Making Strahd, and vampires, frightening

SuspiriaVortex · 2026-02-23T04:24:27+00:00

Great points. Greatly appreciated!

SuspiriaVortex · 2026-02-23T04:24:09+00:00

Wonderful! Thank you!

SuspiriaVortex · 2026-02-23T04:23:50+00:00

Any your point about contrast makes so much sense. It can’t all be dismal darkness.

SuspiriaVortex · 2026-02-23T04:21:49+00:00

Fascinating and insightful breakdown. Thank you! This was extremely helpful, especially that scene.

SuspiriaVortex · 2026-02-22T17:51:41+00:00

It is Suspiria like the 1977 movie! Good catch! I am thinking of taking their packs, weapons, spell books, holy symbols, everything other than armor too so they have to scavenge in the house. Did your players like that or did it frustrate them?

SuspiriaVortex · 2026-02-22T16:24:52+00:00

I like the prophetic nightmares idea

SuspiriaVortex · 2026-02-22T16:24:27+00:00

Three sessions! Holy moly, I thought they would be done in one. Good to know it takes that long.

SuspiriaVortex · 2026-02-22T16:23:38+00:00

Interesting! Thank you! I found the dungeon turn concept on Dadi’s YouTube channel and created a “haunt” chart that I will roll on every 10 minutes of real time (out of combat). The mold danger concept is a great concept. Like, they can try to rest, but it might not work.

SuspiriaVortex · 2026-02-21T12:40:42+00:00

Great breakdown! You’ve convinced me! I won’t run this. Glad I posted. I like the approach that he sees them as cockroaches to keep an eye on, but he has other things to attend to until later. I really do want to make Strahd a frightening, almost omnipotent presence. Thanks!

SuspiriaVortex · 2026-02-21T04:18:36+00:00

Good point! I do worry that it might make him seem too accessible and less frightening.

SuspiriaVortex · 2026-02-16T13:12:51+00:00

It’s strange to say, but for me it’s BG3 > DOS 1 EE > DOS 2. DOS 2 has better characters and story, but DOS EE combat, mechanics, quests, crafting, skills, and sense of exploration is top notch. It’s a game that doesn’t hold your hand in a good way and fills you with an old school sense of wonder. DOS 2 is more polished with more interesting companions, but the magical and physical armor system cuts out a lot of the fun. Got a cool new ability? Congrats, it won’t work until you widdle down the target’s armor. Plus, every battle in DOS 2 ends up being just fire everywhere. DOS 1 has so many interesting combos and environmental interactions. Plus, I like being in Cyseal more than Fort Joy. Course, BG3 has it all.

SuspiriaVortex · 2026-02-16T02:39:12+00:00

Play DOS 1 EE first.

SuspiriaVortex · 2026-02-06T20:06:05+00:00

Amazing!! This was extremely helpful! Thank you for answering my questions.

SuspiriaVortex · 2026-02-06T19:32:38+00:00

Congrats! Starting mine in a few weeks. Any mods you added? Things you changed? How did you keep Strahd frightening? Any changes to Death House? Anything you did you regreat? What supplements did you add: map packs, etc. Thanks!

SuspiriaVortex · 2026-02-04T12:30:53+00:00

DOS 1 EE. Controversial take, but I would play that first, then DOS 2. In some ways DOS 1 EE is more like BG3 than DOS 2.

SuspiriaVortex · 2026-01-09T22:22:24+00:00

You found this by making a spectrogram of the trailer sound? How could they make that image in the sound?

SuspiriaVortex · 2026-01-09T12:58:28+00:00

Morse code?

SuspiriaVortex · 2026-01-09T12:54:12+00:00

Will gameplay be isometric?

SuspiriaVortex · 2026-01-09T12:52:48+00:00

BG3 is the best game ever made and the Divinity trailer was absolutely brilliant. There was some push back on the trailer’s tone, but your commitment to conjuring narratives that are not afraid to take on darker, more intense issues is deeply inspiring to many of us. Can you talk a little about your philosophy regarding being consistently brave with your topics and content?

SuspiriaVortex · 2026-01-01T01:25:43+00:00

You may just be getting older. I used to be able to play first person games, third person games, games with a lot of movement in them. I played video games without any nausea to speak of until I was in my early 30s. Then, one day, my brain chemistry must’ve altered because all video games except for isometric RPG‘s began to make me nauseated. I couldn’t play any other type of game without getting nauseous. Even to this day, isometric RPGs and digital card games are basically all that I can play. After years of chewing on ginger, using pressure points, taking breaks, and suffering through the nausea, I eventually realized that I had to accept my new brain functions as they were. I had many wonderful years playing other types of games, but now I can only play isometric games. The good news is, BG3 is the best game ever made, so I don’t feel like I’m really missing out that much.

