u/Fantasyfootball9991

Strahd will attempt to hold the PCs to whatever standard they project onto him. If the players show little mercy to hostiles Strahd will point this out if they accuse Strahd of being cruel. The failed Doru rebellion for example.

Same goes for NPCs being rude, attempting to steal from the players etc.

Strahd will also try to make scenarios to test the PCs to see if they’re hypocrites.

Strahd will do his best to annoy the PCs in this regard if they slip up.

Has anyone else done this or something similar?

Has anyone done this? I want to add more randomness to random encounters and loot. Maybe I’ll tone down the chance of finding loot to 25% in CoS vs 50% which is what Shadowdark recommends.

I’ve been watching GlassCannons play through of shadow dark and I really like the randomness to the loot and encounter mechanics but CoS is supposed to be a low loot and low magic item campaign so I could see it possibly being a bad idea too.

Anyone tried this or something similar?

I’m running CoS and a mild annoyance with my group is they always try to stop combat or talk to hostile or indifferent creatures for much too long even after being told to leave or stop bothering the creature.

But when they’re dealing with relatively harmless but sometimes annoying NPCs they have a tendency to think violence or threats are a good solution.

I’m trying to speed up our progress with the game a bit because they’ll spend allot of time table talking and debating what to do next. Or they’ll stall and try to play 20 questions with an obviously hostile creature or monster even after combat has started.

I already have allot of dialogue and roleplay heavy sessions with friendly or neutral NPCs so I don’t want dialogue to be the only focus.

I don’t mind a bit of table talking or asking questions but I don’t want them to spend half our session time deciding what they’re going to do or stalling by asking questions the hostile creature wouldn’t answer.

What I’ve started doing is if they’re stalling or they keep trying to interact with hostile creatures I’m giving them much less time before the creature attacks.

Maybe I’ve been too lenient and made them too comfortable thinking they can talk and ask questions to obviously hostile, evil creatures with no repercussions.

Can you think of any other advice or suggestions that would help?