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Llama231
2009-06-18, 06:58 PM
First of all, I DO have Heroes of Horror.

Okay, now that that has been cleared up, I was wondering if anyone had any notable experience with scaring the heck out of the players. I have been working on an adventure, and I think that horror would be an interesting genre to try, but I know very little. I have read HoH, but I till find it a bit lacking, seeming to focus mostly on the taint and such and not enough on actually being scary.

As for TV tropes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Horror), I was thinking of focusing on Survival Horror (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SurvivalHorror) and suspense.

Personally, I have little experience with the genre itself, and prefer to be on the other end of it all, so this gives me little to work with. The adventure that I was thinking of was having the PCs go wind up in an Uncanny Village (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UncannyVillage), or Town With a Dark Secret (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TownWithADarkSecret) and base it around that. I was also considering adding in Indiana Jones style trap elements and Fire Emblem style red shirts for the players to protect. Lastly, I plan on trying to hide whatever I will use as a main antagonist for as long as possible, possibly even having the PCs take it on without ever seeing what it is.

Anyway, help and suggestions are much appreciated, so yeah.:smallbiggrin:

NPCMook
2009-06-18, 07:09 PM
Don't rely on Tropes... Go to the library and pick up a few Horror novels

Meek
2009-06-18, 07:22 PM
Don't rely on Tropes... Go to the library and pick up a few Horror novels

Primarily, I would suggest you pick up "easy reads" like Stephen King. Those translate easier into a horror game that won't bore or alienate your players.

Tsotha-lanti
2009-06-18, 07:24 PM
Don't rely on Tropes... Go to the library and pick up a few Horror novels

That's effectively the same thing, though. Besides, a horror story and a horror game are wildly different things.


There's some basic elements to running horror, but the most important one is the one that works worst with D&D: Unfairness. Your set-up has to be unfair. The PCs must be disempowered for the players to feel afraid, and that is really hard with D&D PCs. If they can stand up to the source of horror and kill it, they will not be afraid. So you have to make the situation unfair. Killing some NPCs may be a good way to illustrate the danger, but then you can't be afraid to kill the PCs if they "deserve" it.

Another important thing is understanding how suspense works. You build it, and then you release it. Suspense is released by confrontations and action sequences - when you let the PCs act against the cause of the suspense and horror, the suspense is released and you will have to start building it again. I think HoH is fairly good about ideas for building suspense, at least in a roundabout way; the list of random horror occurrences is good inspiration. You need to decide what style to use, though - here's a couple:

1. Strange things keep happening for no reason. This is a pretty good one, but it doesn't fit all horror scenarios - why would the presence of a werewolf cause this? The presence of a ghost, on the other hand, is a classical way to cause this. Moans, odd sensations, hallucinations and illusions...
2. Something is out there... This is good, too, and works for less eerie and more visceral or physical threats - like werewolves. The source of the fear should be incredibly stealthy, or else incredibly invulnerable - either the PCs can't locate it, or they can't stand and face it and must flee.
3. Something is wrong. This can be a bit of a combination, or it can be something different. The uncanny village trope is this, generally - there's something wrong, and not a damn thing you can do about it. In fact, you can't be sure something really is wrong.

Hiding the main antagonist is a really good idea. People are always more afraid of what they can't see or don't know or understand. It also lets imaginations run wild, and if you do your job right, everyone will be imagining the most horrible thing they, personally, can come up with - which is bound to be more effective than what you came up with. If you know your players are squeamish or uncomfortable about something, use that ruthlessly - spiders, water and drowning, darkness, strangers, disease (unless it's an actual phobia, liable to cause real stress etc.; if you notice one of your players getting too uncomfortable about an element, back off it and don't use it).



Primarily, I would suggest you pick up "easy reads" like Stephen King. Those translate easier into a horror game that won't bore or alienate your players.

King is stunningly good, but probably translates really badly into games - just like his stuff is rubbish every single time it's turned into a movie. The problem is that his writing usually plants you inside someone's head, and the movies can't do that.

However, anyone interested in horror of any kind absolutely has got to read the collection, Everything's Eventual. 1408 especially freaked the heck out of me, and I read it on a train, full of people, in the middle of the day. Being transported into the mind of someone who's rapidly losing it is very damned scary. 1408 also gives you some wonderful ideas about how to convey growing madness to players - the portraits and the bit about maggots... augh!

For survival horror, I'd recommend The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H. P. Lovecraft. Just cut out his typical over-exposition (delivered by the dunk, in this case). The escape sequence is incredibly harrowing, and can be adapted very successfully - it took me ages to manage to try it enough times to get through it in the PC game Dark Corners of the Earth, because I was too freaked out by it.

FoE
2009-06-18, 07:28 PM
1) Isolation is a big element of horror. Take the Evil Dead series, Alien, The Thing, Friday the 13th, Night of the Living Dead, Section 13, 1408, practically every survival horror game ever made, etc.

Maybe you're out in the middle of nowhere with no way to contact the outside world for help. Maybe the antagonist is able to strike at you in a way that prevents you from seeking outside help, like in your dreams. Or maybe there is no outside world, and you're all that's left in a world full of monsters ...

Point is, there's no help coming. You're on your own.

2) Consider this lesson: Nothing is Scarier. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NothingIsScarier) Sometimes, all you need to terrify your players is the tension that arises from the belief something is going to jump out at them any second. D&D players especially are paranoid in this way and you can use it to your advantage. In a way, it's a relief when the monster pops up.

Another example: one time in a regular dungeon, me and a buddy in a two-player game killed some orcs in a room and then came back to that room later. All we found was pools of blood and streaks indicating the corpses had been dragged away. I just about pissed myself.

Another video game example: Terry Cotter's Army. From Fable 2. If you own that game, you know what I'm talking about.

It can be over-played, however. At some point, you have to give the players that something or eventually the whole thing becomes a joke.

3) Turn something mundane and safe for the adventurers into something terrifying. For example, in Bioshock, you're used to being able to walk up to corpses and looting them for quick cash and supplies. But late in the game, when you start encountering enemies that are playing dead and leap up to attack you when you approach ... well, it can be a bit unnerving the first time around, let me tell you.

Early on, don't turn everything into a trap. It'll benefit you later when you start turning everything into a trap. :smalltongue:

4) Avoid laying it on too thick, as you may run into Nightmare Retardant. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NightmareRetardant) Dead bodies are scary and gross. Dead children are unsettling. A zombie giant made of aborted fetuses is just silly and disgusting and will have your players ask something like "How did someone even find that many aborted fetuses?"

Tsotha-lanti
2009-06-18, 07:31 PM
Point is, there's no help coming. You're on your own.

Sometimes, all you need to terrify your players is the tension that arises from the belief something is going to jump out at them any second.

Turn something mundane and safe for the adventurers into something terrifying.

Early on, don't turn everything into a trap. It'll benefit you later when you start turning everything into a trap. :smalltongue:

4) Avoid laying it on too thick, as you may run into Nightmare Retardant. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NightmareRetardant)

Absolutely wonderful advice. Follow this, too.

Oblivious
2009-06-18, 07:37 PM
The obvious suggestion is to look into Ravenloft. It is the D&D horror setting. The Kargatane (http://www.kargatane.com/) stuff can offer some inspiration.

mikeejimbo
2009-06-18, 07:46 PM
Print out spare character sheets, one for each of your players. Set them down nearby, in view, but don't say anything about them.

I dunno about you, but that would make me nervous. :smalltongue:

NPCMook
2009-06-18, 07:47 PM
Print out spare character sheets, one for each of your players. Set them down nearby, in view, but don't say anything about them.

I dunno about you, but that would make me nervous. :smalltongue:

That'd make me think the DM is a Jerk.

mikeejimbo
2009-06-18, 07:49 PM
That'd make me think the DM is a Jerk.

Now what would really make you think the DM is a jerk would be if he killed off your character and then made you print out your OWN character sheet.

