13 ESSENTIAL Curse of Strahd DM Tips 🧛 (after I ran it 3 times) D&D 5e

i've run dnd fifth edition's  curse of strahd adventure campaign   three times for three different groups wow  in this video i want to impart to you 13   things that i wish i had done differently  in retrospect today on flutes loot i also have an article about this video if  you want to read what i have to say instead   or bookmark it for later there's a link to  that in the description below before i get   into my hindsight lessons what did i think i  did well i think i made travel seem risky and   i stopped doing random encounters after level 6  and made them all meaningful or just foreboding   i made the abbot and vasilka very creepy and  compelling and fighting the abbott was epic   players hated strahd after their first encounter  with him which was what i really wanted to nail   they were invested in beating him for the whole  campaign along with that i made sure that they   met strahd very early and that they had fairly  frequent visits from him or encounters with him   in some way throughout the campaign but  not too frequent i'm glad i didn't run   the dinner as strahd inviting them to the castle  to kill them but as a genuine way to feel them   out and just have some fun i accomplished this by  also having some other npcs invited to dinner that   the players had wronged so it was kind of a tense  dinner and it definitely ended in some bloodshed   from the dm's perspective i tried to have strahd  find reasons to admire the player characters   and have him be visibly and verbally disappointed  when he eventually wrote them all off as being   insignificant my players told me that barovia felt  alive to them like there was other things going on   and the paths they took also meant sacrificing not  doing things in other places that would proceed   without them we kept a good timeline and calendar  so they always knew how much time they had before   something else was gonna happen so they thought  okay do we have time to do this or do we need to   start heading over there they always felt urgency  about their decisions and their travels i did a   good job making the amber temple seem deadly  vast and claustrophobic and very mysterious   the swamp of berez was deadly mysterious and  eerie and then i also used lingering injuries by   using exhaustion rules side note on that if a  player loses an arm and they think oh i'm not   going to have an arm the rest of the game  don't forget madam ava has the regenerate   spell so you can have her do a really creepy  encounter with them where she gives them   their arm back that'll also show how powerful  madame eva is which will make him be like whoa   if you want any specifics on those that i really  enjoyed and how i accomplished those let me know   in the comments but let's get into my 13  regrets my tips for running curse of strahd i recommend minimizing player character  incorporation i kind of tried to overdo   it and it felt a little bit forced of  me trying to make their backstories   suddenly have meaning in barovia the feedback i  got from players the beginning of the campaign   was they said they didn't really feel like they  had a reason to be there but they were having   fun but like their character backstory wasn't  giving them motivation other than just like their   character personality and not liking strahd but  then after i started using their backstories they   said it felt a bit forced because at that point  they said they had found kind of like their way   in barovia and found their own motivations so  getting player feedback actually worked against   me i'm not saying that they were wrong to give  that feedback it was just kind of me being like   too late and situations change and so yeah  instead i recommend trying to find themes or   echoes of their backstory that they can try to  find a resolution or a victory in barovia that   they couldn't in their real life whether it be a  bad relationship with their parents a sibling that   they lost or a lover that they regret they can  find echoes of those themes in barovia you almost   get them to get a second chance for someone else  kinda like andrew garfield's spider-man in the   no way home spider-man movie where he got to  redeem himself for what happened to gwen stacy don't homebrew excessively and read the book  i've heard some people say you shouldn't read the   book or stress yourself out on that but i really  recommend at least browsing through it you don't   have to read like every room of argenvost holt but  i recommend you get the macro ideas in your head   and the general npcs in every area if you know  at least something about each area then you're   going to be good to go with reading the book and  don't stop reviewing it because there are going   to be details you missed that are really fun if  you include those and there's so much homebrew   content for curse of strahd on the internet that  it can get kind of overwhelming and actually kind   of make it a bit of an amalgamation of too many  things i felt myself almost go for too far into   home brewing and i kind of took a step back and  worked with what i had and i found there was a   lot of richness already there for me to explore  dragnacarta recently ran a campaign where he did   curse of strahd as written and he didn't deviate  from what the book said at all if you don't know   who he is he did curse of strahd reloaded he also  writes on our website flutesloot.com