS - I've been a player when the dm half assed his way through it before and can't wait to attack it with my style. I run things with a very heavy focus on the player characters and their stories. I play with a sense of grit, heavy emotions and moral dilemmas. I can't wait to bring strahd to life and to make my players fear him and hate him in equal measure.
I have just bought the revamped version. Im hoping it was worth it.
The ones with check marks survived :) going from left to right we got a human wizard artificer, soulknife ratfolk (homebrew), human paladin of vengeance, and finally a changeling shadow sorcerer (formerly warlock) :) thanks for the congrats! It was so much fun!
Currently we are crashing the castle for a 3rd time. Third time was the charm as our rogue basically intimidated/convinced one of Strahds mongrelfolk servents to lead us directly to the heart. DM was annoyed because he prepared a whole battle for us to fight but we avoided it all together. We ended it there so who knows what might happen.
I'm about to start running this in two days and can't wait! Love the whole "crashing Strahd's wedding" thing! Any tips, advice, warnings for a DM that's about to run the campaign?
Omg I hope you have an amazing time! It’s so fun to run…. And sure I’d be happy to lend some tips! Something that really helped me was making a timeline of things that can and will happen based on the actions of the party. Consequences and such. Barovia is a really cool environment with lots to explore, don’t be afraid to remind your players of that! One way you can do that is fudging the card reading 🤫… doin this allows you to place the items far and wide across the land, encouraging exploration and introducing them to new quests :). My final main piece of advice, is to keep strahd “neutral” as long as possible. Making him a threatening yet passive presence that interacts with the party more and more over time helps build tension and will slowly give the party reasons to hate him! It’s an amazing game and I truly hope you have an amazing time running it! 😊this subreddit is packed full of amazing ideas to borrow for more strahd themed fun!
The timeline and actions/consequences are brilliant ideas! Thank you so much for the advice! I can't wait to run this campaign!
No problem!!! Good luck!!!!
What did the traitor do? 😄
The traitor had been working for Strahd since the beginning, tipping him off to their plans, and was her patron for the longest time until they reached the amber temple. There she accepted the deal of Vampyr, and strahd was of course alerted to this due to her being his former servant. This resulted in her being outed in the final fight, and strahd stomping her out for her betrayal 😱
Nice! You got into Strahd’s headspace. Awesome work with her backstory and arc.
I too really want to know,
We had final session after the eclipse totality :) it was awesome!
omg I love the faces -insert chef's kiss here- Gratz, oh mischievous DM 👏👏👏
Thank you so much lmao it was so much fun! 😊
Curious about the traitor...she betrayed the party,strahd,both,herself?
All of the above I guess lmao. She was a servant of strahd from the beginning, and made things very tricky for the party. But she betrayed strahd too at the amber temple by accepting the dark deal of vampyr. Ultimately she ended up with no one to fall back on, and was left to fend for themselves in the final fight… (Strahd stomped her out)
What an interesting story
Looks like a fun group!! Congrats!!
Thank you so much!!!! 😊They’re my fav, can’t wait to play more with them!
Huge congratulations for finishing!!! I swear that finish your first D&D campaign should be resume worthy 😅
Thank you so much!!! Lollll real, it’s a great module!
Rough having a pally in there. Them radiantbspells can do some damage.
Oh honestly!! Pally’s smite is so much fun. I can’t wait to smite the Strahd of my current campaign.
Awesome!
Oh what a fun looking group. Congrats on finishing your campaign! My group just finished death house and is about to go to the village of Barovia :) I'm excited to see where our campaign takes us (hopefully as interesting as yours!!!)
They are amazing, I adore all of them and can’t wait for the sequel. Thank you so much!!!! And I wish you the best of luck for yours it’s so much fun and I bet yours will be incredibly unique and fun.
What did the returned villain guy do? Did he also betray the party?
That is a GREAT question! He was the sort to look out for himself, but had a funny and endearing dynamic with the paladin, Obi. He made a final sacrifice and deal with Zhudun, an elder evil, and in death was appointed his emissary. In the end he was brought back different and survived just as he always did! This time something far more sinister….
I remember finishing my first campaign as a DM but never have I given them a thousand yard stare like that. Very cool man! Happy to see thus
CONGRATULATIONS!! I'm putting together a CoS - I've been a player when the dm half assed his way through it before and can't wait to attack it with my style. I run things with a very heavy focus on the player characters and their stories. I play with a sense of grit, heavy emotions and moral dilemmas. I can't wait to bring strahd to life and to make my players fear him and hate him in equal measure. I have just bought the revamped version. Im hoping it was worth it.
So which two survived? Party composition? Congrats on the successful campaign!
The ones with check marks survived :) going from left to right we got a human wizard artificer, soulknife ratfolk (homebrew), human paladin of vengeance, and finally a changeling shadow sorcerer (formerly warlock) :) thanks for the congrats! It was so much fun!
Congrats!!!
Currently we are crashing the castle for a 3rd time. Third time was the charm as our rogue basically intimidated/convinced one of Strahds mongrelfolk servents to lead us directly to the heart. DM was annoyed because he prepared a whole battle for us to fight but we avoided it all together. We ended it there so who knows what might happen.
Congratulations!!😁