Commentary on Ravenloft

I'm continuing to work on a collection of the best posts from Grognardia's early years. If that project interests you, Substack is where I'm chronicling my progress. One of the things I plan to include in that collection is include commentaries on my posts, in which I look back from the vantage point of the present and consider the extent to which my opinions have changed (or stayed the same). Today, I posted an example of that commentary, offering my current thoughts on Ravenloft and its role in changing adventure design in Dungeons & Dragons. 

Commentary on Ravenloft by James Maliszewski

Looking Back on a Very Old Grognardia Post

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REPOST: Retrospective: Ravenloft

I give Dragonlance a lot of grief – deservedly so, I think – for the role it played in forever changing both Dungeons & Dragons and the way it's been sold, but Dragonlance was merely expanding on ideas first put forward in earlier modules penned by Tracy Hickman, particularly 1983's Ravenloft. Unlike the Dragonlance modules, which, even at the time, I liked more in theory than in practice, I used to love Ravenloft. It's easy to understand why. Module I6 is a very "moody" piece of work, unlike most previous AD&D modules, which achieved their moods much more haphazardly or at least less self-consciously. Ravenloft's evocation of Gothic horror was also unlike most other modules at the time and, given my relative unfamiliarity with that genre of fiction – I'd not yet read Dracula in 1983 – I found it all very compelling.

There are other factors too in why my youthful self loved Ravenloft. Strahd von Zarovich, while sporting one of the most ridiculous faux Eastern European names in gaming, seems tailor-made for referees looking for a pet NPC. He's immensely powerful, well nigh indestructible, and fun to roleplay – an angst-ridden anti-hero before White Wolf made such things a staple of the hobby. That he's the central figure in a story that provides a backdrop to the PCs' actions only made him more attractive. Moreso than most modules published before or at that time, Ravenloft is about its villain. The actions of the PCs are, in many ways, beside the point, because their sole purpose is to help to facilitate a melodrama of lust, betrayal, despair, and love beyond the grave in which NPCs are the primary actors.

And then there were the maps. Dave Sutherland's three-dimensional maps of Castle Ravenloft were amazingly innovative for the time, providing a superb sense of how all the pieces of this vast dungeon – for dungeon is it was – fit together. I know I drooled over these maps for many hours as a younger man and, even now, looking at them, I find it hard not to be won over by them. The problem, of course, is that, in play, they're quite unwieldy and sometimes even a little confusing. I'd go so far as to say that they're emblematic of Ravenloft itself: attractive, innovative, and a clear break from the past.

Now, I think it's all too easy to emphasize how much Ravenloft differed from its predecessors. At the same time, as I just noted, this is still, at base, a dungeon crawl and an occasionally non-sensical one at that. For all its Gothic horror trappings, we sometimes find monsters not at all in keeping with that style of writing. Likewise, there's plenty of low humor, especially puns, to be found in the module. The names on many of the tombs in the castle crypt – "The Lady Isolde Yunk (Isolde the Incredible). Purveyor of Antiques and Imports," for example – are outrageously bad and make Gary Gygax's own efforts seem subtle by comparison. These puns wrench one back from the Gothic atmosphere other parts of the module are trying desperately to evoke. 

The module also uses a method of placing important NPCs and magic items based on "fortune telling" with a deck of playing cards. It's actually a very clever idea and, from my memory of playing the module long ago, it's effective and lends something to the atmosphere. Plus, my icy old school heart melts when random generation is involved in such a significant way. Effective though it was, the card reading system made me wonder at the time if it was introduced partly to give the module re-playability. That is, because certain important NPCs and items were placed in Castle Ravenloft randomly, the system could, in theory, ensure that each playing of Ravenloft would be different. Brilliant! The problem is that no one is going to Ravenloft more than once, because, as it is written, you can't. Dungeon crawl it may be in many ways, but there's no overlooking the fact that Ravenloft tells a story and a heavy-handed one at that. Not only does it have a prescribed conclusion, complete with Harlequin romance level dewy-eyed sentimentality, but, ultimately, what the PCs do just doesn't matter, since everything in the module is designed to support a predetermined conclusion.