Zeful
2009-06-18, 07:56 PM
Read This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59107). It's probably the best example anywhere of doing horror right in D&D.

TheCountAlucard
2009-06-18, 08:02 PM
Great minds think alike, Zeful: I was about to suggest the same thing. :smalltongue:

Juggernaut1981
2009-06-18, 08:11 PM
What does Lovecraft tell you about Horror?
Okay, first place for "horror" is the inventor of the "creepy ass wierd crap stories" that later became known as the "horror" genre. You gotta know what makes it what it is otherwise you're just writing a bit of an action movie.

What the....
Keep your players continually guessing what is safe, real and who their enemy is. The story that really introduced Cthulhu had a remote tribe making a totem, a few artsy people go psychotic and end up in insitutions (or making crazy sculptures. [think Close Encounters]), other RANDOM stuff and then tossing someone into the mix who thinks that maybe, just maybe it's all connected by this wierd totem-head octopus-person-snake thing.

Half-join all of the dots
You will have key points to the plot/story/backstory. A REALLY big way to help ramp up the "What the..." and eventual scariness of it all is to do something strange and then give them the absolute bare minimum of tangential information to connect them. If they connect the dots straight away, be more vague next time.

People die
Kill people. Kill them in strange ways. Kill them with strange sacrifices. Have them go insane and kill themselves in strange ways. Have strangers attempt to murder PCs in their sleep with bizarro objects... etc, etc, etc. The idea that if they screw this up the world turns into a big bowl of body-parts and blood is an element of the horror genre.

Barely survived that...
The party should feel like it is permanently in a state of "how the cheese did we get out of that alive?" Have them paranoid to open their sack in case a chaos beast pops out and eat their face. If they have to spend 2 weeks resting non-stop in town with a cleric of pelor sitting at their bed side casting spells 24/7 after they walked into that tower just outside town... then you've got the level of pain about right.

It doesn't have to make sense
There doesn't even have to be an "real" antagonist. Remember the are the "Old Ones" or the "Greater Gods"... the stuff of the Far Realms. Maybe one of them had deific indigestion and burped 4000 years ago and the waves of God-burp-breath just landed on your world and people went nuts. Sure it's nice to have a "bad guy"... but who says there has to be?

Idea Sources
HP Lovecraft. Read it. Read lots of it. DON'T COPY ANY OF THE STORIES {Scrubbed}

The following classic movies all have some really strong horror elements, but how those elements work and how they give you that feeling of horror are very different but all equally "horror".
Classic movies: The Birds, Alien, 12 Monkeys, Nightmare on Elm St, The Exorcist (original).

Don't copy the Video-Ezy/Blockbuster Video definintion of horror. That definition seems to basically be "Is it a ghost/demon story with lots of blood? If yes = horror" but for D&D horror needs to be a lot more like the "Thriller" genre of movies at your local movie store.

Final suggestions
M Night Shayalamalan is something of a tool... Great premise, POOR execution.[anti-flame jacket on]

Here is a storyline I used that fits into a horror genre. It was established for a 3-hour game session. This is the "DM Version" with all of the back-events. DM only knowledge is italicised.

The town of has had a sequence of horrific murders. Bodies have been dumped in highly public places, even during the day, with all sorts of body parts missing. Skin, eyes, hands, legs, arms, heads have been missing but there is no pattern to the parts taken. They have been dumped in the market square, down sewers, in the arms of statues and the steps of the city guardhouse. They have been dumped there in the day, during the night. There have been no witnesses. Nobody recalls anything other than suddenly seeing a body appear. We have no clues. None at all. We need someone to help us and catch this killer.

[I]There is a tavern keeper with un-discovered psionic ability. A group of mind-flayers have been looking for ways to test the reactions of the city against different events. They wish to eventually take over the city and want to know the best way to do it. They have telepathically hijacked this tavern keeper and made him conduct these murders. Using the tavern keeper's psionic capabilities they have been using mind blank to cover up his actions and ensure there were no witnesses. They have also been smuggling the missing parts into the food he is selling out of his tavern; he believes it is just normal animal meat/skin/etc. The tavern keeper has no awareness of his actions.

rayne_dragon
2009-06-18, 08:30 PM
I also recommend looking at Lovecraft's stuff... d20 Call of Cthulhu could be a real boon to you. In fact the sanity stat and madness aspect can be added to a D&D game to add some extra horror.

A nice twist might be to have whomever or whatever the players are protecting to actually be the source of the problem or being using them to make things worse.

Blackjackg
2009-06-18, 08:38 PM
This has been sort of suggested, but I'm going to say it: You can't do horror in D&D with the rules as written. This is based on three immutable facts:

1) Horror requires suspense
2) D&D requires combat (this is only partly true... but players tend to get cheesed off when they don't gain experience)
3) Combat kills suspense

That being said, there are things you can do to make it work. Everything Tsotha-Lanti and Face of Evil said is good advice, and should probably be read carefully several times.

Inform your characters ahead of time that you will be running an adventure/campaign that is heavy on roleplaying, and that they will gain experience from things other than combat. This is especially good if they're creating new characters, because it might spur them to create not-so-combat-ready characters, which might negate the feelings of invulnerability that optimized characters tend to get. As a fringe benefit, it's possible.

Play at night. Late at night. Your players should start getting sleepy an hour or so into the session. Sleepy folk jump at shadows, and things that are scary when you're wide awake become riveting when you're a little sleep-deprived. Dim the lights a little, but resist the urge to put on scary music. It never works. If you can, lower the temperature in the room a little. Limit the snacks you have available, but let them have a little caffeine. It's amazing how the human brain turns body sensations like cold skin and rapid heartbeat into fear. Not too much caffeine, though.

The above advice really only works for mature players. Sleepy dudes with some caffeine in them can become obnoxious and easily distracted. I wouldn't recommend trying this with anyone under twenty. Of course, I wouldn't recommend a serious horror campaign for players under twenty at all. If you feel comfortable with it, limit table talk to a bare minimum. As much as possible, keep your players in your world.

Know the language of horror. As the above posters said, read horror novels until you get it down right. Keep descriptions simple, but don't leave out eerie details. Let the players' imaginations do a lot of the work.

"The room is empty. A single drop of blood is trailing down the eastern wall."

Leave long pauses in your speech, particularly when you're speaking for NPCs. Resist the urge to use strange voices or accents unless you are very comfortable with them, because a poorly-done or inconsistent accent is much funnier than it is scary.

Give them very little actual combat (and when you do, make it quick and easy, but somehow gruesome... a one-legged beggar suddenly lurches at them with a dagger and a wild look in his eyes, or a character wakes up to find he's covered with beady-eyed rats). The longer combat lasts, the more the players get out of the story and into the dice. Pace them well in the story... again, horror novels and films can help you figure out when a little steam needs to be blown off. Never let them actually fight the antagonist until the end.

Use the mechanics to your advantage. Every now and then, make them roll a spot or listen check when there's nothing to see or hear. Or a will save (definitely don't overdo this one; players catch on quick). Better yet, if they do very well on their listen checks, let them hear something strange (a baby crying in an empty street at night, for instance) for a moment, but they can't find the source.

Priests are classic horror characters, so use PC clerics to your advantage. Have the malevolent spirits harangue them especially with strange sounds or sensory experiences. When she's alone in her room at the inn, have the room suddenly go dark and the walls start shaking until she desperately tries to Turn Undead, which makes the phenomena stop suddenly... but the hairs on the back of her neck are still standing up...

That's all I've got for now. Remember what the above posters said, and that less is more.

hewhosaysfish
2009-06-19, 08:00 AM
I also recommend looking at Lovecraft's stuff... d20 Call of Cthulhu could be a real boon to you. In fact the sanity stat and madness aspect can be added to a D&D game to add some extra horror.


