D&D General Masque of the Red Death/Whispers in the Dark

[Talltomwright]

Has anyone ever played low-magic Gothic or Lovecraftian horror using D&D variants such as Masque of the Red Death (2e or 3e) or the new Whispers in the Dark? I’m not trying to restart that the ‘can D&D do horror’ debate as I’m pretty sure it can - albeit a form of heroic horror where your heroes can improve over time and stand a chance of finally defeating the horrors. But does a D&D chassis work for low magic 19th Century horror? Or should I just take the Lore of the Red Death (which I like) and use something built from the ground up for low magic horror like Call of Cthulhu Gaslight? Or are there other even better systems out there? So many questions! I’d love to hear from people who have actually tried running Maques or Whispers - how did it go? Thanks for any thoughts!

 

[humble minion]

I ran a brief 3e Masque of the Red Death game set in Victorian London.

It functioned, I guess. But in hindsight there’s a lot of rule sets that would be better suited for the task. D&D is probably much more melee-focused than your average Gothic story is, and especially in 3e there were a lot of assumptions about armour, protective magic etc baked into the maths of the system that didn’t really hold true in a Gaslamp Gothic type game. And D&D of any edition is a very tactical-combat oriented genre. You’ve got to ask yourself whether tactical positioning and resource management are what you want to emphasise in a combat in the game you’re planning to run. If so, then it might work for you. But personally I found it unsatisfying, as I was more interested in emulating the classic horror/gothic stories where the outclassed normal people defeat the monster through cunning and improvisation rather than just a bunch of hardened killers whaling on the werewolf til it dies. I’d personally look at a much more rules-light and narrative system if I were planing a game like this, but it really depends what you want.

 

[Talltomwright]

I ran a brief 3e Masque of the Red Death game set in Victorian London.

It functioned, I guess. But in hindsight there’s a lot of rule sets that would be better suited for the task. D&D is probably much more melee-focused than your average Gothic story is, and especially in 3e there were a lot of assumptions about armour, protective magic etc baked into the maths of the system that didn’t really hold true in a Gaslamp Gothic type game. And D&D of any edition is a very tactical-combat oriented genre. You’ve got to ask yourself whether tactical positioning and resource management are what you want to emphasise in a combat in the game you’re planning to run. If so, then it might work for you. But personally I found it unsatisfying, as I was more interested in emulating the classic horror/gothic stories where the outclassed normal people defeat the monster through cunning and improvisation rather than just a bunch of hardened killers whaling on the werewolf til it dies. I’d personally look at a much more rules-light and narrative system if I were planing a game like this, but it really depends what you want.

Thank you, that’s really useful. I guess I’m still trying to figure out exactly what I’m looking for - I like the lore of the Red Death and the setting of a twisted version of 19th C. I’m running Curse of Strahd in 5e and Masks of Nyarlathotep in CoC 7e edition are the moment and I’m loving both of them in very different ways.

I guess the real-world feel of CoC but the idea that characters can get stronger and take on bigger threats over time, and learn strange new abilities, that Masque offers. Maybe I should just run it with CoC and bring in rules from Pulp CoC as we play.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Some time I wanted a fusion of World of Darkness and D&D.

My adivce is to notice the difference between survival horror and action horror. The videogames "Evil Within" or "Resident Evil" are good examples. The first is about exploration, investigation, some looting and how to avoid monsters by means of stealth (hidding, moving silently), and the second is about to be an one-man-army hunting monsters. Both has got different power level. Survival horror is in the movie "Cobra" when Bridgitte Nielsen hides because the night slasher is chasing her, and action horror is the first title when Sylvester Stallone with enough ammo and weapons kill all the cult of the new dawn. How much power level are you going to allow?

And even without firearms modern technology can be used to kill monsters, not only with traps, or creating homebred explosives, but also vehicles could be used to hit over monsters, or a little motor to reload crossbows. Do you remember "home at alone"? Imagine the traps instaled by a green beret within his refuge against intruders.

And my suggestion is playtest a homebred rule about adding two new abilities scores: acuity (perception/naturalist inteligence + astuteness(social manipulation, creativity, subterfuge) and spirit (faith/karma/divine grace/fate + courage). Then the wisdow would be the good sense, sanity, within peace, self-control about appetites and intrapersonal intelligence. What would be the difference? Spirit would be the willpower to dare to take the next step and wisdow the willpower for selfcontrol and to say not against the passions).

 

[Talltomwright]

Interesting to think about! I suppose the thing about straight Call of Cthulhu that I would miss from d20 level-based games is I like that sense of progressing from survival at lower-levels to bad ass at higher levels. I notice that Whispers in the Dark has only 10 levels on a flatter progression of power than straight 5e, so that does appeal.
Will definitely ponder the possible new stats! WIS as is does cover a lot of different functions.