I wrote my own 1 shot last year that is a much more simplified blend of DnD and Call of Cthulhu. Great for new roleplayers. The game was mostly narrative based. It went incredibly well and was extremely creepy and engaging. These were the key takeaways I had. 1. Make sure the characters are contained in the setting. Make sure each character has some motivation to see the whole scenerio through. Also physically keeping the characters in the setting (Horrible storms, locked building, disabled vehicle) creates the uncomfortable feeling of being trapped. It also prevents the characters from just running away. 2. Limited resources is key. If your group has access to weapons, keep it at a minimum. Also try to figure out how to prevent the group from just calling in backup/police to solve the problem. You want them to feel alone. 3. Creepy ambiance noises and music is key to setting the mood. It really does wonders.
1. Characters can be compelled to fight by attacking family members or friends. Many horror movies has a child be a victim and a mother or father now has to fight otherworldly foes that they would otherwise ignore. The thing can cause a ‘sickness’ that just progresses till death. You can ignore it but there are consequences for that. You can eventually make the PC’s ‘sick’ now even the most selfish are motivated. There is no escape the horror follows you. 2. Two ways to keep help away. The first is seclusion. They’re deep in the woods. Travel into and out of the area takes a long time. Even if help is called it will be too late. You can even have no phones in the wilderness. In ‘Scream’ the murder just cut the phone lines and taunted the victim. The danger was near and the police were far. This was in a suburb. The second way is to use the super natural. The police aren’t equipped to help and they don’t believe you anyway. In horror movies characters might contact a priest but then they don’t have the knowledge necessary either. You need your expert that society shuns. Your van Helsing if they exist. Slasher movies often like to take place in the woods. Demon or ghost infestations can be any but no one can help.
I've realized that something a lot of people overlook in regards to vampires is the tale of the original Bram Stoker's Dracula. Sunlight didn't kill him, it simply rendered him mortal so he could be killed. Just imagine the look on your players' faces when they bring in some sort of daylight spell... only to realize that this vampire is not burning up in the daylight and is just as deadly during the day.
Vampires have had to be revamped (heh) time and again in order to sustain their mystery and threat, which is why they have endured in our collective myth.
Many years ago, I ran a Shadowrun game where the characters had to travel through a sewer. I turned off the lights and gave the players flashlights to see their sheets. It was spooky. They found a little girl and their lights passed through her translucent form. After running away, they found the target facility and broke in. The laboratory was deserted and the only lightning was red. I switched on a lamp with a red bulb for light. As they explored, I described the carnage around them of the biohazard experiment gone wrong...
My game shop owner 15 years ago ran a Star Wars game where everyone had to draw an index card to see which character they will play, one lucky guy got to play Darth Vader. It was a bioweapon lab, with a weaponize cyborg animal to be a horrify animal animal like " Wolverine." One player asked what animal was in the test tube tank, the DM/ owner quickly reach for a stuff animal on the floor without looking, picked up and dropped a pink stuff rabbit on the table before everyone to see. He had such a happy grinning face. It was his Monty Python moment. Random player Strom Trooper, " Oh no, it is the Pink Vorpal Bunny, why did it had to be the P.V.B. ?!" Imperial scientist, " How would you know about the P.V.B. project trooper ?" Imperial Lt.," Cause it things like this which troopers make up to entertain themselves with." Vader raises his right hand and flex it into a fist, everyone grows silent expecting to see some just choked, " Why did they have to recreate the P.V.B. , .. again ?" Trooper, " Again, .. My'Lord ?" Vader, " It was but, a flesh wound." Later on in the game,.. Leia, " What type of monster would turn such a cute creature into such a murderous beast of a monster.?!" Han, " It is .. cute .. that is why it is horrorfying . That is the Empire for you." Group of mauled troopers, " OMG, it will not stop attacking, nothing stops it. The little beast took offf both of Vader's legs at the knees. ! " End of the adventure Leia makes a subconscious untrained force skill: Friendship with spending a Force Point on a charisma check. And has a loving pet P.V.B.
I'm a little late to the party. But I wish to share a story anyways. While DMing a high fantasy home brew, I put my players in a place outside of their comfort zone. They were in these mines deep beneath a dwarven city, these mines were sealed away with explosives and the surviving miners were all driven mad. In there, my players found themselves clinging to a torch for dear life while they move from one lit spot to another while they hear the shambling horrors all around them in the dark. These things feared the light, but with the light ever so slowly dying, for the first time since I started DMing, I was so happy to see my players hold their breath. They found a safe spot where they managed to salvage a lantern but barely enough oil for it, and that's when they thought they found a survivor, this dwarven miner was on his belly on the floor and the moment their healer pat him to see if he is asleep or dead, her hand was latched to its skin, and the "dwarf" laid motionless while from its belly emerged tentacled and insect-like limbs which slowly dragged her towards the darkness. My group disbanded not long after that due to real life circumstances, but I still remember that session.
