I am starting out with a new group, a mixture of experienced and new players and wanted to test out the "Curse of Strahd" campaign. When playing Strahd, the book recommends to test the players at times, pushing them to their limits. With that part out of the way, I was wondering if I should make them extremely scared of Strahd by slowly picking the group apart one by one. I know that originally, this campaign was very difficult and was meant to really push players to their limits, along with being very dark and glorified with it's Gothic theme. In the end, I wonder how hard I should be on my players while still being true to the book. If this campaign doesn't work out, I can also do the "Princes of Apocalypse" campaign also, which I believe is a little bit more player friendly.