D&D General Unpopular Opinion?: D&D is a terrible venue for horror

[Ace]

If and only if you can get your players all on the same page when it comes to tone, it is possible to use D&D or any other system to emulate horror at least for a short while. Generally its not good at it but it is possible.

Even games like Chill which is meant to be used for Hammer Horror or the kind of stuff you'd find on Svengoolie late at night don't do their genre well.

Action Horror ala Buffy and Angel and Splatterpunk are decent genres for RPG's. They are not the classic horror movie horror though, the former is closer to Paranormal Action and Romance and is fine as an RPG. Not D&D though as the system assumes power levels, genres and magic that are a poor fit.

However other games play these really well and some horror elements have made their way in. Its more like seasoning than a main course though so in that sense its not a horror game but Modern Fantasy seasoned with Horror .

Splatterpunk is more an esthetic than a genre though the old game Nightshift (which came out with the old World of Darkness or maybe a couple of months before) was meant to do this kind of think with a bit of Clive Barker's Nightbreed thrown in , it really wasn't awesome simply because the game is "standard RPG" with Eli Roth doing narration and not something that lends itself to long term play,

 

[Imaculata]

Slasher movies are mindlessly gory,

Are they? I'm sure a lot of them are, but several of the best aren't. Classics such as Halloween and Psycho pretty much defined this sub genre and are neither gory or mindless.

...And older films have their alleged scariness neutered by Hays Code insensibilities.

Even black and white horror movies like The Haunting and House on Haunted Hill are still pretty effective despite their lack of any overt violence and gore. Although they obviously do not have the same effect on a modern audience as they did when they were released. But I think this is more a case of modern audiences getting used to far more extreme images and not having the patience for a slow burn. Modern audiences seem to crave shock over subtlety.

Literature, TV and other media aren't any better.

The Haunting of Hillhouse on Netflix is a masterpiece worth checking out. Scary, thought provoking, clever and shocking, with incredible performances by the entire cast.

I think the entire genre is inane, running on idiot plots and childlike fears of boogeymen in the dark.

This is flat out false. Some of the greatest horror movies in cinema have excellently crafted plots and lean on innate human fears: Alien, Jaws, Tremors, The Shining, The Eye, The Haunting, A tale of two sisters, to name a few. The latter especially has a pretty clever plot. I had to watch it twice to understand it fully. And Tremors is also really clever, with both the creatures and their prey trying to outsmart each other.

I wouldn't be able to DM it properly, and I'd likely try derailing it as a player. So I'm probably a bit prejudiced against it in my response here.

It goes without saying that horror is not for everybody. And I think it takes a skilled DM and storyteller to pull it off well. It is a genre that relies a lot on mood and its audience willingness to be drawn into it. I think rules systems matter not that much in this regard, though I think D20 modern is probably better suited for it than 5e.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The easiest way to do horror in D&D might be to present the PCs as the monsters.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Modern audiences seem to crave shock over subtlety.

Yes, back in Ye Good Old Days it was all sophisticated psychological horror.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

If you want to introduce horror into D&D, you have to include the Sanity Score. This allows the DM to use various thriller/horror tropes with actual mechanical effects. As someone else said, you can do horrible things to a character, but it's hard to scare a player. Sadly, one of the most terrifying things I recall in D&D was a critical hit chart during 2E, because dismemberment was very common, (including the head). Having a character die sucks, but having your character crippled horrifies a lot of players.


Call of Cuthulu would like a word.


I'm a huge fan of horror movies (which sadly never scare me, but I love them anyway), and the creature feature is a sub-set of horror. You also have slasher, gothic, supernatural, black/dark comedy, and found footage (ugh). They often overlap with other genres, as was pointed out the Alien franchise is sci-fi horror, but Aliens also dabbles a lot into action. The slasher can mix with mystery and thriller with an unknown killer. Technically Found Footage shouldn't be a sub-set of horror, as you can do the same technique with other genres, but I'll admit I find it distasteful and unappealing in any form.

I think that was the intention of 2E/3E Ravenloft, with its Fear/Horror/Madness checks. Basically the setting upped the monsters immunities and lowered the players defenses to make everything seem a lot more dangerous.

 

[BrassDragon]

The problem is not the ruleset, it's the pacing of a tabletop campaign. Maintaining a consistent tone is fine for a movie or novel but damn near impossible for 100+ hour narrative improvised at the gaming table across many sessions. It doesn't matter if your tone is comedy or horror or grimdark or ye olde Tolkienesque high fantasy, your tone is going to be all over the place if you play long enough and roll with the inevitable improv.

I'm always a bit wary if a DM makes bold statements about tone at the outset - I mean, it's fine for a one-shot or short adventure path but no way we're going to stick to that tone if it goes beyond that. Sure, tell me that your Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign will feature horrific moments but surely you can't expect us to sit there po-faced and scared every session?

