D&D Curse of Strahd Replay (Episode 4): An Offer You Can't Refuse 

NPC: asks the party for help Garo: *adding another page to his files* "we can get to your request in 3-5 business days"

I like to think that strahd just watches the party every fight, and snickers every time time gouda makes a joke

13:31: "Oh, I have no intention of fighting you. But my friend, my friend is a different story." A fight breaks out between the group and the wooden statue. From off in the distance comes the haunting voice: "I waaaaaarned youuuuu!"

"You're gonna get asshole-stabby ghosts! I'm a cleric - I seen it, more times than I can count!" I am keeping this quote. It's too good to forget.

Kid: I CANT EVEN GET OUTSIDE! Us: *awkward silence*

I love how Strahd in this sounds like a mafia boss

Gouda: Magic is for big boys! Also Gouda: Acts like a child

Every DM about to run CoS “This is going to be so dark and edgy.” Then you have a Gouda player

...when he notices: the Ninja Turtle, Donatello a gnome in a peacock outfit a lizardfolk with a potato sack over his head ...and someone he recognizes. It's just Krusk.

I’m loving this story, your storytelling is the special sauce that takes an ordinary D&D dish and elevates it to gourmet greatness. Delicious!

The party: We can deal with returning the bones after the festival Me, reading this module rn: Oh. Oh no.

The "Do we accept an invite from Straud?" question is like the "Are you a God?" question.... You say YES

17:23 "We still can't go even [if] we wanted to because we're busy. We have an assassination. We've got the festival coming up tomorrow. We can't make it, even if we wanted to." You have just transposed _The Princess Bride_ 's Prince Humperdink's wedding problems onto your D&D characters!

i love that the accent keeps going back and forth between Dracula and a mob boss

Puffin: we've been keeping an eye on irena Me, an intellectual: we've been keeping an *eyerena*

Video title: An offer you cannot refuse Me: Why do I hear godfather music

“What are the odds that there are two Hitlers in this city?” “I think we’re gonna have to go with our backup plan...murder!” Lmao

i mean, what are the chances of a town having 2 hitlers? oh boy, let me tell you...

Im DM'ing a game of Strahd, and I love how drastically different your groups experience is from mine. Shows how much small changes and different choices can completly differentiate one one game from another

The Godfather voice for Strahd killed me 😂

"Heh, 'grasp'. On the town. Cuz, y'know, he's got a magic arm." Oh Gouda, you precious cinnamon bun. EDIT: When he did the rant about the ghosts, I had to go back and listen to it four more times. It is HILARIOUS.

I once gave my players a cursed ring that had a revenant soul tied to it. The creature would attack the player wearing the ring once every night at random times. The only way to be rid of the attacks was to have a thief steal the ring (you couldn't just take it off) or have someone steal the ring and slip it onto the finger of the person who created it. Once the revenant killed the ring maker, both the ring and the undead would be destroyed. The NPC who made it would mail it to his targets and it was a lavish ring magicked to give the impression it was a ring of true seeing. If the undead killed the ring bearer, it took the ring and vanished, returning it to the Crafter to be mailed to the next target. My players were ones who had made many enemies and the ring was mailed to them as a gift.

when we played through this we didnt have her as a option to leave in charge of the town so we campaigned to put the toy makes monkey in charge

"Magic is for adults!" Me staring from the corner with my 14 year old elf ranger boy who uses magic all the time.

HUZZAH! WHAT A GLORIOUS AND ABSERD DAY! THANK YOU PUFFIN

22:43 "You've been practicing necromancy? That's a BIG BOY magic!!!" - This had me in stitches.

Moderately familiar with, but never actually played much Ravenloft, so I'm loving to hear these stories. The issue with the number of things to do strikes a particular chord, as we had a running comment in one campaign about how our "quest log is full."

Barons son: I’ve been locked up here for as long as I could remember Me in quarantine: same here bro

Wow, That was surprisingly easy. That is not something I want to hear moments before I die.

