I’m thrilled to death (pun totally intended) to be playing through Dungeons & Dragons 5e’s Curse of Strahd campaign with my wife and friends.
I’ve been wanting to play Ravenloft for a long time, since I learned about the setting in college, when AD&D 2nd ed. was the current edition (we’d ride our mammoth to campus and hunted/gathered for lunch).
Vampires used to terrify me, when I was little (shortly after the earth cooled and life first started appearing…). In elementary school, I discovered that our school library had several non-fiction books about vampires and other folklore. Knowledge conquered my fears, and I became fascinated instead of frightened.
Flash forward back to my college years (but still in the dark ages), when I finally learned what D&D was and I started to play. I’d read some of the novels in high school (pre-industrial period and us serfs weren’t allowed to travel far from home), watched the animate series (Atlantis had yet to fall beneath the seas), and even tried one of the legendary gold box games (insert yet another old joke here). I wanted to know more. When the chance to actually put pencil to paper (both newly discovered) and roll dice (hand carved from bone or rock), I leapt at the chance.
This campaign started with my wife running AD&D 2e for me along with a few friends, though we moved on up to 3.5e after the first session. A few more sessions in and a friend offered to take over and run the published campaign, so we bumped up two more editions to 5e (I still need to try 4th edition D&D… alas).
Three sessions in and we’ve talked a lot, yet still haven’t fought a single foe. Apparently we’re chattier than anticipated and clever enough to talk our way out of a scrap.
Still, Strahd awaits. We’re all thrilled to be spending afternoons together, rolling dice, living future stories (remember when we talked down those Vistani from rolling us on the road? How about those wolves we convinced not to attack us?), and having one heck of a time!
