Curse of Strahd is your gothic "kill the vampire" quest. He's terrorized the people for years and now they want you (the players) to purge his unholy presence from their land. Never run it before, but from the, um, more than acceptable amount of time I've spent going through the book and reading, I'd say your players might like it. I even planned to run that for the campaign I'm doing now, but my players voted for a heavily homebrewed Tyranny of Dragon (even calling it heavily homebrewed is a stretch, it's so different from the book) Also in the Amber Temple (I'm pretty sure) your players can start making deals with a bunch of evil people in sarcophagi that give them cool, dark powers at a minor cost. They are temporary, but still fun. I think you can even learn how to become a vampire from one and how to become a lich from another. So some are temporary, some are not so temporary. There's a bunch more to the story, that's just my favorite part.
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In the words of the great philosopher, Unicorse, "Aaaannnnd why should I care??"
Best quote from a book ever: "If you love with your eyes, death is forever. If you love with your heart, there is no such thing as parting."- Jonah Cook, Ascendant, Songs of Chaos by Michael R. Miller. Highly recommend
Curse of Strahd is by far my absolute favorite published adventure for Dungeons and Dragons going back to when I first ran it as "Ravenloft" in 1988.
Here is the long and short of it:
It is a Sandbox of Rails. There are clear paths you want to have the party follow but at the same time, it's very much open for them to explore the terrain and decide how and with whom to make alliances/ seek aid/ trust. It is definitely on the "your mission is to kill Strahd" side of things but realistically "Just escaping the mists" is also a viable goal you can set for the party. In the "Good old days" you would draw between 4 different goals for Strahd, one of which was to reunite with his lost love, another was to take over the body of one of the party and use them to escape the curse of the valley himself.
I've run it 4 times in 5th edition: Two of them were abridged runs I did in single sittings, and two were full campaigns. Both played out radically different because of the different party composition. If you do run it, you want to skim/read the entire book before you begin so you have a sense of what's where when so you have an idea of what the party may or may not need nudging to pursue, or if you want to tweek some of the encounters/ NPC placements.
Some changes I added:
Arabelle, the Vistani child is upgraded to an older teen. Rather than running away out of boredom she is running away to escape an arranged marriage.
Ireena is not helpless but definitely the party wants to keep her safe. Having her get kidnapped is a great way to motivate them to head to the castle if they're putting it off.
The Dragon skull is moved into one of the manor houses in Vahalki, and the curse on Argonholt is broken when the essense is released in the castle (or something LIKE that). The idea here was that I wanted the party to get a head start on things for that story arc.
The Sunsword gets replaced with an item called the Suncore. When attuned to a character it becomes a weapon that character is proficient with. I used this as a way to do a small lore dump, as the weapon is infused with the spirits of those righteously attempting to bring down Strahd. It also gives some flexibilty in who gets the cool "weapon made of sunflame".
I would ask what your experience level as a GM is and what the level of experience you want from players.
Curse of Strahd is very much an 'advanced' level adventure in my opinion because it uses some very non-standard stuff. I'd only recommend it for players and GMs who know what they're doing. It's real virtue in my mind is that it is clear from the very beginning what the party's primary goal will be - kill Strahd. That makes it a little easier and straightforward to run.
Tomb of Annihilation is a great adventure, with a bit of everything: city side quests, hexcrawl, dungeon delving. However, it can feel really slow at the beginning if you've got players going in expecting a mega-dungeon type adventure. It is too slow for my liking and a bit 'meh'. It's ending can be really anti-climactic if the villain succeeds on teleporting away. I've had players moan that they didn't get the closure of killing them. Likewise, they felt it unfair to not be able to find the phylactery. So some modifications might be needed if you want a satisfying conclusion to the adventure for your players.
If you end up with a load of newer players, or less experienced players I tend to think that Icewind Dale can be a different and fun adventure to use. If both yourself and your players are relatively new I always recommend the starter adventures. If you're all experienced I'd definitely go with Strahd though.
I personally really enjoyed Curse of Strahd. It is a really fun adventure to both play and run with lots of opprotunities for tweaks and homebrew. However, I agree that you should only play it with a group that has been in a few campaigns.
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- Igglywiv the Wizard
I played every class, now playing every sub-class.
You would not believe how much ADHD helps with creating campaigns!
I do love myself some Curse of Strahd. I do love how the whole world is constructed, and how it leaves lots of room for characters and Dm's own input. Its definitely on the complicated sides of things, but worst case scenario its a great learning experience. I think that Curse of Strahd is a great start.
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"Uh, I have Illusory Script. I think I can read that."