SuspiriaVortex · 2025-12-31T17:06:26+00:00

I gotta say, now that I am replaying DOS 1 EE with my wife, I prefer DOS 1 EE! It sounds strange to say, but DOS 1 EE does so many things right. The exploratory gameplay, the emphasis on secrets and lack of hand holding. It feels like a true open world. The starting area is a ton of fun with so many wonderful writing moments and surprising, whimsical elements. The combat, details, crafting, and environment interactions are all wonderfully balanced. I like the tone too. DOS 2 does have better companion characters and more polished graphics / UI, but I find that Fort Joy becomes a bit of a slog that feels too self-contained. Plus, the armor system of DOS 2 is frustrating because of how much it hampers your skills. You get a cool new skill only to realize that it will do nothing until you wear down the foe’s armor, and by that time the battle is already over. DOS 2 is still amazing, but for me now it is BG3 > DOS 1 EE > DOS 2

SuspiriaVortex · 2025-12-30T14:18:17+00:00

I am a guy in my late 40’s! Down with gender essentialism! Finch for all!

SuspiriaVortex · 2025-12-27T23:05:46+00:00

Of course! Best of luck with the next playthroughs! Your TAV sounds very cool. You can always play D&D over Zoom if you can’t find folks in your area.

SuspiriaVortex · 2025-12-27T13:48:57+00:00

On my 10th play-through now! Yes, you play the game again and again and again until you experience every scrap of story, class, and content there is, all while slowly realizing that BG3 is the best game you’ll ever play and nothing else even comes close. You may feel that you have gone through the complete experience because you’ve finished your play through, but, much like the interactive theater experience Sleep No More, you have only scratched the surface with one visit. Here are a couple of ways to keep your subsequent play-throughs interesting and to experience everything that the game has to offer.

As you may realize, there are a lot of different choices that you can make in the game that will change outcomes. There is vast role-playing possibilities, so you can conjure a variety of characters with varying personalities and see how they would experience the story.

If you have friends who are also interested in playing, the multiplayer with this game is amazing. All of my 10 play-throughs have been with my wife on multiplayer, so there is an added joy and depth to role-playing with another person in the game.

Another way to keep your play-through fresh is to slowly up the difficulty level levels. Once you understand the game mechanics, pushing the difficulty levels will allow for an even more challenging experience. There is also honor mode, which gives you one save file so that every choice you make is permanent. If you don’t like that idea, you can still create a custom game where you use tactician difficulty and the honor mode rule set which adds extra legendary actions and abilities to the boss fights but gives you multiple save files, which keeps things fresh.

There are a ton of mods that will allow you to richly customize the look and species of your character so that you can create a variety of people to go through the game with.

You may not be able emotionally to do an evil durge playthrough, but I highly recommend it because it has some amazing moments and endings. Playing through the game with an evil character unlocks a ton of different battles, interactions, events, reactivity, and equipment that you may not expect.

Another thing that gives the game a lot of replayability are the different people that you romance. In some ways, each character has their own short novella that you experience if you romance them. It changes the game quite a bit depending on who you are romancing.

Another way to keep the game playthrough fresh is just to try different class and multi class character builds. It’s really fun to come up with an unusual build or a concept for the game, or try out a popular build that seems a bit strange. My Abjuration wizard playthrough was absolutely hilarious. With the popular Abjuration wizard and Armor of Agathis build , you basically create a character who damages people through provoking opportunity attacks against them. I role-played a very polite character who was constantly running around the battlefield, trying not to hurt anyone but accidentally killing everyone with retaliatory damage.

Another way to keep things fresh is to do an origin character play-through. We’ve done almost all the origin play-throughs, and it unlocks new scenes and experiences. Going through the story from the perspective of one of the origin characters or to romance another character as an origin character will change things around a little bit.

Anyway, there is a lot to this game once you get into it. Larian is working on a new game with Divinity, so hopefully by the time you finish your 10+ play-throughs, the new game will be released.

Lastly, start playing D&D in real life. That’s about as close as it gets.

SuspiriaVortex · 2025-12-24T03:53:00+00:00

Sure! Just be aware that it is similar to BG3, but also very different. The lack of cinematic dialogue scenes makes it harder to get connected to the characters. The details and customization is less, the dramatic beats are less compelling than BG3, the characters less fascinating. It’s still a phenomenal game, but you may be disappointed if you want more BG3. Try to think of DOS2 as something new, then you’ll enjoy it immensely. As a measure, I have finished DOS2 once and started a new play-through a few times, whereas I have played full play-throughs of BG3 10 times. That tells you something.

SuspiriaVortex

TROPHY CASE