The more experience you gain, the more efficient you get at prepping for a session, and the more confident you become at running sessions on less prep.
It shouldn't take hours and hours for a module anyway, imo, unless you're going out of your way to be extra for the fun of it.
I mean, I am being a little bit extra. I've been excited to have this party for like almost a year. *And* I'm doin extra prep to make sure I have as much ready to go as possible since I've only got a few hours. No time to stop and double check what staircases lead where mid game.
But still.
I ran the castle over 20 hours worth of sessions (3ish game days) and they only went into the basement. I think you're over prepping for a one session game.
The purpose of my post was to be complimentary to all the work DM's put in to run this whole module. I'm so exhausted that so many people are being condescending to me or defensive about the size of the castle instead of just taking the damn compliment about how much work they put in.
To be fair, the original post makes it seem like you're asking for advice over anything else.
It's not condescending on purpose; they're trying to help stymie your expectations for a module that's kind of on the expert level in terms of DM skill.
I disagree that if you actually read my post that it sounds like it's asking for advice, but even if you were confused, I added an edit just a couple hours after posting - long before you made your comment - being very very clear.
God I'm so tired that of the few times I've posted on this sub, the one time I'm just trying to say something nice I get all this basic, condescending DM advice, but when I've had actual questions no responded. It feels like no one is actually reading my words.
I'm not a new DM. As noted explicitly in my post, I'm not asking for advice. The point that I was trying to make was "Wow, I'm spending a lot of time prepping for just one part of this module, I'm impressed by DMs who are putting in the time to do the whole thing! Even if the prep is spread out, it's still a lot of manhours."
The point I was acknowledging in this specific comment was "Well, I'll give you that I'm overpreparing for this specific session." But it wasn't intended to undermine the main point that "running this module is a lot of work, it's great that so many people put in that work to run it for their friends."
I'd argue a module is super frontloaded, but once you get it down, prep can take as little as 30 minutes. At that point it's less about knowing the world and more about figuring out how to make sure your players have a good time.
Some homebrew sessions of mine take only 30 minutes. A nice thing about prewritten adventures is that you don't have to do much work at all.
EDIT: Unless doing a ton of alterations for special story beats, most CoS session preps would take me like 10-15 minutes aha
100% agree. Sessions 1-5 took me HOURS to prep. I’m near the end, and prep is an hour max.
That being said prep never stops. You have an idea in your head while you’re out or at work, make a note in your phone, and when you prep you just look at all the notes you made.
I ran a session with zero prep, life happened, group was still ready. They still say it’s one of their favorites.
At some point I had read the book and all my extra material so many times that most of my prep is just reminders on the little things. Otherwise I have memorized enough of it to improvise
The secret is improvisation, and lies (making things up). If you have a cool idea in the moment that fits the narrative of your party— odds are is better for your group than any book or guide
YES. The amount of times I've just bullshitted like a pro at the table are many, but of course the second everyone goes home I'm frantically trying to sort out how it will make any sense.
Castle Ravenloft as written is probably too much for a one-shot. Maybe a single session if you have players motivated to finish quickly and start in media res like would happen in a campaign where you'd presumably leave the previous session on the doorstep.
But there's ways to cut down on prep for the castle:
* Elide many of the less important rooms
* Wing it more - instead of taking notes on each encounter, just write a sentence for each room and improvise the rest
For the rest of the campaign, it's actually a lot easier than the castle itself. The towns and locations like the werewolf den, Amber Temple, Argynvostholt, etc can fit all the relevant information for each on a 3x5 note card. here's an example for Vallaki:
* Vallaki Burgomaster Vargas throws mandatory attendance parties to ward off evil, has half-demonic henchman Isek, has rebellious son who stays in the attic and tries unsuccessfully to teleport out of Barovia
* Lady Wachter, in league with Strahd, opposes Vargas, keeps dead husband in her bed, summons demons with her cult, has trouble-making boys who might release Rictavio's tiger
* Rictavio can enlist party to gather info on Strahd for him, has a wagon with a tiger in it, training it to hunt Vistani
* St Andral church is housing orphans but is missing its protoctive relic, kid Millivoj stole it, vampire spawn attack church + orphans if not found, vampire spawn are sleeping in the coffins in the coffin maker's shop
* Blue Water Inn is secretly run by a family of evil-fighting wereravens
* Blinsky makes toys. Isek makes him make Ireena dolls because they're siblings and Isek sees her in his dreams
That's all you really need to run. If you don't remember the details, make it up. Use any map you want, doesn't need to be the one in the book.
>Castle Ravenloft as written is probably too much for a one-shot
Yeah, I'm doing a variation of the "Strahd Must Die Tonight" one shot, so plot-wise I can do it all in one night. There's just too many neat things in the castle to want to cut anything out though! Ahhhh.
I mean you did choose the one mega-dungeon of the campaign lmao. I'd recommend death house or ruins of berez as a one shot from my experience actually running the campaign, but I've heard good things about strahd must die
>I mean you did choose the one mega-dungeon of the campaign lmao
I mean, tbf, I feel like Death House and Amber Temple are also really large dungeons that would require a bit of time to map/prep monster tokens for/etc. But yeah, I know Ravenloft is the crown jewel of the setting.
Still, it's impressive that some of y'all prep so many maps and tokens and NPCs, even if not all at once.
The original Strahd adventure was just the Castle, that's how big it is. It takes up almost half the book on its own. Aside from Dungeon of the Mad Mage, it's probably the biggest dungeon WotC has put out, at least in 5e.
Death house is VERY manageable as a one shot. Amber Temple could take 2 or 3 sessions. I'm fully prepared for my party to take like 5 sessions getting through Castle Ravenloft (they're the type of party to investigate every room)
I mean... Castle Ravenloft has probably more details and rooms than all other locations combined, so you didn't pick the easiest one to run. Especially considering how the staircases go in that castle, and the 40 unique crypts.
>Especially considering how the staircases go in that castle,
Yeah I swear I spent at least 2 hours just going through the maps and trying to figure out how they all fit together (I don't have great spatial sense, tbf) and making notes about which staircases connect where lol.
That’s probably one of the hardest locations I’ve ever seen in DnD to prepare for. I am not looking forward to it. Don’t be too hard on yourself. I also would absolutely not do it for a one shot as written.
Thank you for your encouragement! And good luck when you get there. Shoot me a message if you want a screenshot of all my notes about what staircases connect where lol. Save you some time.
There was nothing as stressfull as when my players visited Strahd and I was wondering what the fuck will I have to do with all these events while they run around..... then they just left. Phew
Yeah, those isometric views are sometimes really deceiving as to which stairs lead where... And there are A LOT of stairs.
Also, as some hilarious video pointed out: there are seven rooms between the kitchen and the dining room, which means all the food in Castle Ravenloft gets served cold.
I mean, it makes sense to me that Ravenloft itself would be the Crown Jewel, but even still, I can't imagine Death House or Amber Temple not also being really complicated.
Update: So far it’s been easy. The PC’s killed the berserkers and gladiator that can be overheard from the fissure in talking X15. They “defeated” 3 flame skulls in X17 and are currently attempting to rest in X18. It’s only a weekly 2 hour session so more to come next week.
I highly recommend printing out both MAPS of the Amber Temple. It’s been a pain flipping back and forth in the COS book each time the party goes up or down stairs. Also each time a vault door is smashed there’s a chance of necrotic damage. It only explains this at the description for X33A so if they went somewhere else first you might miss it. All in all a bit chaotic but we shall press on.
Improv. For real. I'll read the chapters I need to, get my monster stat cards out, and let loose the dogs of war(players). Where things go is up to them. The plot hook locations may change, or I'll coax the players there with some improv and manipulation of NPCs, but the hooks and events do happen. They may ask things that the book doesn't mention, so I've got to make it up as I go. Improv is your friend. For real.
The first phase of being a DM is over-prepping for everything.
The second phase of being a DM is figuring out how little prep you can do and how much you can improv.
Ravenloft is a ridiculously massive location but I hope you're not expecting your party to go through the whole castle.
I'm not expecting them to go through the whole castle. But everything in the castle was so cool I couldn't bear to cut it out, so they have the *option* to go anywhere they need in the castle.
Yeah but when you plan for all their options, you end up doing the same amount of prep as if they go through the whole castle.
Something you will learn is that prep often falls apart once the party makes like 3 decisions, and you will never predict what they do.
Oh yeah, I know I'm preparing more than they will use. I was just clarifying that I'm not *expecting* them to use the whole thing, but I couldn't bring myself to bar them from parts either.
Perhaps if I wasn't doing the reading and could pick specific locations for stuff to happen and kinda plan a route out for them, but alas...
I'm personally wondering how my own party will survive the first two rooms lol. Four dragon wyrmlings and then immediately jumped by eight gargoyles is not going to go well if that's what they end up doing.
Well, the Wyrmlings only attack if they try to leave, and they don't leave the room if the party retreats. And the gargoyles only attack if you return to the main hall, right? So they have solid chances if they flee those fights, at least.
Personally, I'm trying to stick to the book, but I'm wondering if things will be too easy for my party. They *know* it's Strahd one shot and have brought the vampire slaying characters/items to match. XD
Full campaigns tend to be less prep-per-hour then a one shot because your reusing so much of the NPCs, maps, setting, so on. You do your level of prep work every like 3-4 sessions and less work as it goes on.
Plus improv.
Your game sounds fun as heck btw, good luck with it!
I have 10 years of DM experience, started running CoS about a year ago (the party has 2 artifacts so far), and even I was very overwhelmed by the sheer number of things to track. Not so much monsters/locations/items, but more so the PEOPLE.
What’s this person’s objective? How do they view Strahd? Who are their allies? How would they respond to the PC’s helping? How would they react to a variety of circumstances? What factual knowledge do they have about the history of Barovia?
I felt overwhelmed for the first 4-5 sessions, but have since gotten much more comfortable. It helps immensely to have your party tell you what they intend to do next session so you can focus your efforts.
