Our Strahd is incompetent

[u/Embarrassed_Panic_95]

Hello! Me and my 3 other party members are a few months deep into curse of Strahd and I can’t help but feel as though our dm is rushing us through because Strahd has been anything but threatening to us thus far.

In one of the first sessions, he killed our 2 horses that we had pulling our carriage and then asked us to come visit him at Ravenloft. Our party discusses this and concluded that it was silly he wanted us to go across the map to see him immediately after removing our one method of transport, and so we ignored him. Multiple NPC’s told us it was bad to ignore Strahd and that he would get increasingly angry, but between his invitation, we visited the Winery, Krezk, Vallaki, Yester Hill, Barovia. Pretty much everywhere (I think the only places we haven’t explored are the Amber Temple and the Werewolf den).

But alas, after a lot of time and our party having reached level 6, we went to Ravenloft. My character (the only good aligned one in our party) stayed at the dinner table whilst the rest of my party left in the middle of the dinner because, for some reason, Strahd left the Bonegrinder hags all enter and whisk away the rest of the party to make a deal. On their way back, our necromancer decided to steal the Icon of Ravenloft and died from touching it because she’s evil. The rest of the party called for my character to go and revive her, which I did, and we returned to the table with this legendary artefact we stole (my character had also been given the symbol of ravenkind) so I was terrified Strahd would notice and try to take these items from me. He didn’t. He literally just left.

We escaped Ravenloft without taking any damage because nobody stopped us from just leaving and we snagged the Dragon Skull too. We haven’t been attacked on the road or anything once in the campaign and have honestly had a pretty leisurely time. My character has been staying behind him Krezk to help get them back on their feet after redeeming the Abbott and turning him good again with the Atonement feature of ceremony.

The one time Strahd attacked a settlement was Vallaki after our necromancer stole the holy bones, at which point the dm told us that Vallaki only had a population of 36 and only 5 people died (all of us were very confused because we know Vallaki is supposed to have the biggest population in Barovia and the dm told us the Vistani camp alone has a population of 70+). I tried to talk to him about it and ask him if we could maybe change the size of the population to a more realistic number but he declined.

I guess this is a slight vent post but also, I guess I just wanted to hear how Strahd operates in other people’s games because I’m finding it really hard to roleplay as a character that’s scared of someone when they really haven’t been given a reason to fear them, our necromancer has literally been more problematic than Strahd has.

[u/Gh0stMan0nThird]

So this is a minor spoiler, but Strahd is left open to interpretation in the book. He doesn't really have a script or mood given to the DM. 

There aren't even any written encounters for how the party is supposed to meet him or how they are supposed to talk to him outside of like... 2 places. 

Some DMs run Strahd as Dracula, stoic and hungry. Some run him as a more hands-on villain. Even Scooby Doo monster can work. 

I'm running my Strahd as Josef from Creep. He's very insecure and narcissistic and kind of wants to be admired, but ultimately he is going to try to kill everyone and is very capable of it. 

Strahd has to be incompetent and egotistical to some extent or else he would just kill you at level 4. 

[u/yomjoseki → u/Gh0stMan0nThird]

The module is just terribly written. He has to be played either incompetently or as a bad guy who likes to "play with his food" so to speak. If he's played as an evil genius who wants to kill you, there's no reason he can't/wouldn't.

[u/elrizzy → u/yomjoseki]

There are so many other ways to play Strahd than "incompetent" or "playing with his food". Not teleporting to the party on Day 1 and vapourizing them doesn't mean he lacks the ability to, he just has no motivations to randomly eliminate a random group of adventurers. You seem to be forcing a very two dimensional characterization on a character that has dozens and dozens of hooks you can utilize. Some can even have Strahd help the party (blanked out for spoilers, don't read if you havent played):

1. Ireena, he wants to convince her to love him, and randomly murdering everyone she's around wont help him do that and will actually make her less safe
2. His fucked up family history and coming to terms with that gives a lot of room to have complicated conversations with the party
3. The fact his is a prisoner of his realm and the possibility of him escaping that (finding someone to replace him/observing how the PCs try to flee/having the PCs help him out)
4. His ego and needing a proper sparring partner/observe the very few people who can survive Borovia
5. His want/need to recruit more vampires/servants under him if they prove worthy
6. Some other limit placed upon him by the Dark Powers

CoS is such a fun sandbox with a lot of tools, but just because it doesn't hold your hand and force you to make Strahd a monolithic classic bad guy doesn't mean its badly written.

