Horror Games

[lunasson]

So I was thinking about running a horror game in 3.5/pathfinder. I'm looking for any advice from anyone that's either ran one or played in one.

[Florian]

So I was thinking about running a horror game in 3.5/pathfinder. I'm looking for any advice from anyone that's either ran one or played in one.

*Points towards PF Horror Adventures*

Read that. It´s always important to accept that horror adventure don't work. Never. That is, unless your players are on board and want to actually experience that, role-play it and act as if afraid, shocked and such.

[Pleh]

Heroes of Horror likewise cover these concepts for 3.5

You have to keep in mind that D&D is all about empowerment fantasy, while horror is all about disempowerment and how scary it can be to be helpless before a murderous monster.

You can't simply boot up a game of 3.5/PF and jump into horror tropes. The horror will subside the moment combat rules begin negating its advantage.

So the best way to encourage a horror trope in the game is to crank the monsters CR until they are objectively unbeatable. But with literally unbeatable enemies, do you see how you're playing a different game now? Do you see how that could be frustrating as a player if you expected a normal game?

You have to somehow convince the players that merely surviving the campaign is a heroic deed in and of itself, because slaying the beast is impossible (or futile, in the case of self ressurecting slasher movie monsters).

So yeah, this pretty much requires that the players even want to play this kind of game to begin with.

[Florian]

So yeah, this pretty much requires that the players even want to play this kind of game to begin with.

Well, this showcases why for some, the Call of Cthulhu games work great, others are simply turned off by them. You simply have to accept that your Investigator will be driven insane and die, understand that as the goal of the whole experience and see how long you can last. This will clash with the "win!" mentality that D&D and war-games foster, similar to the "you must lose to advance" mentality that is needed to use some games like The Shadow of Yesterday or Lady Blackbird.

[Thrawn4]

Well, this showcases why for some, the Call of Cthulhu games work great, others are simply turned off by them. You simply have to accept that your Investigator will be driven insane and die, understand that as the goal of the whole experience and see how long you can last. This will clash with the "win!" mentality that D&D and war-games foster, similar to the "you must lose to advance" mentality that is needed to use some games like The Shadow of Yesterday or Lady Blackbird.

I whole-heartedly disagree.
For players to enjoy the atmosphere, they have to care about their characters and the world. This is true for every RPG, but especially for horror scenarios. However, caring is impossible if players cannot connect to their characters, and accepting the premise that their character will be lost soon enough will prevent that, in the same way that you do not connect to your pieces in a chess game, because they are just a means to an end.


Somebody alrealdy mentioned that horror games are about disempowerment, aka losing control. But people only worry about that if they don't want to lose that control because they care. (We cannot control what kind of music the president listens to, but we also do not care.)
Therefore the players should have a chance to actually win (whatever that means.... basic survival can be find, and if you are willing to take some extra risk, you might save somebody else... just don't expect to slay the arch-demon). Of course, the chances don't have to be very high.


As for the OP:


Creating a good horror adventure is probably one of the most difficult tasks a DM may encounter. That said, I highly encourage you to go for it as it can be a lot of fun.

So, what is horror? What is fear? Long story short, fear stems from the lack of control. People are never frightened when they are in control. Think about it: Death for example is scary because you cannot do anything about in real life, whereas in D&D it is mostly a status effect. But death is final. All your endeavours, all your hopes and dreams, and even your legacy will ultimately vanish in the void called entrophy. Saying that you have to give meaning to your life yourself is just a way to stave off the horror of demise by inventing an illusion.
At least, that's what people think who are afraid of death.
But let's not open that particular can of worms. Rather, let's go into the details of fear.

