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Kornaki
2016-07-06, 09:57 PM
I am going to be running a horror themed Dnd game this weekend. While thinking of ways I could get the players more into character feeling tense about the uncertainty of the situation, I thought of the following scene:

The room is pitch black. As you step in, you feel the back of your hand brush up against something hairy. You think it could be a cobweb, or it could be the leg of a giant spider. I'm honestly, not sure, because I'm about to flip a coin to decide. *Flip flip clickety clack*. Hmm, heads. What do you do?

Has anyone tried making a dungeon where the rooms are generated randomly on the fly? It seems like the advantage would be a more realistic and less tailored world; sometimes the dungeon is super easy, and sometimes it's way harder than it's supposed to be, because that's just how the dice rolled out, not because the DM decided to make it that way. Does anyone have experience playing a game like this in any system? I'm wondering what the pitfalls are to think about when trying it.

goto124
2016-07-07, 03:21 AM
I am going to be running a horror themed Dnd game this weekend.

To be honest, DnD doesn't seem fit for horror - the system's more suited for powerful murderhobos adventurers wading through dungeons with arsenals of skills and spells, combating and killing every single monster they come across to earn loot. Horror is typically about avoiding monsters far beyond your power level, but DnD doesn't exactly have mechanics that support avoiding monsters or handling monsters far beyond your power level.

That said, there are many DnD Dungeon generators out there. They're more for dungeon crawling though, much like DnD itself. It's called Dungeons and Dragons after all :smalltongue:

Slipperychicken
2016-07-07, 04:57 PM
Has anyone tried making a dungeon where the rooms are generated randomly on the fly? It seems like the advantage would be a more realistic and less tailored world

Randomly generated dungeon maps are not realistic. You wind up with structures and designs that don't make sense in any kind of context (i.e. trapped doors between a kitchen and a dining room). They are, however, random, which seems like something you might want.

If you want random dungeon encounters, a lot of games do that. There's also the concept of wandering monsters, which the players might bump into while they explore a dungeon or try to rest. Those can provide a little bit of time pressure.

For increasing randomness, you could borrow the idea of reaction rolls. They are basically a way to decide a monster or an NPC's first impression of the PCs, based on the situation, the players' charisma, and other factors. The idea is to use them when the DM isn't certain how a monster or NPC would react. That means you can have encounters like running into an orc band setting up camp, who think the PCs are alright people and offer to trade with them. For many situations however, the DM will be quite certain how things would go, so rolling for reaction would not be appropriate.

Also, I agree that dnd is not fit for horror. It's a game about fantasy group violence, not being isolated and powerless.

RazorChain
2016-07-07, 05:01 PM
I am going to be running a horror themed Dnd game this weekend. While thinking of ways I could get the players more into character feeling tense about the uncertainty of the situation, I thought of the following scene:

The room is pitch black. As you step in, you feel the back of your hand brush up against something hairy. You think it could be a cobweb, or it could be the leg of a giant spider. I'm honestly, not sure, because I'm about to flip a coin to decide. *Flip flip clickety clack*. Hmm, heads. What do you do?

Has anyone tried making a dungeon where the rooms are generated randomly on the fly? It seems like the advantage would be a more realistic and less tailored world; sometimes the dungeon is super easy, and sometimes it's way harder than it's supposed to be, because that's just how the dice rolled out, not because the DM decided to make it that way. Does anyone have experience playing a game like this in any system? I'm wondering what the pitfalls are to think about when trying it.

First you have to think about why the PC's are bumbling about in the dark, would they enter a pitch dark room if their light source doesn't work? And they would know for sure because their 10' pole get's stuck in the cobweb!

Comet
2016-07-07, 05:38 PM
The room is pitch black. As you step in, you feel the back of your hand brush up against something hairy. You think it could be a cobweb, or it could be the leg of a giant spider. I'm honestly, not sure, because I'm about to flip a coin to decide. *Flip flip clickety clack*. Hmm, heads. What do you do?


This is an awesome way to do horror in D&D. As soon as you start to randomly determine stuff the players know all bets are off.

The DM isn't in control anymore. Nobody is in control. Nobody can save you.

Kornaki
2016-07-07, 07:10 PM
I know the game won't be a full blown horror game. I want the players to just have the feeling that they aren't safe in the dungeon. The game starts off as just taking a castle back from some goblins, during which they slowly discover there's something more than just goblins running the show.

What looks like a hunchbacked goblin clings to the ceiling by both feet and legs. It's head rotates at a hideous angle to get a better look at you, it's mouth wide open and its tongue literally wrapped around one of its massive fangs. It skitters up through a missing tile in the ceiling. You think you can hear *roll 1d10* .... more than one of them in the walls. On the far side of the hallway appears to be the exit.

I don't want a randomly generated dungeon, I am thinking more artisinally crafted random encounters that hit you in the gut with fear of the unknown, if not a fear of the underlying creature itself.

As you slowly creep down the hallway, the only sounds are your footsteps on the stone and your heart beating like a drum. You make it to the far side of the hall. As you reach for the door handle, you notice a pair of eyes watching you through a crack in the wall. The creature lets out a small giggle, then vanishes as a multitude of scratching and skittering sounds erupt from the ceiling. What do you do?

There's no way for the players to evaluate if it's safer to go through the door right now or stand and fight. Sure, in some sense they may have a higher probability of dying if they were forced to fight the encounter, but different players are going to have different visceral reactions to which is a better choice, and hopefully at least some of them have to do the other one.

