Sunday, January 16, 2011

Castle Ravenloft Adventure: Hunt for the Fiend

Well, as promised, I am releasing my Castle Ravenloft Campaign, "Hunt for the Fiend", which is the proof-of-concept design that will show you, by example, how to build compelling adventures to extend the lifespan of the Dungons and Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game.

Within is an indication of the level of complexity, scalability, and narrative feel that you can very easily add into the game without changing the "core game" rules.  Others have opted to rewrite the rules to the game, effectively obsoleting the included rulebook and reference cards. I believe this to be a barrier to entry for new players as well as causing paradoxes with existing players who already know Ravenloft and how to play it. 

While it's fun to design and play your own version of a game, this 3-adventure narrative campaign seems the best way to increase the complexity of the game without breaking it by changing the core rules. The fact is that the game was designed to fill a certian gap in the market, the light dungeon crawl, and by changing the order of actions, the allowable actions per turn, and any other factor, the game slowly inches away from the core concept of being an easily accessible light dungeon crawl. I consciously chose to leave the core alone and just work within the confines of the adventure rules themselves.

I do not wish to hear about "balance" in this campaign, because the fact is that what separates a good game from a great game is the ability for the game to throw you curveballs and "Kobiyashi Maru" moments that are exciting, engaging, and most importatly, memorable. I've done my level best to make this very difficult, although winnable, and virtually the entire campaign is scalable based on the number of players.

Without further delay, I am quite proud to offer you this campaign for your enjoyment:
http://www.box.net/shared/11dyod630i

4 comments:

CitizenBen said...

Fantastic idea. I have been trying to put together a set of 'adventures' for use with the Castle Ravenloft 'tool set' built around the Dr. Mordenheim and his 'monster' Adam from the old Domains Of Dread supplement. Your version of a 'module' is really inspiring me to get back to it and finish it.
I can't wait to try your module with my group.

=+=SuperflyTNT=+= said...

I'm an old D&D guy myself, although I haven't played (or wanted to) in 18 years or so. I always liked the concept of modules, and that's what I came into this thinking of.

Now that I've painted my wee brawlers...Ravenloft is really a crapload of fun to play.

Anyhow, thanks for the kind words, and bring me some feedback! So far people have been pretty happy with it, so I'm hoping you'll dig it.

Alcidas said...

Excellent work and thank you!

Anonymous said...

Nice job. Looking forward to playing this.
(A BGG user who appreciates your work)