Darkmantle26
First Post
What's a subtle way to inspire horror in PCs in a game like D&D? I'm looking for something that is not all sudden jump scare in your face, something to built tension but simultaneously disturb or frighten
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I need ideas for running horror campaigns
- Thread starter Darkmantle26
- Start date
Here's an old thread on the subject. http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...antasy-game)&p=6162472&viewfull=1#post6162472
As rule engines go, D&D fits horror pretty poorly. The PCs have a general expectation of being able to take down their opponents and are typically capable enough that introducing helplessness (a feature I think is pretty important to achieve horror) is difficult.
As rule engines go, D&D fits horror pretty poorly. The PCs have a general expectation of being able to take down their opponents and are typically capable enough that introducing helplessness (a feature I think is pretty important to achieve horror) is difficult.
I think you'll find that the most important part is the atmosphere. Have the PCs chase an orc into a room, hear terrible screams, and run in to find it coated liberally in blood, all centered around this one small hole in the floor that's obviously not big enough to fit a person into. there are no other exits besides the one they just came in through.
Be inexplicable. Have doors disappear when closed behind them (if you must be mechanical, make it a silent image or something). Have voices whisper cryptic messages to one pc that no-one else can hear. Have them catch movement out of the corner of their eyes and never find out what it was no matter what they try. Have them flee the haunted house only to find themselves approaching from another direction.
Avoid combat. If something can be fought with a blade or a spell, then adventurers aren't going to be scared of it. Fear of the unknown is your friend here.
Be inexplicable. Have doors disappear when closed behind them (if you must be mechanical, make it a silent image or something). Have voices whisper cryptic messages to one pc that no-one else can hear. Have them catch movement out of the corner of their eyes and never find out what it was no matter what they try. Have them flee the haunted house only to find themselves approaching from another direction.
Avoid combat. If something can be fought with a blade or a spell, then adventurers aren't going to be scared of it. Fear of the unknown is your friend here.
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
Find out what your players think is scary, then include those things.
When it comes to the villain or monster, I would also make them exceedingly difficult to fight head-on (and this should be known ahead of time via foreshadowing), then include the possibility of acquiring items or information via exploration or social interaction that can even the playing field.
When it comes to the villain or monster, I would also make them exceedingly difficult to fight head-on (and this should be known ahead of time via foreshadowing), then include the possibility of acquiring items or information via exploration or social interaction that can even the playing field.
The best way I've found of handling horror is to start by defining and enforcing moral choices for a while up front. It's one thing for a player to mark "Neutral Good" and call it a day, and another entirely to find that they are having to make decisions (often bad ones) for the sake of earning that alignment. It doesn't take long, but once that kicks in horror can be surprisingly easy to portray as the characters become less a collection of stats and more a collection of memories and patterns of choices/consequences leading them to where they are now.
If you want horror, you have to down-play high fantasy, however. Play up the "realities" of the adventuring life, and make sure you breath life into every NPC you can to ensure the players really care about what happens to the world around them. Focus on smaller regions rather than globe-trotting LotR quests, because it's easier to keep track of and maintain the personalities of, say, a town or province, than it is 30 of them.
If you want horror, you have to down-play high fantasy, however. Play up the "realities" of the adventuring life, and make sure you breath life into every NPC you can to ensure the players really care about what happens to the world around them. Focus on smaller regions rather than globe-trotting LotR quests, because it's easier to keep track of and maintain the personalities of, say, a town or province, than it is 30 of them.
Azurewraith
Explorer
Obligatory podcast link http://dungeonmasterblock.podbean.com/e/ep-51-thou-shall-not-coven/ had some good horror based ideas.
Make things strange take something familiar but mix it up and keep things unknown turn that simple kobold into the freaking alien from alien just in well kobold form. Make there weapons and spells ineffective you know what im not scared of that dragon i can hit with hold monster....
I would say most importantly is player buy in if they want to be scared they will be if they resist all the way well they wont.
Make things strange take something familiar but mix it up and keep things unknown turn that simple kobold into the freaking alien from alien just in well kobold form. Make there weapons and spells ineffective you know what im not scared of that dragon i can hit with hold monster....
I would say most importantly is player buy in if they want to be scared they will be if they resist all the way well they wont.
Rhenny
Adventurer
Keep in mind how great directors build tension and fear. For Hitchcock, it is often to focus on items that "now seeming sweet, convert to bitterest gall" (Shakespeare) - the shower, the telephone, the birds, etc. Most of the time fear is generated by what isn't happening and then horror is achieved when what does happen happens unexpectedly and powerfully.
Another way to inspire fear is to have a situation slowly change to become more and more threatening, giving players time to think. Remember the scene in Aliens, where crew members inspect the alien eggs for the first time - how they slowly open revealing ichor, and then the facehugger lurches out.
Also, steal a page from HP Lovecraft and all writers in general and use disturbing imagery when you describe. Describe more things so that the players only get hints and sometimes false hints at what will truly become the next threat.
Have fun with it. Now I'm getting the itch to include fear and horror in my games.
Another way to inspire fear is to have a situation slowly change to become more and more threatening, giving players time to think. Remember the scene in Aliens, where crew members inspect the alien eggs for the first time - how they slowly open revealing ichor, and then the facehugger lurches out.
Also, steal a page from HP Lovecraft and all writers in general and use disturbing imagery when you describe. Describe more things so that the players only get hints and sometimes false hints at what will truly become the next threat.
Have fun with it. Now I'm getting the itch to include fear and horror in my games.
Rhenny
Adventurer
Oh, while I'm thinking about movies, here are some other tropes (again...big thanks to Ridley Scott and Alien and Speilberg's Jaws):
Make the PCs know that there is something out there hunting them. Develop signs, close calls, carnage in its wake, etc.
Create a moment where PCs/players are afraid that the predator will attack from the darkness or a hidden area (noises that alert the PCs to something there), and then have a harmless animal jump out (the cat in Aliens...or something like wide-eyed deer leaping out through the bushes). Then, when the tension level falls because the group did not encounter the predator, have the predator come from a different direction. (A variation of this was used earlier by Spielberg in Jaws when Hooper is in the shark cage looking in one direction, but the shark comes from the opposite direction).
Introduce one or more NPCs that become memorable and play them so that the PCs feel for them. Then...of course, kill them brutally or have the PCs find their horrible remains at an particularly tense moment.
Make the PCs know that there is something out there hunting them. Develop signs, close calls, carnage in its wake, etc.
Create a moment where PCs/players are afraid that the predator will attack from the darkness or a hidden area (noises that alert the PCs to something there), and then have a harmless animal jump out (the cat in Aliens...or something like wide-eyed deer leaping out through the bushes). Then, when the tension level falls because the group did not encounter the predator, have the predator come from a different direction. (A variation of this was used earlier by Spielberg in Jaws when Hooper is in the shark cage looking in one direction, but the shark comes from the opposite direction).
Introduce one or more NPCs that become memorable and play them so that the PCs feel for them. Then...of course, kill them brutally or have the PCs find their horrible remains at an particularly tense moment.
Ath-kethin
Elder Thing
Get ahold of the 1e module "The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh" and its sequels and pay attention to the advice included when you're running them. It's a nice bit of Lovecraftian horror.
Be forewarned, though: the actual town of Saltmarsh wasn't detailed until the 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide II, and I wouldn't say that the book is worth getting even with that town writeup included.
Be forewarned, though: the actual town of Saltmarsh wasn't detailed until the 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide II, and I wouldn't say that the book is worth getting even with that town writeup included.
