The viability of a Castlevania TRPG?

[Sir Aubergine]

That's the Hammer I was referring to... I'm guessing you haven't seen the majestic glory that is Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires?

Oh snap. I think I AVGN did a review of it. Abraham Van Hellsing by way of Grand Moff Tarkin, with some very talented stunt men as his muscle. They fight jiangshi or something.

Is that about the size of it? XD

[JigokuBosatsu]

Yeah, it's not the best Hammer or Shaw Bros but it's pretty fun. And seeing Peter Cushing do "kung fu" is worth it on its own.

[ColorBlindNinja61]

I was thinking a bit how one might go about designing Dracula himself.

You'd want him to be final boss material, but would that necessitate having him being CR 20 something? Since so few people actually play D&D past level 12?

[hyzmarca]

In order to answer the question, you need to nail things down a bit. Castlevania is historical low fantasy - it takes place in, like, Romania, right? Vaguely in the past?

Specifically in the past. And sometimes in the future. Every Castlevania game is given a specific date, some down to the day, most at least the year. There's a rough timeline where Dracula has scheduled resurrections every 100 years, and some assholes can resurrect him early in between. There is game taking place during World War I, another during World War II, and two taking place in 2035.

Basically, you could set a Castlevania game anywhen between 1476 and the distant future. With possibly going back earlier if you're willing to make stuff up, since plenty of monsters predate Dracula.

[Dogbert]

So what I did was change the playable "races" into the major clans you encounter in the games. DaNasty, Belnades, LeCarde, Renard, Morris, etc. etc.

So I take it each of these clans have the respective special abilities that elevate them to Castlevania status? If so, this is indeed the right approach! Kudos.

P.S: Is that signature of yours a reference to something else? Beucase I'm totally stealing it for a comic, just letting you know.

[Sir Aubergine]

So what I did was change the playable "races" into the major clans you encounter in the games. DaNasty, Belnades, LeCarde, Renard, Morris, etc. etc.

So I take it each of these clans have the respective special abilities that elevate them to Castlevania status? If so, this is indeed the right approach! Kudos.

P.S: Is that signature of yours a reference to something else? Because I'm totally stealing it for a comic, just letting you know.

That's right The clan traits a character gets are much stronger than your average 5th edition race. Belmonts are stupefying with whip in hand. Belnades have lots of goodies with spellcasting. Morris' are really tough and have superior monk abilities, Lecardes are deadly with spears and have some bard-like abilities. The dhampir "clan" took a while to make because I was creating it from whole cloth. (I technically pigeon-holed each clan to be really talented at one base class, but then again I gave everyone the same class anyway. The Vampire Hunter.)

My signature is from the television special I watched many times as a kid called "The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat." The Grinch has a color-changing dresser with a mirror on top that speaks to him like a separate person and demands he snap out of being in a good mood by taking the Grinch's Oath. I linked a Youtube video of the scene for you.

https://youtu.be/zVqvSXMwZMk?t=133

[OgreBattle]

As the clan traits are very important, why not make them a 'racial' Class? This is a specialized game to begin with so it seems alright to be a lvl 5 Belmont adventuring with a lvl 5 DeNasty

[Sir Aubergine]

As the clan traits are very important, why not make them a 'racial' Class? This is a specialized game to begin with so it seems alright to be a lvl 5 Belmont adventuring with a lvl 5 DeNasty

How very 1st edition of you! If I had the creativity and patience your idea might be the best way to go. Giving players cool/unique stuff for their characters to do is never a bad idea, especially in Vapor Edition. :3

@ColorBlindNinja61, you can have your campaign fight a much weaker version of Drac. He is famously weak in some games; Simon's Quest and Harmony of Dissonance as examples. You could also have the players fight a Dracula inheritor, which is a human bequeathed one of the dark lord's myriad powers (just like in CV: Dawn of Sorrow).

[ColorBlindNinja61]

@ColorBlindNinja61, you can have your campaign fight a much weaker version of Drac. He is famously weak in some games; Simon's Quest and Harmony of Dissonance as examples. You could also have the players fight a Dracula inheritor, which is a human bequeathed one of the dark lord's myriad powers (just like in CV: Dawn of Sorrow).

Good point, I'll have to remember that.

