Advice for 1st time DM on running a horror game?

[JEntropy]

I've been helping a friend with the conceptual background for the modern-day horror campaign he's designing, and yesterday I got nudged with a bit of inspiration myself. I think I've got some fairly compelling brush strokes for a medieval horror campaign, but I could use some help.

(Forgive me for not giving a more detailed explanation of my story. I'm intending to run it as a PBP game here before I run it in front of a live group, so I don't want any spoilers for potential players)

I've DM'd twice before in my life, both as one-shot games for my younger brother and his friends at birthday parties, and using preconstructed modules as rough guidelines. As such, although I've played in a number of long campaigns with homebrewed plots and settings, and even bantered around ideas about worldbuilding with friends, I've never actually run one before.

tl;dr: long-time player, first-time DM needs advice, recommended resources and important points he may not have considered in bringing his story to life as a 3.5 game.

[Debihuman]

What game system?

There are a lot of good horror based games--Chill (old and out of print but one of my favorites for modern horror). I regularly steal ideas from it. Call of Cthulhu is another good one for Modern Horror though it is best as a 1890s-1940s era.

For gothic horror there's the Ravenloft setting for 3.5 from Sword and Sorcery, another of my favorites. It's hard to get print copies but PDFs are available.

Gothic horror is a great setting. You need fog and eerie castles and a cast of frightened villagers and the of course the monsters: vampire, werewolf and mummy are classic but you can twist anything into horror. Gargoyle spies, awakened rats, goblins on wargs that only raid on full moons.

The major problem with running a horror campaign is that the pacing can be a bit slower because you want to build up as much tension in the game as possible. You want to keep things in the shadows and just throw enough clues to keep the the interest up without revealing too much. The danger of going too far is that sometimes it devolves into sheer silliness so you need to be careful with timing and pacing.

Debby

[TheCountAlucard]

What game system?

Specifies that it's 3.5e in the tl;dr part.

[Optimystik]

Heroes of Horror has great tips on running a horror campaign in 3.5. It has tips on pacing, altering monsters and effects to make them creepier, and even dividing the party to increase their peril.

If you plan on using undead, Libris Mortis has great ways to enhance them, as well.

[Godskook]

1.Nail down a set of houserules before you start and make them available to the players. Nothing's more annoying to a player than coming up with a concept only to have the main components banned on submission.

2.Decide your power level. Gestalt? Flaws/Traits? E6? Starting level? Point buy?

[JEntropy]

What game system?

There are a lot of good horror based games--Chill (old and out of print but one of my favorites for modern horror). I regularly steal ideas from it. Call of Cthulhu is another good one for Modern Horror though it is best as a 1890s-1940s era.

For gothic horror there's the Ravenloft setting for 3.5 from Sword and Sorcery, another of my favorites. It's hard to get print copies but PDFs are available.

Debby

I've looked at CoC before. My plan is to run it as a 3.5e game because (1) I have the most experience with it, (2) it fits the fantasy feel better than CoC, (3) Lovecraftian stories generally put players against something not only too horrible to imagine, but impossible to overcome -- my goal is the former, not the latter. Still, I like the idea of a "sanity" score, and I'm hoping to find someway to blend that into the game.

I haven't seen (or heard of) Chill. What's the brief synopsis on the system, so I know if I should investigate further?

Gothic horror is a great setting. You need fog and eerie castles and a cast of frightened villagers and the of course the monsters: vampire, werewolf and mummy are classic but you can twist anything into horror. Gargoyle spies, awakened rats, goblins on wargs that only raid on full moons.

The major problem with running a horror campaign is that the pacing can be a bit slower because you want to build up as much tension in the game as possible. You want to keep things in the shadows and just throw enough clues to keep the the interest up without revealing too much. The danger of going too far is that sometimes it devolves into sheer silliness so you need to be careful with timing and pacing.

Debby

I guess, subconsciously, I'm aware of pacing, but was just blindly hoping that the "oh my god what is happening" intrigue would keep the players engaged. The last thing I want is for the game to go silly (IC, I'm all in favor of OOC silliness), so I'll be sure to keep a watchful eye on it.

