Sound cool! Might have to look into those monsters - they sound brutal. 😁😈

@@DMoftheMists Skin Kites, Spawn of Kyuss, blood golems…there are a lot of nice adds for an undead campaign. I’m an old school player from 3e and although i find 5e to be more elegant as a ruleset, one of the things that i’ve a complain for is the Monster diversity and complexity; luckly 3e is full of inspiration for clever evil dms Who want to be creative 👹

That's a good point as well, RE: the time crunch element - I think that's a part of it as well.

Thank you! 😃

Sounds like you've got a good handle on the situation. And I'm a big fan of both I, Strahd novels (and wasn't the first Lord Soth Ravenloft novel set in Barovia as well?), so I can completely understand matching that scale.

Fair enough. Although on the "horizon line" point, the map as a whole very hilly/mountainous - so it's not like the people of the Village of Barovia can see all the way to Vallaki (I think people travelling to Vallaki can only see it once they're near the windmill, which is most of the journey there). I found this 3D map to be handy for getting a feel for this: www.zootlocker.com/barovia/1barovia.html

Thank you. For the 2nd one I have planned, I'm going to do something similar where I make an argument for something but there'll be some thought behind it and I don't think it's a perspective anyone's talked about before (but I won't be able to hide behind game design/mechanics on this one, haha)! 🫣

Thanks! Yeah, I'd say if you do increase it, just doubling it is enough and is probably the maximum someone should consider (given all the reasons I said). It's riskier if it gets much bigger than that.

That sounds like it could work. A few people have commented about the "less than a day for Ireena" aspect now. I get what people mean, but surely that just goes to show how scary Barovia is as-is? That Ismark and Ireena are too scared to take a 7-ish-hour trip without help? Because Barovia is that scary; _Strahd_ is that scary. That's what the players should be thinking/realizing IMO. Sure, extending the distance / number of days justifies it even more, but I don't think it's needed. If the DM - through I&I - makes it clear how dangerous the roads might be, there's no need to make it longer. IMO anyway.

@@DMoftheMists Well, then to bring up your point "spend a few nights outside of settlements and realize they aren't that dangerous", if they travel to Vallaki in one day and don't really feel it's that dangerous, you also break the illusion that "it's even too dangerous to travel during daytime". Another point is that this old kind woman travels to her windmill and doesn't need any escort there. Let's say we upscale the map so that Barovia Village > Old Windmill is one day's travel, and Vallaki is one day plus an hour or two, Morgantha can keep up her ruse that she can make it to her home during daytime when it's not as dangerous.

Yes! That's a good point and I think I've seen people suggest making those changes to rests when increasing the map size especially. It makes sense to do that. Gritty Realism I believe it's called, and it's in the Dungeon Master's Guide.

@@DMoftheMists The problem I have with this idea of long rests outside needing to be harder, is that realistically, most settlements of this time period would only be about one day apart, especially in horror type settings. In less horror type setting, where settlements might be a couple days apart, I would imagine that merchants would setup up safe locations along main routes between settlements so that they can transport merchandise between settlements in relative safety. How many trips of sleeping outside and losing goods before a group of merchants decide to set up safe spots to protect their goods? As for sleeping off of regular routes, that is what setting up a safe location with traps to warn your party and taking watch is for. Long rests say that you only need 6 hrs of rest and can take 2 hrs of keeping watch. What else is that for other than setting up a somewhat safe location while traveling outside. And, yes, I can imagine sleeping inside dungeons would be a bad idea. I'm just commenting on sleeping outside.

Great points.

100%. At least two groups (one I played in, one I ran) can attest to that.

Depends on how much imagination one has. Those will little imagination go down into the basement when they hear a bump in the night.

Indeed. I've heard of some DMs who do that. E.g. there's a town called Immol, right? If any DMs who did this read this, I'd be curious to know how it went in your games.

@@DMoftheMists the base game is fine as it is. Expanding the hexes to a larger size doesn't make the story better. It's just more flavor. Adding more regions does add more content, which causes another problem. The players need room to grow, which means they will be higher level when they confront Strahd. There was a remake in the 90s of the original Castle Ravenloft that had a low level campaign and a high level one, I believe level 15, that could be used to adjust the difficulty of the castle. Do you and the players want to spend more time in Barovia? Do you want to add homebrew. Personally, I have run COS 4x now and already homebrew the crap out of it so it doesnt bother me. I have been a Ravenloft DM since the mid 90s so I know my way around pretty well. Last game, I took the players into neighboring domains.

Ahh man, that's such a shame. 1 hex = 1 _day_ ? Ouch. That's a long walk.

That's true! A lot of it comes down to what the players are like and prefer, what the DM's like... It's certainly not a clear-cut thing and I don't think there's any 100% right answer for 100% of people.

One hex = 1/2 mile instead of 1/4 mile. Bigger, but not so big that moving at a fast pace isn't a viable option for covering the distance before nightfall

Can I ask what your reasoning was for increasing it to 1 hour per hex?