Ravenloft is, like the "Desert of Desolation" series (also by Hickman – I see a pattern here), a transitional module. There's still a great deal of old school design in its pages. There are lots of tricks and traps, for example, and Castle Ravenloft itself is a monstrous labyrinth of rooms, corridors, and crypts, making for a very non-linear portion of the game. It's also a very unforgiving module, with death around every corner, particularly if the players are foolhardy enough to try and take on Strahd without adequate preparation. Of course, unlike the later Dragonlance modules, Ravenloft can afford to be a death trap, because – and I hate to keep harping on this – the PCs' actions don't really matter. Strahd and his story are the main attraction here and it makes little difference whether a player loses a dozen characters along the way so long as he eventually has some character who's able to be present to witness the melodramatic conclusion the Hickmans have in store for them. That's a pretty big crime in my book and, while new and innovative at the time, it laid the foundation for much mischief later.

I still have a fondness for Ravenloft despite it all, but that fondness is born mostly out of nostalgia and that's fine. I don't think Tracy Hickman is the Devil any more than I think L. Sprague De Camp was. Nevertheless, I don't think it's possible to deny that, in both cases, these men planted seeds that would eventually bear bitter fruit. We're still wrestling with the consequences of design decisions Tracy Hickman made in 1983. The adventure path style of play, for example, is a direct descendant of modules like "The Desert of Desolation" series, Ravenloft, and Dragonlance, which represent an about-face from the more open-ended, sandbox play of the old school. The fetishizing of "super NPCs," whose actions overshadowed those of the PCs, got a nice boost too with the creation of Strahd von Zarovich. Neither of these things necessarily had to become the abominations they would one day be, but the immense popularity of Ravenloft made it hard for them to avoid this destiny. I think, with some work, Ravenloft could be remade into a perfectly acceptable and throughly old school module. That's more than can be said of the Dragonlance modules, so, in the final analysis, I'd have to say that module I6 isn't wholly without virtues, even if they are buried beneath even greater vices.

"Trespassers! This is my home."

For all my current misgivings about the 1983 AD&D module, Ravenloft, I don't actually dislike it and indeed have many fond memories associated with it. I was reminded of this when I saw this ad from issue #78 of Dragon (October 1983). Whatever you think about Ravenloft and its influence over the subsequent history of D&D, there's no denying that this is an effective advertisement. It piqued my interest when I first saw it and, even now, decades later, it grabs my attention. 

Retrospective: Ravenloft: Realm of Terror

Normally, I like to restrict my retrospectives to products released prior to 1984 or thereabouts, both because I consider these years to be the Golden Age of the hobby (and Dungeons & Dragons in particular) and because that was the era of my "innocence" as a gamer, before I had any sense of what was really going on at the companies that made my favorite games. From time to time, though, I'll make exceptions and talk about materials produced after 1984 that were particularly noteworthy in some way or another, if not for the hobby as a whole, at least for me personally. One such exception is 1990's Ravenloft: Realm of Terror boxed set, written by Bruce Nesmith with Andria Hayday.

By 1990, I wasn't actually playing much D&D anymore. I'd largely moved on to other games, partially out of fatigue -- I'd been playing Dungeons & Dragons in one form or another for more than a decade -- and partially because I wasn't a huge fan of AD&D's second edition, released in 1989. The reasons for my dissatisfaction are many and varied and not particularly germane to this post. Suffice it to say that, while I did buy plenty of Second Edition books and supplements over the course of its existence, I rarely used them to play. Mostly, they were things I read instead of gaming, which is a pretty sad commentary on how I approached my supposed hobby during a lot of the 1990s.

In my defense, I can only say that I was not alone in this regard. Indeed, my personal experience suggests that a great many formerly active gamers largely became mere readers -- and avid ones at that -- of gaming material in the '90s, which may well explain the proliferation of different settings for AD&D throughout that decade. Ravenloft was one of those settings and, while I remain ambivalent about the adventure module that spawned it, I nevertheless saw enough potential in the setting that I happily bought the boxed treatment of it when I saw it. The boxed set consisted of a 144-page softcover book, four large maps, 24 cardstock sheets, and a transparent overlay to be used in conjunction with the maps, since, back in those days, TSR felt that including some means of determining distance on the maps themselves somehow detracted from their appearance. (No doubt I read too much into things, but I see such a style vs. substance decision as indicative of a lot about the 2e era).

Ravenloft: Realm of Terror was basically an attempt to create a Gothic literary setting/sourcebook for AD&D. It was precisely this that appealed enough to me that I bought it in the first place. I was -- and am -- a big fan of Gothic literature, or at least many of the themes and elements derived from it, many of which were present in D&D from its first publication. Consequently, the notion of explicitly playing up those elements and themes struck me as a worthy endeavor. And, for the most part, I think Realm of Terror did a decent job of doing just that, with rules modifications to classes, spells, and magic items, as well rules for curses, fortune telling, the seduction of evil, and more. There were also essays on Gothic literature and how best to use it as inspiration for adventures and campaigns.

