Making it scary

[lxion]

In the campaign I'm running, I'm planning to get my party to an old mansion. Rumours around go that it's haunted. How do I create a good atmosphere that keeps my party on its toes?

Story: They found out a bunch of Ratmen (wererats) are stealing supplies from the city. Following their tracks, they end up at a mansion. Underneath this mansion is the Ratmen's lair. Rumours go that this mansion is haunted, because of a horrifying mass murdering that happened there. I haven't really decided if I'm gonna put a ghost in or not, but the Ratmen use these rumours to scare of curious adventurers.

[An Enemy Spy]

Try dimming the lights and using candles if you can get enough to read by. A dark room is more conducive to horror than almost anything.

[Geddy2112]

Horror relies on good description, first and foremost. Describe in as much detail as needed to set the scene, then add in extra details for horrific effect.

Mechanically, call for a perception roll, even when it is not needed. It will keep the players on their toes for a horror setting.

Combine these, and that should cover it.

[vexedart]

There is a free supplement on WotC website called curse of strahd, death house. You should give it a google.

[ImproperJustice]

You might want to look outside of D&d for ideas.

Heavy storytelling games in the horror genre have some great ideas.
Key elements as discussed by others in this thread are player buy in at number 1, followed by descriptions, atmosphere, and establishing a sense of vulnerability to the players.
Make the mundane somehow unfamiliar or unsettling.

[Iados]

1) Play at night.
2) Semi-darkened room (You'll still need enough light for people to read their character sheets and dice rolls.)
3) Unsettling noises and background music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O31PJugkLJU

I can't emphasize the last one enough. A GM I've played with for years has always used music to heighten whatever we're doing. Exciting, thematic music for battle sequences. Ambient music and the sounds of people talking when we're in a village. Etc. If you want your players to become fully invested in your setting on an emotional level, nothing works better than leveraging their auditory senses to instill a visceral and instinctive sense of dread.

[mealar]

i've had good results with using extra details that aren't plot related. players tend to assume if you're mentioning it then it must be important so if you drop a few creepy details like odd noises or things changing when they're not looking they're imaginations tend to run with it and do most of the work for you.

been mentioned above but the death house scenario is good for this, genuinely managed to give one of my players nightmares after that session which i count as the ultimate victory

[Unoriginal]

Roll dice behind your screen for no reason from time to time, when the players tell you they're doing something or going somewhere. Then look at the "results" and react to them in various ways (like "ouch!" or "well, alright. You were doing X, right?"

It's playing the players, not the game, but definitively work.

[Requilac]

One of the most effective approaches to horror in D&D I have found is surprise. No, this doesn’t mean backwater jumpscares and randomly placed mangled corpses. Your players are going to expect some things walking into a haunted house and will prepare for things accordingly. Do exactly what they couldn’t expect and plan for. This doesn’t necessarily mean inverting tropes, but twisting could prove to be effective.

For example, in a horror campaign I was running my group of players were on the trail of a monster which had killed a wizard. They laid a trap for it and were prepared to get into a slugging match with a werewolf, ankheg, griffin or something of the sort. What they didn’t ever consider was that The said monsters was in league with a group of guerillas who snuck up on the party and softened them up with arrows from a distance. They were completely unprepared to fight against a group of enemies with ranged weapons and had to run with their tails between their legs. I went into great detail as to how the party couldn’t see the guerillas clearly, they just sort of saw far away moving shadows in the distance.

Another move I made in a different game was implementing a completely unexpected enemy. The party was fighting a some cultists (though at the time the party didn’t know that they were cultists), and they had just nearly killed one. The maimed cultists cast a “spell” which caused his blood to animate into a giant golem made of his own blood. It wasn’t very original I will admit, but they without a doubt didn’t see it coming.

In once again another campaign, the players were actually preparing to do an exorcist on some they believed was possessed by a ghost. The guy was possessed, but not by any ghost, which as soon as the party banished the “spirit” they had discovered. Out from the guys body came an angry fey spirit, which bombarded them with illusions as it preyed on the puny wizard.

All of these scenarios were definitely frightful for the players. Were they original or creative? Not really, but the party wasn’t expecting them and didn’t prepare nor plan for it accordingly. You could implement some of these strategies yourself.

Perhaps the PCs hear strange bestial noises in a nearby room, but when they actually step in their is no monster. But there is a weakened floor which collapses under them into the room below if they step in. Or maybe after fending off a mob of wererats to get to their pack master, it is actually revealed that the leader is not a were rat but a mind flayer. Possibly what could happen is that they find a chamber full of mangled corpses with necromantic symbols on them, and the party assumes that they are undead, when in truth the magic on them is something that preserves their corpses so a nothic watching them can feast on the corpses later.