Thanks :)

[JEntropy]

Heroes of Horror has great tips on running a horror campaign in 3.5. It has tips on pacing, altering monsters and effects to make them creepier, and even dividing the party to increase their peril.

If you plan on using undead, Libris Mortis has great ways to enhance them, as well.

I think my friend has LM, actually, and if I can find somewhere that still carries 3.5 books I'll see what I can't find in HoH. Thanks!

1.Nail down a set of houserules before you start and make them available to the players. Nothing's more annoying to a player than coming up with a concept only to have the main components banned on submission.

2.Decide your power level. Gestalt? Flaws/Traits? E6? Starting level? Point buy?

Thanks for the input. I guess I didn't outline all this before, but I'll throw it out and see if my reasoning is sound.

I was planning on starting the players at somewhere between ECL3-6: not entirely green, but not really renowned either. I think that, if I found the right group and enough compelling material to fit under the main story arc, it has the potential to be a 5-15 game, for example.

Being that I'm still fairly green behind the screen, and wanting the players to be more inventive in how their PCs are played than how they are designed...at this point, unless there is some compelling argument otherwise, I'm thinking core only, with case by case considerations for PrCs and feats.

Is this a horrible abomination in its own right? What would some other playgrounders say is a good mix of flexibility in PC design that maintains a fair amount of simplicity and game balance?

[JEntropy]

To be clear here, as reading some of the other threads on the forum reminded me, I'm not working under the presumption that core is "balanced", but rather that the wider the breadth of non-core material that is added, the more hopelessly imbalanced the system becomes.

Hopefully this will keep me from looking like a complete moron and discouraging any further help from my friends at the playground :)

[Greenish]

To be clear here, as reading some of the other threads on the forum reminded me, I'm not working under the presumption that core is "balanced", but rather that the wider the breadth of non-core material that is added, the more hopelessly imbalanced the system becomes.

I'll disagree with that, but that's not on the topic.

Onwards to the actual topic, how about the good ol' "Nothing is worse" trope? Meaning literal nothing. Having a manor, an area in a dungeon or an entire town be empty of everything (including enemies, not that the players know) can be quite unnerving. Same with just hinting at the presence of enemies, but keeping them hidden, which can rack up the tension if used in moderation. The scariest part of a horror movie is rarely when the monster(s) finally attacks, but the part where you expect the monster to attack at any moment.

[Godskook]

Being that I'm still fairly green behind the screen, and wanting the players to be more inventive in how their PCs are played than how they are designed...at this point, unless there is some compelling argument otherwise, I'm thinking core only, with case by case considerations for PrCs and feats.

Is this a horrible abomination in its own right? What would some other playgrounders say is a good mix of flexibility in PC design that maintains a fair amount of simplicity and game balance?

From what I can tell, the end-points of power-levels are all set in core(There's little out there that's more powerful than a wizard or worse than a fighter or monk, for example). Meaning you can't get more broken by adding more books. Admittedly, there'll be new ways to *get* broken, but they're just the newest ways to commit the oldest sins, as it were.

On the other hand, I personally find that splatbooks make adding minutia to my character's build(and thus, 'personalizing' him) much easier, making them far more 'my own' than if I had had to build the same character in core. For instance, my current character is a second generation member of the Daggerspell Guardians. A petty theif at home while his father was too busy abroad righting wrongs in other people's lives. When his father died, Jonathan began studying his fathers books and took his daggers as his own and went out in search of justice. Thanks to allies he found along the way, he quickly learned his father's magic and just recently joined his father's guild. Right now he's a Rogue 1/Wizard 4/DGMage 1, and while there's the Arcane Trickster class in core, it just wouldn't be the same, or as interesting.

There's also the fact that the middle-grounds are far better balanced in a splat-book friendly game.

Regardless of your choice, I suggest you read the Test of Spite ban list. It'll point out most of the problem areas for you. Even if you take a different approach to fixing the issues, knowing where and what they are will be a big help.

