D&D General Why fear is good for PCs

[Remathilis]

It’s well known that it’s directly correlated to adrenaline production - fairground rides are designed around that. It’s “fun” because your body gives you a chemical high. Also true of many horror movies, especially those featuring jump scares.

Pretty hard to do in a turn based game, when it rarely depends on a single dice roll.

Fortunately, dread doesn’t depend on adrenaline and jump scares, just good storytelling.

Just so. There is a difference between the perception of danger (riding a rollercoaster or walking through a haunted attraction) vs actual danger (rising in a rocket or walking through the bad part of town at night).

 

[Willie the Duck]

Given that recovering from the worst outcomes in the game are generally six rolls of 3-4 dice away, fear requires more than just willingness to invoke that situation (e.g. the DM turning on the Random Meaninglessness Character Death spigot). Instead, fear requires consequences, the potential for the situation to turn out to the positive (or less negative), and a certain amount of control in the hands of the players to affect that potential. The more a character has to lose, might or might not lose, and the player has the capacity to influence whether they lose it or not, the more investment they have -- creating the opportunity for fear.

So fear = bad thing is false.

And also an argument not made in-thread.

Prior to 5e PCs died at zero (or neg10 with the death's door optional rule) and every single point of damage needed to be healed at a situational day by day rate and spell slot by spell slot and without unlimited cantrips while lacking full BaB progression the cleric wasn't going to be keen on dumping all of their slots healing everyone back to full. Sure they might burn a couple bringing the tank back to the upper 80% or so, but they aren't going to and generally couldn't top off everyone. That led to the situation where a 2-3 point hit to the wrong PC could be scary because the player knew their cleric couldn't waste the heals on them when they might need it for the tank later.

I would hesitate to lay this all on 5e. Various forms of this have shown up for quite some time. 4e's healing surges were a lower total than 5e's long rest plus short rest (/hit dice expended) recovery, but it was still a fixed % of total HP/day recovery. In 3e, once people discovered how cost-effective 1st-level wands of Cure Light Wounds were, having between-encounter healing being a significant cleric spell slot expenditure was a playstyle choice. Even before that, exactly how hard it is to find a spot to rest back full (and whether the time spent doing so was really a costly sacrifice) was significantly group-dependent -- with groups that just rested back to full whenever until the DM got a wild hair about tracking rations being at least common enough for Knights of the Dinner Table to lampoon it.

Fear in PCs requires that the system present plausible risk like that to the players coupled with a hunger for more. Will our resources hold out? If we work together better and really stretch can we get MOAR of the phat lewtz we know that we really need and bigger experience payoffs? Can our carrying capacity carry all of the supplies and equipment we expect to need?... Obviously not... Which do we need now and which can we plan to go without? How can we stretch each HP of life?...

Very much so, and I think a oft-ignored flipside. The characters need something to risk-not-getting to make the stakes meaningful. As mentioned above, just dying is of limited value with another character a few rolls away*. Situational/plot success is actually pretty motivating, but situational. One thing I think the game has minimized as of late (to the detriment of a fear element) is those payoffs. That Phat Lewtz (or Lootz, by my preference). Money is relatively meaningless after a certain point. It was in AD&D 2e as well (optional rules notwithstanding), unless you thought you were actually likely to hit name level and cared about the castle&command portion of the game. However, back then magic items (almost exclusively random, as loot) and found spells were a huge deal -- perhaps character defining. All the modern editions have added non-loot ways of defining characters*, but 5e has also made the most inroads towards making magic items optional**. In terms of setting up the situation where you(r character) might want to stay in the dungeon a little longer, but you don't know if you should risk death for the marginal gain, there really aren't a lot of built in incentives.
*slow xp progression and/or rules about where you start if you have to start over might help here.
**honestly 2e did as well, with all the proto-feat stuff found in the later uses of proficiency slots, and the Player's Options books, etc.
***and the attunement system's 'I found an item, but it isn't worth giving up what I'm already attuned to' at least rivals AD&D's 'find a magic weapon to which you are not proficient' in terms of potential for finding a magic item not really being a reward

 

[Brotton Goodfellow]

Is the issue that the game mechanics isn’t frightening or is it an indifference from DM’s and players toward what would actually be frightening?

Have you ever actually thought about what it would be like to fight a giant ant? Some of you might freak out when a normal sized ant crawls on you, now make that thing the size of a large dog and capable of lopping off limbs with its razor sharp pincers. On top of that imagine being in a giant ant colony. Numerous dark tunnels made not for man, all of which could contain more ants. The tunnels seem unstable and the way back could all of a sudden be blocked by a collapse. Not to mention the ants spit a sticky substance that burns and can blind creatures. Oh and if queen ant and her eggs aren’t destroyed, these ants will take over the nearby town and threaten the region for generations.

