Well, it's been about two weeks since my group finished the Curse of Strahd campaign. I've had some time to digest it, and I gotta say that it was an amazing setting fully deserving of its legendary hype. I'll give a full post mortem of the campaign and do my best to mark clear spoilers, but be warned... plenty of spoilers about the campaign will be discussed. You've been warned if you plan on ever running this as a PC.
Time:
We started playing this one back in February. Weekly sessions of 3-4 hours. About 7 months total, give or take. Our characters finished it at level 10.
Setting:
Barovia is very different from pretty much all of the other D&D settings. It exists on its own little island, a secluded plane somewhere in the Shadowfell. You're transported there through the mysterious mists of Strahd, with the only way of leaving is apparently to break his curse. The setting is horror, and as such, is pretty depressing and brutal. The game is very sandbox, which is both good and bad. Players very much can get in way over their heads by heading off in any number of directions. Death is pretty common. I'd say moreso than most D&D campaigns. We had 2 full party wipes and I think something like 5 or 6 individual character deaths. I was playing a Zealot Barbarian, who has a class feature that makes them easier to resurrect, but funny thing about this campaign...
The Horror, The Horror:
As I touched on earlier, the campaign is a horror game. You're brought to Barovia as Strahd's playthings because he's bored. He wants to watch you squirm, he wants to watch you get corrupted and grind you down through the course of the game. I can see how this wouldn't appeal to a lot of people, but to me it was great. You're faced with a lot of ethical choices to make, something that leads to some fantastic role play. Our game didn't embrace it in the same way I'd hope, but we were certainly corrupted. We had a murder or two. In
My character, Father Trots, gained [/spoiler]madness from his resurrection. He was then extremely paranoid. To make matters worse, I picked up a weird staff that also made me crave power above all us. Once dark pacts were offered in the The Amber Temple I pretty much had no choice but to accept. He went from hero to villain pretty much instantly and I had pretty much no control over him at that point. [/spoiler]
Strahd
Well, he's the main villain, but is he a good antagonist? I'd say so. He's ever present in the world here. He shows up just to mess with you all the time, often at the worst possible moment. You're constantly reminded that this is his world and he can do whatever he wants. By the end we all wanted to kill him pretty badly lol
The Ending
We fought
Gotta say, pretty damn fun campaign. I wish I had played in a group that embraced the horror aspect more. They were kind of murder-hoboish which took a lot out of the game. Still fun, though. I would definitely play an entire campaign again. I also am ordering the book because the lore is just so damn fun for this setting.
Would recommend!