Using Aquelarre (a spanish game with system similar to Call of Cthulhu with a historical but folklorish medieval setting. translates on "Coven") i can assure you a vampire or a werewolf can be made amazingly scary. the point wasn't try to confuse your players, but make very very clear what were the steaks and how helpless they were in comparison.
I agree. The werewolf you describe horrendous murder scenes. Werewolf clues can be sparse maybe it looks like animal attacks. The trick is for the first encounter they must be unprepared. When the wolf doesn’t die to normal attacks they know something is wrong. Someone should lose a life when they find the monster. Only after that first engagement should they be able to plan and be prepared for a werewolf but all that time the werewolf is hunting them. Vampires can be the known culprit or you just describe a wasting disease. The victim has strange dreams then disappears. Violent attacks happen at night and people say they have seen the deceased walking around at night. I think it’s important to have someone connected to the party to be a victim of the wasting disease. Maybe have it happen after they see someone die of it so they know the consequences. If you want to steal the Dracula story. The heroes are on a clock. They need to find and kill Dracula before the wasting disease kills their friend. And the clock doesn’t stop because a new victim is chosen after the first. The vampire is practically invulnerable during the night. The hero’s best bet is to locate the vampire during the day. They have research where the vampire rests at night and enter those places during the day. Vampire lairs can be as creepy as you want filled with human blood cultists or strange animals or ghouls and zombies. The trick is to set the atmosphere. The vampire can set up dummy locations just to trap the party so the PC’s have a list of five areas but only one is right.(I think this is the plot of Dracula. A real estate agent is one of the heroes and they investigate all the properties Dracula has bought.) In Dracula the vampire escapes and the heroes chase him back to mainland Europe. You could have the heroes find ‘a’ vampire but not THE vampire. Or the vampire can turn to mist and escape. It’s very difficult to kill a vampire. They can be plenty scary with the right set up. Even if the party already knows it’s a vampire because of the puncture marks on the neck. It’s still is a race against time. Also, you can put the puncture marks on any artery. A vampire should be smart enough to hide their activity. The victim could also cover their neck and react violently when you try to investigate and the NPC’s shoo you away for disturbing the sick patient. Just don’t make your vampires good and sparkle in the daylight
I used to watch Mattew Colville's channel for RPG insight and ideas. Ever since he was mentioned on Critical Role and picked up 200k viewers overnight, the community there has gotten very "Critical Role". I now come here for RPG ideas and advice. You're doing a fantastic job, I have watched every video and subscribed from the beginning. Thank you for your time.
I still watch Matt Coleville, but I'm glad you watch DungeonCraft. He and Critical Role produce high-quality content and it's very flattering to be put on the same level with them. It certainly makes us want to keep going. Thanks for watching our tiny fetus of channel and spread the word, SL!
Agreed. Your content is awesome Professor we will be trying your ideas about the d20 rolls for magic use as this is a new idea to get used to it. Later we'll try your idea of abolishing initiative and reworking hp. Baby steps. Lol. I love Ravenloft and Cthulu, and I feel like your ideas of handling magic use, hp, and initiative that too can really bring back the feel of horror.
Coville is definitely a high fantasy, miniatures and maps kind of DM. He's great with the generic PC adventuring in the generic world going from adventure to adventure. That's not a slam. That is definitely a game a lot of people like. Its just good to have variety.
Horror works when you have tension build to the breaking point and then have a release. Comical release a NPC says something along the lines of " well....that's something you don't see everyday." when the giant tentacle bursts from the grave yards moldy unkempt soil. Constant tension becomes numbing after a while. Build it...break it...build it again.
Found your video purely by accident but oh how we have enjoyed it. Watched it twice and bookmarked it as a precursor to our next horror game. Thank you. Stay well, stay safe. Helen with Kat and Terri with Robyn (Eastern UK Fenlands)
This is why I love running low-level D&D, preferably with players who haven't memorized the monster manual. I gave a new player a real fright yesterday with just a ghoul and a dark night, some atmosphere and creepy descriptions. I never said "its a ghoul"... just described it. They had to take a break afterward to calm down, muwhahah.
I've never understood why the Monster Manual is meant to be adhered OR meant to be read by players. Personally, it's the corebook that I avoid getting, relying on designed, intelligent adversaries instead.
