Do you like horror with your fantasy?

[Tristissima]

Well, seeing as how Nomenclature (the setting I currently have bursting from my pores) is fantasy inspired by both Lovecraft and elements of queer theory, it will have certain . . . horrific elements to it. I plan to use every sick and disgusting thing I can think of for my villains. The Temple District (the place in the city you least want to be in late at night when the stars align) will be groin-deep in every degradation of the human condition possible. Of the (Goddess, it must be around 70-80) deities I have listed in my notebook, only I think 9 have a good alignment. A spiritual taint fills everything, strengthening with the separation of names and language one imposes between oneself and the rest of the world. Indeed, that which is often a person's most powerful strength -- words, communication, language -- is in fact the force responsible for much of the suffering of the World Now, for the taint and the insanity which runs rampant. It, in fact, limits one's powers and abilities to the sane, that which can be comprehended and put into words. The most heroic personality of the War at the Beginning of the World (at least to some) has become a hideous, insane, ugly, blind, idiot (well, relatively, as I recall his Int is 13) god of chaos and evil.

As you can see, I am turning several staple D&D elements and turning them on their head. Moreso is the lack of core monsters and races other than humans. Sorry about the bad grammar. Everything should seem weird to the players, unexpected and unknown. Hopefully, it will work out, though i have very little idea how to actually physically run it.

 

[Desdichado]

Right, Shelley isn't horror because of any one moment of horror, simply because it's so wrong and inhuman. I've always liked Shelley, not that I'll read Frankenstein anytime again soon, but because of the influence it had, and the mood that it presented.

And Bram Stoker (at least in Dracula) wasn't all that gory. Sure, it had it's moments, but gore in moderation is an important aspect of horror. The ubiquitous sense of foreboding and gloom is what really made him a master, not his occasional bouts into gore.

Lovecraft, for all I admire his work, is almost too weird for me. It's harder to feel frightened by something so alien as, say, the Elder Race in At the Mountains of Madness. That's why, IMO, his better stuff is more down to earth, stuff like Dreams of the Witch House with the rat-demon guys, or The Case of Charles Dexter Ward with the reanimated? resurrected? Necromancer.

 

[Pielorinho]

I love horror in my game. I generally go between Silence-of-the-Lambs horror ("they're doing WHAT to the corpse?!") to Cthulhu horror ("They're doing WHAT to the fabric of reality?!").

And I like making it personal. A demon won't necessarily attack the PCs, especially if it knows they're powerful. Instead, it'll kill the people who help the PCs and frame them for the grisly murders.

A cult might feed human flesh to unsuspecting tavern-visitors, as part of a dark ritual to turn the visitors into ghouls. At the most inconvenient moment possible, one PC realizes that the cult leader is her father.

As for Cthulhu horror, things like Gibbering Mouthers work great. However, my players all know what a gibbering mouther is, and if they recognize it, they'll name it and categorize it and think of other modules they've seen it in. They'll tame the terror.

If, however, the gibbering mouther appears to be the coalesced nightmares of a cult's victims, if it appears to be a swirling galaxy filled with screaming heads that are both impossibly far-off and simultaneous tearing chunks of flesh out of the PCs' arms, if its presence so distorts distances that PCs can't distinguish shapes accurately and mistake friend for foe -- then it becomes something unnamed and terrible.

BTW, FD, my PCs just finished a story arc; next adventure they go on involves hunting down a priestess who is, apparently, fighting an army of rat-demons. I hadn't figured out yet what that army looks like; I'm so totally stealing your idea. Thanks!

Daniel

 

[Furn_Darkside]

I'm so totally stealing your idea. Thanks!

*chuckle* Cool, I hope it works out well for you.

Another man vs. nature idea I used recently (for a modern CoC adventure)- was about how a new dam exposed caves that had been sealed for thousands of years. Inside were aggressive and poisonous spiders that then began to slowly pour out across the country side.

