curse-of-dming-strahd

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hello friends just posting to say that this blog's on a bit of a hiatus because I'm working on a ~career transition~ and it's kind of eating all of my time and attention right now.

IF THIS WORKS OUT I'll have more time to do important things like yelling about stat blocks or Strahd's dramatic-ass organ playing

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yep, just doing my normal DM prep of trying to figure out how to make saber-tooth tiger sounds while I'm in the shower

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I've never heard a stronger and more immediate divide than when I casually remarked about Izek, "Nah, this dude can't read"

the rogue gave such a disappointed sigh as their crush on him immediately evaporated

while the sorcerer shouted, "I can fix him!!"

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something interesting that's developed is that my players stumbled into the vampire smuggling operation in Vallaki like, first thing

I'd originally envisioned them slowly uncovering this mystery while a secret ticking clock counts down to a bunch of vampires (and Strahd) rolling up on the town and the church, with the party ideally piecing it together like, right before the dramatic incident, with time to maybe warn their favorite NPCs before things break bad

but I've stumbled into this situation where they know very early that something is rotten in Vallaki, and that more vampires could be here any day now. while I was initially like, scrambling to figure out how people like the Baron were going to handle the news (because of course they told him about it and I hadn't planned on him actually having a chance to do something about it), it's actually ended up being a fantastic driver for the party.

because initially they didn't have a lot of reason to want to get to know anyone in town, but now they want to dig into all these NPCs and get to the bottom of what's happening here. they're trying to figure out how far they can trust the Baron. they're thinking carefully about how they want to investigate Fiona. and because they learned about my plot twist way early, they've got time and agency to try and do things to keep the town safe from the upcoming threat.

so instead of getting a nasty surprise and having to scramble, they're going to get to feel rewarded for their curiosity and investment in the setting when the Big Bad Vampires show up and it's way less awful than it could have been. they get a chance to see concretely that their actions can have a big effect on the world.

and that's not going to be ideal for every game, but two of my players are still very new and figuring out how all this works--so I think this is accidentally like, the best way this could have gone for them.

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I decided to run a big combat in-person as a treat, because we normally play over zoom and I wanted to give my new players at least a sample of what the chemistry is like when we're all playing with tokens and hand-drawn paper maps in the same living room together

and my newest player had such a good time that they demanded we all sign the battle map so that they can frame it and put it up above her desk as a commemorative piece dfjsdkfls

THIS IS THE MOST PUREST AND GOODEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD JKFLDSfdkfsdj help me

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can I just say one of the most bizarre things about running a Curse of Strahd campaign has been listening to players from other Curse of Strahd games describe events in their game as if they're canon

them like, assuming something is in the book because it just made too much sense in their campagin for it to not be

and me being cool and nodding on the outside and on the inside I'm just like holy shit their DM made that whole thing up and they have no idea

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"Don't worry, I'm on your side," I lie, knowing full well that I'm about to make them fight five CR 5 vampire spawn at 2nd level.

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one of the only downsides of running Curse of Strahd as a PG-13 quasi-comedy adventure is that I have to think long and hard about what I'm going to do if someone looks Strahd dead in the eye and calls him a fartface.

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my players broke into the coffin shop. not because they had any idea what was hiding in there, but because they heard the coffin maker was connected to a different plotline and they were a tiny bit suspicious and didn't like that I put a locked door in front of them.

which made it really incredible when they snuck in, started opening the empty coffins on the first floor, and the sorcerer laughed and said, "Oh, phew, so it's not secretly a vampire smuggling operation or something."

and then ten minutes later

they open the crates upstairs

and start screaming "OH NOOO!! THEY ARE SMUGGLING VAMPIRES HOLY SHIT!!! 😨"

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oh my god the party encountered a locked door and decided that breaking and entering was the obvious next step instead of literally any other sane choice they could have made

IN BROAD DAYLIGHT

THEY'RE DOING IT

THEY'RE PLAYING DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS YOU GUYS

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man, the party bullied Izek into having tea with them.

idk it just really warmed my heart to watch them naturally engage in the time-honored tabletop tradition of ceaselessly razzing an NPC who's trying very, very hard to be serious.

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I knew the book wants you to do a russian accent for blinsky

but my attempts at a russain accent are pitiful

so I had the brilliant idea to give blinsky sort of a minnesotan yooper accent instead since that's another accent where the name "blinsky" would totally fit

what I didn't realize is that I don't actually have a strong yooper accent either so the more blinsky talked the more he drifted between like four different, separate accents, none of which were what I wanted

my players were extremely entertained, but... the moral of the story is that sometimes not doing a voice is maybe the better choice lmao

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I know the book describes Blinksy as like

an inherently depressing man with a failing business

but I decided it'd be way funnier if he's super-chipper and friendly and completely oblivious to the fact that his toys are super-creepy and that normal kids probably wouldn't want them

so in my game I turned him from a sad clown to a man genuinely delighted by monsters and living the dream making all his morbid toys and--ACTUALLY now that I think about it I think I just turned him into Guillermo del Toro

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two of my players were so delighted by Blinsky's whole Nightmare Before Christmas toyshop situation that they each had their PCs buy a morbid stuffed toy from him

and then my newest D&D player was so excited that she demanded I describe the toys in detail so that she can try to crochet them irl

if I get actual Blinksy merch out of this game I'm gonna scream

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oh good, my players all loved Blinksy and thought he was hilarious and loved his weird toys and none of them have any idea that if they fail three death saves they'll wake up in his back room in the body of a wooden marionette because he's been tinkering with putting loose souls in toys for funsies. :)

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oops I've turned Van Ricten into an old gay queen

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My player, pre-campaign: No romance or flirty stuff please. My player after seeing Izek: I want him to be obsessed with me. 👀