Loss of control can entail several factors. The most obvious one is the lack of power. If you can fight something, it's not as scary. You can easily beat a cold. Cancer though... more difficult. That's one of the reasons why your average D&D zombie is not scary. It has poor stats and can overly be overcome. That's why ammunition in most survival games is scarce. That's why flight is usually a valid course of action. Of course, you have to be careful that the player characters can't just outrun every threat, because this gives them back some control.
For that reason, you have to find something that keeps the PCs from escaping everything. Yes, you can expect your players to follow the plot if you like metagaming. But you can also burn their plane, entrap them in a place between the worlds and have their little sister missing.

But loss of control can also entail a lack of understanding. People are afraid of the darkness because the lack of light makes it difficult to ascertain facts that are usually a given. The dark figure in the alley might just be an odd collection of trash with a hat in the daylight, but at night you cannot be sure. The more facts the players have, the more control they can establish. As soon as there are certain rules or patterns, a threat becomes more predictable and therefore less dangerous. A good DM therefore leaves events open to interpretation.
In his essay "The Uncanny", Freud offers a brilliant insight in events that occur in daily life which may become uncanny. Imagine a person that rents hotel room 33. Completely common. The taxi driver demands 33 dollars. Still common. A crazy man states that the world will end in 33 days. Alright, now it's getting odd... I think you get the picture. Everyone has heard of probabilties and coincidences, but at some point the chances of something being a coincidence are rather low, but you still do not know what is going on. A different example is something unanimated seems to be animated, or vice versa. There are certain ideas of things, and when they seem to behave differently, we are likely to chalk it up to our imagination or a simple mistake. But if it happens again, we are unsure whether our old ideas hold up to the truth. And if our understanding of how the world works is wrong, what else is possible?
For the same reason you never state that a zombie lurkes in the basement. A zombie can be categorized and is somewhat mundane to many players. "Show don't Tell" is the basic premise of every good story, and it is also important here. Describe the smell, the sound of movement, and suddenly a person scrambling towards the players. Is it a drunken bum trying to escape? The weird neighbour trying defend himself? Or an honest-to-goodness undead? The players don't know, so they have to take a risk of shooting an innocent or being infected. IF zombies are infectious, because that is another piece of information that the players hopefully don't have yet.

That said, there are also lesser factors that are important to fear. For one, the current course of action should be at least disastrous for the PCs. Nobody is afraid because they cannot change the fact that scientists found a way to negate the greenhouse effect. No, they are afraid because their girlfriend might become blind, or their little brother might rot in hell, or their own life is at stake, or something else that causes a lot of discomfort. At the same time, it is noteworthy that hope has a major role in upholding the tension. Utter despair is a horrible thing, yes, but it should reserved for the very last moment when their little sister is dragged to hell. If everything is meant to be doomed, players may easily become fatalistic and frustrated. That also means that not every horror story has to have an unhappy ending.

In this vein it is worthwhile to touch the lethality debate. Some DMs are of the opinion that a high body count is necessary to strike fear into the hearts of the players. It is not! Two reasons: One, as pointed out above, constant failures become tidious after a short while. Two, the idea behind that reasoning is that the loss of a character is the worst thing evar. But if the players don't even have time to become invested in their characters, their emotional discomfort is similar to removing a piece during a chess game. Put another way, very invested players may be shocked by the loss of a characters finger, while others just want to hang out and couldn't care less about a piece of paper. That's why players should have enough time to bond emotionally with their characters and the NPCs.

In order to have the players on the edge, you have to build up tension. Slowly. Ease the player into the mood. Get them invested, let strange things happen, until they slowly start to piece together the clues. Not everything has to be related, but there shouldn't be a street of red herings either. Don't forget the element of threat. And use the important scenes sparingly but effective. Every room soaked in blood turns mundane fast, but three drops of blood at the right time (e. g. out of a PC's eye) might do the trick. Here are some tricks to make the scenes meaningful:

First, TIMING. Again, don't turn your adventure into a ghost show. Leave room for mundane scenes.