This can work very well and create he desired atmosphere, but make sure not to overdo it.

[Quoxis]

It’s difficult to balance between „scary“ and „annoying“ - a ghost you can’t hurt because you don’t have magic is definitely the latter.

The first game i DM‘d was a horror one shot, and the thing my players liked best was that it took its time.
They arrived at a mansion where an old friend of their families had called them to. None of the servants expected them to appear, but let them in, inviting them to stay until the lord was done with... the thing he was doing.
There was a monster - of course, horror needs those - but they didn’t see it until 95% of the game was done. From a certain point in the story onwards, they expected to be attacked at any time, but they weren’t. They had found increasingly worrisome clues that something wasn’t right - a lurking guy hiding in the garden looking inside, watching them eat, who turned out to be the boyfriend of one of the maids and told them their young son recently disappeared; loads of weapons and arcane stuff had been purchased and locked away safe; a diary from years ago stating that another child had disappeared there; one of the maids dead, mauled by something bigger than a bear and with long, deep claw marks on and around her; a room that’s been closed off by metal bars like a prison cell, the interior of which has been destroyed almost beyond recognition, but with unharmed child‘s toys inside etc. etc.

Describe the scenes, in the best case using multiple senses (they don’t just see the torn apart room, they also smell a rancid stench of rotten meat, they hear nothing but total silence, they feel the cold inside the unlit room on their skin...), and take. Your. Time.
Make them anticipate the monster, then don’t give it to them but have the scary sound which they thought was the clicking of teeth or claws instead be the stiletto shoes of a maid who heard them rummaging through the forbidden room...

Tl;dr:

- take your time. The monster is scarier when it’s not seen, but could attack at all times.
- describe everything vividly, get gross if you must, and use at least one additional sense to the visual description
- give them something scary which keeps them on their toes, then take it away - that won’t make it boring, it creates suspense because they know the monster will still strike, just at another, more unexpected time

[Requilac]

It’s difficult to balance between „scary“ and „annoying“ - a ghost you can’t hurt because you don’t have magic is definitely the latter.



Actually, almost all of the incorporeal undead in 5e (including ghosts, banshees, Shadows, specters/poltergeists, wraiths and will-o-wisps), aren’t immune to non-magical weapons, just resistant to them. A viable solution to killing a ghost without a physical form is clubbing it to death. Somehow.

[Falcon X]

Step 1: Make them paranoid.
- Run into a mimic or something like it in every room, or more than one per room. Make them afraid to touch anything and wanting to bash everything.

Step 2: Blind them
- my favorite way to do this is to port in Blindheims from a prior edition, which are frog creatures whose eyes shoot out rays as bright as the sun to blind you.There are other ways to accomplish this though.
Now they are in a place where everything is a monster and they can’t see any of it. If one or two characters retain sight, it doesn’t kill his effect, though it lessens it.

Step 3: Don’t leave them powerless
- Yes, you want them to feel helpless for a room or two, but ultimately players hate just being stripped down completely.
Perhaps they find a new way to see, like through familiars or carried items.
Perhaps an adventurer who has been trapped here for years finds them and offers support. Now they have to figure out if they should trust the person.
Maybe you have them find wands of blasting and they can just blow up whatever is in their path. However, they soon learn that not everything is good to blow up. Maybe they kill a little girl and have to deal with the moral consequences of that.

Step 4: Continue the plot
The plot should unfold in such a way that the place is always trying to eat them and they can’t see any of it, yet they have drive to push on despite it all.

Finally: have a good boss
- maybe a Rat-shasa? That is a rakshasa that looks like a rat instead of a tiger.
- Maybe the were rats are controlled by a hive mind, the same one feeding Cranium Rats. All ultimately leading to being the servants of Ilsensene. Insert Eldritch Horror here.
- Who says a vampire can’t also be a were-rat. Throw that at em!

[Quoxis]

Actually, almost all of the incorporeal undead in 5e (including ghosts, banshees, Shadows, specters/poltergeists, wraiths and will-o-wisps), aren’t immune to non-magical weapons, just resistant to them. A viable solution to killing a ghost without a physical form is clubbing it to death. Somehow.

Tell that my first horror DM... his idea of a scary situation was the party desperately trying to harm an invulnerable opponent that in turn was able to harm us until we figured out he wanted us to flee from it.
Bonus points: it was within the first half hour of the game. No build-up, no tension, just stress and annoyance.

[ad_hoc]

Many of the suggestions here are more likely to result in laughter rather than horror.