[JEntropy]

Spoiler

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From what I can tell, the end-points of power-levels are all set in core(There's little out there that's more powerful than a wizard or worse than a fighter or monk, for example). Meaning you can't get more broken by adding more books. Admittedly, there'll be new ways to *get* broken, but they're just the newest ways to commit the oldest sins, as it were.

On the other hand, I personally find that splatbooks make adding minutia to my character's build(and thus, 'personalizing' him) much easier, making them far more 'my own' than if I had had to build the same character in core. For instance, my current character is a second generation member of the Daggerspell Guardians. A petty theif at home while his father was too busy abroad righting wrongs in other people's lives. When his father died, Jonathan began studying his fathers books and took his daggers as his own and went out in search of justice. Thanks to allies he found along the way, he quickly learned his father's magic and just recently joined his father's guild. Right now he's a Rogue 1/Wizard 4/DGMage 1, and while there's the Arcane Trickster class in core, it just wouldn't be the same, or as interesting.

There's also the fact that the middle-grounds are far better balanced in a splat-book friendly game.

Regardless of your choice, I suggest you read the Test of Spite ban list. It'll point out most of the problem areas for you. Even if you take a different approach to fixing the issues, knowing where and what they are will be a big help.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding has always been that (1) core classes like the wizard are much higher powered than others, especially at end-game, (2) adding templates, PrCs and new spells simply makes it more egregious.

I certainly see where you're coming from, though, and making the middle ranks stronger is as good an argument as any. I think my xenophobia is based on the fact that I cut my teeth on low fantasy campaigns and that my handful of experiences with free-ranging splat-based characters led to groups that were much more concerned with what was written on the piece of paper than what it represented.

Clearly in your case, with the apparent depth of your character's background, it's not a hindrance in the slightest, so I'll be sure to read the ban list and explore a little more open-mindedness in character crunching.

Spoiler

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I'll disagree with that, but that's not on the topic.

Onwards to the actual topic, how about the good ol' "Nothing is worse" trope? Meaning literal nothing. Having a manor, an area in a dungeon or an entire town be empty of everything (including enemies, not that the players know) can be quite unnerving. Same with just hinting at the presence of enemies, but keeping them hidden, which can rack up the tension if used in moderation. The scariest part of a horror movie is rarely when the monster(s) finally attacks, but the part where you expect the monster to attack at any moment.

This really meshes well with some themes I encountered when I googled the topic. There was a description of a party returning to their hometown only to find it empty, with belladonna tied to the doors of every home and a very limited amount of gore with signs of struggle, but no bodies. The DM had used this in lieu of saying that a werewolf had attacked the town and killed the blacksmith.

Thanks for throwing me this idea, too, I've already thought of a few ways to use it.

[Mordokai]

There has been some talk around this before, so I would provide you with links to some of the older topics. There's a lot of reading and you might find some interesting tips in there.

DMing the Horror Genre
Horror Campaign (prev. Army of Commoners)
Players as Prey
Advice on horror campaign
Help with Horror. our background story included.

Hope this helps somewhat. And best of luck to you.

[Greenish]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding has always been that (1) core classes like the wizard are much higher powered than others, especially at end-game, (2) adding templates, PrCs and new spells simply makes it more egregious.

Core full casters are already so far above mere mortals (non-casters) that adding to their power doesn't matter. Various splatbooks introduce a lot more viable options for non-casters, and a number of better balanced base classes. For example, most templates aren't useful for casters, but range from good to solid gold for others. Same with spells: Gate, Time Stop and Miracle, say, are already in core, but new books add many middle of the road / flavourful options (yeah, and some totally broken ones).

There's a lot of utter rubbish and loads of broken stuff in splats, but there's also much good, flavourful and melee-empowering in them, not to mention fun. In the end, they add options to everyone, and can be used to increase anyone's power, but the classes that aren't already omnipotent benefit from that a lot more.

Also: ToB is awesome.

