Hello DnDbeyond. (sorry for my English. I am doing my best with spelling and grammar) I am currently running a Curse of Strahd module and I am going to have Madam Eva card reading soon and I am in two minds. In one hand I realy like this randomness and unique script but in the other hand I want to do some cool stuff to my players. I want to choose an ally ethir Van Rikhten (or Ezmerelda) or Mordenkainen.
So basicaly my choise is:
+ Not to fudge + To fudge and take Van Rikhten + Ta fudge and take Ezmerelda + To fudge and take Mordenkainen
Why not fudging? It is a part of a story and I dont want to change it by will. I like this randomness. Fudging takes away charming of Story ad Written. Why fudging? Becouse there are cool charachters and I want to introdce them. I am sure that they wont even try to heal Mad Mage from his madness if they dont need to.
Why Mordenkainen? IT IS SO FREAKING COOL. Why not him? He is hella powerful and helps only with final battle wich means I'll fight with myself and it is hard + I make players feel like they are not a part of the story. It can be fixed tho~ I can just ask my friend (who is not a player in this campagin) to play with him.
Why Van Rikhten? He can help during whole game and he is a person who knows alot about killing vampires. By the way his stats are not OP. Why not him? He can help during whole game and this might feel like I am helping them as if they were small kids. Also he is not Mordenkainen himself!
Ezmerelda - (every word from Van Rikhten but female)
I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about this myself, and have decided when I eventually run this module I'll probably fudge it. If its the first time I, or any of the other players have played through it, I don't see the harm in just picking the outcomes that will give the most interesting and fun to run game possible. If I ran it a second time however, I wouldn't fudge it.
I drew cards before I started the campaign; if the PCs get their fortunes told (so far they've avoided anyone who might) I'll use my initial reading because I've used it for some planning.
I'm running three different groups through Curse of Strahd right now. I went back and forth on this issue as well. Ultimately, I decided to just let it be random. Just because the reading doesn't choose Ezmerelda, for example, doesn't mean the characters can't meet her and bring her along. It just means she doesn't get the "Inspire" feature when they face Strahd. But having the cards choose randomly actually helps you figure out how to focus the game. If you know they're going to have to visit Yester Hill because that's where something is hidden, then you know that you have to guide them through Barovia in a way that will lead them there.
The only thing I did do, is that I removed a few cards from the deck for locations I decided I didn't want to have in my game. For example, I removed the cards that involve the Old Bonegrinder and the Werewolf Den because I just didn't want to use those locations at all in my game. I also removed the cards that chose Arabelle, Vasilika, and Zuleika as the ally because I didn't want those to be options. So with those cards removed from the deck, I'm left still with a fair amount of randomness but I know they're not going to end up with something that I don't want to have in the game.
If you haven't run CoS before, then I would definitely fudge the reading. Or at the very very least, do it randomly in advance so you can plan and then repeat that drawing at the table. When and if you've run it once or twice, the randomization is what gives it its replay value. But you have too many other things to pay attention to DMing CoS the first time.
As for whom to choose, I'm personally not much of a lore junkie, so Special Guest Star Mordenkainen doesn't do much for me. Also, having someone who is around pretty often can serve the invaluable purpose of dumping exposition on your players or reminding them what they're trying to accomplish after a few weeks. I'd personally go with van Richten, just because you can keep him at the Inn in Rictavio disguise, which leads the PCs back to Vallaki more than once, which means the Lady Wachter/Baron Vallaki storyline gets to play out, either with their participation or in the background between visits.
Also, to your point about fighting against yourself if you're running a powerful NPC, I thought about that too. I decided that in the very likely chance that a player character dies, I'm going to give the player the option of running Mordenkainen, Ezmerelda, or Van Richten. Those are all really cool NPCs and I think a player could have a lot of fun running them instead of me. So I'm keeping that in my back pocket so I don't have to feel too bad about killing off any of the PC's.
I like this idea. I might even push it further and randomly assign someone a replacement character from the list of potential Enemies. Maybe you get the revenant paladin or the deadly assassin, maybe you get the nine year old child or the girl who thinks she's a cat and pees herself constantly. Good luck!
