D&D + CoC

[Crothian]

Doug McCrae, it seems what you want is more survival horror; a horror subset. Not all horror games have to have a high body count. It is poossible to set up tension and fear and not kill the characters.

 

[JoeGKushner]

If sword & sorcery is the model, then the primary S&S protagonist, Conan, doesn't act in the right way at all. He's supposedly scared of the supernatural but he seems to respond to that fear by immediately kicking the crap out of whatever is causing it, up to and including Cthulhoid monsters.

This is very important to note. Robert E. Howard wrote several genres of horror and match ups with historical and Cthulhu and his style of writing isn't to sit in the corner silently weeping for lost humanity, it's to pick up anything, even that damn shoe laying in the corner, and leap atop the back of that eldritch horror screaming out the names of your fore fathers and trying to send that bastard back to hell.

Mind you that Howard isn't the only one to write in such a fasion. Some Derelith work I've read almost seems set up where the heroes would be continuously fighting the badies and Brian Lumley's Titus Crow character is set up in a similiar fashion.

Cthulhu does not have to equal death.

If it's horror you're after, find Nightmares of Mine, a book useful for any genre, or the older Ravenloft books, which use a ton of space to talk about setting tone and mood.

 

[darjr]

I just read the Conan story 'The Pool of the Black One' and in it, at the end, Conan runs for his life as fast as he possibly can. Not in fear, never in fear, but he does run away and almost doesn't make it.

Not only him, but a remnant of a crew of battle tested bad to the bone pirates. They all ran. Chewed up, at the end of their endurance they faced something they could not fight.

I really like the idea of a hardy band of adventurers running afoul of things that should not be. Things they could not hope to defeat in a fair fight. Things that could easily crush them out of idle curiosity, and then forget them. Seeing how the players over come, or being a member of a crew that has to figure it out for ourselves, sounds like fun.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I've pointed out stories like that as an example of why players need to be taught or warned that not every encounter is winnable.

Because of that, I've been called "Evil" or "RBDM"- not in jest, either. However, IME, such encounters- played by those who realize that there may be something out there bigger & badder than you so "retreat" is not only sometimes wisest but necessary- can open the gate to a LOT of fun.

If you want to include such encounters, try to get a read on your players' attitudes towards the game. If they don't realize that combat doesn't solve all campaign encounters, they may be in for a rude surprise...as may you.

 

[Desdichado]

I think the deadliness of Call of Cthulhu is often overstated. In the last BRP CoC campaign I played in, we weren't overly scared of getting into firefights with thugs and cultists. The Mythos itself was creepy, but even the dimensional shambler we faced in the first session went down like a chump, when you really get down to it.

Meanwhile, especially for folks who have played in some of the older editions of D&D, I think the deadliness of D&D to PCs is often understated. We used to blow through PCs like it weren't no thang.

So why is one a horror game and the other not? Clearly the amount of PC death and dismemberment isn't the primary variable in how faithfully the game mirrors the conventions fo the horror genre.

Rather, I think the numero uno variable is the expectations that the players bring to the table. If they show up knowing that they're playing Cthulhu, then it's a horror game, regardless of what actually happens at the table. If they show up knowing that they're playing D&D, then it's an adventure sword & sorcery game, no matter how many PCs get gobbled up by the dungeon or whatever.

The specific challenge I'm posing, then, is to play D&D (well, E6 really, but close enough) yet convince my players that regardless of the rules and setting, they're really playing CoC.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

The one I've always wanted to try was to run two parties. The first were CoCd20 characters who were the awake characters. Then when they went to sleep they would walk down the long stair case, meet Nasht and Kaman-Tha and when they walk into the woods they generate D&D characters and I would alter the Dreamlands to be a bit more like the D&D campaign written in the back of the CoCd20 book but with clerics of Bast and Nodens allowable as PCs.

 

[Smoss]

Sounds to me like what you REALLY want to do falls under setting/world building.

How to set the mood for horror in a D&D game.

Several people have pointed out some good resources for that (Ravenloft, some old adventures, etc)

I would suggest starting things normally. Have conflicts be with humans, not monsters. Drop hints of really bad things. Legends of terrors past. Have creepy things happen (Nightmares, odd sounds with no apparent source, etc).

Build up the tension and horror factor. Have them face their first horrific monster only via its aftereffects - AKA finding torn up creatures or people.

Then find the lair and fight baby critters - Critters so tough/horrifying as to make the PCs want to run when Mama comes back.

Those are just a few suggestions. I'm sure the community can throw some more at you...
------------------
Smoss
Doulairen (Doulairen)
Or go directly to details on my RPG system:
RPG System (Doulairen)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

To dovetail off of Smoss' post, don't forget the lessons of Hitchcock.

Build suspense slowly. Don't reveal the ultimate evil until your players are going nuts.

First encounters with the ultimate evil will be in the form of its thralls & worshippers, and will be subtle. "There's something not quite right about our tavern-keeper, wouldn't you agree, my friends?"

Then comes encounters with with more overt evils. Perhaps a red herring or two, like creatures that have a semi-symbiotic relationship with the ultimate evil, like the birds who follow herds of cattle, catching the insects and other small creatures the thundering mass of hooves stir up. Such creatures would be vile, disgusting and quite dangerous...but merely harbingers of what is to come.

The party's first personal encounter with the actual ultimate evil might be in the form of dealing with its aftereffects. Aftereffects that reveal that the harbingers were not the real threat, and that the party is simply not prepared for this level of threat.

Perhaps, at that point, they seek out someone with superior knowledge or skill for assistance. Perhaps this elder adventurer had retired, but gears up for one last battle...which gets him killed and scares the flumpfh out of the party.

After some mindless & terror-filled running, they recover their wits, realize what they have to do and how to do it, and take the steps necessary to do so.

Then its all up to die rolls.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I would suggest picking up Darkness and Dread for the 3.5 system.

 

[Desdichado]

I would suggest picking up Darkness and Dread for the 3.5 system.

I actually quite like that book, and I've had it for a long time. I'm also re-reading Heroes of Horror and the GMing sections of my two Call of Cthulhu books, to reiterate to myself the techniques. I've been in the players seat for a while (still am, actually... I'm not sure I'll get a group together for this hypothetical campaign now or not. Although I'm looking around for opportunities) and am a bit rusty. And a lot of this stuff improves as you review it.