Flowery descriptions for intimidation.

[Avianmosquito]

I've never run a play by post here, but a favorite thing of mine to do in campaigns is give extensive, flowery descriptions of spells and effects to make them more intimidating and sprinkle in key lore points. The effect doesn't just happen, I give a vivid account of what the players' witness. For example, when the party first witnesses the great old one Nya-Za'Thoth and is subject to Vision of Intent, they don't just full party save or save or die (much like weird). They see their home in ashes, their family laying dead before them, the city in flames, kingdoms quake, mountains move, skies collapse, suns eclipse, seas overflow, they lie shredded on the ground as their eyes, separate from their skulls gaze in different directions, one views the future, the burning ruins of their home and the other the destroyer in the present rising from the Caldera, vaguely humanoid and hunched in back, curved horns on its head, tentacles hanging like a beard and a tendril upon its head wreathed in fire, giant black wings, six clawed arms, no facial features aside from its nine eyes running from its face to its pelvis, two legs dragging uselessly beneath splitting into four scaled, serpentine appendages aberrantly tipped in cloven hooves and a short, club-like tail, bathed in the fires of the caldera yet unburnt, drawing to mind vivid foretellings of the Pontiff where Iblis rises from hell and brings forth armageddon, a tale that could only be inspired by this vision.

My question is, since I don't know the community here, is this actually effective? Is it even possible to inspire fear in a play by post? Should I not bother trying to run a horror campaign here? Do players care about lore, like at all? Would I be wasting my time with these descriptions?

[Darth Ultron]

My question is, since I don't know the community here, is this actually effective? Is it even possible to inspire fear in a play by post? Should I not bother trying to run a horror campaign here? Do players care about lore, like at all? Would I be wasting my time with these descriptions?

Yes it is effective. Yes it works. It works just as well in real life.

Some players care about lore...but only some.


Horror is a bit hard to run Play by Post as you don't get the immersion. A character opens a door-post. The player waits say 12 hours and reads a DM's scary description as they ride the bus to work. Then the player posts something, dozens of more post happen over several days. But it's only like an hour of game time. And it's hard for a player to role play anything when they have to think back to ''oh what was that description three weeks ago about this place?"

And you really don't get the atmosphere.

It can be done, but it's hard.