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Yora
2013-12-19, 01:08 PM
I am starting a new campaign in a week and there's actually some really freaky stuff going to happen. Armies of demon-possessed corpses, an artifact that mutates people into horrible abominations, a giant tentacled water creature with mind control abilities, undead elven priests who worship horrors from the beginning of time, and things like that.

But looking at it objectively, it's zombies with armor, an aboleth, and a McGuffin that has no real function. And that's the problem: I think everything really lies in the presentation.
With this game I am in the fortunate position that only two of the players ever played RPGs before, and only one of the others is as much into darker video games and anime as I do. So they hopefully won't regard things as standard fare for a group of adventuring PCs.
But I'd like to make the most of this campaign and I feel my primary shortcoming as a GM is in bland descriptions. How can I make things appear exceptional and mysterious and the adventures more than just hunting reskinned bandits and orcs?

Logic
2013-12-19, 01:19 PM
The first time the players encounter anything new, make sure it is not the bland description. You can get away with a monster name on subsequent encounters, but add a thing now and then or remind them they are hunting the "tentacled" Yaga Mora Aboleth (or something similar.

If descriptions are your biggest shortcoming, read a little H. P. Lovecraft before writing your modules. Make index cards for encounter prompts that remind you to hit a few key points when re-introducing a monster to the players. And those first-time reveals? Double check Lords of Madness for descriptions and blocks of text to spice up your prepared stuff. You don't have to have it memorized, you could have a "script" for points along the adventure.

Oracle_Hunter
2013-12-19, 02:45 PM
Descriptions are iffy. Some people (aural learners) are rapt with attention as you pile on the purple prose. Other people gloss over it until they can do something again.

So, ideally, you need to figure out how each of your Players "absorbs" information best, and trigger there. Playing some creepy music whenever the BBEG is about to show up (and some false scares) can work wonders on people who are really musically linked.

A more rough-and-ready approach is to make the "weird stuff" be things that the Players interact directly with. So don't have zombies just appear; have NPCs that the PCs have either just killed or seen die arise spontaneously. Have "active" abominations that the Players interact with -- walls made of living flesh that tries to suck in the unwary, for example.

Red Fel
2013-12-19, 02:57 PM
I am starting a new campaign in a week and there's actually some really freaky stuff going to happen. Armies of demon-possessed corpses, an artifact that mutates people into horrible abominations, a giant tentacled water creature with mind control abilities, undead elven priests who worship horrors from the beginning of time, and things like that.

But looking at it objectively, it's zombies with armor, an aboleth, and a McGuffin that has no real function. And that's the problem: I think everything really lies in the presentation.
With this game I am in the fortunate position that only two of the players ever played RPGs before, and only one of the others is as much into darker video games and anime as I do. So they hopefully won't regard things as standard fare for a group of adventuring PCs.
But I'd like to make the most of this campaign and I feel my primary shortcoming as a GM is in bland descriptions. How can I make things appear exceptional and mysterious and the adventures more than just hunting reskinned bandits and orcs?

The best descriptive policy has always been "Show, don't tell." Unfortunately, in this medium, the two are one and the same.

So start with sensory inputs. Control the tone and inflection of your voice. Here is an example.

The air seems to grow chill around you. The tiny hairs on your arms seem to stand up on end, and goosebumps crawl up and down your limbs. A faint smell of something burning seems to fill the air, and you can hear a soft humming, although you can't pinpoint its source. Out of your peripheral vision, you notice the faintest traces of movement.

Let them roll. There's nothing there - it's not an illusion or anything, just overactive nerves. But they don't know that. So no matter how they roll, they won't spot anything.

From the brush in front of you, you hear a soft moan. The dying leaves part, and a pair of dull yellow eyes glower out at you. A shambling figure emerges, its pustule-ridden flesh cracked and bloodied, its dangling maw salivating. Its empty eyes fixate on you...

That's just a sample. Notice how I set the atmosphere with descriptions. I used sensory images - the chill of the air, the goosebumps, the sounds, smells and sights. Note that I also used creepy words - goosebumps "crawling" up and down, for instance.

And at this point, the monster I spring upon them could be anything. It could be an exceptionally ugly kobold with a hangover. But if I do it right, they're convinced it must be more, must be something truly horrifying.

See what I mean?

As an aside, there was an excellent thread on horror campaigns (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=307779). Many of the same rules apply. Detailed descriptions, ambiance, and misdirection. Players can get used to facing any kind of monster, and very little will frighten them. But rob them of that feeling of being super-powered, by presenting them with situations where their powers don't help them, and you can create real fear, real terror.