Sanity rules. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/sanity.htm) Courtesy of the SRD.

talus21
2009-06-19, 08:16 AM
Actually what might work really well, is to have them go a fairly standard dungeon crawl. Then once they get back to town and start resting selling loot etc... Start the horror part.

J.Gellert
2009-06-19, 09:17 AM
Don't use monsters they know, or alter them enough so they don't recognize them. Nothing ruins horror like "Hey, I know this monster, it's killed by...". One of the scariest encounters for my players was with a single Entomber (or what's the name of the undead in Libris Mortis that burries you with an attack?)

Go over the top with your descriptions. Include things that are completely irrelevant but will keep your players guessing. For example, an unseen lone wolf that howls every night at the same time.

Use things that cannot exist. The old Castle Spulzeer adventure included a Giant Raven that would land in front of the players and give them a cryptic warning out of the blue. Huh? What was that? Who sent it? Should we kill it? If they attack it, have it do something crazy, like open a huge mouth, eat them, and dissapear in a burst of... moths.

And always remember: If you can't scare them, make them so disgusted they will be sick to their stomach. Give the aforementioned moths really long, hairy tongues and describe how they fly in the characters' armor and over their skin.

Llama231
2009-06-19, 10:07 AM
Well, thanks for all of the suggestions, but I was working on trying to avoid discusting and insanity related things, so the whole Lovecraft style is to be avoided. Also, this is for a bunch of 1st level characters, which I forgot to mention earlier.:smallwink:

subject42
2009-06-19, 10:09 AM
If you can find it at a local Game Stop, pick up a copy of the PC game "Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines". Play through the haunted house level. It's probably the best interactive horror I've ever seen.

Also, mess with the expectations of your players. Set up an illusion of a big feral monster that's just enough above their CR to be a real threat in a cell in a hallway. Preferably, set it up shortly after a draining fight. Slam the first door behind them.

Have the portcullis slowly opening, letting the beast loose. Play up the clink... clink... clink... of the winch as the gate opens.

Put another door on the other end of the hallway that might be *just* close enough that they could make there before the gate opens it if they ran.

Watch them frantically try to open the door they entered, only to realize that it's barred.

Describe the sound the animal makes as it pounds against the bars.

Laugh as they run in terror toward the opposite door, yank on the knob, and trigger collapsing wall trap as the now insubstantial monster runs right past them.

Choco
2009-06-19, 11:04 AM
This might help you:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=110821

To summarize my contribution to that thread, have the PC's encounter someone who has the power to wipe the floor with them without breaking a sweat early on in the game. Make sure they are made aware of that fact in as blunt of a manner as possible. Make sure they know that the only reason they are still alive is because X Villain is completely insane and can't hold a thought long enough to follow through with it... or so they think!

Edit: Have them encounter this person/thing periodically throughout the campaign, and have them be just as powerless each time, at least until the last encounter where they actually have some ability to win. Don't be afraid to "bend" the rules. You are supposed to be making your own material/rules anyway, and TBH, it greatly adds to the scariness if the player's can't find anything in the sourcebooks that remotely resembles what you are throwing at them.

UserClone
2009-06-19, 11:45 AM
Actually, OGL Horror (http://www.amazon.com/OGL-Horror-Gareth-Hanrahan/dp/1904577733/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245429684&sr=8-1) is my go-to book for the genre. I'd buy it again, just for the chapter entitled "Turning the Screws." This book is jam-packed with ideas and advice on how to run horror games. Even though I like the simple-ish D20 system rules it comes with, it's all the advice and tips that make it an invaluable resource. Do it up.

TheDarkOne
2009-06-19, 11:53 AM
The most important thing is that the players do not feel like their characters are safe. If the players think their characters can deal with any problem that comes up it doesn't matter what else you do.

Brom
2009-06-19, 12:27 PM
I can't say I've ever DM'd a horror based game, but I have some ideas on how I would go about it mostly inspired by a DM who I know has been highly influenced by Call of Cthulu premises. A lot of what has been brought up here is good. I wouldn't use sanity or disgusting things in most cases, either, but you can still creep someone out without simply being disgusting.

At the risk of repeating what people have said:

How I'd Do It
1) Players shouldn't have all the information. Keeping people in the dark is part of horror. The theme should be, ''What you don't know should definitely kill you." Keep the players trying to guess threads and make the threads bizarre for your players. Make them try to connect information that you don't think your players would know what to do with.

2) Create a time pressure. If people are just taking their time, they aren't stumbling into things as much. You need to have conditions that keep your players on the move, feeling like they are hunted, most of the time.

3) Create situations in which they aren't fully effective. If the party is all humans, create an ambush by a monster that uses supernatural abilities to blanket the whole area in darkness, snuffing out their torches. If the main party damage dealer is an archer, make the wind conditions and the clouds and the rain grant all targets concealment and have the wind disrupt his shooting. Have the PC's set up some sort of lifeline that they plan to use to survive situations taken away from them.

IE, they put a player on watch, and the next morning, they find the player is asleep and that there are tracks that look inhuman around their campsite. The player insists he was on watch and that nothing happened. Or maybe a player agreed to scout out a maze, and he is holding a rope that trails back to the entrance...have it get whisked away somehow, leaving the player suddenly alarmed. Have the party disguise themselves as cultists to overhear a meeting between a cult that is somehow behind all things, and they find themselves being referred to by cult names that they don't know. This puts players on the spot. Which is a big element in horror.

4) Players should be powerless against the main evil. They should also get to run. Make an encounter that is all about just trying to get away with their lives. And make it terrifyingly hard. If the Wizard casts grease to cover their tracks, have the monster thunder right over it without slowing down. If they are hiding from a vampire in a store, have the Vampire start overturning shelves to find them. Split them up somehow, but have them all running. The Jurassic Park movies come to mind as a good example of this - humans are no match for the dinosaurs, and there are many nights of terrified humans hiding and being killed off.

5) Have people be afraid of the PC's. I can't think of a situation that says, ''something is wrong'' like being met with pale, wide eyed scares shortly before everyone we walk near scampers away unsteadily.

6) Have people who they would consider allies turn against them in unexplainable ways. Perhaps when they rest at the church of Pelor, later, a Cleric and even a friend of theirs leads cultists to their ward where they are recovering. Have these characters who betray them be obviously regretful but compelled by terror - and I'm not talking about the Fear effect, either.

7) Introduce long stretches where the party is alone. No one to talk to. Just themselves. Echoing their doubts to one another. Collectively amplifying them. With no one and nothing to provide answers. Particularly good if you are putting them through a situation where they are giong through an abandoned mansion, finding blood smears on the wall, bodies that have been ceremoniously hung, hearing screams are odd intervals, then finding nothing as they approach the sound.

8) Introduce normality. Like, reasonable people. I found as a player that I'm more horrified when I'm so close to a normal place, but things have already gone horribly wrong. For instance, in a string of sessions our DM did, we were going through sewers underneath a massive metropolis. We found Beholders organizing an amphibian army that looked like it was about to invade the city, led by an Archmage's apprentice. But before we left, we wanted to rescue a higher level adventuring party, because we didn't think we would be taken seriously if we said an army under Ankmar was about to attack the city...and we didn't know that we could escape the sewers without them. When we got back up to the surface, other elements had manipulated the city guard and high ranking officials were being accused of treason, sparking a civil war. The archmage's apprentice, when we turned to the Mage's Guild for help, using an artifact, killed the entire council of archmages. We recognized the artifact from prior experiences, and knew that it was part of some great evil. When he killed the archmages, they exploded, raining black shards over the city and the people who were fighting (it was now being invaded by said amphibian army and beholders.)

Shards fall, everyone dies. The party was safely inside buildings while it happened. The shards started corrupting people, and they reanimated, becoming black skinned and nearly indestructible automatons. Then, a Dragon (made of the same black material as the shards and the artifact) came and ate the central Mage's Guild Tower. It was all surreal, fast paced, and horrifying. It was some of the most fun I've ever had. Before the sewers, though, the town was our adventuring headquarters. (Even had a hero's guild that gave us missions.) We had normality there. And so many powerful forces were obviously there to protect it...it would be like waking up one morning and hearing that New York City had been nuked, and thus no longer existed, and then waking up the next morning remembering what had happened. It would feel like something unthinkable had happened. Horrifying, no?

