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

[MGibster]

I agree. Obviously D&D is "terrible" for horror because it doesn't use the same ruleset as other games without ever discussing what those other rules implement that can't be closely emulated in 5E.

The fact that D&D doesn't use the same rules as other games for horror isn't what makes it bad for the genre. Vampire doesn't use the same rules as Call of Cthulhu or Alien, and while some people might think Vampire is a bad game, they don't generally complain that it's not good at horror because it doesn't use the same rules as other games.

What makes D&D terrible for horror is the lack of support for such game play in the rules. There's nothing in the PHB that supports a horror game. And the DMG doesn't offer much in the way of support for horror. It's got madness rules and then two paragraphs on fear and horror. The rules as written are designed to maximize the chances of survival, minimize the risk of permanent death, and the player characters are just too powerful. Even the most terrible of conditions, like paralysis, restrained, and blinded, are designed in such a way as to allow a PC to end it at every turn.

About the only thing you didn't mention is another aspect that people don't discuss. The permanent drain that presumably can't be reversed. I don't get how that works - if it's actually used the PC becomes pointless after a while.

Permanent drain does suck. There's a reason they got rid of it.

But I guess I don't run a D&D game because my player's PCs don't glow like Christmas trees, no PC has ever been raised from the dead because it's not as simple as casting a spell, I don't care for long distance teleport so I banned it* and to plane shift you have to access a portal.

Of course you run D&D. And if you guys are having a good time you're not doing anything wrong.

To me, minor tweaks to the system are what D&D is all about. I already do just about everything "required" for a horror campaign outside of truly permanent drains. Does that mean we're no longer playing D&D? My players will be quite shocked. Horrified even.

And this is one of those things where people have their opinions. If you think D&D is good for horror games, okay, that's great. I think it's terrible for horror games but it's not like I can objectively prove this. One thing we can all agree on is that drain is terrible though.

 

[jayoungr]

About the only thing you didn't mention is another aspect that people don't discuss. The permanent drain that presumably can't be reversed. I don't get how that works - if it's actually used the PC becomes pointless after a while.

From context, I think that's the point, no pun intended? For PCs to have the capacity to become unusable?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Ok. There are lots of examples of cases where horror causes people to develop and improve... Walking dead???

Sure, point conceded -- survival horror is a genre of horror where people often learn or improve skills. So, the levelling mechanic doesn't fight survival horror, but it still fights lots of other horror tropes where people don't develop or improve. It's neutral in one sub-genre of horror and still actively against other sub-genres. Also, in the sub-genre of survival horror, the protagonists tend to get better by killing monsters, so.... I mean, you could do a trope inversion and have a survival horror game that doesn't look to improve the ability to fight the monsters, but then D&D levelling is almost entirely about getting better at fighting, so that doesn't really match well, either.

D&D leveling focuses primarily on adding combat effectiveness with occasional ribbons of other pillars. Horror leans much more heavily on the exploration pillar than the combat pillar, and occasionally on the social pillar. D&D has extensive combat pillar rules which bias the game towards combat. You can avoid this, but then you're fighting the system. D&D doesn't have very strong mechanics in the exploration pillar, so, again, you as the GM have to do the lion's share of the work here with little to no support form the exploration pillar rules in D&D and still fight against the combat pillar structure.

Again, D&D is a great game, and I love 5e, but it's not well suited for horror because it's built to emulate heroic fantasy. Heroic fantasy tropes don't align well with horror tropes. As has been said upthread a few times, D&D can do dark fantasy pretty well because those tropes do align better with heroic fantasy tropes. But, to do horror, you have to avoid a lot of what D&D is best at to get it to work well, and this thread is full of advice to do just that -- it's good advice, but it's showcasing that 5e needs changing to enable it.

 

[Oofta]

The fact that D&D doesn't use the same rules as other games for horror isn't what makes it bad for the genre. Vampire doesn't use the same rules as Call of Cthulhu or Alien, and while some people might think Vampire is a bad game, they don't generally complain that it's not good at horror because it doesn't use the same rules as other games.