and he's   a very intelligent good writer and he's  very skilled as a dm you can check out his   stream curse of strahd twice bitten which recently  concluded it's a very role-play heavy play-through   and i highly recommend it but kind of the  hypothesis behind starting that stream was   he believed that there wasn't a lot of homebrew  needed to enjoy curse of strahd as a gothic   horror adventure after seeing them play through  roleplay heavy i have to agree that there is a   lot there in the book if you just know what's  in it there is also a lot of fun online i'm   not saying don't use any of it but don't go too  far and i think you'll kind of feel when you're   going too far because you'll start to forget  what's actually in the book and you lose track   of what's the homebrew and what's not it's very  subjective to say how much is too much homebrew   but just think to yourself don't do it  too much and you will have a great time   one of the players i had in the game is now a dm  for a group she took a system and i said don't use   homebrew but here's some homebrew for you a system  based on darkest dungeon the video game and it   makes it so there are sources of stress in barovia  that are tied to the backstories of the player   characters when they encounter those things they  experience stress and there's a certain degree of   stress that the dm keeps secret before they start  to have bad things happen to their sanity they go   mad and you know bad things happen the reason  i say this is valuable is because sometimes   i would have creepy ominous things happen in the  campaign but it would often be like this is really   ahmed and i would describe it and they'd be like  that was creepy but then it just kind of like all   right so let's move on let's get to the place  we're going it would be more impactful if they   found that every place they explored could be a  source of stress for them so everywhere they go   is kind of risky but it also teaches them to  role play those moments if they have a moment   of stress that is tied to their backstory that's  a trigger for them to say role play this moment   the dm i'm talking about she said that it has  made the players really role play and embrace   the horror of barovia and not just think that they  are all mighty adventurers who are destined to   beat everything but actually feel like they're  in a really tough spot it's got the core so   that really feeds into that makes me happy  there's also a suggested sanity and madness system   in the dungeon master's guide but there's also  rules for sphere and stress that were added and   van richton's guide to ravenloft which was  not out when i ran curse of strahd i highly   recommend checking those out to give you kind of a  baseline for what you might do for your own sanity   and madness system without having to homebrew too  much because there's already some rules for it   give vampire spawns personalities and attitudes  these are former adventurers or former barovians   who have been turned into vampires but often  they just get treated as another monster that's   being thrown at the characters in the module they  don't have personalities given to them i highly   recommend just writing out a list of maybe some  former adventurers that adventure together for   some of these vampire spawn encounters and then  they get upset when one of their former party   members gets destroyed in their vampire form  because they've been vampires forever they fell   and now they're corrupted but they still  get angry when that relationship is severed   their friend gets killed killed again you know but  in vampire form one of my favorite curse of strahd   commentating youtube channels is pyram  king and he gave this advice a lot and   i saw dragnacarta do it in his stream  as well it's just a must-have you need   to give personalities to the vampire spawns so  every vampire feels significant to the players accentuate that barovia is a soul trap and dying  there makes your fate horrible if you're an elf   and you realize that your cycle of  reincarnation is going to be severed   because you've been brought to barovia  and it's almost like a doom looms over you   because the way that you used to count on being  reincarnated and being an elf forever you could   have suddenly die forever and that's something  elves would panic about you know those are the   sorts of things that should be played up you  should make it clear that cobalts that usually   are concerned with their reincarnation cycle as  well or if they die a glorious death maybe one   day they can be a dragon suddenly those characters  care way more than they are in barovia and it's   not just some creepy place they're in it's a soul  trap and it's almost like they have been doomed   just because they've been brought there and the  source of that doom is strahd von zarovich and   eventually the dark powers but strahd's the one  that chose to bring them here suddenly players   might be tempted to join the werewolves or  become werewolves or do anything to gain   power as they try to dethrone strahd so they  can escape this horrible fate that they are in hint at strahd's return if they defeat  him by using the gulthias tree and death   house a lot of people skip death house but i  realized the gulthias tree is a good example   of this it's at the ester hill and if it is  destroyed but its roots are not rooted out   then it just starts to grow back as this vampiric  tree