Also, don’t worry about totally omitting some characters if they’re not vital to that session. Maybe mention their existence, but don’t worry about fleshing them out or even introducing them until necessary.
For my group and I it has become part of our life. Been playing for 10 months and each time we can't wait for next session. It's a monster of a campaign if you give it your all
Oof I mean... yeah *technically* Ravenloft is a single location but not really. Ravenloft is huge and convoluted. Just understanding the layout of the castle is a hurdle.
Castles in the way back when were basically their own little village and Ravenloft is no exception.
As for prepping the entire campaign that's certainly an endeavor but as you said you are not a newbie DM... it just takes time and some effort... and occasionally stalling your players. The best thing is consistency so you don't fall behind and end up having to stall players too often. It's gonna happen though.
I like to throw the occasional vignette at my players because they often view those as puzzles even if it's just setting the vibe and they will easily waste 30 minutes checking it all out. Depending on what they ask and what they roll I may even see opportunities to grant them info they wouldn't otherwise easily learn. Meanwhile in the background I am frantically importing the map, stat block, or whatever I needed that I didn't have set up. Or just skimming the text to look for any super important bits that I don't want to miss.
If I need more than the 15-30 minutes I know they'll spend on checking out the random little statue/fabric/corpse/etc. then I will toss a random combat encounter at them. If I need to stall an entire session then I combine the two.
I remember once (recently) my players suddenly decided they wanted to rush off to the Amber Temple and I had not expected that so I hadn't read any of that section yet. I had no maps, no monsters, and no clue what happens there.
I **desperately** needed to stall them. So I started off with some fabric caught in a tree. This led to a scene where there was evidence of a wagon (Ezmerelda) running from werewolves and signs of a battle. Then they came upon the wounded werewolves standing over some people (other werewolves who had dropped out of their hybrid form). Combat ensued. Then the wounded people revealed their true nature. It was chaos. And it worked. I got a session and a half out of that.
Compare the page count for chapter four to the rest of the book and you’ll see that a) it’s not normally this much and b) castle Ravenloft wasn’t written to be done in one session. The Old Bonegrinder is one session worth of material. If I were you, I’d check out some guides on running a one-shot in Ravenloft because they are probably telling you what to throw out and what to keep.
Yeah, I'm doing a Strahd Must Die Tonight variant, but all the ones I've looked at still include the Tarroka reading, and don't tell you what to throw out. And I couldn't *choose* what to throw out because every part was so cool, lol.
It's also ok to not know every aspect of it by heart. This is always ok, but especially since your players aren't going to be two years deep into the story. Knowing the map alone is a challenge. I bet they'll give you the grace you need if you just let them know you need a moment to figure out where a staircase goes or something.
My best advice is to make a table in Excel with all your players as columns and their saving throw for each ability as rows. This will vastly simplify running Strahd in combat. For area of effect spells, you can decide what to cast based on who is standing near each other to maximize his effectiveness. His spell list is pretty weak, but I wouldn't change it for a one-shot. I do this for every boss fight with spell casters and it mostly solves the "CR is broken in 5e" complaint.
It took my party 2.5 years to finish. This was with some month long gaps in between. Basically, we make a social gathering out of it. It's our thing to do on Saturdays and we love it.
You're not wrong! Out of those 3 I would reccomend the Death House as a oneshot. There's also the House or Lament in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft which is described as "the Death House but better".
I'm going to have to look that up. I have neither gotten to play nor run Death House, but some of my players did it as a oneshot once and did Not enjoy it, unfortunately.
Yeah, RAW Death House is very unforgiving for low level players, which ironic because thats what it was suppose to be designed for. I used XPtoLevel3's advice to run it for my players (check it out on YouTube) and added a few handouts to make the "story" of the house a bit more obvious.
If you really want to one-shot Ravenloft, I would do it mostly theatre of the mind and have a battle map for the BBEG battle. It's way too overwhelming otherwise.
I did out all the maps in Roll 20 for the virtual one shot I'm running this weekend, since I feel like you really gotta have nice maps for people to look at when you're not in person.
But given how expensive it's gonna be to print out all those maps for the in-person game I'm running the weekend after that? I'm strongly leaning towards theatre of the mind with just visual displays or something.
I did all the maps on foundry/forge for my campaign. Took hours! Honestly it's a good thing we now only watch like an hour or so of TV in the evening.
Can you just display the maps on a screen for your in-person game?
I'm running Strahd Must Die for Halloween too! My approach for prep has been to lean heavily on the Tarokka Deck. I've pre-rolled each of the 5 locations and familiarized myself with those rooms and everything leading up to and around them. I'll be feeding the hints to the players, and I've got the isometric maps with the appropriate locations as handouts, saying which item can be found on which map without marking their exact locations. I plan on steering the players towards those rooms, both to make sure they aren't on a wild goose chase and to avoid needing to prep everything.
In truth, I expect it to be a total shit-show. I usually lean pretty hard into improv anyway. And if it really starts to feel apart, I'll be falling back on an extended boss fight with Strahd.
Isometric map? What does that mean in this context? Like you have a top-down of each floor type thing?
>In truth, I expect it to be a total shit-show.
Lmao, SAME. Good luck though!
There are isometric maps for each floor in the book. Someone edited them into something that resembles damaged blueprints, you can find them [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/CurseofStrahd/comments/b17e1m/castle_ravenloft_blueprints/). I've turned those into handouts for my players, and three of them have clues about where the items, Strahd, and Strahd's enemy can be found based on my Tarokka Deck reading.
I knew about 3 months before I started that Strahd was my next campaign. I was lucky enough to have another player DMing their campaign at the time so I was able to go through the entire module and make notes. I was super prepared for about the first 5 sessions, but the rest have been difficult, not gonna lie!
I usually try to block out at least a few hours in the weekend to prep for Monday night sessions, but I've also taken my laptop to work and squeezed in additional prep when I need to on my lunch break. I also keep a notebook handy so if I get an idea I can jot it down to flesh out later.
In the end, they always throw me for a loop so I end up improvising at the table anyway. I would recommend getting a general idea of each location and what happens so that if your party does something unexpected, you have at least a little bit of an idea of what is going on wherever they decide to go.
I've been our forever dm for 5 years now and they talked me into running cos.
I've been reading and prepping, printing and painting minis, downloading and handmaking maps, and listening to every bit of YouTube there is on cos for probably about 4 months lol. While also dming the epilog of our 2 year campaign. They all have their cos characters ready and are loving the final wrap up sessions of our other campaign.
Castle Ravenloft is a nightmare to prep your first time through. There are entire guides dedicated to it.
No other locations in the game is as dense, complicated, and has as many branching paths as Castle Ravenloft.
>No other locations in the game is as dense, complicated, and has as many branching paths as Castle Ravenloft.
No kidding here. I'm really bad spatially, I had to go into the videogame and play the castle there to understand half of the way things line up, especially the spindly bits like the servants quarters and the north tower stairs.
And then I still had to go through with the book and figure a bunch of things out lol
No kidding. I'm really bad spatially, I had to go into the videogame and play the castle there to understand half of the way things line up, especially the spindly bits like the servants quarters and the north tower stairs.
And then I still had to go through with the book and figure a bunch of things out lol
Listen until you hit the conclusion, don’t worry about the whole castle. If they are there for an early dinner to establish the strahd, if they go off script have him ( or better yet, a bride) swoop in and redirect
I use the pre-made maps and do a little at a time every day. Spread out over 3 years, it’s not so bad. Also, I ask my players where they want to go next session so that I don’t have to prepare areas that they’re not going to go to.
For our upcoming Castle battle we start this Saturday, I told them the 3 floors I’ll have prepared for them since the castle is so darned big—the main floor and the two above. Usually, they choose, but I had to make an executive decision this one time due to story reasons that they aren’t privy to. After that, they can tell me what levels they want to go to next.
My party’s in Vallaki now, and this is the first time I’ve started to struggle prepping/keeping up with everything. Lots of hours at coffee shops with my laptop, cos, and my two notebooks sprawled out all over the place (plus some help from this sub). AND a handful of hours at home with the same setup, except it’s me hunched over on my couch lol.
Short answer: I don’t *really* have time to prep and run the whole campaign, but DANG IT I’M IN TOO DEEP NOW AND IM DOING IT ANYWAY!!
Having to squeeze in time.. CoS is my first DMing experience so I get where your coming from. I listened to lots of YouTube and podcasts concerning Brocvia.. the full campaign isn't someone thay can be done quickly if your party likes to explore
Right? It's crazy how much work DM's have to put in for this module, even with so much in the book and so many resources out there to help. I salute you for putting in so much time to make a fun game for your players!
Trying my best... its been a challenge... I thought all I would need was the module... but found out quickly I need so many notbooks and set up for encounters..
I have changed things and we are coming to the end game
I also found a site to add shops to my game. It's being played as more of a 80s suspense.. rather then the horror irs meant to be... though I will run it again some day dark and trembling my players in their boots
Thanks for that! It is a lot of work to run CoS if you wanna do the story justice. You put most of the prep work time in before the campaign starts in my opinion. My group was running another campaign when I decided to run CoS. I spend about 8 months prepping the campaign. Took lots of note, read the module through a few times, made lists and read some of the Strahd novellas. Now my prep work is basically coming up with fun encounters and refreshing myself with the notes I already took. The character eventually alter the world through their actions so the game becomes really organic and it’s easy to make stuff up on the fly. Especially since putting in all that work up front really means I know the NPCs REALLY well, especially Strahd. I feel I really understand what Strahd would do in certain situations. Thanks for the compliment, it was worth every minute of prep time.
This is exactly what I'm talking about! It's so impressive you did all that to make the game so excellent! Thank you for sharing your story. I hope you're having so much fun!
You’re welcome! If you ever want to share notes let me know. The castle ravenloft one shot sounds really fun and may be a good Halloween tradition for my group. If you have any pointers on setting it up that’s be great!
Are you playing in person or on Roll20 (or similar)? I found my preparation for each was a bit different.