In 1990, this was all rather heady stuff to me. Aside from superhero RPGs (and Call of Cthulhu), there wasn't a lot of straightforward emulation of literary sources in the hobby, at least not as I experienced it. Even then, it was often done in a rather hamfisted fashion, whereas Realm of Terror seemed to be a lot more "sophisticated" and "thoughtful" in its approach. If nothing else, it gave greater consideration to the difficulties of running a horror-based D&D campaign, something even the original Ravenloft module never quite managed to do in my opinion. It's also worth noting that Realm of Terror predates the upsurge of interest in horror RPGs that followed in the wake of Vampire: The Masquerade and its sequels and imitators, thus making it a trailblazing product in many ways.

That's not to say that, looking back, it fully succeeds in its goals. In my opinion, Realm of Terror suffers from two opposite sins. First, despite the rules modifications it presents, it's still fundamentally a D&D supplement and many aspects of D&D militate against the emulation of horror literature of any kind, let alone the emotionally charged horror of the Gothic type. Second, while I appreciate -- now more than ever -- the attention paid to the literary inspirations of the setting, I do think there's a bit too much emphasis placed on emulation, to the point where it subtly encouraged a kind of railroad-y playstyle that became to dominate later products in the line. Now, neither sin is insurmountable in my opinion and neither takes away from the genuinely groundbreaking nature of Realm of Terror, at least to my much younger self.

One of my queerest gaming eccentricities is that I own nearly all every Ravenloft-related product ever produced. I consider them some of the most inspirational gaming materials I own, even though I think most of them are deeply flawed either in content or presentation (or both). Yet, even the worst of them contain a spark of something I find compelling, from which I can derive good ideas for use in my own adventures and campaigns, which is, frankly, a rare and laudable thing. Nowadays, I find a similar spark in Jack Shear's superb Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque blog, as well as 164-page compilation of much of its contents available in softcover or hardcover through Lulu.com. Even if you were never a Ravenloft fan as I was, the blog and the compilations are well worth your time and good examples of some of the best stuff the OSR is producing these days.

The Ads of Dragon: Ravenloft

Issue #78 came out in October 1983 and contained the following ad obviously that used the month's association with Halloween to its advantage:

My qualms about Ravenloft to the contrary, it's a very well-done advertisement, even if it shows that extent to which D&D in 1983 was casting off its origins. At the time, though, I didn't much care and I was very excited about this upcoming release. Whatever one's feelings about the module -- and the change it heralded -- you've got to give the marketing at TSR some credit in crafting something that grabbed one's attention.

Pulp Fantasy Library: Dracula

First published in 1897, Abraham "Bram" Stoker's Dracula is one of those rare works of literature that, while being thoroughly steeped in the genre out of which it arose, in this case Gothic fiction, nevertheless manages to transcend their origins. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that Dracula is one of the most influential novels of all time, inspiring not just many imitators but also whole genres of fiction and ensuring that the vampire is one of the enduring archetypes of Western mythology.

Like most people, I knew the character of Count Dracula long before I read the novel in which he appears. As a kid growing up in the 1970s, before the advent of inexpensive VCRs, I watched old movies on Saturday afternoons on local TV channels, among them the many Hammer films of Peter Cushing and Christoper Lee, which, as it turns out, were important influences on Dave Arneson. It was Christopher Lee's portrayal of Dracula that has probably stuck with me all these years as the interpretation of the titular character, despite its deviation from what Stoker himself actually wrote.

I only read the novel for the first time when I was in college and I was initially rather taken aback. Dracula is an epistolary novel rather than a traditional narrative. There are journal entries, telegrams, newspaper clippings, even transcripts from phonograph recordings, and they each shed a different light on the unfolding story of Count Dracula's "invasion" of late 19th century London. This gives the novel a somewhat disjointed feel, particularly since it's told from the perspective of several narrators, some of whom are unreliable or at least ignorant of all that is transpiring. Likewise, the novel is written in a style that sometimes felt stiff and "distant" to me, at least in parts, but I eventually came to realize this was intentional.

