In my DnD group, we rotate DMs every so often. I've never DM'ed before, but I have a very loose idea that I want to create a good horror experience.
Before I hash out what I actually want to do, I want to talk about two things;
>What makes a horror situation enjoyable and genuinely scary?
>What makes for a good DM/Campaign?
I know this isn't often the most serious of sites, but I care deeply about this. This group has been awesome to me, we've been through a lot, and I want to deliver something good for them.
Fear is simple. It's all about convincing people that they are exceeding a certain threshold of danger. Any strong monster is enough to invoke fear.
But, what makes horror enjoyable is never forgetting the rest of what makes a story good. You want a good mystery, you want people either revealing their humanity or surpassing it, you want the terror to be a part of the story rather than the story to be a byproduct of the horror.
Kevin Smith
Modern horror is mostly jump scares, gore, and making people uncomfortable. In that order. It is not a good genre even in most movies. In mediums with player agency it's even worse.
But if you insist...
Atmosphere is the most important thing. If you can't get a good atmosphere at the table, then don't even bother. Try using music. But most groups get together to just joke around.
Second thing is mechanics. Dread is generally agreed to be one of the best and most understandable 'horror' system.
Easton Cooper
In my experience, it's all in the atmosphere. My players are much more terrified when I have some background music playing, as well as some sound effects here or there. It depends on what kind of situation you have them in, but in my campaign they routinely delve into dungeons and underground tunnels in order to clear out cultists and cult related shenanigans. Play on paranoia, and know that they're more scared of what they can't see. A few things that really freak them out are: >Long, narrow hallways that lead into darkness >Traps are designed to keep things IN, not out >Small things that skitter about >Shifting corridors >Enemies that phase through walls >Unexplained sounds echoing from much deeper into the dungeon The rest is just cult related fuckery but I once had them clear a dungeon with nothing in it but aftermath, took them way longer than usual. To them, any area they hadn't seen was just full of deadly shit. After all, it had to be somewhere, right?
Christopher Harris
OP: This isn't necessarily what I will go with, but it's a broad concept so that I can get across where my brain is.
PC's go to an island/campground/ghostown.
There is a map of this location. Some NPCs, and a Stalker. The PC's are trying to protect the NPCs against this stalker.
(If you are thinking "this is Friday the 13th on NES in DnD" you are exactly right).
I'd like to have the players doing things like rolling perception checks out windows to keep track of where the stalker is, and eventually where it lives so that it can be battled.
That's my broad concept. I'm trying to work out how to make it good.
Christian Watson
I like it! If you have time I'd brush up on some Lovecraft, maybe the better works of Poe. There also needs to be a good ratio of finding nothing to finding eldritch monstrosities from the dawnatime, but that's the kind of thing you can play by ear. Could you also inject some serious morally grey choices into the campaign?
Bentley Diaz
O hell yes I can.
Nathan Sanchez
Be my DM plz
William Baker
horror doesn't stand on it's own, needs to be mixed with another genre. Think Halo. It had horror elements and could be a bit creepy sometimes but no one would call it a horror game.
All games meant to be anything but bright happy lollipop shit should have some elements of horror. Creepy atmosphere, disjointed or weird phenomena. Ambient music can be good for evoking this atmosphere.
Here's the only good "horror" session I ever ran and I think it only worked because two of the players were young teens at the time and the others had little experience with RPGs.
Basically giving the PCs a feeling they were being watched, putting in eerie effects and such, helped a lot. You're not going to scare your players for real but you might make them feel a bit uneasy. Which is good enough honestly.
Wyatt Martinez
Nope. That world is a bit over the top. I want something a bit more subtle. I want my players to feel at first like they are in a western campaign.
Sebastian Gutierrez
To date the only D&D supplement to successfully pull off the Horror feeling has been Ravenloft. I strongly suggest you give the 2e's version a read. Maybe that compiled 3.0 version since it was written by the original author. (NOT 3.5's Expedition to Ravenloft, that was garbage.) And I should point out that Ravenloft does it's own specific kind of adventure-horror with classical monsters.
The books Heroes of Horror, Elder Evils, and Champions of Corruption have done a ... Terrible job. Pathfinders Occult Adventures (and addons) while having some great PC stuff in it, failed at it's horror tone. Please do not use these book rules to simulate horror.
If you are trying to run something like Cthulhu or other Lovecraftian horrors. Please do Not run that in D&D as you will not be able to incite horror in powerful adventures like you would in Call of Cthulhu. That just do not go together.
