Hey! The stars did not align for a September Curse of Strahd session, unfortunately. I’ve been writing these session prep posts for a while now, so let’s go over what’s worked well so far.

If you’ve been reading the session prep posts, much of this information won’t be new to you, but I wanted to try to hash out some general methods I’ve found useful. These are some things I’ve found helpful to do while prepping my Curse of Strahd sessions.

Session recap

I write up a short session recap to remind the party how long they’ve been in Barovia and what has happened recently. You can use this like a “last time on this TV show” segment. I don’t always cover what happened most recently, sometimes I’ll touch on events that are going to be relevant to the session but that happened a while ago. This helps me and the players remember what’s at stake and what’s on the characters’ minds.

Players run party NPCs

Curse of Strahd gives the party an opportunity to help Ireena Kolyana, an NPC Strahd is after. Additionally, there will be an NPC who the card reading will designate as “Strahd’s enemy,” who gives the party a buff during the final battle. This already means that you may be adding two NPCs to your party.

You can handwave these NPCs as noncombatants or only participating in certain combat encounters. But, if you want to bolster your party a bit, you may find yourself giving these NPCs combat capabilities. I did the latter here because we ended up with a 2-character party.

I used the retainer mechanics from Strongholds & Followers by MCDM. This means that the NPCs are helpful in combat but not as complex as a fully built out player character. This also allows the players to have more options in combat to coordinate with their party. I think it’s gone well so far.  

Reviewing adventure sections frequently

I had already read Curse of Strahd cover-to-cover before I started. If possible, I recommend doing that before you start the adventure. I try to at least skim through the relevant chapter(s) before the session. This lets me reference what monsters may appear or what other challenges the party may face.

Handling big maps

Castle Ravenloft is huge. There are other big areas in Barovia as well. I try to note down the room code of where the party last was if we end partway through exploration. I also try to visualize one or two possible routes the party may take from their starting point. This helps me connect the rooms in my head. I’ll always struggle with complicated maps, but this cuts down a little on flipping-through-the-adventure-book time.

Customization

The adventure book is a suggestion. It’s prep that’s already done for you, in a sense. At this point, the group is nearing the end of their journey—so I’ve taken a few liberties here and there to help the pacing of the adventure. I’ve added and removed NPCs, scenes, and so on. Overall, I’ve run Curse of Strahd fairly closely to the original book, while editing some of the content reflective of, for example, harmful cultural stereotypes surrounding the Vistani as analogues to the Romani people. I also took out the mongrelfolk entirely.

I added in a vampire spawn NPC to function as a less powerful antagonist to the party. He works for Strahd, but he was an adventurer himself once. I’ve used this NPC as a more personalized version of Strahd’s generic spies/agents that can appear in the game. His existence has allowed the party to find out some of a vampire’s weaknesses. I also just think it’s fun for the party to have a pettier foe to deal with sometimes.

These are a few methods/techniques/actions I’ve found to be effective when prepping my CoS games! Hope this was helpful, I’d love to hear your thoughts below in the comments!