1. gauge the table, do your players want horror of something lighter? I tried more horror but my players like things a bit daft, it’s fun but I’m not scaring their characters as much because that’s not how they play
2. there’s a lot of locations in CoS with a lot of things that can happen, but basically it’s a sandbox so most things are optional. Find the bits you think are cool and the players will enjoy and steer the characters in that direction
3. linked to the point above, stack the tarroka deck, pick where you think the best places are and use them. Also as a tool the deck is vastly underused, I found a homebrew for inspiration rules that draw from the deck. Can be a bit random but the players like drawing the card to see what they get.
4. depending on how good you are portraying npcs, either get the party to love Ireena or hate Strahd. I struggled a bit playing Ireena and the party don’t really care if she survives but they hate Strahd as he has turned up a couple times to mess with them
unfortunately, due to time constraints my group haven’t finished the module yet so I can’t offer much more suggestions but maybe something here will help
I would highly recommend the Elven Tower DM Guide for Curse of Strahd. This proved to be a really helpful supplement when I ran the adventure for my groups.
I recently obtained the book and wanted to run it for my players, does anyone have any tips to run it?
Never give your party the deck of many things
It may seem overwhelming at first, but the information here is vast and incredibly helpful.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CurseofStrahd/comments/hbjrs6/resources_tips_for_curse_of_strahd_dms/
Hi, a couple of things I’ve learnt from DMing CoS
1. gauge the table, do your players want horror of something lighter? I tried more horror but my players like things a bit daft, it’s fun but I’m not scaring their characters as much because that’s not how they play
2. there’s a lot of locations in CoS with a lot of things that can happen, but basically it’s a sandbox so most things are optional. Find the bits you think are cool and the players will enjoy and steer the characters in that direction
3. linked to the point above, stack the tarroka deck, pick where you think the best places are and use them. Also as a tool the deck is vastly underused, I found a homebrew for inspiration rules that draw from the deck. Can be a bit random but the players like drawing the card to see what they get.
4. depending on how good you are portraying npcs, either get the party to love Ireena or hate Strahd. I struggled a bit playing Ireena and the party don’t really care if she survives but they hate Strahd as he has turned up a couple times to mess with them
unfortunately, due to time constraints my group haven’t finished the module yet so I can’t offer much more suggestions but maybe something here will help
I would highly recommend the Elven Tower DM Guide for Curse of Strahd. This proved to be a really helpful supplement when I ran the adventure for my groups.
https://www.elventower.com/curse-of-strahd-guide/
thanks
Never give your party the deck of many things