AMFV
2013-12-19, 02:58 PM
The thing to remember for Lovecraftian horrors like the aboleth, is that your players can imagine things that are much scarier than what you could describe. Lovecraft uses that pretty extensively, in fact he spends more time not describing things or explaining how they are indescribable than he actually does describing them.

jedipotter
2013-12-19, 03:29 PM
But I'd like to make the most of this campaign and I feel my primary shortcoming as a GM is in bland descriptions. How can I make things appear exceptional and mysterious and the adventures more than just hunting reskinned bandits and orcs?

It can always help to get some real world experience. For things like an aboleth, fishing works great. Or even just flipping over a rock . Go pull a crayfish out of a stream and try and pay attention to the sight, sounds, smells and feels. Write them down if you need too. Then when you need to describe an aboleth, use that.

And people do just love horror. Go to any store (even better a video store) and you won't have any problem finding tons of horror movies. Even better you can find tons of cheap horror movies. A K-mart near you(assuming you live around K-marts) has a discount DVD bin with lots of ''B" horror movie multi packs for only like $3.99. Watch them and just copy.

Yora
2013-12-19, 03:32 PM
Thinking of an aboleth, acurately describing their appearance with their canonical details would probably turn out taking way too long anyway. Condensing it to the essential basics would probably be a good idea.
"A giant catfish with three large red eyes and four tentacles coming from the water" should be good enough. Probably better than heaping up more and more details that the players have to assemble in their heads, all in the middle of what is supposed to be a high adrenaline battle.

Personally, I wouldn't use any names for creatures and effects until the PCs have had that term explained to them by an NPC or read in a book. If it has a name, it's clearly defined somewhere. And when something is defined, it follows clear rules, and it's just a matter of learning the rules to find out to defeat it relatively safely.
But as long as it us just a "Thing", nobody really knows how to react to it. And not knowing what actions will safe you or doom you is all that fear is about.

AMFV
2013-12-19, 03:32 PM
It can always help to get some real world experience. For things like an aboleth, fishing works great. Or even just flipping over a rock . Go pull a crayfish out of a stream and try and pay attention to the sight, sounds, smells and feels. Write them down if you need too. Then when you need to describe an aboleth, use that.

And people do just love horror. Go to any store (even better a video store) and you won't have any problem finding tons of horror movies. Even better you can find tons of cheap horror movies. A K-mart near you(assuming you live around K-marts) has a discount DVD bin with lots of ''B" horror movie multi packs for only like $3.99. Watch them and just copy.

Except that B-Horror isn't scary at all really, it's mildly gross sometimes, but not really frightening. Again the scariest thing is your own imagination, that's why Lovecraft is actually scary, because he doesn't describe things all the way, he lets you fill in the gaps with what you imagine, which is worse than what he could describe.

While I love B-Horror Movies, Invasion of the Bee Girls, or Bordello of Blood, or Werewolf in A Girl's Dormitory aren't really going to frighten anybody, they're more likely to cause a humorous reaction than a fearful one.

jedipotter
2013-12-19, 04:23 PM
While I love B-Horror Movies, Invasion of the Bee Girls, or Bordello of Blood, or Werewolf in A Girl's Dormitory aren't really going to frighten anybody, they're more likely to cause a humorous reaction than a fearful one.


True. Though even most 'A' level horror is quite tame. But it is what we got. You can't use real, real horror as you might scare the player for real. And you don't want to do that. You can easily say the wrong thing and ''go too far''. Things so ''far'' we can't even describe them here as they are against the rules.

There are the ''Other'' B horror movies, not the silly ones. The ''serious ones''. They are (mostly) not too funny and often can be quite scary. And a handful of X-Files shows are very scary, and even a couple Doctor Who's like ''Don't Blink''.

AMFV
2013-12-19, 04:24 PM
True. Though even most 'A' level horror is quite tame. But it is what we got. You can't use real, real horror as you might scare the player for real. And you don't want to do that. You can easily say the wrong thing and ''go too far''. Things so ''far'' we can't even describe them here as they are against the rules.

There are the ''Other'' B horror movies, not the silly ones. The ''serious ones''. They are (mostly) not too funny and often can be quite scary. And a handful of X-Files shows are very scary, and even a couple Doctor Who's like ''Don't Blink''.

True although those are also more scary for what they don't show. "Blink" is frightening because of the suspense and tension it creates by having you not know much about what's going on. You don't understand the monsters or their motivations, and that's frightening. Aboleths are very scary in this way since they have completely alien motivations.

BWR
2013-12-19, 04:58 PM
Brush up on your Lovecraft and the rest of the Mythos writers. Howard did some excellent stories, much better than his big barbarian stories. Clark Ashton Smith is another excellent writer. If you need practical hints, pick up a copy of a CoC game and some of the recommended adventures and see how they handle things.