Second, obey the dichotomy of shock effect and disturbing effect. A shock effect is everything that appeals to one's survival instinct – a loud scream, an unnerving touch. A disturbing effect is something that plays your cognitive processes and perception. You know the feeling when something just isn't right. You come home to celebrate your birthday, but your parents are pale and your best friend is missing. Or the entire floor is wet and sticky. Both effects are different, but it is said they work best when you introduce a disturbing effect first and then add a shock effect a few seconds later while the players are still tense.
There is the optin of having OOC shock effects, and they may work. But once again, use them very sparingly. It may become funny or annoying, and this will kill your mood. Also, it breaks immersion. My advise would be to use them once. Preferably a real scream from the DM that is also uttered by a NPC.

Third, a summary of one and two: Don't overdo it. Ever played a video game where you die in the same scene again and again? That's irritating, not uncanny.

Fourth, there is another dichotomy, namely the one of visceral and cerebral horror. Visceral is your typical blood and gore style. Body mutilation is horrible indeed, but you have to be a grand storyteller to convey this style. Detail is the key. Describe how the needle pierces the black center of the eye, how the goo slowly poor out... Alternatively, you can present the players with the aftermath. Describe the white gooey ball on the floor, let them find the corpse and the tools later and have them piece together the scene in their own minds. Imagination can be worse than description.
Cerebral horror is... difficult to describe, really, and more prominent in the Eastern horror movies. It is something you can only fathom with your mind. Imagine you are trapped with something incorporeal, that sees you, hates you, is near you. Utter malice, if you will, and you are the target. Of course, you don't make a voice say "I hate you", but you provide clues. A broken glass, a hiss, or maybe a lost journal.

Fourth: Tension and tension release
You probably know the suspense curve. Typically, it starts low and increases towards the climax, as it should be. But at the same it is difficult to uphold the constant pressure. Cat scares are one way to do so. A creak in the bedroom, you trembling open the door, and oh it was just a cat. You know, a perceived threat that really isn't one. Another way to do so is by denying many things the players would usually rely on. Information and NPCs – are they really reliable? Probably... not.
At the same time, it is really exhausting to be on the edge for a long period of time. During a long adventure, you need some means to release the tension. A joke and a safe haven usually to the trick. Just don't forget to tear down the safe haven towards the end. Usually it's just easier to have a short horror adventure.

Fifth: Topple the players
It is always nice to have a twist towards the ending that twists the guts and forces the players to adapt. The uncle is actually the murderer, and the gardener actually a victim. The zombies broke into the previously safe shelter. Surprises are good, but don't force them if they feel arbitrary. Bonus points if the characters could have prevented it if they had found the clues or succeeded otherwise. Especially in the final of a one-shot adventure, you may turn into a devil in disguise. But make sure there was a way the players could have seen.

Sixth: Beware the flow
So, you have brilliant riddles and the perfect gore scene? Great. Unfortunately, the players can't solve it and the scene is tied to an object that the players ignore. Frustration is the bane of atmosphere. Therefore, you should ALWAYS have a backup plan and be flexible. Maybe there is a different way that is just more costly. Maybe the scene can be adapted to a similar situation. Tense atmosphere requires some sort of progess, so make sure it is possible.

[Pleh]

I whole-heartedly disagree.
For players to enjoy the atmosphere, they have to care about their characters and the world. This is true for every RPG, but especially for horror scenarios. However, caring is impossible if players cannot connect to their characters, and accepting the premise that their character will be lost soon enough will prevent that, in the same way that you do not connect to your pieces in a chess game, because they are just a means to an end.


Somebody alrealdy mentioned that horror games are about disempowerment, aka losing control. But people only worry about that if they don't want to lose that control because they care. (We cannot control what kind of music the president listens to, but we also do not care.)
Therefore the players should have a chance to actually win (whatever that means.... basic survival can be find, and if you are willing to take some extra risk, you might save somebody else... just don't expect to slay the arch-demon). Of course, the chances don't have to be very high.

