Topic: LotFP and the Ravenloft Black Box?

Hello,

As I mentioned in the introductions thread, I'm planning an LotFP campaign set in the Ravenloft game world. My plan is to adapt the world to LotFP, not the reverse. I was wondering if anyone here has tried this before? Was the result worth the effort? Are there any difficulties to be expected? Any insights people would like to share?

Thanks in advance!

Re: LotFP and the Ravenloft Black Box?

Welcome!  I've been playing for over a year and love this game, so I think you're in for a treat!

Some of my (strongly held) thoughts/recommendations:
-I am very anti-humanoid.  I run my game in the 1630s (England) and most interactions are with humans.  There are no goblins, kobolds, gnolls, etc.  I replace any mention of those in modules with fucked up humans.  Also, my players can only be humans.  This, for me, is a core tenant of the game (other Referees are more flexible on this point).

-Much of the world is mundane.  This adds to the horror when it happens.

-The Stranger Storm (which I think is in your boxed set?  I don't know - I have the Grindhouse version...) is a great starter adventure.  It presents at least a 50% chance of character death right off the bat, shows that digging through dead corpses to open their hearts can be rewarding, and...a few other things that are better left unsaid. wink

-I suggest mixing in some of the Lamentations modules in with your campaign world.  These will really help you get the flavor and feel of the system (more so than just using the rules).  Below are my top suggestions:

First off, get these free modules:

Doom-Cave of the Crystal Headed Children
Better Than Any Man

And these modules should gel with your horror theme:

Death Love Doom (only available in PDF, but probably the most fucked up and scary module here)
Death Frost Doom
Forgive Us
No Salvation For Witches
Scenic Dunnsmouth
The God that Crawls
Monolith from Beyond Time and Space

More available only in PDF:
Tales of the Scarecrow
A Single, Small Cut

Finally, if you're on G+, you should join the OSR and the LotFP communities...

Re: LotFP and the Ravenloft Black Box?

I've run quite a few Ravenloft campaigns, and the main change I did which I believe would fit extremely well with LotFP is to base the entire Ravenloft on a sort of mythical Europe; instead of the domains being from different TSR worlds, they are parts of our own world. It grounds the world even more in something recognizable, and also allows the players to easily create a group of characters without you needing to provide a mass of strange backgrounds and settings.

That, and tone down the fantasy elements, I think; remove orcs and orges and such and replace them with freaks and mutants, much like Crunk suggests. Fear/Terror rules also work best without taking over control of the characters, I believe; I never force a character to flee, I just stack on large negative modifiers to doing anything offensive which generally means retreat becomes the sensible option.

Blogging about OSR at Deep Delving

Re: LotFP and the Ravenloft Black Box?

Thanks for the insights, folks! smile

With regards to fantastic elements, for what it's worth, I think I'll be going for a sort of compromise. On one hand, I think AD&D as a rules set doesn't fit Ravenloft as well as LotFP does. Monsters in Ravenloft are usually supposed to be rare, one-of-a-kind occurences, and magic is not something most people would trust, to say the least. Even magic items are supposed to be rarer than in your usual D&D game world. (I'm looking at you, Forgotten Realms!) This is why I think LotFP is a great fit. On the other hand, my play group wanted a "classic" D&D experience, meaning that early modern Europe wasn't quite what they were looking for.

Fortunately for them, there is one domain with a "generic fantasy kingdom" theme and this is where I'll start my campaign. The original Ravenloft boxed set - the "Black Box", not to be confused with the I6: Ravenloft module - features some pockets of goblins and kobolds (but no more: no orcs, ogres or the rest of the usual menagerie). I might make use of those at some point, but that's not where the campaign will focus. The players decided to play a group of rebels plotting to overthrow the domain's evil sorcerer-king, so there's a lot of political machinations to be expected, and the baddies will be less "green-skinned savages" and more "the local soldiery". All this to say I'll probably strike a balance between all-out, no holds barred fantasy and a pure historical setting.

With regards to monsters specifically, I'm thinking of copying the Monster Manual's stat blocks when appropriate. However, it occurred to me that I could simply make up, say, some sort of undead, but never actually identify them as "vampires" or "ghouls" or whatever. Maybe the locals will tell the PCs about a vampire haunting the ruins in the woods, or maybe the players will conclude that the monster they're hunting is a vampire, but I, as referee, don't even have to decide if the monster really is a vampire, an unspecified kind of undead monster that the locals call a vampire, or something even worse. I wonder what my players would say if they found out their 1st level characters were facing a (secretly 2-HD) vampire...

@Crunk Posby:
The version I have is the "Deluxe" edition. The adventures included were Tower of the Stargazer, which I will probably plug somewhere at some point, and Weird New World, which I doubt will really fit the campaign. Oh, and thanks for the module suggestions! I don't usually use modules (I must have used two in the last twenty years) but I'll check them out just to get a better feel of James Raggi's vision. It should be lots of fun! smile

@Storapan:
To be honest, apart from the few domains for which it's actually stated in the text, I'm not sure at all what game world most of the domains come from. Most of them have a "late medieval or early Renaissance Europe" feel to them, and I always assumed they were "lost" parts of the real world (or maybe a close enough fictitious world) that were swallowed by the Mists. All this to say that my default assumption is pretty close to your suggestion! big_smile As for Fear and Horror rules, I'm of two minds on this. I like the idea of Fear/Horror checks, or Call of Cthulhu's Sanity rules, because it reinforces the idea that characters don't react to the game's fiction in the same way as the players. However, these rules only work if players are willing to play along. If they don't, the whole thing falls apart. I kinda like the idea of Morale checks for NPCs and letting players decide how their characters react, if only as a compromise.

Re: LotFP and the Ravenloft Black Box?

To play like your group wants to play, there's not really anything you need to do to fit Ravenloft into the Deluxe version of LotFP. It's even better if you download the new version of the rules with firearms. Black powder firearms pop up here and there in the Ravenloft modules and fiction. Adding that component will help you get that gothic horror vibe that makes Ravenloft so cool.

I'm not certain what would happen when casting Summon in the demiplane of dread since it's supposed to be a one-way trip in. That's your can of worms to open if you want.

The last thing I would suggest is picking up "A Red and Pleasant Land" and popping it in as a domain. The Land of Unreason, with its human population hiding in colonies under the forests, makes a brilliant domain because it is actually a contested domain that is not fully under the control of the sovereigns who fight the slow war over it.

Re: LotFP and the Ravenloft Black Box?

Every campaign should have R&PL.