Lots of horror games, like Ravenloft in several editions, will give hints on how to create an atmosphere. In short:
1. the room. Try to have it somewhat dimly lit. Not so dark you have trouble reading the sheets (even if our Ravenloft and V:tM sessions were done by candlelight and awesome, it's not for everyone), but enough that you can focus on the table and not the room. Try to avoid having a lot noise. Background music can help, but go for something quiet and unobtrusive. If all goes well, you will pretty soon forget about the music.

2. The players. Try to get all unnecessary banter and jokes out of the way beforehand. Nothing kills horror faster than a joke, and it's important that the other players are aware of this and don't ruin things.

3. Your acting skills. While not all of us are stage actors, a DM who is vivid and engaging not only in his prose but also in the delivery will help sell the entire game. Don't be afraid to add alittle depth and feeling to the game. I don't know how much you personally do, but ime a DM who isn't afraid to make a fool of himself will do a better job than one who is.

4. Description. Explain the sights, sounds smells and the sheer wrongess of the thing on the slab, preserved flesh stitched together, the unevenness of parts and how they don't fit together quite right despite the care taken to find the same size pieces, the twitching of once-dead muscles as unnatural energy quickens it, the jerky but inhumanly fast movements as it rises and sets its insentient, mismatched eyes on you. Some unholy mockery of life, animated by dark magics and foul corpses.

Much better than "Roll Knowledge (arcana). Ok, you see a flesh golem."
This was how a friend of mine sent PCs packing, one of them inadvertantly committing suicide in an attempt to escape an encounter they probably could have beaten had they stopped to think about it.

Slipperychicken
2013-12-19, 05:47 PM
The best descriptive policy has always been "Show, don't tell." Unfortunately, in this medium, the two are one and the same.

The difference between "show" and "tell" is maintained in the TTRPG medium.

If you've ever had a GM who said "the monster is frightening", "the knight is good at fighting", or "the king is the epitome of goodness" and left it at that, that's "tell". He's simply dictating what you're supposed to think about it. If the GM uses in-character descriptions, dialogue, actions, and narrations in an attempt to evoke these ideas without saying them explicitly, that's "show". Obviously these ideas apply to players, too. Like if I say "my ranger is just and fair" without demonstrating that idea, that's also "tell".

Icewraith
2013-12-19, 05:56 PM
Use the first set of descriptions you wrote instead of the second set, for a start.

Also... if they're demon posessed corpses, make them Fiendish Zombies with armor or similar.

Finally, you know what's scary to your players? Stuff that can kill their characters if they don't play well. Stuff that inflicts nasty status conditions, especially nauseate. Stuff that turns invisible, or they have trouble damaging.

Make up a "champion" version of your demon posessed corpse and a "mook" version with weaker to-hit, HP, and damage output, but the same combat tricks and weaknesses. Hit them with the "champion" version first, then have roaming squads of mooks or add them as filler for other encounters- your players will go "oh crap, we have to fight four of those things? One nearly killed us!" Try not to chuckle.

Edit: You may want a "middle" toughness version, for when your players catch on to the mooks.

ReaderAt2046
2013-12-19, 06:23 PM
The best way to impose horror on D&D players is to do something that breaks the rules. For example, have them fight a bunch of zombies, but with the twist that the zombies are indestructible until the PCs find and smash the McGuffin Of Evilness, but don't tell them this. Just describe the zombies "healing" from whatever the PCs do to them, taking hit after hit without even flinching, etc. Or have them attacked by some befanged horror which can harm them, but their weapons just pass through it (actually an illusion from your aboleth). Or have them enter areas where magic doesn't work straight, and when they try to cast one spell they get the effect of a completely different one (but have this affect enemy magic as well).

You get the idea. Give them challenges that aren't actually impossible, but that they don't understand. Make them distrust the rules themselves, have them worrying about whether their Cure spell will cure someone or set them on fire.

Slipperychicken
2013-12-19, 07:16 PM
do something that breaks the rules. [...]

but don't tell them this.


This is an excellent way to lose your players' trust and make them want to leave your game.




Make them distrust the rules themselves

I don't know about your players, but I know the rules. I just distrust the GM when he pulls crap like that.

2E Phoinex
2013-12-19, 11:36 PM
The best way to impose horror on D&D players is to do something that breaks the rules.

I had a lot of fun with this once. A big bad skeleton that would keep putting itself back together. They had to break a curse before he would leave them alone, it really helped create the tension I was looking for.


I just distrust the GM when he pulls crap like that.

I will agree that one must be careful when doing stuff like this so as to not alienate the players but I didn't really consider ReaderAt2046's description to be TRUE rule breaking. More like making a puzzle out of the monsters. It adds a little twist no? Certainly having invincible monsters around every corner and never being able to count on your understanding of the rules would be frustrating, but used carefully and tastefully in an important scene it could wake the players up, make them stop going through the motions, and get excited about a new type of encounter.

Such was my experience at least but then I don't think I'll play that little trick again any time soon.