I don't know though, it probably all sounds better in my head than it would work in a game. That's why I'm looking for feedback.

thirdkingdom
2016-07-08, 04:50 PM
I don't quite parse what you're asking, and guess it would be important to know what edition you're playing. Older versions of D&D have random encounters baked into the mechanics of dungeon crawling; it's one of the things that encourages adventurers to get in and out with as little fighting and treasure as possible. In addition, encounters with wandering monsters are typically something to be avoided simply because they have less treasure (and don't forget, in these editions you get much more XP for gold than for fighting) than creatures encountered in the lair. Essentially, it boils down to a 1 in 6 chance every two turns (i.e. twenty minutes) of having a random encounter. Many editions also require the party to rest one turn out of every six, to recuperate from the miasmal presence of the mythic underworld (these are also the same editions that specifically state standard rations spoil in dungeons).

If you wanted to do something like this I would come up with a random encounter table you rolled on every time the dice indicate a wandering monster encounter. A table for the 1st level of a dungeon might look like this:

1. Goblins (2d4)
2. Skeletons (2d4)
3. Zombies (1d6)
4. Pixies (2d6)
5. Rust Monster (1)
6. Gelatinous Cube (1)
7. Heavy gravity zone. A room or corridor the PCs have just entered when this result comes up suddenly experiences double the normal gravity for 1d6 turns. Movement rates are slowed by 1/2, it takes an effort to pick things up off the floor, etc.
8. Webs. The area the adventurers enter are festooned with dusty cobwebs. There is a 1 in 4 chance the room/corridor is now the lair of a giant spider.
9. Giggles. Off in the dark, beyond the range of the adventurer's torches, they hear the sound of a child giggling. This will repeat 1d6 times before ceasing in a muffled sob.
10. Bright lights. Off in the dark, beyond the range of the adventurer's torches, they see a soft, bobbing glow, just far enough away that no details can be determined. It stops when the party stops, advances at the same speed and in the same direction as the party, etc. It lasts for 1d4 hours.

I would also recommend checking out . . . huh, the website seems to be down. Anyway, there is an excellent blog post by Philotomy Jurament called The Dungeon as Mythic Underworld where he explores a lot of these themes, specifically regarding how they were treated in OD&D. For instance, doors in the dungeon were almost always stuck, if not locked, and would typically close and become stuck again unless spiked open (and even then would sometimes close). However, the text specifically states that monsters within the dungeon can open and close stuck doors with ease.

Slipperychicken
2016-07-08, 05:13 PM
First you have to think about why the PC's are bumbling about in the dark, would they enter a pitch dark room if their light source doesn't work? And they would know for sure because their 10' pole get's stuck in the cobweb!

PCs are not exactly brilliant people. If they were smart and valued their lives enough to avoid this kind of situation, they would know that dungeon-crawling is a very fast and unpleasant path to an early grave, and they'd probably have stayed in town and become hedge-wizards or bodyguards for a noble or something.

2D8HP
2016-07-08, 05:18 PM
To be honest, DnD doesn't seem fit for horror - the system's more suited for powerful murderhobos adventurers wading through dungeons with arsenals of skills and spells, combating and killing every single monster they come across to earn loot.*using voice of Yakov Smirnoff*
"In oD&D Dungeon murders HOBO!"

:wink:

While it may have been that since PC's could be "rolled up" very quickly, we were just less cautious with their "lives", but IIRC when I played DnD in the 1970's and 80's, there was a less than even chance that a new first level PC would survive the Dungeon. Hardly "wading" (PC survival is one of the things I like about New DnD).
:smile:

icefractal
2016-07-08, 06:28 PM
One thing I'd recommend, if generating rooms on the fly instead of in advance - don't have any boring results. Especially not a realistic chance of boring results. Because all too likely, you'll get a huge run of them and drain the game's energy before you reach anything fun. That's not to say every room has to have something, but use a mechanism that can't yield 'nothing' every time.

For instance, if I was having the PCs explore a large structure where only a small part had anything interesting, I'd do something like:

Crypts of Mostly Just Dead Bodies
1d20 normal rooms, then a special room; repeat.
Special Room (1d4):
1 - Zombies
2 - Mummy
3 - Treasure
4 - Cursed Treasure

Kornaki
2016-07-13, 09:44 PM
I would also recommend checking out . . . huh, the website seems to be down. Anyway, there is an excellent blog post by Philotomy Jurament called The Dungeon as Mythic Underworld where he explores a lot of these themes, specifically regarding how they were treated in OD&D. For instance, doors in the dungeon were almost always stuck, if not locked, and would typically close and become stuck again unless spiked open (and even then would sometimes close). However, the text specifically states that monsters within the dungeon can open and close stuck doors with ease.

This was pretty cool. I used the door thing (an invisible imp was closing the doors and blowing out torches) and it was very effective.

Yora
2016-07-14, 02:16 AM
Also, I agree that dnd is not fit for horror. It's a game about fantasy group violence, not being isolated and powerless.

Depends. There are roughly eight different games that are all called D&D, which vary greatly in this regard. I would say OD&D and B/X are actually exceptionally good games for horror adventures that beat many purpose build ones. 3rd and 4th edition are probably among the least suitable systems you could pick.


This is an awesome way to do horror in D&D. As soon as you start to randomly determine stuff the players know all bets are off.

And that's why everything started falling apart when random encounters disappeared during 2nd edition because they "interfere with the skript". Without wandering monsters you can rest whenever you want, without reaction rolls every encounter is a fight by default unless the skript specifically says otherwise, and without morale checks all fights are to the death. And from that comes the idea that all encounters should be level appropriate, otherwise everyone dies or the adventure can not continue with the script.
Tension comes from the uncertainty that anything you do might not save you but make it worse instead. When the GM prepares fights that have to be faught and are all easy to beat, tension becomes almost impossible. And therefore no horror.