How to do X Genre in 3.5/PF

[MukkTB]

D&D is its own genre but there are a lot of subgenres of fantasy and fiction that one might want to emulate. I have a hard time getting the flavor right sometimes. Sometimes we get bogged down by minutiae. Other times something I'm trying to have be one genre devolves into standard hack and slash. So here are my thoughts and questions regarding various genres.

Horror
Its been my experience that I cannot easily induce horror in my players by describing spooky events, or settings. Even terrible looking monsters don't horrify my players. What actually touches a nerve, is game mechanics that are 'horrifying.' I'm talking about powerful debuffs, status effects, things with high damage, anything mechanical that players can grasp as dangerous. As an example, my players (at level 1) find a lvl 1 raging Orc barbarian more terrifying than some cr 1 walking dead no matter how disgusting it looks. Dying is of course the worst thing that can happen to a character, but there are a lot of bad things that can happen to a character short of making them dead.

As a side note its important that the players receive a chance to to know solid information beforehand about how nasty nasty the particular mechanics are.

My best experience with horror is to ratchet up the challenges by using higher CR monsters, or monsters with undervalued CR. But I then tone down the amount of combat. To some degree or another even nasty monsters are less aggressive, maybe less perceptive of my players. Its scary to hide under a desk waiting for the monster to go away. As soon as combat starts the play begins to edge closer to action adventure.

Mystery
The best description of how to do a mystery game I have heard is to imagine the mystery as a dungeon. Each room in this theoretical dungeon is a scene with several clues or leaders pointing to other places. So you might have as locations, the inn where the man was murdered, his home, the apartment of his mistress, ect.

Exploration
I have a hard time with this one. It seems, that if you want players to apply critical thinking skills you need to be consistent and really tone down DM fiat.

Intrigue
I have never been able to satisfactorily DM a game with something like, court politics. Sometimes my villains are a bit too blatant. Other times things spiral out of control.

I would be quite happy to receive advice about specific DM tricks for any particular genre.

[Urpriest]

Exploration and Intrigue can be handled a lot like Mystery. In the case of Exploration, it's still a matter of connected sites, but instead of one story the PCs are trying to reconstruct they've got varied goals, so the sites contain motivations to travel between them. For Intrigue, instead of physical sites you have events and NPC actions, where each situation is triggered by previous ones.

[Zweisteine]

Most genres rely at least partially on the players; you can not easily have a dramatic campaign unless your players want it.

Actually, many genres can't work unless the players think, or at least act, in-character.

Take horror: there are a few important components to a horror campaign. First is the backdrop, which relies on a very invested DM. Unless you're willing to write up the details and deliver them appropriately, there is no possibility for suspense. But if the players are thinking only from their own points of view, they won't see it as anything but a nice description.
(Have you read the SilverClawShift Horror Campaign (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?116836-The-SilverClawShift-Campaign-Archives)? It's really great. But finish reading this post first. You won't be back here for a while.)

I have a few suggestions for encouraging this sort of thought, most of which aren't specific to the horror genre (which I have never used in a game).

Tell the players that what you want of them. This is the first and most important piece of advice for any DM, period.
For horror, try dimming the lights when you play. That sort of effect can contribute a lot to the mood.
Again for horror, don't describe everything. Rather, make a point of describing what can not be seen. "You're in a shadowy room. You can barely make out two doors in the flickering torchlight... Suddenly, a–*an unidentifiable thing comes whirling out of the shadows with a ear-piercing shriek!"
In general, emphasize the "you" in the descriptions. Don't just describe the room. Describe the room around the character. "As you enter the cave, the first thing you notice is the sound of moving water. Your eyes quickly find the source of the noise, a small stream that passes between the rocks the your left. To your right, a massive stalagmite towers 2 feet above you..."
As a last resort, start freely giving out roleplaying experience. A little for good moments is always fine, but don't give it out often unless the players just happen to be great roleplayers.