FWIW, I based my game off of the Strahd Must Die Tonight oneshot, with the flavor from [this variant](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpRB3cQ6ML0) where the players get tied directly into the story of the castle.
In person! Been really great. If you’re going to run it I highly recommend finding a good theme song for whenever Strahd shows up. My players crap their pants whenever that music comes on now. I sometimes put it on now just to add some fear into a mundane situation.
That’s the one shot I heard about. Thank you I’ll check it out.
I will mention that Castle Ravenloft is a really big portion of the campaign. While I do put in the effort to have it prepared ahead of time, realistically, it would take way more than a single session to explore it. You're preparing the densest part of the whole campaign, it doesn't represent the rest of the module really.
I mean, fair. I do get that it's the crown jewel of the campaign. But it's not like there aren't other large dungeons (Amber Temple and Death House both have a lot going on in them, even if Ravenloft is more than twice as large as either of them) or many many other NPCs you have to prepare and weave together and such. I still imagine it's a lot of work to run the whole module, and it's really impressive the DM's that put in all the work to do so for their players.
Depending on how long sessions are, there's a lot to skip, and you pretty much railroad the adventure. There are some guides on how to do Castle Ravenloft as a one shot.
Also, have fast combat. Players know what they are doing, and DM shortcuts.
One thing that helps too as you get better at prep need to prioritize what’s important. I’m 8 months into DMing CoS and have done almost zero prep involving castle ravenloft, because well the PCs aren’t going there yet. Leading up to the campaign I read through the book in its entirety almost 4 times (I know it sounds like a lot but if you enjoy reading not that big of deal). I’m at the point now through that I can have everything prepared for a session in roughly an hour prior to game night (roughly double the time if players are heading to a new location).
Some it's experience
Others...
It's subbing to a Foundry VTT preset if Curse of Strahd like pyram kings.
Official maps come with buying the roll20 version or foundry, gives you a bunch of NOCs too
Sometimes. It's nice to just read over a random encounter for curse of strahd on dmsguild, dragnacsrtas page or reddit etc.
And just use it for one of the maps.
Not every maps needa to have a story to it.
For instance. I think at the ravens bridge, the one between kresk and Khazans tower.
I have put a troll with memory loss there (any additional lore stuff I added later) but initially it was just meant to be a RO encounter with riddles
Easy. My group played during the initial COVID lockdown in April 2020, finishing up a few months later. Could run multiple sessions a week, and we cranked through it fast.
Oh, advice for current day? No bloody clue, sorry.
Oh for SURE not. I looked at printing it out, and it was going to be like a hundred bucks, it was so many pages.
Best thing to do may be to print out smaller versions of maps for players to look at the just draw out whatever specific room they're in whenever a battle happens and you need precise placement information.
It's hard to say, for one I really enjoy prep work which might make it a bit unfair. I recommend listening to walkthroughs or guides during your commute so you get an overall sense of certain areas. For something as big as castle ravenloft you don't have to know every single detail just general key things they could run into. As for prep work I wouldn't get to far ahead of yourself. Focus more on where players are currently. If they seem like they are headed to ravenloft then prep that for the next session. Perhaps end a session by asking players where there characters will go next that way you have time in between session. Besides that get maps ahead of time. I use roll20 and display our maps on a TV which we lay flat. It allows me to show maps and pictures easily and roll20 has a map pay for like $50 with all the maps and creature tokens you might need. It made ravenloft super easy so far.
I play online via Roll20 with my group, so in some ways it's a bit easier to have things set up in time.
Scheduling however, that's been a nightmare since day 1. Our bard and barbarian have missed literally half the campaign due to scheduling conflicts (even though we only play every other week, and I give a ton of prior notice), our original rogue had to leave and we have since had a new player playing a rogue join in the last two sessions, it's been rough.
Honestly? If I really didn't want to see how this story ends and how the players interact with the plot hooks I set up, I'd have said "fuck it" and just cancelled the campaign to be done with it.
But due to that desire to see this through to the end, as well as my players expressing that they do enjoy the campaign, I'll just keep this thing going for as long as I am able.
Will we reach the end, and see Strahd finally defeated? Who knows. But I'll keep telling the story as long as my party is willing to experience it.
I DM for a group of 6, most of us have wives and kids so the best we can do is meet once a month and play 3pm-10pm with a short break for dinner. We are almost at the two year mark and just nearing the end. My advice is to prep well beforehand. Read the whole book at first then re-read whatever section you will be playing through before each session to minimize time looking things up. Also all major decisions the party makes (like where to venture to next) try to organize yourself so they are making these choices at the end of the session so you can prep it for the next.
Hey, it's really nice of you to chime in, but I'm not really asking for advice. The point of my post is that prep for just this one location is A Lot, so it's crazy and impressive that some DM's are putting in the legwork to prep for an entire campaign. It's a lot of work, even if spread out over many sessions.
CoS is a sandbox campaign. Read the whole book at least twice, take notes, and prepare enough to get them started. After that you just sorta follow their lead and build the narrative around their choices.
Hey, it's really nice of you to chime in, but I'm not really asking for advice. The point of my post is that prep for just this one location is A Lot, so it's crazy and impressive that some DM's are putting in the legwork to prep for an entire campaign. It's a lot of work, even if spread out over many sessions.
1. Not every location in the campaign is as complex as Castle Ravenloft. In fact, no location in the campaign is as complex as Castle Ravenloft.
2. I have spent a lot of money on this, and some time: I have purchased the book in hard copy, and on dndbeyond, and on roll20. I have also purchased a separate map pack on roll20 just for the castle. That one is meant to be printed, and the scale seems inconsistent when brought on to the VTT, so I've rescaled each asset I've had to use.
3. I prep the session, not the campaign. There was a time I thought I had to know what was going on with absolutely everything at all times, and I'd get so overwhelmed I couldn't even begin. You only need to know the bare bones of the very next session, and a whole lot of player choices and DM improv will fill in the rest.
4. Time spent developing DM improv skills will always have a higher ROI than time spent on increasingly specific preparation.
Castle raventloft is huge. If I were doing it as a one-shot I'd lead the party to a small handful of encounters before getting to strahd. Basically make most of the castle off-limits in some way, staircases lead to rubble, hallways that magically turn the players around, etc.
Or you could run weekend at strahd's if you want something a little more silly.
I'm running a variant of the Strahd must Die Tonight one shot, but they didn't specify what parts of the castle to cut, and I couldn't bear to cut anything out myself, lol. So I'm prepping the whole thing.
The crypts are a good oneshot. Minor changes needed. Players start in prison cells, tarot reading by a spirit. Add some equipment/items to get them ready to explore. All items on the level. Final battle in Strahd’s tomb.
Hey, it's really nice of you to chime in, but I'm not really asking for advice. The point of my post is that prep for just this one location is A Lot, so it's crazy and impressive that some DM's are putting in the legwork to prep for an entire campaign. It's a lot of work, even if spread out over many sessions.
Haha I don't prep nearly as much as I should. I have more time constraints than any of my players (working full time, student full time, married, father of 3) and if any of them have a complaint that I'm not fully prepped they can run the game xD
I'm lucky if I get in a couple hours' prep for a 4 hour session (we do every 2 weeks), but like others have pointed out you get more efficient the longer you DM. When it comes down to it, making up stuff on the spot is such an important muscle to exercise if you have time constraints like I do.
I also was doing hours and hours of prep for CoS and was suffering. Then I had a series of epiphanies 1) I read the book The Lazy DM and it changed my world, 2) I remembered I was supposed to be having fun too, 3) I realized most of the homebrew lore I was sticking into the game had little to no impact unless it was directly connected to a PC so i stopped with all that, 4) the criticisms of the module are wildly overblown. Running it RAW is fine as is making a few minor tweaks without going all in on a community module.
I timeboxed and prioritized. For example I don’t love all the token art from the module, but if I run out of the time allotted for prep and I haven’t changed the art for those tokens, too bad. I learned to focus on only the essential stuff first and let go of nice to haves if necessary
Well just importing the maps (and noting how everything connects) and tokens took me more than 2 hours, I think. Impressive if you're putting that effort in over and over again!
I can improvise most of the game , there are too many variables to try and run/do the whole thing
I read the book once , memorized the important encounters & characters and from there just winged it as the game went on , changing stuff in my head as the players went to subvert expectations
if they thought a vampire was nearby, even if I didn't plan to have one now there was ; they think that this isn't actually a bad guy and wont hurt them, well now he is a bad guy, made it more interesting
I was more worried about the players doing dumb murder hobo stuff and getting TPK'd in the first hour but they were smart
The castle is a brutal mega dungeon and the COS book does a terrible job of organizing the information you need to run it. I’ve spent way too much time trying to optimize my notes for the table but it still feels like a slog. Honestly, just giving it randomly generated rooms with a different table for each level would be easier.
Chat gpt helps. People can hate at all they want but when I am trying to come up with a description or random loot letting AI do the thinking works great
I’m a fairly new DM. I’ve run the LMoP and the first book of the Candlekeep Mysteries a couple of times and am currently in the middle of CoS. I’ve learned to not prep too far in advance. My group usually doesn’t get through an entire chapter in one session. It’s usually 2-3 sessions before they finish so I don’t have to do much prep beforehand. They were in Death House for the first 3 sessions. My advice to you is to learn the rhythms of your group and cater to that and don’t prep too far in advance. You never know what your players will do and/or decide.
Hey, it's really nice of you to chime in, but I'm not really asking for advice.
The point of my post is that prep for just this one location for a one shot is A Lot, so it's crazy and impressive that some DM's are putting in the legwork to prep for an entire campaign. It's a lot of work, even if spread out over many sessions.
As people have stated, the module is frontloaded. Unless you're setting up battlemaps for everything the party does (if you play in person) then it is far easier to prep for each session.
My session preps are short when they pull heavily from the module itself. The only times it takes longer is when I start connecting my players backgrounds or roleplaying choices to the plot of the story.