Ezmerelda was a beast during my party's run of CoS. Cool character and very useful to have around.

For some reason I cant get invested into Critical Role but I am INSANELY INVESTED in this story. I rank these videos as 10/10

My party has a rouge-monk multiclass character from a noble background. When he saw the state of the town, he came to the only logical conclusion for a solution- kill the Baron. He insisted on burning down the Baron's house, so we did, killing the Baron and his wife. Later at the tavern, a woman came to the tavern, and somehow ticked off our rouge monk. So he killed her. Turns out she was the cult leader. Then later, Izek came to hunt us down for killing the Baron. Rouge Monk fought him, and since I was bored from not being able to do anything all session, so my Eldricth Knight finished Izek off in three hits. After beheading him, she took his head and put it on a spike in the center of town. After that, no one contested our rise to power. And this all happened in one session. Our party was either level 5 or 6. Our poor dm.. Edits: spelling issues

Puffin, watching your videos right away is an offer I can’t refuse. I don’t have a life. Edit: I was implying that only I don’t have a life, I’m sure others have them. Sorry if I offended anyone

During this time working at the fire department has been rough but your videos always find a way to being a smile to my face!! Thank you!!

That poor little manacled gazer! Also, love that Strahd is also the Godfather.

You won't believe how much I been anticipating the continuation of this series. Took some warming up to but I really like it now.

Strahd: sounds like a mafia boss Me in my head: I gave you my trust, mother's cannoli and you betray that trust. That scared cannoli from my mother. Shes dead now but i raised her back. But shes just not the same. Now puffin are you ready to die for your betraying of my trust?

"These people are horrible at keeping stuff, they've been robbed three times." Sounds like Zelda to me.

Loving this series puffin. :)

It's lovely seeing someone elses experience with Crust of Strahd, it's a totally different flavour of catastrophic mess to my party's!

No Stan velsing mention 0/10 terrible episode

'Disguises are for low lives' proceeds to murder the head of the guard and two other people in an alleyway to overthrow the local government

"I've seen anime before, I know where this is going." My ears touched while laughing. Thanks Ben. 4,988 ups.

I’m in a Curse of Strahd campaign right now, and when we went to the winery, we lost our bard and paladin (half the party) to those Druids and twig-blights. It was a rough day in Barovia.

You just gave Strahd a leitmotif. Wow... Sideways would be proud.

I love these stories! I love how your DM used the wives of Strahd in your stories.

I remember when I played CoS. I was playing a yuan-ti storm sorcerer. When we fought Izek, I would go down in one attack. Our druid would keep bringing me back up. What'd I do? Did I move away from attacks? No! I repeatedly thunderwaved him until I was out of spell spots!

Am I the only one that thinks it's absolutely adorable in a sad kind of way that they had a little tiny chain for Snacks too?

When i was playing a my Preppy Wizard, i managed to get Victor as a n apprentice by convinceing his Dad to sign him up....

9:30 Awwwww Your innocence is palpable. I mean, you're thinking about it as a D&D player and not a Gothic Horror fan. Crazy, half-mad woman in league with the Big bad and she *doesn't want her kids to know she has her husband's body* which *She keeps in her bed* and *treats as if he was still alive* . If she was just going to resurrect Him why do either of those things?

Curse of strahd more like curse of over booking

If this doesn't end with a burger cook off I'm going to be very hungry.

I love all the puns, they're so Gouda 😁

I like the one manacle around the baby beholderkin's eyestalk.

The murderhobos i DMed for insisted on "exploring" Fiona's house. She kept asking them to leave, it's rude, wtf, etc... she slaps one of them when they let themselves in to the room with the husband, so they beat her to 1hp and start taking her outside. They meet Rahadin just outside with the coach, sent by Strahd who was scrying on them the whole time and wanted to save Fiona. My murderhobo barbarian immediately cuts Fiona's throat. .... They are told to get in the coach and have a dinner with Strahd. Rahadin brings the Fiona corpse along. Many sessions later, a vampirized Fiona and a posse of vampirized adventurers from a previous party are introduced and become a thorn to the party for a few sessions.

awww, they even chained up the gazer.

