Curse of Strahd

I need some help running this, does anyone have any tips? Have you run it before? How did it go?

It wouldn't be so bad but it's totally random where they go and such, so I don't know what to prepare each week. what do I do? What do I Scooby dooby doo?

So far, my DM has treated it as each character's own Silent Hill. Have the dark powers push the player's buttons, causing something interesting to happen. It's much easier if the characters in question have a tragic history or a flaw in their personality.

Also, never let NPC's perform the killing blow on significant enemies, have them reduce the target to a minimum of 1 hp and/or have benefits which other players can use to take that foe down.

Throw it out and find a better module.

>but it's totally random where they go and such
How so? Just put fog in their way. Push them where you want them, have them deal with this or that, and then have them take on the castle when you're ready for it. Not to mention you can just fuck them up with monsters or Strahd himself if they start really doing a direction you don't care about.

Just abuse the fog. It took them there for its own reasons, you Strahd is LORD OF THE DOMAIN, if you say Strahd wants them to go a certain path, it's built into the logic of the setting that they can only go where he wants them to go. Just pick/determine where you want the various shit and then guide them that way, and Strahd wants them eventually in the castle. The whole thing is built for the easy railroad.

Fuck, I don't even know why I'm reading the whole book either, I got more than enough to get them in and do what I really want them to do.

It's easy for the DM to work with my character since he has lost many people in his life, even the woman he loved. Stolen away by his own brother when he was enlisted. Also he has a martyrdom complex and desires to "Become a Hero". During the course of the game, his sanity has been whittled away little-by-little that he is slowly becoming a monster that he proclaimed to be fighting and he has not noticed.

But doesn't that make them feel like their choices don't matter? I get warned of doing that all the time.

I usually try to do stuff like that

I'd like to do that but i'm worried about leaving other players out when talking to one for a while you know?

Have it be as simple as one of them stumbling upon the wedding ring that was given by that character's brother to the woman he loved. Simple shit like that

>But doesn't that make them feel like their choices don't matter? I get warned of doing that all the time.
Prepare one or two extra places, if you like, and allow them to "sneak" to those locations, somehow escaping Strahd's web for a while. Maybe have an NPC help them find a way out of the Count's gaze, and then after they do what they want a while, have the NPC killed by Strahd's minions and get them back to where you want to get them. But it is his domain, you can pull any bullshit you want and it makes sense. If you wanted them to JUST show up at the castle gates, the fog can take them there the moment they enter, and then you just have the classic castle crawl to work with. Things can get unpredictable in there, sure, but they can't leave unless they fog lets them. Hell, if they try to leave you can use that as an excuse to dump them in an area you have prepared, and then the fog can swallow them up and drop them back at the castle afterwards.

I'd like to think savvy players also know the entire setting is very narrative driven, so being put down a certain path isn't something they should waste all day fighting. If you want to have them fight Strahd and feel like coming back later, there's no reason you can't. Not like you can't say the bastard refuses to say dead, afterall. And the domain still has bullshit problems even if they stake his ass for good

I do recall Cassius meeting up with the Alpha werewolf again, the first time was during an ambush which resulted in the death of his brothers-in-arms and even his best friend. In the reprise fight, my character had no silver glaive tips left and was basically left with a quarterstaff due to them breaking due to luck. The Alpha was seriously injured at this point and calling upon his deity's power, but Cassius did have one last option to take down his hated enemy at this point. A potion of Dragon Swill, essentially a potion that grants the consumer the ability to spew liquid fire in a cone and it gets only more powerful the longer you wait, but don't wait too long or it does the damage to the consumer. Anyways, my character charges the fire up and goes in to grapple the Alpha. He then proceeds to open the werewolf's maw and then spew napalm down their esophagus. While the Alpha was dying and asking for his Goddess to save him, my character told him "You'll meet your whore god in Hell!"

Im running two games of this at the moment, though ive yet to get to some of the late game areas.
As per the open world nature of the campagin, it really is not. With the exception of the bonegrinder mill the path is fairly liner if run well.
So the driving force of the early campaign is to get Irena (Tatiana) to a safe location away from strahd; in the pursuit of this the path is very straight.
From the town of barovia (starting town) head up the path, along the way get asked to join the vistani camp for [breakfast/lunch/dinner] (have the characters asked by name on the intersection, they are expected). Take the path to the intersection seeing strahds looming castle ( if the pcs go to the castle have the drawbridge up and an encounter with a mass of strahd zombies or simmilar), continue on to the town of Valliki; have some events there that introduces them to some of the problems of the town but kick them out (nicely if possible) before they complete all of the side quests (make sure to mention the 'Fortress' town of krezek). Here they should be promted to go to krezek, direct them towards the wizards tower as the path to take. At krezek they will be directed to the winery (as they should be from valliki as well). The winery and druid hill should be done together. Returning to Krezek they should either have Irena captured by strahd or sent off in the 'something blue' encounter. Either way they should be invited to strahds castle. From here they can go to the castle and explore a bit before being forced/chased out, then go to the other locals to get more help. Or they can do the other locals first and have the castle as a final dungeon. Amber temple should be one of the last places to go to.

Side note: the bonegrinder mill is a dangerous fight if they come straight out of barovia.
The coffinmakers ambush in valliki is almost certainly a deadly fight

OP here I like the idea of Baba Lysaga as an encounter appearing to fuck with them, I was thinking about her having some weird potions that she can trick them into thinking is safe, then having funky effects this sound like a good idea?