9) The foes should put PC's on their back foot. If they buff before storming a room, have the first thing an enemy does be to cast Dispel Magic...especially if one of the buffs had made them immune to something that they were scared of happening.

Like, possession or mind control or going insane.

Enemies should be either so supremely confident and relaxed that it frightens the PC's, or so aggressive and brutal and fearless that it frightens the PC's.

10) Pay attention to what does and doesn't seem to be working. You have to prepare a lot of detail to make this work, and you have to be ready to change most of it as you go along. Write generic descriptions beforehand that you can plug in if one type of horror seems more compelling than another.

Yea.

FoE
2009-06-19, 12:33 PM
Horror fantasy is admittedly pretty difficult because, well, PCs are badass and regularly face down the kind of horrifying monsters that usually populate horror movies and literature.

That said, it's not impossible.

It's really more about creating a mood. Note my last post; it has some good tips about doing this.

Some other tips:

1) Use your real-life player's fears and discomfort to your advantage. If a player hates rats, make sure to use them.

2) If you're going for more of a survival horror feel, consider limiting the party's resources. Treasure is relatively scarce. Healing potions are relatively scarce. Townspeople (if there are any) are mistrustful of the PCs or outright hostile. Don't starve them, but don't shower them with treasure.

3) Create the right atmosphere. Set your adventures in ruined castles, abandoned villages, etc. Consider using elements like thick mist that hide the presence of monsters, or a ghostly chorus of hushed whispers that makes it difficult for the PCs to concentrate.

4) Consider at least one adventure where the PCs are thrown into danger simply for someone's amusement. Maybe it's a malevolent spirit, a demon or even a living dungeon. Sound excited when the PCs are in combat and pout or act sullen when they win.

5) Let them fail. Pit them against threats which sometimes they have no choice to flee away from. Sometimes, they don't get to the scene in time to save anyone.

ghost_warlock
2009-06-19, 12:45 PM
Good horror requires inspiration. You've already received a lot of good advice so I'll just drop off links to a couple suitably creepy webcomics. The first (http://brasscockroach.com/h4ll0w33n2007/manga/Amigara-Full/Amigara-0.html) is short enough to read in a single sitting (note that the flow of the story goes from the right side of the page to the left). The second (http://www.mangafox.com/manga/uzumaki/v001/c001/) is much longer, but worth the read.

Shpadoinkle
2009-06-19, 09:30 PM
Tension, and risk.

There are some horror/survival video games out there, like the Clock Tower games and an old NES game called Sweet Home (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t30NBdpHYVU&feature=PlayList&p=2B56BBB30854CDA4&index=0&playnext=1) (that's just the intro, you can skip it if you want, but it does explain some things). Personally, I always feel nervous while playing games like that because of the constant threat of death around every corner from something that might look completely innocuous.

You need to pace things, though. If you're constantly thowing traps and such at the players every other round, it will stop being scary and start being annoying and tiresome. If they're facing an intelligent adversary (whether it's natural or supernatural), then let them make progress for a while until they start to regain some confidence, then hit them with something new. But again, you can't do this constantly or else it becomes tiresome and annoying instead of scary.

If the PCs are in dangerous territory and have to rest there, don't let them rest undisturbed. Don't neccisarily throw combats at them, but make it clear that they're not alone, and they're not safe there. The sound of someone walking by just out of sight, unexplained skittering, animals acting unnaturally (a rat walking right up to the party's camp, alone, and staring at them for a while before calmly and purposefully walking off). These can all help set the mood.

Altima
2009-06-19, 09:49 PM
You'll have to genuinely creep the players out, too, to scare them. You can't rely on the (bad) device of surprise to introduce a scare.

In combat, try to show what happens when they lose before entering combat. For example, if they fight giant spiders, show the webbed up husks of former victims. Taking a page from Aliens, you can show a swarm of baby spiders erupting from the chest, belly, or mouth.

In otherwise, try perversing the 'normal' relationships one comes to expect. Perhaps there's a sudden string of mothers smothering their own children in a town, much to the surprise and distress of the offending mothers. You could really milk a conversation if any of the PCs attempt to question one of the said mothers, who is now locked away in an asylum.

I'd recommend you actually try to tone down the appearance of the supernatural. In the world of D&D, you literally can have ghosts and ghouls around every corner, and it's what your players will expect. Try to keep the, erm, grisly side of things to more 'mundane' and believable levels.

Lastly, don't be afraid to screw with the players. If they happen to lose a fight, have them wake up in a warm, cozy bed. Let them wonder what happened.

As for the person who said all Stephen King movies are bad, I resent that. The Green Mile and Shawshank Redemption are awesome movies.

valadil
2009-06-19, 10:06 PM
Two things to note. Keep your players in the dark. Never tell them they're fighting a dire crocodile. Instead, tell them about a dark shapes converging on their row boat, but too deep to see. Even when it does surface and bite, tell them about the scaly skin and hundreds of teeth. Give them enough details that they'll fill in the blanks. But the enemy should largely be unknown. The details that they fill in will be infinitely scarier than what you would have written ahead of time.

Also, I think the horror genre demands that PCs die. If all of them make it out alive, they're only playing a sissified PG-13 version of horror. You don't have to TPK the party. But you do have to show them that they're mortal.

Blackjackg
2009-06-19, 10:07 PM
Two things to note. Keep your players in the dark. Never tell them they're fighting a dire crocodile. Instead, tell them about a dark shapes converging on their row boat, but too deep to see. Even when it does surface and bite, tell them about the scaly skin and hundreds of teeth. Give them enough details that they'll fill in the blanks. But the enemy should largely be unknown. The details that they fill in will be infinitely scarier than what you would have written ahead of time.


That worked a lot better in previous editions that didn't require map grids and minis.

Vortling
2009-06-19, 10:34 PM
One thing that doesn't appear to have been mentioned yet is if you have players in your group who know horror tropes or players who are prone to wise cracking you need to get buy in from them. In short, don't surprise those two types of players with a horror game and heaven help you if you try to surprise a player who's both.
There's a very fine line between horror and comedy and it only takes one player with a good sense of comedic timing to throw your mood off completely.

Llama231
2009-06-19, 11:52 PM
Oh, the group seems to know every horror trope that exists by heart, and can seem to call almost anything before it happens. They are also very prone to making jokes and not taking things seriously, but are willing for me to try to challenge them.

Zeful
2009-06-20, 12:37 AM
That worked a lot better in previous editions that didn't require map grids and minis.

There is no edition of D&D that requires minis more than any other. After all, ranges are listed in feet/meters, or can be aproxamated into feet/meters.

Roupe
2009-06-20, 02:03 AM
In horror, I think one should describe more with uncertainty & hesitance in the descriptions. and avoid giving out conclusions or facts.
example1

"The room is empty. A single drop of blood is trailing down the eastern wall."
Blackjackg
instead its
"The room seems empty. It looks to be blood on the eastern wall, A single drop trailing down."
--
example2
" a hostile skeleton is in the corner of the room"
Instead its
"There are a skeletal remains of a corpse in the corner of this room, and it just moved towards you"

TheCountAlucard
2009-06-20, 03:46 AM
Zombie bees. Zombie bees.

Force them to eat the honey. :smalltongue:

Llama231
2009-06-20, 01:53 PM
There is no edition of D&D that requires minis more than any other. After all, ranges are listed in feet/meters, or can be aproxamated into feet/meters.

What about 4e?

@Roupe: It took me a bit of time to notice the diffence on this first one, but I think it is sufficiently creepier.

Is there any way to avoid undead as well as the other gross things?