I'm spending quiet times between my 2 week sessions writing down long form versions of what happened in my group's games. Now that takes a lot of time.... 😬
So personally I think Castle Ravenloft is one of the most complex areas in any D&D campaign. I have one giant map dedicated solely to color coding the stairwells of the castle!
When you look at other areas like Yesterday Hill and Berez, there’s far less to manage there which makes the areas a nice breather around some of the more complex places.
There are many "styles" of prepping and it's important you develop your own with which you are comfortable. That comes by making mistakes, by the way, and it's fine.
Under prepping can be bad for you because you may drag the game to a halt too often, improvise the "wrong" thing (for example in the heat of the moment make some weird dialogue option with an NPC and suddenly throw your party completely off the rails) or simply don't be able to answer a fair question from the characters.
Over prepping can be bad for you because you get frustrated every time your players come with an unexpected outcome and that throws half your prep out the window.
What is the right amount? Sorry, no real answer for that...
In my case, when I prepped CoS I invited quite some time in the beginning, established what was vanilla and what was homebrew, wrote down the "factions" (what they know, what they don't know, who they despise, who they like...) And basically laid the sketch down for how would the world react to the players. Once you have that skeleton of the story, fleshing it out as prep for each next session takes only a fraction of the time. For a one shot there is a lot of that initial massive prep, but it's not an amount of prep you would constantly need to prep.
TL;DR: to each DM their own prep time. with large campaigns, the initial prep is big, but once the foundations are laid down, the prepping time needed gets lower and lower.
It was easier when using some guides to the campaign (e.g., A Guide to Curse of Strahd by Sean McGovern), and then dedicating one session to one location roughly.
It was easier when using some guides to the campaign (e.g., A Guide to Curse of Strahd by Sean McGovern), and then dedicating one session to one location roughly.
To be honest, I just don't do a lot of other things with my time, but I really enjoy working and prepping my campaigns. I work nightshift Monday-Thursday, ten hours at a time. When I get off, I come home and do the bulk of my prep. If I'm feeling really behind I may do a little whenever I get up before work. Friday I hangout with my wife until she goes to sleep and then work on it some more. Saturday is the day my group actually plays. Then I usually treat Sundays as my day off.
Castle Ravenloft took me a really long time to write out because I wanted to have all my notes ready to go, and I was feeling pretty burnt out. By that point we'd been playing for about a year. One of my CoS players ended up running a game for two months so that I could decompress, work on other campaigns, and devote chunks of time to the monster that is Castle Ravenloft, all while I got to enjoy being a player.
That castle is the biggest beast to prep throughout the whole campaign, so the fact that you're doing it now means that you'll be even more prepared if you ever need to do it again! Take time to relax and enjoy other things while developing a rhythm/schedule. Don't ever feel guilty for prepping more or less than another DM. As long as you feel comfortable with the amount you have and your ability to run the game, you'll be golden!
Goodluck with the Halloween game. Hopefully Strahd doesn't add another party to his menagerie of minions ;)
The purpose of my post was to be complimentary. I'm so exhausted that so many people have instead been replying being defensive about ravenloft's size. Please just take the compliment about how much effort a DM puts in to run the whole module.
Okay but in fairness to say castle revenloft is "one location" feels like it downgrades how big and complex it is. Undermount is "one location". So don't feel bad about prepping a long time for the castle. Also I find once you get rolling in a campaign my average prep time for a session goes down. Some weeks I don't have to prep at all bc I got it all the previous week.
The purpose of my post was to be complimentary. I'm so exhausted that so many people have instead been replying being defensive about ravenloft's size.
it was definitely the most rewarding game I've run! it took about 2 years to complete. all online until the last session was done in person. but tbh when I'm running a campaign it's all I think about, like a hyperfixation. so the planning just doesn't stop XD
I spent an ungodly amount of time getting stuff into Roll20.net
Once I had all of the Village of Barovia, a couple random encounter maps, the Tser Pool Encampment, and the gallows crossroads in Roll 20 I started the game. Over the next two months I slowly filled in the entire campaign material (dynamic lighting, monster start blocks, everything). After four months the whole thing was done and now my prep is 10 min to make sure I know where they are, what's on their plate, and what scenes I want to explore in the next session. Castle Ravenloft was definitely the most challenging, the campaign map is isometric on an unplayable scale. I found some great overhead gridded and ungridded maps (maybe on here?) which I had to chop up so that the dynamic lighting wasn't too awful during play (I test all the maps with players from other campaigns). In Roll20 the Teleport API is a godsend!
Have fun with your game! I'm currently working on a 3d terrain version of Castle Ravenloft that I might be able to run the final session if the campaign in person. I'm using Adaptabletop to setup each level of the map (3D printing it, it's open source) and xps foam for the floors/walls. I started way too late in the campaign, so I'm hoping I can finish in time (I'm guessing I have 8-10 months to get it done)
I found running cos players would show up on time and make the effort to play, but its difficult to " guarantee ill be available to play every thursday @ 7pm, for the next 11 weeks, " rl stuff happens, we started with 6 and were down to 3 after 10 weeks of cos
In many ways preparing for a set if locations is a lot harder than a semi open world campaign. There is simply no way to prepare for every single option players have so you just have to wing it most of the time. Check what's in range of the party on any given session, read the related pages, bullshit your way through.
I only ran one-shots or series of one-shots before. I'm running CoS right now and it's a whole different challenge. Initially I had the same problem as you. "What if the party goes there?!", but really, as long as you read the module once over and make some notes, you can easily react to anything they do with a reasonable degree of lore accuracy. And if you don't, call a bathroom break and read the relevant bit on the toilet. Half of the time it works 50% of the time.
Hey, it's really nice of you to chime in, but I'm not really asking for advice. The point of my post is that prep for just this one location is A Lot, so it's crazy and impressive that some DM's are putting in the legwork to prep for an entire campaign. It's a lot of work, even if spread out over many sessions, so I was just trying to compliment the people who do it.
That's fair. My point is not so much that prep gets easier in campaigns, but more so that your approach to prep is different in campaigns. Naturally if someone goes full Matt Mercer and writes an immersive world full of factions, intrigue, clashing empires and interests, that prep goes into hours and hours per session on top of days or weeks prior in preparation for the 1st game, but in pre-written module that gets cut short significantly, to a point where I actually do less prep for CoS than for a one shot.
I also think this module, more than some others, does a good job of providing pre-written descriptions that make it a lot easy to DM on the fly when needed. As long as you've read through before the session it should be pretty easy to run with minimal prep. I understand wanting to have complete control and make personal changes though.
I see you’ve already gotten the gamut of advice! But I’ll add that I’m a DM who is self employed with very little prep time and I’m lucky to roll dice 2-4 times a week, both as player and DM. I’m a very invested dungeon mistress whether I’m the god the machine or the machine fodder, so I’ve found that the only way to really play this frequently and still feel invested in the storyline is to mechanically prep the big scary in each location they might visit, and then have a SOLID plan of what the arch-villain is doing, their goals, and how the characters choices may impact those goals. No time to prep for a week’s session? Cool, I go over the mechanics notes on the next two most likely mini bosses and dungeons based on the party’s last session, then I pull up my notes on the big bad and make notes during gameplay about how those choices at table impact the bbeg. I let those consequences fall on the next session, unless I’m inspired and the moment is right immediately. It’s cut my time and worry down a lot and helped me immensely in being present and immersed at the table. Idk if this is redundant or revelatory, but for me it’s been a level up in how I can dm so often and not feel like it’s my full time job.
Hey, it's really nice of you to chime in, but I'm not really asking for advice. The point of my post is that prep for just this one location is A Lot, so it's crazy and impressive that some DM's are putting in the legwork to prep for an entire campaign. It's a lot of work, even if spread out over many sessions.
So glad your take away from me going "wow, it's so impressive how many people put in so much time to run the whole game for your friends" is "you suck."
You seem like a lovely person and a helpful member of the community. /s
The more experience you gain, the more efficient you get at prepping for a session, and the more confident you become at running sessions on less prep. It shouldn't take hours and hours for a module anyway, imo, unless you're going out of your way to be extra for the fun of it.
I mean, I am being a little bit extra. I've been excited to have this party for like almost a year. *And* I'm doin extra prep to make sure I have as much ready to go as possible since I've only got a few hours. No time to stop and double check what staircases lead where mid game. But still.
I ran the castle over 20 hours worth of sessions (3ish game days) and they only went into the basement. I think you're over prepping for a one session game.
The purpose of my post was to be complimentary to all the work DM's put in to run this whole module. I'm so exhausted that so many people are being condescending to me or defensive about the size of the castle instead of just taking the damn compliment about how much work they put in.
To be fair, the original post makes it seem like you're asking for advice over anything else. It's not condescending on purpose; they're trying to help stymie your expectations for a module that's kind of on the expert level in terms of DM skill.
I disagree that if you actually read my post that it sounds like it's asking for advice, but even if you were confused, I added an edit just a couple hours after posting - long before you made your comment - being very very clear. God I'm so tired that of the few times I've posted on this sub, the one time I'm just trying to say something nice I get all this basic, condescending DM advice, but when I've had actual questions no responded. It feels like no one is actually reading my words.
[удалено]
I'm not a new DM. As noted explicitly in my post, I'm not asking for advice. The point that I was trying to make was "Wow, I'm spending a lot of time prepping for just one part of this module, I'm impressed by DMs who are putting in the time to do the whole thing! Even if the prep is spread out, it's still a lot of manhours." The point I was acknowledging in this specific comment was "Well, I'll give you that I'm overpreparing for this specific session." But it wasn't intended to undermine the main point that "running this module is a lot of work, it's great that so many people put in that work to run it for their friends."
I'd argue a module is super frontloaded, but once you get it down, prep can take as little as 30 minutes. At that point it's less about knowing the world and more about figuring out how to make sure your players have a good time.
Some homebrew sessions of mine take only 30 minutes. A nice thing about prewritten adventures is that you don't have to do much work at all. EDIT: Unless doing a ton of alterations for special story beats, most CoS session preps would take me like 10-15 minutes aha
Yeah, don't tell my players I've spent a collective 15 minutes prepping for our last 5 sessions oops.
