D&D General Unpopular Opinion?: D&D is a terrible venue for horror

[Ovinomancer]

Horror has almost nothing to do with level in D&D, unless your horror is making players scared their characters may die. Move the stakes to something else -- where the fear isn't your death -- any the level/resource issue is moot. This does mean D&D is terrible at Alien style horror.

That said, I think D&D is terrible at horror because it lacks the kind of mechanics that enable the kind of narrative structure that works best for horror. The pass/fail resolution mechanic combined with the entire ability check system being aimed at resolving concrete, small actions means that you're far to granular in resolution to deal with many horror tropes. D&D is great for exploring a dungeon, but not so good at existential or body horror tropes.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The two main problems are:
1) Too many winnable combat encounters.
2) The PCs (and players) know too much about the monsters.

To horror-ise D&D there should be only one monster per adventure. It should be very mysterious and the PCs must believe they have no or very little chance of defeating it in a confrontation.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I've always thought that its hard for D&D games to be "horror" because a majority of the player character buttons and switches are involved with finding monsters and killing them. Even when faced with certain death in a session, there is always the thought in the players heads that "I'll come back to this later and kill it when i'm more powerful.

 

[Oofta]

This still sounds more like adventure than horror to me. Harrowing adventure, sure, but the best adventures are. There’s more to horror than disempowerment and survival.

Well, defining horror is a bit tricky isn't it? Just look at the genres of movies that fall under the horror umbrella. It's a really big category, so I'm not sure there is an answer. Some games focus on horror exclusively, but can't do anything else. I'm not saying D&D is the best fit (and maybe not for long running horror theme).

What specific aspects can't D&D do?

 

[Doug McCrae]

Now, I think D&D makes great use of horrific elements -- gross monsters with scary abilities and frightening imagery. But those things don't make D&D horror any more than they made Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies horror.

There is at least one horror scene in Jackson's LotR movies. It's no coincidence that it involves only the weakest protagonists - the hobbits, the undead-like Nazgul, and no combat.

 

[Reynard]

There is at least one horror scene in Jackson's LotR movies. It's no coincidence that it involves only the weakest protagonists - the hobbits - and the undead-like Nazgul.

Exactly my point: LotR were not horror movies, but they used some horror elements in them. D&D does that fine, too, but it isn't horror.

 

[Istbor]

Is D&D made for horror like other games which are more focused? No.

Can a DM or an adventure create a sense of horror for the characters/players as a theme? Yes.

I think you can do so through storytelling and world crafting. I also think this can be done with minimal house rules. You can certainly beef up or modify creatures if you choose, but I think even just enhancing fluff or altering how creatures behave is enough.

Very few things enjoy being eaten for instance. If instead of making sure the battleground is clear of enemies, a DM runs and shows monsters will drag away prey or begin to feast mid-battle can really up the tension. This can even be done for various undead depending on how your world's lore or laws work.

It certainly takes practice to get better at it, but the same can be said for getting the pacing and flow in a regular D&D game right.

 

[Ace]

Roleplaying games in general aren't that great for creating a sense of horror. D&D is no exception.

 

[Oofta]

It's funny that Alien was brought up as a horror movie because I think of it more as a creature feature.

But anyway, was Aliens a horror movie? I mean, everybody but Ripley sent to the planet (well and token idiot management guy) were trained soldiers at least theoretically well suited to the task.

I think it just upped the ante by showing that even the well trained marines were chewed up by the enemy. It took more enemies than in the first movie, but the result was the same.

 

[Aaron L]

It depends entirely on the group.