Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1144234I think sometimes the worst thing a GM can do, is try to force horror. If am running Cthulhu or Ravenloft, and it veers into comedy, I just go with it. Ravenloft lends itself well to campy horror so I think it is fine. For me the horror setting is the most important thing. It doesn't always have to be brimming with super serious horror atmosphere. Sometimes when players are goofing around and joking, they let their guard down and it contrasts well when something truly horrifying occurs. My reaction to horror movies is usually either being on the edge of my seat, or laughing. So it works. Half the reason I love old horror movies with Vincent price is the sense of humor behind it.

Well, I think the bigger problem is mainstream D&D is not well made to handle horror. Too much big magic, PCs aren't vulnerable enough, too much of a need to include extra monsters and treasure for xp reasons.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1146704Well, I think the bigger problem is mainstream D&D is not well made to handle horror. Too much big magic, PCs aren't vulnerable enough, too much of a need to include extra monsters and treasure for xp reasons.

I agree on this. I think it was a much bigger problem in 3rd edition Ravenloft, but still an issue in 2nd. They tried to deal with that by doing things like changing spell effects and having greater customization of monsters (if you use the Van Richten books to make your werewolves, vampires, golems, etc they become much tough opponents), but it only went so far. Ravenloft was still D&D and, with the exception of very low level characters, PCs are not going to be vulnerable like most characters in horror stories and horror movies are. Early levels you could still get a lot of that effect, though I still encountered comedy. I remember running the Book of Crypts adventure where the door to Mordenheim's Mansion has splinters that do damage, and the mage in the party died just trying to knock on the door (if I recall it was 1d2 damage, but might have been a d4----been many years).

Quote from: RPGPundit;1146704Well, I think the bigger problem is mainstream D&D is not well made to handle horror. Too much big magic, PCs aren't vulnerable enough, too much of a need to include extra monsters and treasure for xp reasons.

Yeah, nothing cramps the sense of horror you should have seeing a gug step out of a tear in reality, quite like the party sorcerer giving it a 'bitch, PLEASE' glare and smoking it with finger of death.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1146704Well, I think the bigger problem is mainstream D&D is not well made to handle horror. Too much big magic, PCs aren't vulnerable enough, too much of a need to include extra monsters and treasure for xp reasons.

Quote from: Ghostmaker;1146793Yeah, nothing cramps the sense of horror you should have seeing a gug step out of a tear in reality, quite like the party sorcerer giving it a 'bitch, PLEASE' glare and smoking it with finger of death.

I agree that there are some issues with D&D and horror - but power level isn't one of them. It's trivial to come up with threats that can easily kill the PCs.

Horror isn't restricted to helpless children going down into basements alone. In many ways, horror is more effective when it scales up. When characters think they are tough and safe, and they find that they aren't. Something that set the original Ravenloft module I6 apart was that it had a villain who could move around, plan, and come at the PCs -- rather than just sitting in a room waiting to be encountered.

I think one of the more major issues is regular PC death. If the players are already used to having a PC die and just rolling up a new character, that takes away the threat. I think the challenge is more making the characters more personal and familiar. The more the players care about the PCs as well as NPCs and the world, the more effective the horror is going to be.

A better way to induce horror is to induce helplessness. The realization that something is wrong and no amount of smite evil or plane shift is going to fix it quickly.

I ran an adventure in a superhero game that was loosely based off the old Internet tale 'the Dionaea House'. Spatial distortion and temporal shifts abounded, and none of the PCs had powers that would allow them to sidestep those issues. Nothing like the freaked out expression on one player's face when I described the interior of the house with a set of stairs going up to the next floor.

HER: 'Wait, when we were outside, we saw a one story house, right?'
ME: 'That's what you recall seeing, yes.'
HER: *bug-eyed expression*

Quote from: Ghostmaker;1146800A better way to induce horror is to induce helplessness. The realization that something is wrong and no amount of smite evil or plane shift is going to fix it quickly.

I ran an adventure in a superhero game that was loosely based off the old Internet tale 'the Dionaea House'. Spatial distortion and temporal shifts abounded, and none of the PCs had powers that would allow them to sidestep those issues. Nothing like the freaked out expression on one player's face when I described the interior of the house with a set of stairs going up to the next floor.

