D&D Curse of Strahd Replay (Episode 5): Dinner With The Devil 

YES!!!!

THERE IS GREAT DAAAAAAAANGER

IIIIIIII WWWWAAAAAARRRRRRNNNNNEEEEDDD YYYYOOOUUUUU!!!!!!

I WAAAARNED YOU!

Another big youtuber? What is this a crossover episode?

That's what Ravenloft does to you. But everyone once an while and with a lot of blood, sweat and tears. You can push back against the darkness and even force the dark powers to release you or another.

I swear I heqrd his voice breaking and crying during the church slaughter

I bet the church slaughter was a real powerful moment around the actual table.

I know right? this actually mad me feel quite sad indeed

@@zacharyhawley1693 It's just misery porn.

You tell yourself a lie often enough, you'll sincerely come to believe it. And Strahd's had hundreds of years to lie to himself.

@@troodon1096 I mean yeah, that is 100% the truth. Dosen't make it any less funny or him any less stupid. Biggest simp vampire to ever un-live.

@Milan Marković clearly you dont understand the deep philosophy of simping. Strahd simps not just in his endless use of resources to spy on her, but in his inability to let her go. He has THREE vampire Whamen all pining for him as well as a male consort and let's be real, rahadine, probably after the vampire dick too. And he ignores all of it for one whamen who yeets herself off cliffs. Clearly strahd is only pretending to be a man of culture, I mean what else do you expect from a guy who blots out the sun? Any man who rejects big daddy sunshine is just out of his mind.

@Milan Marković you madlad, I didn't even think of him! Haha!

@Milan Marković pfft, this joke is spiralling out of control at rapid pace

"No, not THAT kind of dump stat."

@@scytheseven9173 Ha! A charisma check would probably be required to make a proper job of crapping on a formal dinner setting.

@@nerag7459 That would probably be con to force the crap out

@@codedracticus3326 I dont want to bullshit you... we dont even have a minotaur in the party.

@@codedracticus3326 probably s mix of the two the charisma being lower

Welp...at least the Night Hags won't make pastry out of the kids.

Could you please write a dark fantasy novel. I will read it

Janna Montana as a struggling writer in the midst of doing just that I’ll let you know when it’s done. Thanks for the vote of confidence and I promise the final work will be better than this wee blurb I did for fun.

well written

Garo ran. Ran like never before. ,,No no no! Not them! Not now!“ He tried to run even faster, but stepped on a pile of blood, nearly falling to the ground. It couldn’t be. It shouldn’t be. It must not be! But he knew he was to late. They were to late. Why? Why did this happen? Why where they so stupid? Why...? Now innocents are dying. One by one. And it’s our foult.

Tincho Boshack: “Also me.”

IM NOT TRAPPED IN A FACILITY FULL OF ROBOTS, YOUR ALL TRAPPED IN HERE WITH ME!

@@Marshadow01 *Pulls pin with religious intent*

I see you are a man of culture

@A Better Tomorrow -- Not really imho. While he could easily get along with....most of the main NPC's in CoS, Boshek would probably fall under the Count's sway before to long if he was on his own. It's much more intresting to me to listen to Puffin's character trying to fight an almost daily battle of "lesser Evils", especially since he multiclassed into Cleric.... As a quick aside: you think he'll ever get to use "Brawn Velsing, Vampire Hunter"?

How _does_ one receive recipes from his dark lord? Am I correct to assume that he only has one arm because he gave the other one up to his dark lord (to eat)?

@D Sandoval -- i personally think he gave the arm up so he could gain his Warlock powers.

you can not be evil in the demiplane of dread (granted it has not developed into this in 5e yet. please wizards give us more ravenloft.) the more evil you do the more corrupted you get and the more of the dark powers attention you attract until you become an evil domain lord npc with your own demiplane or an evil working with the lord of your current domain npc character choice.

that's soooooo me!!

I mean it's true in 5e. If you don't cast spells with int all it does is give you a slightly better bonus to the knowledge skills. And the extremely rare int save.

Hmmm that explains general human behaviour....oh, you meant in d&d!

E V E R Y T H I N G

@@Necrapocalypse It doesn't give you more skill points or languages?

@@whiterabbit75 Nope! I mean 5e doesn't even have skill points, but it doesn't give you more of the equivalent either. And I believe the only way to learn new languages after character creation is by taking the Linguist feat. Or like, multiclassing into certain classes I suppose. Like druid.

Right? So cool but also painful and sad cos of what it represents.