But the chances provided should be declared from the outset. Picking up the 3.5 rulebook and saying, "we'll play this game" communicates certain expectations about chances for success (3 or 4 players should be rarely experiencing death for conducting 4-6 ELs equal their party level).

This amount of security tends to not be very intimidating and it's not meant to be.

If the DM intends to modify how the game is run, the players should be notified, especially BECAUSE they are likely to be emotionally invested in their characters.

[Palanan]

Rather than debate whether horror campaigns "work," I'll just strongly recommend Horror Adventures. Despite various claims of what RPGs should or should not be, this was designed to integrate horror into a Pathfinder campaign, and it does this very well.

I would also recommend the OP look at the Strange Aeons adventure path. I've used elements from both Horror Adventures and Strange Aeons in my own campaign, and my players have been really enjoying it so far.

[Segev]

People will say that horror is about disempowerment, but that's not entirely true. Yes, a sense of insecurity, of unsettling impotence is part of it, but it's not enough to merely be hopeless. Horror is about a sense of betrayal. Of people you trusted, perhaps, but also of your own abilities. This is why madness falls into horror so easily: going mad is a betrayal of your grasp on reality.

Horror is about expectations subverted in ways that make your foundation for your views no longer valid. Classic monster-driven horror is about the unwinding of civilization, the betrayal of your sense of security given by being surrounded by fellow, like-minded human beings. Deliverance-style and "cannibal hick family"-style horror is about betrayal of basic humanity by those who you should have felt safe with, since they are fellow humans. Undeath-focused horror is about that gnawing sense that that which is dead is not actually at rest, and that your own allies, taken from you, now become twisted monsters to come for you.

The image under this spoiler is silly and doesn't look horrific, but exemplifies the kind of betrayal that is the essence of horror.
https://i.chzbgr.com/full/2827187456/hB8D3CE44/

The way to build a sense of horror isn't to just disempower your PCs. It is to let them have their powers...and make their powers not reliable. Not by messing around with said powers, but by coming at them sideways.

Escort missions are a good source of this: the players have something squishy to protect that isn't just themselves, forcing them to go at a pace that keeps the protectees alive and to try to run interference.

They need not be escorting, either; they could just be defending a fixed position with helpless folks they must care for. And remember that sense of betrayal? Zombie apocalypse stories feed on that (pun intended) by having the virus spread to the bitten, making those helpless people into potential future enemies if you don't protect them well enough.

Give your spookiest monsters strange rules. By now, we're all used to holding up a cross to stave off a vampire, but in its earlier days, this was a measure of faith. How well can this REALLY work? It's just a symbol. In Deadly Premonition, the shadow-zombie-creatures can't see you, but they can sense your breath. Hold your breath and move slowly and quietly, and you're invisible to them. This is a GREAT horror-monster rule of safety: it's easy to do, in short bursts, but it doesn't make you FEEL safe. Not only is your breath running out, so you'll have to gasp for air eventually, but you can see them RIGHT THERE and don't FEEL invisible to them. So it's horror-inducing.

Horror, in the end, is not about impotence, but about the sense of it. It's not about making the PCs weak; it's about making their strengths feel less real or significant. The tension in good horror is all about that sense that you should be doing something, that maybe you even are, but that it's not enough and you don't know what more to do. But you have to keep on. Horror IS about the unknown, but despite Lovecraft's obsessions, horror diminishes the more you know. The more you believe you understand, the less a situation is horrible and the more it's just concerning.

For a good set of inspiring pieces for setting up the kind of subversions and betrayals of expectations that make up good horror, I suggest googling "two-sentence horror stories."

One of my favorites: "I heard my mother calling me from the kitchen. When I got to the stairs, she grabbed my wrist and said, 'Don't go down there; I heard it, too.'"

[PunBlake]

Horror is about expectations subverted

^THIS.

One of my proudest GMing moments was being told (after the fact) that I gave a player in CoC nightmares with my description of a man-faced rat she fell near in a mansion's refuse pit.