Blackjackg
2009-06-20, 04:15 PM
Is there any way to avoid undead as well as the other gross things?

Wow, this should be tricky. Let's see... instead of putting a skeleton in the room... don't put a skeleton in the room. Phew. That was a tough one.

Seriously, though. Heroes of Horror has some great ideas (starting on page 137) for creating horror out of all creature types, not just undead and evil outsiders.

FoE
2009-06-20, 04:47 PM
Is there any way to avoid undead as well as the other gross things?

You're sort of limiting yourself if you "avoid undead as well as the other gross things".

Umm, make a campaign using demons? Evil fey? Aberrant creatures like mind flayers?

AslanCross
2009-06-20, 10:21 PM
The closest I've come to running a horror game is the Eberron adventure Hell's Heart (on the WOTC archives). It's set inside an urbane madhouse in the middle of Sharn (major, soaring towers-type metropolis), against a backdrop of a blizzard mixing with a giant firestorm in the industrial sector that's been spewing noxious black smoke into the air.

The players fought well, but once in a while they made rather rash and panic-induced decisions ("The statue is moving." "MOVING?" "I think it's a gargoyle." "SHOOT IT SHOOT IT SHOOT IT!!!" "You crack open the barely-set plaster. Inside is one of the baron's guards. Your arrow killed him.").

I attribute most of my success in scaring the players and giving them that creepy feeling to the adventure being well-written, but adding background music helped a lot. I used a lot of songs from Diablo. Atmospheric and creepy without laying it on too thick with the organs and faux Latin choruses. :P

As has been mentioned, keeping them in the dark and not attaching names to things is key in horror. After all, all fear can ultimately be traced to what might be.

Undead does not necessarily mean horror. Heck, a horde of zombies tends to become pretty comical now after Shaun of the Dead. :P It's easy to forget that Fey can be pretty scary. You've seen the Gray Jester in Heroes of Horror, OP. Who isn't afraid of clowns? There's also other creepy things like Joystealers.

The Hell's Heart adventure had some undead in it, but they were more accidental than anything. The primary villain was a detective.

Zeful
2009-06-20, 10:39 PM
What about 4e?

There is NO edition of D&D requires miniatures. AT ALL. Thinking so is thinking wrong. You may need miniatures to play 4e, but the game is perfectly playable without them.

Tsotha-lanti
2009-06-20, 10:39 PM
Fey are very scary. They're powerful, capricious, and inhuman. The Shadow Fey or Arak are one of the main groups of gothic horror villains in Ravenloft.

Also, Pratchett's Lord and Ladies is total horror - very tense. The elves are horrible, alien, and unfair. Carpe Jugulum is also amazing - the unfairness is even more pronounced, and you can't conceive of how things could turn out well for anyone... great stuff, and still funny without ruining the horror element.

valadil
2009-06-20, 11:50 PM
That worked a lot better in previous editions that didn't require map grids and minis.

Maybe this game should be set in a system that doesn't need a grid? I think 3e can be played without one, but 4th is so movement centric that it probably wouldn't work.

Instead of a grid he should use a dark room and a flashlight. That won't get old quick.

UserClone
2009-06-21, 01:42 AM
There is NO edition of D&D requires miniatures. AT ALL. Thinking so is thinking wrong. You may need miniatures to play 4e, but the game is perfectly playable without them.

...Have you even read the books? Nothing is measured in feet; just squares. You can't do push, pull, slide, etc. without a grid. Whether you like 4E or not, trying to play it without a grid just seems masochistic at best to me...That's like saying "You don't need shoes to walk over shards of broken glass." Technically not, but I'll opt for the shoes.

Back on topic, seriously check out OGL Horror. It's pimp.

Dagren
2009-06-21, 02:22 AM
Also, Pratchett's Lord and Ladies is total horror - very tense. The elves are horrible, alien, and unfair. Carpe Jugulum is also amazing - the unfairness is even more pronounced, and you can't conceive of how things could turn out well for anyone... great stuff, and still funny without ruining the horror element.I'll second that. You say your players like to crack wise, right? Well in that case, a good idea might be to read some works that are funny, but also can be quite frightening. That way, you might get an idea of how to prevent them from defusing the horror with humour. Good choice of examples, by the way. Those two are great. :smallsmile:

Juggernaut1981
2009-06-21, 09:14 PM
@ Horror without Zombies...

READ H P LOVECRAFT. No zombies in the really trippy and serious stories. Sure there is some "wierd voodoo" in some of them... (I love the whole psycho surgeon one... very good). Also, Hannibal Lector.

The biggest thing about classic horror (and it's most noticeable "children": Old/New World of Darkness and Ravenloft) is that the supernatural exists "just over there out of sight" and the scariest things are often the humans.

The deranged scientist is a classic horror villain (and usually an awesome anti-hero).

An absolute key central element of the whole thing needs to be the element of "What the.....".

Interview with a Vampire (and the classic Dracula stories, maybe not Bram Stoker's) has that moment where you realise that Dracula is a victim of his own anguish and condemned to spread it to others. Frankenstein (and his Monster) are both victims of isolation and loneliness (the Monster just wants to be family, very very easy to feel). There is a long history of "Anti-heroes" in Horror and Drama. For other classic anti-heroes (and how they are formed) Darth Vader people; dude goes evil because he feels he doesn't have the power to protect his wife and kids and a nice big pile of guilt. Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear... Shakespearean Tragedy has anti-heroes laid on thick.

So getting from "Anti-hero" to "Horror Villain" is often a matter of scope. Darth Vader becomes a dictator, but what if instead he needed to eat the flesh of recently dead bodies to survive? Frankenstein's Monster goes about trying to kill Dr Frankenstein's family to force the Dr to accept the monster as his creation and to convince the Dr to make the monster a family. Hannibal Lector... who wants a Horror Villain??

Great Horror Motivations: "I want to be accepted", "If I can't have (insert normal feeling/situation here) then why should anyone else have it?", "My guilt/anguish at (event X which I might have caused) has cursed me to do (insert thing here)". If you feel like you might want it, then it's a good start for a Horror Villain.

Great Horror Methods: Your villain needs to have something truly out there and disturbing as its method of getting what it wants. An ugly individual might try to wear the skin of beautiful people, but the skin rots so they continue killing. A lonely individual (who may be either ugly or beautiful) may go around seeking "friends" but killing anyone who rejects them in a savage and disturbed way (i.e. eating their heart, cutting off their legs, removing their skin, etc). An individual who had loved one die and is searching for a way to bring them back to life without petitioning the gods (who clearly did nothing to save that person)... and has found that eating the brain/heart/etc from living intelligent beings will keep them youthful so they can continue their quest.

Once you've developed your "antihero" or "villain" and you feel confident your players won't read this post, stick the anti-hero/villain up on here and we can help you tweak it further.

Stormthorn
2009-06-21, 11:16 PM
HOLD THE POTATOS!

I mean...everything.

How do i scare my players without Heroes of Horror or OGL Horror or Ravenwhatever?
(Note: I DO have Lords of Madness)

My campaign im working on (Aberrations and Asylums) is planning on starting creepy and getting lighter and then plunging back down once the PCs have though the creepy part was over.
It starts in a pit of magled bodies in some catacombes underneath an old asylum. First dungeon is just getting the hell out of that place.

So the plan was
1: Escape asylum, make friends with Delver and Mimic be feeding them
2: meet comical orcish aristocrat
3: Enter zenophobic but lawful good small town secretly being manipulated by an Aboleth
4: ... (not sure what adventure to have here)
5: Assassins from Asylum
6: Return to asylum and discover strange medical-magical experiments and cult
7: ... (not sure what to do at all from here on out but i want them to infiltrate the cult at some point)
...
...
Endgame: unwittingly release eldritch abomination onto the world and be caught in suspended animation for eternity but destroy the cult that would have turned it into a god.

So as you can see the plot has holes and i dotn have many specifics for how to make things steadily more alien and disturbing.

