Van Richten's House of Lament DM Supplemental Guide and Maps

What I found each time I ran this is that when the planchette starts to move on it's own that characters immediately went into wanting to use a séance, but for some requesting the dc 10 religion or arcana check was enough to allow you to mention that everyone touching the planchette will allow it to work easier. Same with letting them know that sometimes the spirits need more time to rest before being able to continue. If for some reason people didn't want to touch the planchette, that is fine, it can still continue to move on its own.

The second séance usually happened by player choice because once people found the items, they wanted to find out more because they were unsure of what to do next. If for some reason they didn't think of that, I would recommend having some shaking walls or fog that spells out words on windows/mirrors. Things that would be vague but clearly something going on. Then a simple check of some sort to explain that the spirits may be trying to talk but seem to be having difficulty....See more />

It is ready for roll20 as in that it has a file size and resolution that works for roll20 with 96 PPI. Additionally, if you own the Van Richten's module on Roll20 than it will align with all the dynamic lighting lines built in. It can be used in Foundry VTT, but it is not set up with walls, sound effects, etc. for Foundry. You would have to put in the walls and lighting yourself if using Foundry.

Well, I bought it regardless. Can we get the maps at 140-150PPI or so? FoundryVTT doesn't force you to use crappy low resolution maps, and I would just as soon stick with the undustry standard, since that's what all of my other maps are. ;)

OH! There's no file size limit either, like Roll20, so kindly don't bother sacrificing quality levels for file size. I rather enjoy showing my players semi-realistic maps with a high quality level of detail. :)

Hey there! When you drop the map, you will want to make sure you grab either the one labeled either "LR_HoL_full_grid_roll20_35px(28x38)_others(56x76)" or "Gridded_LR_HoL_full_roll20_35px(28x38)_others(56x76)," then make sure that the map is placed in the upper-left corner and stretch the map to the bottom-right corner. That is how it will align with the premade roll20 module for Van Richtens. You'll want to make sure that you don't accidentally set the map image to be partially off the screen. It can be easy to do that with big maps.

If you are not using the premade module, that is what the numbers are for. Roll20 in the premade module set the cell width to 35px (that's about halfway down on page settings). If you want to mimic the settings Roll20 chose as the best then use the first set of grid sizes (28x38) with the cell width set to 35.

Personally, if you are not using the Roll20 module then I would say to leave the cell width to the default for a room (that is...See more 70px) and set the room size to 56x76. that will let the tokens be bigger for players.

No matter what option you choose, simply make sure to set the map in the top-left corner and stretch it to the bottom-right corner so that it completely fills the map room.

Lastly, if you are not using hte roll20 premade module, then you can also choose to make multiple map pages with one level per page. That way can be really helpful if you or your players' have issues with loading large map rooms. That can happen for some people when playing on Roll20.

I hope that helps!

Thank you for that! I missed that part about her in VRGR so was going off of older lore. I'll make an update to the PDF that notes what it says on pg 64 of VRGR.

Also, I'm glad that you and your players enjoyed it!

Thank you! I figured a real update to include things that make the game a lot easier to run, like a monster index so you don't have to flip throughout the main books repeatedly is just really helpful.

Thanks for pointing those out. I've updated the guide with a bit about them.

Awesome i was looking over it and well i guess we both had same idea with the rooms upstairs as such.

Area 10 the kitchen didnt mention the stairs still ut thats ok.

I did find one more disparity in the house, Area 31 has stairs that have no exit and from above there seems to be no entrance. Again this is not on you i think it is a design flaw from WotC, i have been looking and looking and looking and reading the book, checking your maps and the originals and honestly think that the stairs were sealed up so you cant get up from below and you cant get down from above leaving only the one entrance much later.

I cant wait to run the playters through the rest of the house and my other group just finished sweeping the first floor and are abhout to head up to the second floor.

ok i just read it in the book the area was area 30 and it does state it is bricked over

So I believe the stairs in the kitchen (area 10) are supposed to lead down to the wine cellar (area 27). It is just in the module there is nothing that specifically states that those stairs lead down to there.

Also, glad you found that note for area 30.

I'm glad you like the maps, and thank you for purchasing!
The investigators can definitely work as part of the story. Since you've already started, you may just want to use the parts of the guide with some suggestions for the empty rooms. Notably room 6a-c and the guest rooms (14) on the second floor. Some of the ambient haunts and traps may be fun as well. Both of those should be able to be incorporated into the story without it changing the story as written.

I love the additions to the 3 rooms (6a-c) I had to wing it with them with the group that ius inside already and also wing the haunts. I am using the twins in both games as i dont use the crossroads start i have my own start that i used in both CoS and these campains although the ravenloft ones are much tougher. I had the girls pouring through the tomes looking for information while the players were searching the first floor of the house.

I will definately be using this for the other group though and will use parts for the group that is further along.