The emo kid with the theronuclear telefailtation circle is the real hero... until he's reincarnated as pastry-fodder.

I would, but so many things have ruined the feeling I get from that with still have the hero win,

@@nerosoul2506 might I respectfully point out his malikar vid

it's mostly his fault so i have no sympathy.

@@jacobellinger8027 nah, this campaign is misery porn, that's all.

@@jacobellinger8027 Yeah seriously, it's the theme of this campaign which is "Everything is Grim. Nothing will be well." Also playing this one myself and I'm grinding my teeth to rally an army ( well, at least a few peasants that are insane enough) to attack Ravenloft with our group. Not an easy job with how down everyone is and also the defeat of Mordenkainen didn't help too.

Weeeeell...technically he did since the letters asking for their aide comes from him and not the mayor like they thought. I think that counts. And since he can scry when his name is spoken he was able to watch all their antics with possible glee.

I mean he literally did. Hired them to oust a spy, which they absolutely did not

Thaumaturgy saves lives.

I'm pretty sure half of us in Puffin's audience have never played DnD. His videos have REALLY got me wanting to play, though. ...I've got a Hexblade Pact Warlock character sheet ready to go and everything, but there's no one where I live who likes the game 😭

Well looks like half of you need to play dnd and if the dm has a little experience than do this module cause it is epic and never plays the same way twice

@@darkmoon2503 Great character choice, I have wanted to play that myself. Many people are in a similar situation not near anyone who plays DnD. I recently found a website called Roll20 where you can play DnD online, and many people use it to stream the map and info, and you can speak through discord and such.

I like D&D but I can’t get games organised

@@nerosoul2506 I am sorry that dose suck keep trying it will happen

How did the fight go?

I assume you played in one of the earlier editions? Those were pretty light on anything but Strahd's lair. This is more of a whole campaign that takes place with Strahd in the background as opposed to the original 36 (or some such) page module.

That sucks. Did the DM just frickin' railroad you, or what?

@@darkmoon2503 nah, before the módule had like 40 pages. This Is actually a remake from Ravenloft

@@darkmoon2503 This was originally a module from 1st edition which was considered so brilliant that over time more material has been added and expanded upon for it. At this point in 5th it is an entire small campaign that starts at 3rd level and ends with what is pretty much the original adventure at around 10th level.

daeger oh boy did that back fire

@Demiclea yup, really dislike it as well. This whole module is misery porn and nothing else.

I like to imagine this is the cheery part of Boshack's biography. "Chapter 32: that time I had a barrel of laughs in Barovia". For someone with enough of a gallows humor the kids not being there at the end would've been a hilarious punchline.

Yeah I was pretty interested in the Curse of Strahd module but after watching these videos, I'll be honest, I'm never gonna play this. If I wanted to feel overpowered, hopeless, depressed and like nothing I do matters then real life has plenty of that without having to experience it in a game as well

@@sawspitfire422 it could also be just the GM. For my part, I grow frustrated the more videos of Strahd I watch but I also enjoy Puffin because he's swell. If he had fun, good for him: for my part, I'll keep watching just so I learn from the mistakes of the module or the other GM. XD I wanna be~ the very BEST!

Some of the vamp stereotypes are like that. They keep their word, but if you cross them yer 200% dead. Sometimes, you are even more dead than that it depends on the universe.

A well done Lawful Evil character is never rude or unreasonable. I mean, that would be impolite. It's not just Strahd, Asmodeus is often depicted like this. Heck, it's rarely done, but even Hobgoblins are supposed to be polite, according to the books. It's just how Lawful Evil is. Politeness is a great way to demonstrate the methodical patience associated with that shade of evil.

Standard nobility.

Hell the module for him says he’s really respectable well mannered guy. But uh, depending on the tarot card thing you do. Strand could potentially kill you outright upon just seeing him if he knows you made contact with the van Helsing guy from the book or you draw tower/upside down death. I won’t say why, but one of your players better be a cleric or be rolling them nat 20s

Violet Vulpix I mean people can still be scum sucking shit stains, but still reasonable

Well the child hag escaped, and she would probally begin something resembling the bakery...

@@theisjepsen22 How long does it take to turn into a hag? Also even if she was a hag does that mean she had to be evil?

We managed to accidentally burn down another house when we got to this point.

I have the “highest” hopes for my players. Nothing has gone wrong YET

@@magicstyx Its Ravenloft. Give it time.

@@TheHolyPear I stand corrected.