Thanks you all for helping. I really like some of your ideas especially about giving an opportunity to play as an NPC to a player. I’ve decided to fudge it and learn by heart answers to make it cooler. Also I’ll choose Van Rihten as an ally. Thanks
I've always drawn my cards live, but I have pre-drawn times and times again and read up to get a sense of of what path a particular combintion of cards might end up looking like. Either way, I find that the fated ally is much more memorable when they're less "special". It makes the players feel rewarded for finding them and makes them feel more protective of them too, whereas asking Van Richten or Ezmeralda to fight Strahd is just asking them to do what they were going to do anyway.
The choice of an ally isn't critical. There are some more "cool" choices but most of the allies don't have very special abilities and there doesn't seem to be a mechanism in the book that would make whoever the ally is actually mechanically useful in the final fight. If the ally in my group had made it to the final battle I would have had them be a distraction causing Strahd to lose an action here or there. The fact that the strength of the ally is variable just means that they really aren't considered a significant balancing factor in resolving the conflicts with Strahd.
In my game, the ally came up as the "Devil's Bride" ... Ireena Kolyana. The party met her in the village of Barovia and agreed to take her to a safer place when her brother asked. The priest in Barovia suggested the abbey at Krezk so Ireena tagged along with the party for a while.
However, when they reached Krezk, they naturally explored the village before going to the abbey and Ireena encountered the blessed pond resulting in her soul leaving the plane of dread forever and seriously irritating Strahd. Which solved my problem of what to do with the ally ... since they no longer have one :)
The cards you should take out are any that place the artifacts in Ravenloft. Pure random will get all of the items in the castle and screw the party.
Nah. Make sure the Sun Sword is in Ravenloft, and put at least one of the others in the Amber Temple. Otherwise they might get lucky and have things too easy (I guess you could put the sun sword in the Amber Temple).
I've always done the reading before start. That way I know what is coming/how to focus the game. This also lets me make the fudge or no decision without the players being at the table and seeing it.
Totally fudged/planned, but played out with the players thinking it's random. Slight of hand with the cards. Worked for me with the Deck of Many Things in the last campaign also.
The players don't know what the cards are supposed to mean so you can make the whole thing up. I did NOT want all the items to end up in Ravenloft. That would have been a huge bummer.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
1) i drew cards well ahead of time so i could plan better and make the card drawing more epic. still random, but gave me time to focus/prep and get the scenario i wanted.
2) i sent players individual emails in the weeks ahead of meeting with madam eva with nightmares their players were having (starting even before they hit the mist and got to barovia)...some detailing snippets out of the book describing strahd, some other scenes....so that one player or another would go 'omg, i had a dream about this' when they got to the event in-game. some emails were to the group and were shared dreams...some were to individuals with individual dreams - warlock had a convo with his patron, cleric from his god, etc. it was up to the players to share with the group. i made some extra cheesy videos of each card that the character dreamed about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu5u6W6jjEs (didn't work quite as intended as the card shows in the thumbnail and when the video is stopped, but whatever - they got the idea)
3) then i set the deck of cards up as a stripper deck and practiced shuffling/dealing until i could get the card i wanted, when i wanted it.->https://magicmakersinc.com/pages/stripper-deck.
4) as a bonus, i got each player a $5 gift card to the local game store and printed/pasted a card on each gift card envelope - each card going to the player with the corresponding dream.
4) when it came time to draw the cards, i got the giant clip-on earring from my Halloween pirate costume, put it on...and made a flourish of shuffling the deck / story telling and laid down the cards - appearing as if totally random, and flipped over the rest of the deck so they could see they were all mixed up. ...i then read the corresponding entry from the book to each player as i flipped over each card....Each player getting the card their character dreamed about.
...so rig it to what you want, but make it look random
Our DM decided to fudge or simply misread the reading for one of the artifacts locations. Probably didn't want us to skip one of the creepiest locations, thus the "Wizard" card suddenly pointed us to the Amber Temple instead of Tower at the Lake.
As a DM myself, I've noticed it. But can clearly understand the idea behind that decision. Also, I'm quite excited to try and survive a visit there, so no complaints here.
However, when it comes to giving a companion, as a DM I wouldn't fudge it, since it's quite exciting for me to get a random NPC to role-play him/her during the campaign. Except for "you get no companion" card. That one has to be removed from the deck completely.
In my preparation for running Curse of Strahd, I privately randomly did the tarroka reading ahead of time and stacked the deck so that I could smoothly do the reading as the NPC. It kept the random aspect of it for the party, but I wasn't having to stop every minute to look over what each card meant.