HER: 'Wait, when we were outside, we saw a one story house, right?'
ME: 'That's what you recall seeing, yes.'
HER: *bug-eyed expression*

That's a good example of horror, but a bad example of helplessness. It's a good example of "things are not as they seem" horror, which doesn't require helplessness. It requires a violation of normal assumptions - even "not helpless" PCs put in that situation can cause the kind of horror response in the players that you relate.

Quote from: jhkim;1146795I think one of the more major issues is regular PC death. If the players are already used to having a PC die and just rolling up a new character, that takes away the threat. I think the challenge is more making the characters more personal and familiar. The more the players care about the PCs as well as NPCs and the world, the more effective the horror is going to be.

I have been on both sides of this over the years. But my current thinking is more regular character death is better for horror RPGs. I do think you don't necessarily want a meat grinder, but for all the articles and ink I've seen spilled arguing for making the players care about their PC, and therefore not killing them, or not killing them as much, in order to maximize horror, at the table, I see time and again, that letting the players know death is on the table, it will happen objectively according to the rules, produces horror pretty effectively. I think if the players know or sense, you are staying your hand with the threats, they are less threatening. But if the monster in question thinks nothing of picking up a PC and ripping him or her apart, and that plays out mechanically with the character dying, they have something to fear. Whether they identify with or care about their PC, almost doesn't matter. All that matters is they feel like they are in the shoes of their character facing that threat (which is a different feeling than identifying with or caring about the character)

Quote from: jhkim;1146795Horror isn't restricted to helpless children going down into basements alone. In many ways, horror is more effective when it scales up. When characters think they are tough and safe, and they find that they aren't. Something that set the original Ravenloft module I6 apart was that it had a villain who could move around, plan, and come at the PCs -- rather than just sitting in a room waiting to be encountered.
.

This is something I think works well in Ravenloft. D&D characters may be powerful, but by having Strahd function more like a PC, he could undermine a lot of that power. And that was expanded to the whole line in the way it handled monsters and encouraged making any major threat unique, and therefore full of surprises. You couldn't rely on the monster manual entry of lycanthropes to handle a werewolf in Ravenloft, because it could be much more powerful than a standard werewolves, and its weakness might require all kinds of research or investigation to figure out.

Quote from: jhkimI think one of the more major issues is regular PC death. If the players are already used to having a PC die and just rolling up a new character, that takes away the threat. I think the challenge is more making the characters more personal and familiar. The more the players care about the PCs as well as NPCs and the world, the more effective the horror is going to be.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1146803I have been on both sides of this over the years. But my current thinking is more regular character death is better for horror RPGs. I do think you don't necessarily want a meat grinder, but for all the articles and ink I've seen spilled arguing for making the players care about their PC, and therefore not killing them, or not killing them as much, in order to maximize horror, at the table, I see time and again, that letting the players know death is on the table, it will happen objectively according to the rules, produces horror pretty effectively.

I also find it's good to let the players know that death is on the table, and that it happens objectively according to the rules. That doesn't require *regular* character death, though. One of my Call of Cthulhu campaigns only had one PC death, for example, but had plenty of horror.

I've played in a number of Call of Cthulhu games which were fun in a campy way, but where the players were quite blase about their character dying or going insane. It seems like it's a pretty common mode of play in the wider CoC community. It's not comedic, but it's more like gritty noir than horror. I have friends who are also into playing board games like Arkham Horror and Mansions of Madness, and they have a similar feel.

Quote from: jhkim;1146817I also find it's good to let the players know that death is on the table, and that it happens objectively according to the rules. That doesn't require *regular* character death, though. One of my Call of Cthulhu campaigns only had one PC death, for example, but had plenty of horror.
.

I am not saying it ought to be regular. I guess what I am trying to say is I think it should be more 'let the dice fall where they may', and the GM shouldn't pull punches to artificially avoid more frequent character death.

Quote from: Ghostmaker;1146800A better way to induce horror is to induce helplessness. The realization that something is wrong and no amount of smite evil or plane shift is going to fix it quickly.

I ran an adventure in a superhero game that was loosely based off the old Internet tale 'the Dionaea House'. Spatial distortion and temporal shifts abounded, and none of the PCs had powers that would allow them to sidestep those issues. Nothing like the freaked out expression on one player's face when I described the interior of the house with a set of stairs going up to the next floor.

HER: 'Wait, when we were outside, we saw a one story house, right?'
ME: 'That's what you recall seeing, yes.'
HER: *bug-eyed expression*

http://homepages.math.uic.edu/~kauffman/CrookedHouse.pdf