What makes D&D terrible for horror is the lack of support for such game play in the rules. There's nothing in the PHB that supports a horror game. And the DMG doesn't offer much in the way of support for horror. It's got madness rules and then two paragraphs on fear and horror. The rules as written are designed to maximize the chances of survival, minimize the risk of permanent death, and the player characters are just too powerful. Even the most terrible of conditions, like paralysis, restrained, and blinded, are designed in such a way as to allow a PC to end it at every turn.
...

Just ran a game most PCs were frightened for the entire combat, there are diseases that can cause blindness and other nasty conditions not to mention temporary max HP loss and so on. I agree that the default assumption is that not being able to contribute is not fun, that doesn't mean that you can't use effects that don't follow the default or add in things that do not.

Primarily though I'm just asking for details on rules that other games have and how it makes it a "horror" game. It's fantastic if you have enough time (and the group) to play a half dozen different horror games, I barely have enough time to get in one or two D&D sessions per month.

But then again, I'm not sure I'd want a steady diet of horror. I prefer it more as just one aspect of my games. Barely surviving something and then going back later to kick the bad guys ass is part of the fun. The first time encountered might be horrific, the latter may be heroic ... or just more horror when you realize the real threat.

In any case, as I said earlier it's preference and opinion and nobody's wrong. I just disagree that it "can't" scratch that horror game itch, at least now and then.

 

[TheSword]

Sure, point conceded -- survival horror is a genre of horror where people often learn or improve skills. So, the levelling mechanic doesn't fight survival horror, but it still fights lots of other horror tropes where people don't develop or improve. It's neutral in one sub-genre of horror and still actively against other sub-genres. Also, in the sub-genre of survival horror, the protagonists tend to get better by killing monsters, so.... I mean, you could do a trope inversion and have a survival horror game that doesn't look to improve the ability to fight the monsters, but then D&D levelling is almost entirely about getting better at fighting, so that doesn't really match well, either.

D&D leveling focuses primarily on adding combat effectiveness with occasional ribbons of other pillars. Horror leans much more heavily on the exploration pillar than the combat pillar, and occasionally on the social pillar. D&D has extensive combat pillar rules which bias the game towards combat. You can avoid this, but then you're fighting the system. D&D doesn't have very strong mechanics in the exploration pillar, so, again, you as the GM have to do the lion's share of the work here with little to no support form the exploration pillar rules in D&D and still fight against the combat pillar structure.

Again, D&D is a great game, and I love 5e, but it's not well suited for horror because it's built to emulate heroic fantasy. Heroic fantasy tropes don't align well with horror tropes. As has been said upthread a few times, D&D can do dark fantasy pretty well because those tropes do align better with heroic fantasy tropes. But, to do horror, you have to avoid a lot of what D&D is best at to get it to work well, and this thread is full of advice to do just that -- it's good advice, but it's showcasing that 5e needs changing to enable it.

We can agree to disagree. I think we are going round in circles.

I was reminded today of how protagonists and antagonists in slasher films get knocked about and yet we’re told increased hp in the game breaks horror.

At the end of the day, while some horror stories feature the bookish academic struggling futilely against stronger powers, translating texts and identifying artifacts, that kind of character isn’t much fun to play. The reality is that the kind of 80% exploration pillar horror isn’t much fun for most people... in any campaign system.

In truth, horror probably goes with a 30/30/30 split rather than the 50/25/25 split of a standard campaign. That’s not a problem, 5e works fine in the circumstances. Exploration has always been more about Character choices than powers anyway.

I see little gain to trying to narrow the definition of horror in order to exclude fun elements of the game. I guess people who don’t think Alien is horror will always struggle with 5e horror campaign - partly because their expectation of what is horror excludes too much. I also think more Cthulhu games resemble Alien in plot if not style than these would people care to admit.

 

[Ovinomancer]

We can agree to disagree. I think we are going round in circles.

This would be fine, if you didn't immediately go back to making arguments.

I was reminded today of how protagonists and antagonists in slasher films get knocked about and yet we’re told increased hp in the game breaks horror.

This is a bit of a strawman, as it's not just a few more hp when you level. Being knocked about isn't solely a matter of hitpoints, either. We're treading into dangerous ground, here, on what hitpoints mean, and that's going to expose another avenue where a lot of popular thinking on the nature of hitpoints goes directly against horror tropes.