[Sir Aubergine]

Good point, I'll have to remember that.

Another adventure you could run is for the characters to kill the followers of Darkness (worshipers of Dracula/Satan) before they can complete the Black Mass (ritual to resurrect Dracula). They hunt down Shaft, Barlowe, Carmilla, Drolta Tzuentes, or your own homemade evil spellcaster or vizier-type villain and put them to the sword and burn their chapel of evil to the ground.

If you do this the game becomes like Call of Cthulhu. If Drac wakes up we're all fucked, so behead/shoot those cultists. XD

[ColorBlindNinja61]

Another adventure you could run is for the characters to kill the followers of Darkness (worshipers of Dracula/Satan) before they can complete the Black Mass (ritual to resurrect Dracula).

That's a good adventure for low level PCs, since they can't fight Drac directly.

They hunt down Shaft, Barlowe, Carmilla, Drolta Tzuentes, or your own homemade evil spellcaster or vizier-type villain and put them to the sword and burn their chapel of evil to the ground.

That's another good thing about Castlevania, it's got a lot fodder for BBEGs.

If you do this the game becomes like Call of Cthulhu. If Drac wakes up we're all fucked, so behead/shoot those cultists. XD

That plotline could work for Call of Cthulhu too, I mean the game already has vampires.

[Zaranthan]

It's a shame there has never been a remotely decent mythos RPG, that would make a hell of a final twist. The eldritch abomination at the end of this book is in fact Dracula. I know my table would get a kick out of it.

[ColorBlindNinja61]

It's a shame there has never been a remotely decent mythos RPG, that would make a hell of a final twist.

To the point where I honestly asked if Call of Cthulhu d20 is the best Cthulhu Mythos RPG during the OSSR I did of that book.

The eldritch abomination at the end of this book is in fact Dracula. I know my table would get a kick out of it.

I'd love to do that in a CoC game.

[Blade]

You could also do it in two tiers.

First half of the campaign, they play mid-tier investigators who hunt down the cultist who want to revive Dracula. The game is more focused on investigation, they only fight low level monsters and would rather avoid other monsters. However, they get some loot and experience.

Climatic ending where an unexpected twist has Dracula get revived anyway. The PC either get a sudden boost, or the players switch to high-tier characters that they freed/revived/discovered during the first half of the campaign.

Second half of the campaign is Dracula's Castle. A big dungeon with lots of fighting.

[Username17]

The escalating nature of Castlevania bosses and the fact that little enemies are trying to wake up bigger enemies puts things in a D&D level structure really easily. If the campaign ends before you would be high enough level to fight Dracula, you can just have some evil wizard who was trying to bring back Dracula as the final boss. And if you keep playing, you can have various level appropriate vampires wake up.

To the point where I honestly asked if Call of Cthulhu d20 is the best Cthulhu Mythos RPG during the OSSR I did of that book.

Surely it would be something like GURPS: Cthulhupunk or Cyberpunk: The Dark Time. The bar is very low regardless. But we don't have to go as low as Unknown Armies or d20 Call of Cthulhu.

As the clan traits are very important, why not make them a 'racial' Class? This is a specialized game to begin with so it seems alright to be a lvl 5 Belmont adventuring with a lvl 5 DeNasty

I think you'd want to make a couple of extra clans that had power sets that work better for multiplayer (like healing allies) as well as giving players options that specifically are not one of the families that has a lot of canon members so that players have white space that they can write in if being a Belmont or Morris doesn't appeal.

-Username17

[OgreBattle]

Early promo DnD was evil sir fang vampire fighter vs goodly dudes that needed the hammer cleric to be invented yeah? Wonder if Igarashi and company knew about that’s

[Iduno]

My primary concern with using 5e is that (aside from being ass) 5e doesn't handle multiple weaker enemies VS a couple stronger PCs.

You try to fight 20 Orcs, you get your ass handed to you.

...over the course of a 2-3 hour long fight. But at least it isn't interesting combat.

You could also do it in two tiers.

First half of the campaign, they play mid-tier investigators who hunt down the cultist who want to revive Dracula. The game is more focused on investigation, they only fight low level monsters and would rather avoid other monsters. However, they get some loot and experience.