Mnymosene
2009-06-21, 11:52 PM
What's scared me has been people we were supposed to trust (the Lord's wife, after we're being rewarded for one quest and sent out on another seemed devil-like, our cleric pointed this out when alone with said lord and we were kicked out of town) being people we have to question. Also if they seem to favor a member of the party it can worry people (I got a a gift, which was devilish in nature and boosted stats, I kept it secret for a while, and the party freaked out when they figured out something was off)

Incidentally the Lady was a devil. She was also one of the good guys. Had we followed her instructions, things wouldn't have quickly gotten very bad.
Instead we listened to a demon disguised as a hound archon. No one thought to question it until it was too late. (Hints were dropped that it might not be what it seemed and that magical creature could appear to be other than what they were) If a supposedly good creature were to betray the party, that coudl scare them.

Stormthorn
2009-06-22, 12:49 AM
An evil thing masquarading as good? I like it.

Your also named after a divine being of memory. Good call on the name, Mnymosene.

ondonaflash
2009-06-22, 02:21 AM
I respect that you want to avoid things like undead, etc. but if you want to scare them, you're going to have to get... unsettlingly creative.

"Its dim when you enter the room, you can hear singing, guttural and off key, punctuated by loud screams. As you step into the room something brushes against your face. A low fire burns in the center. As your eyes adjust you start to see more and more of the rooms horrifying features.

In the center, roasting over a fire is a woman, spitted down the center, her skin blackened and charred, her arm out stretched in a desperate final plea from help that never came.

Hanging from the ceiling, dangling from meathooks you see legs, and torsos, dismembered parts, left there to bleed out. With growing horror, you realize that that which had brushed against your face is a human hand. You can just make out a figure at the far end of the room, obese, and dripping with foul sweat.

He turns and you see more of his horrifying features, his eyes bulge grotesquely and his snout is pinched and vile. His mouth is gaping and wide, full of shining, jagged teeth. He smiles and looks at you "Wots all dis den? he drools "More treats com' to play?"

The game relies on words. and if you can't describe a scene so disturbing that it haunts the players, that it chills you to even think of it, then its probably going to fall flat.

And make a point of disabling all of their support structure, any place they found comfort before should be brutally distorted and corrupted when they go back.

Anyone who helped them, be it by keeping watch for a night, or helping them fight off enemies, should either betray them, or get murdered horrifically.

No where is safe, no one can be trusted, anything that comes in contact with them should be torn apart.

UserClone
2009-06-22, 11:53 AM
Violation is a good technique, when used sparingly.

Example: A pile of coins inside of a trapped treasure chest turns out to be a swarm of coin-shaped flesh-eating beetles instead.

It begins raining outside, and everywhere a drop hits, a human eye springs to life. Soon, the ground is covered with bulging, squishy eyeballs, and so will your characters be if they don't run for cover.

The characters are in a field or on a road going towards their next destination, when they run into what seems to be a wall of force. In reality, they've been trapped in a pocket dimension by an otherworldly being as toys for its amusement, and the field is just an illusion designed to trick them.

Also, the old "John Hurt" trick from Alien is a great standby.

Yora
2009-08-26, 01:46 PM
I got a question for all horror-loving gms and other people who might have an idea.

I like the basic idea of taint. You know, with abyss watching and monsters and stuff.
It's a neat idea as something like evil radiation poisoning or something like that.

But I think it would make for an even better storytelling device, if it does not only cause drawbacks, but also offers benefits. A "warlock" who is actually trying to increase his taint makes for a cool villain, but it would be even more cool if the heroes get at least slightly tempted to gain a little bit of taint to become more able to fight evil.
Not much, just one or two points. Completely within safe limits. And they could possibly have most or all of the taint cleansed after the evil monsters are defeated. :smallwink:

Unfortunately, you only get an extra feat when crossing a taint threshold and that feat does not have to be anything taint related at all. Also, there are only some inconveniences resulting from taint until you reach the maximum and die.

So, any gms having some ideas how to make taint a viable weapon to fight taint? (And at the same time being a constant threat to those who try to use it for good goals.)

FoE
2009-08-26, 03:34 PM
So what you're looking for is something a little different than the Willing Deformity (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20051007a&page=4) feats listed in Heroes of Horror? Something that's inescapable and affects both the PCs and the environment around them?

Mordokai
2009-08-26, 03:46 PM
All I can say is, I love all the advice in the topic. Seeing I have intention of running a horror campaign somewhere down the road myself, this thread is a real boon. Keep 'em comin' folks! :smallbiggrin:

Tyrmatt
2009-08-26, 04:09 PM
Challenging expectations is how the horror genre should really play. A great example from the otherwise maligned Doom 3 is the ammo lockers. They have a consistent design, always contain useful ammo and are in safe(ish) areas.

Until one glorious point at the halfway mark where you're low on ammo after fighting 4 Pinkies and enter a well lit room. There's the locker, nice and welcoming. Except you open it and there is a screaming imp inside who JUMPS AT YOUR FACE THROWING FIRE!!!
It's a horrifying change and every ammo point is approached with terrified caution afterwards and there's only one more in the game and it's in a hidden area to boot. You'll have wasted all that adrenaline for nothing. Turn the safe into terrifying and all reason goes out the window.

Oh and one of my personal favourites are the zombie hands and skeletal hands. You swarm the players with them, have them fall from the ceiling and if you're REALLY dedicated, have a friend on hand to suddenly drop their hand onto the player's shoulder or head. Fresh robes needed all round :p

Lysander
2009-08-26, 04:27 PM
Here's the most important way to make a horror story: Don't start it as a horror story.

Start the game off as not scary at all. Give the party challenges they can overcome. Describe how bright and sunny things are, make it genuinely pleasant. Then slowly increase the danger. Horror has to contrast with something to be scary. It's why so many horror movies start with people having fun.

Audious
2009-08-26, 04:41 PM
I've always been a fan of playing non-horror settings and just implementing horror into them. I find it's not very scary if you're playing a setting that everyone knows is a horror setting.

Mordokai
2009-08-26, 06:50 PM
However, anyone interested in horror of any kind absolutely has got to read the collection, Everything's Eventual. 1408 especially freaked the heck out of me, and I read it on a train, full of people, in the middle of the day. Being transported into the mind of someone who's rapidly losing it is very damned scary. 1408 also gives you some wonderful ideas about how to convey growing madness to players - the portraits and the bit about maggots... augh!

Just finished reading this one and I must say... damn, that's some scary... things right there. Gives you the chills pretty much over the entire story.

woodenbandman
2009-08-26, 07:32 PM
Lesson in game rules time:

There are about 100 pages of environment rules that hardly see any use because they make the combat quite complicated. You need to use these rules. The PCs are running through a burning building, the fire catches onto the ladder that goes up to the second floor, while the building is flooded with poisonous gas and fire skeletons. They're knee deep in liquid of questionable nature. There's a thin slick of ichor on the floor. There are objects in the way of their escape. The wind blows hard over a rickety drawbridge with monsters below. Even something as simple as darkness is so often ignored. Works especially well if only one person has darkvision.

Use these rules and use the environment. Have monsters that don't require breath pop out of the swamp (blatantly stolen from half-life), have them trip if they try to run from the monsters that fly/run on the ceiling. Use burrow speeds, swimmers, incorporeal monsters, anything that doesn't follow the rules that PCs do. And drag them into unfamiliar locales. Have them pulled underwater and attacked by scrags. Have them fall underground into darkness where ghouls burrow out and attack them.

A lot of horror comes from the loss of the ability to dictate your actions. The monsters don't have to be all that strong in such a case, because you're underwater and freakin' out.