At the end of the day, while some horror stories feature the bookish academic struggling futilely against stronger powers, translating texts and identifying artifacts, that kind of character isn’t much fun to play. The reality is that the kind of 80% exploration pillar horror isn’t much fun for most people... in any campaign system.

In truth, horror probably goes with a 30/30/30 split rather than the 50/25/25 split of a standard campaign. That’s not a problem, 5e works fine in the circumstances. Exploration has always been more about Character choices than powers anyway.

Exploration is often undercounted in games, as most games feature a huge amount of exploration that just gets discounted as play. Exploration is every time you look in a new room. Every time you engage lore to find out new things. Every time you investigate a trap. It's a huge amount of play that usually just gets subsumed in description and narration. Playing some other games that do this differently really exposes just how much of typical D&D play is exploration pillar and also how much of this is ignored as part of narration.

As for the splits, I don't think either of those splits is particularly useful or descriptive of what normal or horror play looks like. Way too much variation. I will say that horror most likely features much less combat than normal play, because horror requires combat to be scarier and the 5e combat mechanics cut against that.

I see little gain to trying to narrow the definition of horror in order to exclude fun elements of the game. I guess people who don’t think Alien is horror will always struggle with 5e horror campaign - partly because their expectation of what is horror excludes too much. I also think more Cthulhu games resemble Alien in plot if not style than these would people care to admit.

I think Alien is absolutely horror, and a good example of it, but I disagree with your assertion that the 5e system is good for horror games. I wouldn't use 5e to replicate an Alien-style game, I'd use a different system that is designed to work the horror story beats. 5e isn't built to do horror beats, it's built to do, well, D&D, which is close to swords and sorcery and heroic fantasy and does those well. I've laid out specific points of the 5e system that cut against horror tropes and those haven't been addressed. Instead it's a rapid-fire what-about featuring things that are either strawman beating or unrelated to the 5e system, like setting mood with props or pointing out that protagonists get beat up. These don't make your point that the 5e system works well for horror.

To me, the fundamental thing that 5e doesn't do that's necessary for horror is have flexible stake setting mechanics. Combat, again, explicitly limits stakes for most actions to a very narrow set of possible outcomes which aren't conducive to horror. Removing hp doesn't speak to horror well. Outside of combat, the D&D stake setting is usually "do I do this specific thing I'm attempting" which, again, isn't very good stake setting for horror. Horror really thrives when stakes can be set that go past the immediate action or involve things that aren't currently in the framing of the scene. You go to open the door, fail, and that means that you do open the door, it's a scary hallway that looks like it's going to collapse, but also the creature comes around the corner behind you -- this pushes the action into a series of possibly snowballing hard choices for the player and better evokes the fear of the situation. These things aren't possible with 5e mechanics, as most of that would be considered part of prep or off-camera movement of the creature by the GM. This is why I said earlier that some of the strongest options in 5e to enable horror are success at cost and fail forwards, because these can be used inside the limited stake setting of 5e to generate some of the kind of snowballing that enables horror. The options for action resolution, though, are still aimed at heroic fiction in D&D and not the wider option set of some games that work well with horror.

 

[MGibster]

Just ran a game most PCs were frightened for the entire combat, there are diseases that can cause blindness and other nasty conditions not to mention temporary max HP loss and so on. I agree that the default assumption is that not being able to contribute is not fun, that doesn't mean that you can't use effects that don't follow the default or add in things that do not.

I can theoretically haul 1,000 pounds of concrete in a Ford Fiesta, but that doesn't mean it's still not a terrible vehicle to use for that purpose. I'm coming at this from the point of view that the system you use for gaming matters. I don't mean simply liking the system, but that rules as written support the type of game play it's supposed to right out of the box. D&D simply doesn't support horror right out of the box, and so I think it's a terrible choice for that purpose. Good choice for heroic fantasy though.

Primarily though I'm just asking for details on rules that other games have and how it makes it a "horror" game. It's fantastic if you have enough time (and the group) to play a half dozen different horror games, I barely have enough time to get in one or two D&D sessions per month.

As others have pointed out, horror encompasses a wide variety of so I'm going to point to some games designed to emulate specific styles of horror.