[Godskook]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding has always been that (1) core classes like the wizard are much higher powered than others, especially at end-game, (2) adding templates, PrCs and new spells simply makes it more egregious.

Well, you're 100% on (1), and at least partially right on (2), but the going core only means that the 'pure fighter' in your group is an actual fighter, but in a splat-open system, your 'pure fighter' is a warblade, so he won't feel useless, and when the wizard runs out of slots, the warblade can get by alright for a while without him.

I certainly see where you're coming from, though, and making the middle ranks stronger is as good an argument as any. I think my xenophobia is based on the fact that I cut my teeth on low fantasy campaigns and that my handful of experiences with free-ranging splat-based characters led to groups that were much more concerned with what was written on the piece of paper than what it represented.

Same group and DM?

Also, I'm reminded of a dog behavior trait. Owners who 'feed' their dogs find that dogs will gorge themselves if too much is given. Owners who simply leave enough food out find that the dogs will self-moderate their own diets. Perhaps something similar happened in your group?

Clearly in your case, with the apparent depth of your character's background, it's not a hindrance in the slightest, so I'll be sure to read the ban list and explore a little more open-mindedness in character crunching.

Thanks. Here he is if you're curious.

[AtopTheMountain]

This trope may help some. If you can keep them in near-total darkness and give them just enough clues (sounds, etc.) to keep them on their toes, then this will work wonders. You have to show them the monsters eventually, however, which is the reason Ultimate Evil isn't applicable.

[JEntropy]

Same group and DM?

Also, I'm reminded of a dog behavior trait. Owners who 'feed' their dogs find that dogs will gorge themselves if too much is given. Owners who simply leave enough food out find that the dogs will self-moderate their own diets. Perhaps something similar happened in your group?

Actually, different group(s). I'm going to spoiler this because I'm afraid the thread is shifting from "what should I look out for in starting my first real campaign, especially related to the horror genre" to debating the merits of core vs splat:

Spoiler

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For my old group, the strictest low fantasy game was *my* introduction, but they had been gaming for years before I joined them. Since that time, I've played in a wide variety of games with them that ranged from wide open splat to controlled amounts of splat to core only, sometimes with homebrew thrown it, and I've never felt like it became a numbers game more than group storytelling.

No, my "issue", if you will, has been with some of the other groups I've been invited to play with. As an example, one of my best friends invited me to play with his crew, and after the first encounter I realized that people had to try and break the game just to be able to do anything worthwhile inside of the group.

Now I realize this is extreme, but I've gotten the impression that PCs are "builds" from many groups I've joined over the years, even in a handful of pbp games.

Believing that "with great power comes great responsibility", and accepting that people sometimes have very different ideas on what makes rpgs fun than I do, my original inclination towards core only was to focus people on the devil we know. We know the list of wizard spells that are complete cheese, so we separate that out up front. The devil we don't know, at least in my case, is a lot of the splat material. One thing that seems obvious for PCs to experience fear in a horror game is that they need to feel vulnerable. That's why the ban guide, once I have a chance to read it, may help so much. My concern with opening the floodgates is that I'll have a player put something together I don't realize is cheese whiz up front (possibly because I haven't seen how all the pieces interact), and down the road it completely derails the feel of the campaign based on how anathema it is to the genre. I'm not sure how I would deal with that, and I really don't want to be in that position at all.

So it's not so much that I'm a purist, or would begrudge someone taking levels in Scout or Beguiler or what-have-you, it's that I want to keep people from focusing too much on what their character does. To me, having the (perhaps boring), familiar archetypes from core only forces us, in a way, to get more into who the character is and less of letting his class features define him.

Feel free to disagree. I am completely accepting of the fact that my views are based on my past experiences, and I'm open to changing them once I get a better feel for the people I'm playing with.

No offense (because it is an interesting contrast of viewpoints), but hopefully we've exhausted it at this point in the discussion.

