CoS: When Should Strahd Be First Introduced? Discussing the Popular Way & the Alternative Way + More

Video Description

DMs of Curse of Strahd are encouraged to have Strahd visit the players' characters as often as possible - Strahd isn't a villain who simply sits and waits in his castle the whole campaign. This raises the question: where and when should DMs first introduce Strahd to the players? There's a popular way (Kolyan's funeral in the Village of Barovia), which certainly has its merits, but I offer an alternative suggestion, which I felt worked really well when I ran it... This video talks about the pros and cons of both approaches (including why the alternative way works well), other places you could introduce him beyond that, the risk of introducing him too late on, and more. I also realized I meant to mention something else in the video but forgot (🙈), so I'll share it here instead... Say if you want "your Strahd" to appear at Kolyan's funeral, but don't want to introduce him until later - you can still do that. In my game, he observed and paid his respects from afar (like you see in movies/TV shows when there's a lone dude stood off to the side). His Stealth check was high-ish, but not high enough against two PCs' Passive Perceptions, so I told them they saw a figure stood nearby in the mist. As they approached, I said the figure disappeared (Strahd going into his misty form). He later confirmed to them (during the dinner) that that was him and that he'd been there. I just wanted to mention this as well, just in case DMs feel Strahd should be present at the funeral no matter what. 00:00 Intro 02:53 Strahd appearances 04:32 The Popular Way - Kolyan's funeral 07:45 The Alternative Way - After the first Vallaki visit 09:56 The build-up of (a scary) Strahd 15:04 Downsides of introducing Strahd later 15:31 Showing Strahd multiple times 17:01 A lot of this comes down to "your Strahd" 17:45 Other places to first introduce Strahd 20:03 Outro Follow me on Bluesky! https://bsky.app/profile/dmofthemists.bsky.social Here's a link to the poll I mentioned: https://www.facebook.com/groups/954751747941099/posts/7842520915830780/ (note: it's a private Facebook group, so you need to be a member in order to see it). Music credits: "Barovian Castle", "Defiled Temple" and "Court of the Count" by Tabletop Audio; licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Images: - The sketches of the two sunlight items are from my DMsGuild resource called The 3-Pile Tarokka Technique: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/474875/The-3Pile-Tarokka-Technique--A-Curse-of-Strahd-Supplement?affiliate_id=2672868 - Barovia Village's March of the Dead illustration: JamesRPGArt. - The George Clooney image is a still from the movie The Descendants (2011): copyright Ad Hominem Enterprises / Fox Searchlight Pictures. - The David Mitchell image is a still from the TV show That Mitchell and Webb Look: copyright BBC (I think? I don't know how copyright works in these cases, LOL). - All other images, logos, etc. are the copyright of their respective creators, the vast majority of which will be from Wizards of the Coast, as per their Fan Content Policy.