@@TheHolyPear if I get any a chance I’m burning down everything

+2 sins...Didn't include a lap dance.

So we can assume the value of his life equals that of several other people, as when he doesn't die several other people do instead.

He's going to die inside.

At this point he will form a death singularity, from which no death can escape.

JP indeed

Right? I thought there was something about the Warlock being one armed in the beginning. I'm kind of surprised there wasn't at least any mention of him being interested in studying it.

Nom Nom

Eh, it's been 300 years, they're used to his delusional abusive BS by now. And they have probably figured out that Tatyana is more of a fantasy than something they have to worry about.

@@halfmask3 Brides. Not wives.

Eh, they're his vampiric brides. Those don't have to be romantic brides as well

@@halfmask3 good point

They are clearly jealous of each other, so it could be something to leverage, if the cleric, warlock and apparently paladin had bothered to put points in charisma.

Get a werewolf trio together, then next level multiclass into the mexican wrestler class. You know you want Werewolf Luchadore Trio!

Don't forget about the dumping on tables! And the murder!

Welcome to the curse of strahd

@@ChandlerWithaZ *gets out a marker and crosses out 'Curse of Strahd' and writes in 'Ravenloft'* That's more like it. There is NOTHING good which happens in Ravenloft, which sticks for long. That's just how it is...

Well, depression and vengeance At least this episode has vengeance

I was thinking "Hotel California"

Con?

Not sure you want Gouda being the parties speaker either, but notice the other players aren't stepping up to fill that role.

Never let Gouda speak.

To be fair, none of them would make very good party faces. Garo's charisma is his dump stat apparently, Gouda is a punmeister goody-two-shoes, Krusk is a paladin in Ravenloft ('nuff said), and Boshak... well, the less said about Boshak, the better. They are in desperate need of a bard, even if he _does_ try to sleep with everything.

@@whiterabbit75 I wonder how many bards have contracted a necrotic or undead VD in Barovia?

should've sided(at least temporarily and conditionally of course) with Strahd, he actually seems reasonable in this version of the story, at least as reasonable as someone like this could be, but given everything he's been through after all this time.... this way they wouldn't need to go at it alone, get some loyalty points with him as well, they could've let him deal with them but for some measure of trust, (and to get some XP* as players too of course), should've offered to deal with them "on his behalf," for state security and solidarity, future prosperity, such business as usual.., just with some extra muscle from his side to assist, this whole story would've went entirely different, instead of having to wage a war on all fronts like this, in the end antagonizing almost everyone and essentially disappointing everyone else... how could they not see this! such total "do-gooders..." ...well, discounting Boshack of course, he's my favourite, of course... him and Gouda :)

As far as the hags go, having a plan to keep them from going immaterial was required before fighting them. Without that they stood no chance.

@@alexanderzhmurov9624 you don't want to be under a vampire lords sway, it's really a fucking poor idea

@@FoxHound-ut1hu but it's also never a good idea to take on an opponent clearly superior in force(s), straight on without strategy, and appeasement is a strategy that works with people motivated by fear of a personal loss...(at least until other measures can be taken, be that drastic or not...) ...appeasement or even a temporary unification as the case may be...

@@WildBluntHickok I wasn't aware of such measures as even a possibility, hags want something I've covered before...only glanced at briefly before

3. Take it or leave it

Every 60 seconds in Africa a minute passes

LoL

*3 Old Ladies

FAKE NEWS! It was three little old ladies. And you didn't even mention that they were self employed small business owners working in the children's food industry! "Pastries children dream of." - 3 Sisters Children's Bakery And the little girl escaped

@@safetytheflamewolf the covenant was missing a Hag, the girl was to replace her

But one day, one day.

and it's going to be someone you don't even like. Some selfish NE thief who robs you, only to escape into a squad of ghosts and skeletons, who you defeat, but not because you wanted to save the thief.

Mr. Krabs: or the next day, or the next day, or the next day, or the next day......

Pretty sure you're in the wrong video

@@bloodygecko2577 definitely is

Yeah it is a wrong video, but Ben probally doesn't check the comments of the old videos. But it is nice that you got something to do with your dad

You always have to be thinking in the long term, and get your victories when you can.

I need to finish that series but after binging back in season 3 I'm scared to watch more. Shit sent me into a month long depressive spiral.

Alpha Hollow yes

You're a true hero.

I'm in r/whoooosh mode here. Help me out.

@@ArgzeroYT bojack horseman the netflix original.

Llama Bing curse of straad Is a notoriously dark campaign.

