How to get players to take the game more seriously

[molten_dragon]

I'm currently playing in a horror-themed 3.5 campaign. It's a bit of a departure from our normal campaigns, which tend to be kind goofy, and not too serious. The DM is trying to make this one a little more serious, and even creepy at times, with more serious roleplaying.

It's kind of working, but a couple of the players are having problems with it. They're still playing goofball type characters (one a typical drunken oafish dwarf, the other a bumbling uncharismatic martial artist).

It's really difficult to try and stay serious when they're constantly cracking jokes and doing goofy stuff in-game. Would it be appropriate for the DM to ask them to cut it out and try to play a little more seriously, or is it not okay to ask them to roleplay their characters a certain way.

[marcielle]

You just ask them politely first, if it is nescesary to their fun. But laughter is actually a natural reaction to fear for some people. You could compromise and say they are the type of people who laugh when they are afraid, or are trying to push back the fear with happy thoughts. Or let them make as many jokes as they want in the interims but ask them to be serious when the encounters pop up. Failing that, some application of mood whiplash might be required. Give them what seems to be a victory, with everyone safe and happy, and then take the victory from them a hundred times over. An uppity NPC might also help. Say, their boss is an uber cranky god-wizard who polymorphs them into something without a mouth everytime they make a joke or laugh.

[Terazul]

An uppity NPC might also help. Say, their boss is an uber cranky god-wizard who polymorphs them into something without a mouth everytime they make a joke or laugh.

Just gonna say, don't let your DM do that (or rather, don't suggest it). The only thing it will do is build contempt. We had a General like that in the campaign we were in, always subjecting people to electric shocks for even the slightest bit of acting/speaking out of turn. He was stabbed through the back on the first opportunity. Of course this was kinda planned, since, evil campaign and all, but still. Bad idea.

Just talk to them, with the DM there, about wanting to foster a more serious environment. I find that "horror" games don't really work as well if you don't have an active fear of getting gibbed. Horror needs a sense of urgency, a /reason/ for the characters to be afraid and not go charging into every situation guns/fists blazing; which I wouldn't recommend DnD for, but that's another story. In any case, if all your games before have been rather lighthearted, it's probably going to take a little time for them to break out of that mold. After all, you'd been having fun with it before right? So just everyone have a talk and see what everyone wants to get out of this campaign, and let's be honest, most thrillers/horrors usually have at least one guy cracking jokes to lighten the dearth of doom.

[ThiagoMartell]

Did you talk to the players about this?

[Coidzor]

Limiting distractions, say, by getting everyone to agree to cutting the internet connection on their smartphones/laptops if they need to be able to look up information via PDF or a virtual character sheet.

Perhaps instituting periods of time where anything they say is in character unless the game is at a place where a time out can be called or some kind of emergency dictates the game be postponed or someone run from the table to answer nature's call rather than vomit on the coffee table.

Possibly might consider a limit on the amount of time that each player gets per turn, so that they decide their actions in advance more readily.

[Bulix]

In my opinion you should take advantage of the Horror theme to really shake them up. Not the creepy type, the scary panic type. :smallbiggrin:
You could make them enter a Dungeon or whatever and then be forced to run and hide from these faster savage creatures. You need to make them feel risk.
The "Heroes of Horror" has some great tips about this.

Oh, one more thing, you should never ever punish them for what they do.:smallmad: It can ruin the entire game, the point is basically to have fun. Duh, It's a game. Don't ruin the fun.

Hope this was useful.:smallsmile:

[lsfreak]

Step one would be to talk to the players. Next step would be to set things up so that the situation forces a more serious game.

Depending on how mature the DM and players are, have them come across something where any jokes about it would be firmly in the "dude not funny category." Shock them into seriousness. Extreme violence. Make things personal, something appears for the first few minutes that it's generally a game-over thing. Not an unwinnable fight, but they've already lost, it's just a matter of how long before the bad guys get bored of listening to the bumbling martial artist scream as they peel off strips of skin and forcefeed it to him.

Something disturbing could do it too. I thew players that were generally rather jokey into a Far Realm-ish zone. Just a library, but a room a small hallway took half an hour to go down, extremely detailed descriptions of pseudonatural wolves, as they got deeper everything turned broken-mirror, and looking around could reveal entire parts of the room that hadn't been there before and the monsters within them. They were never more serious than walking through that library.