Why you chain da poor gazer he’s so sad now :(

“Dragonborn, can you help me recover my statue from some Forsworn?” “Sure. One second.” *Puts a new entry into his encyclopedia of quests.* “I should get it back to you by some time about two years from now.” No matter what RPG you play, the long list of quest backlogs stays the same.

I love these stories, it's like an audio book being read, and helping me deal with the isolation here.

Using "From Russia with Love" for Strahd's entrance is dope

I love this series so much. Makes me miss playing more than anything.

Loving this series! It's a-gouda one!

Couldn't help bursting out laughing at the 28 min mark. Those costumes.

*Writes down the secret of becoming a catgirl*

I predict that Ehzek was the one protecting the town from Strahd, Fiona's husband is dead, and she believes Strahd can resurrect him, she will let Strahd into the town during the coup. (I havn't played Curse of Strahd and do not know how it goes)

The puns.... Please, Grant me the powers of your brilliant punnatic powers, please!!

Arbutus: Your sword may sever every limb, but my power will always bloom!

I love listening to these especially since I like the game and quarantine is stopping it

I'm loving this story! I really need to get back into D&D, stupid shift work makes it tough though. I haven't played since 3.5 edition!

If Boshak is CE then you would think he might just kill Ireena to spite Strahd. After all, they could at least use her as a hostage to let them out of Barovia.

The Baron's son in our game ended up casting fireball and killing most of his own zombie-cats. He also came out just attacking us before we could talk to him, so he died.

Love this series, can’t wait for the next episode. Your storytelling is amazing with or without animation.

really enjoying these! would love more in the future

A cat a magic circle and a little girl. So that one scene from fullmetal alchemist if you replace cat with dog

"Asshole stabby ghosts! That's what you're gunna get! I'm a Cleric and I've faced this more than you can count!" Lmaooooo

These stories from the campaign are *so* good. I cannot wait for the next one, also the voice acting is fantastic!

Who else here has been loving these stories? I cant tell how much I love this story.

I liked Ben's Strahd impression, he did a decent job at it . If anyone enjoys the module I highly advise reading I Strahd by PN Elrod ! I have owned it since it's initial release in the 90's and it is by far one of my favorite books! The way Strahd is portrayed in it is a bit different than this incarnation of him but I always preferred how he was in 2nd ed. Many of the other books in the Ravenloft series are great as well like Vampires of the mist by Christy Goldwin ( also involving Strahd), the Knight of the black rose ( about Lord Loren Soth) by Jim Lowder is amazing ( though it's sequel is not as good IMO) as well as many others

Sounds like the crate content has been aaaaaaltered from the moduuuuuule *cough*PiddlwickII*cough*

You know I'm rewatching these and the DM really did just look at the sidequests the party can run into and went "All of them please!"

It makes me sad these arent getting more views. Cause honestly this seems like a super complex storyline with a metric ton of options and shit.

I’m planning on running curse of strahd but I needed a good way to see how everything ties together. Super useful… Also DAMN. The time crunch in curse of strahd is insane. You are dancing around a clock the moment you enter Vallaki. Beyond this, definitely making like a skyrim esque quest log for the players. Mainly to meme but still

you didn't even haft touch you new character this time

Wow, this turned out so different than our campaign. In ours, Victor was irredeemable. My character hated that brat more than Strahd.

Really enjoying this longer form of storytelling for the videos. And I get more caught up in the characters when I hear more of the story. Well done!

We need "That is where that session ended" T-Shirts.

"I can't even go outside!!" *cough*

Thank you for the story! Obvs can't be done all the time since there's a finite supply of experiences for stories, but I really appreciate how you're sharing this story with us.