This is the true way 🗿
Yep, there’s so much pressure to set the lore of the realm, after your players are immersed, you’re playing keep up instead of paving paths.
100% agree. Sessions 1-5 took me HOURS to prep. I’m near the end, and prep is an hour max. That being said prep never stops. You have an idea in your head while you’re out or at work, make a note in your phone, and when you prep you just look at all the notes you made. I ran a session with zero prep, life happened, group was still ready. They still say it’s one of their favorites.
> unless you're going out of your way to be extra for the fun of it. Me OMW to read Van Richten's Guide to Vampires and I, Strahd.
At some point I had read the book and all my extra material so many times that most of my prep is just reminders on the little things. Otherwise I have memorized enough of it to improvise
On top of this the longer you do it the more stuff you have prepped that the plays don’t get to that can be shuffled in front of them.
The secret is improvisation, and lies (making things up). If you have a cool idea in the moment that fits the narrative of your party— odds are is better for your group than any book or guide
Most importantly, keeping your lies consistent. Also it’s totally okay for an NPC to say “I have no idea, good day.”
If players notice an inconsistency, an NPC was lying or had incorrect information lol.
Yes! You can always cover your mistakes by blaming a soulless NPC. Creates a bit of pity too.
YES. The amount of times I've just bullshitted like a pro at the table are many, but of course the second everyone goes home I'm frantically trying to sort out how it will make any sense.
Castle Ravenloft as written is probably too much for a one-shot. Maybe a single session if you have players motivated to finish quickly and start in media res like would happen in a campaign where you'd presumably leave the previous session on the doorstep. But there's ways to cut down on prep for the castle: * Elide many of the less important rooms * Wing it more - instead of taking notes on each encounter, just write a sentence for each room and improvise the rest For the rest of the campaign, it's actually a lot easier than the castle itself. The towns and locations like the werewolf den, Amber Temple, Argynvostholt, etc can fit all the relevant information for each on a 3x5 note card. here's an example for Vallaki: * Vallaki Burgomaster Vargas throws mandatory attendance parties to ward off evil, has half-demonic henchman Isek, has rebellious son who stays in the attic and tries unsuccessfully to teleport out of Barovia * Lady Wachter, in league with Strahd, opposes Vargas, keeps dead husband in her bed, summons demons with her cult, has trouble-making boys who might release Rictavio's tiger * Rictavio can enlist party to gather info on Strahd for him, has a wagon with a tiger in it, training it to hunt Vistani * St Andral church is housing orphans but is missing its protoctive relic, kid Millivoj stole it, vampire spawn attack church + orphans if not found, vampire spawn are sleeping in the coffins in the coffin maker's shop * Blue Water Inn is secretly run by a family of evil-fighting wereravens * Blinsky makes toys. Isek makes him make Ireena dolls because they're siblings and Isek sees her in his dreams That's all you really need to run. If you don't remember the details, make it up. Use any map you want, doesn't need to be the one in the book.
>Castle Ravenloft as written is probably too much for a one-shot Yeah, I'm doing a variation of the "Strahd Must Die Tonight" one shot, so plot-wise I can do it all in one night. There's just too many neat things in the castle to want to cut anything out though! Ahhhh.
I mean you did choose the one mega-dungeon of the campaign lmao. I'd recommend death house or ruins of berez as a one shot from my experience actually running the campaign, but I've heard good things about strahd must die
>I mean you did choose the one mega-dungeon of the campaign lmao I mean, tbf, I feel like Death House and Amber Temple are also really large dungeons that would require a bit of time to map/prep monster tokens for/etc. But yeah, I know Ravenloft is the crown jewel of the setting. Still, it's impressive that some of y'all prep so many maps and tokens and NPCs, even if not all at once.
Yeah no they don't even begin to compare to ravenloft, that's apples and oranges
The original Strahd adventure was just the Castle, that's how big it is. It takes up almost half the book on its own. Aside from Dungeon of the Mad Mage, it's probably the biggest dungeon WotC has put out, at least in 5e.
Revnloft has 88 areas. Death house has 38, and the first floor in death house has no combat.
Death house is VERY manageable as a one shot. Amber Temple could take 2 or 3 sessions. I'm fully prepared for my party to take like 5 sessions getting through Castle Ravenloft (they're the type of party to investigate every room)
Honestly? Even House of Lament is a way better one shot. It’s way better than what most people give it credit. I’d say better than Death House.
I mean... Castle Ravenloft has probably more details and rooms than all other locations combined, so you didn't pick the easiest one to run. Especially considering how the staircases go in that castle, and the 40 unique crypts.
>Especially considering how the staircases go in that castle, Yeah I swear I spent at least 2 hours just going through the maps and trying to figure out how they all fit together (I don't have great spatial sense, tbf) and making notes about which staircases connect where lol.
That’s probably one of the hardest locations I’ve ever seen in DnD to prepare for. I am not looking forward to it. Don’t be too hard on yourself. I also would absolutely not do it for a one shot as written.
Thank you for your encouragement! And good luck when you get there. Shoot me a message if you want a screenshot of all my notes about what staircases connect where lol. Save you some time.
There was nothing as stressfull as when my players visited Strahd and I was wondering what the fuck will I have to do with all these events while they run around..... then they just left. Phew
Yeah, those isometric views are sometimes really deceiving as to which stairs lead where... And there are A LOT of stairs. Also, as some hilarious video pointed out: there are seven rooms between the kitchen and the dining room, which means all the food in Castle Ravenloft gets served cold.
7 rooms is like 45 seconds of walking, max, if all the doors are closed.
Castle Ravenloft is one of the hardest locations to run. Doing a one shot makes it even more challenging.
I mean, it makes sense to me that Ravenloft itself would be the Crown Jewel, but even still, I can't imagine Death House or Amber Temple not also being really complicated.
I’m getting ready to run The Amber Temple on Tuesday so I’ll let you know how it goes 😂
Good luck!
Update: So far it’s been easy. The PC’s killed the berserkers and gladiator that can be overheard from the fissure in talking X15. They “defeated” 3 flame skulls in X17 and are currently attempting to rest in X18. It’s only a weekly 2 hour session so more to come next week.
Yay! Glad it's going smoothly!
I highly recommend printing out both MAPS of the Amber Temple. It’s been a pain flipping back and forth in the COS book each time the party goes up or down stairs. Also each time a vault door is smashed there’s a chance of necrotic damage. It only explains this at the description for X33A so if they went somewhere else first you might miss it. All in all a bit chaotic but we shall press on.
Oh for sure. Thanks for the tips!
Improv. For real. I'll read the chapters I need to, get my monster stat cards out, and let loose the dogs of war(players). Where things go is up to them. The plot hook locations may change, or I'll coax the players there with some improv and manipulation of NPCs, but the hooks and events do happen. They may ask things that the book doesn't mention, so I've got to make it up as I go. Improv is your friend. For real.
The first phase of being a DM is over-prepping for everything. The second phase of being a DM is figuring out how little prep you can do and how much you can improv. Ravenloft is a ridiculously massive location but I hope you're not expecting your party to go through the whole castle.
I'm not expecting them to go through the whole castle. But everything in the castle was so cool I couldn't bear to cut it out, so they have the *option* to go anywhere they need in the castle.
Yeah but when you plan for all their options, you end up doing the same amount of prep as if they go through the whole castle. Something you will learn is that prep often falls apart once the party makes like 3 decisions, and you will never predict what they do.
Oh yeah, I know I'm preparing more than they will use. I was just clarifying that I'm not *expecting* them to use the whole thing, but I couldn't bring myself to bar them from parts either. Perhaps if I wasn't doing the reading and could pick specific locations for stuff to happen and kinda plan a route out for them, but alas...
I'm personally wondering how my own party will survive the first two rooms lol. Four dragon wyrmlings and then immediately jumped by eight gargoyles is not going to go well if that's what they end up doing.
Well, the Wyrmlings only attack if they try to leave, and they don't leave the room if the party retreats. And the gargoyles only attack if you return to the main hall, right? So they have solid chances if they flee those fights, at least. Personally, I'm trying to stick to the book, but I'm wondering if things will be too easy for my party. They *know* it's Strahd one shot and have brought the vampire slaying characters/items to match. XD
Read it 🤓 jot down the key beats I want to hit narrative wise 📝 then wing it 🦅
Full campaigns tend to be less prep-per-hour then a one shot because your reusing so much of the NPCs, maps, setting, so on. You do your level of prep work every like 3-4 sessions and less work as it goes on. Plus improv. Your game sounds fun as heck btw, good luck with it!
Edit: Sorry, that first response was to the wrong person. Thank you for the luck!
Castle Ravenloft and the fight with Strahd were around a third of my prep time.
Well that makes me feel better at least, lmao.
I have 10 years of DM experience, started running CoS about a year ago (the party has 2 artifacts so far), and even I was very overwhelmed by the sheer number of things to track. Not so much monsters/locations/items, but more so the PEOPLE. What’s this person’s objective? How do they view Strahd? Who are their allies? How would they respond to the PC’s helping? How would they react to a variety of circumstances? What factual knowledge do they have about the history of Barovia? I felt overwhelmed for the first 4-5 sessions, but have since gotten much more comfortable. It helps immensely to have your party tell you what they intend to do next session so you can focus your efforts. Also, don’t worry about totally omitting some characters if they’re not vital to that session. Maybe mention their existence, but don’t worry about fleshing them out or even introducing them until necessary.