Reminder: Horror games are about intense description. Your descriptions of everything, from monsters to environments, should sound like horror story descriptions. Induce dread. Make your players uncomfortable (until they tell you to lay off, anyway; mine did). D&D/PF don't really do this within Monster Manuals; rewrites are in order. Find good pictures and show them to players. Consider creepy background music. It's slightly more work than regular DMing, but it's worth the effort. Horror games should be more memorable than standard D&D.

[Darth Ultron]

Both mechanically and in play style 3.5/pathfinder is not really made for Horror. There are Horror RPGs, you might just want to grab one and use it. to do so you need to adjust both the rules and the game play.

1.Little or no facts and information. You want both the characters and the players in the dark as much as is possible. Ideally, having them know next to nothing. First off you have to toss out, or very much modify the knowledge skill rules. Then you need to make foes not ''match the stat blocks". And really everything not match ''stuff printed in the rule books".

2.Afflictions. Anything that hurts or harms a character. By the rules and game play, they are mostly a joke waste of time. If a character is hit with anything like poison, a curse, or effect...they will simply be cured in a second. So again, you need to toss out or very much modify this. Note this is a huge shift for a lot of players...the idea that their special character might walk around with some sort of affliction for like a whole game session or more.

3.Unknowns. At the most basic, this is just new stuff: monsters, spells, items, and such. But it also covers the bigger unknowns too. It is easy to understand monsters that are ''like humans". The goblins want gold...that is simple. But the negoi want...well...nobody knows...they are completely alien in every way.

4.Tweeks. A lot of the game is very simple, with things that do very simple defensed things....and you don't want that. You want things to be a lot more complex...even to the point that things get whole new powers and abilities. You don't need full demi god powers...really, even simple things work.

5.Creepyness. The things you add need to be at least creepy. You don't want a monster that just ''has a fire attack for 1d6 damage"....you want a monster that has the ability to shoot out blood that makes a target sick. Or even better...blood that forms into worms that try and wiggle under the skin, and explode into blood when hit. Again, a lot of this will go above and beyond the book rules, but you can make it work.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Segev
People will say that horror is about disempowerment, but that's not entirely true. Yes, a sense of insecurity, of unsettling impotence is part of it, but it's not enough to merely be hopeless. Horror is about a sense of betrayal.

This, and the rest of Segev’s post, is excellent advice.


Originally Posted by PunBlake
Consider creepy background music.

This too. I’ve been able to use some selections that really creepified my players, and definitely helped with the mood.

[Pleh]

People will say that horror is about disempowerment, but that's not entirely true. Yes, a sense of insecurity, of unsettling impotence is part of it, but it's not enough to merely be hopeless. Horror is about a sense of betrayal. Of people you trusted, perhaps, but also of your own abilities.

I actually disagree.

Betrayal doesn't have to evoke fear. It can instead provoke anger. How many times has an otherwise great horror game been broken by a finicky mechanic that made the experience tedious rather than gripping?

I'm talking about the difference between Betrayal That Disempowers and Betrayal That Disenfranchises. Having the sense that you've lost power (even just the power you get from having a worldview that puts everything into a particular context) you had been relying upon is instinctively scary.

But if you get hung up on "betrayal is horror," you're likely to step into the mistake of making players feel cheated, maligned, or robbed. That's not scary. Not for long, at any rate. That incites righteous anger. If the DM persists in denying the player justice, then we don't get horror, we get bitterness and despondence.

It is about subverting expectations, but it's more than that. It's subverting specifically the expectations people use so they aren't constantly acting on survival instinct.

It's subverting the expectations people use to make themselves feel safe. But people create a sense of security by building trust and dependence on certain powers (commonly the power of knowledge).

You subvert their security by generating a betrayal of their trust in the powers that they rely upon. You disempower them.

[Segev]

I actually disagree.