Red Fel
2013-12-19, 11:36 PM
You get the idea. Give them challenges that aren't actually impossible, but that they don't understand. Make them distrust the rules themselves, have them worrying about whether their Cure spell will cure someone or set them on fire.


This is an excellent way to lose your players' trust and make them want to leave your game.

I don't know about your players, but I know the rules. I just distrust the GM when he pulls crap like that.

Agree in part, disagree in part.

Make things that are legitimate, but use them in creative ways. Making your players mistrust their own powers is an excellent component of horror, because it makes them feel vulnerable. However, tweaking the rules is one thing; outright cheating on them is another.

One trick I have is to stack mundane coincidences upon one another. Shutters rattling in a sudden wind, candles flickering in the hallways, the sounds of creaking floorboards - they're all perfectly mundane, explicable things. But keep piling them on, and the players begin to suspect something is up, whether it is or isn't. Best of all, they can't stop it. Spells don't do anything to stop the candlelight from flickering, and you can't stab the wind with your sword.

Create suspicious circumstances. People whispering behind closed doors, then stopping when discovered. People sneaking away from the rest of the group. Unusual looking pieces of furniture or gothic architecture. Hidden passages and sudden chills. Again, any one of these things might have an innocent explanation, but they add up to a sense of menace you can't fight.

Now, creating a special type of zombie you can only kill with the MacGuffin of X, and not dropping any hints? That's dirty pool - any puzzle should have at least three solutions, with the possibility of the players finding more. Using monsters that can hurt the players but that they can't hurt? That's cheap and smacks of railroading. But you can create horror even with regular encounters. The trick is to do it in such a way that, to your players, combat is the last option. Any encounter that becomes a combat encounter becomes mundane. Anything you can fight you can kill. But if it's not a combat encounter, the dynamic changes. The stakes are just as high, but the PCs - who are generally designed around combat - are suddenly less potent, more vulnerable.

That's where you get them.

Slipperychicken
2013-12-20, 12:20 AM
used carefully and tastefully in an important scene it could wake the players up

In my experience, GMs who tried to use obvious rule-breakage to "shake things up" would try things like "oh yeah this creature's Dominate effect ignores Mind Blank", or "a pack of wolves jumped 35ft in the air and killed your Phantom Steed without rolling. You fall to the ground", or "they cast a spell and you find yourself in a pocket dimension, no save, no SR". That kind of nonsense isn't scary to me: it's just some uncreative power-tripping nerd trying to establish dominance in a roleplaying game.

I really don't think that a GM needs to break rules to make encounters which are interesting, challenging, or scary. Plenty of official creatures and environments can be quite nerve-wracking in a real game. Like last session, the (level 2-3) party was fighting an animated metal statue, and could barely hurt it because it had Hardness 10. That thing was like the goddamn terminator against such an unoptimized party.

Of course, in my opinion GMs should be allowed some degree of leeway with the rules. Like if he wants to make a custom macguffin artifact, or if he wants to port over his favorite monster from Magic: The Gathering, that's cool as long as he does it fairly and without trampling the rules system's base assumptions too much (i.e. unpleasant effects give a reasonable saving throw DC, magic-immunity is too strong for an item, etc.). But making an encounter where you need to read the GM's mind to win (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoonLogicPuzzle) is practically cheating and simply isn't acceptable to me.

Honest Tiefling
2013-12-20, 12:26 AM
Don't just rip off Lovecraft. I am speaking as a player, but you need more then just fancy imagery. You need to mess around with the minds of the players. Unfortunately, this works best if they are emotionally (or otherwise) connected to their characters.

Mystery works well, not just in appearance, but goals, motivations. Make them seem to have some sort of goal, but the how or why not evident, at least, until the last moment.

Oh, and roll your dice randomly. Always good for a laugh.

2E Phoinex
2013-12-20, 02:45 AM
That kind of nonsense isn't scary to me: it's just some uncreative power-tripping nerd trying to establish dominance in a roleplaying game.


Perhaps I read the original rule breaking post differently. In my mind it was more of a "break the 'rules', like the clichés and 'normal' things players assume they can always count on" issue but now I can see that may have been a little off. In my reforming skeleton example he was not truly a threat to their survival or an attempt to dominate; he was more of a potentially hazardous road block. Players were able to escape him without too much difficulty, but getting past him was nearly impossible until they wised up, back tracked a bit and studied some of the ancient texts in the tomb which detailed the curse that kept putting him back together. Dealing with the curse proved to be a fun little puzzle.