Before 5e I primarily played Ravenloft. Here is my advice from that experience:

Rising tension within a session is key. As time goes on so does the danger. Doesn't need to be tougher enemies just continual danger. Eventually the players will be scared there are even minor threats around the next corner as their resources deplete.

This is a great opportunity for the non-rest classes like the Rogue to shine (also lots of exploration to be done). Try no short rests (and of course no long ones either) in the adventure.

Also remember the #1 rule of horror: The threat the players imagine will always be scarier than the threat they see. The idea that there are more dangers right around the corner is scarier than the actual danger.

As far as pacing model I recommend the Pit. Start with a very dangerous encounter to deplete the party's resources quickly, then follow it with a steady stream of mild encounters. This way they will be scared for more of the session.'

edit: The 'boss' could be something that is easy to defeat. The key is that the players will think there will be a dangerous boss and know they are too wiped to face them.

[Quoxis]

Many of the suggestions here are more likely to result in laughter rather than horror.
[...]
Rising tension within a session is key. As time goes on so does the danger.


I agree, mostly with the second point.



Doesn't need to be tougher enemies just continual danger. Eventually the players will be scared there are even minor threats around the next corner as their resources deplete.
[...]
Try no short rests (and of course no long ones either) in the adventure.
[...]
Start with a very dangerous encounter to deplete the party's resources quickly, then follow it with a steady stream of mild encounters. This way they will be scared for more of the session.'

edit: The 'boss' could be something that is easy to defeat. The key is that the players will think there will be a dangerous boss and know they are too wiped to face them.

A) why would the grunt you face first be tougher than its boss which you face last?
B) with that model of running a game i can see why nobody’s laughing, but the reason isn’t „omfg i‘m getting nightmares“ horror, more the „fuuuu i don’t wanna die and sit around watching the rest of the group play“ horror. That’s comparing silent hill to the hard mode of [generic dark-souls-lookalike].
I can see that this mechanical danger can add another layer of fear to a game, but in my opinion it shouldn’t be the first thing to consider when trying to design a horror game.

[Requilac]

Tell that my first horror DM... his idea of a scary situation was the party desperately trying to harm an invulnerable opponent that in turn was able to harm us until we figured out he wanted us to flee from it.
Bonus points: it was within the first half hour of the game. No build-up, no tension, just stress and annoyance.

The idea of an invulnerable enemy is a rather old horror trope and a reasonable one, but to me it makes very little sense in the context of combat heavy D&D. I have seen to many DMs such as yours make that mistake to see it fail. For D&D it’s best to resort to other tactics to carry the mood of horror. I have been running D&D horror campaigns for a decent length of time now, so I learned that lesson pretty dearly on.


Many of the suggestions here are more likely to result in laughter rather than horror.



If I am being honest, the same literary elements which develop horror are rather similar to what develop humor; tension, surprise, environmental descriptions, graduality, etc. I’m no expert on literature, but to my knowledge that is supposed to be how it is. The actua execution is what creates horror, not the methods themselves, if that makes sense.

[ad_hoc]

A) why would the grunt you face first be tougher than its boss which you face last?

Frankenstein comes to mind. This isn't an obscure concept.



B) with that model of running a game i can see why nobody’s laughing, but the reason isn’t „omfg i‘m getting nightmares“ horror, more the „fuuuu i don’t wanna die and sit around watching the rest of the group play“ horror. That’s comparing silent hill to the hard mode of [generic dark-souls-lookalike].
I can see that this mechanical danger can add another layer of fear to a game, but in my opinion it shouldn’t be the first thing to consider when trying to design a horror game.

You need the mechanical tension otherwise all the attempts at atmosphere and over the top description you want to add will either fall flat or be unintentionally funny. Your attempt at Frankenstein will end up being Young Frankenstein instead.

[Requilac]

Frankenstein comes to mind. This isn't an obscure concept.

Are you sure Frankenstein is an example of this? I don’t remember there really be any fighting in Frankenstein now that I come to think of it. There was some violence where people beat on the monster and it refused to reciprocate or where it murdered someone, but these were all too one sided to be considered a fight. Was this something that happened in the movie? Don’t you have any relevany quotes in this matter, because I happen to be intrigued as to why you think this.

______

@ Quoxis

The mechanical aspects and the roleplaying aspects are heavily intertwined in D&D. By influencing the one you would invariably influence the other. If your players are immersed in the game, then the knowledge that their characters are in extreme danger and can die at any second could very well generate a nightmare inducing experience. Of course you need to add in more than just that, but making a mechanical representation of what is occurring really supports the theme.