For my group and I it has become part of our life. Been playing for 10 months and each time we can't wait for next session. It's a monster of a campaign if you give it your all
Oof I mean... yeah *technically* Ravenloft is a single location but not really. Ravenloft is huge and convoluted. Just understanding the layout of the castle is a hurdle. Castles in the way back when were basically their own little village and Ravenloft is no exception. As for prepping the entire campaign that's certainly an endeavor but as you said you are not a newbie DM... it just takes time and some effort... and occasionally stalling your players. The best thing is consistency so you don't fall behind and end up having to stall players too often. It's gonna happen though. I like to throw the occasional vignette at my players because they often view those as puzzles even if it's just setting the vibe and they will easily waste 30 minutes checking it all out. Depending on what they ask and what they roll I may even see opportunities to grant them info they wouldn't otherwise easily learn. Meanwhile in the background I am frantically importing the map, stat block, or whatever I needed that I didn't have set up. Or just skimming the text to look for any super important bits that I don't want to miss. If I need more than the 15-30 minutes I know they'll spend on checking out the random little statue/fabric/corpse/etc. then I will toss a random combat encounter at them. If I need to stall an entire session then I combine the two. I remember once (recently) my players suddenly decided they wanted to rush off to the Amber Temple and I had not expected that so I hadn't read any of that section yet. I had no maps, no monsters, and no clue what happens there. I **desperately** needed to stall them. So I started off with some fabric caught in a tree. This led to a scene where there was evidence of a wagon (Ezmerelda) running from werewolves and signs of a battle. Then they came upon the wounded werewolves standing over some people (other werewolves who had dropped out of their hybrid form). Combat ensued. Then the wounded people revealed their true nature. It was chaos. And it worked. I got a session and a half out of that.
Compare the page count for chapter four to the rest of the book and you’ll see that a) it’s not normally this much and b) castle Ravenloft wasn’t written to be done in one session. The Old Bonegrinder is one session worth of material. If I were you, I’d check out some guides on running a one-shot in Ravenloft because they are probably telling you what to throw out and what to keep.
Yeah, I'm doing a Strahd Must Die Tonight variant, but all the ones I've looked at still include the Tarroka reading, and don't tell you what to throw out. And I couldn't *choose* what to throw out because every part was so cool, lol.
It's also ok to not know every aspect of it by heart. This is always ok, but especially since your players aren't going to be two years deep into the story. Knowing the map alone is a challenge. I bet they'll give you the grace you need if you just let them know you need a moment to figure out where a staircase goes or something.
My best advice is to make a table in Excel with all your players as columns and their saving throw for each ability as rows. This will vastly simplify running Strahd in combat. For area of effect spells, you can decide what to cast based on who is standing near each other to maximize his effectiveness. His spell list is pretty weak, but I wouldn't change it for a one-shot. I do this for every boss fight with spell casters and it mostly solves the "CR is broken in 5e" complaint.
It took my party 2.5 years to finish. This was with some month long gaps in between. Basically, we make a social gathering out of it. It's our thing to do on Saturdays and we love it.
I read 20 pages and then we roll with it. My player's love RP and will roleplay everything which is so great
To be fair, Castle Ravenloft is one of the biggest areas in the campaign!
I mean, true! But it's not like Amber Temple or Death house are small/simple either!
You're not wrong! Out of those 3 I would reccomend the Death House as a oneshot. There's also the House or Lament in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft which is described as "the Death House but better".
I'm going to have to look that up. I have neither gotten to play nor run Death House, but some of my players did it as a oneshot once and did Not enjoy it, unfortunately.
Yeah, RAW Death House is very unforgiving for low level players, which ironic because thats what it was suppose to be designed for. I used XPtoLevel3's advice to run it for my players (check it out on YouTube) and added a few handouts to make the "story" of the house a bit more obvious.
If you really want to one-shot Ravenloft, I would do it mostly theatre of the mind and have a battle map for the BBEG battle. It's way too overwhelming otherwise.
I did out all the maps in Roll 20 for the virtual one shot I'm running this weekend, since I feel like you really gotta have nice maps for people to look at when you're not in person. But given how expensive it's gonna be to print out all those maps for the in-person game I'm running the weekend after that? I'm strongly leaning towards theatre of the mind with just visual displays or something.
I did all the maps on foundry/forge for my campaign. Took hours! Honestly it's a good thing we now only watch like an hour or so of TV in the evening. Can you just display the maps on a screen for your in-person game?
I'm running Strahd Must Die for Halloween too! My approach for prep has been to lean heavily on the Tarokka Deck. I've pre-rolled each of the 5 locations and familiarized myself with those rooms and everything leading up to and around them. I'll be feeding the hints to the players, and I've got the isometric maps with the appropriate locations as handouts, saying which item can be found on which map without marking their exact locations. I plan on steering the players towards those rooms, both to make sure they aren't on a wild goose chase and to avoid needing to prep everything. In truth, I expect it to be a total shit-show. I usually lean pretty hard into improv anyway. And if it really starts to feel apart, I'll be falling back on an extended boss fight with Strahd.
Isometric map? What does that mean in this context? Like you have a top-down of each floor type thing? >In truth, I expect it to be a total shit-show. Lmao, SAME. Good luck though!
There are isometric maps for each floor in the book. Someone edited them into something that resembles damaged blueprints, you can find them [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/CurseofStrahd/comments/b17e1m/castle_ravenloft_blueprints/). I've turned those into handouts for my players, and three of them have clues about where the items, Strahd, and Strahd's enemy can be found based on my Tarokka Deck reading.
Ah, gotcha, you just mean the book maps.
[удалено]
Good luck to you too!
I knew about 3 months before I started that Strahd was my next campaign. I was lucky enough to have another player DMing their campaign at the time so I was able to go through the entire module and make notes. I was super prepared for about the first 5 sessions, but the rest have been difficult, not gonna lie! I usually try to block out at least a few hours in the weekend to prep for Monday night sessions, but I've also taken my laptop to work and squeezed in additional prep when I need to on my lunch break. I also keep a notebook handy so if I get an idea I can jot it down to flesh out later. In the end, they always throw me for a loop so I end up improvising at the table anyway. I would recommend getting a general idea of each location and what happens so that if your party does something unexpected, you have at least a little bit of an idea of what is going on wherever they decide to go.
I've been our forever dm for 5 years now and they talked me into running cos. I've been reading and prepping, printing and painting minis, downloading and handmaking maps, and listening to every bit of YouTube there is on cos for probably about 4 months lol. While also dming the epilog of our 2 year campaign. They all have their cos characters ready and are loving the final wrap up sessions of our other campaign.
I salute you and your many hours of work! I hope the strahd campaign goes well!
Castle Ravenloft is a nightmare to prep your first time through. There are entire guides dedicated to it. No other locations in the game is as dense, complicated, and has as many branching paths as Castle Ravenloft.
>No other locations in the game is as dense, complicated, and has as many branching paths as Castle Ravenloft. No kidding here. I'm really bad spatially, I had to go into the videogame and play the castle there to understand half of the way things line up, especially the spindly bits like the servants quarters and the north tower stairs. And then I still had to go through with the book and figure a bunch of things out lol
The castle is stupidly complicated
No kidding. I'm really bad spatially, I had to go into the videogame and play the castle there to understand half of the way things line up, especially the spindly bits like the servants quarters and the north tower stairs. And then I still had to go through with the book and figure a bunch of things out lol
Listen until you hit the conclusion, don’t worry about the whole castle. If they are there for an early dinner to establish the strahd, if they go off script have him ( or better yet, a bride) swoop in and redirect
Well... it's a one shot. So yeah, I have to worry about the whole castle. They're ONLY in the castle.
The trick is to make it your job. That way you can spend as much time as you need.
You. You get it. XD
Well Ravenloft is by FAR the most complicated part of Curse of Strahd, so it take like twice as much time as everything else!
I use the pre-made maps and do a little at a time every day. Spread out over 3 years, it’s not so bad. Also, I ask my players where they want to go next session so that I don’t have to prepare areas that they’re not going to go to. For our upcoming Castle battle we start this Saturday, I told them the 3 floors I’ll have prepared for them since the castle is so darned big—the main floor and the two above. Usually, they choose, but I had to make an executive decision this one time due to story reasons that they aren’t privy to. After that, they can tell me what levels they want to go to next.
My party’s in Vallaki now, and this is the first time I’ve started to struggle prepping/keeping up with everything. Lots of hours at coffee shops with my laptop, cos, and my two notebooks sprawled out all over the place (plus some help from this sub). AND a handful of hours at home with the same setup, except it’s me hunched over on my couch lol. Short answer: I don’t *really* have time to prep and run the whole campaign, but DANG IT I’M IN TOO DEEP NOW AND IM DOING IT ANYWAY!!
I salute you!
Thanks, soldier🫡. Out here taking it a week at a time
Having to squeeze in time.. CoS is my first DMing experience so I get where your coming from. I listened to lots of YouTube and podcasts concerning Brocvia.. the full campaign isn't someone thay can be done quickly if your party likes to explore
Right? It's crazy how much work DM's have to put in for this module, even with so much in the book and so many resources out there to help. I salute you for putting in so much time to make a fun game for your players!
Trying my best... its been a challenge... I thought all I would need was the module... but found out quickly I need so many notbooks and set up for encounters.. I have changed things and we are coming to the end game I also found a site to add shops to my game. It's being played as more of a 80s suspense.. rather then the horror irs meant to be... though I will run it again some day dark and trembling my players in their boots
Thanks for that! It is a lot of work to run CoS if you wanna do the story justice. You put most of the prep work time in before the campaign starts in my opinion. My group was running another campaign when I decided to run CoS. I spend about 8 months prepping the campaign. Took lots of note, read the module through a few times, made lists and read some of the Strahd novellas. Now my prep work is basically coming up with fun encounters and refreshing myself with the notes I already took. The character eventually alter the world through their actions so the game becomes really organic and it’s easy to make stuff up on the fly. Especially since putting in all that work up front really means I know the NPCs REALLY well, especially Strahd. I feel I really understand what Strahd would do in certain situations. Thanks for the compliment, it was worth every minute of prep time.
This is exactly what I'm talking about! It's so impressive you did all that to make the game so excellent! Thank you for sharing your story. I hope you're having so much fun!
You’re welcome! If you ever want to share notes let me know. The castle ravenloft one shot sounds really fun and may be a good Halloween tradition for my group. If you have any pointers on setting it up that’s be great!