I stole the idea from somewhere- but the source won't come to me.

FD

 

[mmadsen]

Do you like/use many horror elements in your fantasy games?

Certainly.

If so, what style do you like (gothic, cthulhu-esque, gritty, etc), and what are your tips/techniques for setting the right mood and scaring the bejeezus out of your players? Do you use any house rules/home-brewed stuff when you do horror in d20?

I'm a great fan of d20 CoC, but I'm not actually a fan of Cthulhu-esque tentacled horrors. I like the notion that magic is dark and dangerous, and that it can use you as much as you use it. Thus, I like CoC's Sanity points, Star Wars' Dark Side points, and Ravenloft's Path of Corruption. After all, Christian folklore has diabolical sorcerers making dark pacts for power, Robert E. Howard's Conan stories are full of Lovecraftian sorcerers dealing with dark gods and wrestling with madness, and even Tolkien's Middle Earth centers on the corrupting influence of the powerful One Ring.

For scaring the players, you're best off with a lower-magic campaign, where the magic is in enemy hands, but even in a more typical campaign certain basic guidelines go far. For instance, don't feed the party "appropriate" encounters. If they're able to just barely beat each enemy, they'll assume they're supposed to fight, and they won't have that uncertainty and doubt you're going for; they'll have fighting spirit. Toss a horde of ghouls at them, but give them a chance to get away to someplace safe -- safe for now, that is.

 

[Desdichado]

mmadsen, you made another great point I forgot about. Don't give the PCs a bunch of encounters they're supposed to win. Give them a few that they absolutely have to run away from, or else they'll die. And make sure they don't know right away which kind is which! That way every encounter will keep them on their toes

BTW, my little evil smily is getting quite a work-out on this thread!

 

[mmadsen]

Re: Re: Do you like horror with your fantasy?

I use the sanity rules from CoC, but only in low magic worlds. If dragons and other monsters are common- then the rule does not make much sense.

Agreed -- but you can still use magic with a Sanity cost in a fantasy campaign (for mad sorcerers bargaining with dark gods).

The problem with medium/high magic worlds is that access to divination spells would ruin a lot of horror- as would the meteor storm used to wipe out the antagonist.

Divinations become a problem, but if you're willing to follow Ravenloft's example (i.e. most don't quite work) you can turn them into yet another way to scare the players.

And the ideal way to handle that meteor storm is for the monster to crawl out of the crater it makes and keep coming. That's D&D horror.

 

[mmadsen]

Then again, I think part of the reason spooky movies are so spooky is because we go in with that mindset from the get-go. If you go in expecting Independence Day and instead get Signs you're probably be more disappointed with the movie rather than appreciating it as a horror movie.

When Blair Witch first came out, before it was even in wide release, I noticed that some people came to the theater looking to get scared and put themselves in the movie. Others came for a "yell at the screen" slasher pic, and they just complained that it wasn't scary -- when I seriously doubt they even wanted scary.

 

[mmadsen]

My favorite tactic is eerie dreams, with little or no meaning (as far as they know). Keeps 'em jumpy.

Simple, but good. You can even set them up with a bit of game-mechanic mumbo-jumbo. "Mialee, what's your Scry bonus again?" Roll, roll. "You have the strangest dream..."

 

[Pielorinho]

Simple, but good. You can even set them up with a bit of game-mechanic mumbo-jumbo. "Mialee, what's your Scry bonus again?" Roll, roll. "You have the strangest dream..."

Lovely!

I made an ad hoc decision for my game awhile ago: using telepathy, detect thoughts, and suggestion in combination, a being could enter someone's dreams and interact with them there. If the victim failed her save vs. Suggestion, the intruder could dictate the course of the dream and implant a suggestion. Telepathy and Detect Thoughts, used in conjunction, eliminate the need for Line of Sight for casting Suggestion.

When a nasty Cthulhoid creature does this, it can be fun.

Daniel