D&D General Great Horror Campaign/Ravenloft moments

[TheSword]

So after reading somewhat despondently a thread where people said d&d can’t do horror. I posted this encounter...

“When crossing a bridge, hurrying to reach the next settlement before nightfall, the PCs met farmers hurrying the other way. The farmers stoped and said the PCs were mad for heading into the woods that they were dangerous. They asked if the PCs had silver weapons because there were said to be wolves that walked as men to the west that could only be harmed with silver. When the PCs said they didn’t the farmers said “good” and transformed into werewolves. The PCs were at first suspicious, then reassured by the conversation, then horrified that they’d admitted their own weakness.”

What other enjoyable Ravenloft, or general horror gaming moments have you enjoyed as either a player or a DM?

 

[Shiroiken]

Back in 1E when I was just a player, there was a horror themed adventure from Dungeon magazine. It was searching a haunted house, with an NPC and the party looking for a hidden treasure vault (the NPC inherited the house and needs the treasure to pay decades of back taxes on it). However, there are a pair of VERY clever thieves that try to scare off people, since they're also looking for the vault. When the party arrives, they have clever ways to "eliminate" PCs without giving away their presence or killing them. The first night, they get rid of 2 characters (preferably Henchmen), and they continue each night the party stays. If a player is going to be taken, the DM takes them aside and tells them what has happened, which again never reveals that it was done by the thieves. Needless to say, it's pretty terrifying to watch your friends disappear every night, wondering if you're next. For the players whose characters were taken, they simply had to wait to see what happened (in theory they're supposed to be dumped in the woods not to far from a nearby village with 1 HP and no memory). I don't remember the specifics of their tricks, but I know that none of them would work past AD&D due to the rules shift.

 

[humble minion]

I ran a brief Gothic Earth (basically victorian-era Ravenloft on Earth) campaign a long time ago - PCs were part of a secret cabal inside the british government who were trying to prevent Dracula (who had come to Britain) from finding Excalibur, at the time of the Jack the Ripper murders. Yep, hitting ALL the gaslight cliches! One of the NPCs they had to work with quite frequently was the pitiable, twitchy ruin of Jonathan Harker, deeply scarred and driven half-mad by his experiences - not only had he escaped from Dracula in Transylvania, but he'd attempted to kill the Count once he arrived in England, failed miserably, and witnessed his wife Mina turned into Dracula's spawn. The precise details escape my memory now, but I think he had some sort of psychic connection to Dracula due to having been fed on, so he was kept around as an intelligence source and lead to Dracula's location.

We never got to finish the campaign (it was a one-semester thing at a university RPG club and i got seriously ill and missed a bunch of sessions), but i did get to run the big reveal, where the PCs discover that Harker was the Ripper - he'd failed to destroy his wife when she first arose as a vampire, and she'd taunted him with his cowardice and failure, and he'd gone quietly, murderously mad and started killing other women in her place. And of course the PCs seniors in the Cabal had known about this all along and let it go, because "cheap lower-class gin-sodden hoydens are a dime a dozen really, dontcherknow, but we need Harker for now, can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, what what?"

 

[Helldritch]

A few things I used in D&D over the years that really both shocked and surprised my players.
As the thief sets to listen to the door in an abandoned castle, a pair of clawed furry hands burst forth, grab the thief and pulled him in. Once inside, the thief is thrown out of the window 70 below, with the were wolf jumping right after het to finish her off. All the while, the other 5 players were like dumb asses with their mouth wide open. (4ed).

An ogre appearing at la The butcher screaming Fresh meat and pushing the thoughest fighter into a flaming 10 feet deep fire pit. As the fighter is roasting down the pit, the ogre's screaming: "Time to cook little pinky pigs!". The ogre was trying to push other players into the pit so the poor fighter literally roasted to death while the other players were trying to stay clear of the pit. Then, the ogre catches the wizard and jumps in the pit with the wizard, screaming: "Time to cook some more!" As he drops the wizard, the ogre climbs up from the pit and says :"Who's next? The rest of the group fled... (Fire immune infernal ogre, 3.5ed)

In a cemetery, the players are about to enter a crypt. The thief sets to listen and he distinctly hears a voice saying :" I know who you are. I have been waiting for you and your friends..." At the same time the back of the party is attacked by ghouls and the cleric is paralyzed. A tough fight after which the wizard said:" Told you not to go during the night, do what you want, I'm not going in there with who kows what is waiting for us!" What a little magic mouth can do... 2nd ed.

