Many AD&D® adventures go something like this: the PCs wander from room to room (or over hill and over dale), slaying creatures and seizing the spoils, until at last they face the biggest creature of all, and destroy it, too. In Ravenloft, you might be tempted to substitute a powerful vampire for the "beast supreme," and fill the string of lesser encounters with "Gothic" monsters such as bats, ghouls, and ghosts. Unfortunately, that formula leaves something to be desired: a story.

Punishments: The character's physical appearance changes to reflect the new ability. For example, a character who can spin webs may have hands that resemble two spiders dangling from his wrists.

Ravenloft, like traditional Gothics, is a world of startlingly beautiful, seductive settings that have at once an allure and a cold, lonely edge. By day, the settings are breathtaking—the windswept heath with brambles aflame in autumn color, soaring peaks with icy summits piercing the sky, mountain streams tumbling thousands of feet into an explosion of glittering spray. The woods are wild, rambling, and dense, with velvet evergreens and gleaming silver aspen, or armies of ancient timber, towering and black. Mountain lakes, too deep to secure anchor, mirror clouds racing across the sky. But as the sun drifts west, and the granite cliffs circling the lakes reflect from the water in shades of gold, and then red, this is no place for travelers to tarry. Yet tarry they will. . . .