[Alefiend]

Environment also plays a role. If you can, try playing by candlelight. I was in a Werewolf: Wild West game where this was done. I thought it was hokey at first, but it really did have an effect.

[Ernir]

Have all your monsters proclaim funny people as "particularly delicious", and consistently target the biggest goofs first. Watch how the game suddenly fills with unsmiling dwarves.

No? This is not practical? Okay. :smallfrown:



More serious advice. Horror is mostly a reaction, not something you tell people to do or experience. If you want horror-reactions, you make them face horrifying situations. The goof tends to die out when that happens.
That being said, I've never seen a group maintain their SeriousFace for an entire campaign. D&D is a rather goofy game.

[Arbane]

First step: Ask the players if they want to play a serious, horror-ish game. If they say no, don't bother trying. You can't have horror without caring what happens to the characters, and you cannot force them to care.

If they somehow say 'yes', don't pull any punches. Let the characters goof around when things are light, but when the pressure is on, make it clear that one screwup will get ALL of them killed. If they keep goofing around, KILL EVERYONE.

And their characters, too. :smallwink:

[Hyde]

Spring-Year of Peace 211

The party happens upon a small town, called Hamleton, or Thorpville. They decide to rest and catch their breath, they've had a long journey on their way to the rumored resting place of the relics of MacGuffin, and have yet many more leagues to travel- in fact, Hamlethorptonshireville is the only town where they can resupply before the last leg of their journey.

They get a room at the Inn, where they meet Tadius Grum, the local innkeeper, and his young daughter, Eliza- who helps her father run the business after the untimely passing of her mother a few winters ago.

Eliza is full of stories, the kind her mother used to tell her, about the creatures that live in the nearby Duskmoon woods. Most of her stories start out with "When my mother was searching for x in the woods, she came across a y..." and play out like that.

Emphasize the normalcy of the Halmethorptownshiretonville-ville -shopkeepers call out the the players to sell various trinkets, stablehands offer to take care of their horses (for a small fee, of course)- NPCs bicker over the price of grain. Give them a sense of things happening around them, regardless of whether or not they decide to involve themselves.

Night falls, and the party settles in, eventually drifting off to sleep. Make will saves in secret, and whoever succeeds wakes up to a piercing scream. The air has taken on a chill, and none of the tavern din can be heard from below (well, it's night time, so of course it's colder and everyone's gone home... right?) The party who failed their saves are unable to be located- in fact, everyone is missing from the inn- cobwebs cover everything, the tables in chairs are in disrepair- the food is spoiled and the drinks have soured.

They go outside, and are greeted by more of the same. The roads and houses are overgrown with briar and ivy- it looks like the place hasn't seen travelers in months, if not years. The moon is dark or otherwise obscured- dark clouds hang low in the sky.

A rustling catches their attention, and though they search for it, they cannot locate the source, until it sounds again, this time behind them. They turn, and spot a light that wasn't there before. They make their way to it- a single lamppost in the town square, a feeble candle poorly illuminating but a few feet. A tree stands dead nearby, huge and imposing- with low hanging branches- a willow, maybe? Closer inspection immediately reveals that the willow branches are corpses, many of them recognizable as townspeople- others less so, from the decay.

Invariably, they will look for or otherwise find Eliza's corpse, turning slowly in the slight breeze. They reach up to cut her down, to give her a decent burial- when she reaches for their throat.


Whichever character is attacked in this manner "wakes up" again, in the morning, with Eliza standing over him or her- she's been trying to wake the character from what seems to have been a terrible nightmare. And that's all it was... right up until Tadius sends them to the cellar for a cask to take with them on the road, and they hear a scratching sound from behind a thickly chained door (the room beyond is empty, but you could have the inside of the door scratched up, with a message scrawled in blood and fingernails- all of this is gone when the character attempts to show the party, of course). Or they pass along the market and catch a glimpse of a crow with a human face.

They leave town and set up camp, or otherwise they stay in town to solve the mystery- either way, they end up asleep again- and return to the dark version of Hamletonshirethorpville with another round of saves. This time, the darkness is more intimate- whispers calling the characters' names- the cellar houses a horde of zombies, the human-faced crows attack, all the while pleading for help- their childish voices wracked with sobs even as they bite into the party's exposed flesh.

