So I would very much like to run CoS campaign but after buying the book I find myself out of my depth. Its not very linier, and I am having trouble following how to run it. Is there any other media you would suggest to help me figure out how to at least get the ball rolling?
The most horrific part of Curse of Strahd is the the layout of that book.
The start of the game can actually be pretty linear.
-Pick a hook that gets them into Barovia -Death house -Barovia `Blood on the vine inn ` Ismark gets you to escourt Irena to Vallaki `Take the dad bod to the church to be buried -Travel to Vallaki -Tser pool `Taroka Reading -Vallaki
Vallaki is pretty much a sandbox and the game becomes more of a sandbox from there. -You pretty much have to read the entire chapter to get what's going on in that town. -Prep the Inn the church and the coffin shop first.
CoS is a bit of a sandbox. Characters can choose where to go to some extent and there are some paths, if followed at too low a level, stand a good chance of killing everyone in the party.
I've run it and it did take a fair bit of effort to read through, understand all the moving parts, and figure out how the various plot lines and encounters will interact with the party. However, there are some encounters and some quite early in the adventure, that could, again, kill off the entire party depending on how they have built their characters and how well they know the game.
There are a lot of ways to run CoS and how to get started but I'd probably suggest using the Death House adventure at the end of the book to get the characters from level 1-3. This too can be very dangerous but depending on the players you could use it as an on-ramp to get the characters familiar with the setting and some of the dangers. If they die you can start over with the Death House again with a different set of characters who have some fore-knowledge of what the house contains. Strahd can use the mists to force the characters into the Death House when they arrive in Barovia, it is his "filtering" mechanism to see if the characters might even be worth his time engaging with.
I also found the following article on Reddit to be useful, there are other useful resources out there if you google for them.
Hi, currently running CoS, yeah it’s basically a sandbox. There’s lots of locations but many are optional. The book does suggest levels for each location so I’d suggest picking places you find interesting because then you’ll enjoy running them. Everything else can be optional. I’d definitely stack the tarokka deck so you hit places you want to run and guide your players in certain directions.
You've got the map of Barovia on page 35. You could print out the map, and make a word document in which you write out what's at each location marked by a letter, and the pages in the book where it's covered.
ex:
E: Village of Barovia. Pg 41-48
That way once you get into the sandbox, you can look up wherever the party goes pretty quickly, because you front-loaded the preparation, and you can just refresh what's around the party that they might get to for each session.
So I would very much like to run CoS campaign but after buying the book I find myself out of my depth. Its not very linier, and I am having trouble following how to run it. Is there any other media you would suggest to help me figure out how to at least get the ball rolling?
The most horrific part of Curse of Strahd is the the layout of that book.
The start of the game can actually be pretty linear.
-Pick a hook that gets them into Barovia
-Death house
-Barovia
`Blood on the vine inn
` Ismark gets you to escourt Irena to Vallaki
`Take the dad bod to the church to be buried
-Travel to Vallaki
-Tser pool
`Taroka Reading
-Vallaki
Vallaki is pretty much a sandbox and the game becomes more of a sandbox from there.
-You pretty much have to read the entire chapter to get what's going on in that town.
-Prep the Inn the church and the coffin shop first.
CoS is a bit of a sandbox. Characters can choose where to go to some extent and there are some paths, if followed at too low a level, stand a good chance of killing everyone in the party.
I've run it and it did take a fair bit of effort to read through, understand all the moving parts, and figure out how the various plot lines and encounters will interact with the party. However, there are some encounters and some quite early in the adventure, that could, again, kill off the entire party depending on how they have built their characters and how well they know the game.
There are a lot of ways to run CoS and how to get started but I'd probably suggest using the Death House adventure at the end of the book to get the characters from level 1-3. This too can be very dangerous but depending on the players you could use it as an on-ramp to get the characters familiar with the setting and some of the dangers. If they die you can start over with the Death House again with a different set of characters who have some fore-knowledge of what the house contains. Strahd can use the mists to force the characters into the Death House when they arrive in Barovia, it is his "filtering" mechanism to see if the characters might even be worth his time engaging with.
I also found the following article on Reddit to be useful, there are other useful resources out there if you google for them.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CurseofStrahd/comments/f3w658/so_you_want_to_run_curse_of_strahd_a_primer_on/
Hi, currently running CoS, yeah it’s basically a sandbox. There’s lots of locations but many are optional. The book does suggest levels for each location so I’d suggest picking places you find interesting because then you’ll enjoy running them. Everything else can be optional. I’d definitely stack the tarokka deck so you hit places you want to run and guide your players in certain directions.
a couple good resources are
https://www.reddit.com/r/CurseofStrahd/comments/9bpzbh/curse_of_strahd_reloaded_compilation_thread/
https://www.reddit.com/r/CurseofStrahd/comments/9pbka6/fleshing_out_curse_of_strahd_master_table_of/
Sly Flourish has a good write-up on how to run it Running Curse of Strahd: SlyFlourish.com
You've got the map of Barovia on page 35. You could print out the map, and make a word document in which you write out what's at each location marked by a letter, and the pages in the book where it's covered.
ex:
That way once you get into the sandbox, you can look up wherever the party goes pretty quickly, because you front-loaded the preparation, and you can just refresh what's around the party that they might get to for each session.