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Unpopular Opinion?: D&D is a terrible venue for horror
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<blockquote data-quote="Bacon Bits" data-source="post: 8103266" data-attributes="member: 6777737"><p>I think you can use D&D, including 5e, as a venue for horror. I've played Ravenloft as gothic horror and run Age of Worms as cosmic horror and both have worked.</p><p></p><p>That said, I don't think D&D is particularly well positioned or mechanically inclined towards making horror a <em>central focus</em> of an RPG campaign. I think other games do the genre better. I'd rather play Call of Cthulhu, or even Savage Worlds as a horror game. Simply put, D&D 5e is built around making characters powerful and capable of enduring a lot. The game also, basically, doesn't simulate injury at all. I'm more interested in playing a game where the PCs feel fragile, and that takes a lot more effort in D&D, IMO.</p><p></p><p> I've run Savage Worlds sci-fi in an Aliens scenario. Gave the PCs as much gear as they wanted, sent them out to a planet where the colony had lost contact after a distress call, and then stranded them on the planet and slowly wore them down until they could escape. We never were able to finish that campaign. That means those PCs are still out there... fighting to survive in that dead complex... trying to stay alive long enough for their interstellar ship in distant strategic orbit to come back around....</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Bacon Bits, post: 8103266, member: 6777737"] I think you can use D&D, including 5e, as a venue for horror. I've played Ravenloft as gothic horror and run Age of Worms as cosmic horror and both have worked. That said, I don't think D&D is particularly well positioned or mechanically inclined towards making horror a [I]central focus[/I] of an RPG campaign. I think other games do the genre better. I'd rather play Call of Cthulhu, or even Savage Worlds as a horror game. Simply put, D&D 5e is built around making characters powerful and capable of enduring a lot. The game also, basically, doesn't simulate injury at all. I'm more interested in playing a game where the PCs feel fragile, and that takes a lot more effort in D&D, IMO. I've run Savage Worlds sci-fi in an Aliens scenario. Gave the PCs as much gear as they wanted, sent them out to a planet where the colony had lost contact after a distress call, and then stranded them on the planet and slowly wore them down until they could escape. We never were able to finish that campaign. That means those PCs are still out there... fighting to survive in that dead complex... trying to stay alive long enough for their interstellar ship in distant strategic orbit to come back around.... [/QUOTE]
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