Eventually, they should find a boss, maybe only catching a glimpse of him the second night, but definitely confronting him on the third (it might be best to have all the characters arbitrarily "awake for this")- if the horror goes on too long, it becomes mundane. This boss has no plot- his involvement with the characters is basic and primal- he merely sees them as food, and as such cannot be reasoned with or talked down. His attacks might cause more pain and status effects than actual damage.

Having slayed the boss, the village returns to its normal state- that of a decaying ruin the creature made home- the townspeople long dead- but not forgotten, existing if only as figments to lure in new prey.


The heroes will feel triumphant and confident that they've broken free of the nightmare and continue on their quest for a few weeks or months, until one session a familiar-looking crow stares at them from outside a window.


The key to good horror is to betray expectations- people make a lot of assumptions in their day-to-day, even if it's the unconscious assumption of "well, I'm pretty sure gravity's going to keep on being a thing, so I don't really need to tie myself down to the ground". Zombie hordes and the like work well in horror where the protagonists are regular humans, but in DnD fighting supernatural dangers is a given, so you have to tend to pull the ground out from under them.

Rule number one is to never used anything published. If the players can look it up, they have a reason or explanation for the things that are happening. If you understand your enemy, it ceases to be a terrifying thing, and becomes merely something to defeat/slay/escape from. If they don't know the creature's limitations- and responds to "wrong answers" lethally, the characters begin to second-guess themselves.

Well, I'm sure this is becoming rapidly incoherent, but I've given people actual nightmares before running horror games, so I'm happy to give pointers.

[hoverfrog]

The whole point of the game is to build a story together. The DM provides the raw materials and the players react to it. If they are reacting with amusement and jokes then they are building a different story to the one that the DM wants to. You can change that but it needs cooperation from DM and players.

In my RL game I'm about to take the players through an asylum that's been taken over by an undead warforged. His rusted and pitted shell is something that should instil a sense of fear. The build up has the lunatics literally running the asylum and I want to show them horrors to foreshadow the big boss at the end. The characters have met and killed this warforged before so he knows them and they know how tough he was in life.

This could easily go wrong if the players think of the lunatics as jokes so I'm planning on using a series of haunts (just flavour encounters) that show life for the inmates in terms that I hope the players will have some sympathy for.

There's nothing wrong with a socially bumbling monk or an oafish dwarf but their reactions to the encounters are what is important. If the dwarf pours ale on the grave of Sir Faramy the Bloody rather than laying his bones to rest with the proper blessing then the dwarf unleashes the horror on himself. Perhaps a curse would be in order for such a slight. If the bumbling monk insults the spirit of Lady Gwendolaw as her shade relays the details of her family's doom then have her transform into a vengeful banshee and slay the monk only to break down in remorse at the horror that she is cursed to perpetuate even in death.

[Wonton]

I dunno, I think that might just be because tabletop games are not suited well to horror. I mean, imagine something like Amnesia... but instead of you playing it and being immersed in it, it's being described to you in words by some guy across a table. Not scary at all. That's my completely uninformed opinion though, I've never tried a horror D&D game.

[Fable Wright]

I dunno, I think that might just be because tabletop games are not suited well to horror. I mean, imagine something like Amnesia... but instead of you playing it and being immersed in it, it's being described to you in words by some guy across a table. Not scary at all. That's my completely uninformed opinion though, I've never tried a horror D&D game.
I disagree with this assessment. It can be really well pulled off, and it allows for creative liberties and descriptions that might not necessarily work in video games. It also has the benefit of being able to react more organically to different situations than games like Amnesia, and it can be tuned on the fly to better match the character/situation, allowing for a lot more creative freedom. Here's one example (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13707560&postcount=6) of a successful tabletop horror game.

[Togo]

The best advice I can give on horror games is that horror works best if it is personal. Talking to someone and not getting a response, because they've just died, is creepy. A room full of bodies is not. A strange and powerful smell caused by a room full of bodies is creepy, but only if you can't find the room.

The other thing is that horror works by tension. You have to build it up, but you also have to release it. Most horror films have commedy in them, and that's because you need low tension moments to balance out the high points. If you just make it all tense all the time, people end up making jokes to relieve the pressure, just as they do when watching a bad horror film.

