Curse of Strahd | Gothic Horror Adventure | Beginner friendly

Creating your character

This will be done in a discord call 1 to 1 where we'll go over the stats class, subclass and ancestry together. Now for specifics, we'll start at level 3 so everyone already has a subclass, for the stats we can use either standard array or the point buy system from the Player's Handbook, we'll also use the actual ability score improvements where your species doesn't affect the abilities and you choose a +2 in one ability and a +1 in another. For class, subclass, species and background everything that is not Unearthed Arcana or homebrew is legal. I'm aslo allowing the Bloodhunter class with all of it's subclasses. If you wanna play an Artificer or a warforged you can but it'll need to be justified in a way. Ty not to make an extensive backstory since in Curse of Strahd this won't go into play and it will only affect your character in the way that they feel about their past. For reference books i recommend checking the Player's Handbook, Tasha's cauldron of everything and Xanathar's guide to everything. I will be able to provide with the necessary information if the access to any of the books is not possible. Last but not least, I will not allow evil characters in this game since your characters are the ones that will face Strahd, the main evil of Barovia.

Preparing for the session

For this game we'll use Discord to communicate and share everything and Roll20 for combat and rolling. Most of the visual stuff will be through theater of the mind and maybe a picture or video that will be shared through the Discord chat or as a Roll20 background. We can discuss in session 0 if we'd like to use our webcams or only do voice chat, I'm okay with either of those options.

What Lluna brings to the table

Hi, now I'll do a little presentation of what I usally do as a DM no matter the game system and then I'll go more in depth and talk about how I run DnD 5e and curse of Strahd. In general I go for a more descriptive vibe, trying to set the mood and make you feel inside the scene and then I let the scene play out with the players having as much as a narrative roll as myself. I try for everyone to create the story as we go on, focusing more on what the players do and how the world changes around their actions, in a way it's like I have the greater themes and narratives but I let everyone sprinkle some little details if they want to. I'll do character voices for the NPCs and I actively try to make them sound and feel unique and different on their own way, and when I can't achieve it whith character voices I'll do it with acting and roleplaying. I like to go by the rules mostly but I'll use rule of cool once or twice probably. And for combat, I like to make it make sense, if the enemy is intelligent the combat will be more tactical, but if the enemy feels more feral I'll do a more caothic encounter. In DnD I mostly try to do RAW more than with other systems but I might forget or misinterpret some rules at some point. Also I like to make the characters feel as the protagonists and make their class and ancestry important. In curse of Strahd I try to be fair but this module can be very unfair and more in the early levels, that's why I'll warn your characters before anything unfair happens, that being said I won't fudge dice rolls nor change the numbers, Barovia is a cruel place that can kill you if you're not careful and I want you to feel that. Also I'll do a more depressive and gloomy atmosphere than with other games.

Homebrew rules

For homebrew rules I mostly use drinking potions as a bonus action, when you roll a critical success for an attack you do you maximum dice damage plus roll the dice as normal (for example if you use a greatsword and roll a crit you would do 12 + 2d6 + STR modifier) and as mentiones before the blood hunter class is allowed. If you know about another homebrew dont forget to mention it to me so I can keep it in mind and maybe add it if it makes sense.

How Lluna creates a safe table

Curse of Strahd is a horror module with lots of dark themes, that's why before starting session 0 I would like for us all to share some lines and veils and turn it into X,N and O cards so everyone at the table can feel comfortable. If during a session there's a trigger that was not listed or someone starts to feel uncomfortable, just DM me and we can do a fade to black or take a little break without any trouble, I will make this anonymous to make more of a safe space.