this should not be something that is hidden   from your players make it clear to them and  i would even use it as a point of exposition   you can implant the idea in their minds that  this tree looks like it's felled it's gone   you're free from its influence but you also feel  that it will return as if it's an inevitable evil   it makes you wonder about strahd himself and this  plane of existence this domain of dread is there   really any way out and is it forever if you do  escape something like that can really get the   players thinking and then if you choose to keep  the ending as written where strahd will always   return and there's not a way to make his death  permanent to dethrone him or something like that   then i highly recommend letting the players kind  of know that's going to happen so it's not just a   surprise like oh we killed him and we escaped and  he just comes back you know whatever you know like   i'd like to kind of foreshadow that a little bit  more i guess what i'm getting at and i mentioned   death house death house rebuilds itself and acts  like nothing ever happened and so it can be the   same kind of thing hinting at strahd's eventual  return of course if you're home brewing that there   is a way to dethrone strahd entirely which i did  do then this can be the beginning of seeding the   idea that you need to find a permanent way  to defeat him and not just a temporary one remove the road to yester hill it's supposed to  be like this wilderness druid overgrown place   and they're the enemies of the winery but it's  just up the road and who's maintaining this road   no one's trading with them and they're always  like covered in mud like creeping through the   forest why would there be a road that just  seems strange so i would just take out that   road i know it's a weird example but just get  rid of the road and make wilderness travel   to yester hill far creepier because they're not  just on a road they need to navigate these woods   and they probably see a bunch of blair witch type  symbology to signify that they're getting close to   this druidic domain describe the stinging nettle  and the thick mud and the thunderstorm beginning   to gather strength that you seem to be sitting  over yester hill don't miss that opportunity give anonymous notes and letters players will  always suspect strahd is giving them false   information when he gives them information if he  writes them a letter they will think that there   is something two-faced about it i've heard many  people say that strahd at dinner could say oh   have you found the traitor amongst you yet but  players are typically just gonna met a game and   say like well none of us are a traitor so he's  just lying he's trying to turn us against each   other or something like that some players might  wonder but in general i found a lot of players if   i tried to sow discord amongst them or distrust  that it didn't really work just because of the   meta of the game but if you give them letters  or clues from unsigned letters or from people   who they don't even know just some nobody hands  them a letter saying i was paid to give you this   and it gives them misinformation about an npc  then that's a whole different story because you   want to sew rumors about who's a strahd spy  strahd is strahd and the players are players   but everyone else they don't know who to trust  they don't know what the truth is behind certain   people so that's where you can really have  fun is sowing discord between the party and   the npcs that they think they can trust or get  them to trust someone that they really shouldn't set up strahd spies to interact with the party it  is so important to have wolves and bats and creepy   crawlies watching the party all the time strahd is  not omnipresent he relies on spies who need to go   report to him he doesn't see through their eyes  at least not as the module writes the adventure   but he's very interested in what they're doing so  he spies on them and then there are also people   who are spying on them it could be a vistani or  someone planted into valaki but just think of a   few spies and give them a persona and a goal and a  reason that they are strahd spies it doesn't take   too long to just throw up a couple little ideas  and if the party ever sees that person watching   them around the corner while they're in town if  they want to go after that person and catch them   you actually have someone prepared it's not just  generic spy with no name number two and then the   animals could also be strahd himself spying on  them every wolf or bat they see they might start   to assume it's just a wolf or a bat but sometimes  they should see a bat that is spying on them and   they think oh it's just one of the spies maybe  they try to take a shot at it with an arrow   but they feel overwhelmed to stop because strahd  can use his charm ability while he's a bat   and you might message one of them privately like  you should try to get the your allies to not shoot   at that bat they might say like oh don't harm  the little thing you know it might seem innocent   because the other players won't know that that  person's been charmed you can have some real fun   with this and then when they try to shoot a bat  and it turns out to be strahd himself and he mocks   them for their paltry attack you could definitely  set up some fun encounters based on that baba lysaga's tree of hanging heads i noticed  there was a death's head tree