For me as a DM, my goal when I want to frighten the players at my table is to get them to see the terror through the eyes of the characters experiencing it. I do this through the environment and by making sure that failure is on the table and has real consequences beyond just characters dying. However, another piece to this is character death. I want players to understand that giant ants are frightfully deadly, so if they get the upper hand on the characters it might not go well for them.

Now I don’t make every encounter like this. Just like any good suspense/thriller/horror story, there’s build up and release of tension. But if my goal is to bring the fear for a session or an adventure, then my mind goes to my points above (environment, stakes, creatures).

But to my original question or point. Are DM’s doing more than just making encounters difficult to try and create fear? And are players taking that extra step to see the horrors of the world through their characters eyes?

 

[RainOnTheSun]

Honestly, I think making magic items optional might make them less viable as an incentive, but it makes them more viable as a threat: that fun flying carpet or holy sword you found is completely nonessential. The DM has no need to keep it safe or provide you with a replacement if you lose it. Give the PCs something neat early on, give them reminders that they aren't guaranteed to hold onto it.

 

[Minion X]

And also an argument not made in-thread.

Ackshually:

Its always funny when GMs decide that negative things is good for Players...

 

[tetrasodium]

Is the issue that the game mechanics isn’t frightening or is it an indifference from DM’s and players toward what would actually be frightening?

Have you ever actually thought about what it would be like to fight a giant ant? Some of you might freak out when a normal sized ant crawls on you, now make that thing the size of a large dog and capable of lopping off limbs with its razor sharp pincers. On top of that imagine being in a giant ant colony. Numerous dark tunnels made not for man, all of which could contain more ants. The tunnels seem unstable and the way back could all of a sudden be blocked by a collapse. Not to mention the ants spit a sticky substance that burns and can blind creatures. Oh and if queen ant and her eggs aren’t destroyed, these ants will take over the nearby town and threaten the region for generations.

For me as a DM, my goal when I want to frighten the players at my table is to get them to see the terror through the eyes of the characters experiencing it. I do this through the environment and by making sure that failure is on the table and has real consequences beyond just characters dying. However, another piece to this is character death. I want players to understand that giant ants are frightfully deadly, so if they get the upper hand on the characters it might not go well for them.

Now I don’t make every encounter like this. Just like any good suspense/thriller/horror story, there’s build up and release of tension. But if my goal is to bring the fear for a session or an adventure, then my mind goes to my points above (environment, stakes, creatures).

But to my original question or point. Are DM’s doing more than just making encounters difficult to try and create fear? And are players taking that extra step to see the horrors of the world through their characters eyes?

An absurd 1950s creature double feature regularly found on afternoon syndication back in the 80s & 90s really doesn't make a strong case
Worse is that your post seems to rely on an implied life support system resting entirely on the unsupported gm so players feel more than "I attack " on loop

 

[Paul Farquhar]

An absurd 1950s creature double feature regularly found on afternoon syndication back in the 80s & 90s really doesn't make a strong case
Worse is that your post seems to rely on an implied life support system resting entirely on the unsupported gm so players feel more than "I attack " on loop

A good example of the subjectivity of fear. When the movie first came out is was considered terrifying.

 

[tetrasodium]

A good example of the subjectivity of fear. When the movie first came out is was considered terrifying.

That exactly why it's so critical for the system to support the gm on matters of fear tension against greed on a mechanical level instead of 5e's do-nothing mechanics free ask your gm "horror toolkit" nonsense. The movie Them!(freeTubi stream here) came out in 1954 when students were being given duck and cover drills to protect themselves from nuclear strikes by hiding under their desks and on top of many many nuclear tests there was talk of insanity like what eventually became project plowshare a couple years later. It and the many many knockoffs involving spiders bees and so on relied heavily on cold war fears that just don't exist today.


Movies that were were actually scary didn't really start for another few decades with mold shattering stuff like Alien and The Thing once color and the theater audio leap Lucas really pushed a few years prior to both were widespread.

 

[Umbran]

Ackshually:

Actually, actually...

I think the point of that quote is about who is making the decision. The GM deciding they know what is best for you, without consulting you, is the issue at hand there.

 

[RainOnTheSun]

That exactly why it's so critical for the system to support the gm on matters of fear tension against greed on a mechanical level instead of 5e's do-nothing mechanics free ask your gm "horror toolkit" nonsense.

What would mechanical support for tension against greed look like? Bringing back the wealth tables from 3e and letting players know their characters are expected to have X amounts of Stuff by level Y? Making long rests longer?