This army of Demon possessed zombies should be more than normal zombies with more hit points and the ability to speak Latin backwards. Players assume Zombies always loose initiative? Maybe you could make these zombies fast. Players assume Zombies have weakness to fire? Maybe these guys belch flames. Just a little something to challenge the players, when a person understands something easily It is hard to be afraid of it. It's those things which challenge our preconceptions or violate our beliefs that send chills down our spines.

to go with the other example: An army of invincible Zombies is not to be treated as an enemy - rather as an event like a natural disaster until their weakness is found and exploited. A true confrontation between the players and invincible zombies is sadistic cheating by the DM, but the victories of the undead marauders could serve as a device to create tension and sense of urgency as the players quest to find the McGuffin and close shut the jaws of oblivi- I mean... stop the zombies.

Yora
2013-12-20, 09:27 AM
It's not breaking the rules. It's amending the rules in ways the players are not aware of. :smallcool:

The important part is that if X results in Y, than X has to always result in Y. You can't have things work one way in one situation, but work in a different way in another situation.

BWR
2013-12-20, 09:33 AM
Of course you can.
"A wizard did it".
Fluctuations in the time-space continuinuinuum, wibbly-wobbly planar alignments and flanges ready to spuul.

Just make sure not to do it too often.

CombatOwl
2013-12-20, 09:42 AM
I am starting a new campaign in a week and there's actually some really freaky stuff going to happen. Armies of demon-possessed corpses, an artifact that mutates people into horrible abominations, a giant tentacled water creature with mind control abilities, undead elven priests who worship horrors from the beginning of time, and things like that.

But looking at it objectively, it's zombies with armor, an aboleth, and a McGuffin that has no real function. And that's the problem: I think everything really lies in the presentation.
With this game I am in the fortunate position that only two of the players ever played RPGs before, and only one of the others is as much into darker video games and anime as I do. So they hopefully won't regard things as standard fare for a group of adventuring PCs.
But I'd like to make the most of this campaign and I feel my primary shortcoming as a GM is in bland descriptions. How can I make things appear exceptional and mysterious and the adventures more than just hunting reskinned bandits and orcs?

Don't ever name anything. Never tell the players what knowledge check to make (and don't let them just keep testing knowledges). Crank up perception DCs by 5 in conditions of normal light, and 10 in conditions of dim light. use more smell and feel than you usually do for descriptions, and sounds. Don't play in a well lit room (keep the lights low, use a flashlight for character sheets). Even better if you keep the room with minimal background noise.

If you can get people to turn off their phones, tablets, and laptops, that helps too. Horror games by their nature should not have distractions at the table. It's definitely a genre that requires pencils, paper, and dice--and nothing else. Not even calculators. If people make a math error, that's just how it works out.

Don't let people argue about rules (your call is final, debate after the game), don't be afraid to use new things they've never seen before. Don't be afraid to kill players. Tell everyone that they might want to have backups in their bag. Don't give people a ton of time to build characters either--d&d is already a really bad system for horror, it gets even worse if you let people optimize.

On that same note, horror as a genre thrives when the victims (PCs) are weaker than whatever they're encountering. D&D as a system does not support this at all, and isn't even remotely designed to facilitate that sort of play. It's just not deadly enough.

Red Fel
2013-12-20, 09:45 AM
Don't just rip off Lovecraft. I am speaking as a player, but you need more then just fancy imagery. You need to mess around with the minds of the players. Unfortunately, this works best if they are emotionally (or otherwise) connected to their characters.

Mystery works well, not just in appearance, but goals, motivations. Make them seem to have some sort of goal, but the how or why not evident, at least, until the last moment.

Oh, and roll your dice randomly. Always good for a laugh.

This, in so many ways.

I love Lovecraft's work. The man developed an artform for making the reader feel the absolute futility of being an insect in the greater universe, of being lower than a plaything for beings far beyond our comprehension.

But that's Lovecraft. And while his stories are magnificent, it's the sort of device you can only really use once in a game. Once everything is alien, and awe-inspiring, and terrifyingly beyond our ability to comprehend or oppose, the game ceases to be fun, because there is nothing more we can do about it. Once the players give in to a sense of futility, they'll stop struggling; they'll tune out. And that's the Bad Ending.

Also, there is already a Lovecraft game. Play Call of Cthulhu. Enjoy it.

Back on point, for horror to truly disturb and unsettle, it needs to have a human element. Something we can understand enough to be disgusted by it. Lovecraft's monstrosities, while awesome, are too alien to understand. If you want to frighten your players, don't just have an unspeakable phantasm fading absentmindedly through our reality and devouring colors and dreams as it passes, babbling idiotically as it does so. Make enemies with human hopes, dreams, ambitions and plans. Then just execute those plans in such a way as to disturb and frighten.

And I second the random dice rolling. Few things will make players more paranoid than the DM randomly rolling dice. Except, perhaps, randomly asking the players to roll dice.

valadil
2013-12-20, 09:50 AM
The problem with zombies and aboleths is that they are known to the players. If they bested those foes three campaigns ago, it's tedious and difficult to get emotionally involved in them again.

