Next year, Dungeons and Dragons’ most popular 5e campaign turns 10. Curse of Strahd seems no less loved now than it did a decade ago, and many (rightly, I think) hail it as the cream of 5e’s adventuring crop. Its sandbox setting is unique, replayable, and dripping with atmosphere – and the cherry on the top of the pie is its complex, formidable villain, Strahd von Zarovich.
Wizards of the Coast dropped a brand-new ‘edition-ish’ of D&D in our laps last year, so now is the perfect time to announce a Curse of Strahd reboot. Both because the DnD campaign is immensely successful – and because it’s still filled with issues that need fixing.
The good
A quick bit of history on Strahd von Zarovich: he and his associated setting first appeared in 1983’s AD&D Ravenloft module, designed by Tracy and Laura Hickman. This spooky adventure, with its emphasis on atmosphere and storytelling as well as dungeon-crawling, proved so popular that it got a sequel in 1986, and later a dedicated DnD setting, titled Ravenloft, in 1990.
The Hickmans’ original Ravenloft module was revamped for second edition in 1993’s House of Strahd. It was then updated again in 2006 for 3.5e, this time under the title Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. Fourth edition saw no Ravenloft remake, but we didn’t have to wait long for another iteration – 10 years after 3.5e’s version of the adventure, 5e’s Curse of Strahd hit the scene.
A decade, then, is a perfectly appropriate amount of time to pass before remastering a classic. But the date on the calendar isn’t the only reason to revisit Ravenloft.
Another is the current adventure’s sheer popularity. Data collected by Alphastream in 2023 seems to confirm that Curse of Strahd is D&D’s best-selling adventure module. Plus, you can see the overwhelming dominance of Strahd on social media sites like Reddit. Compare the size of Reddit groups dedicated to particular campaigns:
- Descent into Avernus – 15,000 members
- Tomb of Annihilation – 17,000 members
- Rime of the Frostmaiden – 19,000 members
- Waterdeep: Dragon Heist – 25,000 members
- Curse of Strahd – 95,000 members
Despite the huge portion of the player base that seems to love Strahd, there are still many, many fans who haven’t picked the DnD book up yet. Until fairly recently, I was among that number (though after two years of playing, it’s quickly stolen the top spot in my heart).
Social media groups dedicated to Strahd regularly see posts from players planning sessions in Ravenloft for the first time. It’s why the community was quite peeved to see minor campaign spoilers in the 2024 Player’s Handbook – somebody is always trying Curse of Strahd for the first time, even after almost a decade.
Thanks to increased mainstream visibility, Dungeons and Dragons is bigger than it’s ever been. Swathes of new people are discovering the hobby, and they now have an updated set of rules with which to explore. As the 5e module’s 10th birthday approaches, it has a huge new audience to invite to dinner in Castle Ravenloft.
But they deserve a new version of the module to play with. This seems unlikely now that ‘D&D 2024’ plans to be backwards-compatible with existing 5e books. Curse of Strahd may still be popular and playable – but it has plenty of teething problems that could and should be cleaned up for the next generation of players.
The bad
While Curse of Strahd is the best of the bunch, it still suffers from some of the issues typical to a pre-written Wizards of the Coast module. Firstly, the balance of combat is patchy at best. This is primarily a social intrigue campaign, but it’s D&D, so there are still plenty of chances for an encounter to turn violent. And when it does, it’ll usually be a bland walk in the park or a brutal total party evisceration.
Strahd has always been one of the more fleshed-out villains in first-party D&D books, but the world and people around him aren’t given the same treatment. Ireena, the object of Strahd’s desire and arguably the second most important NPC in the game, is given almost nothing to do and a tropey damsel-in-distress role.
Similarly, there are entire sections of the sandbox setting that can (and often are) skipped by players, so uninteresting are their encounters and irrelevant are they to the overall story. Unless the Tarokka deck (a random card draw performed at the start of the campaign to decide where key quest items will be found) forces you to visit these, your players may never see them.
And that mechanic is problematic, too. The random draw can be so narratively unsatisfying that most Strahd DMs recommend rigging the deck. This prevents players from finding important items too early, too easily, or when they’re so drastically under-leveled that the quest becomes a death wish.
I could spend an entire extra article covering the small issues in Strahd. Many members of its community have spent thousands of words reworking the module to run better. This proves an upgraded version would be welcomed – and Wizards wouldn’t even have to work that hard, thanks to the abundant inspiration that the fans provide.
The ugly
There is one far more grievous issue with Curse of Strahd, and it’s one that Wizards has already attempted to fix with a 2020 re-release of the module. The book originally featured stereotypical and unkind descriptions of the Vistani that made it clear they were a racist stand-in for Romani and traveler communities.
The 2020 ‘Curse of Strahd Revamped’ update axed the more overt stereotyping (such as claiming all Vistani are villains, drunkards, lazy, and so on – little else was changed about the campaign’s contents). However, such problematic assumptions are still baked into the game. Almost all Vistani are still presumed to be allied with Strahd, for example, and they have some very stereotypical cursing powers.
In another example, there’s even a saber-tooth tiger that one of the heroic NPCs has trained to attack a group of Vistani unprovoked. The surface-level reason for this is “because they’re allies with Strahd”, but it comes across more like “because they’re Vistani”.
Between the balance issues and the problematic portrayals of real-life communities, D&D’s best-loved module is ripe for an update. We live in a world of neverending remakes, remasters, and reboots, and D&D has, in the past, made a bad habit of leaning on nostalgia in its products. However, for Strahd, I can make an exception to my usual grumblings – this would be one remake that I’d actually buy.
There may be a Strahd-shaped hole in this year’s DnD release schedule, but there’s nothing to stop you from playing Ravenloft’s current iteration. Just roll up a character with our DnD classes and DnD races guides, grab a DM, and you’re good to go.
Source: Wargamer
