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

[Xeviat]

The best game I've ran in 20 years was a horror game. It requires player buy in. D&D is a combat heavy game and the horror it creates is action horror that can be beaten, but that's still a kind of horror.

D&D has a fun thing doable that literature can't: Metagame Horror! I've been playing in a Rime game. When our first level party had to fight 2 Winter wolves, which I know are CR 3, I was terrified. When the party's familiar saw a talking mammoth, which I know is CR 6, I was TERRIFIED.

Horror literature is speculative fiction that seeks to illicit fear, revulsion, and other negative emotions. D&D can do that.

 

[Ovinomancer]

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.

Aliens and Alien (no s) are different movies, with very different genres. Aliens is an action film with some horror tropes. Alien (no s) is a pure horror movie, with multiple layers of horror -- creature horror, body horror, and existential horror. The actual monster in Alien (no s) isn't even the xenomorph -- it's the android and the very human directive and motive behind the android's actions. The monster in Alien (no s) is just a foil to human nature in the film. It's excellent, in all regards.

 

[Xeviat]

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

Alien is a horror movie, but it's more on the side of sci-fi horror and more action horror. It's definitely light on the horror (I mean, spoilers, almost everyone dies), but my roommate, who hates horror, can't watch it, so it's horror.

I kid. I studied speculative fiction in college, and there's a lot of overlap between horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. There's also a spectrum from how heavily you lean into the genre, and blurred lines between them (star wars is a fantasy story with the trappings of a sci-fi story), but genres are often just labels for marketing and don't always match the academic terms.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The movie Predator shows that it's possible to do horror with competent protagonists, though it is more difficult. Imo Predator only becomes a horror movie about 30 minutes in. The scene early on where the protagonists successfully attack the compound is action, not horror (and is quite D&D-y).

 

[jasper]

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.

3. No lasting damage. Long rest instant restore.
4. Easy removal of conditions. You got the gold the FNC (Friendly neighborhood Cleric) has a spell for that.

 

[Aaron L]

The movie Predator shows that it's possible to do horror with competent protagonists, though it is more difficult. Imo Predator only becomes a horror movie about 30 minutes in. The scene early on where the protagonists successfully attack the compound is action, not horror (and is quite D&D-y).

Predator is basically an Action movie that becomes a Slasher Horror movie halfway through.

 

[Oofta]

3. No lasting damage. Long rest instant restore.
4. Easy removal of conditions. You got the gold the FNC (Friendly neighborhood Cleric) has a spell for that.

Assuming they can rest. What kind of horror movie would it be if people could just call up an Uber and get out of town? Same for removal of conditions; it's not like people can run to the nearest hospital. But I also throw in stuff now and then that can't be fixed that easily, at least short of a wish. Good luck getting that.

In my current campaign a couple of the PCs are "tainted" because of encounters with outsiders. Admittedly it's just something I made up, to me that doesn't mean it's not D&D. So far I've left it open to what it means other than bad dreams and the occasional horrific hallucination. A third is still affected by residual effects of a trip to the shadowfell and sees dead people who occasionally try to eat him. Usually when no one else is in sight. On the other hand I don't consider my campaign a "horror" campaign, it's more of an action/intrigue story with hints of horror. I guess.

The horror genre is so broad that it's like trying to nail a swarm of hell bees to the wall.

 

[Reynard]

The movie Predator shows that it's possible to do horror with competent protagonists, though it is more difficult. Imo Predator only becomes a horror movie about 30 minutes in. The scene early on where the protagonists successfully attack the compound is action, not horror (and is quite D&D-y).

I don't think Predator qualifies as horror at all. It is an action movie with a body count designed to tell you how dangerous the bad guy is. It is never scary.

 

[jayoungr]

What's your picture of how "proper" horror feels at the table?

Is it about fear of character death?

Is it about the fear of madness?

Is it about the discovery of terrible secrets?

Is it about monsters that you can't hope to escape?

Is it about the gothic trappings--an ancient house, wolves howling in the distance, red velvet and cobwebs?

Is it about facing hordes of undead?

Any of those in any combination could be described as horror.

 

[AmerginLiath]

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.

More than necessarily character survival, I think the resolution system is the big issue. Horror works as a narrative by ratcheting up and more rapidly advancing drama’s build and release of tension (in an odd way, farce is the comic version of horror in this way — probably why horror parodies work so well). The binary pass/fail resolution mechanic and the regular turn-based combat system flatten the progression of the story-as-story (purposely, so the campaign can continue at the pace determined by players and DM). This makes for a good game, but there’s by its nature too many pauses and rearrangements for a straight flow of tension (I almost want to make a gridiron football reference here, but I’ve made enough random analogies in one paragraph...).