Demon City, province of Barovia

The funny thing about Demon City is... well, there are many. I firmly believe that it's the best horror RPG ever made. Anyhow, a funny thing about Demon City is how rememberable it is. I haven't played Demon City in years. When I thought about converting the Hickmans' OG Ravenloft to it, it took me a couple minutes of lazy thinking to recall how the stats, the skills, the "classes" (motivations, that is), and the rest of character creation works, without bothering to actually open the book. 

Demon City's stats system is spelled RATPACK. R for Revenue (I thought it was Resources, probably because I love FASERIP, but no matter what you call it it's about how Rich a character is), A for Agility (so that's Dexterity in D&D, more or less), T is Toughness (and it's how well you can hit and take hits, an elegant in-game solution), P is Perception (Wisdom in D&D), second A is for Appeal (charisma, don't you know), C is Calm (v. important in a horror game, and clearly separated here, designers of games who don't have a stat for willpower should be ashamed of themselves and take notes and make better games), and K is Knowledge, don't you know. There's no Intelligence because it's a player stat, Knowledge decides how much information your character can get. 

And the skills give you slightly better chances to do things than the stats do, so if you're strong you can hit hard, but if you're strong and also a boxer you can hit harder. Little reasonable things like that. 

There're skills for all occasions and you can and should come up with new ones if you need them, I'll just throw away stuff like Hacking and Electronics. I'll also replace Firearms with Archery because I don't like guns. The rest is fine as it is, from Athletics to Forgery to Mechanics it's something that fits right in Barovia. 

The character motives don't really need any changing, because they're universal in Demon City, and answer two important quesitons: why are you even on your way to Barovia, and how do you deal with the horrible things that await you there. The Problem is, of course, my favourite though I never got to play it. Ah well, maybe one day. 

I'll get back to this topic once the players get together and throw some cards and make some PCs. In the meantime, I can fill in the My First Conspiracy... fill-in-the-blanks sheet. The Villain is, of course, count Strahd. The Oracle is the vistani leader, I'll call her Madame Magda because it's a better name, and her method of divination is her Tarokka deck. The minions should take some time filling in, and it should be a fun exercise. 

The villain's Task and HQ?  Why, that's determined by the card reading after the game starts. That's what makes it interesting. 

 

I, Strahd, walk the land, and look smashing while I do.  

Illustrator Clyde Caldwell