D&D General How do you do horror when running D&D?

[Rechan]

Gotcha....it sounds like you have a rough idea for a game that will last a few sessions. Can you break the story up into session sized parts that have a clear goal? As @Fenris-77 says, narrative goals are also part of the game. I don't want to seem like I would exclude that side of things. It just sounded like your players were more traditionally minded in their approach to D&D

I don’t have players yet.

To sum up, I don’t want to play D&D, but I have exhausted all options to find players of other systems. My options are play D&D or don’t play. Therefore I am trying to force D&D into a form that I want to play: short 1-5 session campaigns where PCs are weak NPCs with no combat ability, who are trying to survive horrifying situations by avoiding and escaping threats.

This is not the experience most D&D players want or expect therefore I will specify before they show up the type of game they are getting onto.

 

[oriaxx77]

I usually use demon infested commoners who does creepy things. It takes many hours for the party to figure out that every single person is inhabited by evil spirits. I do not let them long rest, but I use combat scarcely. I use sanity and madness when they do certain things e.g.: they can get madness when someone say Tharizdun aloud etc...

 

[Imaculata]

I will say it warms my heart to hear people at “D&D is this, it is this experience. doing that in it doesn’t work”. I argued this back in the 3e days, when people here would try to force heavy economics and diplomacy games et all into it, because they wouldn’t try other systems.

D&D can be any experience you want it to be. It doesn't have to be a hack and slash dungeon crawl. The system is perfectly suitable for a narrative heavy roleplaying focused campaign. That is true of almost any system I know, including 3e.

You can award xp for accomplishing goals and finding clues, or ignore the concept of xp entirely. But you don't need combat. I have plenty of sessions in my 3e campaign that are nothing but talking. Sometimes not a single die is rolled. And that should be perfectly possible in 5e too.

 

[Fenris-77]

Well, lets be honest, it has some tools for narrative heavy play, but it isn't exactly ideal for that right out of the box as a focus. You don't have to hack anything in to play that way, but I think it would help to have some extra handholds to support 3rd pillar play. Even something as simple as X successes before X failures as a mechanic can add some granularity. Really, any approach that moves the game beyond one roll pass or fail for social stuff is a step in the right direction.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don’t have players yet.

To sum up, I don’t want to play D&D, but I have exhausted all options to find players of other systems. My options are play D&D or don’t play. Therefore I am trying to force D&D into a form that I want to play: short 1-5 session campaigns where PCs are weak NPCs with no combat ability, who are trying to survive horrifying situations by avoiding and escaping threats.

This is not the experience most D&D players want or expect therefore I will specify before they show up the type of game they are getting onto.

I didn't know you didn't have specific players in mind. That helps.

Is the setting meant to be a typical fantasy world with elves ad dwarves, etc? Or is it gothic/Victorian type setting like Ravenloft or Dracula? Or something else?

Would you use/allow all classes? You describe the PCs as "weak NPCs"...how do you want to do that? will there by character creation by players? Or will you provide pre-gens?

 

[hawkeyefan]

D&D can be any experience you want it to be. It doesn't have to be a hack and slash dungeon crawl. The system is perfectly suitable for a narrative heavy roleplaying focused campaign. That is true of almost any system I know, including 3e.

You can award xp for accomplishing goals and finding clues, or ignore the concept of xp entirely. But you don't need combat. I have plenty of sessions in my 3e campaign that are nothing but talking. Sometimes not a single die is rolled. And that should be perfectly possible in 5e too.

D&D can be flexible, and can indeed deliver a variety of gaming experiences. A lot of that will vary greatly depending on the players and DM, and what they're going for.

But there are other systems that are designed specifically to deliver a specific result and very often it would make more sense to use such a game, if possible.

In this case, the OP specifically needs to the game to be D&D, so it doesn't help here.....but in other instances, if anyone said "I want to run a horror game" I'd have several ideas that I would offer before I got to "What about D&D?"

I mean, in the last two weeks, I've picked up both Esoteric Enterprises and Five Torches Deep, and both would be suitable for the request, depending on the setting. Especially Five Torches since it's based on 5E and would be very familiar to anyone who's played.

 

[Nebulous]

To be clear I’m not imagining long campaigns. Maybe 3-5 sessions max? Long enough for a story. Because IME it’s hard to get people to commit to long campaigns period, and I think it would be hard to maintain a long running campaign with weak characters who can die easily.

Because when I say “no combat” I don’t mean “no violence”.Things will attack them. Fighting back (and staying to fight) is what’s unwise.

Oh, 3-5 sessions makes a big difference. And you still intend to have things attack and hurt them, but with the intention that if they stick around to "win" they will absolutely die. So it's a fighting retreat sort of deal.

 

[Nebulous]

I mean, in the last two weeks, I've picked up both Esoteric Enterprises and Five Torches Deep, and both would be suitable for the request, depending on the setting. Especially Five Torches since it's based on 5E and would be very familiar to anyone who's played.

I'm gonna look those up.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Pretty sure you can pick them up in PDF for about $10 each.

 

[Nebulous]

Pretty sure you can pick them up in PDF for about $10 each.

yeah I just grabbed the 5 torches, it sounds intriguing. That might be something the OP would like, as it is more dangerous than 5e. Frankly, the superhero curve of D&D is a turn off for me as well, I just as soon end any game by 9th.