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Curse of Strahd is your gothic "kill the vampire" quest. He's terrorized the people for years and now they want you (the players) to purge his unholy presence from their land. Never run it before, but from the, um, more than acceptable amount of time I've spent going through the book and reading, I'd say your players might like it. I even planned to run that for the campaign I'm doing now, but my players voted for a heavily homebrewed Tyranny of Dragon (even calling it heavily homebrewed is a stretch, it's so different from the book) Also in the Amber Temple (I'm pretty sure) your players can start making deals with a bunch of evil people in sarcophagi that give them cool, dark powers at a minor cost. They are temporary, but still fun. I think you can even learn how to become a vampire from one and how to become a lich from another. So some are temporary, some are not so temporary. There's a bunch more to the story, that's just my favorite part.
In the words of the great philosopher, Unicorse, "Aaaannnnd why should I care??"
Best quote from a book ever: "If you love with your eyes, death is forever. If you love with your heart, there is no such thing as parting."- Jonah Cook, Ascendant, Songs of Chaos by Michael R. Miller. Highly recommend
Curse of Strahd is by far my absolute favorite published adventure for Dungeons and Dragons going back to when I first ran it as "Ravenloft" in 1988.
Here is the long and short of it:
It is a Sandbox of Rails. There are clear paths you want to have the party follow but at the same time, it's very much open for them to explore the terrain and decide how and with whom to make alliances/ seek aid/ trust. It is definitely on the "your mission is to kill Strahd" side of things but realistically "Just escaping the mists" is also a viable goal you can set for the party. In the "Good old days" you would draw between 4 different goals for Strahd, one of which was to reunite with his lost love, another was to take over the body of one of the party and use them to escape the curse of the valley himself.
I've run it 4 times in 5th edition: Two of them were abridged runs I did in single sittings, and two were full campaigns. Both played out radically different because of the different party composition. If you do run it, you want to skim/read the entire book before you begin so you have a sense of what's where when so you have an idea of what the party may or may not need nudging to pursue, or if you want to tweek some of the encounters/ NPC placements.
Some changes I added:
Arabelle, the Vistani child is upgraded to an older teen. Rather than running away out of boredom she is running away to escape an arranged marriage.
Ireena is not helpless but definitely the party wants to keep her safe. Having her get kidnapped is a great way to motivate them to head to the castle if they're putting it off.
The Dragon skull is moved into one of the manor houses in Vahalki, and the curse on Argonholt is broken when the essense is released in the castle (or something LIKE that). The idea here was that I wanted the party to get a head start on things for that story arc.
The Sunsword gets replaced with an item called the Suncore. When attuned to a character it becomes a weapon that character is proficient with. I used this as a way to do a small lore dump, as the weapon is infused with the spirits of those righteously attempting to bring down Strahd. It also gives some flexibilty in who gets the cool "weapon made of sunflame".
I'll post more tweeks as I think of them.
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I would ask what your experience level as a GM is and what the level of experience you want from players.
Curse of Strahd is very much an 'advanced' level adventure in my opinion because it uses some very non-standard stuff. I'd only recommend it for players and GMs who know what they're doing. It's real virtue in my mind is that it is clear from the very beginning what the party's primary goal will be - kill Strahd. That makes it a little easier and straightforward to run.
Tomb of Annihilation is a great adventure, with a bit of everything: city side quests, hexcrawl, dungeon delving. However, it can feel really slow at the beginning if you've got players going in expecting a mega-dungeon type adventure. It is too slow for my liking and a bit 'meh'. It's ending can be really anti-climactic if the villain succeeds on teleporting away. I've had players moan that they didn't get the closure of killing them. Likewise, they felt it unfair to not be able to find the phylactery. So some modifications might be needed if you want a satisfying conclusion to the adventure for your players.
If you end up with a load of newer players, or less experienced players I tend to think that Icewind Dale can be a different and fun adventure to use. If both yourself and your players are relatively new I always recommend the starter adventures. If you're all experienced I'd definitely go with Strahd though.
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I personally really enjoyed Curse of Strahd. It is a really fun adventure to both play and run with lots of opprotunities for tweaks and homebrew. However, I agree that you should only play it with a group that has been in a few campaigns.
- Igglywiv the Wizard
I played every class, now playing every sub-class.
You would not believe how much ADHD helps with creating campaigns!
Happy Pride Month!
I do love myself some Curse of Strahd. I do love how the whole world is constructed, and how it leaves lots of room for characters and Dm's own input. Its definitely on the complicated sides of things, but worst case scenario its a great learning experience. I think that Curse of Strahd is a great start.
"Uh, I have Illusory Script. I think I can read that."