Looking for feedback and open advice on opening hooks for Curse of Strahd.
Of the listed options, "Plea for Help" is the most appealing for me, but I see some potential issues with that.
I don't mind the idea of a Vistana messenger "collecting" them and taking them to Barovia, but I feel like it removes agency from the players, and this campaign seems to be all about agency.
Another idea I had was to start a bit "en media res" - this is a pulp horror adventure after all. Two ideas I have there are
1) to have the players wake up in Barovia to the sound of a scream (the burgomaster's house being attacked); or
2) starting at some point in the middle of Death House (towards the end).
I'm open to feedback or other thoughts. How have you started CoS?
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Writer • Podcaster • Professional Gamemaster
playing Jin Wei, human (Kara-tur) way of the Four Elements Monk in the Princes of the Apocalypse
So, the thing about CoS is that it's generally assumed that the PCs will be adventurers from outside of Barovia who, through one event or another, find themselves trapped inside the tiny nation. I think starting end media res makes more sense, for a D&D group, if they're in a familiar location... it skips a lot of the boring setup part of the game and starts everything as close to the action as possible. However, when such a major shakeup is so heavily ingrained into the setting, it's better to have the players actually experience that moment.
That said... you could still skip everything and just start with, "You all wake up in a misty field you don't recognize and you don't know how you got there". Even if you don't have a specific explanation for how they got there... you'll probably be able to think of something eventually.
So, with that said... if you're willing to start with the Death House, I think you could do something with the supernatural weirdness of the location. Maybe the players start in some town from the Forgotten Realms, and they're hired to investigate a haunted house. But once they actually get through it and exit, suddenly they find themselves in Barovia. Something like with Poltergeist, where the house is on a kind of dimensional weakpoint, and the players inadvertently stumble into the realm of Barovia.
Alternatively... you could just play all the players as just being from Barovia to begin with. The hard part with that is mostly because you're going to have to change how some of the interactions are meant to go, since a lot of the pre-written adventure assumes not only that the PCs are not from Barovia, but also assumes that it's obvious just looking at them that they're not.
I would combine 3 of the hooks in the book. Start in the tavern with the town leader about to hold a meeting about the recent werewolf sitings, but the townsfolk are ready to form a mob to deal with the Vistani outside the town. Arrigal walks in and posts Strahd's invitation boldly on the message board. The party can either deal with the Vistani or do the werewolf quest. Same result either way.
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Looking for feedback and open advice on opening hooks for Curse of Strahd.
Of the listed options, "Plea for Help" is the most appealing for me, but I see some potential issues with that.
I don't mind the idea of a Vistana messenger "collecting" them and taking them to Barovia, but I feel like it removes agency from the players, and this campaign seems to be all about agency.
Another idea I had was to start a bit "en media res" - this is a pulp horror adventure after all. Two ideas I have there are
1) to have the players wake up in Barovia to the sound of a scream (the burgomaster's house being attacked); or
2) starting at some point in the middle of Death House (towards the end).
I'm open to feedback or other thoughts. How have you started CoS?
Writer • Podcaster • Professional Gamemaster
playing Jin Wei, human (Kara-tur) way of the Four Elements Monk in the Princes of the Apocalypse
So, the thing about CoS is that it's generally assumed that the PCs will be adventurers from outside of Barovia who, through one event or another, find themselves trapped inside the tiny nation. I think starting end media res makes more sense, for a D&D group, if they're in a familiar location... it skips a lot of the boring setup part of the game and starts everything as close to the action as possible. However, when such a major shakeup is so heavily ingrained into the setting, it's better to have the players actually experience that moment.
That said... you could still skip everything and just start with, "You all wake up in a misty field you don't recognize and you don't know how you got there". Even if you don't have a specific explanation for how they got there... you'll probably be able to think of something eventually.
So, with that said... if you're willing to start with the Death House, I think you could do something with the supernatural weirdness of the location. Maybe the players start in some town from the Forgotten Realms, and they're hired to investigate a haunted house. But once they actually get through it and exit, suddenly they find themselves in Barovia. Something like with Poltergeist, where the house is on a kind of dimensional weakpoint, and the players inadvertently stumble into the realm of Barovia.
Alternatively... you could just play all the players as just being from Barovia to begin with. The hard part with that is mostly because you're going to have to change how some of the interactions are meant to go, since a lot of the pre-written adventure assumes not only that the PCs are not from Barovia, but also assumes that it's obvious just looking at them that they're not.
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I would combine 3 of the hooks in the book. Start in the tavern with the town leader about to hold a meeting about the recent werewolf sitings, but the townsfolk are ready to form a mob to deal with the Vistani outside the town. Arrigal walks in and posts Strahd's invitation boldly on the message board. The party can either deal with the Vistani or do the werewolf quest. Same result either way.