Rule #1 of Horror writing is ADD SOME FUCKING HUMOR! If your story is doom and gloom all the time, it stops being scary and dark and becomes insufferable and boring.
A tale that is perpetually dark in tone becomes tiresome very quickly. It needs to feature the occasional ray of light for contrast and to create a sense of hope. Monsters and other terrors must be offset with creatures that are kind and lovable, giving the characters even more reasons to stand against the darkness. Here are a couple of ways to add glimmers of light to a tragic tale:
In a land as dreary as Barovia, take the time to describe the occasional scene of beauty, such as a pretty flower growing atop a grave.
Make sure that the heroes have contact with NPCs who are honest, friendly, and helpful, such as the Martikovs in Vallaki or the Krezkovs in Krezk.
-Curse of Strahd, Introduction. Marks of Horror. 2016.
I am currently running it and I am absolutely not sure how to get everything neatly together. It is an absolutely great campaign but here and there (at least to me) it gets quite hard to run.
You can achieve tonal consistency with a large team though - it’s a case of having a writing lead who’s invested in that and checks through everything.
Speaking as someone who’s worked on both creative and technical writing teams: It’s a mark of poor management. The lead writer’s job is to make sure that everyone involved sticks to the project theme and a consistent voice. And then it’s the editor’s job to double check that consistency.
It’s no different than animation: lots of different animators, but you don’t see SpongeBob changing art styles every frame because a different artist drew it. The visual producer makes sure everyone sticks to model and style.
WoTC adventures are written more like anthologies than singular adventures, which is an issue if it’s supposed to be a unified project.
Add comment