And I think we all have our stories about I6 and rehearsing them would just be redundant. But in the few times I have played it. The horror and the tension was always felt

So yep, not only can you do horror in D&D, but it can also be done in such a way that the players will always remember. The only requirement is that the players must know that in your world, they will not always meet things they are meant to vanquish. Not all encounters should be within the reach of the the players and if they are not supposed to tackle the treath but still do it. A quick death should welcome them. This sets the pace for your campaign. When you know that you can TPK in a pinch, you are much more prone to prudence, fear and to retreat.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

I remember when my players discovered that all the crops in my setting where fertilized with human blood, and that if the sacrifices and bloodletting was stopped, the consequence would be widespread hunger and famine. That really through them for a loop.

 

[Richards]

I had a female elven ranger and a female dwarven NPC cleric locked in a room with the only key to the door at the bottom of a narrow well - much too narrow for the dwarf to fit into. So the ranger stripped off her armor and entered the well to get the key. I described the sensation as being lowered into a pot of soup, with carrots and such floating around. There wasn't enough light in the room to allow the ranger to see underwater in the well, so she had to hold her breath and feel around to find the key. But she found it, exited the well...and discovered those hadn't been carrots after all - they were leeches and she was now covered in the bloodsucking creatures.

The player, as it turned out, is extremely squicked out at the very thought of leeches and she was physically shuddering upon receiving this information. Needless to say, the ranger and the cleric performed an immediate de-leeching before using the key to get out of their locked room. (The whole adventure was based on the "Saw" movies, with each of the PCs having been placed in similar situations.)

Johnathan

 

[Oofta]

I generally find that people's imaginations are worse than anything I could come up with, especially when it involves other PCs. So I had a player roll a D20 and asked them to hand me their character sheet. I rolled another D20 and checked my sheet, then asked the player to come with me so we could chat. They needed to bring their character sheet and a D20.

There was absolutely nothing wrong, nothing had happened, but the more the player denied it the more suspicious the other players were.

 

[Helldritch]

If you want to see suspicious players. Play Paranoia. You'll see. They'll blow each others up. Literally.

 

[TheSword]

In a town the baron clearly had some confidence issues and easily driven into a rage by any dissent. He had declared the party persona non grata after imagined insults when they met. However he had a tough enforcer. A local noble matriarch (suspicious of course) arranged to help the party if they could get the Baron’s enforcer out of the way, which they were able to do.

That night, fires raged over the town, as the matriarch’s diabolical cabal took revenge on anyone in the town who had slighted them. Marching them into the town square to be pushed into an inverted circular wall of flame and kept in there by pikes.

The previous baron, his wife, and child were all set to be pushed in too, and the barons wife was first. The PC wizard had a magical tug of war as he levitated the woman out of the circle only for her to fall back in as the matriarch dispelled the spell, only to levitate her back out. He was then struck, lost concentration and she fell back into the circle and burnt. The Party then fled the town protecting the Baron and his child. The very baron they’d undermined in the first place. Delicious irony.

 

[Ancalagon]

So we were playing in ravenloft, fairly tough party (level 5-6?). We get captured with these brain-fluid sucking vampires who are running an insane asylum. They are way tougher than us. We escape a few times, explore the asylum, get beaten up by the vampires and re-captured (and our brain fluids sucked a little).

The third time we escaped, I said "Ok, we can't beat these guys. Let's burn the place down and escape in the confusion". The DM says "But what about all the other prisoners here? Don't you want to rescue them?"

I answered "You've made it abundantly clear that we are unable to defeat the vampires or save their victims. At least this way, their suffering will end and the vampires will suffer a serious set-back". And then we burned the place down and escaped.

The look of horror on the DM's face was priceless.