Then replace paladin with fighter. The fact is I won't be scarred by mundane horror threats in a system build to routinely punch cuthulhu in the face.
The horrors of the night don't scare when your last campaign had you fighting the things that give those horrors their nightmares
The class does not matter. And neither do the monsters. You could run a horror game in D&D with only human commoners as monsters.* You are comparing two different things and saying what holds true for one is comparable for the other because they have superficial similarities. But they are not the same and the assumptions of the one do not carry over to the other.
But, all of that is merely tangential to the actual point of my original post, which was to provide solid advice on running horror in D&D in order to refute your absurd claim that D&D
cannot do so. Since you never actually responded to that, and since the advice is solid enough to bear repeating, I will repost it:
[sblock=How to run horror in D&D]Not only can D&D do horror, I, in fact, inject at least a little horror into every game I run.
But, while the monsters are a tool for delivering horror, they absolutely are not the primary vehicle.
Instead, you need two things:
1: The Unknown. Don't tell them what's out there, show them. Some of it. Let their imaginations fill in the details. Absolutely, never, ever, call a monster by a categorical name. The minute you do that, you have put a quantitative value on it, which is the Enemy of Unknown.
2: Tension. Put the PCs in a bad situation and keep making it worse. Don't let up. If the players care about success, they will feel the tension. Of course, in order for this to work, you have to be fair--and make sure your players know it. Actively root for their success. But keep the tension building.
And truthfully, if you do both of those things, you don't even really need that much player buy-in. As long as you've established trust between DM and players, you still have everything you need. If, for example, a player cracks a joke (whether in- or out-of character) that resets the tension level, all you have to do is tighten the screw to compensate. Which you were going to do, anyway. Let them joke. Laugh with them, even. It won't improve their situation any.[/sblock]
* And, in fact, I think I will--a
Night of the Living Dead scenario, but the commoners only
act like zombies and the PCs need to figure out why or they will just. Keep. Coming.
