D&D General Horror is hard

[tetrasodium]

@GrimCo I find red yellow green to work wayyy better than the x card silliness. It allows everyone to organically drop a color in a reference to anything they are interacting with or avoiding without needing to make a big show of things. The only time I seen someone invoke the x card was something like "the dragon's claw/claw/bite is xyz, those are all going to hit for p z q->,"I don't consent to vore-> Google ->"yeaaannnooo, I know your current hp. It claws you three times for the same p z q"->""I'm down".

Is this not a thread about the Horror genre? The word/label matters because not every word/label fits the genre.

The word could matter, but the distinction about not using the word scary to describe the former role those now mechanically non-functional abilities has been one entirely based on subjective unsupported opinion and a demand that only a generally unstated personal definition for "horror" be allowed in service of pure OneTrueWayism.

For the record I wasn't disputing that these abilities can have an impact on play, I was disputing that these abilities mean they are a good fit for a Horror genre.

You can and generally should assume that nobody reading your posts is a mind reader able to sense the case not made in them.

If when fighting a rust monster simply meant we put away our cool weapons and beat it to death with clubs then that's not the rust monster being scary it's the rust monster being annoying.

By that same logic the xenomorphs in alien, doors a crawler?) and even a cargo loader were used to kill a few after the cool weapons were shown to be not very effective while their blood destroyed all kinds of stuff.

Spoiler: this is not *frustration*

It's fear caused by an individual scary monster in a situation with more of them the characters can expect & hope to mostly come out at night... Mostly

Predators regularly break/cut/shoot human weapons armor vehicles and fortifications too.

 

[Sorinth]

You can and generally should assume that nobody reading your posts is a mind reader able to sense the case not made in them.

The flip side to this is that you shouldn't make a bunch of assumptions about things that I never said.

If you find losing your weapons/armour scary that's fine for you, and I've never said that it CAN'T be scary, all I said was that many people encountering those situations didn't feel scared, they felt annoyed/frustrated. And when talking about a Horror game, if the mechanics lead to annoyance/frustration then that tends to break the kind of immersion that is critical to most Horror games.

 

[tetrasodium]

The flip side to this is that you shouldn't make a bunch of assumptions about things that I never said.

If you find losing your weapons/armour scary that's fine for you, and I've never said that it CAN'T be scary, all I said was that many people encountering those situations didn't feel scared, they felt annoyed/frustrated. And when talking about a Horror game, if the mechanics lead to annoyance/frustration then that tends to break the kind of immersion that is critical to most Horror games.

So far I've probably brought up more specific monsters than anyone else in the thread and keep mentioning how those creatures change player behavior at the table. It's the people arguing that formerly scary mechanics being merely frustrating rather than scary that seem to skip past the impact on play to focus with that kind of laser like intensity on the possible worst results. Both as GM and player I found things like pre-5e rust monsters wights beholders wraiths and so on scary enough to dramatically impact how my PC/the other PCs interact with the world when such creatures are expected. Things like having a death ward spell ticking meant that the party couldn't metaphorically spend all day cautiously avoiding traps or preparing for possible ambushes while moving through a dungeon or whatever with s potentially less optimal marching order or whatever that sends us all off balance into new roles like 3.5 rogue as the tank rushing a wraith while the plate clad fighter stands far away with a (cross)bow or something feeling almost as vulnerable as the wizard.

 

[Umbran]

So far I've probably brought up more specific monsters than anyone else in the thread and keep mentioning how those creatures change player behavior at the table. It's the people arguing that formerly scary mechanics being merely frustrating rather than scary that seem to skip past the impact on play to focus with that kind of laser like intensity on the possible worst results. Both as GM and player I found things like pre-5e rust monsters wights beholders wraiths and so on scary enough to dramatically impact how my PC/the other PCs interact with the world when such creatures are expected.

Yeah.

I go back to my experience with the original Ravenloft - Stradh, with a touch that will drain two levels, in a castle built/modified specifically to allow him to gaseous form all over the place? That was freakin' scary, and sure as heck changed our behavior at the table. Not that changing our behavior helped - he almost TPKed us and the only thing that saved us was a poorly-worded wish...

Mind you, I tend to avoid such mechanics like the plague these days, mostly because, as I saw back in that game, If I don't fudge they can end a campaign in its tracks. But I cannot deny their effectiveness in scaring me into behavior change at the table.

 

[Remathilis]

Yeah.

I go back to my experience with the original Ravenloft - Stradh, with a touch that will drain two levels, in a castle built/modified specifically to allow him to gaseous form all over the place? That was freakin' scary, and sure as heck changed our behavior at the table. Not that changing our behavior helped - he almost TPKed us and the only thing that saved us was a poorly-worded wish...

Mind you, I tend to avoid such mechanics like the plague these days, mostly because, as I saw back in that game, If I don't fudge they can end a campaign in its tracks. But I cannot deny their effectiveness in scaring me into behavior change at the table.