In fact, tonal contrasts are a HUGE tool in the DM's arsenal - a hilariously funny game that suddenly becomes tragic or a heroic dungeon delve that unexpectedly raises the stakes to life, death and sanity makes for legendary memories at your gaming tables. For most of the campaign, a warlock's patron could be full of sardonic banter and exasperated attempts to help its minion... until one day it demands its pound of flesh, promised soul or heartrending sacrifice. Maybe the big bad is just some remote threat at the end of a quest chain to your players... until some of their closest allies decide to join the other side; not because of mind control but because they sincerely believe the big bad has the right of it. These things don't have to be at odds with each other and can exist happily together at your table.

Guess this is a longwinded way of saying: don't force tone and don't sweat it as a DM. Let it develop organically and find moments of emotional punch where you can, whether to be scary, funny or sad.

 

[Oofta]

Yes, back in Ye Good Old Days it was all sophisticated psychological horror.

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Don't forget Plan 9 from Outer Space.

 

[CapnZapp]

I think that D&D is an absolutely terrible game for trying to create a sense of horror in play. The only time it is even remotely possible is at low levels where PC competence and survivability are very low (the cutoff depends on the edition), and even then it is a specific "I'm going to get killed" sort of tension rather than actual horror. Mechanically, the only way to induce horror in D&D is to break the standard rules (instant death instead of HP loss, for example, or something like domination that represents a loss of control). Ultimately, PCs are too competent and the mechanics too codified for real fear to creep in. And, on a different horror scale, D&D characters generally don't have enough to lose, emotionally, for personal horror to mean much.

No there isn't much to discuss...

... because I entirely agree! You are absolutely correct.

D&D is created to make the "defeat monsters" activity fun.

Horror works much better in games where you have an actual reason to be afraid. Games without all the checks and balances D&D has evolved specifically so that monster-bashing is enjoyable for all.

 

[MGibster]

The problem is not the ruleset, it's the pacing of a tabletop campaign. Maintaining a consistent tone is fine for a movie or novel but damn near impossible for 100+ hour narrative improvised at the gaming table across many sessions. It doesn't matter if your tone is comedy or horror or grimdark or ye olde Tolkienesque high fantasy, your tone is going to be all over the place if you play long enough and roll with the inevitable improv.

I don't know of many horror movies that maintain the same tone and pace throughout the entire movie. One of my favorite ghost stories is 1980s The Changeling starring George C. Scott where he plays a music professor who moves into a haunted house after the death of his wife and child. While living in the house, he becomes embroiled in a decades old mystery involving the murder of a child and a presence in the house. It's a great movie bolstered by the incredibly acting skills of Scott as well as his supporting actors.

But the movie doesn't maintain the same tone throughout each scene. In the opening scene, we see Scott, wife, and child pushing their broken down vehicle on a snow covered road somewhere in the mountains. But despite all of them struggling to move the vehicle, the tone is very light with Scott, huffing and puffing, jokingly telling them they only have to push the car for a few more miles and them quipping that it would have been better to have gone to Mexico or Hawaii. But when Scott goes to a nearby phone booth the tone changes from lighthearted and jovial to one of horror as he watches his wife and daughter killed by a truck. And of course the tone of each scene doesn't remain consistent throughout the rest of the movie with some being tense, others scary, and others very calm.

For horror to be effective, you really need to have highs and lows in the story. An American Werewolf in London (1981) is an extreme example as it has some horrifically gory scenes combined with some genuinely humorous ones as well. "A naked American man stole my balloons." Heck, it even combined gory horror and comedy in one with the character of Jack, a ghost who remains upbeat and cheerful despite his mutilated appearance and his deteriorating appearance as the move progresses.

So you're right, you can't maintain the same tone throughout a campaign but that's okay because it isn't something to strive for.

 

[Reynard]

I don't know of many horror movies that maintain the same tone and pace throughout the entire movie. One of my favorite ghost stories is 1980s The Changeling starring George C. Scott where he plays a music professor who moves into a haunted house after the death of his wife and child. While living in the house, he becomes embroiled in a decades old mystery involving the murder of a child and a presence in the house. It's a great movie bolstered by the incredibly acting skills of Scott as well as his supporting actors.

But the movie doesn't maintain the same tone throughout each scene. In the opening scene, we see Scott, wife, and child pushing their broken down vehicle on a snow covered road somewhere in the mountains. But despite all of them struggling to move the vehicle, the tone is very light with Scott, huffing and puffing, jokingly telling them they only have to push the car for a few more miles and them quipping that it would have been better to have gone to Mexico or Hawaii. But when Scott goes to a nearby phone booth the tone changes from lighthearted and jovial to one of horror as he watches his wife and daughter killed by a truck. And of course the tone of each scene doesn't remain consistent throughout the rest of the movie with some being tense, others scary, and others very calm.

For horror to be effective, you really need to have highs and lows in the story. An American Werewolf in London (1981) is an extreme example as it has some horrifically gory scenes combined with some genuinely humorous ones as well. "A naked American man stole my balloons." Heck, it even combined gory horror and comedy in one with the character of Jack, a ghost who remains upbeat and cheerful despite his mutilated appearance and his deteriorating appearance as the move progresses.

So you're right, you can't maintain the same tone throughout a campaign but that's okay because it isn't something to strive for.

I remember watching the recent remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and being appalled at how relentless it was. It never let up. But that didn't make it more horrifying, just uncomfortable and tedious. I didn't want to see what happened next, I wanted it to be over.