By the way, I pulled up your character sheet and skipped down to the fluff, and loved every word of it. I hope I can find four players like you for my game, when it is eventually operational :)

[AslanCross]

I don't know if you run games with music in the background, but I once ran a one-shot horror adventure (Hell's Heart, set in Eberron; it's free on WOTC's website) with Diablo music in the background. It helped a lot in setting the mood.

Preparing the room helps, too. If you can make the room dark and slightly cramped (As long as neither you nor your players are actually claustrophobic), it helps in bringing everyone together.

[Iceforge]

I love running horror games, I usually only run horror games as one-time games, rather than over several sessions, which means I usually use CoC, as the "usually deadly" is not bad, if you are only playing one evening anyway.

When running a horror game, focusing on the mood of things is very important. You should focus on the mood indirectly, telling the players "it is scary" is not going to make it at all scary for them, but most people know that.

To give you a head start, when you are playing it at the table (as opposed to your test run with PbP) then have low light in the room, using candles as the only light source works really well if at all possible.
Have people stay in character as constantly as possible; While cracking a joke is fine in a casual DnD dungeon crawl style game, it totally ruins the mood at the table when playing a horror game.

More so than in a standard game, you need to use explicit descriptions of things. An example I once saw, which I found quite good, was if the players or one of them have to eat some worms on a plate to win favour with a crazed person, then in a DnD game, you could go "he puts down a plate infront of you, it is filled with crawling worms and he grins as he tells you to eat of the worms if you want his help", well, in a horror game, you need to explain indirectly how gross this is. It is not "plate of worms" it is "he puts down a plate with dents and small pieces broken off it's edges. On top of the plate is muddy little strings of fleshy worms, crawling around amongst each other, their soft wrinkled surface contracting and expanding, as they move about on the plate, outside their natural enviournement. One of the little filthy worms is missing one half, like someone took a bite of it, and from the wound a clear liquid with a foul stench is oozing out on the worm below it. The old man grins, his facial muscles tense and his eyes lighting up with the madness he is inflicted with, a bit of drool running from his teeth and out over his lip as he eagerly encourages you 'go on, take a bite', nodding in approval as he does so"

Also, be sure to let some things remain mysterious, but be cautious, it can end up in player frustration if you make the mysteries to hard to figure out. There needs to be some meaning in the madness, so know why people do what they do before you tell the players about it. In a regular game, you can get away with throwing something more or less random out and then adjust it later so it fits, but in a horror game, it works best if there is a deeper planned meaning to everything

[AslanCross]

More so than in a standard game, you need to use explicit descriptions of things. An example I once saw, which I found quite good, was if the players or one of them have to eat some worms on a plate to win favour with a crazed person, then in a DnD game, you could go "he puts down a plate infront of you, it is filled with crawling worms and he grins as he tells you to eat of the worms if you want his help", well, in a horror game, you need to explain indirectly how gross this is. It is not "plate of worms" it is "he puts down a plate with dents and small pieces broken off it's edges. On top of the plate is muddy little strings of fleshy worms, crawling around amongst each other, their soft wrinkled surface contracting and expanding, as they move about on the plate, outside their natural enviournement. One of the little filthy worms is missing one half, like someone took a bite of it, and from the wound a clear liquid with a foul stench is oozing out on the worm below it. The old man grins, his facial muscles tense and his eyes lighting up with the madness he is inflicted with, a bit of drool running from his teeth and out over his lip as he eagerly encourages you 'go on, take a bite', nodding in approval as he does so"

This. Brings a whole new meaning to "the Devil is in the details." It's also good to balance between keeping the players in the dark and piling on the details. Don't do it ALL the time.

[Iceforge]

By the way, also do something I failed to do in my example, which is to engage as many of the senses of the players as possible. My example used vision and smell, but when possible include all the classic 5 senses (Sight, Hearing, Smell, Taste and Feeling), maybe not in every description, but make sure you get all of them a few times over the course of a session at least.

Also, be wary of test running with PbP, as I would predict a horror game being much harder to run on a PbP forum, where off-game things are unavoidable (the players aren't going to sit and do nothing while waiting for updates to the thread), so the focus on the story is going to be less intense when done with PbP