Best of luck. I agree deadlands is too over the top. Try learning real western stories and lore and ghost stories and shit, you can probably make something out of a haunted ghost rush with strange disappearances or something.
Lucas Moore
I grew up in the country. I can nail the atmosphere.
Parker Diaz
pic
Isaiah Brown
>Lovecraftian horrors & Pathfinder do not mix. Well funny thing is: They do, but you don't get what most people seem to except.
You get Conan. Yes Conan, whose entire story IS an adventure vs the horrors from beyond time and space. Seriously read it. Read any of it.
Admittedly Conan does not invoke the same kind of horror that you're get when you play Call of Cthulhu, and that's actually pretty telling of how most people's games tend to go that try to mix D&D and Lovecraft.
Matthew Scott
>horror >DnD Choose only one.
Samuel Jackson
The unknown and the sense of powerlessness is usually the scary part of any situation. There must be some measure of hope but it must always be held as a teasing possibility rather than a certitude.
There MIGHT be an exit to this maze. There MIGHT be a way to defeat this shadow. But there might very well not be and you have no way to check before trying. And trying IS going to be deadly risky.
Liam Watson
Ever seen the movie, The Burrowers? I actually imagined it as an rpg party when I watched it.
Anyway, the best advice I can give to agree with the others who said that atmosphere was key. The most important aspect of that is that the players are onboard.
You are never going to scare a player who doesn’t want to be scared.
It is effortless to disengage or make light of the game, which can break them out of the atmosphere and, unfortunately, the other players too. Get everyone onboard with the pace and tone of your game. Technically, Call of Cthulhu, Doom, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer could all be called "Horror".
David Kelly
>still trying to push this meme
C'mon now.
Owen Bailey
OP: This right here is what I'm getting at. This was super good stuff. Thank you.
Nathan Adams
Piggy backing off of OP's thread.
I'm running Ravenloft as my first campaign ever, and I really want to nail a good menacing Strahd. Anyone have any good tips and tricks I can throw at my players to make them feel the fear?
>Pic related. My inspiration for Strahd
Daniel Butler
To add some advice which wasn't already mentioned:
Don't let them hit things.
Monster they can fight against in typical DnD manner aren't scary, no matter how strong they are. The narrative style works much better than the gamey/dicey style for horror adventures.
If you want to have a monster, they can occasionally see it in the mist (but it vanishes quickly), they might even run into it (but just for a mement) and NPCs can have info about it (but some NPCs have false infos) and they shouldn't be able to fight the monster until the very end of the adventure (if at all).
Another approach would be the "men are the greatest monster" story, but that's more like a mystery/detective story with horror elements.
Ryan Lopez
On our first adventure we encountered the remains of a body that had been torn apart by a giant cat. However, our party itself never encountered this beast.
I'm thinking the thing stalking my party is this beast.
The showdown doesn't end in combat, they must trap this beast.
Cooper Cooper
Bro, Strahd's a vampire.
>single out a pc >Charm >PC can't do anything as Strahd spoon feeds them Ray Liotta's brains
boom done!
Joshua Butler
OP: Sharing my notes so far:
>Outline Setting: Ghostown NPCS: Sheriff (1) Hooker (2) Mother (3) Father (4) Male Child (5) Female Child (6) Stalker Places: Saloon: Main 4 Homes Gunshop Church Stables Tools: Traps Healing Items
Sam Raimi Rules of Horror: -The innocent must suffer -The guilty must be punished -You must taste blood to be a hero
>Atmospheric Concepts: -Things in the distance -Creepy thing in "safe" place -NPCs we care about -NPC sees scary thing, PC does not vice-versa -Choices -Unknown and the sense of powerlessness is usually the scary part of any situation. -There must be some measure of hope but it must always be held as a teasing possibility rather than a certitude.
Jace Gonzalez
Vlad the Impaler was a major inspiration for Strahd's author. Strahd is basically what would happen if Vlad's redeeming qualities had been inverted. Strahd enslaved the nobles under him and worked them to death in pursuit of building a new castle, but they weren't interested in helping anyone but themselves. They were very corrupt and the peasants didn't just fear Strahd, they respected him. Strahd gave the commoners food and lowered their taxes. He earned his nickname when he was retreating from an Ottoman army and impaled the residents of an entire Turkish city, roughly 20,000 men, women, and children, on wooden pikes. He served his people, but everybody else could and would be subjected to the worst tortures imaginable if they crossed him.