Betrayal doesn't have to evoke fear. It can instead provoke anger. How many times has an otherwise great horror game been broken by a finicky mechanic that made the experience tedious rather than gripping?

I'm talking about the difference between Betrayal That Disempowers and Betrayal That Disenfranchises. Having the sense that you've lost power (even just the power you get from having a worldview that puts everything into a particular context) you had been relying upon is instinctively scary.

But if you get hung up on "betrayal is horror," you're likely to step into the mistake of making players feel cheated, maligned, or robbed. That's not scary. Not for long, at any rate. That incites righteous anger. If the DM persists in denying the player justice, then we don't get horror, we get bitterness and despondence.

It is about subverting expectations, but it's more than that. It's subverting specifically the expectations people use so they aren't constantly acting on survival instinct.

It's subverting the expectations people use to make themselves feel safe. But people create a sense of security by building trust and dependence on certain powers (commonly the power of knowledge).

You subvert their security by generating a betrayal of their trust in the powers that they rely upon. You disempower them.

You're largely correct. I tried, but perhaps failed, to point out that the "betrayal of expectations" and "failure of your powers to help" needs to come not from them being no-sold, but from them being inappropriate to the problem you face.

Even Superman can't rescue everybody on a space ship full of humans if the ship's life support system has failed and they're slowly losing their breathable atmosphere. He can try to fly them to a planet, but his flight isn't hyperdrive. He can try to fix a leak with his heat vision, but that won't fix their life support scrubbers. Heck, even he needs to breathe!

That may or may not be a horror scenario, but the point is that you're not no-selling Superman's powers with it; the tension comes from his powers being largely inapplicable to solving the main problem.

The betrayal in horror has to be fundamental. Not of the GM playing gotcha-games, but of the setting itself revealing ways in which the players and their characters badly misjudged the foundation of their assumptions.

But most importantly, I was trying to drive consideration of "how" to do horror away from the purely mechanical, "scare them by making them feel weak" sort of thing that lead to "horror" being seen as "scenarios we lose because we don't actually get to play them."


Both mechanically and in play style 3.5/pathfinder is not really made for Horror. There are Horror RPGs, you might just want to grab one and use it. to do so you need to adjust both the rules and the game play.

1.Little or no facts and information. You want both the characters and the players in the dark as much as is possible. Ideally, having them know next to nothing. First off you have to toss out, or very much modify the knowledge skill rules. Then you need to make foes not ''match the stat blocks". And really everything not match ''stuff printed in the rule books".

2.Afflictions. Anything that hurts or harms a character. By the rules and game play, they are mostly a joke waste of time. If a character is hit with anything like poison, a curse, or effect...they will simply be cured in a second. So again, you need to toss out or very much modify this. Note this is a huge shift for a lot of players...the idea that their special character might walk around with some sort of affliction for like a whole game session or more.

3.Unknowns. At the most basic, this is just new stuff: monsters, spells, items, and such. But it also covers the bigger unknowns too. It is easy to understand monsters that are ''like humans". The goblins want gold...that is simple. But the negoi want...well...nobody knows...they are completely alien in every way.

4.Tweeks. A lot of the game is very simple, with things that do very simple defensed things....and you don't want that. You want things to be a lot more complex...even to the point that things get whole new powers and abilities. You don't need full demi god powers...really, even simple things work.

5.Creepyness. The things you add need to be at least creepy. You don't want a monster that just ''has a fire attack for 1d6 damage"....you want a monster that has the ability to shoot out blood that makes a target sick. Or even better...blood that forms into worms that try and wiggle under the skin, and explode into blood when hit. Again, a lot of this will go above and beyond the book rules, but you can make it work.
With the exception of point 5 (Creepyness), Darth Ultron's advice here is not good for creating a sense of horror in players. It just makes them feel cheated and pointless. They're supposed to jump when told "it's scary!" because if they don't, the monsters will kill their underpowered characters.

