I10 Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill Review

The House on Gryphon Hill is an Advanced Dungeons and Dragons adventure. It was published in 1986 and was written by Tracy and Laura Hickman. This is the sequel to the Ravenloft adventure which I reviewed recently. The House on Gryphon Hill is almost twice as long as the original Ravenloft adventure.

Count Strahd Von Zarovich is back! And he is not quite dead yet. Due to a machine developed by an alchemist the evil genius has moved from his own world into another. This alchemist, also known as Strahd, has brought about a change in the planes of existence. The count that was once a vampire in Barovia is now a creature loose in this plane.

Similar to the original module in this one the motives and plans of the villain are determined randomly before play commences. This adventure can be played immediately after Ravenloft or it can be played alone.

Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill Link

What I like about the House on Gryphon Hill

I love the artwork. The covers and the internal art are well done. I enjoyed the original Ravenloft and was looking forward to reading this one. Unfortunately, for the reasons below, I was disappointed.

The house and maps and room descriptions are comparable to the original module. But there is less of it as this house is not the size of the castle from Ravenloft.

What I do not like about the House on Gryphon Hill

Unfortunately the magic that was Ravenloft is lost in translation in this installment. I do not like much of it. The primary flaws to my mind are as follows:

There are far too many moving parts in this adventure for the dungeon master to manage. The DM is expected to constantly check and recheck whether individual NPCs have “transposed.” The longer that the count is in this world the more local villagers are turned into something evil. To be perfectly honest…there is just way too much to expect the dungeon master to keep track of here. There is a nifty little sheet provided which is supposed to make it easy to do. But it does not look too easy to me.
The adventure begins by stealing all of the adventurers magic items and distributing them around the town. This is to get the adventurers to explore and discover that “something is not right around here.” This kind of railroading sucks as a player and as a dungeon master. The players have no choice but to follow the story line if only to get back what they once owned.
The heroes are expected to meet certain personalities and follow a script in order to reach the expected outcome. No decisions are truly left to the players to make
Ostensibly this is a mystery story. In reality it is a boring play with several acts. Whenever an adventure sets itself up with “Chapters” I groan internally. This tells me right away that the story is going to force the players to follow it instead of letting the adventurers make their own decisions on what they want to explore and do.
When I saw that this was a sequel to Ravenloft I wondered in what way the vampire from the original adventure could be reborn. I was hoping for something clever. What I found was something seriously lacking. An alchemist in an alternate dimension builds a machine and somehow transfers the creature into this dimension. That is the gist of it.

Would I recommend this adventure to others?

No. I would recommend playing Ravenloft and skipping this sequel. I did not like it. I do not like modules that force the players into one possible sequence of events. Nothing is left for the adventurers to decide for themselves.

I will state this…however….Other reviewers do not agree with me on this. Several reviewers at the time of publication rated it very highly. I personally….think they were stoned…. or perhaps they were just so enamored with the original that they just ignored the obvious flaws of this module.

Would I play the House on Gryphon Hill with my own group?

No. I will run the original Ravenloft with my players. And I will move on to something else after should they survive it. That is, of course, uncertain given the difficulties of that adventure.

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