Climatic ending where an unexpected twist has Dracula get revived anyway. The PC either get a sudden boost, or the players switch to high-tier characters that they freed/revived/discovered during the first half of the campaign.

Second half of the campaign is Dracula's Castle. A big dungeon with lots of fighting.

To avoid the "you won, but the plot says you lost anyway" BS, I'd make their goal to prevent Dracula gaining a large amount of power. If they can completely prevent the revival, he's a weak-ass corpse. If the revival succeeds, he's an unkillable super-vampire. If they stop it when they actually do, he's powerful, but able to be overcome by PCs of about the level the PCs will be when they get to Dracula to fight him. It's fairly transparent, but significantly less of a fuck you to the players.

[ColorBlindNinja61]

To the point where I honestly asked if Call of Cthulhu d20 is the best Cthulhu Mythos RPG during the OSSR I did of that book.

Surely it would be something like GURPS: Cthulhupunk or Cyberpunk: The Dark Time. The bar is very low regardless. But we don't have to go as low as Unknown Armies or d20 Call of Cthulhu.

I honestly forgot about GURPs: Cthulhupunk. Trail of Cthulhu was going to be my guess.

[Sir Aubergine]

I think you'd want to make a couple of extra clans that had power sets that work better for multiplayer (like healing allies) as well as giving players options that specifically are not one of the families that has a lot of canon members so that players have white space that they can write in if being a Belmont or Morris doesn't appeal.-Username17

I already made clan options for every major family in the canon CV series. Do you think vampire hunters from other books and media would be welcome and/or necessary to arrive at an acceptable number of options?
If so, do you have any obvious includes Frank? You know vampire literature far better than I do.

[ColorBlindNinja61]

I think you'd want to make a couple of extra clans that had power sets that work better for multiplayer (like healing allies) as well as giving players options that specifically are not one of the families that has a lot of canon members so that players have white space that they can write in if being a Belmont or Morris doesn't appeal.-Username17

I already made clan options for every major family in the canon CV series. Do you think vampire hunters from other books and media would be welcome and/or necessary to arrive at an acceptable number of options?
If so, do you have any obvious includes Frank? You know vampire literature far better than I do.

I do think it's worth pointing out that there are certainly Belmonts, Lecardes, and Belnades that aren't canon characters. We just never see them but they have to exist.

[Sir Aubergine]

I do think it's worth pointing out that there are certainly Belmonts, Lecardes, and Belnades that aren't canon characters. We just never see them but they have to exist.

How interesting. I wasn't even thinking of it that way. I assume my players are going to want to play Bob Belmont and not young Simon Belmont. XD

Also another interesting question for those wiser than I (i.e. everyone). Castlevania has a pokemon thing going on where monsters are usually weak to a couple of elements and resist certain elements (damage from weapons is included in the rock-paper-scissors).

Just like good-old vanilla D&D, some elements are better than others. Holy damage for instance, is far and away better than everything else, while dark is laughably awful. Poison is actually much less of a joke because a lot less non-undead are strong against it.

So I was wondering if you all think having a lot more enemies with vulnerabilities would make combat too easy? They're pretty rare in the vanilla D&D and tons of things are weak to holy (radiant) in the games.

[ColorBlindNinja61]

Also another interesting question for those wiser than I (i.e. everyone). Castlevania has a pokemon thing going on where monsters are usually weak to a couple of elements and resist certain elements (damage from weapons is included in the rock-paper-scissors).

Just like good-old vanilla D&D, some elements are better than others. Holy damage for instance, is far and away better than everything else, while dark is laughably awful. Poison is actually much less of a joke because a lot less non-undead are strong against it.

So I was wondering if you all think having a lot more enemies with vulnerabilities would make combat too easy? They're pretty rare in the vanilla D&D and tons of things are weak to holy (radiant) in the games.

D&D has holy and bane weapons that deal extra damage to certain creature types. There's no reason a Castlevania RPG couldn't do something similar.

[deaddmwalking]

[quote="ColorBlindNinja61"
Also another interesting question for those wiser than I (i.e. everyone). Castlevania has a pokemon thing going on where monsters are usually weak to a couple of elements and resist certain elements (damage from weapons is included in the rock-paper-scissors).

I generally think having vulnerabilities is a good thing. Implementation matters.

