D&D 5E D&D compared to Bespoke Genre TTRPGs

[dave2008]

I read the link. Yup, I think you played a Lovecraft Lite game. Is that what you meant?

No, click on the link for Cosmic Horror Story.

 

[dave2008]

You mean the protagonist Johnathan Harker, that marries his love, kills the baddie (or helps anyway) and lives a good life with his wife and son? How did he end up destroyed? In what way was he destroyed?

The title character is Dracula

 

[Hussar]

Well, I was responding to @Aldarc who was specifically addressing the point of heroes having a lot of options and feeling more “heroic” as a consequence.

As to adding a “Cosmic” to the “Cosmic Horror” genre, that depends what to you as the hallmarks of a Cosmic Horror game, and I am not beholden to your definition.

As to what I would add to make a 5e game feel like Cosmic Horror to me:

• An enemy whose mindset is alien and who the characters cannot hope to defeat through combat (easy enough);
• Have that enemy not follow the same rules in combat as the characters (both easy and fun to do IMHO);
• A situation where even if the characters win, they feel like they lost (easy to do);
• an emphasis on esoteric and lost knowledge, possibly with negative effects incurred upon learning information (easy to do).

And here I thought we were done with Oberoni. If it was so easy to do, why are we having a discussion about how to do it? I'd largely agree with your list here, which really, isn't any different from what I said. Yet, the notion that in 5e, "a situation where even if the characters win, they feel like they lost" is anything but easy and requires so much rail roading that I wouldn't even try it in 5e.

 

[Ovinomancer]

No, click on the link for Cosmic Horror Story.

You answered no to fewer than three of those questions? That doesn't align with what little you've shared of your game. I can answer a number of those questions no just from what you've shared.

But, it doesn't really matter. There's no prize for having avoided playing a Lovecraft Lite story. There's nothing that says this can't be a horror story -- it's just not as absolutely pessimistic.

 

[Hussar]

The title character is Dracula

But, Dracula is most certainly not the protagonist of the story. He's the villain. Of course he dies. That's how stories end usually. This is why Dracula, while horror, most certainly isn't Cosmic Horror. And, it's horror because bad things happen to good people. Bad things that are done by the villain. If you are looking to Dracula for inspiration for your horror game (certainly a good place to start for horror), you aren't doing Cosmic Horror.

 

[dave2008]

You answered no to fewer than three of those questions? That doesn't align with what little you've shared of your game. I can answer a number of those questions no just from what you've shared.

But, it doesn't really matter. There's no prize for having avoided playing a Lovecraft Lite story. There's nothing that says this can't be a horror story -- it's just not as absolutely pessimistic.

I'm not sure what your talking about I, I didn't read the Lovecraft life entry I read the cosmic horror entry. Maybe a read it to quickly as I don't know what your talking about.

 

[dave2008]

You answered no to fewer than three of those questions? That doesn't align with what little you've shared of your game. I can answer a number of those questions no just from what you've shared.

But, it doesn't really matter. There's no prize for having avoided playing a Lovecraft Lite story. There's nothing that says this can't be a horror story -- it's just not as absolutely pessimistic.

I mean my game ended with a TPK and Cthulhu destroying the world. That feels pretty pessimistic to me.

 

[Hussar]

Ok, just to clarify things a bit.

Why the Madness (edit to add - AND SANITY) Mechanics didn't Work For Me.

Context: I was not running a Cosmic Horror game. It was a Primeval Thule game, so there were pulp horror elements but, it wasn't the main thrust of the game. Think Conan, not Dunwich Horror.

I introduced the mechanics to the players. The players immediately realized that the mechanics were very bolted on and did not interact with any other part of the system. The mechanics are basically, "See something really scary, make your Sanity check. Fail enough of those, you get a temporary insanity. Fail enough times after that, and you go permanently insane".

The players and I realized that there was absolutely no context with these mechanics. 1st level or 15th, you had the same chances of failure (more or less). Didn't matter your class, background, level or anything else. Everyone had the same (again, more or less, certainly within about 10-15% either way) chances of failure. So, sure, the first time you meet that horrible tentacled thing, you make your saving throw. The third time you meet yet another tentacled thing, you are still making the same saving throw. By 15th level, you've literally met dozens of tentacled things, but, you make the same saving throw at the same odds of failure.

There was no way for the players to mitigate any of this. You can't get "better" at these checks. Which makes it stand out very starkly from the rest of the game. A 15th level barbarian who has faced dragons without flinching suddenly goes insane from seeing a gibbering mouther, even though his grandmother is more scary.

The players, immediately realizing they had zero input into the system, became totally passive/agressive about it. "Oh noes, another tentacled horror. Whatever shall I so. Oh, look, I failed my saving throw. Oh noes, I'm insane now. Whoopee!"

There's nothing for the players at all in the system. It's just a thing that sits there, like a lump. It doesn't impact any role play (having a lower or higher Sanity score doesn't mean anything, other than it's slightly easier or harder to make a saving throw). It only interacts with this single element - seeing something scary/experiencing something scary. There's no integration. There's not even the slightest attempt to explain what anything actually means. If I have a 15 strength and you have an 8 strength, we can roleplay that. Anyone can roleplay that. But, what does a 15 sanity score mean? What does an 8 mean? It's just numbers on the sheet.

So, yes, that's why I say the mechanics are a failure. They are bolted on lump of meaninglessness that just serve to annoy the players and add nothing to the table.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

@Hussar, nor was @FrozenNorth doing cosmic horror based on his list, because there was nothing COSMIC about it. Cosmic Horror is a form of Existential Horror. Existential Horror has to do with the conditions of existence itself. For instance Soylent Green is existential horror, people are forced to eat each other because the Earth is dying and there's nothing else left to eat. It isn't Cosmic Horror though. In FN's case I think we can all agree the things that are mentioned are certainly compatible with the horror genre generally. They evince lack of control, danger, helplessness, etc. The would attain to the Cosmic sort if the danger is to all of creation/our conception of reality etc.

I suppose you could say 5e is a good horror game, since the players are totally helpless! That assumes your GM is a monster though, so we'll reject that formulation, at least for present company, hehehe.

 

[dave2008]

But, Dracula is most certainly not the protagonist of the story. He's the villain. Of course he dies. That's how stories end usually. This is why Dracula, while horror, most certainly isn't Cosmic Horror. And, it's horror because bad things happen to good people. Bad things that are done by the villain. If you are looking to Dracula for inspiration for your horror game (certainly a good place to start for horror), you aren't doing Cosmic Horror.

We are not talking about the same things clearly. I never said Dracula was cosmic horror and in the post of mine you referenced I said: Title character. The title of the book is Dracula.

IIRC the post I originally responded to mentioned Dracula as a horror threat. My point is that in book he is barely a threat, so much so that I was very disappointed when I read it. He is in fact defeated by heroes rather easily and spends a good deal of time running from them.