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

[Ovinomancer]

Those are thriller elements. Yes. When combined with the revulsion and disgust of the H.R. Giger designs and the captured/farmed miners begging to be killed, etc., you get horror.

Nothing in Bourne is similarly disgusting or abhorrent.

I think we're in the fuzzy genre discussion. Aliens has some horror tropes, surely, but not enough, I think, to be a horror movie. It's listed on IMDB as an action film.

 

[Minigiant]

When it comes to genre

Horror is about horror. The scare or the reveal that shooks you and makes you want to run.
Thrillers are about triller or terror. The scare is longer with more assaults, thus less dangerous and disgusting.

Horror is about the "jump" and the revulsion after.

D&D does terror very well.
D&D does horror very poorly.

 

[MGibster]

I think we're in the fuzzy genre discussion. Aliens has some horror tropes, surely, but not enough, I think, to be a horror movie. It's listed on IMDB as an action film.

We most definitely have reached fuzzy genre discussion. While I consider Alien to be solidly in the horror genre and think of Aliens as more of an action movie, I've got no beef with someone who considers it horror as they have plenty of supporting evidence. It's not like genres always have delineated lines keeping stories in tight little boxes. That's more the job of marketers than it is of writers. But I can tell you, in the 1980s plenty of people thought of Aliens as a scary movie while Commando or Rambo III were not.

So my advice is that we skip past discussions on whether or not Alien/Aliens is horror. There are fuzzy lines and such discussions are rarely productive.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The two main problems are:
1) Too many winnable combat encounters.
2) The PCs (and players) know too much about the monsters.

I'd add:

3) Player expectation. Players don't expect D&D to be horror.

 

[Oofta]

The reason I was questioning Alien(s) is horror is because the definitions are so fuzzy. Are there other games specifically designed for a style of game? Sure. But the definition of horror is so nebulous that saying D&D "can't" do horror is kind of meaningless.

Anyway, carry on.

 

[Bawylie]

I think we're in the fuzzy genre discussion. Aliens has some horror tropes, surely, but not enough, I think, to be a horror movie. It's listed on IMDB as an action film.

Fair enough.

 

[Shiroiken]

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.

Roleplaying games in general aren't that great for creating a sense of horror. D&D is no exception.

Call of Cuthulu would like a word.

It's funny that Alien was brought up as a horror movie because I think of it more as a creature feature.

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.

 

[Bawylie]

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.

On found-footage:

Dracula is written as found “footage.” So is Call of Cthulhu. Documents rather, but still.

It can be done. It can be done well. Really well. I think there’s a KS or something where Dracula is recreated in a trunk/box set as a series of newspaper clips, articles, letters, and journal entries. So you actually experience it by piecing it together yourself.

I want that thing badly.

Now, like anything else, it can also be done very poorly. Some of it is unwatchable due to cinematography alone, even where the narrative and story are excellent.

 

[Tonguez]

On found-footage:

Dracula is written as found “footage.” So is Call of Cthulhu. Documents rather, but still.

It can be done. It can be done well. Really well. I think there’s a KS or something where Dracula is recreated in a trunk/box set as a series of newspaper clips, articles, letters, and journal entries. So you actually experience it by piecing it together yourself.

I want that thing badly.

Now, like anything else, it can also be done very poorly. Some of it is unwatchable due to cinematography alone, even where the narrative and story are excellent.

Good point about found footage essentially being the film version of the epistolary novel, of which Dracula using its various letters, journal entires, ship logs and newspaper clippings is probabaly the most famous literary example.

Im reminded too that the Secret Diary of Adrian Mole is also in this form

Im also away that Disney also did a found footage movie in Earth to Echo

 

[Ace]

Call of Cuthulu would like a word.

I've played a fair amount of CoC and its a good game and a good system. Its not especially horror in my experience, more trope exploration but YMMV,