Using Sense and Tone - The Curse of Strahd

Over the last couple of days, I prepared and ran a short recap game for The Curse of Strahd for some players who I know very. It’s been several weeks since our last Strahd game, and even though some couldn’t make it, the rest of us decided to make up some lost time by doing a story recap and some light exploring. I'll be talking about something I noticed below about how this was ran and why I felt it worked although there was no fighting or combat during the game.

While I have ran many horror games in the past, I am always learning how to improve my games. Personally, combat can be fun, but when reaching higher levels in D&D, I find can be very boring. Keeping a fight interesting is OK early on, but as the clock ticks past the hour mark, two-hour mark, or beyond it can be difficult to keep it interesting. I have always been more interested in puzzle solving and investigatory pieces which shine in systems like Call of Cthulhu, but often add puzzles or mysteries that get players' brains working. Even so, running D&D games feels easy enough as even a small combat sequence can be a decent portion of a game.

This is where horror or investigation based games of D&D can feel very interesting for me to plan and run for players.

The goal of this short recap session of Strahd (about 1-1.5 hrs) was to revisit the story so far and explore Argynvostholt - where Madam Eva had said a Fortune of Ravenloft lay via her card readings to the players many games ago.

This is where the storytelling kicked in. There are a couple things I like to do to set the scene; set my smart lights, play thematic music or ambient sounds, and get players sitting up and prepared for whatever they think is coming next. This acts as a way to help players pay attention, but sets the tone of the scene for them immediately.

However, something I have been noticing more and more as I have hosted many games of the last couple of years is how your tonality of voice directly feeds into your ability to story tell - especially with scary scenes or tense thrilling chases. Tone draws people in, and being very deliberate with your pauses can help really make players hold their own breaths.

Not to mention, a joke saving throw once in the mix can setup a nice sense of security (as false as it may be).

I’ve learned to worry less about ‘boring’ players with the details of a scene they are entering. I especially used to worry about having no combat in a game may make it boring, but I've found if players have the opportunity to roleplay, engage with peers and figure new things out, then combat isn't necessary for every game.

Strahd is full of descriptions for hundreds of locations - and in the context of Argynvostholt, at least in the first floor where my players have been looking, there are several rooms that have zero items or features of interest. However, really drawing the details out, pulling upon not just their looks, but the smell of the room, the feeling on their skin, or the groaning they hear of the lifeless mansion swaying in the high winds of the mountains peaks it rests on. Drawing in multiple senses can really support players to imagine your scene and relate it to someone they may have even been. It becomes palpable for players to experience and not just imagine, which can be hard in certain fantastical settings.

This explains a reason why Cthulhu has been (to my surprise) easier to run for new players. The games I’ve made for that system are set in a tangible world, with players using 'realistic' characters (like an accountant, policeman, student etc). D&D, being fantasy, can therefore make it hard for some to envision their environment. Some people don't really engage in the fantasy genre at all, and initially found D&D off-putting. This is where drawing on player senses, specifically for areas of importance can keep the game easy to envision and therefore easy to navigate through.

I’ve found it best to avoid using 2 or 3 senses for EVERYTHING, just for areas of major interest. At Argynvostholt, there is a magical stone dragon that watches the doors to the manor. It’s interesting, and if players proceed without Detect Magic, they are hit with a 60 ft cone of cold air. This is harmless and is used as a story building feature (discussing how the traps magic has faded over time due to a ransacked mansion), but really focusing on the senses here highlights the statue in the player's mind, and therefore helps deliver a better reaction when they initially feel cold air leave the stone dragon, hitting the players and ultimately doing nothing as the magic has faded over the centuries. Using senses to describe biting winds, and pausing as it hits players' faces reeled them into thinking they had been hit with a dangerous trap.

Small things like this that inform the overall world is what Strahd is great at. There is a huge amount of examples of this sort that help immerse the player. However, this would all be meaningless without the ability to story tell. Use your voice, use language patterns to stagger out your sentences, and use pauses to hold players’ breaths. Lasso multiple senses to make things tangible - and your players will find something as simple as wandering around a few rooms for 1 hour exciting.

How do you run your combat light (or no combat at all games)? How do you story tell and keep things interesting for your players? While this post was more about noting what I think worked, if you have something to share about your experience, I'd love to hear it.

-J