Since the introduction of Wizards of the Coast's commitment to "Diversity & Dungeons", players and DMs have been interested in the changes coming to Curse of Strahd, arguably one of 5th Editions' most popular adventures available for sale. Promised inside were changes to the Vistani, who were written in what seemed to be a bad stereotype of the Romani people, and some other problematic areas. Now, the release of Curse of Strahd; Revamped is the promised product and result of this commitment. The changes promised were made, with the Vistani not being generalized as a whole. A more surprising change, a character in the game, which originally was ashamed of having a prosthetic leg, is now proud of it, having developed her combat skills with it and on top of it. These things are nice, and good.
But man is this box terrible. I don't mean that the things inside the box are not of value, but have you seen the size of this thing?
The box itself is about 18 inches tall, with diagonal slopes that put a total width around 16 inches wide. Obviously, from the picture to the left here, you can tell I've had a hard time finding a place to put this thing. The box is HUGE, and it doesn't fit into my bookshelves. Both from a height standpoint, but also from a width standpoint. It's certainly neat, but it's honestly a crime. I just want to put this on my damn shelf!! It's a product that's dripping with the frivolous nature of Strahd himself. Stupid trapezoidal box from hell.
Let's talk about some of the content you get with this box. First, there's the book itself, the monster catalog, and the tarokka card guide, as well as the fabulous printed image of Strahd himself. When you first open the box, if it hasn't suctioned to the lid of the device, Strahd is laying before you in a cursed slumber, ready to be awoken. This art piece is nice, but it's also coffin shaped, and the backside contains the only place to find the stat block written out for Strahd. You can't find Strahd's stat-block elsewhere in this published materials. If you're making that logical leap for what that means for the monster catalog and tarokka card guide, then you're right.
Each of these separate guides are not anything new (except a few minor rules tweaks here and there). Instead, these supplements are removed from the core book, and given as separate small booklets. This is... disappointing, even if it is useful. It certainly makes flipping open to the monsters easier, and I can save 0.1 lbs in carry weight by leaving the tarroka deck guide behind, but there's basically no additional content here. It's just removed and given it's own somewhat unique cover. Frankly, I'm confused as to why even waste the 4 extra pages and 4 staples in adding these small additions.
Probably my biggest disappointment is the core book itself. I was unaware beforehand that the book was going to be softcover. Now, listen, it's a nice softcover edition, don't get me wrong. But for sizing restrictions and cost reduction, they likely opted to do a softcover version of the book. I'm not saying the book isn't nice as a softcover. I actually really like some of the benefits that come with the soft cover. It was just disappointing at first grasp, which isn't good when you've dunked $100 on a new product.
Now, some of the accessories are really nifty. The double sided map you get is really fancy. It's a coated material that can be drawn on with wet erase, so your party can make notes or drawn some things on the map as you play. It's also double sided, providing a larger version of Castle Ravenloft. I don't find the map extremely helpful by itself, but its nice to have a larger version to study and sprawl out on your table. Along similar lines, you're given 8ish postcards that say "Welcome to Barovia". They can actually be used as real post cards, which is cool if you're willing to send a few out to players. Personally, I may write some item stat blocks on them, but I haven't decided yet.
The neatest part for me are the props, and the dungeon master screen.
All of these things are nice. Probably the best part is the DM's screen is great. Most of the screens available for sale have varying quality, and take up a decent amount of room of setting specific material. This screen takes about 1/2 of one panel, and the rest of the details containing valuable reference information. The art is really neat, but the material is fantastic. Instead of the glossy protective coating, the screen has a matte texture that feels nice. I can't quite describe it besides "surprisingly high quality paper". I'll be using this screen a lot, even outside of Curse of Strahd.
The other props are also great. The letters and handouts are printed instead of being stuck in the back of the DMG. Saving some awkward encounters with scanning these documents out of the back of the book, these can be handed directly to the players. They're nice to have. Slip them into some binder paper protectors, and they'll last a long time for sure. The tarokka deck is also great. These are full size tarokka cards that are almost as large as my hands. The standalone deck you can buy in stores is the size of standard playing cards, but these are large and great for the performer DM. With the tarokka deck guide, you can make a creepy card reading even for your Curse game. I've kept you long enough, and you may have noticed I haven't really gone into my opinion of the adventure. If you'd like to get my opinion, I recommend going to listen to the Dumpstat Podcast's review of the supplement. It summarizes my thoughts succinctly
Quick digression, I haven't done a review before, so here's how we'll break it down. Generally, I'll either recommend a product, recommend a product with a note for use, or not recommend a product with a note of alternatives. This way, I can give you a holistic approach to a buying decision.
This being said, I can't say I can reasonable recommend people buy this. Almost the box alone is just too much, but honestly! I don't know many people with a storage space big enough to house this reasonably. The props are neat and cool, but honestly the payoffs are diminished by the okay-ish-ness of the rest of the product. It's certainly pretty, but it just didn't have that wow quality I wanted. If you're wanting to run Curse of Strahd, my recommendation would be to go onto D&D Beyond, grab the book for considerably less (~$30), and use the remainder of the $70 that you saved to print out the maps, letters, and other details at a local print shop. Even then you will likely have $20 left to nab the tarokka deck and a new set of dice.
Seriously though, I can't recommend putting that thing on your shelf with good faith.