So let me ask; what did that fear change? I've played an run Ravenloft in three different editions (2e House of Strahd, 3e Expedition, 5e Curse of Strahd) and I don't recall any major changes in players behavior from version to version. Like you, all that happened was those mechanics lessened the fun. That's what I like about 5e; it plays more like how we wanted older editions to play without the need or fudge and house rule..

 

[Sorinth]

So far I've probably brought up more specific monsters than anyone else in the thread and keep mentioning how those creatures change player behavior at the table. It's the people arguing that formerly scary mechanics being merely frustrating rather than scary that seem to skip past the impact on play to focus with that kind of laser like intensity on the possible worst results. Both as GM and player I found things like pre-5e rust monsters wights beholders wraiths and so on scary enough to dramatically impact how my PC/the other PCs interact with the world when such creatures are expected. Things like having a death ward spell ticking meant that the party couldn't metaphorically spend all day cautiously avoiding traps or preparing for possible ambushes while moving through a dungeon or whatever with s potentially less optimal marching order or whatever that sends us all off balance into new roles like 3.5 rogue as the tank rushing a wraith while the plate clad fighter stands far away with a (cross)bow or something feeling almost as vulnerable as the wizard.

And you think any change in player behaviour means with 100% certainty means those players are scared?

 

[AlViking]

So far I've probably brought up more specific monsters than anyone else in the thread and keep mentioning how those creatures change player behavior at the table. It's the people arguing that formerly scary mechanics being merely frustrating rather than scary that seem to skip past the impact on play to focus with that kind of laser like intensity on the possible worst results. Both as GM and player I found things like pre-5e rust monsters wights beholders wraiths and so on scary enough to dramatically impact how my PC/the other PCs interact with the world when such creatures are expected. Things like having a death ward spell ticking meant that the party couldn't metaphorically spend all day cautiously avoiding traps or preparing for possible ambushes while moving through a dungeon or whatever with s potentially less optimal marching order or whatever that sends us all off balance into new roles like 3.5 rogue as the tank rushing a wraith while the plate clad fighter stands far away with a (cross)bow or something feeling almost as vulnerable as the wizard.

You seem to assume that as a DM I want to enforce the kind of changes in player behavior that you want. I don't because in my experience the game is less enjoyable. There are still plenty of ways to make players feel like their PC is vulnerable, I've mentioned reducing max HP and creatures that prevent healing along with ethereal creatures that means there's no place to hide for example. Beholders showing up and turning off magic while they fly around disintegrating people can be fun.

It's just not the specific style that you personally want. Losing levels? Being the only PC in the party that the rust monster threatens because you like playing strength based warriors? Not fun for me or my players.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Buried in my feelings on this thread is the sense that I don't think I've ever, in any of my horror games that I believe were successful, gotten the sense that I truly scared my players or that they even wanted to be scared, as in legitimately scared. It's again part of why I think game lethality is not co-indicative with the concept of horror games.

There is a lot more to horror than cheep scares, which, a turn based game RPG doesn't do well, since they are caused by something happening SUDDENLY!!!. Unless you want to resort to practical joke style cheep tricks, or have a cat trained to jump out at the right moment. Fortunately, there are other things that you can do in an RPG.

Dread. This is the sense that as the players start to unravel the mystery, they start to realise that the truth is something they would rather not know about. This is very important in Lovecraft (which does not usually have a high body count). But you should think of something other than being confronted by your own insignificance, which is unlikely to trouble a modern audience. Fortunately, Gothic horror is tied to things that happened in the past. All you need to do is come up with a suitably horrific backstory, then parcel out the information in small chunks so that the players come to a gradual realisation.

Horror. Example from actual play: "As you pick up the carved pumpkin head, something heavy drops out of it with a squishy thud. The severed head rolls over slowly, to reveal the dead face of Bob Orchard." This is just down to how you describe things. Read Stephen King and steal his tricks.

 

[bsss]

Body horror is a fairly straightforward genre to add the characteristics of to a D&D game, and all it really takes is some table buy-in, some scenario writing, and --- as above --- stealing tricks, say from David Cronenberg or Junji Ito crossed with Harlan Ellison. Not incidentally, it's an example of horror in gaming where what's threatened has little to do with the character's survivability or capability in lethal combat --- heck, maybe dished out death is too easy of an amoral or immoral solution when faced with the horror of an unknown plague that mutates the innocent, especially if it starts affecting the PCs. The damage done to a PC can go beyond their stats.

 

[AlViking]

Body horror is a fairly straightforward genre to add the characteristics of to a D&D game, and all it really takes is some table buy-in, some scenario writing, and --- as above --- stealing tricks, say from David Cronenberg or Junji Ito crossed with Harlan Ellison. Not incidentally, it's an example of horror in gaming where what's threatened has little to do with the character's survivability or capability in lethal combat --- heck, maybe dished out death is too easy of an amoral or immoral solution when faced with the horror of an unknown plague that mutates the innocent, especially if it starts affecting the PCs. The damage done to a PC can go beyond their stats.

But to bring this back to the OP - descriptive horror has little to do with the game being played. I use descriptive horror now and then, I just think it's most effective in small dollops so it stands out.