One of the reasons I emphasized "strange rules for safety" in my earlier post is that this goes into why it's not enough to make players and their characters helpless. It's about making them feel like there IS something they can do, but that something doesn't "feel" safe. And isn't easy to maintain forever. So the danger ramps up with their inattention, with time, just because staying safe is "easy" until they slip up even once....

Changing monsters from the statblocks can work, but isn't enough. You have to combine it with the creepy factor.

Afflictions can help, but they need to be more than debuffs that the players have to "suffer." That's just frustrating. You want them to play into the sense of betrayal, in this case of their own bodies.

You even can set up the maiming some time in advance, showing exactly what will cause it, so that the players are waiting for it to snap shut on them. They know it will. Spending their attention and time on avoiding it staves it off, perhaps, but it won't prevent it. They'll slip up eventually. And they KNOW it's waiting.

And the affliction will not just be a debuff; it will be a debuff that specifically hinders their ability to defend themselves "the easy way." It will slow their ability to run, or it will make them easier to track (a blood trail, perhaps), or it will make them cough periodically against creatures which track by sound.

You aren't playing a game of "hah, you thought this was D&D, but it was really homebrew!" You're playing a game where even if they know the rules, the rules don't make them feel particularly safe.

Mystery helps, too. I had players utterly terrified of looking at the boss of one scenario I wrote because disappeared villagers had statues of them lining the valley leading up to her lair. Clearly, a medusa!

Except it really was a Doppleganger with Sorceress levels charm personing the villagers she kidnapped, and with really good sculpting skills. They were very afraid, especially when they realized that the "medusa" could use disguise self (or so they thought) and thus suddenly surprise-petrify them.

And it didn't take playing GM trickery; it was in-character, in-setting mystery. This wasn't even a horror scenario, but it had them on edge.

So do use reskinned monsters. But reskin them for more creepiness, not to rely on "hah, you don't know the statblock, so that makes you less able to cheese the fight!" as a lame substitute for trepidation. Do deceive the players about the kind of monster it is, but do this for in-character deception, so they feel that genuine sense of unease that comes with not knowing, rather than trying to cheaply substitute that trepidation with "hah, you failed the guessing-game, because THIS werewolf is actually weak to GOLD rather than SILVER!"

Use their knowledges against them. Not by lying to them, but by leaving clues that point to several frightening possibilities. Everyone knows what it means when iron crosses are mangled and melted after a horrifying shadow was seen riding through town, right? And then they remember that the Fair Folk are driven off by iron, too...

[Pleh]

Even Superman
Snip
needs to breathe!

Careful pinning your argument on that point. Superman doesn't need to breathe half the time. It really depends on which authors you're reading at the time.


So do use reskinned monsters. But reskin them for more creepiness, not to rely on "hah, you don't know the statblock, so that makes you less able to cheese the fight!" as a lame substitute for trepidation. Do deceive the players about the kind of monster it is, but do this for in-character deception, so they feel that genuine sense of unease that comes with not knowing, rather than trying to cheaply substitute that trepidation with "hah, you failed the guessing-game, because THIS werewolf is actually weak to GOLD rather than SILVER!"

There *is* value in reskinning the statblocks even for the metagame value.

Nothing quite steps up the game like fighting tooth and nail to learn that the reason your enemy is so tough to kill is because they are a vampire, only to learn in the next fight that the vampire has come up with workarounds for the typical weaknesses. Holy water and crucifixes won't be enough this time.

Now, your criticism of DU is spot on. You don't want to do this for its own sake. That will probably feel cheap and make players feel cheated. If you want to "betray the metaknowledge" to help the players really connect with how their characters likewise don't have enough information, there should always be a path forward.

"How were we supposed to know that the werewolf was vulnerable to gold instead of silver?" You just about couldn't, but the DM should leave a Foreboding Omen to tip off the players that something is off about the standard solution to lycanthropes. In searching for the werewolf to slay it with silver, they find his lair abandoned, but the remains of some arcane ritual. You make some notes of the scene, but then you hear the master returning home. Cue the harrowing misadventure where the silver does not work and the protagonists retreat to tend to their wounded.