Hello DnDbeyond. (sorry for my English. I am doing my best with spelling and grammar) I am currently running a Curse of Strahd module and I am going to have Madam Eva card reading soon and I am in two minds. In one hand I realy like this randomness and unique script but in the other hand I want to do some cool stuff to my players. I want to choose an ally ethir Van Rikhten (or Ezmerelda) or Mordenkainen.
So basicaly my choise is:
+ Not to fudge
+ To fudge and take Van Rikhten
+ Ta fudge and take Ezmerelda
+ To fudge and take Mordenkainen
Why not fudging? It is a part of a story and I dont want to change it by will. I like this randomness. Fudging takes away charming of Story ad Written. Why fudging? Becouse there are cool charachters and I want to introdce them. I am sure that they wont even try to heal Mad Mage from his madness if they dont need to.
Why Mordenkainen? IT IS SO FREAKING COOL. Why not him? He is hella powerful and helps only with final battle wich means I'll fight with myself and it is hard + I make players feel like they are not a part of the story. It can be fixed tho~ I can just ask my friend (who is not a player in this campagin) to play with him.
Why Van Rikhten? He can help during whole game and he is a person who knows alot about killing vampires. By the way his stats are not OP. Why not him? He can help during whole game and this might feel like I am helping them as if they were small kids. Also he is not Mordenkainen himself!
Ezmerelda - (every word from Van Rikhten but female)
I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about this myself, and have decided when I eventually run this module I'll probably fudge it. If its the first time I, or any of the other players have played through it, I don't see the harm in just picking the outcomes that will give the most interesting and fun to run game possible. If I ran it a second time however, I wouldn't fudge it.
I drew cards before I started the campaign; if the PCs get their fortunes told (so far they've avoided anyone who might) I'll use my initial reading because I've used it for some planning.
I'm running three different groups through Curse of Strahd right now. I went back and forth on this issue as well. Ultimately, I decided to just let it be random. Just because the reading doesn't choose Ezmerelda, for example, doesn't mean the characters can't meet her and bring her along. It just means she doesn't get the "Inspire" feature when they face Strahd. But having the cards choose randomly actually helps you figure out how to focus the game. If you know they're going to have to visit Yester Hill because that's where something is hidden, then you know that you have to guide them through Barovia in a way that will lead them there.
The only thing I did do, is that I removed a few cards from the deck for locations I decided I didn't want to have in my game. For example, I removed the cards that involve the Old Bonegrinder and the Werewolf Den because I just didn't want to use those locations at all in my game. I also removed the cards that chose Arabelle, Vasilika, and Zuleika as the ally because I didn't want those to be options. So with those cards removed from the deck, I'm left still with a fair amount of randomness but I know they're not going to end up with something that I don't want to have in the game.
If you haven't run CoS before, then I would definitely fudge the reading. Or at the very very least, do it randomly in advance so you can plan and then repeat that drawing at the table. When and if you've run it once or twice, the randomization is what gives it its replay value. But you have too many other things to pay attention to DMing CoS the first time.
As for whom to choose, I'm personally not much of a lore junkie, so Special Guest Star Mordenkainen doesn't do much for me. Also, having someone who is around pretty often can serve the invaluable purpose of dumping exposition on your players or reminding them what they're trying to accomplish after a few weeks. I'd personally go with van Richten, just because you can keep him at the Inn in Rictavio disguise, which leads the PCs back to Vallaki more than once, which means the Lady Wachter/Baron Vallaki storyline gets to play out, either with their participation or in the background between visits.
Also, to your point about fighting against yourself if you're running a powerful NPC, I thought about that too. I decided that in the very likely chance that a player character dies, I'm going to give the player the option of running Mordenkainen, Ezmerelda, or Van Richten. Those are all really cool NPCs and I think a player could have a lot of fun running them instead of me. So I'm keeping that in my back pocket so I don't have to feel too bad about killing off any of the PC's.
I like this idea. I might even push it further and randomly assign someone a replacement character from the list of potential Enemies. Maybe you get the revenant paladin or the deadly assassin, maybe you get the nine year old child or the girl who thinks she's a cat and pees herself constantly. Good luck!
Thanks you all for helping. I really like some of your ideas especially about giving an opportunity to play as an NPC to a player. I’ve decided to fudge it and learn by heart answers to make it cooler. Also I’ll choose Van Rihten as an ally. Thanks
I've always drawn my cards live, but I have pre-drawn times and times again and read up to get a sense of of what path a particular combintion of cards might end up looking like. Either way, I find that the fated ally is much more memorable when they're less "special". It makes the players feel rewarded for finding them and makes them feel more protective of them too, whereas asking Van Richten or Ezmeralda to fight Strahd is just asking them to do what they were going to do anyway.
