Oh dear. This one is a horror, but not in the way that was intended.
This book is partly a guide to running horror adventures, and partly a guide to a reimagined version of the Ravenloft setting. Unfortunately, though, the whole is holed beneath the waterline by a key decision, and so ends up totally defanged.
Back when "Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes" was released, WotC introduced the ability for some elves to swap sex at will. This was a fairly innocuous piece of world-building... but it was also pretty much the only thing that was ever discussed about the book online. That is a pretty strong indicator of just how interesting MToF really is.
With "Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft", the key topic of discussion is the introduction of "safety tools" for horror campaigns. Now, I should note that these tools are actually a good thing - in fact, the only problem with them, per se, is that the groups that really really need them are also the ones least likely ever to use them. But that's not WotC's fault - they can't legislate for bad behaviour, but can only do what they can do.
But the problem is that those safety tools totally overshadow everything in the book - they're discussed in the introduction, they're discussed in chapter one, and they're discussed in chapter four. That's way too much - basically, they should have had chapter one to themselves, what needed said should have been said, and the job would have been done.
The other major problem, though, is that the "safety tools" make it very clear that groups have to be aware of sensitive material that may trigger various members. Which is fine - it's an important consideration. But the rest of the book then slavishly applies that same logic. Absolutely everything that could be even remotely controversial has been excised from the setting. It's not even a Disney-fication of the setting - Disney's "Hunchback of Notre Dame" wouldn't pass the censors here.
The big problem with that is the horror is by its nature inherently problematic. If it doesn't make people uncomfortable than it is failed horror. And that is the case with this book.
Anyway...
The book is split as follows:
- The introduction is 8 pages. It's fine, giving the aforementioned discussion of the safety tools, some trappings of horror, and a brief precis of the setting.
- Chapter one runs 26 pages, and deals with character creation: new lineages (also handled badly - WotC have obviously decided to replace the word 'race' with 'lineage', which is also fine, but rather than just assuming people will understand that that's what they meant all along, the language becomes awflly convoluted as they go), dark gifts, subclass options, backgrounds, and trinkets. It's all okay, but bland.
- Chapter two runs 22 pages and deals with creating a domain of dread. This is also fine, with the discussion of horror subgenres being the most interesting part. Except for the oddly puritanical repeated refrain that the group must avoid various things.
- Chapter three is the discussion of the actual Ravenloft setting, and fills the bulk of the book at 124 pages. This gives a detailed description of 17 domains and then a very brief summary of 22 more. This is fine, but far too many of those domains are one trick descriptions - here's the darklord, here's their unique activity, so here's the adventure to be had here. Very few of these feel like they could support an entire campaign. Additionally, because this is a reimagined version of Ravenloft, all the pre-existing lore is now void... and there's no real prospect of WotC ever filling in any of the gaps, so the setting suddenly feels very empty.
The original version of Ravenloft had most of the domains connected in "the Core", and then a number of disconnected islands. This new version gets rid of the concept of the Core, and makes everything an island. This is really unfortunate - while many of the linkages in the Core didn't make much sense, it's also true that some of the domains work much better if they do have neighbours to contrast again. Additionally, splitting everything up means that characters of domain-spanning fame now just doesn't make sense.
On the plus side, this book does provide loads of adventure opportunities, and introduces a very large number of unique antagonists suitable for PCs of a wide range of levels. Or it would, if they'd provided stats for any of those Darklords. Instead, they've taken the view that the Darklords should each provide a suggestion of a standard Monster Manual statblock to use. The argument here is that this allows the DM to tailor these opponents to their own PCs, and that that's more flexible. Well, yes... except that exactly that same logic applies to absolutely every other antagonist in every book ever. I found this decision extremely poor - if they can provide lengthy statblocks for the demon lords, and then repeat them in a second book (where those demon lords are such high CR that almost no groups will ever actually use them), then they should provide them for the Darklords here.
Finally, this chapter reintroduces the Vistani. Now, these were one of the most problematic elements in all of D&D lore. In truth, they should probably have been removed entirely - and indeed, they should probably have been retconned so they never existed. Well, I'm glad to say that this version does not make use of any problematic stereotypes. The downside is that these haven't been replaced by anything - the pages on the Vistani basically use a lot of words to say nothing.
- Chapter four runs 38 pages, and covers horror adventures. This is okay, though given how defanged it is it's not really worth bothering with - this material has been handled much better in other books. The only thing of real value is the adventure, "The House of Lament", which runs 20 pages and is actually okay.
- Finally, chapter five rounds out the book at 34 pages, and deals with monsters. The first bit of this talks about reskinning existing monsters for a horror game, and the rest describes some new monsters. It's fine.
And that's that. I really can't recommend this book to anyone. I don't consider it a good guide to horror adventures, I don't particularly care for this version of Ravenloft (I do have to concede that there are a number of really good ideas here, but as a whole it just doesn't grab me), and I found the whole thing unforgivably tame.
As a consequence of this, I'm now no longer interested in WotC's take on existing settings, and as a consequence of that I'm done with 5e books. And since that's two consecutive editions I've checked out of, I can't imagine 6e will be of any great interest when it comes.
It seems my love for D&D has ended with a whimper.