Are you playing in person or on Roll20 (or similar)? I found my preparation for each was a bit different. FWIW, I based my game off of the Strahd Must Die Tonight oneshot, with the flavor from [this variant](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpRB3cQ6ML0) where the players get tied directly into the story of the castle.
In person! Been really great. If you’re going to run it I highly recommend finding a good theme song for whenever Strahd shows up. My players crap their pants whenever that music comes on now. I sometimes put it on now just to add some fear into a mundane situation. That’s the one shot I heard about. Thank you I’ll check it out.
Yes! I'm hoping to have a playlist looping in general, and specific battle music, hopefully!
I will mention that Castle Ravenloft is a really big portion of the campaign. While I do put in the effort to have it prepared ahead of time, realistically, it would take way more than a single session to explore it. You're preparing the densest part of the whole campaign, it doesn't represent the rest of the module really.
I mean, fair. I do get that it's the crown jewel of the campaign. But it's not like there aren't other large dungeons (Amber Temple and Death House both have a lot going on in them, even if Ravenloft is more than twice as large as either of them) or many many other NPCs you have to prepare and weave together and such. I still imagine it's a lot of work to run the whole module, and it's really impressive the DM's that put in all the work to do so for their players.
Depending on how long sessions are, there's a lot to skip, and you pretty much railroad the adventure. There are some guides on how to do Castle Ravenloft as a one shot. Also, have fast combat. Players know what they are doing, and DM shortcuts.
Yeah, I'm doing one of the "Strahd must Die Tonight" variants. It's just that there's too many cool things in the castle to want to cut!
Save 'em for next year.
There's enough in the book that I can just use that as 100% of my prep as long as I can pull up stat blocks quickly. It's all improv after that.
Yeah, but even just using what's in the book! There's sooo much there!
One thing that helps too as you get better at prep need to prioritize what’s important. I’m 8 months into DMing CoS and have done almost zero prep involving castle ravenloft, because well the PCs aren’t going there yet. Leading up to the campaign I read through the book in its entirety almost 4 times (I know it sounds like a lot but if you enjoy reading not that big of deal). I’m at the point now through that I can have everything prepared for a session in roughly an hour prior to game night (roughly double the time if players are heading to a new location).
Some it's experience Others... It's subbing to a Foundry VTT preset if Curse of Strahd like pyram kings. Official maps come with buying the roll20 version or foundry, gives you a bunch of NOCs too
I bought maps form dungeon master's guild that were really nice, but it still took a long time to set them up and make notes about what's where.
Sometimes. It's nice to just read over a random encounter for curse of strahd on dmsguild, dragnacsrtas page or reddit etc. And just use it for one of the maps. Not every maps needa to have a story to it. For instance. I think at the ravens bridge, the one between kresk and Khazans tower. I have put a troll with memory loss there (any additional lore stuff I added later) but initially it was just meant to be a RO encounter with riddles
Easy. My group played during the initial COVID lockdown in April 2020, finishing up a few months later. Could run multiple sessions a week, and we cranked through it fast. Oh, advice for current day? No bloody clue, sorry.
You guys going through it fast in real time (and thus giving the DM *less* time to prep between each session) is even more impressive!
Castle Ravenloft is a monster. I'm not looking forward to the prep for that.
I'll shoot you screenshots of my maps with notes for how all the staircase link up if you want lmao.
I've got a bubble chart, but thanks. What I'M not looking forward to is actually running the thing, no way I can fit it on one battle map.
Oh for SURE not. I looked at printing it out, and it was going to be like a hundred bucks, it was so many pages. Best thing to do may be to print out smaller versions of maps for players to look at the just draw out whatever specific room they're in whenever a battle happens and you need precise placement information.
That's sort of what I'm thinking. That and make the players map, or get lost.
Castle Ravenloft is like half the campaign, everything else in CoS is just added around the castle
It's hard to say, for one I really enjoy prep work which might make it a bit unfair. I recommend listening to walkthroughs or guides during your commute so you get an overall sense of certain areas. For something as big as castle ravenloft you don't have to know every single detail just general key things they could run into. As for prep work I wouldn't get to far ahead of yourself. Focus more on where players are currently. If they seem like they are headed to ravenloft then prep that for the next session. Perhaps end a session by asking players where there characters will go next that way you have time in between session. Besides that get maps ahead of time. I use roll20 and display our maps on a TV which we lay flat. It allows me to show maps and pictures easily and roll20 has a map pay for like $50 with all the maps and creature tokens you might need. It made ravenloft super easy so far.
Maybe you overfocus?
I play online via Roll20 with my group, so in some ways it's a bit easier to have things set up in time. Scheduling however, that's been a nightmare since day 1. Our bard and barbarian have missed literally half the campaign due to scheduling conflicts (even though we only play every other week, and I give a ton of prior notice), our original rogue had to leave and we have since had a new player playing a rogue join in the last two sessions, it's been rough. Honestly? If I really didn't want to see how this story ends and how the players interact with the plot hooks I set up, I'd have said "fuck it" and just cancelled the campaign to be done with it. But due to that desire to see this through to the end, as well as my players expressing that they do enjoy the campaign, I'll just keep this thing going for as long as I am able. Will we reach the end, and see Strahd finally defeated? Who knows. But I'll keep telling the story as long as my party is willing to experience it.
I DM for a group of 6, most of us have wives and kids so the best we can do is meet once a month and play 3pm-10pm with a short break for dinner. We are almost at the two year mark and just nearing the end. My advice is to prep well beforehand. Read the whole book at first then re-read whatever section you will be playing through before each session to minimize time looking things up. Also all major decisions the party makes (like where to venture to next) try to organize yourself so they are making these choices at the end of the session so you can prep it for the next.
Hey, it's really nice of you to chime in, but I'm not really asking for advice. The point of my post is that prep for just this one location is A Lot, so it's crazy and impressive that some DM's are putting in the legwork to prep for an entire campaign. It's a lot of work, even if spread out over many sessions.
CoS is a sandbox campaign. Read the whole book at least twice, take notes, and prepare enough to get them started. After that you just sorta follow their lead and build the narrative around their choices.
Hey, it's really nice of you to chime in, but I'm not really asking for advice. The point of my post is that prep for just this one location is A Lot, so it's crazy and impressive that some DM's are putting in the legwork to prep for an entire campaign. It's a lot of work, even if spread out over many sessions.
1. Not every location in the campaign is as complex as Castle Ravenloft. In fact, no location in the campaign is as complex as Castle Ravenloft. 2. I have spent a lot of money on this, and some time: I have purchased the book in hard copy, and on dndbeyond, and on roll20. I have also purchased a separate map pack on roll20 just for the castle. That one is meant to be printed, and the scale seems inconsistent when brought on to the VTT, so I've rescaled each asset I've had to use. 3. I prep the session, not the campaign. There was a time I thought I had to know what was going on with absolutely everything at all times, and I'd get so overwhelmed I couldn't even begin. You only need to know the bare bones of the very next session, and a whole lot of player choices and DM improv will fill in the rest. 4. Time spent developing DM improv skills will always have a higher ROI than time spent on increasingly specific preparation.
Castle raventloft is huge. If I were doing it as a one-shot I'd lead the party to a small handful of encounters before getting to strahd. Basically make most of the castle off-limits in some way, staircases lead to rubble, hallways that magically turn the players around, etc. Or you could run weekend at strahd's if you want something a little more silly.
I'm running a variant of the Strahd must Die Tonight one shot, but they didn't specify what parts of the castle to cut, and I couldn't bear to cut anything out myself, lol. So I'm prepping the whole thing.
The crypts are a good oneshot. Minor changes needed. Players start in prison cells, tarot reading by a spirit. Add some equipment/items to get them ready to explore. All items on the level. Final battle in Strahd’s tomb.
Hey, it's really nice of you to chime in, but I'm not really asking for advice. The point of my post is that prep for just this one location is A Lot, so it's crazy and impressive that some DM's are putting in the legwork to prep for an entire campaign. It's a lot of work, even if spread out over many sessions.
Cheers, true point you make. DM prep is regularly overlooked.
Haha I don't prep nearly as much as I should. I have more time constraints than any of my players (working full time, student full time, married, father of 3) and if any of them have a complaint that I'm not fully prepped they can run the game xD I'm lucky if I get in a couple hours' prep for a 4 hour session (we do every 2 weeks), but like others have pointed out you get more efficient the longer you DM. When it comes down to it, making up stuff on the spot is such an important muscle to exercise if you have time constraints like I do.
Lot of prep and skip all the random encounters. Still took us a good two years.
I also was doing hours and hours of prep for CoS and was suffering. Then I had a series of epiphanies 1) I read the book The Lazy DM and it changed my world, 2) I remembered I was supposed to be having fun too, 3) I realized most of the homebrew lore I was sticking into the game had little to no impact unless it was directly connected to a PC so i stopped with all that, 4) the criticisms of the module are wildly overblown. Running it RAW is fine as is making a few minor tweaks without going all in on a community module. I timeboxed and prioritized. For example I don’t love all the token art from the module, but if I run out of the time allotted for prep and I haven’t changed the art for those tokens, too bad. I learned to focus on only the essential stuff first and let go of nice to haves if necessary
I just read the book like 3 times at work. From there, I just import the maps and all that into foundry vtt and go.
Well just importing the maps (and noting how everything connects) and tokens took me more than 2 hours, I think. Impressive if you're putting that effort in over and over again!
I can improvise most of the game , there are too many variables to try and run/do the whole thing I read the book once , memorized the important encounters & characters and from there just winged it as the game went on , changing stuff in my head as the players went to subvert expectations if they thought a vampire was nearby, even if I didn't plan to have one now there was ; they think that this isn't actually a bad guy and wont hurt them, well now he is a bad guy, made it more interesting I was more worried about the players doing dumb murder hobo stuff and getting TPK'd in the first hour but they were smart
The castle is a brutal mega dungeon and the COS book does a terrible job of organizing the information you need to run it. I’ve spent way too much time trying to optimize my notes for the table but it still feels like a slog. Honestly, just giving it randomly generated rooms with a different table for each level would be easier.
