The classic Curse of Strahd campaign book for 5e starts characters at Level 3, which was a thing they were doing for some reason in 5e. Recognising that most characters start at, well, Level 1, the game designers made an introductory adventure, called Death House, free to download. It's a good old fashioned, traditional, haunted house adventure, and it's a ton of fun. I've run Death House as a game master several times, but I've also run a player character in it. This is my review of the module from a player's perspective.
This post contains no spoilers.
Before I begin my review, I want to clarify that I was the Game Master for the module before I was a player in it. This isn't quite the conflict of interest it might seem to be. For more information on how you can play an adventure [you think] you already know, read my post about how to replay modules honestly.
Some dungeons are more interesting than others. They're supposed to be that way. Very broadly, if you're an adventurer who delves into dungeons for lost treasure, then the law of averages demands that some of them are filled with just broken torture racks and rat bones. It just so happens that Death House isn't one of those.
Death House is packed with stuff to explore. Having run the module at least 3 times before I brought a player character to it, I can say definitively that there's more there to explore than just the stuff you're "supposed" to explore. There's more to the house than just the stuff you need to complete your quest, and that's what makes it especially satisfying.
First, an analogy. I don't like escape rooms. When someone says "do whatever it takes to escape this room," that means, at least to my mind, "do whatever it takes to escape this room." So it feels strange when my friends tell me I'm not actually allowed to improvise a sledgehammer to break down the wall, or to climb up through the ceiling tiels, or tunnel through the floor. What people actually mean is "escape this room, but only the way I want you to escape this room."
That same awkward dynamic can sometimes occur at a gaming table. Players can be afraid to wander too far out of [what they think are] the bounds of an adventure, for fear of making the game master suffer. There's a magically locked door in that corner over there, but I'm pretty sure it leads to the boss encounter, so I won't use this Knock scroll I found until later. It's a valid concern, and there can be an element of self-preservation in it, but it does cause additional friction as you're trying to immerse yourself in the game.
Death House is immune to that. It is expertly designed to be as resistant to accidental over-adventuring. You can go anywhere, do anything, pick up everything, ask any question. You really do have a free choice and, just like in a parlour magic trick, you're doomed either way.
If you're looking for an actual dungeon crawl, like with an actual dungeon in it, then this isn't it. This is definitely a fun adventure, but it's set in a house of an upper-class family in a gothic fantasy horror setting.
If you're looking for stone floors and portcullises and lava pits, then something like The Yawning Portal or Tomb of Elemental Evil or Tomb of Horrors is a better choice.
Honestly, most adventures have this problem. In many ways, it's a great problem to have. There's so much potential for gaming in the 12 pages of Death House that it could take you several sesions to get through it.
It's a relatively flexible adventure, so there's room to adjust. When I played Death House, it was in a 4 hour senssion at a gaming convention. I didn't feel like we'd missed out on anything (even though deep down I must have known we had, because I've run the adventure!), and it felt completely satisfying.
Ravenloft in general is a land, very intentionally, of tropes. If it's classic horror, then it belongs in Ravenloft (or at least somewhere in the Dark Domains.) Death House, relatively speaking, is actually lighter on tropes than a lot of Ravenloft material. But the tropes it does have, it leans into. It embraces the horror traditions it's stealing from, and it feels great.
We play Ravenloft so we can put ourselves into all those classic Hammer and Universal horror films. If you're in Ravenloft, then you should be able to put your knowledge of all-things-spooky to good use. Death House doesn't discourage that. You can use your preconceptions, you can reach back into your memory of all those ghost stories you put up with as a kid around the campfire, and even invent some new logic of your own. This is the land of the supernatural, so your superstition is a superpower.
Death House is a good stand-alone adventure, but it's also a good starting adventure for a Curse of Strahd or Expedition to Castle Ravenloft campaign. If you haven't gotten a chance to play it, then you should try it out. It's definitely worth playing.
Photo from Unsplash.