I had the idea that they get cursed and become really small and have some kind of Alice in wonderland style side adventure just in case they head to an area i'm not ready for. (mainly because I had these assets from another campaign that we dropped so it's just easy)

I always get worried about using mages and shit, if you want to be mean you can just use some rude spells like finger of death of repeat.

The fight vs the vampire thrall under the church in barovia can be very deadly because he has a lot of hp if they aren't ready for it. (the module makes it seem like hes super weak but statwise hes a normal thrall so hes got a lot of hp)

The bonegrinder is probably the most deadly fight in barovia, the hags know chain lightning and your players can reach it as early as level 3. As players don't like to run away be very careful with the spells, I had a TPK here because of players being players...

Strahd is a very fun fight to DM though, you get to have him walk through walls and run away. It can make for a very dramatic fight, abuse his lair actions. I had him hit and run the party repeatedly and he would separate them, having musical ques really made the players jumpy when the doors would slam shut and strahd would assault the lone player. Just make sure you give him better spells or the fight is a cakewalk for higher level parties (with the artifacts)

if you're doing Death house, don't give them the platemail. just have the joints welded shut as they are clearly for display

I'm currently running CoS at the moment.
Here are some tips.

1.) Read the entire book.
2.) Take notes

3.)Look up 2e material if you need more background detail on NPC's or locations. (Van Ritchen's guides are chock full of interesting information.)

3.Compared to other modules that have been released for 5e, CoS is more sandbox in a way. With that said some places in Barovia contain enemies/encounters that can TK your party. This is where tip # 1 helps.)

While this thread is here, I'll ask: I'm a rather inexperienced DM who's recently tried running Strahd, yet the Death House keeps massacring my players. The animated armor and nursemaid spectre nearly always killed one each, and Lorghoth was a TPK. Is this my fault, and can it be rectified?

What was the party comprised of?

It varied as people started dying and retries were done, but the most successful party (the ones that made it to and wiped on Lorghoth) were a 2 fighters, a barbarian, a ranger, and a druid.

Mistake, one fighter was not a fighter, but a paladin

While there might be an in-game explanation for such, I don't think getting herded wherever the GM wants to makes for a very fun game experience.

I'm not sure how I am going to run Baba Lasaga as either party has yet to get there but in relation to funky items, ive been running a fairly successful change to this campaign.
As this is a cursed land where all things great are brought low, every magical item has some sort of downside, not a curse or anything which is downright negative.
For example I included a magical bow - The Night Mothers Compromise - it is a +1 long bow which does an additional 1d6 radiant damage on a hit; but everytime it is fired (hit or otherwise) the weilder takes 3 cold damage.
Another more common varient is the - strange tasting healing potion - on consumption heal 2d4+2 hp. Then roll 1d4+1, heal that ammount and reduce you maximum hit points by that ammount until long rest.

Why the FUCK are the lost sword (k74h) and the Sun Sword completely unrelated? Y'all expect me to believe that the grossly incandescent blade of that damn thing isn't the blade missing from the Sun Sword's hilt? It would have fit together so perfectly. The original story has the blade having been destroyed, but honestly, I prefer the idea of the hilt and blade having been merely separated all this time, waiting to be re-united.

They're both sentient, they both want to fight evil. They're both really good against vampires, since the lost sword can cast crusaders mantle and the sun sword is a god damn sunblade.

Do it justice and make the two related.

I run my 3rd campaign in Barovia and starting with my second run all is great and people are loving the shit out of it. My secret ? I start with the mists leading the party in Vallaki first. They have a big city with many plots happening at the same time, they got a base of operation from where to go and return to... they imiadiatly meet important character (keepers of the feather, strahd undercover, izek etc). This character seem unimportant or secondary at first glance but things complicate after 2-3 sessions. Imagine the fact they meet and know or even befriend Izek and then at one point they return to the city with Ireena and present her Izek and he goes full psycho out of the blue and the party are confused as hell why an established NPC is just crazy. Imagine that finding out that your hosts and freinds turn out to be wereravens suddently. Or that the guy who sells you potions or whatever is actually Strahd observing you. The Morgantha encounter can happen here and lead to the Mill in a more organic matter. Now characters have more reason to help with the Winery because Urwin is a friend... etc. Thats how I run it and to me at least it seems that all is much easier to do this way. Even Death House could be moved from Barovia to the middle of the forest were the characters just run into it. Doru cand be a vampire spawn that is found in Vallaki in the coffin maker's shop as a prisoner of the other spawns. Esher can be a dude that befreind one of the people in the partu in Vallaki and just tells them what he is and that he doesnt want to help or destroy Strahd he want to just toy with his master so he will on ocassions tell them secrets and tips... etc.

Man, as having two aborted strand campaigns under my belt since the book came out, this actually makes a shit load of sense.

It seems really arbitrary and hard to run the game as presented with "u r in a dirty town. A dude wants you to do a thing with his sister. There are gypsies."

I might have to try that when i give a shit about dnd again

I ran this not too long ago. My biggest advice is to annotate the SHIT outta the book and put tabs. Having tabs was a god send.

Also, there is a good chance your group will not see every encounter/scenario. The group I ran missed quite a bit because they had miraculously managed to secure all the items to murder Strahd quite early save for one.

Pic related

As much as I hate to ever point Veeky Forums at reddit, there was an extended conversation on reddit exactly about this where people talked about their experiences with running it, and what they would change / how they *did* change it to make it more thematic/interesting/whatever.

Personally I've only done death house so far, and I was less than enthused when I got near a door and was instantly killed by a ghost.

does anyone have the pdf some user made of "racist" curse of strahd, where they replaced all the gypsies with black people/voodoo?