D&D General Horror is hard

[jayoungr]

Also, a fallen PC turning into a zombie or a wraith was pretty terrifying. Modern D&D has really pushed away from that.

I've seen plenty of 5.X monsters that have the mechanical ability to turn a fallen PC into some form of undead. It's just less likely to happen because 5.X PCs are less fragile.

 

[tetrasodium]

There restricting agency, then there's railroading. But I can't help but feel like the suggestion that everyone is forced to be a level-0 commoner is basically the equivalent of saying "change systems". Which isn't necessarily a bad idea, of course. But it's definitely a different thread. And makes you question: What's the point of all of these horror themed D&D releases?

Any setting that isn't a gonzo "anything goes" world has some restrictions on agency. And I think it's fair to say that part of the "everyone must buy in" part of horror translates to it being more restrictive than default D&D. And most classic horror plots are definitely a bit on the linear side. All that being said, I think a more sandbox style horror is theoretically possible. But also not something I've ever managed to pull off in D&D.

Fwiw that doesn't work either. I'm going to add a data point on this because I both tied it with multiple tables and can confirm it to have been a complete waste of my time & effort due to lack of support from wotc.

The setup was"pick one of the level zero survivors
Use that statblock attribs & all as is and eventually you will get to add class levels to it keeping the extra survivor cantrip or whatever to help offset the lower attributes". They all agreed.

All of the tables where I did that had one or two players who eventually finished the starting adventure and got to where they their class level to the survivor statblock. What came back was not a survivor with a class level but a standard array standard PC with the extra bells and whistles of a survivor bolted on.

 

[jayoungr]

I think one of the difficulties in talking about horror in gaming is that horror has many subgenres, and some are harder to achieve in a game than others.

Gothic horror, for example, is largely about atmosphere/flavor and fits right in. Body horror is similarly pretty easy to pull off. The biggest problem for these two subgenres is getting players to take them seriously and not constantly crack jokes to defuse the tension.

Survival horror, on the other hand, will require careful planning. And artificially limiting resources to a degree that may annoy some players.

 

[Marc17]

Vampire, the whole of the World of Darkness, and its various sister games, are made to be "horror."

I have yet to see these games actually be scary. IME, it often comes off more as playing the part of Mean Girls or otherwise Evil-games.

I just feel like horror isn't an easy thing to pull off with TTRPGs, and really isn't something to aim for. You can go for cheap shocks, but those lose value fast.

Well, the thing I find is that it's a player issue as people playing Vampire don't want to be scared or disturbed. They want to do the scaring and disturbing. Any attempt to add bits of horror into the game such as just describing the scenes as you might describe scenes from a horror movie, tend to result in players saying they're not having fun. Usually the thing that works best for the horror element is just letting things take their course and the almost inevitable Humanity drop leads them to realize they are indeed becoming the monster. Once I stated that since the character had attacked and drank the blood of a Sabbat that was Tzimisce, they could now learn Vicissitude without needing training. They certainly did not like that idea as a player, as in the end a lot of horror is loss of agency which players do not like even if it is not a serious option.

In general, for similar reasons, I just don't think horror works that well in RPGs including D&D. You can introduce mechanics, but then they are just understood mechanics, and not horror as watching a horror movie is. Best option is to be vague about what is going on. Let the players guess and wonder. Show, don't tell in the storytelling. Zombie or werewolves are just buckets of HPs with known qualities. Desrcibing an attack by people with wounds or hairy beasts and the results without calling out names and being vague enough to them to not know exactly what they are dealing with creates the best mood. In general, mysteries where the players have unknowns to deal with and those are done best through storytelling rather than mechanics.

 

[Special Unicorn]

I mean, if you want to do slasher horror, yeah.

The key to truly scary horror is only having your wits to survive regardless of the type of horror. Otherwise, it's just another D&D undead encounter.

 

[AlViking]

Discussing this made me think of The Walking Dead TV show. I gave up watching it a while back (is the show or its spin-offs still running?) but I think that something that happens on the show is pretty inevitable.

When the show starts, people are terrified of the zombies - the call them "walkers" because zombies were never a thing in their universe - but after a while walkers are a bit humdrum. The real threat is other people.

Which is the problem I see with trying to do horror long term, after a while it's just the same-old same-old. The survivors have gotten used to the walkers, they know how to kill them, what happens if they get bit, how to counter attacks. The walkers are a threat but they've become mundane.

So I don't see how that sense of dread, of horror, can be maintained. If anyone can die at any moment then I'm just not going to be very invested in my PC. You can of course tun a campaign in several systems that have all the trappings of horror, and other systems are better than D&D for that, but getting people to actually feel the horror? I think that will inevitably wear off.

 

[Special Unicorn]

That fits well with my thoughts about how often part of the horror is about restricting player agency.
(0-level PC's would certainly reduce the possibility of hard feelings from the players)

I guess another thing to be considered is fear vs. horror.

I don't see it as restricting a player's agency. They have the tools they have, and they can use them any way they choose.

Since they are zero level characters, you're not taking away or limiting anything that they don't have. (That is, most zero level characters don't have anything but their wits)

 

[Remathilis]

The key to truly scary horror is only having your wits to survive regardless of the type of horror. Otherwise, it's just another D&D undead encounter.

Not necessarily. Predator (the original) is a slasher flick where the victims are heavily armed macho dudes rather than sorority sisters. The effects are pretty much the same though. Horror isn't about being feeble, it's about the fact that all your power you think you have can't overcome the challenge you are facing.

 

[Byrd]

I don't see it as restricting a player's agency. They have the tools they have, and they can use them any way they choose.

Since they are zero level characters, you're not taking away or limiting anything that they don't have. (That is, most zero level characters don't have anything but their wits)

To clarify: I see your suggestion of 0-level PC's as a superior solution because you are not putting restrictions on, or reducing an existing character's abilities. So I think we're in agreement here.

 

[Marc17]

When the show starts, people are terrified of the zombies - the call them "walkers" because zombies were never a thing in their universe - but after a while walkers are a bit humdrum. The real threat is other people.

Well, to be honest, that has always been the case ever since Night of the Living Dead. Zombies movies, if they deal mainly with the zombies, are just Man versus Nature conflicts. It's just that zombies are a (un)natural disaster that can be shot in the face for action. Even that is usually just a distraction as Man versus Man conflict is what really ends up killing the protagonists.