monster in ravenloft   in the past and i haven't seen it in 5e material  but it's basically a tree that is hostile and   attacks people and then their heads remain hanging  from the tree it's super creepy and baba lysaga   already has this whomping willow type hut that  does massive damage i would just put a lot of   heads in the tree and maybe a lot of dead ravens  as well for the martikovs that have been slain   by baba lysaga or maybe not ravens but maybe it's  them in their hybrid raven form which could hint   to the players that there are wereravens because  there's a bunch of heads that look like half raven   half human in the tree or just make them human  and it's the martikov's heads especially if you   bring any of the martikovs with you to babila  saga's home and they see their deceased loved   ones in the tree that's gonna really mess him up  it's gonna be really creepy i'm blanking on the   name of her right now but there's a martikov woman  who kind of keeps watch over the standing stones   at the swamp and keeps an eye on things i chose  to make her someone who had lost her children   and husband to baba lysaga's swamp and so she's  kind of made it her job to just keep an eye on   the place hoping for vengeance one day and that  was one thing i was really happy with players were   able to get a lot of info from her if they found  her and trusted her the keyword being entrusted   her but i think i was a missed opportunity to not  do the death's head tree from old ravenloft lore activate vistani curses i tried to be too optimal  as a dm and often times i'd think oh it's not a   good idea for this vistani to use this curse  because of the downside and all that stuff   but i should have just used it more i should have  made the vistani embrace their their mystic curse   that they can put on people just use that more  often whether it be artigal or esmerelda i just   wish i'd use the vistani's curses more they're  interesting i watched the movie the lighthouse   with willem dafoe and robert pattinson and i loved  willem dafoe's monologue where he invokes a curse   on his companion robert pattinson for saying he  didn't enjoy the way he cooked his lobster and   they were butting heads a lot and he invoked  neptune in the sea to curse him and oh it's so   good and i wish the vistani i had used them to  invoke really scary curses on people and their   eyes are lighting up like they're possessed you  know and that just would have been really fun if   you're not sure what to do with those curses  to make them more fun van rickton's guide to   ravenloft has rules for curses that are worth  reviewing and i highly recommend checking it out use strahd's charm ability liberally look at that  ability in his stat block then read it again it   can be used on the same creature over and over  again until the creature succumbs to the charm   most charms say like oh they're immune for 24  hours after they pass the saving throw no not this   he can just sit there charming them over and over  again this can be used in the early game to just   stare down people until they finally succumb and  then they finally start to see him as a friend and   maybe someone to admire and someone to trust and  ask your players to try to role play that that can   show just how much deception might lie in barovia  because someone they trust at one point might   suddenly become charmed by and that's when they  get the false information that blinsky is really   a spy for strahd and they go talk to blinsky  and he just sings the praises of strahd and it   sets him up to appear to be a spy or someone they  cannot trust so strahd can play people against the   players in that way not only that but in combat  at the final boss fight for example strahd can   just keep phasing through walls while he's healing  until he eventually charms everyone in the party   so that they no longer want to fight and then he  can lure them to some trapped location you can   do a lot of horrible things with the charm ability  he has and that is how you play up how dangerous a   vampire is and how depraved they are this is the  kind of person strahd is he uses people and he   manipulates them no one can take his place because  no one else is worthy and he will liberally use   this charm ability i mentioned earlier that he  can use it even when he's transformed into a bat   or a wolf so he doesn't ever stop using it when  he invites them to dinner if you want them to   have dinner with him and it's not just a trap for  him to kill them he'd probably try to charm all of   them while they're eating and they're a captive  audience and then they'll spend the evening   talking as friends they'll share their secrets  with him maybe they'll go dance with him and his   wives for the evening as well and maybe eventually  they'll allow them to just have a little bite that   evening and everyone just gets a little vampire  bite and a taste of how horrible that is as their   hit points get trained and later they realize  what happened to them and in the moment it was   like ecstasy they were so happy to be noticed  by senpai strahd von zarovich but then feel   completely violated later this is a lot better  than going taking it in like a sexual direction   which some people tend to go with vampires i don't  like to talk about that kind of stuff in my games   and most players i know don't want to go there  either and then you get into stuff like sexual   assault and you know all kinds