laurajeangrace's review
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Torture, Kidnapping, Murder, Violence, Child death, Child abuse, Death, Grief, and Gore
Moderate: Xenophobia, Suicide, and War
nicoleava's review
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
There's a lot to work with here, but it's got a lot of material that makes me uncomfortable (and not in the way a horror game might hope). The revamped edition is not better. I'd recommend going back to the original Ravenloft box set, and turning to the CoS subreddit for a lot of wonderful sources to make this runnable without cringing at problematic portrayals of the Romani people among others.
ekmsmith's review
dark
informative
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Mental illness, Racism, Torture, and Body horror
Minor: Genocide, Suicide, and Forced institutionalization
teafrog's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
ravenniffler's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
5.0
ipacho's review
5.0
6 stars. It is said that you can't improve on perfection. The original Ravenloft adventure was a paragon of RPG adventures, with a motivated villain, replayability, a 3D castle, pure gothic terror. The campaign setting that followed introduced a lot of characters, an expanded world, too many thing to handle, but still it was a compelling setting. 5e shrinked the size, focused on the original adventure, but expanded its elements just to the Barovia kingdom and filled it with amazing stories, excellent casts, dangerous journeys and new places, amazing twists on familiar plots (like what are the Dark Powers?). The idea of a sandbox campaign is just great. Strahd is more menacing than ever. This is perfection in RPGs.
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