@jon_wolf: Despite two of the four of us having jobs, we're still operating at a net loss in the bank account. Curse of Strahd is our first and only adventure purchased so far, and we won't be able to afford another for a while. Especially with the local card shop closing its doors.

Anyway. Ran another session last night, and I'm beginning to notice a different issue. Well, two of them.

First, my brother has fore-knowledge of Curse of Strahd through the Ravenloft adventure in Dungeons & Dragons Online. He's been using that knowledge to inform his character's decisions. Like informing Ireena and Ismark to head to Vallaki rather than Krezk, or avoiding the early interaction with Old Morgantha. I'm not sure how much longer I can keep this campaign going if he's doing this.

Second, neither of them are making use of the personality traits part of their character sheets. This wouldn't be so much of an issue with their own characters, but one of them is playing one of my characters. This is leading to characters acting "out of character" so to speak.

Third... My sister doesn't appear to be too happy with the treatment of her deceased warforged. The minotaur dragged its shell through the cobblestone streets, before propping it up on a bar stool in the Blood on the Vine tavern. They return later to find it stripped of anything valuable, and propped up in a corner with a mustache drawn on. The minotaur tossed an axe at it on the way out of the room. They return one more time to find it now missing. That's when my sister got the most upset. I've got plans though, and perhaps they've already guessed them? Not sure what to do about that. I honestly feel very bad about this.

Other than that, travel between towns has been pretty uneventful due to some lucky rolls, and the party has SOMEHOW managed to convince Ismark and Ireena to travel with them, despite their monstrous features and VERY chaotic nature.

1) That's a nuisance.  And the only thing you can do is to try to change stuff around or try to stick to things that aren't in DDO.  Vallaki has the St Andral's Bones quest, followed by the vampire spawn rampage.  AFAIK, that's not in DDO.  If they kick the hornet's nest and a bunch of innocent people get killed, Lady Wachter can blame the Baron and depose him without ever interacting with the characters.  And your brother, knowing what he knows, will be helpless to do anything.

You might also find a way to swap the dusk elves out with some other part of Barovia, like subbing their little section of the woods for Argynvostholst, since you've already done a haunted house story with Death House.

You might not feel up to writing your own adventure, but you can swap out the random monster table with any of a hundred horror movies about a group of people trying to get from point A to point B, and none of it will have been in DDO.

2) *shrug*. You said you guys were inexperienced.  As long as everyone is having fun, don't worry about it.

3) Give her some hint or reason to hope.  If she feels bad and you feel bad, something's wrong.

I know this is late but Yes, Strahd is designed for 4-6 players, but the other thing is it's designed around an experienced DM that can adapt for the varying power levels... This is also one of the only adventures I would STRONGLY recommend the Dungeon Master read through COMPLETELY before running. A lot of info is scattered throughout the adventure and because it's more of a "Sandbox" adventure you can go anywhere right from the start. So the DM needs to be ready for anything. Also even at level 3 starting out it's gonna be a rough start. This is intentionally one of the hardest adventures out there, for 6 experienced players it is still a challenge.

Next: players "Metagaming" is always an issue... If you know he's doing it, you can simply say, Hey guys, no metagaming we need to stick with what your character knows. etc... If they still insist, yes, changing things around is also a good option. :) And if they're running your character "Wrong" then take the character back and run them the way you want.

The sister's issue is the main problem I see that's REALLY bad... first, I'd give the sister a temporary character to play till she gets her warforged back, second you need to communicate better with the players, the goal of DND is for everyone to have fun... if one isn't having fun, that's a MAJOR problem that needs to be addressed... I know what they're doing is funny, but you are perfectly within your rights to say, hey, I don't allow party PVP in my game, No throwing things at the body of your companion... and you're in charge of the body being "Stripped" You could simply say the villagers were so put off by the characters monstrous appearance that they avoid the body like the plague :) But yeah, talk to the sister... tell her you have something planned (if it's something she' going to enjoy) If it's not then yeah, definitely change that up :P

PS: Like I said I know this is an older post but  figured anyone coming here considering Curse of Strahd should read this *grin*

I thank you for your reply, late as it is.

Though our group agreed to end the campaign long ago, as we weren’t having fun, I’ll try to keep your advice in mind.

I don’t know where I got the idea that it was okay to run such a difficult adventure, when nobody in our group was (is still) experienced. I’m regretting it to this day.

Perhaps we’ll run it again in the future? Or perhaps I’ll experience it again with another group.

Or, having seen the way twitter folks are looking at the game. Perhaps I’ll end up experiencing a different game altogether?

Yes. Run a few starting adventures... and keep in mind that DND is not like DDO :)  I mean, they're based on DND but DND is more about dice, and roleplaying, not just killing (Though there are some based more on killing than others *Grin*)

Personally, I started playing D&D because I wanted to make and role play as various characters. And then I was voted the DM, because “it’s my game”.

My brother seems to favor combat heavy dungeon runs/crawls, where we hardly ever leave combat. When he’s the DM. As a player, he’s a bit chaotic and the louder of the two players.

And my sister... I’m not sure? I know when she runs as a DM, she kinda railroads us into her story she’s running. As a player though, she’s a bit more reserved and seems to hang back and do her own thing while everyone else makes the major decisions.

I’m honestly not sure how to balance these two.

I know in our cousin’s D&D game (Note to Mods: diverging from the topic of CoS at this point.), the three of us kind of stole the spotlight from the other players, and I definitely felt bad about it afterwards. They were wandering around the first town in Chult, stealing/hiding spoons and picking fights with strangers. We’re three sessions in, and still in the first town...

Maybe try rebalancing the encounters using this:

https://dhmstark.co.uk/rpgs/encounter-calculator-5th/
This should tell you decently how deadly encounters are, although it isn’t perfect at all and it does require some logic to balance stuff completely well.

I’m fairly certain with just two players, every encounter is “deadly”. There’s no good way to balance it with just the encounters.

I literally have to fudge enemy tactics, get creative with the environment, and make sure they have plenty of friendly characters that can help them in their early levels. Provided of course, that they don’t end up offending or killing said friendly characters. It doesn’t help that one of them prefers combat, while both prefer chaos.

I think... I’m out of my depth with these two!

I just wanna make stuff...

(Thanks for the link though. I’ll take a look when I’m less tired.)