Part of the challenge in running an adventure like Curse of Strahd is figuring out what content you want to keep, and what you want to get rid of. However, this is also part of the joy of running a pre-written adventure, and learning how to make changes is key to making the adventure feel like your own. While deciding on how to modify a pre-written adventure like Curse of Strahd, think about what the players at your table would enjoy seeing more of, and focus on those things.
Having just finished a Curse of Strahd campaign at the end of last year, I wanted to go over my personal list of Do’s and Don’ts for the adventure. I hope these give you ideas for your own game!
DO The Death House (but start at level three)
A common piece of advice I read while preparing for the start of my Curse of Strahd adventure was to skip the Death House, an optional mini-adventure designed to bring the party from level one to level three. One frequent complaint I saw about the dungeon was that it can be a bit deadly for low level characters. Instead of running the Death House, it is common advice to just skip it entirely and start the party at level three right away. While I recommend starting the party at third level (unless maybe you have a new player at the table), I do also recommend running the Death House, as it was in my experience the best low level dungeon I have run.
Getting to run a haunted house style dungeon for a low level party was just too good an opportunity to pass up, and the dungeon did a good job of setting the mood for the entire adventure. However, even starting the party at level three, I felt there were too many monsters in the dungeon, and far too little space to fight them in. I would suggest cutting some of the encounters, and instead present the monsters as role play moments, playing up their spookiness.
DON’T Rush Through Vallaki
One of my biggest regrets during my time running Curse of Strahd was having St. Andral’s Feast happen too early, which lead to the destruction of Vallaki. At the time, this seemed fun and dramatic, but looking back, I realized that the party had missed out on a lot of content. While Vallaki was not the most interesting location for me personally, there were many plots and NPCs that we did not get to explore as a result of closely following the book’s timeline for the feast, and Strahd’s attack.
I would recommend taking your time with Vallaki and perhaps being more loose with the timeline of the town’s events. While it might not seem like the most interesting town on paper, it is pretty much the only real town in Curse of Strahd, and skipping over it felt like we missed out.
DO Give Reasons To Visit All The Locations
While the book does a great job in getting the party to visit all the key locations in Barovia, I struggled a bit with finding motivation for the party to visit some of the minor locations (Such as the Werewolf Den or The Ruins of Berez). In order to give a reason for the party to visit these minor locations, I picked them as the locations that would hide the Fortunes of Ravenloft, and even tied some of the character backstories to the locations.
While many DMs online suggest that the Fortunes be hidden in late game areas, I was pleased with the results of my decision. Having the Fortunes be hidden in more obscure areas of Barovia served as good hooks for these places, and saved me a lot of hassle. If you wanted to do this, but not give the party high level magic items too early, then you can always have the magic item be inactive until some later event in the game activates it (Such as relighting the beacon of Argynvostholt).
DON’T Forget To Use Strahd
Strahd is an amazing villain, I always made sure that my party had seen or heard from him about every other session. If you are worried about overusing Strahd, or ruining his mystery by having him show up often, I would suggest trying to use him more and see how it goes. Many of the other pre-written adventures seem to shy away from having the BBEG interact with the party until the last chapter, but Curse of Strahd encourages DMs to use him frequently. When my party first entered Barovia, Strahd was the first person to greet them, to great effect.
Part of the fun of running Strahd was learning to ignore his statblock outside of combat. I gave my Strahd total control over Barovia, with the ability to change it’s time and weather, and even the mood of the Barovians. This helped to build up the feeling that the party was always being watched, and that Strahd could show up at any time. He is the darklord of Barovia, treat him as such.
I hope this list of Do’s and Don’ts gave you some inspiration for your own game! If you’re interested in my game, feel free to check out my other resources for Curse of Strahd, or if you’d like to see how this all started, you can check out our first session recap here. Finally, if you are interested in any of the homebrew I made for this campaign, I have released two pay what you want resources on the DMs Guild: Leader of the Pack and The Brides of Strahd. Happy 2023 all!