The get a good game, the players have to work with the DM. Explain what you're trying to do and ask for their advice. Some players will never manage to take horror seriously, even if they try (I have difficulty there).

Also, the candles thing works well. Just make sure people can still read their character sheets, or don't need to consult them. Horrors is not about seeing terrible things, but about knowing there are terrible things that you've not yet seen.

[laeZ1]

First step: Ask the players if they want to play a serious, horror-ish game. If they say no, don't bother trying. You can't have horror without caring what happens to the characters, and you cannot force them to care.

If they somehow say 'yes', don't pull any punches. Let the characters goof around when things are light, but when the pressure is on, make it clear that one screwup will get ALL of them killed. If they keep goofing around, KILL EVERYONE.

And their characters, too. :smallwink:

This exactly.

[ThiagoMartell]

First step: Ask the players if they want to play a serious, horror-ish game. If they say no, don't bother trying. You can't have horror without caring what happens to the characters, and you cannot force them to care.

If they somehow say 'yes', don't pull any punches. Let the characters goof around when things are light, but when the pressure is on, make it clear that one screwup will get ALL of them killed. If they keep goofing around, KILL EVERYONE.

And their characters, too. :smallwink:

This, so much this. Forget what everyone else said. This is the piece of advice you should take from this thread.

[Hyde]

Oh, and it goes without saying that I second the asking bit.

so I said it anyway.

[Daftendirekt]

Here's one example (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13707560&postcount=6) of a successful tabletop horror game.

Did he ever post more of that campaign? That is fantastic.

[Yoven]

I'm having my players in a Silent-hill like setting at the moment.
We're playing by candlelight and i have a little Readinglight for my Dicerolls behind the screen.
Taht really adds to the mood.
Also it's sort of a surreal horror theme where nightmares and reality somewhat overlap... so going to sleep forches nightmares on them in which one wakes up alone, the rest of the party lying slaughtered in front of him.
The "dead" Players of course dont say anything in the sequence whilest the one having the dream has to fight horrendous creatures, just to wake up panting and unrested when he dies in the fight.
If you don't overuse the latter you can cet them pretty scared. Also you can use variants to not make it totally obvious what is real and what a dream
Like Boneclaws and Bonedrinkers Rippping up the Wooden shack they rest in while they try to sleep.
play with creepy sounds with (at most times) no source or reason, then pack in a bunch of monsters when they start to used to it.

Normally we're a pretty fun and joking Group but with the stuff above they we're silent and creeped out.

[Novawurmson]

My advice:

1. Start out the session light-hearted. If your groups are anything like mine, the first 30 minutes to an hour of "game time" are actually "catching up with friends you haven't seen for a week time." Take care of things like purchasing items, clearing up rules misunderstandings from last session, finding a time for your next meeting, scrounging food, etc. Take care of all the OOC things that can be distracting.

2. Move as much silliness as possible to OOC talk; characters doing goofy things in the world should be treated as odd at the very least, worth of punishment or restraint at the worst.

3. Gradually move the party into more serious talk with shocking and disturbing situations and difficult moral quandaries. (There are twelve coffins that are banging about on the floor - 9 of them are ghouls, 3 of them are captive victims; do you put a metal pole through each of them and call it a night or do you take the time and effort to save the victims? / During the middle of a terrible famine, you find a woman on the side of the road eating suspicious meat. After subduing her, you find that she has a number of different dried meats, all of which appear humanoid. Do you punish her for doing what she needed to do to survive? Keep the meat for yourselves?)

4. Try incorporating horror-like aspects into a less horror-focused campaign. Just because minotaur are good at melee doesn't mean you shouldn't run them like a chainsaw murderer chasing the (heavily under-leveled) party through a maze.

5. At least in my experience, running a "dark" or "horror-themed" campaign should be considered a success if about 10% of actual gameplay is horrific and/or frightening. Too much death and mayhem is just tiring after a while. As long as there are a few good chills in each session, keep on keeping on.

Edit: Forgot the most important part: FIND OUT WHAT ACTUALLY SCARES YOUR PLAYERS. Skeletons? Zombies? Eh, my players are fine with them, mostly. Spiders? Absolute meltdowns. I was running what I thought was a fairly horrific session that my players were yawning at...until they found a Huge spider lurking in a barn. Got to double dip when my players left a necromancer alone with it for a while...