The general outline of the novel's plot are well-known: a Transylvanian vampire seeks to acquire real estate in England in order to gain access to a larger population on which to feed and to pave the way for his long-planned attempt to rise to power. What made the novel so fantastic, though, was not its plot but its characters, chiefly Count Dracula himself, who is at once repulsive and attractive. I'm not sure that the character has ever been adequately portrayed in film, as most portrayals tend to over-emphasize his seductive qualities at the expense of his monstrous ones. Dracula-as-Byronic-hero is a common misinterpretation of this character and, while there's little question that Stoker does make Dracula an alluring figure -- by design -- there's also no question that he's a villain and one who must be destroyed to ensure the safety of the world.

Like Stoker's Dracula, I find vampires to be both attractive and repulsive: attractive, because the idea of nearly-immortal damned souls stalking the night is a terrifying one; repulsive, because too few people nowadays look on vampires as unambiguously evil. I suppose that's as much proof as we need to illustrate the glamor of evil, but I can't help but feel disappointment at the way the archetype of the vampire has been so watered-down and indeed neutered of the power it packed in Stoker's day. I think there's still a lot of punch left in vampires but most of that punch comes from contemplating their status as thralls of Hell (whether literally or metaphorically) rather than as forever-young demigods.

Retrospective: Ravenloft II

If the original Ravenloft module, published in 1983, represented a shift away from the presentation and design of the modules of the Golden Age, what is one to make of its 1986 sequel, Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill? Whereas I think there are some legitimate grounds on which to defend module I6, module I10 has no such grounds. Ravenloft II is a textbook example of brandification: emphasizing the importance of familiar names over actual content.

According to the cover credits, Tracy and Laura Hickman were the authors of this module. Inside, however, the credits tell a different story: "Based on an Outline by Tracy & Laura Hickman." I'm certain this isn't the first time a D&D product was created based on the outline of someone who otherwise had nothing to do with the product in question. Nevertheless, I think it telling that TSR, who, after all, owned the Ravenloft brand, felt the need to promote the Hickmans' involvement. The actual "design team," as the credits call it, consisted of David Cook, Jeff Grubb, Harold Johnson, and Douglas Niles, along with whatever actual contributions the Hickmans provided in their outline.

Even more interesting is the fact that, despite its name, Ravenloft II isn't a direct sequel to its predecessor, except perhaps thematically. Indeed, all the indulgences of the original module -- high melodrama, boxed read-aloud text, a heavily NPC-dependent plot -- are here in abundance. Indeed, they are, in many cases, much worse this time around, as the text is, for example, peppered with lots of words like "should" and "will" when describing the actions of the PCs as they meander around the module's "story" -- a word the module itself uses to describe its contents. Moreover, that story is a strange one, as it casts the events of the original module as possibly a delirious dream rather than having actually happened. Similarly, the identity and true nature of pet NPC Strahd von Zarovich is also called into question by suggesting that he might be an evil sub-conscious "twin" of a kindly alchemist given life through a magical experiment gone wrong.

The end result is an incoherent mish-mash of characters, elements, and themes that, frankly, bear very little connection to the module with which Ravenloft II shares its name. As I noted, the original Ravenloft, for all its faults, at least includes a cleverly designed vampire "lair." The module could, with some work, be run in a largely old school fashion, with the PCs rather than the NPCs taking center stage. Ravenloft II, by contrast, isn't so easily adapted, mostly because it's unclear what the adventure is supposed to be about. There are some intriguing ideas about split personalities and body swapping that could, I suppose, be re-purposed, but so much of the rest of the module is filled with confused -- and confusing -- attempts at creating a NPC-driven Gothic novel in D&D dress that I'm not sure it'd be worth the effort.

More distressing, I think, is the way that many of the surface elements of Ravenloft have just been transported to a different module in the hopes that that alone would be enough to create something memorable. It's almost as if the writers of Ravenloft II didn't understand the appeal of the original and instead focused on whatever bright, shiny bits most attracted their attention. So we get random placement of items and NPCs, for example, with the associated information imparted not through a Gypsy card-reading but by a trip to the local mesmerist! The result is not only ludicrous but uninspired, a repetition of an idea that once was fresh but now so often imitated as to become hackneyed.

The whole of Ravenloft II feels as if no one's heart was really in it, as if TSR was simply looking for a way to catch lightning in a bottle a second time and figured "re-imagining" one of their most popular modules was the way to do it. Unfortunately, resorting to such a formula proved insufficient. Ravenloft, while not to my taste, was indeed revolutionary -- it offered up something new for D&D. Ravenloft II, on the other hand, offers nothing new and what little cleverness it does display is largely overshadowed both by its own defects and the reflected glory of its namesake.