If a low-level enemy can ONLY be killed by the right material, that creates a very different experience than if they're EXTRA VULNERABLE. Sometimes nobody cares about the extra vulnerable - if I have a sword that does +2d6 fire damage, and I have a jade sword that does +2d6 against evil demons, unless the demon is resistant to fire it doesn't matter which one I use.

If you have any enemies that regenerate/heal it could be worthwhile to say they cannot do that in any round they've taken damage from a vulnerable substance - that'll give a clue to PCs that they have a certain vulnerability.

Ultimately, it should be another tactical decision - knowing you can get extra damage is good; needing to get the extra damage to have any chance of success is usually bad.

3.x tries to do this with DR that's overcome by certain materials. The places where it tends to fall flat are when you're stacking multiple different types of DR. Flipping DR to the the other side of the equation (ie, bludgeoning does +10 damage to skeletons) might work better.

[Username17]

I think you'd want to make a couple of extra clans that had power sets that work better for multiplayer (like healing allies) as well as giving players options that specifically are not one of the families that has a lot of canon members so that players have white space that they can write in if being a Belmont or Morris doesn't appeal.-Username17

I already made clan options for every major family in the canon CV series. Do you think vampire hunters from other books and media would be welcome and/or necessary to arrive at an acceptable number of options?
If so, do you have any obvious includes Frank? You know vampire literature far better than I do.

I would be legit shocked if no one wanted to be a member of the van Helsing clan. Like, actually shocked.

Others are more open. Ones that would be easy to justify would include:

• Summers (Buffy)
• Frog (Lost Boys)
• Adams (Adams Family)
• Venkman (Ghost Busters)
• Corvinus (Underworld)
• Dinkley (Scooby Doo)
• Winchester (Supernatural)
• Kane (Solomon Kane)
• Crane (Sleepy Hollow)
• Grimm (Grimm)
• O'Connell (The Mummy)
• Talbot (The Wolfman)
• Frankenstein (Duh)
• Guzman (El Santo)
• Marsh (Shadow Over Innsmouth)
• Whateley (Dunwich Horror)

There are more than plenty of monster hunters who could plausibly have relatives who are also monster hunters or monster families where a member could plausibly fight for righteousness instead. Which ones you choose to focus on has more to do with the particular interests of your home gaming group. Like, obviously someone being Sarah van Helsing or Andy von Frankenstein would fit smoothly into the Castlevania idiom along the lines of Desmond Belmont or Alucard respectively.

What you're looking for isn't just a literary reference to make people clap like trained seals when they recognize it, it's a justification for power sets that aren't especially represented in Castlevania but would be nice to have in a tabletop RPG. The classic example would be Bards and White Mages. That is, most versions of CV are single player action games and a tabletop RPG is a multiplayer tactical experience. So characters whose primary contribution is buffing, healing, or battlefield control have a lot more play to them, and people are going to want to do that stuff. Rather than having the Fernandes/Belnades clan magic turn into something that it canonically is not, it would be better to give out the extra kinds of magic to like Dinkleys or Marshes so that people who want the authentic Fernandes experience can still get that (and shoot fire and cold at their enemies like a proper Castlevania witch).

-Username17

[Sir Aubergine]

I generally think having vulnerabilities is a good thing. Implementation matters.

If a low-level enemy can ONLY be killed by the right material, that creates a very different experience than if they're EXTRA VULNERABLE. Sometimes nobody cares about the extra vulnerable - if I have a sword that does +2d6 fire damage, and I have a jade sword that does +2d6 against evil demons, unless the demon is resistant to fire it doesn't matter which one I use.

If you have any enemies that regenerate/heal it could be worthwhile to say they cannot do that in any round they've taken damage from a vulnerable substance - that'll give a clue to PCs that they have a certain vulnerability.

Ultimately, it should be another tactical decision - knowing you can get extra damage is good; needing to get the extra damage to have any chance of success is usually bad.

Anything to reduce monster HP bloat right? I'll just have to do my best to add interesting combinations to the resistance/vulnerability distribution so its not too skewed towards:
Strong: Dark/Poison
Weak: Holy/Thunder

Edit: Thank you very much Frank. I'll have to look at all those names and see how to give them a nice racial perk package.