GMs: How do you create a feeling of horror (in an heroic fantasy game)?

[Wicht]

1. Weak PCs. In 3e, it's a lot easier to do horror if the PCs are 1st level rather than 20th.

Conversely, however, the monsters you can throw at the PCs at higher level are a lot more horrific than those you can throw at them at low level. I actually disagree that 1st level is the sweet spot for horror in heroic fantasy.

4. Rising tension. First there is inexplicable spookiness, then an animal or NPC dies, then the PCs die one by one, until there's only the Final Girl left..

Do you have any examples of how you have done this?

There is also the difficulty, from a metagame perspective, of wanting full participation from the players and elimination, by its nature removes that normally.

 

[Wicht]

Another difficulty in combing heroic fantasy and horror is that players will only feel fear, or the vicarious semblance of it, if they allow themselves to do so. Players that sign up to play an rpg that's explicitly horror, such as Call of Cthulhu, are prepared for that, but typically players who sign up for D&D aren't - they're expecting to kill things and take their stuff. Ravenloft is an exception to this.

Consider telling the players that this game will be in the horror genre before the session starts.

Thats probably generally a good idea, at least for a horror-centric campaign, as you don't want to mislead or create false expectations for what you, as a DM, are providing. I am not sure that it is necessarily true if the horror is going to be just for a session or so of an otherwise heroic campaign. Consider for instance, assuming you are familiar with it, the inclusion of the second book of the Rise of the Runelord's campaign, The Skinsaw Murders, which adds a very effective horror element in an otherwise non-horror campaign. (arguably Hook Mountain Massacre had elements of horror too, though of a different nature).

It seems to me that if the players are invested in the characters, then the attachment helps create the vicarious semblance of fear necessary for horror, even if the players are not expecting it, and maybe even more so than if they were.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Do you have any examples of how you have done this?

This isn't me, but it's an account of a very early D&D session, which ends up with only one PC left alive, much akin to 'Final Girl' syndrome, and combines somewhat of a horror vibe with traditional D&D - The First Dungeon Adventure. You're right that killing PCs is problematic, and as you're intending this as part of a bigger campaign, not something that should be planned deliberately.

Working within the traditional D&D model of capable adventurers going dungeon delving, I think it's possible to give it more of a horror feel by playing down the easy monster bashing, and playing up the mysterious and the sinister. For example the PCs enter an ancient ruin and find, not orcs or skeletons to bash, but unsettling evidence of powerful former inhabitants killed by something only hinted at, which may still be around. Key to this technique I think, is that the PCs gradually find evidence of the horror before they meet it.

 

[billd91]

3. Restrict information -
a) The horror monster or monsters must be hand crafted, not found in the Monster Manual.
b) Restrict or deny the use of information gathering magic, particularly the paladin's detect evil.
c) Restrict or deny the use of knowledge skills to learn about the horror monster.

This is one area where some of the AD&D Ravenloft materials really shined. The focus of information shifts from concrete to atmospheric. Rather than saying, in the example that they put in some early publication - I think maybe Feast of Goblyns, there's a werewolf sniffing at your door, you describe the snuffling sound and low, deep throated growl on the other side of the door and maybe emphasize the relative thinness of the interior inn door. Describe things impressionistically rather than concretely. "The door burst inward as a heavy form crashes into the room with a snarl. Your hear the scrape of its claws on the wooden floor as it lunges forward. In the darkness, you smell its hot breath of old meat as its teeth snap at your throat."

 

[Janx]

From the Dread rulebook, they spend a lot of time talking about how to create the horror feeling.

Isolation.
the players should feel as though they can't go for help. the most obvious is the Cabin in the Woods with the bridge being washed out and it's raining. You are stuck in the horror zone. But you can also pull that off in New York City. You can't go for help when you have no proof and it'll make you look crazy and get you committed.

Uncertainty.
Not knowing if your PC will survive is scary
Not knowing what the enemy actually is, is scary
Not knowing who you can trust is scary
Not knowing what is going on is scary

Climax.
In Dread, the point is to whittle the PCs down to the last few survivors. There's no hit points, so you are either alive or dead. In D&D that can be damaging to player fun. I'd recommend adapting it to whittling the party down to few hit points and resources.


So before they get to the final show down, they suffer sabotage, theft, accidents, all staged by the enemy (not accidents). When the party is down to their the last, that's when the big bad shows up, in the dark, smoke, etc. Never let them get a full look at it. Each player is weak, in doubt, and still worried as heck because they don't know what this thing is.

But you'll have your whole party experiencing it. For longer term campaigns, it may not be good practice to wipe out the PCs, but you can still keep them on the ropes every time.

 

[Wicht]

All good suggestions [MENTION=8835]Janx[/MENTION]... Do you have examples of times or ways in which you have done these things to good effect?

 

[Radiating Gnome]

One of the things that seems to be important in horror is the idea that those who suffer somehow were asking for it. The traditional slasher movies punish the teenagers who are having sex, and so on.

This sort of morality can be an interesting element to include -- but it means actively giving PCs a chance to offend the power that punishes. So, leave a handful of relics lying around, and then make sure that the party members that pick up those relics are punished.

Once the punishment starts, there's no redress, no appeal, no escape. You can't go back to town and rest, you can't get more than a minor respite by locking yourself away someplace that seems safe, and you're cut off from the rest of the world.

There are some big problems with trying to use movies as models for a horror game, though. For one thing, if you kill off PCs as often as movies kill off other characters, you're going to have a very unplayable game -- at least, many of your players are going to have a short evening.

-rg

 

[herrozerro]

I'd say a good threat design would be threats that break rules.

Monsters that skitter across ceilings, regeneration that doesn't need rules to work, etc.

These can have solutions to disable these advantages, but the fact that the rules don't seem to apply to them makes them scarrier.

 

[Wicht]

I'd say a good threat design would be threats that break rules.

Monsters that skitter across ceilings, regeneration that doesn't need rules to work, etc.

These can have solutions to disable these advantages, but the fact that the rules don't seem to apply to them makes them scarrier.

I'm not sure how either of your examples break the rules, unless you mean giving abilities to creatures that don't normally have those abilities; in which case I agree that going outside of what is expected changes the paradigm of the encounter and creates uncertainty.

 

[herrozerro]

I'm not sure how either of your examples break the rules, unless you mean giving abilities to creatures that don't normally have those abilities; in which case I agree that going outside of what is expected changes the paradigm of the encounter and creates uncertainty.

What I mean is for instance let's take regeneration. Is d&d its a rule, regent at a certain rate at the beginning of a turn. Break those rules, it regens whenever seems appropriate. Or don't give the monster HP, it doesn't play by those same rules.