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My experience of Call of Cthulhu is that it can do horror, but only if it's run as a oneoff. I've played in a couple of Call of Cthulhu campaigns and imo they both failed because the PCs didn't die and had some success vs monsters. PC persistence is antithetical to horror, but it's a requirement...

I'd add: 3) Player expectation. Players don't expect D&D to be horror.

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).

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.

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...

Is the Pythonian Insurgency influenced by Cobra from GI Joe, Marvel's Hydra, or the Kobra Cult in DC Comics?

My main purpose was to read the texts as influences on D&D, particularly 1974 OD&D, rather than for their literary merit. Only the first two Amber books were published before 1974.

Choices are a good thing. The main point in getting together to play a roleplaying game is that the players get to make significant decisions. But one downside of this is that different players make different decisions potentially leading to a split in the party. Imo the onus is on the players...

The Five Races

In the British superhero rpg Golden Heroes (Games Workshop version 1984), mooks are knocked out if they are hit once by any type of super or highly skilled attack, or stunned if struck by a non-super/skilled attack. This rule only applies when mooks accompany a supervillain, otherwise they have...

That's an interesting idea. A linear dungeon, such as one that consists of five rooms in a row, will probably lead to a linear adventure. A non-linear structure, such as a mega-dungeon, will lead to a non-linear adventure. We don't know if the PCs will spend all their time on level 1 dealing...

Magic in The Lord of the Rings/Middle-earth can be very powerful. Sauron causes whole armies to experience fear or battle rage at a distance of about 200 miles. He controls the weather 900 miles away. Galadriel, using Nenya, one of the Rings of Power, can control the weather and manipulate time...

Thanks for that answer, it's very helpful. I hadn't realised kickers are supposed to be so immediate. That sounds really good - it sets a scene, it's very dramatic, and we don't know what's going to happen. How are the other PCs involved in kickers? Or could the players create a single kicker...

These are all popular but imo overdone: mecha and kaiju, Lovecraftian horrors, HR Giger-style aliens, proud warrior races (Klingons 2.0), space elves (Vulcans). I'd go for: The Daleks from Doctor Who. The Navigator's Guild from Dune. Judge Death and the ABC Warriors from 2000AD. The Green...

It's interesting to me that players create their own kickers. That isn't what I'd have expected. Here is an attempt to create kickers for my PC, Flaming Helen, a sorcerer. Background: Acolyte (Joramy, goddess of fire). Ideal: Defend civilisation from threats. Bond: City of Greyhawk militia...

Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game (1991). Or go even further and run rpgs "free kriegspiel" without any written rules. My most successful sessions have used the latter 'system' but it also has limitations and I wouldn't necessarily advocate for it or claim it's the best approach to rpg-ing.

If you're reading them as Appendix N works then I'd read only The Stealer of Souls and then Stormbringer. These two novels contain almost all the earliest Elric stories, written from 1961 to 1964. I think they're a bigger influence on D&D than the Hawkmoon stories, which are the only other...

This is true of some forms of gamist play but not all. By gamist play I mean play that is focused on challenging the players. A good way to do this is to give lots of opportunities to make decisions. Some decisions will lead to success and some will lead to failure. A gamist GM could adjust...

I’ve never read Gary Gygax’s Gord the Rogue series, which is set in Greyhawk. However, going by the plot summaries on wikipedia it looks like the first novel, Saga of Old City, resembles Fritz Leiber’s stories about Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser while the final novel, Dance of Demons, is extremely...