Dungeons & Dragons’ best campaign for beginners (and how to buy it)

Role-playing role-playing games have an incredible renaissance, with more people flocking to the hobby than ever before. And no single game system rides higher than Dungeons & Dragons, now in its 5th edition.

If you’ve been thinking about trying out the latest version of D&D, you have probably noticed that there is a lot of material to choose from. There are no less than three current launch kits, a half-dozen rock-solid published adventures, and an entire marketplace of content-created content. But one campaign is often recommended before all the others – especially for beginners. It’s called Curse of Strahd, and this is perhaps just the most welcoming and adaptable way in the original role-playing game.

Due to the popularity, there are currently three excellent options for buying Curse of Strahd. They transform the spectrum from old-school do-it-yourself storytelling into a luxury collectible with high production values. I will help you find out which one is right for you.

But first a little story back to whet the appetite.

Why this vampire?

In the 1970s, when D&D was young, the game focused mainly on exploration, combat, and looting. Rolling dice with your friends means crawling into an underground pit, killing strange monsters and finishing off with some magical items. Then, in 1983, the Ravenloft module has been published. Written by Tracy Hickman and Laura Hickman, it added a rich sense of storytelling to D&D. The secret was a charismatic vampire named Strahd von Zarovich.

Ravenloft was the first D&D adventure that really felt like a complete story, and it focused on Strahd, a complex villain with his own motivations. Instead of describing the action only at a distance, Strahd personally allows the Dungeon Master (DM) to use the material. and with the players at the table through both combat and non-combat encounters. Published in 2016, Curse of Strahd modernizes the mechanics and expands it from a meager 32 pages to a solid 256. The version of Strahd is just as menacing as the original, and much more enjoyable to play.

Why is Strahd such a big villain? Not to give away too much, but the payout of his personal arc is definitely worth playing against. He’s more than just your average B-movie leech. Strahd is a fully realized character with a Shakespeare backstory and enough deceit and cunning to stand up to any party adventurers.

Where Curse of Strahd distinguishes itself from the original, in my opinion, its setting is practical. The action takes place in a sinister pocket dimension, known as the Barovia Valley, which means you can enter or leave the campaign from anywhere in the D&D multiverse. The valley itself is much like a modern open world video game. Players are able to explore the environment at ease by exploring the numerous side-tasks. All the while, the ghost of Strahd will haunt them – sometimes literally – as a beacon to irrevocably pull them back to the main nude line.

There is even a mini-adventure along with the campaign, designed to quickly elevate new characters and get players accustomed to the mechanics of modern D&D. Simply put, Curse of Strahd is the complete package.

Now that I’ve sold you on it, let’s talk about three different ways to buy the case.

The basic

Curse of Strahd was first published as a hardcover book, and the most basic version of the book is still in print. You can easily find one in your friendly local game store or online at places like Amazon. Independent bookstores that carry D&D are likely to have a copy, just like larger retailers like Barnes & Noble.

There are now different digital options for D&D books, and the version you want to get depends a lot on your platform. The best option for newcomers is D&D Beyond, which sells the campaign and also gives players access to an online character builder. There are also virtual table pages (VTTs) such as Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds, which offer more options to run the game’s combat encounters with virtual miniatures and dice. VTTs can slow down the action for newcomers, so make sure you learn the toolkit before assembling your party.

Of course, you also need the three other books that form the core of D&D: the Player Manual, the Dungeon Master Guide, and the Sample Manual. All three are also available on D&D Beyond.

Level up

Curse of Strahd is now also sold as a box titled Curse of Strahd: Revamped Premium Edition. First published in October 2020, has a solid list price of $ 99.99, and given what’s included in the box, it’s hard to recommend it at that price. Fortunately, you can now find it much cheaper online at places like Amazon.

The box itself is actually pretty smart. It has the shape of a coffin, and the set contains a full-color portrait of Strahd so you can rest it comfortably inside for your players to discover. A further advantage of the Premium edition is that it contains a more robust version of the campaign’s two-sided map (same as the basic hardcover book).

The downside, however, is that the campaign book in this box set is a paperback, not a hardcover like the original.

My favorite part of the box set is a handy set of fictional tarot cards called Tarokka cards. The oversized deck with foil stamp will come in handy for an important plot point in the campaign. Of course, you can also pick up a set of Tarokka cards – a standard, non-foil-stamped version – separately for only $ 15.

What the Premium Edition really lacks is, in my opinion, a proper two-dimensional map of Castle Ravenloft, Strahd’s lair, and the area for the final showdown. There’s a 3D isometric version of the floor plan on one side of the field map (which you remember, along with the original hardcover book and the Premium edition). But it’s up to DMs to draw the floor plan in 2D for their players at the table. It requires pen and paper and can significantly slow down the game.

Using a VTT solution may also be very difficult to map Castle Ravenloft. Fortunately, the Roll20 version of the campaign comes with 30 pre-rendered battle maps – including a 2D floor plan of the entire castle.

There is also an extremely well-executed set of 2D Castle Ravenloft maps available at the Dungeon Master’s Guild. For only $ 10, you get everything you need to print out the floor plan as multiple large cards at a commercial printer or dozens of plain sheets of paper at home. There is even a version of the maps formatted for use with VTT software such as Fantasy Grounds.

For my home campaign, I pressed every inch of Castle Ravenloft in black and white and mounted the tiles on black foam core. After just a few nights of working with a glue stick and a box cutter, I piled up the entire Strahd’s lair and stored it in a paper bag.

High level game

For those looking for the most luxurious way to experience Curse of Strahd, look no further than Beadle & Grimm’s. The company makes luxury versions of many of the official D&D campaigns, and it’s extremely important to take over the Barovia Valley. Called The legendary edition of Curse of Strahd, it costs $ 399.

It is also currently sold out, so keep an eye on the site to see if more copies are available later this year.

What makes The legendary edition so special – apart from the full color prints of the entire Castle Ravenloft and many other important battlefields in the game – is the ephemera. Not only does it come with extremely well-executed paper handouts, including weathered letters from Strahd himself, it also contains many mixed-media objects that have to move around the table. There are a handful of faux wax seals with Strahd’s personal seal ring; a set of fiction labels to apply to real wine bottles; various coins of the kingdom adorned with Strahd’s profile; and even a set of fictional toy finger puppets.

Admittedly, it is possible that a price of $ 399 seems excessive. But after running the campaign over the course of a whole year, I can not tell you how much time and energy goes into it The legendary edition would have saved me. We hope that Beadle & Grimm’s will soon be putting together another luxury version, perhaps without so many of the lavish physical props, to lower the price. Meanwhile, there are still a few available (at slightly high prices) on the secondary market.