"So, it occurred to me that there was much more to the vampire than just being a random encounter. "'Why am I not starring in this particular adventure?'" Tracy said, doing his best Dracula impression. I thought, well what an ignominious thing for a vampire to just show up in a dungeon like this.Ī tarot card inspired deck of "tarokka cards" will be available from Gale Force 9 to add variety to campaigns. It was like he was like Random Encounter Number 42. And it made absolutely no sense to me that there should be a vampire here. "Early on I was in one of my very first games with a friend of ours and he was running the dungeon and we turned a corner and there was a vampire. So how did Tracy and Laura come to create what many consider the first story-based D&D campaign? It's all thanks to one awkward roll of the dice in 1978. "I became a dungeon widow right away," Laura Hickman said with a laugh. And I immediately regretted it because I was suddenly off into new worlds and making up new adventures almost immediately." "She bought me what we call now the blue basic set back in ’78. "It was my wife who first introduced me to D&D," Tracy said.
Not only specific locations that Tracey had dreamt up, but just more information about the vampire himself. And out of those conversations came piles and piles of ideas for the new campaign book. And so I asked him what are some of the things that he added, and what were some of the ideas that he’d had since 1983 when he wrote the original that he thought would make good editions to the story. "In the years that followed, Tracy kept running the games," Perkins said, "But he would always sort of mix things up a bit. And that’s how the original adventure developed."
"Then, subsequently, we actually played it every year for about five or six years. "We actually wrote Ravenloft in the '70s as a Halloween adventure for our friends," Tracy Hickman told Polygon. "We wanted to talk to its creators and bring them in creatively to help us retell this story."
#Ravenloft (module) torrent
The result was a torrent of ideas for new locations, characters and encounters. When Perkins asked for their input, they flew out to meet with the team. The original adventure was only 32 pages long - which wasn’t a lot of room to go beyond the castle itself - so what are some things that you wish you could have put into the adventure?"Īs it turns out, Tracy and Laura have been hosting nearly annual sessions of the original Ravenloft at their home, for friends and family, over the course of decades. "We wanted to talk to its creators - Tracy and Laura Hickman - bring them in creatively and have them help us retell this story. It expanded your mind in terms of what a D&D adventure could be driven by the machinations of a truly, truly horrible villain. "Prior to the release of this adventure," Perkins told Polygon, "D&D adventures kind of followed a format where they were basically location-driven dungeons that you went into in search of treasure. Instead of reinventing the wheel, principle designer Chris Perkins brought in the module's original writers - the husband and wife team of Tracy and Laura Hickman - to create the very best version of the famous module yet. Today WoTC announced that the story of the vampire Strahd von Zarovich has been updated for D&D's 5th edition. The classic Ravenloft adventure, originally published by TSR in 1983, is being recreated by Wizards of the Coast for modern Dungeons & Dragons players.