Call of Cthulhu is the granddaddy of horror role playing games so let's start there. The game is designed to emulate some of the work of H.P. Lovecraft. In Lovecraft's many stories, protagonist often suffer mental breakdowns as they learn more about the true nature of the universe and this is reflected in the infamous Sanity mechanic of the game. Any time a character is exposed to the supernatural in any form, or even more mundane stresses, an Investigator risks bouts of madness and permanent insanity. There is almost always a cost when encountering a threat and even learning how to defeat it which is something players have to constantly worry about. Also, Investigators are physically relatively fragile. Never mind the supernatural, they can be serious injured or killed by a cheap hood with a switchblade.

Alien is a more recent entry into the pantheon of horror games, but it's designed to emulate the motion pictures Alien (1979), Aliens (1986), Alien 3 (1992), Prometheus (2012), and Alien: Coventant (2017). The primary way the RPG supports this is through Stress and Panic. A character's Stress level is increased due to outside stimuli like taking damage, encountering certain creatures, going without sustenance, etc., etc. A Stressed character is more focused and has a better chance of making many of their rolls. But they also have a higher chance to Panic forcing them into actions they might not want to perform and actually inducing additional Stress for other characters.

Vampire has always touted itself as a game about personal horror, even if the 1990s brought us fangs and trench coats, and the 5th edition does a pretty good job with that. Thanks to the Hunger (desire for blood) rules, the characters are always concerned with feeding their addiction. The only time they don't have that monkey on their back is when they drain a mortal to death and that is only a temporary reprieve. And the best part is it isn't always the vampire who is most at risk. There's always the change the vampire will emotionally or physically damage the people they love. Trying to balance their addiction, obligations to vampire society, and the connection to their Humanity leads to some terrible choices and situations.

But then again, I'm not sure I'd want a steady diet of horror. I prefer it more as just one aspect of my games.

Ditto. I don't want every campaign to be one of horror and even in such a campaign you've got to pace things out.

 

[Oofta]

Okay, I give. I don't see how you could have a long term campaign where overcoming challenges means losing sanity points that can never be recovered. If they can be recovered then they're just another version of HP and the refresh rate is different. Having to balance hunger vs demands sounds more like resource management than horror.

As far as other nebulous things like "actions have consequences" ... well yes. Actions in D&D can have whatever consequences make sense.

In any case, I'd probably have to play a campaign or two using these other rules to make a real comparison. I guess I was just kind of hoping to learn something I could steal. I'll also say that I have enough horror in my D&D campaign in terms of player apprehension, paranoia, risky or difficult choices, facing threats they cannot defeat and so on as I want.

 

[MGibster]

Okay, I give. I don't see how you could have a long term campaign where overcoming challenges means losing sanity points that can never be recovered. If they can be recovered then they're just another version of HP and the refresh rate is different. Having to balance hunger vs demands sounds more like resource management than horror.

Game mechanics are dry and don't sounds particularly exciting no matter what genre of game we're talking about so it's no surprise that resource management doesn't sound particularly horrific to you. The point is that Call of Cthulhu, Alien, and Vampire all have rules built right into their system designed to emulate a particular flavor of horror. You asked for details on rules for other games that make them "horror" and that's what I provided.

And having a little voice in the back of your head encouraging you to devour that nice old man on the subway, the bratty little kid who stuck her tongue out at you, or the person you love the most isn't horrific? You are made of sterner stuff than I, sir.

 

[Oofta]

Game mechanics are dry and don't sounds particularly exciting no matter what genre of game we're talking about so it's no surprise that resource management doesn't sound particularly horrific to you. The point is that Call of Cthulhu, Alien, and Vampire all have rules built right into their system designed to emulate a particular flavor of horror. You asked for details on rules for other games that make them "horror" and that's what I provided.

And having a little voice in the back of your head encouraging you to devour that nice old man on the subway, the bratty little kid who stuck her tongue out at you, or the person you love the most isn't horrific? You are made of sterner stuff than I, sir.

I think the single most important aspect of horror is player buy in followed closely by GM skill at creating evocative scenes. It's never actually me wanting to devour that kid it's my character. In addition, my current campaign involves outsiders and yes, a couple of the PCs are subtly going mad. I just don't need codified rules to do it.

Anyway, interesting topic and thanks for the replies but there's not a lot new here.