I also think you need to show the players things that are wrong. Monsters are part of the world they live in. Show them stuff that breaks the world, even worse than your average wizard.

Here's an example. I have no idea why but I started drawing a picture of a bird with lobster claws. Everyone who saw it reacted in disgust. My wife hides the picture whenever she finds it. I don't think it's because the idea of getting pinched from above is all that scary (I mean, most large birds can claw you good with or without lobster claws) but because it's wrong. Crustaceans are heavy little sea tanks. Birds are the opposite. They'd be too heavy to fly if not for their hollow bones. I hate to sound like a prententious artsy type, but I think that particular juxtaposition disgusts people because their gut instinct says that animal is wrong and it should not exist in nature. IMO, that gut reaction is what you need to aim for.

SiuiS
2013-12-20, 10:45 AM
I am starting a new campaign in a week and there's actually some really freaky stuff going to happen. Armies of demon-possessed corpses, an artifact that mutates people into horrible abominations, a giant tentacled water creature with mind control abilities, undead elven priests who worship horrors from the beginning of time, and things like that.

But looking at it objectively, it's zombies with armor, an aboleth, and a McGuffin that has no real function. And that's the problem: I think everything really lies in the presentation.
With this game I am in the fortunate position that only two of the players ever played RPGs before, and only one of the others is as much into darker video games and anime as I do. So they hopefully won't regard things as standard fare for a group of adventuring PCs.
But I'd like to make the most of this campaign and I feel my primary shortcoming as a GM is in bland descriptions. How can I make things appear exceptional and mysterious and the adventures more than just hunting reskinned bandits and orcs?

Draw out descriptions into encounters.


I remember a dungeon somewhere that's basically a bunch of stone blocks in a path with ankle deep water, and an aboleth that swims around the blocks, silently. It's tentacles pop up anywhere, and it's freaky.

Play to that. Evoke emotions in people. Ever thought about swimming in a dark lake, unaware of what might be below in the unfathomable depths? Ever wonder if a scaled, hooked monstrosity cling to the other side of a mirror, just out of sight, waiting to crawl through? Ever fear that you'd wipe the steam from your bathroom mirror to see a monster behind you in the reflection? Try to trigger these visceral 'what if' ghost story moments in them.


Also! Something I've always wanted to do, but that hasn't been feasible until nowadays. Get several small, cheap, Bluetooth speakers. Tape them to the back of each players' chair. Prepare before hand some sound bites and loops. When you need drama, maybe two of the players feel this weird thrumming – a heart beat. In their chair. When the cleric enters the crypt, he hears whispers and the scuttling of spiders. Find people, pay them, and have them record from scripts in a quiet room. Have one person recite a loveceaftian poem in a whisper. Have another breathily read scripture like they were being seductive. Add, some point in the middle or near the end of a long loop, a piercing shriek.

Have each set of speakers (each chair) play these differently. Set up up so they play quietly, so quietly that any player will be unable to hear another player's chair.

For added effect, but an iPhone. One of the default vibrations is a heartbeat. Set up your table so it has a secret pocket underneath that can hold the phone. Set an alarm, and when the party is about to be attacked?

Thum-thump.



Thum-thump.



Thum-thump.


Thum-thump.

Thum-thump.
Thum-thump.
Thum-thump.
Thum-thump.

BWR
2013-12-20, 11:11 AM
On that same note, horror as a genre thrives when the victims (PCs) are weaker than whatever they're encountering. D&D as a system does not support this at all, and isn't even remotely designed to facilitate that sort of play. It's just not deadly enough.

er, what?
RL and D&D are not based on the assumption that you will fail, certainly, but it's very possible to have more powerful opponents. Send a balor against level 1 PCs and see what happens.
Every DM and player I know who has run a successful RL game would argue it is perfectly possible to run horror games with the PCs as the struggling protagonists in D&D. Yes, the final object is to succeed, but the amount of tension and fear and horror that can be stuffed in there prior to this can be the same as any other game.

Red Fel
2013-12-20, 12:48 PM
er, what?
RL and D&D are not based on the assumption that you will fail, certainly, but it's very possible to have more powerful opponents. Send a balor against level 1 PCs and see what happens.
Every DM and player I know who has run a successful RL game would argue it is perfectly possible to run horror games with the PCs as the struggling protagonists in D&D. Yes, the final object is to succeed, but the amount of tension and fear and horror that can be stuffed in there prior to this can be the same as any other game.

I think that Owl's point was that D&D isn't designed around making the players feel powerless. I agree. D&D is primarily a combat-oriented system. Yes, it can be used in other ways, such as social, diplomatic, skill-based or other RP-heavy campaigns. But at the end of the day, character classes are built around combat aptitudes - around having the power to deal with threats.

