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I6 Ravenloft (1e)
 
€6,74
Average Rating:4.7 / 5
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I6 Ravenloft (1e)
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I6 Ravenloft (1e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Timothy B. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 10/07/2024 09:22:00

Originally posted (and updated) here: https://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2024/10/review-i6-ravenloft.html

by Tracy and Laura Hickman. Art by Clyde Caldwell. (1983). Color covers, black-white interior art. Cartography by Dave Sutherland. 32 Pages.

I have talked about this adventure a lot. It is one of my all-time favorite adventures. Maybe less for what it is and more for what it meant to me.

Ravenloft was originally an adventure for First Edition AD&D, released in 1983, and written by Tracy and Laura Hickman's husband-and-wife team. It was part of the "I" or intermediate series of adventures. Most of these were not linked and only shared that they were higher levels than beginning adventures. Ravenloft, given the code I6, was for character levels 5 to 7.

Ravenloft is not your typical dungeon crawl, and it is very atypical of the time's adventures. There is less of the typical Howard, Moorcock, and Tolkien here, and it is pure Bram Stoker.

Ravenloft is Gothic Horror—or, more to the point, it is the Hammer Horror flavor of Gothic Horror laid over the top of Dungeons & Dragons. Harker was a milder-mannered English solicitor. The heroes here have fought dragons, goblins, and other real monsters. How can the Lord of Castle Ravenloft measure up to that?

Quite well, really.

I picked up this adventure when it was first released and essentially threw it at my DM and told him he had to run me through it. It was everything I had hoped it would have been. Remember, my Appendix N is filled with Hammer Horror, Dracula, and Universal monsters. This was perfect for me.

Ravenloft was a huge change from many of the adventures TSR had published to that date. For starters, the adventure featured an antagonist, Count Strahd von Zarovich, who was no mere monster. Yes, he was an AD&D Vampire, but he was meant to be run as an intelligent Non-player Character. Before this, the vampires have been the unnamed Vampire Queen of the Palace of the Vampire Queen, Drelnza, the vampire daughter of Iggwilv in The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and Belgos, the Drow Vampire in Vault of the Drow. By 1983, the amount written on all three of these vampires would not even be as long as this post will be. Strahd was different.

Strahd had a backstory, motivation, and intelligence, and he was ruthless. The goal was to destroy him, and that was not an easy feat by any stretch of the imagination.

The adventure also introduced some new elements. The dungeon crawl was gone, replaced by a huge gothic castle and a nearby village. The adventure could be replayed and unique given the "Fortunes of Ravenloft" mechanic, which allows key items, people, and motives to change based on a fortune card reading.

Finally, there were the isomorphic, 3D-looking maps from Dave Sutherland, which helped give perspective to many levels of Castle Ravenloft.

The adventure was an immediate and resounding hit. This adventure, along with the Dragonlance Adventures, also by Tracy Hickman (and Margaret Weis), led to something many old-school gamers call "The Hickman Revolution." They claim it marks the time between the Golden Age and Silver Age of AD&D, with the Silver Age coming after 1983. While yes there was change, a lot of it was for the better.

For me, it was a dream come true. Vampires had always been my favorite creatures to fight in D&D, and I was an avid Dracula fan. I bought this adventure and then threw it at my DM, saying, "Run this!"

I grew up on a steady stream of Universal Monsters, Hammer Horror, and Dark Shadows. That's my Appendix N. So, an adventure set in pretty much the Hammer Hamlet where I get strange locals and have to fight a vampire? Yeah, that is what D&D was to me. You can almost hear Toccata and Fugue in D minor while running it.

I find that the people who don't like this adventure don't see what makes it great. This is not Lord of the Rings, Conan, or some other Appendix N pulp fantasy. This is Hammer Horror. Strahd has to be played with a combination of charisma, scene-chewing villainy, and absolute brutality. In other words, it is exactly like Christopher Lee playing Dracula. Even the nearby village is filled with terrified but pitchforks in the ready villagers.

That is not to say the adventure doesn't have its problems. At times, the Gothic elements are shoved into the Swords & Sorcery fantasy of D&D. And...let's be honest, some of the puns on the headstones in the lowest level are more than cringe-worthy. If played properly, a vampire like Strahd could wipe out a party, and that is not counting all the other monsters (gargoyles, really strong zombies, werewolves) in the castle. Though Strahd suffers from the same issues that Christopher Lee's Dracula did, completely obsessive that blind him to some obvious blunders. But that is the nature of vampires, really.

I have played through this once, and I have run it four or five times. I would love to try it sometime under the Ghosts of Albion or WitchCraftRPG rules. I took my D&D 5e group through it when they completed Castle Amber to make for a "Mists" series. It was fantastic.