Later research gives a cryptic clue that the ritual changed the lycanthrope's weakness and didn't remove it. But there is insufficient evidence as to what the new weakness is. Cue the next quest to gather the evidence needed before the next full moon.

[John05]

You have to somehow convince the players that merely surviving the campaign is a heroic deed in and of itself, because slaying the beast is impossible (or futile, in the case of self ressurecting slasher movie monsters).

Right. And they have to be invested in their characters.

Intuitively, for me this means that it's better to have it be higher than low levels, where the players might not have had the time to get attached yet.

[Blackhawk748]

Theres plenty of good advice in here but you guys are seriously over-complicating things. The OP is new to the whole horror game thing (as far as running it it seems) and when thats the case you gotta start simply.

1. Atmosphere: This right here is foundation of all horror. Even horror that doesnt take place in an ostensibly "creepy" location (ie youre inside a suburban house or something) needs atmosphere. This means you may have to put more description into your environments than usual and while this may feel a bit annoying, its worth it.

2. Mess with the Characters, not the players: Lets be honest, most players are fairly jaded so going after them isn't really worth it. The characters on the other hand probably arent and its easier to get your players a bit weirded out when strange stuff starts happening to their characters. This could mean that you have to start rolling their saves (if you don't do that already) this also means giving more in depth descriptions of things, as just coming out and saying whats happening to them isnt gonna help with atmosphere.

3. Tension: Tension is what makes horror. No tension, no horror. That being said, you have to let the tension slip every now and then otherwise they stop caring. How you make tension is up to you (there are an awful lot of ways to build tension) but make sure that the payoff is worth it. So don't have the peak of your slow building tension be a jump scare. I will be very disappointed.

4. Limit intel: Someone else mentioned this above but it bears repeating: too much intel can kill the tension you're trying to build, and tension is necessary. How do you limit intel in DnD? Simple, don't give them a clear look at the beasty. If they don't have enough info to take full advantage of their Knowledge Skills (assuming they have them) they only get partial intel which may or may not be incorrect. Once again, you will probably have to roll for them on this to keep tension up. A good example of this in action is Supernatural, as they often spend large portions of the episode trying to figure out what the creature is so they an stop it. Don't be afraid to just let them have the win once they figure out that your Wraiths are hurt by Copper. They earned it.

5. It only has to seem invincible: The monster doesnt actually have to be invincible in order to make the party freak out. If your mage just chucks fire spells all over the place, having it just be fire resistant is enough. Don't go to far in this and make it so that your monsters are always hitting your players in the weak point. Just build a monster, have it act in a way thats natural to it and just be sure to keep the atmosphere and tension going.

6. Let them in on it: As others have mentioned horror doesnt work terribly well if your players arnet in on it. They need to be informed so they can set their expectations accordingly. Frankly this is true for any new campaign of DnD, it just bears emphasis in the case of horror as then they can assume that the monsters will be a bit tougher and things will be a bit messier.

Hope that helps. I love running horror games and i've had fairly solid success with mine.

[Bohandas]

Undeath-focused horror is about that gnawing sense that that which is dead is not actually at rest, and that your own allies, taken from you, now become twisted monsters to come for you.

Betrayal by allies is disturbing, but not super frightening. I think undeath works best as an evil that won't stay down. Some awful malevolent force that was eradicated but now somehow is back. Possibly allegorically representing living people trying to turn back the course of progress. That's why nazi zombies and confederate ghosts work so well.

EDIT:
And the lack of that allegory is also why much of Lovecraft's work, while excellent as fantasy, falls flat as horror. The ancient force of destruction is inevitably more advanced than the narrator's civilization, which puts the narrator in the position of trying to prolong a dark age.