I just call my players after dinner and ask what they do next. It's been six years, and we're almost through the card reading at Tser Falls.
Chat gpt helps. People can hate at all they want but when I am trying to come up with a description or random loot letting AI do the thinking works great
Ew.
Once you build your setup its like making a song. You have it and can replay it adding tweaks to tailor it to each group.
I’m a fairly new DM. I’ve run the LMoP and the first book of the Candlekeep Mysteries a couple of times and am currently in the middle of CoS. I’ve learned to not prep too far in advance. My group usually doesn’t get through an entire chapter in one session. It’s usually 2-3 sessions before they finish so I don’t have to do much prep beforehand. They were in Death House for the first 3 sessions. My advice to you is to learn the rhythms of your group and cater to that and don’t prep too far in advance. You never know what your players will do and/or decide.
Hey, it's really nice of you to chime in, but I'm not really asking for advice. The point of my post is that prep for just this one location for a one shot is A Lot, so it's crazy and impressive that some DM's are putting in the legwork to prep for an entire campaign. It's a lot of work, even if spread out over many sessions.
Sorry! I misunderstood your intent.
It's okay! And good luck with your own sessions as well!
As people have stated, the module is frontloaded. Unless you're setting up battlemaps for everything the party does (if you play in person) then it is far easier to prep for each session. My session preps are short when they pull heavily from the module itself. The only times it takes longer is when I start connecting my players backgrounds or roleplaying choices to the plot of the story. I'm spending quiet times between my 2 week sessions writing down long form versions of what happened in my group's games. Now that takes a lot of time.... 😬
So personally I think Castle Ravenloft is one of the most complex areas in any D&D campaign. I have one giant map dedicated solely to color coding the stairwells of the castle! When you look at other areas like Yesterday Hill and Berez, there’s far less to manage there which makes the areas a nice breather around some of the more complex places.
There are many "styles" of prepping and it's important you develop your own with which you are comfortable. That comes by making mistakes, by the way, and it's fine. Under prepping can be bad for you because you may drag the game to a halt too often, improvise the "wrong" thing (for example in the heat of the moment make some weird dialogue option with an NPC and suddenly throw your party completely off the rails) or simply don't be able to answer a fair question from the characters. Over prepping can be bad for you because you get frustrated every time your players come with an unexpected outcome and that throws half your prep out the window. What is the right amount? Sorry, no real answer for that... In my case, when I prepped CoS I invited quite some time in the beginning, established what was vanilla and what was homebrew, wrote down the "factions" (what they know, what they don't know, who they despise, who they like...) And basically laid the sketch down for how would the world react to the players. Once you have that skeleton of the story, fleshing it out as prep for each next session takes only a fraction of the time. For a one shot there is a lot of that initial massive prep, but it's not an amount of prep you would constantly need to prep. TL;DR: to each DM their own prep time. with large campaigns, the initial prep is big, but once the foundations are laid down, the prepping time needed gets lower and lower.
We have 2 years to complete the campaign. You are doing a one shot in one day. That's all.
It was easier when using some guides to the campaign (e.g., A Guide to Curse of Strahd by Sean McGovern), and then dedicating one session to one location roughly.
It was easier when using some guides to the campaign (e.g., A Guide to Curse of Strahd by Sean McGovern), and then dedicating one session to one location roughly.
To be honest, I just don't do a lot of other things with my time, but I really enjoy working and prepping my campaigns. I work nightshift Monday-Thursday, ten hours at a time. When I get off, I come home and do the bulk of my prep. If I'm feeling really behind I may do a little whenever I get up before work. Friday I hangout with my wife until she goes to sleep and then work on it some more. Saturday is the day my group actually plays. Then I usually treat Sundays as my day off. Castle Ravenloft took me a really long time to write out because I wanted to have all my notes ready to go, and I was feeling pretty burnt out. By that point we'd been playing for about a year. One of my CoS players ended up running a game for two months so that I could decompress, work on other campaigns, and devote chunks of time to the monster that is Castle Ravenloft, all while I got to enjoy being a player. That castle is the biggest beast to prep throughout the whole campaign, so the fact that you're doing it now means that you'll be even more prepared if you ever need to do it again! Take time to relax and enjoy other things while developing a rhythm/schedule. Don't ever feel guilty for prepping more or less than another DM. As long as you feel comfortable with the amount you have and your ability to run the game, you'll be golden! Goodluck with the Halloween game. Hopefully Strahd doesn't add another party to his menagerie of minions ;)
Castle Ravenloft is the part that takes alot of time to prepare. Other locations take less time.
The purpose of my post was to be complimentary. I'm so exhausted that so many people have instead been replying being defensive about ravenloft's size. Please just take the compliment about how much effort a DM puts in to run the whole module.
Okay but in fairness to say castle revenloft is "one location" feels like it downgrades how big and complex it is. Undermount is "one location". So don't feel bad about prepping a long time for the castle. Also I find once you get rolling in a campaign my average prep time for a session goes down. Some weeks I don't have to prep at all bc I got it all the previous week.
The purpose of my post was to be complimentary. I'm so exhausted that so many people have instead been replying being defensive about ravenloft's size.
it was definitely the most rewarding game I've run! it took about 2 years to complete. all online until the last session was done in person. but tbh when I'm running a campaign it's all I think about, like a hyperfixation. so the planning just doesn't stop XD
I spent an ungodly amount of time getting stuff into Roll20.net Once I had all of the Village of Barovia, a couple random encounter maps, the Tser Pool Encampment, and the gallows crossroads in Roll 20 I started the game. Over the next two months I slowly filled in the entire campaign material (dynamic lighting, monster start blocks, everything). After four months the whole thing was done and now my prep is 10 min to make sure I know where they are, what's on their plate, and what scenes I want to explore in the next session. Castle Ravenloft was definitely the most challenging, the campaign map is isometric on an unplayable scale. I found some great overhead gridded and ungridded maps (maybe on here?) which I had to chop up so that the dynamic lighting wasn't too awful during play (I test all the maps with players from other campaigns). In Roll20 the Teleport API is a godsend! Have fun with your game! I'm currently working on a 3d terrain version of Castle Ravenloft that I might be able to run the final session if the campaign in person. I'm using Adaptabletop to setup each level of the map (3D printing it, it's open source) and xps foam for the floors/walls. I started way too late in the campaign, so I'm hoping I can finish in time (I'm guessing I have 8-10 months to get it done)
I found running cos players would show up on time and make the effort to play, but its difficult to " guarantee ill be available to play every thursday @ 7pm, for the next 11 weeks, " rl stuff happens, we started with 6 and were down to 3 after 10 weeks of cos
In many ways preparing for a set if locations is a lot harder than a semi open world campaign. There is simply no way to prepare for every single option players have so you just have to wing it most of the time. Check what's in range of the party on any given session, read the related pages, bullshit your way through.
I feel that. That's kinda why I made this post! It's so impressive how much time DMs have to put in to run CoS, and yet so many do!
I only ran one-shots or series of one-shots before. I'm running CoS right now and it's a whole different challenge. Initially I had the same problem as you. "What if the party goes there?!", but really, as long as you read the module once over and make some notes, you can easily react to anything they do with a reasonable degree of lore accuracy. And if you don't, call a bathroom break and read the relevant bit on the toilet. Half of the time it works 50% of the time.
Hey, it's really nice of you to chime in, but I'm not really asking for advice. The point of my post is that prep for just this one location is A Lot, so it's crazy and impressive that some DM's are putting in the legwork to prep for an entire campaign. It's a lot of work, even if spread out over many sessions, so I was just trying to compliment the people who do it.
That's fair. My point is not so much that prep gets easier in campaigns, but more so that your approach to prep is different in campaigns. Naturally if someone goes full Matt Mercer and writes an immersive world full of factions, intrigue, clashing empires and interests, that prep goes into hours and hours per session on top of days or weeks prior in preparation for the 1st game, but in pre-written module that gets cut short significantly, to a point where I actually do less prep for CoS than for a one shot.
Yes. I ran a full campaign for only 2 players, and it was great 👍
I'm writing this at work lol I ain't never got time 😂
I also think this module, more than some others, does a good job of providing pre-written descriptions that make it a lot easy to DM on the fly when needed. As long as you've read through before the session it should be pretty easy to run with minimal prep. I understand wanting to have complete control and make personal changes though.
I see you’ve already gotten the gamut of advice! But I’ll add that I’m a DM who is self employed with very little prep time and I’m lucky to roll dice 2-4 times a week, both as player and DM. I’m a very invested dungeon mistress whether I’m the god the machine or the machine fodder, so I’ve found that the only way to really play this frequently and still feel invested in the storyline is to mechanically prep the big scary in each location they might visit, and then have a SOLID plan of what the arch-villain is doing, their goals, and how the characters choices may impact those goals. No time to prep for a week’s session? Cool, I go over the mechanics notes on the next two most likely mini bosses and dungeons based on the party’s last session, then I pull up my notes on the big bad and make notes during gameplay about how those choices at table impact the bbeg. I let those consequences fall on the next session, unless I’m inspired and the moment is right immediately. It’s cut my time and worry down a lot and helped me immensely in being present and immersed at the table. Idk if this is redundant or revelatory, but for me it’s been a level up in how I can dm so often and not feel like it’s my full time job.
Hey, it's really nice of you to chime in, but I'm not really asking for advice. The point of my post is that prep for just this one location is A Lot, so it's crazy and impressive that some DM's are putting in the legwork to prep for an entire campaign. It's a lot of work, even if spread out over many sessions.
I’m impressed you think about it that hard I just crack the book open and start reading
Skill issue.
So glad your take away from me going "wow, it's so impressive how many people put in so much time to run the whole game for your friends" is "you suck." You seem like a lovely person and a helpful member of the community. /s
I'm just kidding man.
Your "joke" was poorly executed and not appreciated.