New Woke Novel Destroys Ravenloft

The new Ravenloft novel shows that no one involved knows anything about heroic fantasy or victorian horror, and makes a woke mockery of the setting. #dnd5e
#dnd #ttrpg #osr

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[LeeroyPorkins]

I actually want to see Strahd knock over the Wheelchair Paladin, yell "LOOKS LIKE YOU'VE POPPED A WHEELIE!", and then run away laughing like Skeletor.

[VisionStorm]

In real Ravenloft all of these characters would be lynched by a mob panicky villagers thinking monsters were about to invade the town.

[ColdWarTuesday]

This ends with a TPK upon entering Barovia. The party is captured. The bird is defeathered and cooked. The town has been suffering a famine. The three on the right are burned alive for being demons. The woman crucified.

[bopaintsminis]

It's not Bram Stoker.

It's Scooby Doo.

[DarkAutumnScribe]

I made the comment about this novel on a different board: it looks like Strahd is the principal of a middle school in a bad 80s Saturday teen comedy…

[Richforce]

I don't think D&D will get back to normal heroic fantasy, but that's ok the OSR will have that covered.

[MatthewCenance]

Wait, that was a novel shown in Diversity and Dragon's video?

As for that claim in the description about the novel writers not understanding horror, it's obvious the D&D 5e writers didn't understand it when writing the Curse of Strahd and Ravenloft setting books. A lot of the horror elements such as corruption from using the evil Dark Powers didn't show up in the books there either.

[TheGenericavatar]

I'm surprised they didn't make Strahd a trans-woman (who never had the benefit of hormone blockers in a pre-industrial society) and/or a PoC (vampire of color?) that would be wrong for the PCs to slay.

[TheRedRoomChannel]

Thanks for the shout-out! This Seattleloft thing sounds like anything but Gothic horror.

[MatthewCenance]

7:27 Those guys look like up and coming Darklords, already corrupted by the Dark Powers.

[crankysmurf]

It's hard to have a scary gothic horror from the Ravenloft campaign setting if the players keep raising their X cards and skipping entire parts of the adventure...

[steelmongoose]

The absurdity of this self-obsessed postmodernism is nowhere more visible than in the insistence that fantasy worlds be remade to reflect that worst things in the modern world.

[WayneBraack]

I have two 2e Ravenloft boxed sets and a host of modules and extras. If I was to DM again and run Ravenloft it would absolutely be deadly and have potential diminishing pc sanity in it.

[LeonardHarris]

I keep saying modern writers are like writing fan fiction except they're not actually fans of the source material.

[andrewthomas]

Evil benefits greatly by having us think it doesn’t exist but goodness never benefits by hiding itself

[sand]

I wish they have the same results with the new rpg sensibilities that Concord & Dustborn have had with the pc & console gamers

[mlfetlesjdrenbref]

Thanks for this video. Being a HUGE fan of Ravenloft 1e & 2e and the novels, this one gets me. All the other products of WOTC (even the two Ravenloft RPG books) just made me roll my eyes and proved me right for not supporting them and buy OSR and Independent products. But this cover, this... thing... that's the first time that I actually feel angry. I still read the PN Elrod and Christie Golden novels, I still play 1e and 2e Ravenloft. The team on the cover of the new novel would have been the "comic-relief-cannon-fodder" for an intro of one of my games; brutally murdered by an average Random Encounter.
And my poor Strahd, once so Gracefull, Dangerous, Mighty lord, turned into a dollar store cosplayer.
Anyway, enough rants, thanks for the video.

[drivinganddragons]

Diversity and Dragons had a good video today about this phenomenon.

The short version is TTRPG players or even just gamers are no longer the target audience. This is all made for the players that tourists call tourists.

[troybrewster]

To me it's the humanoid selection. Ravenloft is heavily based on xenophobia and superstition. If it's got horns it dies. That kenku is gonna have a hell of a time in Barovia all the others would probably be burned at the stake for flaunting magic. They just don't understand these days.

[TheGenericavatar]

An entire adventure built around everybody being Hungry Hungry Hippos? o_O!

How the heck does a Kenku make a viable cleric??? They can't say prayers unless they heard somebody else say that prayer 24 hours or less ago and they can't say the verbal components of spells unless they heard somebody else say it in the last 24 hours.