A capable spellcaster - even a well-built skillmonkey - can bypass a lot of scenarios. A murder mystery is no mystery if you can Speak with Dead. Getting the guilty to confess is easy with Diplomancy. There are spells and skills for just about every possible scenario. D&D is not well-built to make players feel powerless; it's designed to make them feel powerful.

Will they face stronger opponents? Of course. That's the function of the (admittedly broken) CR system. You want your players fighting bigger and badder things. But a player can feel powerful even while facing an Ancient Red Dragon.

The goal of horror is to make them feel that all of their strength, their powers, their skills and their wealth, none of it will help them. And that's a challenge in D&D. Not impossible, just a challenge.

Yora
2013-12-20, 02:00 PM
I remember a dungeon somewhere that's basically a bunch of stone blocks in a path with ankle deep water, and an aboleth that swims around the blocks, silently. It's tentacles pop up anywhere, and it's freaky.
It's my favorite picture from Dungeon magazine. :smallbiggrin:

http://1-media-cdn.foolz.us/ffuuka/board/tg/image/1333/50/1333508200305.jpg

The problem with zombies and aboleths is that they are known to the players. If they bested those foes three campaigns ago, it's tedious and difficult to get emotionally involved in them again.
I think the important part is to have the creatures act in ways that make them threatening and put the PCs on edge. Much to often zombies and skeletons are treated identical to orcs or human bandits, who simply walk up to the PCs and use their weapons to attack.
"You enter the room, there are three zombies coming towards you" won't impress anyone. Have the blody corpse of a maid raise from the ground and attempt to bite one of the PCs in the neck. Or have a group of zombies bang against a door and hands come reaching through as holes start to appear. In game terms, mechanically nothing is happening at all. But it reminds the PCs that this isn't just some generic enemy approaching to striking distance, but butchered corpses rising from their graves to eat the PCs alive.

So here we have a very well drawn and detailed zombie with all the disgusting bits coming of, but this is really just a non-threatening 1st level enemy.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_gallery/MM35_PG265.jpg
This picture is much simpler in style almost without any detail, but they seem a lot more like they could be a serious problem.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zkH9fYLpjpM/T2itf9VXhAI/AAAAAAAAAO0/mPLD-UCEbTM/s1600/ZOMBIES.jpg

CombatOwl
2013-12-20, 04:12 PM
er, what?
RL and D&D are not based on the assumption that you will fail, certainly, but it's very possible to have more powerful opponents. Send a balor against level 1 PCs and see what happens.

It's not a game at that point. The system is not providing support for gameplay at that point. The level 1s can do nothing against that balor, true, but they also aren't getting to play anything. What's the point in having the system? Might as well just let everyone declare what they want to do and flip a coin to see if it works.

D&D, as a system, does not support play where characters are made to feel powerless. All it becomes is a matter of bug squishing.


Every DM and player I know who has run a successful RL game would argue it is perfectly possible to run horror games with the PCs as the struggling protagonists in D&D.

As much as Ravenloft tries to be horror, it is actually just gothic fantasy. It's virtually impossible to build actual suspense in a Ravenloft game--suspense that is far easier to build in systems where characters are more frail. When your character can make any save and has upward of a hundred and fifty hit points, building up any kind of suspense is very difficult at best.

Ravenloft is actually a prime example of why D&D doesn't do horror well. 2nd edition worked somewhat better, if only because the characters weren't nearly so superhuman. There are relatively few systems that do horror well, primarily because you basically have to start with the assumption that the players cannot reasonably win a direct encounter against their terror. This is utterly different from the basic presumption of essentially every other roleplaying genre.

If anything, an ideal horror system would render the characters increasingly less capable of confronting their terror as they advance through the game. D&D just means that people improve and improve to the point where nothing is a challenge and therefore nothing should cause fear.


Yes, the final object is to succeed, but the amount of tension and fear and horror that can be stuffed in there prior to this can be the same as any other game.

But it is, in fact, worse than telling the story with no system at all. It actually hinders the genre. Even with Ravenloft. Which is why a lot of folks play Ravenloft with systems other than D&D.

Yora
2013-12-20, 04:30 PM
Even in 3rd Edition, the point where nothing can be a threat would be so up high that you are almost certain to never get there. That something might not be working on 20th or 10th level doesn't mean that you can't do it at 3rd.

NichG
2013-12-20, 06:06 PM
For something like D&D, descriptions aren't really going to be able to do the job. You have to violate the player's assumptions about 'how the game works' to some degree, even if you haven't actually changed the rules of the game.

The best way to do this for this kind of thing I think is to give the players less information. When you present these threats to the players, do it in some way that they can't see what's happening at first. For the aboleth, they're talking with someone and that someone says something like this in conversation:

"We've been having trouble down here. Mining output has dropped by kill all of you, 'cause the workers are afraid to go down into the tunnels."

Then have them be completely unaware of what they said.