I even got my original module from 1983 signed by Tracy Hickman the year I ran my family through it.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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I6 Ravenloft (1e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Jacob [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/02/2024 14:21:53

Most of the book is fine, however the maps are a joke because some of the rooms are so far down in-between the pages that the book would have to be broken to read it. This could easily have been fixed by moving the maps towards the outside of the book by a eighth or sixteenth of an inch. Also wizards of the coast has nothing to do with this or anything they has zero hand in creating, stop crediting an incompetent company that is ruining a wonderful game.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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I6 Ravenloft (1e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Charles S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 09/02/2022 01:44:25

This is Ravenloft. It's one of the best adventures ever written for Dungeons and Dragon. I don't need to tell you that. It has many iterations. This is the original version of it, and, in my opinion, still the best version.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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I6 Ravenloft (1e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Dominic L. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/31/2022 10:46:13

This was run at my gaming club back when it came out. I recently bought the POD as a trip down memory lane. The truth is- I don't like it. Vampires are a poor enemy and if played properly by the DM would easily wipe the party out every time. The module reeks of that Eastern European milieu, stagecoaches, gypsy fortune tellers, suspicious villagers etc which for me is far from the D&D world I like. I can't understand why this module was so popular and spawned so many products. This- and other FRPG products released around that time (early 1980s?) such as the Dragonlance and Lone Wolf gamebooks was the end of the golden age of D&D. This is going straight to the charity shop.



Rating:
[1 of 5 Stars!]
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I6 Ravenloft (1e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by martin y. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/15/2022 08:56:43

Happy with my purchase.However,the scan of the cover preserves the wear and tear of the original.The colors on the cover show fading due to rubbing.That being said,the interior is excellent crisp and complete.As with the others,the map is cut up and bound within the book.Nice to have a clean copy at a reasonable price.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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I6 Ravenloft (1e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Nicolas L. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/12/2020 23:42:27

Beautifully recreated, well worth it--which more products of this quality could be available--not only to appreciate such classics, but perserve them for future gaming generations.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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I6 Ravenloft (1e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Mark L. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/29/2020 17:23:43

The printed book took 1 week to be delivered and it did not disappoint. The maps toward the center page are slight obscured but all in all a great reprint for a great price! As for the module a current DM will have to either run this adventure at 1E (AD&D) stats or modify the stats to current DND rules, but most DM's love doing things like this. This module is for medium to advanced DM levels of experience... play Phandelver and simpler modules first before tackling this one, you and your players will enjoy it even more. The rating is a 9 or 10 out of 10!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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I6 Ravenloft (1e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Kyle M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/22/2020 14:15:12

This is a fantastic POD product, the text is incredibly sharp (the point where I question whether its a scan), and the black levels are inky and appropriate with all art properly reproduced. The maps look good however they are bound into the product. This isn't too terrible, the seams are quite easy to understand what's in the missed space. Otherwise it is an asbolutely flawless copy.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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I6 Ravenloft (1e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Greg T. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/26/2020 16:06:06

A classic module, a decent PDF release, a disappointing print edition

(EDIT, 27 Feb 2020 - The publisher has updated the product with an improved PDF scan of the original module. The downloadable version is now significantly better quality, and I would assume that PoD versions are similarly now of higher quality.)

(Original review: As of 6 Feb 2018)

About the PDF: The PDF release comes with two files, both presenting the same book in slightly different ways. "9075_Ravenloft.PDF" (the "printable" version) is a faithful and unaltered scan of the original book, admittedly in quite low resolution, accurately showing the original text and typography. This will delight collectors and historians. Unfortunately, the formatting of the original book doesn't lend itself to a readable scan, with the use of light grey ink for text, and some pages showing black text on a grey background. This version has useful PDF-format bookmarks, but is not searchable. Maps in this version are broken down into A4 pages with white gutters, which suits an A4 printing but is not quite faithful to their original presentation.

Conversely, "DDI_I6_Ravenloft" is an edited scan, with the original text replaced by a searchable transcription. This version replaces the original light grey typography with a darker, more readable version, making the whole book significantly more usable in its digital form, although sadly the bookmarking was not included in this version. The maps here are presented in their correct asepct ratios as single images.

Both versions feature scanner alignment issues throughout, making many pages slightly skewed off true vertical. This could creatively be said to fit the "wrongness" of the Ravenloft setting, but it's a niggling issue which will annoy many customers. Both versions have colour covers and colour maps.

About the Print On Demand (PoD): The Softcover Color Book (Standard Heavyweight) is outwardly a gorgeous product that will look good on a shelf, with a disappointing interior. The physical object is the same width along the bottom edge as the original module but is about a centimetre taller than original. (In my printing that represents an additional centimetre at the top of the cover, extending the orange banner, but on the interior pages the extra centimetre is at the bottom of the page, appearing as white gutter.) This makes it a comparable size to the 1E/2E core books and will fit flush on the same shelf. The cover is a beautiful full-colour glossy print on thin card that feels very faithful to the quality and texture of the original book. The perfect binding creates a thin true spine (unlike the original module which merely came to a point) but, both in keeping with the original and the thinness of the volume, there is no name or other printing on the spine, merely a continuation of the wraparound cover.

