Curse of Strahd: Curse of Barovia (Hardcore)

Creating your character

Get ready to craft your character in Session 0 on D&D Beyond! 🚀 ✨ You'll start at Level 1, laying the foundation for the game ahead. The campaign will take you all the way to level 20, or until you're ready enough to finish the fight! 💥🛡️ You can choose starting equiptment or gold buy with 300 gold to spend, if you choose equiptment you can keep the 300 gold + any other guild equiptment and backgrounds grant you. 🚨 DND Hardcore Campaign settings! 🚨 In Session 0, you'll roll for your class, race, and stats 🎲🔥. You get ONE reroll at the start 🔁—so choose your options wisely! Later in the game, you'll have opportunities to reroll your stats ⚙️, but your class and race are locked in from the beginning. Prepare for a true challenge that will test you! ⚔️ When creating your character, don't assign an alignment. For abilities involving necrotic or radiant damage, you're free to choose either good or evil. Your assigned a true alignment based on your actions in the game. This way, your character’s morality grows naturally as the story unfolds. 🌗✨ For your backstory, I want you to focus on what truly defines your character. Instead of a traditional narrative, give me three strengths—what they're really good at—and three weaknesses—that are genuine flaws. Remember, this isn’t a job interview so no strengths as weaknesses! If you're struggling, think about what your character excels at or struggles with on the skill list. If you're thinking outside the box, consider mercenary-like skills that aren’t just standard, giving your character a unique edge without breaking immersion. 🎯🛡️ 🚨If your character perishes you will reroll them the same way BUT they will be a resident of barovia and already be afflicted with madness along with starting at a level half of your current levels or if your still level 1 it will be level 1. 🚨

Preparing for the session

-INSTALL THE ABOVEVTT CHROME/FIREFOX EXTENTION -have discord/ join it and wait to be assigned to your game channel -have a good mic and make sure its good to go -be prepared to play any class you roll and be prepared for your characters to possibly die and the consquences of their deaths.

What TypeWriter brings to the table

We'll be using D&D Beyond and BeyondVTT—a Chrome extension VTT that connects directly to D&D Beyond. 🎮✨ I'll be sharing my D&D Beyond content with you so you can build your characters using what I own or anything you have on dndbeyond via books you buy on it can be acceptable so long as i approve it first. 🛠️📚 My style of GMing is all about going with the flow, encouraging your imagination to lead the way rather than sticking rigidly to rules. Of course, we'll still follow the majority of rules, but in rule-of-cool style that keeps things moving and imaginative! 🎲🔥 I don’t believe in the "don’t split the party" mantra 🚫; as long as you're not trying to solo your way through the villain's hideout, feel free to go on your own or split the group during sessions. It’s all about freedom and creativity! 🎭🎯 I’ll be doing voices, adding music through Discord 🎶, and doing everything I can to make this game as fun and immersive as possible. Be prepared for what come! 🌟🗺️

Homebrew rules

With the Rule of Cool in play, there will be many moments where we bend away from the exact wording of the rules, abilities, spells, and more 🎭✨. If you're a "Rules as Written" player who prefers sticking strictly to the book 📖⚖️, this style might not be the best fit for you. Here are some examples of how I run things with the Rule of Cool: Measuring distances can be slow and time-consuming 🕰️⏳, so for my games, as long as you look close enough to me, you're close enough! We won't be fussing over precise grids or measurements 🗺️🚫. Swapping weapons is a free action 🔄⚔️—go ahead and switch things up without fret! If you forget to do something on your turn try to remember it on your next turn so the party can keep moving forward 🧠➡️. It’s your responsibility to keep track of what your character can do! Drinking a potion can be done using your action, bonus action, or reaction 🍾✨—flexibility is key! Flanking means standing on opposite sides of your target while an ally is on the other side of the target 🤺➡️, giving you a +2 bonus to hit 🎯. Each session, you'll get a chance to ask me as the GM any question about the game by rolling a D20 🎲❓. Depending on the roll and the question, you might get a helpful answer or something a little less useful! You can sacrifice magic items you find or purchase (not healing potions) to turn back the hands of fate and reroll something🔮🔁. In Barovia, everything is 4x its normal price 💰🧛‍♂️. For magical items, we'll use the Thieves’ Guild prices online unless they don’t quite fit the actual value of the item. >Make sure to keep a log of what you have somewhere, if you lose track of something and its not in the log we won't retcon back in. There’s more to come, but this should give you a good starting point! 🌟

How TypeWriter creates a safe table

Here are my rules and guildlines: Any player may call a 5-10 minute break 🛑🕒 if needed, up to twice per session for the whole table to keep the game flowing smoothly 🚶‍♂️🎲. If you have any stars ✨ or wishes 🌟, feel free to share them in the Discord 💬 or after the game as we wrap things up 🎁. Please be able to speak clear, understandable English 🗣️✅ so everyone can enjoy the game without confusion. This is an 18+ game 🚫👶 due to mature themes and events that aren’t suitable for children and i perfer not to be the censor police, were here to have fun and play a game afterall, just don't start blasting a sware every minute or out of your way to make jokes that you KNOW many might take issue with and we should be golden. New players are welcome 🤝, but please understand how to play dnd in general and know how to use Discord and VTTs 🎮💻 We’re playing a fun, fictional fantasy game 🌍✨. Please keep real-world issues and topics out of the game for the most part, jokes about whats happening IRL or just talking about stuff is fine but this isn't a debate club 🚫. I won’t exclude anyone based on personal life choices 🚻, but I also won’t censor myself or ask others to censor for others’, i expect us all to act like adults and ask for mutual respect 🤝🌟. I reserve the right to remove anyone for any reason 🚪❗, but I’ll do my best to resolve issues when things aren’t clear-cut 🔍🤝 so everyone can have a good time and enjoy D&D 🎲❤️. Attendance is important to me 🗓️, but I understand life happens 🚶‍♀️🌎. Please make sure the scheduled time works for you on a regular basis ⏰✔️. Please keep meta-gaming to a minimum 🚫🧙️—there will be in-game consequences for meta-gaming 📝⚠️. By joining this game, you agree to these conditions and my terms as GM and by joinin you wave your right to take issue with me enforcing these rules ✋🎲.