Raum
2009-08-26, 08:10 PM
Addressing the horror genre and not D&D specifically, there are a few items to keep in mind: Player / character knowledge - As Valadil touched on, complete disclosure isn't scary. Neither is complete ignorance. You need to describe situations, things, and NPCs so the players know there is something there and also know there is something left out...but don't know what that is. Something needs to stand out as both unusual and unknown. Apply this to all descriptions; combat, social, and environmental.
Combat - combat needs to be short. Short and inconclusive is probably the default for games (unless you have a pool of replacement characters) but when the occasion warrants it should be short and brutal. No combat should last long enough for the players / characters to get used to the idea of fighting their opponent...at least not till the climax. (This may be the hardest item to insert in D&D.)
Tension - you need a device to build tension. This could be time limits, a chase, or even just a series of unexpected occurrences which keep them looking for the next...or a variety of other methods.
Atmosphere / environment - pick a theme a apply it to your descriptions. 'Dark and gloomy' is common for horror but a 'bright, cheerful facade hiding terrible evils' works also. Just ensure 'nothing is as it seems' often enough they don't take things at face value...but not so often they become jaded.
Remember, most of horror is about scaring the players - not the characters. Demons from hell are only scary if your descriptions set them up.

Woodsman
2009-08-26, 09:35 PM
As to players memorizing Monster Manuals, add obscure templates onto monsters. "Insectile" from Savage Species is good for horror.

Throw countless red herrings in their direction. Try to have them doubting themselves and each other. Use the Sanity variant a la SRD. Watch Hitchcock films (he's damn good at suspense), as well as Jaws. The shark is pretty frickin' scary until you actually see it.

As for avoiding undead, that shouldn't be too bad.
Abberations areveasy to use. Try Neogi taking slaves from a humanoid village.

Animals are surreal, but effective. When nature itself turns on you, you're done for. The Birds, any one?

Constructs would be tougher. An awakened construct could easily serve as a superhuman antagonist, though. Something akin to Frankenstein's monster.

For dragons, black dragons would be pretty good for this. Something like the aforementioned jaws.

Elementals could work. Belkers and invisible stalkers could do it.

Fey would make good betrayers. Especially "good-aligned" ones.

Giants, well, they's good fer eatin'... humanoids, that is.

Humanoids; hiding in plain sight.

Magical Beasts such as worgs and winter wolves make excellent stalkers and shadows along the edge of the PC's vision.

Monstrous humanoids, especially Yuan-ti, can make good cultists.

Oozes are creepy enough. The Blob, for example.

Outsiders like balors and pit fiends, even a demon prince or Hellish lord would make a good undefeatable antagonist, especially at lower levels.

Plants would be similar to animals, as would vermin (but vermin are creepier).

HoH probably does a better job of other-than-undead, but I think mine are pretty good.

Yora
2009-08-27, 04:26 AM
A lot of horror comes from the loss of the ability to dictate your actions. The monsters don't have to be all that strong in such a case, because you're underwater and freakin' out.

In that case, I would reduce the time for holding your breath to 1 round per Constitution point, which is still 1 minute for average people, and that's the point where you have to start making Fortitude saves.

ScreamingDoom
2009-08-27, 12:23 PM
I remember one campaign were a character received -- as a gift -- a patchwork cloak. He quickly discovered that he could use the cloak to temporarily gain the knowledge, skills, and abilities of any person or animal whose skin was grafted to the cloak. The usage was temporary, though, as the bits of flesh would begin to rot if those skills/abilities were used.

At first, the character only skinned and used animals. But soon he began to skin the (sapient) enemies the party killed. After all, they were already dead... and a critical bit of information or skill could mean the difference between a town being sacked by orcs or saved. Things began to progress further and further -- with the character killing and skinning known evil sapients (who may not be involved with the BBEG's plot), to killing those SUSPECTED of being evil, to finally killing anyone who had useful knowledge or skills. After all, it was for the greater good!

This type of thing can be wonderful for horror, especially if after slowly boiling the frog, you let the player (and the character) see what a monster they've truly become. If you do it right, neither should really be aware just how monstrous they're acting until they're to addicted to the power to stop.

FoE
2009-08-27, 12:39 PM
I remember one campaign were a character received -- as a gift -- a patchwork cloak. He quickly discovered that he could use the cloak to temporarily gain the knowledge, skills, and abilities of any person or animal whose skin was grafted to the cloak. The usage was temporary, though, as the bits of flesh would begin to rot if those skills/abilities were used.

At first, the character only skinned and used animals. But soon he began to skin the (sapient) enemies the party killed. After all, they were already dead... and a critical bit of information or skill could mean the difference between a town being sacked by orcs or saved. Things began to progress further and further -- with the character killing and skinning known evil sapients (who may not be involved with the BBEG's plot), to killing those SUSPECTED of being evil, to finally killing anyone who had useful knowledge or skills. After all, it was for the greater good!

This type of thing can be wonderful for horror, especially if after slowly boiling the frog, you let the player (and the character) see what a monster they've truly become. If you do it right, neither should really be aware just how monstrous they're acting until they're to addicted to the power to stop.

So awesome. :smallbiggrin:

Optimystik
2009-08-27, 01:12 PM
I remember one campaign were a character received -- as a gift -- a patchwork cloak. He quickly discovered that he could use the cloak to temporarily gain the knowledge, skills, and abilities of any person or animal whose skin was grafted to the cloak. The usage was temporary, though, as the bits of flesh would begin to rot if those skills/abilities were used.

At first, the character only skinned and used animals. But soon he began to skin the (sapient) enemies the party killed. After all, they were already dead... and a critical bit of information or skill could mean the difference between a town being sacked by orcs or saved. Things began to progress further and further -- with the character killing and skinning known evil sapients (who may not be involved with the BBEG's plot), to killing those SUSPECTED of being evil, to finally killing anyone who had useful knowledge or skills. After all, it was for the greater good!

This type of thing can be wonderful for horror, especially if after slowly boiling the frog, you let the player (and the character) see what a monster they've truly become. If you do it right, neither should really be aware just how monstrous they're acting until they're to addicted to the power to stop.

Wow. That's just... wow.

(Since OP is running HoH though, that sort of thing would almost certainly invoke Taint rules.)

Yora
2009-08-27, 01:36 PM
I think it would be fun to use Taint, but not explain it to them.
Just tell them at one point, that their bodies start to show signs of some strange corruption and that their characters develop certain weired forms of behavior.

Everything is scarier, if you don't know what's happening to you. :smallamused:

Mordokai
2009-08-27, 01:51 PM
Wow. That's just... wow.

(Since OP is running HoH though, that sort of thing would almost certainly invoke Taint rules.)

That can be amended easily, by saying there's no taint in the campaign. Personally, I found taint more of annoyance than being scary and some effects are damn hard on players. Base speed halved? -2 to WIS an INT and -3 to Will saves? Come on, that will pretty much kill a high level priest, never mind low level fighter. It can have it's uses, but most players will certainly hate you for it. I imagine it would work much better in heavy roleplaying campaign. But I would certainly remove taint from combat heavy game.

And yes, that idea with cloak really is awesome :smallsmile:

Umael
2009-08-27, 01:58 PM
A couple of suggestions - take control away from the players. Either roll all the dice yourself or don't bother rolling the dice at key points.

Not knowing how successful was that Spot check is old news. Not knowing how much damage the monster REALLY took is unsettling. If you role-play out the challenges instead of letting the dice roll, you can add an element of the unknown. This also keeps combat shorter and more descriptive - especially if you are misleading.

If you want to stay away from the undead, try things that resemble the undead, but are not. Flesh and bone golems, for example. To take a page from Dead Space and have the monster be a thing that uses dead bodies as hosts... or just have the monsters play dead.

On the flip side, use undead, but don't have them appear to be undead. For example, if you modifier a ghoul, you can have a new breed of terrifying dogs that paralysis their victims before feeding on them. Worse, the paralysis isn't total... the victim can still whimper as it is being eaten alive...

Also, a lot of people have mentioned taking something familiar and turning it on them.

What about the PCs?

Imagine a game in which they are running from, say, hell hounds. They get to a house and barricade it in. They hear the hell hounds trying to get in... and then they stop. No noise. No sound. Just silence.