[plisnithus7]

I second Death House from Strahd.
I read it as prep to run the session and thought it looked boring as hell, but the lack of opponents and building tension really made it an experience for the players.
The creepiness helped. Make NPCs creepy as you can.

[Quoxis]

Frankenstein comes to mind. This isn't an obscure concept.


I must admit i‘ve never read the original, but is there combat in Frankenstein? The monster strangles two people, one of them a child (NPC, 1hp, and that happens off-screen) and the other a doctor (NPC, 2hp).
Also there’s only ever one monster, which is besides the point i was criticizing: the big strong lackey draining the party of hp and resources while the final boss enemy is weak.


You need the mechanical tension otherwise all the attempts at atmosphere and over the top description you want to add will either fall flat or be unintentionally funny. Your attempt at Frankenstein will end up being Young Frankenstein instead.

Tell me more about the mechanics that made Frankenstein scary.
The only point i can see it from is that there’s the danger of a stalker that’s strong enough to singlehandedly kill the protagonist, and while that creates tension, again: that’s not out-of-game horror that scares the person playing, it’s mechanical horror that scares the mechanical side of the player.
„Please don’t make me lose the game“ isn’t something i‘d consider horrifying; at worst, it distracts you from the narrative.

[Quoxis]

The mechanical aspects and the roleplaying aspects are heavily intertwined in D&D. By influencing the one you would invariably influence the other. If your players are immersed in the game, then the knowledge that their characters are in extreme danger and can die at any second could very well generate a nightmare inducing experience. Of course you need to add in more than just that, but making a mechanical representation of what is occurring really supports the theme.

A level 1 party of three is easier to be killed off and has less ways to protect themselves than a level 20 party with shapeshifting and reality warping spellcasters that level the horror house within seconds if they so choose. I can see that.
But that would mean that horror can’t happen to anyone who’s competent. Of course, if the wizard has an AC of 30, 500 temporary hp and free action teleport spells he‘ll never be in mortal danger, but can such a person (or better: the person playing that demigod) never be scared?

If you do it well, i believe that both ways can be successful, but A) i‘m sure that atmosphere without mechanics can still be terrifying, even if not as much as the combination of both, while mechanics without atmosphere are in my eyes more of an annoyance than a scary element (and i‘m sure 5e didn’t get rid of most save-or-die features/spells because players were too terrified to play it, but because they are detrimental to the challenge and fun), and B) it’s easy to create a creepy atmosphere, while using the mechanics can feel clunky - the initial boss has to drain the party of their resources, but also to die as soon as they are depleted, all the while he should be menacing and take hp, but at the same time he shouldn’t kill any of the players because that’d end the game for them - that’s difficult to achieve without cheesing „how many hp have you got left? Ah, ok, just 2, in that case the monster turns around and attacks another player.“ or „And the murdermaw does 6d12 plus 10 plus- i mean, uh, how many hp are left? Just 1? Ok, uh, the attack does 2 damage so that you don’t die but fall uncouncious.“

[ad_hoc]

Also there’s only ever one monster, which is besides the point i was criticizing: the big strong lackey draining the party of hp and resources while the final boss enemy is weak.

It's just directly addressing your point. It's not about what violence is in the story...

Frankenstein's Monster is very strong. Dr. Frankenstein is not.

Mad inventor creates dangerous monstrosities. Inventor is weak.

There are countless variations of this.




Tell me more about the mechanics that made Frankenstein scary.


Frankenstein is not a D&D game. It doesn't have mechanics.

At this point I will just advise you not to try a horror game. It's not going to work out well for you.

(or at the very least buy a premade adventure and take its advice. There are even Frankenstein adventures in Ravenloft if you're really into that as you seem to be)

[Quoxis]

It's just directly addressing your point. It's not about what violence is in the story...

Frankenstein's Monster is very strong. Dr. Frankenstein is not.

Mad inventor creates dangerous monstrosities. Inventor is weak.

There are countless variations of this.

Frankenstein is not a D&D game. It doesn't have mechanics.

At this point I will just advise you not to try a horror game. It's not going to work out well for you.

(or at the very least buy a premade adventure and take its advice. There are even Frankenstein adventures in Ravenloft if you're really into that as you seem to be)

Listen, i‘m not (purely) trying to be a **** here, but you brought up the example, now you say it doesn’t work.
You say it’s not about violence, but advise that fighting a strong monster creates tension.
You say Frankenstein is an example for a big strong monster for the start of the game and a weak boss fight, yet Frankenstein is the only one fighting in the story. The inventor is weak, but he’s the protagonist (e.g. the player) in the story, not the bbeg.
One of us doesn’t get your point, but i‘m not sure if it’s me.

P.S.: why would I play a Frankenstein game? It was you who came up with that allegory, not me.