Thanks for passing on your thoughts, and also for doing so in a respectful way. Sorry for the delay in replying - I've been sick the last few days. You make some well thought-out points, and removing long rests from journeys would indeed entirely side-step the main issue I raised, but your version sounds brutal, perhaps too brutal - in an already brutal campaign. Now I'm not saying that means you're wrong, but out of interest, have you run CoS, and if so, have you run it in the way you've described? And if so, how did it go? I'm not meaning to sound gatekeepery at all, but because I think it's one of those things where DMs _think_ making it harder than it already is automatically makes it better (in theory), and that not making it near-impossibly hard isn't true to the CoS spirit, but the way you describe it - while it sounds awesome running it as a DM - sounds like it'd lead to burnout and frustration for the players, so that'd be something I'd be conscious of. But then again I guess it depends on the players as well. If you have veteran players who want a challenge and love horror, they'll probably welcome it. Other types of players, not so much. My video was more aimed at DMs who may think "I want to make the make bigger" without giving it much further thought beyond that, not realising the wider consequences of doing so. In your case, you've obviously thought about it and suggested measures to counteract it (by not allowing long rests at all) - in which case power to you. I meant to mention this in the video as well but forgot, but I read a thread once where a DM said they made the map bigger to "make Barovia scarier" but also didn't bother with on-the-road encounters because they didn't like them(!), soo… y’know, that's not good. Maybe that's an extreme example, but my advice was meant for people who increase the map but then maybe also keep everything else as-is (the random encounter types, their frequency, etc.) or make other changes that actually undo the effect they’re going for. In your case, while I don't think I'd ever run it the way you've said, with the right DM and players, it could work well - but I don't necessarily think it'd be that way for everyone. Here's an analogy I thought of. RAW CoS (and RAW CoS map size) is Dark Souls. Your version is Dark Souls on hard mode. When people make the map larger but don't compensate for the change they've made, they think they're gonna get Dark Souls on hard mode but may be accidentally making Dark Souls on easy mode. That's what I'm trying to get across. I don't think that means my way is easy - it's just not as difficult as yours, as yours is harder still. I've also seen stories (on Reddit, etc.) where CoS DMs complain that their players get to a point where they don't want to leave settlements. Now this might be due to lack of direction, but I bet once or twice it's been because the journeys have been too long and too tough. Every DM wants to make CoS scary and hard, but making it _too_ scary and hard can equally bring problems and bring campaigns to a halt. I do also partially disagree with - and could argue against - the points about Ismark & Ireena "hopping down the road" and what you said about the trade between towns, plus there's the fact that making the distances longer risks drawing out the campaign (which may be fine for a long-lasting campaign and if the players are fine with that and invested), but this comment's already pretty long as it is. Thanks again.

Whatever you say grognard.

My players know 5E. Even if I did know AD&D (I don't), and even if AD&D _is_ better than 5E, I'm not going to force my players to learn an entirely different system for supposed added authenticity. That would make me a pretty terrible DM and friend. This video was aimed at Curse of Strahd (5E) DMs. And in the video, I do make the point that Barovia was bigger in the older lore, and so I'd understand if people want to make it bigger to honour that. But if you do that in 5E, with 5E rules/mechanics, then you're potentially gonna have a bad time. If you're an AD&D DM then that's great - but obviously you're not who this video is meant for.

@@DMoftheMists - Is 5e all they've ever played? Is it all _you've_ ever played? Sorry to say this, but that would be kind of pathetic.

@@fleetcenturion Is it though? Is it pathetic to have come up in the era of D&D's most explosive growth in its history? For people to just enjoy the game they know either *choosing* or *preferring* to not go back to systems that neither have nostalgia for them or seem too dated or stylistic to be desirable to them? For life circumstances to perhaps be too hectic and otherwise filled with things vastly more important than dedicating time to something when wwhat they have is 'good enough?' Expanding one's experience with systems is always going to be a positive for opinion growth, even if they don't stick with it, but people have to want to do it- You can't force that just because *you* like something and @DMoftheMists is right to choose what's best for his table. You basically said having an opinion that isn't yours is pathetic, which in itself is pitiable. Moreso is trying to shame a man for creating content for a specific audience that both of you have acknowledged isn't you. IDK what war you're trying to win here, but just calling people names isn't going to win hearts and change minds. Don't see what it matters to you anyway; it's not like you're playing together.

@@Wraithward - Short answer: YES. Whatever your opinion is, having formed one without ever having tried another TTRPG or game system, then broadcasting that opinion for the world to see, would indeed be pathetic. Judging by your novella, you must have been _really_ offended. Feel free to throw down your X-card, and retreat to your safe space next time.

I take it you're referring to poor Granny's old, tired legs...? 😉 That's another reason for not increasing the map size. The trip between the two doesn't become feasible - when it comes to 'shopping' for 'ingredients' - if the distance is made even longer than it already is. Good catch with that one.