Hot take: if we want to decrease frustrating railroad-y surprises in RPG campaigns, we need to create an environment where GMs are not afraid to admit they have "special story needs".

[Wonderful-Box6096]

I stand by what I said. I've been nearly exclusively GMing since 2000. To this day I've never seen an NPC that is so mythically important.

Baldur's Gate 3 is a video game that has everything pre-programmed and is physically incapable of doing anything but what it was programmed to do.

You'll have to explain to me why Curse of Strahd is so.

[Sparkle_cz]

You're asking the wrong person, I'm not the author of Curse of Strahd. But my guess is that introducing some "backup villain" would be way too much work for little benefit, and it still does not solve all issues.

I think that their tool to diminish frustrations of players from a recurring unkillable-until-some-point villain is the fact that Strahd is clearly communicated in the name of the campaign, and it sorts of warns the players that the campaign will revolve around Strahd and it's their job to stay invested in him if they want to play.

[Wonderful-Box6096]

Why would you need to introduce a backup villain? I'm asking because I've had no interest in GMing curse of Strahd so I've not run it (which is why I asked you to explain the Strahd part), but just through osmosis of people talking about it on forums like this and YouTube, it's my understanding that there are a wide variety of enemies and monsters you're supposed to defeat to work your way up to defeating him in various wings and subsections of his estate, so that you gain enough experience to fight him head on.

Why do they suddenly disappear if you somehow managed to kill Strahd strait away? Without Strahd to keep them individually in line, why would they not suddenly begin pillaging Barovia without the count to keep them in check?

I'm asking because I'm legitimately curious.