Aww, he thinks the coup will be "okay"

Had an episode of Tales from my D&D Campaign, and then this. Tonight was a good night.

These are fantastic! Keep doing them please! I am currently running CoS and I love seeing the twists your DM trows in, and how the players handle situations differently than mine have.

Oh, the wooden statue thing....we killed it from extreme range....it never got an attack off on us.

I think ima steal that folder idea for my new character im playing soon

OK, is it just me, or does anyone else suspect the lady wants to overthrow the Baron to clear the way for Strahd?

So I'm listening to this and I'm thinking to myself if they had someone in this group that was more towards stealth orientation I wonder if that person could solo up getting the bones I doubt it but you know maybe scout it

I have a feeling that the paladin not being disguised will be a problem 😁 Amazing episode; really enjoy this kind of content

Man, your DM played things way more sympathetic with a lot of the NPCs. Our DM really upped the horror and despair. Everyone was a shit. Nobody was to be trusted. Valaki was a powder-keg. Though, much like you guys, we had a huge pile of to-dos happening all at once. - Victor was a sociopath - Lady Watcher was obviously malicious - The Bergomeister was unhinged (The DM really leaned in to "All will be well." and played him like a neurotic. - We had a werewolf siege and had to go to Argynevostholt to convince the revenants to help, which required an awesome boss fight. - The Festival of the Sun went full whickerman with the prisoners who'd violated the 'laws' as sacrifices (this is where we killed the Bergomiester and Izek) - We ended up straight up assassinating Lady Watcher and then installed Irena as Bergomeister of Valaki and we'd interfered enough with Strahd's plans that he'd effectively given up on her and was now more fixated on us (We had several face-to-face encounters with him by this point). Valaki is also where I became a short-lived meme for Vengeance Paladins, but that's a long story. XD

Puffin Forest, this is really good. I'm enjoying this format a lot.

...I was thiking Victor' experimental cat might be the same one, and then that would mean that Stella's mind, or an aspect of it is actually within, it would've been quite problematic if they destroyed it only to later realize that... reminds me of when Clerics had a panic attack over unwittingly murdering children in that one Halloween special one-shot... also that whole situation with Victor that's such an ingenious bit of storytelling, so many possibilities to go with it... and how Ben worked in the brides as an element for the storytelling, some people mentioned it before, but yes, very likable :) great work! and Fiona too of course, not to mention I can't wait how that whole business between the party and the hags is going to be resolved, especially Boshack's involvement is of interest to me, seeing how lawful evil warlocks are a staple of mine.., yes indeed, this is actually turning out to be *a lot* like Ben said, so many quest entries, quest log so full! So full! So fun! ...16:04 ...also, I don't know, I feel like Boshack at least could work something out, if not for his relentlessly slef-centered personality, idk, is he a megalomaniac? or who knows maybe even Gouda, maybe she could patch things up for Strahd between him and his son and maybe even his public "image?" With help from Garo of course.... I feel like there are actually quite a bit of a future for this party as NPCs for other tales, a not so merry band of "fixers," rather than straight-laced heroic adventurers, ala detective agency circa 1920s or 30s... I know my character would of course at least try to make some sort of devil's bargain, with extra extra steps and notaries....my character deals a lot with demonic lawyers, a lot ...16:52 ...if we don't know what the Big Bad wants, how can you be certain he's The Bad of the story..? We technically can't say that he is The Villain... no actual direct proof that ties him to the actual evil goings and such and such(and like Ben mentioned, neither do they have much on the Baron, only secondhand, maybe he's not even the one truly in charge of all this "happiness patrol" oppression?) ...and why am I suddenly turning into the Devil's advocate? Or well, a Vampire advocate anyways... Poor Garo, can't wait to see how all of this will turn out for him and his massive file folder, how he's going to manage all of this, how all of this is going to be remembered in his later adventuring days...the poor undying Garo...

I gotta say, I'm really enjoying hearing Puffin swear so much.