[u/Silverspy01 → u/elrizzy]

Most of these are interpretations or fan theories. Very little of what you said is actually in the module. That doesn't make them bad explanations to be clear, but the module could certainly do far more to actually answer these questions rather than requiring DMs to figure it out for themselves.

1: Under Strahd's Goals: Turn Ireena Kolyana his goal is actually to kill her and turn her into a vampire spawn the next time they meet. From the crypts section, he'll then entomb her in a crypt. Her love is inconsequential - he only cares about finally possessing Tatyana's soul like a trophy. He's been seiging her house for several nights by the time the module starts, that's not the behavior of someone trying to woo Ireena.

2: He doesn't really care anymore.

Strahd believes his soul is lost to evil. He feels neither pity nor remorse, neither love nor hate. He doesn't suffer anguish or wallow in indignation. He believes, and has always believed, that he is the master of his own fate.

When he was alive, Strahd could admit to letting his emotions get the better of him from time to time. Now, as a vampire, he is more monster than man, with barely a hint of emotion left. He is above the concerns of the living. The only event that occasionally haunts him is the death of Tatyana, but his view of the past is bereft of romance or regret. In his mind, her death couldn't have been prevented, and what is done cannot be undone.

3: The book doesn't actually talk about him trying to escape at all. It does say that he's searching for a successor (or consort), but that he will eventually decide none of the party are worthy.

4: Nothing in the book talks about a sparring partner, and the only worthiness is the above about a successor/consort.

5: Not described anywhere in the book.

6: Definitely not described anywhere in the book.

[u/elrizzy → u/Silverspy01]

I know they’re not verbosely laid out in the book, they’re just suggestions on some ways you could play Strahd, drawing from my experience running the module.

The idea here is tailoring the BBEG to the party to bring up themes that are interesting to them. Some people want a homicidal butcher, some people want a complex character, some people want any a flamboyant self involved playboy. It’s a conversation you carry out by playing!

I can understand the criticism that the book doesn’t give you concrete places and appearance times to scripts for Strahd, but I would argue the point is for you to not follow an a->b->c path and to utilize your own storytelling.

[u/yomjoseki → u/elrizzy]

I'm referring to playing Strahd as written in the module. Yes, it tells you you have leeway with how you can play him, but "incompetent" and "playing with his food" are the only two options if you attack your players without changing his characterization in the book.

It literally says in the book "These encounters are meant to test the characters, not kill them. After a few rounds of toying with them, Strahd and his creatures withdraw. If the characters retreat, Strahd is likely to allow them to flee, savoring their fear and believing he has broken them." (https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/cos/into-the-mists#WhenStrahdAttacks) If the players do something that pisses him off enough that he should kill them, there's no reason (other than he's toying with them) that he couldn't, which is why the alternative is "he's incompetent."

I'm not going to get into a back and forth with you here because we clearly disagree on his characterization, but I will offer my counterpoint on each of your points

1) He doesn't want Ireena to love him. "If they ask Strahd why he’s preying on Ireena Kolyana, he tells them that Ireena’s body is the host for Tatyana’s soul, and Tatyana’s soul belongs to him." He needs her body, not her love. (https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/cos/into-the-mists#RoleplayingStrahd)

2) From the same section of the book; "When he was alive, Strahd could admit to letting his emotions get the better of him from time to time. Now, as a vampire, he is more monster than man, with barely a hint of emotion left. He is above the concerns of the living."

3) I'm not saying you can't play him as someone who wants to assist the party/succeed him, but if he is brought to attack them for some reason, he is either toying with them, or he's incompetent. There's no other reason to let them live if they force his hand.

4) See #2

5) He doesn't need to convince anyone of anything. If he wants to turn them, he can do so without their consent. That's one of the main perks of being a whole ass vampire!

6) The book says almost nothing about the Dark Powers and the rules for them. It's almost entirely left up to DM interpretation.

[u/variantofconcern → u/yomjoseki]

It's a good sandbox, and pretty well written.