I am one with the Force. The Force is with me.
I would’ve picked Ezmerelda, but Van Richten is a good choice too.
The choice of an ally isn't critical. There are some more "cool" choices but most of the allies don't have very special abilities and there doesn't seem to be a mechanism in the book that would make whoever the ally is actually mechanically useful in the final fight. If the ally in my group had made it to the final battle I would have had them be a distraction causing Strahd to lose an action here or there. The fact that the strength of the ally is variable just means that they really aren't considered a significant balancing factor in resolving the conflicts with Strahd.
In my game, the ally came up as the "Devil's Bride" ... Ireena Kolyana. The party met her in the village of Barovia and agreed to take her to a safer place when her brother asked. The priest in Barovia suggested the abbey at Krezk so Ireena tagged along with the party for a while.
However, when they reached Krezk, they naturally explored the village before going to the abbey and Ireena encountered the blessed pond resulting in her soul leaving the plane of dread forever and seriously irritating Strahd. Which solved my problem of what to do with the ally ... since they no longer have one :)
The ally doesn't matter.
The cards you should take out are any that place the artifacts in Ravenloft. Pure random will get all of the items in the castle and screw the party.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Nah. Make sure the Sun Sword is in Ravenloft, and put at least one of the others in the Amber Temple. Otherwise they might get lucky and have things too easy (I guess you could put the sun sword in the Amber Temple).
i fuged to give them godfrey
I've always done the reading before start. That way I know what is coming/how to focus the game. This also lets me make the fudge or no decision without the players being at the table and seeing it.
Totally fudged/planned, but played out with the players thinking it's random. Slight of hand with the cards. Worked for me with the Deck of Many Things in the last campaign also.
The players don't know what the cards are supposed to mean so you can make the whole thing up. I did NOT want all the items to end up in Ravenloft. That would have been a huge bummer.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
1) i drew cards well ahead of time so i could plan better and make the card drawing more epic. still random, but gave me time to focus/prep and get the scenario i wanted.
2) i sent players individual emails in the weeks ahead of meeting with madam eva with nightmares their players were having (starting even before they hit the mist and got to barovia)...some detailing snippets out of the book describing strahd, some other scenes....so that one player or another would go 'omg, i had a dream about this' when they got to the event in-game. some emails were to the group and were shared dreams...some were to individuals with individual dreams - warlock had a convo with his patron, cleric from his god, etc. it was up to the players to share with the group. i made some extra cheesy videos of each card that the character dreamed about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu5u6W6jjEs (didn't work quite as intended as the card shows in the thumbnail and when the video is stopped, but whatever - they got the idea)
3) then i set the deck of cards up as a stripper deck and practiced shuffling/dealing until i could get the card i wanted, when i wanted it.->https://magicmakersinc.com/pages/stripper-deck.
4) as a bonus, i got each player a $5 gift card to the local game store and printed/pasted a card on each gift card envelope - each card going to the player with the corresponding dream.
4) when it came time to draw the cards, i got the giant clip-on earring from my Halloween pirate costume, put it on...and made a flourish of shuffling the deck / story telling and laid down the cards - appearing as if totally random, and flipped over the rest of the deck so they could see they were all mixed up. ...i then read the corresponding entry from the book to each player as i flipped over each card....Each player getting the card their character dreamed about.
...so rig it to what you want, but make it look random
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
Deck of Decks
Our DM decided to fudge or simply misread the reading for one of the artifacts locations. Probably didn't want us to skip one of the creepiest locations, thus the "Wizard" card suddenly pointed us to the Amber Temple instead of Tower at the Lake.
As a DM myself, I've noticed it. But can clearly understand the idea behind that decision. Also, I'm quite excited to try and survive a visit there, so no complaints here.
However, when it comes to giving a companion, as a DM I wouldn't fudge it, since it's quite exciting for me to get a random NPC to role-play him/her during the campaign. Except for "you get no companion" card. That one has to be removed from the deck completely.
No fudging, with an asterisk*
In my preparation for running Curse of Strahd, I privately randomly did the tarroka reading ahead of time and stacked the deck so that I could smoothly do the reading as the NPC. It kept the random aspect of it for the party, but I wasn't having to stop every minute to look over what each card meant.