@@Geckoey2 yknow I kinda guessed that, cos it was that or puffin really needs to chat to the FBI about any unknown serial killer cases and suggest his DM for ALL of them

Welcome to Ravenloft, also know as the Demiplane of Dread, a campaign setting of Gothic Horror. This dark and darker..

@@JGT42 With the 5e Curse of Strahd being infamously darker than the older modules to boot.

That sounds like a really dumb introduction. "Why yes, I am an ally to the inhuman tyrant you seek to kill. So, how about you help me in couping one of the few authorities opposed to Strahd?"

only the paladin oath that forbids lying has that, so most Paladins can lie

@@bdp4That's interesting. I see even the oaths as ideals which they are motivated to strive for but nobody is perfect and sometimes they will be faced with choices that make adhering to all of the tenets impossible. The roleplay of what they do to repent once they break part of their oath is so rich in potential.

i think the point is less whether he is allowed to lie or not, and more how murphy's law has started breaking his character's spirit. died once, and anyone he tries to save ends up getting stamped with the mark of death. Everyone who seems to be a decent person turns into a "great evil" and those who seem evil are doing it for the right reasons. He is lawful good, but his character no longer can identify himself as such, and when it comes to a magic relic judging alignment, your own mindset does have some degree of influence into whether or not the character can or is willing to use it. Morality is almost entirely mental. The collective social consciousness just determines how much friction your ideals of morality will cause.

@@cullenlatham2366 There's no question this is one mind breaking experience. If the campaign were still going on I'd be worried about the mental health of the players. Thank goodness for Gouda's jokes to at least lighten the mood some.

Borovian Commoners: *BURN THE WITCH!*

Dunno, do you float or sink?

Do you weigh as much as a duck?

Who are you? How are you so wise in the ways of science?

can u wish to bring fusionfall retro back

Morale booster? Clearly you didn’t listen to the whole episode lol

That depends entirely upon where they work in an "essential role." Me, I'm a correctional officer and former soldier, volunteered for both jobs so I know I'm messed up.

I'd also love a Chaotic Good character, after learning 'All souls that die here, are resurrected into new bodies', and just being like 'Well. I mean, they died. That sucks... They'll be back though'

This is essentially what happened to my life cleric when we played CoS

Hamza Ali It's an option. The spirits are trapped in Borovia. It's something to talk to your players about before the the game. It doesn't sound like the gm did for this, though.

Yeah, I’m not going to lie I would have walked away from the table at this point and just left the campaign. I really don’t like this style of running Ravenloft. But watching this does make me appreciate my own DMs work in my groups campaign, it was tough and dark at times but he always made us feel like heroes fighting out way through the evil of Barovia and making the place just a little bit better.

Just a clarification on my comment, in the talk through episode, they say the GM did talk to them about the death options beforehand. They had the res option or the option of starting a new character.

I think it's perfect. Perfectly on point for the tone of Curse of Strahd. A lot of this could have been avoided with more investigation and as they get stronger they will likely get some victories.

Problem is it feels more like a punishment for getting overwhelmed by all the front loaded quests than a story consequence to me. Like "psych, that one quest you put off for a single dang night, that one was the time sensitive one, sorry, your lack of psychic abilities means everyone dies!" It was great for the emotional impact, but I hate being punished for time management rather than active decisions in a game. If the quests have deadlines don't give them to the players all at once! As a player I would have been really pissed about that. In real life I have to juggle deadlines and executive skills- in a game give me a break! Maybe if it were because Fiona let them in I would have found it more logical- that was an active mistake - but the invitation that didn't state a time or date plus the bones quest? Those felt like screw jobs, or at least would have to me as a player. This episode definitely cemented "awesome but waaay too depressing for me" as my opinion on Curse of Strahd as a module.

Has that changed since this comment?

@@Arcticmaster1190 No it has not.

@@aspektx Sorry to hear. I do understand- tried to look for a CoS game for the last three weeks under my availability times and no one seems to be running one. Now I’m just prepping to DM a game, with some inspirational ideas from this series.

I'm not going to spoil stuff about this campaign but almost every instance of horrible stuff happening (including the ones in this episode) is preventable.

Peter Bychkov preventable, but difficult. Worthy of note is that they did save the vallaki girl from drowning. That being said, during the early part of the game, trying to save anyone via combat is almost always going to result in someone dying.

Hope you mean you want to DM it. Listening to these and then being a player in this campaign would be lame both for you and for the other players at the table.