For things like zombies/infested, don't have a zombie lurch up and flail ineffectually at the PCs. Instead, have the PCs come across a bloody room with streaks on the floor but no bodies. Have screams coming from out-of-view but when the PCs get there, there's no sign of anything.

Now, for the fight:

Once you see something, it loses its mystery. Once you fight something, there's a similar effect - if you know you can beat it without consequence, it won't be scary. Since the PCs will be able to beat it, you have to make them think there's consequences.

When the zombies attack the PCs, describe the wounds as itching and burning, then going completely numb. Don't ask for a save, and don't give a mechanical effect to it. When a PC hits a zombie for a third of its hitpoints, let them think they killed it - describe the zombie as splitting halfway down the middle - then have it keep moving. Or use the dreaded 'it seems to have no effect', while still marking down the actual damage caused. Play with the information that the players receive while leaving the game mechanics the same.

Hida Reju
2013-12-21, 12:19 AM
The problem with most systems is that you try to give horror a stat block.

Once it has a number attached to it you can overcome that number with bigger ones. It sets a bar to leap over and that is not conductive to horror.

You want real horror in D&D then you need to show them human terror at its finest. Throw a Battle Royale scenario at them with Geas/mind control/fear mongering, give them a Thought virus like entity that jumps bodies(Mind Switch) at will if you fail a will save, or perhaps something that if they kill it a reincarnation effect goes off 100% of the time unless you find a way to disable it. Target people around the players give them a sense of struggle that straight power can not overcome.

Above all else if you want terror then it better not have stats you can blast with enough magic at it.

SiuiS
2013-12-21, 05:16 PM
It's my favorite picture from Dungeon magazine. :smallbiggrin:

http://1-media-cdn.foolz.us/ffuuka/board/tg/image/1333/50/1333508200305.jpg

Yeah. That, and a passage from an old Shanara story, always stuck with me. The idea is basically Amping up the fear of wide spaces. Not only are you basically in a dark, empty room and you're the only one who can't see in the dark, but you're also in an environment your body and mind just isn't suited for. This is best at low levels, when the party has to freak out about either swimming or rafting across.


I think the important part is to have the creatures act in ways that make them threatening and put the PCs on edge. Much to often zombies and skeletons are treated identical to orcs or human bandits, who simply walk up to the PCs and use their weapons to attack.
"You enter the room, there are three zombies coming towards you" won't impress anyone. Have the blody corpse of a maid raise from the ground and attempt to bite one of the PCs in the neck. Or have a group of zombies bang against a door and hands come reaching through as holes start to appear. In game terms, mechanically nothing is happening at all. But it reminds the PCs that this isn't just some generic enemy approaching to striking distance, but butchered corpses rising from their graves to eat the PCs alive.

Mm, close. I think ultimately this is still "there are monsters and they are attacking you, they are obviously the bad guys."

One of the more fun features of ACKS is that naturally occurring points of darkness evolve and spawn natural undead. And undead aren't immune to reaction checks. Which means it's entirely possible that, while adventuring, the heroes might look back to see they are being followed. Always at a distance. Never any clear glimpses. But the nagging feeling that no matter how fast they go, they're still not able to evade their tale. The land around them for days has been blackened and dead. They find the bodies, mangled and half eaten, of monsters that would have been encounters if they were alive when found. It reeks of decay and evil. Finally, while at camp, sleeping, despite their watch, the party face feels... Something, something like a rat's tail or a leathery ribbon across the cheek, and a dry, voiceless hiss. Then it flees.

It is not until, days later, as they are leaving the dead lands they look back to see a single zombie standing nude and preserved, staring. Watching. Fascinated. Still caked with the gore of all the monsters it had saved them from.
(The reaction roll came up 12, and the zombie was friendly to the point of fanatical)

Slipperychicken
2013-12-21, 05:23 PM
It is not until, days later, as they are leaving the dead lands they look back to see a single zombie standing nude and preserved, staring. Watching. Fascinated. Still caked with the gore of all the monsters it had saved them from.
(The reaction roll came up 12, and the zombie was friendly to the point of fanatical)

They should have tried to recruit it as a henchman.

SiuiS
2013-12-22, 01:51 AM
> interesting poignant story moment
> add players
> "can I keep it as a pet?"
> all mystery and wonder gone

Yep. That's about how D&D goes. Goodness knows I'm guilty of it! :smallredface:

Slipperychicken
2013-12-22, 02:29 AM
> interesting poignant story moment
> add players
> "can I keep it as a pet?"
> all mystery and wonder gone

Yep. That's about how D&D goes. Goodness knows I'm guilty of it! :smallredface:

So much truth.

Yora
2013-12-22, 04:26 AM
I guess I would let them try. And soon start to regret it. :smallamused:

A good number of horror stories start with scientists bringing a strange specimen back to the base.