This is a 40-page perfect bound single volume. (I.e., the interior portion is NOT detachable the way the original module was.) Maps are included in colour at the rear of the book but are again NOT detachable. Customers are advised to include the PDF in their purchase and print their own maps from that. The PoD print is based on the "printable" PDF described above, which is perhaps unfortunate, as the low resolution is clearly visible and combines with the light weighting of the original font to give the whole book a "1990s home printer" feel. Text looks faded and blurry. Full page black and white images have visible printing artefacts where the printing has struggled to keep up with the colour density. Most buyers could probably achieve a better result on their home printer or by photocopying the original module. Maps at the rear appear to be coloured faithfully to the original book but again have a very unprofessional look. The problems of the black text on grey background pages are even more pronounced, and in addition these pages do not have the full bleed effect of the original book and instead have white gutters.

Overall it's adequate to run the adventure from, and a little easier to safely store than the original module, but collectors will still probably want to get their hands on the original

About the module content: Ravenloft is an absolute classic, by the standards of AD&D 1E, although perhaps not by today's measure. It departs from the standard 1E adventure in several important ways - it's true gothic horror, it makes excellent use of its villain throughout the module and not just as a final boss fight, it's relatively sandboxy, and key plot points are randomised to keep players who already know something about the content on their toes. In addition to all that, the villain, Count Strahd von Zarevich, went on to be a D&D icon, featured in many adventures up until the modern day, and the module spawned its own setting, Ravenloft, heavily supported in the 2nd Edition era and frequently referenced thereafter.

By today's standards it's a little lacking. The conflict is heavily rooted in the relationship between one NPC and another NPC, rather than, say, an NPC and the players. It has all the weird idiosyncracies of the 1E rules. And for all the sandbox feel, at the end of the day it IS a dungeon crawl. Still, it's easily one of the best official adventures of the 1E era and is hard to go past for anyone wanting to play with that ruleset.

The module is tuned for 6 to 8 1E characters of levels 5 to 7. A reasonably experienced GM could easily use this content with 2E, 3E or 5E, although of course those editions have their own remakes or interpretations of this material.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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I6 Ravenloft (1e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Russ B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/14/2020 08:23:58

This is a situation where the POD was worse than the pdf. My gripes with the POD tend to match many others. The print is blury and appears out of focus. My maps are all black and white while the pdf maps are in color. The map of Barovia is worthless in the POD as you are supoosed to make out intricate details in the elevation by the differences in gray tones. I'm significantly disappointed. I can't understand why the POD can't give us colored maps!



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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I6 Ravenloft (1e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Jay G. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/19/2019 23:42:02

The original Ravenloft was hands down my favourite module back in the day. The Fortunes Of Ravenloft mechanic was one of the most innovative things I'd encountered in a D&D module to that point and holds up really well to this day. The other thing that remains striking to me about the adventure to this day is how huge and epic the story 'feels' while being confined to the old format of a mere 32 page adventure. It's well worth picking up both to understand why this adventure is such a classic as well as to connect with the birth of one of D&Ds most storied campaign settings and most iconic villains.

My POD copy was extremely crisp and clear and to be honest I did not encounter any of the issues some other reviewers mentioned in terms of lightness or legibility. The print quality was extremely important to me because the fantastic Clyde Caldwell artwork was one of the original draws of the product for me personally.

My one criticism of this POD copy would be that the maps were originally printed on fold out sheets and the way they're printed and bound into this finished copy means that one of The Spires Of Ravenloft levels as well as The Larders Of Ill Owen are a bit difficult to read and use. If you've gotten the PDF this is a non-issue but otherwise I would recommend sourcing a copy of the Castle Ravenloft map from another product (it's been reprinted MANY times) to use during game play.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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I6 Ravenloft (1e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Adamo D. c. M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/15/2019 07:46:09

Print copy barely legible, from what I've read better to buy pdf and print on your own. Writing is so light-grey it gives you an headache. Expected more from WOC.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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I6 Ravenloft (1e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Graham L. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/01/2017 19:50:47

PDF looks great, OCR is good, and module is one of my favorites. Love this.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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I6 Ravenloft (1e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Shay E. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/22/2016 13:36:06

First let me say i have never played this module before now. Also, I am a 5th edition DM. That being said, I purchased Wotc's new hardback of this classic and was so overwhelmed with how much material was there that I got rid of it, bought this one, converted a couple of thing and the group and myself have been immensely enjoying it. The download quality is excellent also. Thanks DriveThru!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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I6 Ravenloft (1e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Brett D. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/13/2015 14:52:10

This is a great 1st edition adventure with some very innovative breaks from 'dungeon crawls' for the time. Highlights include the random determination of certain things, the plotting, and of course the author's request that the DM play Strahd as smart and knowledgeable about very corner of his home and country.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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