[Requilac]

I must admit i‘ve never read the original, but is there combat in Frankenstein? The monster strangles two people, one of them a child (NPC, 1hp, and that happens off-screen) and the other a doctor (NPC, 2hp).
Also there’s only ever one monster, which is besides the point i was criticizing: the big strong lackey draining the party of hp and resources while the final boss enemy is weak.

I can explain this, but it would give some spoilers to the book, so don’t read the following spoiler if you plan to read the book

There really isn’t combat in Frankenstein. A decent amount of violence, but as I stated before, massively one sided violence. In total I believe he “killed” six people but half of the people the monster killed were done indirectly (Such as framing them for a crime worthy of death, or luring them into an inhospitable place to die of exhaustion). The main character does express a desire for retribution and goes on a vengeance quest to try to kill the monster, but it never comes to fruition.


A level 1 party of three is easier to be killed off and has less ways to protect themselves than a level 20 party with shapeshifting and reality warping spellcasters that level the horror house within seconds if they so choose. I can see that.
But that would mean that horror can’t happen to anyone who’s competent. Of course, if the wizard has an AC of 30, 500 temporary hp and free action teleport spells he‘ll never be in mortal danger, but can such a person (or better: the person playing that demigod) never be scared?

I never said that they couldn’t be scared at that high level, but the approach has to be much different. The best way I prefer to do this is by having enemies which are more cunning/knowledgeable than they are. The idea is that the aventurerers have all the power to utterly crush their opponents, but they don’t quite know what or who they are supposed to crush. Basically putting your players on the receiving end of guerrilla warfare, which can have a surprisingly horrifying effect.



If you do it well, i believe that both ways can be successful, but A) i‘m sure that atmosphere without mechanics can still be terrifying, even if not as much as the combination of both, while mechanics without atmosphere are in my eyes more of an annoyance than a scary element (and i‘m sure 5e didn’t get rid of most save-or-die features/spells because players were too terrified to play it, but because they are detrimental to the challenge and fun), and B) it’s easy to create a creepy atmosphere, while using the mechanics can feel clunky - the initial boss has to drain the party of their resources, but also to die as soon as they are depleted, all the while he should be menacing and take hp, but at the same time he shouldn’t kill any of the players because that’d end the game for them - that’s difficult to achieve without cheesing „how many hp have you got left? Ah, ok, just 2, in that case the monster turns around and attacks another player.“ or „And the murdermaw does 6d12 plus 10 plus- i mean, uh, how many hp are left? Just 1? Ok, uh, the attack does 2 damage so that you don’t die but fall uncouncious.“

I think you must of misunderstood me, because I agree wholeheartedly with most of what you said. I did say that mechanics alone can’t fully create horror, it must be supplemented by roleplaying aspects. But I think there’s one thing we disagree on; it is okay for “the game to end” and a character dies. That is a natural part of D&D and especially for horror. Fudging things to make sure your players die is going to kill the mood. Of course, making character death so common that it is no longer a big deal (such as in the Tomb of Horrors, ironically) is just as much a folly. You need to find a middle ground, or else everything falls apart.

[Beleriphon]

Actually, almost all of the incorporeal undead in 5e (including ghosts, banshees, Shadows, specters/poltergeists, wraiths and will-o-wisps), aren’t immune to non-magical weapons, just resistant to them. A viable solution to killing a ghost without a physical form is clubbing it to death. Somehow.

Hey man it works for Geralt in The Witcher where the appropriate solution to banishing spirits from the world is stabbing them with a sword until it goes away. Mind you the setup is usually finding a way to make an incorporeal creature corporeal first, but hey whatever he still stabs a ghost to "death" more than once.

[Requilac]

It's just directly addressing your point. It's not about what violence is in the story...

Frankenstein's Monster is very strong. Dr. Frankenstein is not.

Mad inventor creates dangerous monstrosities. Inventor is weak.

There are countless variations of this.

I think you are highly undermining the actual threat of Frankenstein’s Monster. It wasn’t it’s raw power that made it such a challenge, it was because the monster was much more mobile than a human (allowing it to travel at superhuman speed) and because it was horribly cunning. One well placed billet by the inventor could have ended it entirely. In fact, the monster was badly wounded and crippled by a gun shot at one point. It was the fact that said monster wouldn’t dare give anyone the chance to shoot it (you know, except once) is what made it dangerous.

I can’t help but emphasize this approach to horror; an enemy which is more cunning than you is just as terrifying if not more so than an enemy which is stronger than you.

[Specter]

This will help.

http://theangrygm.com/running-your-most-horrible-dd-adventure-ever/