Ravenloft and Retro Clones

Halloween is definitely not as popular over here as it is in the US, but I just had the thought running a horror-themed roleplaying game in the days around the end of October could be a fun thing to do. Last weekend I installed Ravenloft: Strahd’s Possession on my PC and played it for a couple of hours basking in nostalgia while cursing the wonky controls and way too fast combat. So it’s only natural that the idea to run a Ravenloft game slowly formed in my brain.

I own both the original Ravenloft module for 1E as well as two of the boxed sets TSR relased for 2E: Ravenloft – Realm of Terror and Ravenloft Campaign Setting. I also faintly remember that I picked up the Ravenloft Campaign Setting for D&D 3rd Edition, but I couldn’t find it on my shelf yesterday. So it’s probably easier to rely on the AD&D 1E and 2E material I have in digital form.

There’s only one problem: I don’t like AD&D 2nd Edition that much, and I don’t think I have a copy of the AD&D 1st Edition rules. Since it’s 2017 I could probably use one of the many available retro-clones from Swords & Wizardy to Lamentations of the Flame Princess to run a Ravenloft game, but I am actually not sure how easily I could pull this off. From what I understand most of the D&D simulacra I’ve played in the past are based on Basic D&D and older editions.

I am pretty sure there are people much more familiar with D&D in all its iterations among my readers, so I hope you can help me out a bit. How hard would it be to run Ravenloft with – let’s say – Swords & Wizardry, or are there any other retro-clone better suited for the task? Any advice in this matter is highly appreciated!

Michael Wolf is a German games designer and enthusiast best known for his English language role-playing games blog, Stargazer's World, and for creating the free rules-light medieval fantasy adventure game Warrior, Rogue & Mage. He has also worked as an English translator on the German-language Dungeonslayers role-playing game and was part of its editorial team. In addition to his work on Warrior, Rogue & Mage and Dungeonslayers, he has created several self-published games and also performed layout services and published other independent role-playing games such as A Wanderer's Romance, Badass, and the Wyrm System derivative Resolute, Adventurer & Genius, all released through his imprint Stargazer Games. Professionally, he works as a video technician and information technologies specialist. Stargazer's World was started by Michael in August 2008.

11 comments

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Steve Sims

Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperboria for a easy conversion. It’s a cleaned up 1st a d&d.

swords and wizardry works with pretty much everything with some tinkering.

Lamentations characters might not be powerful enough spell eise to survive without some spell list upgrades

    comments user
    Stargazer

    Thanks. I actually didn’t know that Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea was 1E-based. You never stop learning new stuff!

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Mark Sable

Use Labyrinth Lord and it’s Andvanced Edition Companion. That’s effectively AD&D (but presented in a much cleaner, understandable package).

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    Stargazer

    Thanks for the advice!

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Geoffrey Goucher

Or you download OSRIC, the 1e clone

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Dennis Laffey

I ran the original 1E module with BECMI years ago. I had a slightly higher level range for PCs (6th to 8th) and it ran really well.

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Sunglar

There is also the White Box Gothic for Sword & Wizardry that you may want to look at. I don’t own it, but seems right up the alley for Ravenloft inspired fun!

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/200487/White-Box-Gothic-Swords–Wizardry?src=hottest_filtered&coverSizeTest=true

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    Stargazer

    Haha! I just noticed that I actually own this as well…

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GK Coleman

Fantastic Heroes and Witchery might also work. Here is the link to the free version of the pdf. http://www.dcrouzet.net/heroes-witchery/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Fantastic-Heroes-Witchery_screen-2.0.pdf

    comments user
    Stargazer

    Thanks! Great idea!

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Neil Benson (@nfbenson)

My recommendation would be Fantastic Heroes & Witchery, streamlined 1e and more. There’s a free PDF although it’s not indexed, but good enough to start with.

http://www.dcrouzet.net/heroes-witchery/