Daggerheart General Thread [+]

[nyvinter]

Horror campaigns are hard to do and I'd argue that most of it is not due to the rules. Not even Ten Candles or Dread can save the horror if the players are not leaning into it. Granted, rules might not help but if you can run horror in Fate — and you can — then you should be able to do it here too. But it's going to be on the group, and not just the GM and/or the rules.

 

[overgeeked]

Horror campaigns are hard to do and I'd argue that most of it is not due to the rules. Not even Ten Candles or Dread can save the horror if the players are not leaning into it. Granted, rules might not help but if you can run horror in Fate — and you can — then you should be able to do it here too. But it's going to be on the group, and not just the GM and/or the rules.

I think we already touched on that up thread. You can do horror in most games as long as the rules don’t fight you. And, as you say, if the players aren’t invested nothing can save you. But I do think evocative rules absolutely can and do help. Running horror in Fate or D&D 5E is harder to pull off than in a game like Call of Cthulhu or Mothership. The right tool for the right job and all that.

 

[Arilyn]

Fate is stretchy enough to do horror. I've been in a few very successful Fate horror games.

 

[John Lloyd1]

I think we already touched on that up thread. You can do horror in most games as long as the rules don’t fight you. And, as you say, if the players aren’t invested nothing can save you. But I do think evocative rules absolutely can and do help. Running horror in Fate or D&D 5E is harder to pull off than in a game like Call of Cthulhu or Mothership. The right tool for the right job and all that.

What is in Call of Cthulhu that makes it a successful horror game (excluding setting)? Sanity points?

 

[nyvinter]

I don't know. Fate Horror Toolkit has a lot more actual tools for running horror than CoC does, even if CoC does Hammer Horror quite well, I've always thought that Chill was the better horror game there. IMO. But I'll give you that they're better than Fate with mood and atmosphere stemming from the rules.

Since this is talked about in one of the Ravenloft threads at the moment as well, I don't want to dwell on it too much — it should be it's own thread.

John: generalising a lot here, but skill-based rules that are tuned to common people does a lot more to helping the horror than the sanity. I'd even say that the diminishing luck points build dread more than sanity. But then again, the only sanity system I've liked has been the ones in Unknown Armies.

 

[John Lloyd1]

John: generalising a lot here, but skill-based rules that are tuned to common people does a lot more to helping the horror than the sanity. I'd even say that the diminishing luck points build dread more than sanity. But then again, the only sanity system I've liked has been the ones in Unknown Armies.

I think that the idea that FATE features competent characters gets overplayed. In FATE you can be a competent common person. It has a fiction first philosophy. In the last FATE game I played, we were baby raccoons in a high tech warehouse.

 

[overgeeked]

What is in Call of Cthulhu that makes it a successful horror game (excluding setting)? Sanity points?

I'm a big fan of horror games and I would gladly fill several threads chatting about them, but I want to keep this thread on track. So I've split this off into it's own thread. Please take the horror stuff over there.

Thread 'What makes a successful horror game?'

Jun 27, 2025

The question came up on another thread but I thought it was worth breaking off into it's own thread.

By "successful" here I mean that it works as a horror game, not whether it makes money for the company.

So, what do you think? What makes a successful horror game?

• overgeeked
• Replies: 43
• Forum: *TTRPGs General

 

[Reynard]

My first DH game schedule for tomorrow ballooned to 6 PCs. If you have run DH for a large group: what are some things I should be aware of or otherwise keep in mind? Thanks.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

My first DH game schedule for tomorrow ballooned to 6 PCs. If you have run DH for a large group: what are some things I should be aware of or otherwise keep in mind? Thanks.

I've only run it for 4 players which I think is normal rather than large but the following points come to mind (you may already have considered all of them of course).

Make sure you rebalance encounters for 6 players. Some of them will be quite large as a result - also I'd say make sure the monsters in those encounters represent multiple types of monster (i.e. skulks, bruisers, solos, etc.).

Make sure you take 6 Fear to start (and add 6 fear to your 1d4 roll on a Long Rest).

Be aggressive about spending Fear, because with 6 players wanting to do stuff, you'll probably get a lot (44% chance per Duality roll).

Strongly encourage the players to voluntarily pass the spotlight around, and to pay attention to who hasn't had a go - it's much more likely someone will get kinda naturally given less spotlight time with a larger group. And when your turns end, because you stop spending Fear or w/e, try and make sure you ask a player who hasn't gone recently. Seems obvious but it may not be. I convinced my players to pass to each other aggressively by simply saying if the same person kept taking goes I might see that as a Golden Opportunity to do make a hard GM move.

This may already be dealt with, but with 6 PCs, if you're using cards, you may need to ensure PCs who have overlapping Domains take cards so that they both get cards, if you see what I mean, or you can just have people write cards down (there's a sheet for it IIRC) where they overlap.

I think spotlighting is going to be the main issue with a 6 person group.

 

[Imaro]

My first DH game schedule for tomorrow ballooned to 6 PCs. If you have run DH for a large group: what are some things I should be aware of or otherwise keep in mind? Thanks.

I'd be very interested in comparing notes as my group is also 6 people thought I think I might only have 5 for my first session tomorrow.