of things that  people have actually been through that could be   lines that they just don't want to deal with when  they're playing a game with their friends and so   make sure that your players are okay with these  sorts of things if you're going to do them in   the game even if they're just kind of alluding to  other things or they're symbolic of other things and then my number one lesson  learned is that i should have given   players encouragement and opportunity to explore  castle ravenloft most of the book curse of strahd   is that castle but players saw it as oh you don't  go to castle ravenloft unless you're ready for the   boss fight that's how they saw it like that's the  end game it's dangerous it's like a dungeon but   i wish i had shown them there are secrets to be  held there and encourage them to go there sooner   other than just the dinner because when they go  there for the final fight there's usually not   a lot going on in a way of for them to explore it  kind of escalates quickly into the final fight but   there's so much going on in castle ravenloft that  is fun to reveal or fun for them to encounter and   it's just fun to explore that castle for them i  wish i had done that more so the bottom line is if   i run this again i will 100 percent make it clear  to the players that it's not a death sentence   if they go to castle ravenloft it does not end the  campaign then when they do have the final battle   and it seems like the castle is working against  them and they see how haunted it was even though   they've been there before like it's not just  a fight with strahd it's a fight with strahd   and castle ravenloft like they are one symbiotic  entity i've also talked to people on reddit and   said where do you do the final fight based on  madame eva's reading where can they find strahd   some people said and this was an interesting idea  because mine were always like in the lower levels   or they happened outside the castle because of the  way the first campaign went but the other two they   ended up in the dungeons down below the catacombs  but the the idea that they supposed online   was to have them fight strahd starting at the very  top of the castle where it's raining and there's   lightning and then you treat the fight as phases  so when they start to hurt him too much and he's   going to retreat so that he can heal he goes down  a level and they have to go fight him but castle   ravenloft kind of fights them along the way and  wears them down and then when they find him again   he's like a full health again and they gotta chase  him down again and it just like different phase   of the fight keep taking them lower and lower  maybe the elevator trap gets used against them   if you're going to use that that would split them  up but eventually they end up in the catacombs and   they fight and they see strahd's smokey misty  self go to his crypt and there they can try to   end him for good or so they think that way they  get a whole tour of the castle for this combat   but that's obviously a lot of work i know not  every group is going to have that work for them   or they might get tired of it by then but it  is an idea that i highly recommend you consider   where do you want this final fight to happen  what meaning is going to be in that location   i also really like to stick to the card reading  and just see where they get placed to find strahd   for the final fight but the final fight can  definitely travel and you can have certain   places that strahd's going to take them that it's  going to have meeting and he can have different   monologues that can really make the last fight a  lot more fun than just wandering in one location   like it's just the usual boss fight in a room  not only that but if it ends in the catacombs   strahd can be going in and out of the different  crypts that are down there and some of them can be   pretty dangerous that the players try to go in to  like get at strahd while he's inside one of those   they can fall into traps get teleported strahd  should use these traps that are in his castle   and i think that would be a lot more fun learn  the castle and get the players to explore it and   then use it to the utmost as you can for the final  fights and all the encounters along the way what   tips do you have if you run curse of strahd or  what questions do you have if you're in the middle   of it or thinking of running it i've got a few  other curse of strahd videos and articles too they   take me a while because i try to be very in-depth  one of my fun ones was i went through every single   one of the destined allies and just kind of raided  their abilities and that sort of thing that might   be fun for you and i hope you have a great  adventure this weekend i'll see you later bye

Channel: Flutes Loot

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Keywords: D&D, DND, dungeons & dragons, roleplaying, rollplaying, roll play, role play, DM, GM, game master, dungeon master, 5th edition, 5e, 5 edition, PC, advice, advise, optimized, optimize, optimization, rules explained, TTRPG, tabletop RPG, flutes, flutz, flute, lute, loot, curse of strahd, von zarovich, running cos, vistani, adventure module, tips, lessons, tree of heads, yester hill, gulthias tree, death house, soul trap, homebrew, reddit, customization, letters, spies, backstory, charm, vampire, dread

Id: HhpDlzpEs70

Length: 21min 23sec (1283 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 22 2022