Hey, I finally got to start a Curse of Strahd campaign! I’ve been wanting to run one ever since I picked up the adventure a couple years back. I’m excited that enough of my friends were interested in playing to actually get a party together, and I’m hopeful that this will be a fun campaign for everyone (I’m also nervous, but that’s normal—I just need to put that nervous energy into making the experience great for my players).

What’s Curse of Strahd, then?

This is a book published by Wizards of the Coast that contains an adventure module based on the original I6 Ravenloft adventure. Adventurers must contend with one of D&D’s most iconic villains, the vampire Strahd von Zarovich, as they seek a way out of the misty lands of Barovia.

The adventurers have a lot of freedom to run around and explore this gothic land, and there are many secrets to uncover.

Speaking of adventurers…

The Player Characters

This is a party of three. Frankly, big groups (5+) of players intimidate me, and I’m a lot more comfortable DMing for smaller parties. From a practical standpoint, four people on a Discord call is easier to manage, and it makes in-game discussions move quickly.

We have:

Kara Naïlo, the chaotic good half-elf college of lore bard. A curious student of music and magic, she seeks to learn the secrets of the multiverse.

Ramas, the true neutral human battlemaster fighter. A former soldier with some past regrets, Ramas has a serious manner and a steady hand.

Sirya Aseaquen, the chaotic neutral dark elf assassin rogue. A noble who fled from the Underdark, Sirya is slow to trust those around her. (This character was also in my previous campaign.)

They started at level 3. Anything beyond here is spoiler territory for my players, so if y’all are reading this, exercise discretion!

Starting the adventure

I wasn’t sure at first how to pull them into Barovia. When I ran Death House a while back, I simply used the “Creeping Fog” adventure hook to bring the party to Barovia without introducing NPCs or other hooks that might have distracted them from proceeding to the haunted house itself.

In a campaign, though, I wanted to use one of the other hooks. The other adventure hooks offered in the book introduce NPCs and objectives that the party can choose to follow or interact with.

After learning about each of their characters, I decided to go with “Plea for Help.” This hook places the adventurers in a tavern together. During their stay, a Vistani traveler delivers a letter that, well, pleads for the party’s help.

The adventurers didn’t know each other previously. So, this hook brings them together and gives them a reason to seek out Barovia.

So far, they’ve spent two days in Strahd’s realm. They agreed to escort Ireena Kolyana to Vallaki and are starting to get their bearings. Aside from a few moments of unease and tension, they haven’t quite confronted the evil that lurks here. They’re about to speak with Vallaki’s burgomaster, though, so I expect that to change, whether that comes from a confrontation with him or an encounter with the more literal monsters hiding in the town.

Running a Pre-Written Adventure

We’re about to have our second session, so I hope to improve on my DMing from last time. I really like having maps already drawn out and available for me to refer to, and all the information about roleplaying and running the adventure is a good resource.

If you’ve only run your own stuff before, running a published adventure comes with features that take some getting used to. I’ve read CoS front-to-back a few times to prepare. Still, I found myself flipping through the book several times during the session, looking for NPC information or location descriptions.

It comes from a mix of not being confident, not wanting to get the answer “wrong,” and not trusting my memory of what I’ve read. Even though it’s usually good to double-check, I could probably stand to be more confident in my DMing. I think my logic is that since someone else wrote the adventure, misremembering details or misrepresenting an NPC could mess up the campaign. But, the truth is that even if I might get something wrong, it won’t break the adventure. I can always adjust afterwards if need be. And even if my representation of an NPC diverges from “canon,” that’s alright, because everyone’s game is different!

So, for today’s session, I’ve prepped thoroughly to make sure I remember (and have written down) what I need. At the same time, I’m going to try to be more sure of myself and not take up so much time paging through the book!

I’ll probably write up a whole post about prepping published adventures, when I’ve run more CoS and have more experience to talk about.

Have you run Curse of Strahd before? Have any tips and/or tricks for running published adventures? Drop a comment below, and let’s talk!