15 Tips for Running Curse of Strahd, Crowdsourced from the Best Posts/Comments on the CoS Subreddit

In the Curse of Strahd subreddit (r/CurseofStrahd), there's often people posting asking "any tips for running Curse of Strahd?" I decided to go through a bunch of them and pick out the most popular and frequently occurring tips, putting them all in one video. So here are the Top 15 tips for running Curse of Strahd - essentially crowdsourced from the CoS subreddit!

Did I miss anything, or do you have any additional tips to share? Please leave a comment if so! #CurseofStrahd

00:00 Intro
01:29 Tip 1. Consider DMing something else before CoS
02:24 Tip 2. Read the book
03:23 Tip 3. Take it one location at a time
03:58 Tip 4. Space out the Special Events
04:57 Tip 5. Ask the players "what are you doing next?"
05:27 Tip 6. You don't have to add all the mods
06:33 Tip 7. Use the CoS subreddit for help
07:39 Tip 8. "Stack" the tarokka deck
09:24 Tip 9. CoS-specific Session 0
11:15 Tip 10. Don't have PC backstories tied to Barovia/Ravenloft
12:44 Tip 11. Don't do an Ireena PC
13:43 Tip 12. Understand Strahd
15:13 Tip 13. Do milestone leveling over XP
16:02 Tip 14. Don't be afraid to TPK
17:11 Tip 15. Have fun!
17:30 Outro

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Reddit links:
The Curse of Strahd subreddit:   / curseofstrahd  
The pinned "Resources & Tips" post on the CoS subreddit:   / resources_tips_for_curse_of_strahd_dms  
u/guildsbounty's "Running Strahd as an Unholy Terror" guide:   / my_notes_on_running_strahd_like_an_unholy_...  

During tip #8, I talked about my DMsGuild resource The 3-Pile Tarokka Technique, which you can check out here: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/4748...

Music credits (in order): "Barovian Castle", "Court of the Count", "Vampyr" and "Wagon Ride" by Tabletop Audio; licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...

Image credits:
The cover of The 3-Pile Tarokka Technique - and the two illustrations of the sunlight items - are mine.
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.