And then they find one of the hell hounds inside the house.

After a brief and brutal combat, they wonder how the hell hound got inside.

The answer? One of the PCs must have done it.

Possibly this is all coincidence, maybe the hell hound got through some how... but there is always the chance that one of the PCs is not what he or she seems...

At this point, you as GM have two options - make it just about the paranoia... or make it a justified paranoia. Maybe you did talk to one of the players earlier and he agreed to play a doppelganger for you. Maybe she thought that touching the artifact was a good idea.

Actually, speaking about the doppelganger, here's a thought. Start out normal, like a dungeon crawl. Then have the party split up somehow, or maybe someone goes off alone. The doppelganger jumps and kills that person (you talk to the player privately). When the character/player comes back, it is as the doppelganger, with a convincing story (maybe a sole fight with some treasure). Even better, the doppelganger can make its victim look like it did (switch identities).

When the lights go out and the party is in the dark, talk to each player in private. One of them... gets jumped by the doppelganger (played by the GM this time). When the lights come back on, the party finds the body of the original PC, dead (only it really is the body of the second PC, made by the doppelganger to look exactly like the first PC, while the doppelganger is now looking like the second PC)...

Optimystik
2009-08-27, 02:23 PM
That can be amended easily, by saying there's no taint in the campaign. Personally, I found taint more of annoyance than being scary and some effects are damn hard on players. Base speed halved? -2 to WIS an INT and -3 to Will saves? Come on, that will pretty much kill a high level priest, never mind low level fighter. It can have it's uses, but most players will certainly hate you for it. I imagine it would work much better in heavy roleplaying campaign. But I would certainly remove taint from combat heavy game.

And yes, that idea with cloak really is awesome :smallsmile:

I think the idea of taint should be in any horror campaign, but limiting its effects to cosmetics (similar to Binder's signs) is a nice compromise.

Mordokai
2009-08-27, 02:38 PM
That sounds like a swell idea.

Typewriter
2009-08-27, 02:51 PM
Recently in a campaign my players would experience strange, semi-prophetic dreams, but they wouldn't know it was a dream until they woke up.

I'd describe things a certain way as they were traveling, they arrive, something spooky. Everyones dead, and a humanoid is scratching at the walls in a cell. As a player goes to investigate the cell closes itself and a short combat between the player and the humanoid where the 'creature' does ridiculous amounts of CON damage and kills the PC, and as he fades he looks into the face of his assailant and sees an undead version of himself.

Then that PC wakes up and he is the one who had the dream. When they arrive at their destination nothing is as the dream was, but either becomes that way, or they find that the dream was an interpretation of something else.

It worked really well because they never knew when things were a dream or not, so they had to handle every situation as if it were life or death because if it isn't a dream then it is. Plus everyone gets to participate though only one of them winds up as the dreamer, retroactively making it so that the other players were essentially dream NPCs.

ScreamingDoom
2009-08-27, 03:06 PM
Wow. That's just... wow.

(Since OP is running HoH though, that sort of thing would almost certainly invoke Taint rules.)

I'm not familiar with the Taint rules, myself. I don't think we used anything like that in the campaign. The items we got (everyone in the party got an item like the cloak -- something really useful, but required more and more monsterous things to be done in order to eke out as much power from it as possible) could've been not used or used in less extreme ways. It was the character (and, by extention, the player) who decided to take it to the ultimate conclusion. After all... it's easy to be a saint when the chips aren't down and you don't need every advantage you can get to stop everything you hold dear being destroyed around you.

That's pretty much what made it all the more horrifying. It wasn't like a regular curse that did things to you mechanically. It was something you could, technically, stop using at any time... but you wouldn't get those sorely needed advantages from it. Eventually, it would become a standard tool in the adventurers' tool box and they would be loathe to be without it.

If I recall, another character got a ring that allowed him to become a perfect copy of any humanoid it touched, as long as that humanoid was unconscious. The moment it woke up, the spell broke. At first, it was only used for the obvious -- taking out guards or officers and impersonating them to get past soldiers and into sensitive areas. Then he started drugging his marks, to make sure they remained unconscious throughout the entire operation. Later on, the character began kidnapping and keeping important people under constant sedation at the base. It gave him and the party unprecedented access to information and influence in the main city, but at the same time... kidnapping and imprisonment of innocent people. Maybe not quite as bad as killing and skinning folks, but still...

The Cleric got a rod that allowed unlimited Turn Undead. What was the problem with it? It also attracted the undead to the Cleric and anyone who interacted with her within about a day after last use. Anyone she talked to, shopped from, helped, traveled with, etc would have undead inexorably drawn to them. Towns aided by the Cleric would be overrun with zombies, family members and loved-ones would be stalked by vampires, ghouls would lope around church graveyards she'd been in, and ghosts would haunt churches. The more contact she had with someone, the more "smell" there'd be and the greater number/more powerful undead would come along. Inevitably, trying to get rid of these undead with the rod would just lengthen the time it would take for the smell to go away. The only real option not to harm people would be to become as isolated as possible, cutting the Cleric off even more from assistance...

Another character got the sword Soulreaver, a sword that literally sucked out the souls of creatures it killed. The more it killed, the stronger the sword became, both being easier to hit with and doing more damage. Stop killing with it, and the sword gradually became worse and worse. The rate of improvement was such that you had to kill more and more things in order for it just to remain at the same utility. It made the fighter particularly bloodthristy, as he was constantly needing more souls to keep the sword from losing power.

The party could've stopped using these items at any time (and in case of the Cleric, she did try, but the temptation always proved too much eventually), but to do so felt like tying one hand around your back. The only compulsion was from how useful the items were.

Optimystik
2009-08-27, 03:15 PM
I'm not familiar with the Taint rules, myself.

Here they are in brief. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/taint.htm) Heroes of Horror goes more in depth on them, and the OP has said he is specifically using that book, which is why I brought them up.

Calmar
2009-08-27, 03:35 PM
I've been told there are people who consider roleplay and acting their character's personality their main goal and regard stats and fighting only as a backdrop in the game.

But I've played with some people who view the game primarily in terms of stats. People who think char-optimization is something to use in a regular game and who know all monster stats, feeling cheated when some DM tries something unusual.
Those people view their characters and the threats they face merely as numbers. I don't think they care about any attempt to create any 'atmosphere' of fear and horror.
One 'powergamer' (he wasn't actually that good, but you had to check every rule he used to find the misinterpratations) once ran a Ravenloft game for us. After a quie atmospheric first session he atried to evoke horror purely through horribly powerful monster builds... :smallfrown:

Hijax
2009-08-28, 08:58 AM
I've been told there are people who consider roleplay and acting their character's personality their main goal and regard stats and fighting only as a backdrop in the game.

But I've played with some people who view the game primarily in terms of stats. People who think char-optimization is something to use in a regular game and who know all monster stats, feeling cheated when some DM tries something unusual.
Those people view their characters and the threats they face merely as numbers. I don't think they care about any attempt to create any 'atmosphere' of fear and horror.
One 'powergamer' (he wasn't actually that good, but you had to check every rule he used to find the misinterpratations) once ran a Ravenloft game for us. After a quie atmospheric first session he atried to evoke horror purely through horribly powerful monster builds... :smallfrown:

damn powergamers.

As for my own horror advice, try to mess with what they think they know. play in the campaign setting they know the best. DO NOT play in ravenloft, because they'll know what kind of horror to expect.

Your players know the rules very good? Thats a good thing. Try to havethings resemble stuff they'ref familiar with, but not act like that thing at all. have the hidden threat act totally like the player's favorite monster, until they are so sure it is that that they stop noting that the events provide further proof that it is. Then suddenly do something completely unassosciated with that monster. if your players is dead sure its a vampire, leave a cross and some garlic littered around the body, that sorta thing.

Also, the nothing is scarier Trope is simply the cream of horror.