One thing that CoC players don't ever seem to note is that Lovecraft and Co. NEVER actually used the same monsters more than once. Most of the references weren't for actual USE, they were for off-hand references to be made to create a sense of connection and context.
Congrats on 50 good sir. You nailed down something here that I never could really put my finger on, that being the horror aspect of d&d is missing (at least for high level characters). It’s still the best rpg on the market. That go too ol hat that just fits every occasion but it certainly has its faults. I think chalking up those faults rests primarily on that lack of scary, worrying aspect of what makes players clutch those dice and pray to whatever god their players worship. You mentioned distractions and things that deviate from the experience. It’s a good point, my favourite sessions have been an all in approach from the players, jumping into survival mode, thinking of ways to beat their surroundings and keeping the dm’ing fast and loose. Anytime dice get in the way, players asking to search every nook and cranny or ask to sense motive every single interaction with npcs it all just Boggs the experience down. What are the skills you allow your players to ask for and what are the ones you typically do not, if any? I know from my experience most of the social skills are rolled behind screen, by the dm. It seems you also do a lot of rolling (perhaps fake rolling) for these Horror sessions and keep the story going more than giving players too many choices at bogging down the flow of painting the scenes. Would you say the goal of a horror campaign is to make it as close to a choose your own adventure book as possible but still give the illusion the players are making choices? As always, thoroughly enjoy your channel, many great insights into making D&D better. Cheers! PS. I know I’m pushing it here but what’s your take on core d&d vs supplements? I myself remove all supplements and stick to core, as I see them as means to allow for more munchkin characters, with spells, feats and tactics to best every occasion, removing more of that horror aspect that d&d is missing.
I love the core concept of D&D. I don't use any supplements, and I only use the core of the core: 6 stats, roll high. I'll talk more about this when I review Tracy Hickman's Extreme Dungeon Mastery. That book addresses the idea of skills, and in a nutshell, it's this: if you are playing an archeologist, you have all the skills an archeologist would have. If your character wants to read hieroglyphics, I say, "Okay--roll a 10." That's it. Does an archeologist know how to read ancient languages? Yes. Does he have a high sub-machine gun skill? Mmmmmm....I'm going to say no. Can a circus acrobat walk a tightrope? Yeah. Is she an expert at water-skiing? Nah. That's it.
DUNGEON CRAFT appreciate the reply. Yeah, I basically do a similar thing. All players get maximum skills that their class allows at first level and I give them bonus skills equal to their int. Plus what their class gets per level up. If they don’t have the skill after that, then they just don’t have it. I do this because their hero’s, they are above the average person, they bring skills to the table and i hate the idea of limiting a player if they Truely want a fighter that can use magical device. Of course this kinda blows up as soon as people go beyond core. Look forward to the review of extreme dungeon mastery. Cheers!
It can't be easy to put out a quality video every week, so thank you. The only bad part of watching them is knowing, I will never get to play in one of your games.
It isn't easy at all. I don't know if I can do it every week. I shoot for every two, but sometimes I have a lot of content. As for playing in my games, who says you can't? I'll be at GenCon next year and the year after, Lord willing.
This is a really interesting topic, and you're absolutely right--Stephen King said it is very difficult to inspire terror, even though this is usually his first goal, and if he can't achieve that he will horrify you, and if that's a fail too---he's not proud. He'll go for the gross out. One of the things King does so effectively is combining mundane horror and supernatural horror. You want to see monsters? turn on the 6:00 evening news--you're bound to see monsters a-plenty right there. His super natural villains pray on the character weaknesses of the communities he creates, turning them into monsters--whether it's the local barber surgeon suddenly turning serial killer, or a group of boys who are goaded and bullied into exploring the joys of tying lit tapers to a stray cat's tail. Let's say you're running a vampire---always a crowd favorite. How many of the towns folk are going to be under the Vampire's charm when the characters first arrive? How many more will just be on his payroll? Don't overlook payroll henchmen. They are actually really good because detect evil and detect charm won't be terribly revealing. Your wizards won't pick up anything beyond greed and other attendant petty vices from these NPC's at first. Think of Larry Crockett from Salem's lot. What would detect evil have picked up from him other than he's a greedy, lustful real estate salesman? Yet, think about how much harm he cause his town by not only selling the Marston House and local wash tub to Barlow through his man Straker, but also by covering up the murder and sacrifice of Ralphie Glick so Barlow could come take up residence in the Lot. It doesn't take Barlow long at all to turn the reality for the whole town of Salem's Lot inside out. This is where the horror lives---the terror lives the players fearing for their character's lives. Also when things happen for no reason at all. Say they are in a village--they know something here is corrupting the land, but they've only just arrived and seen some evidence of what is happening--pumpkins filled with maggots instead of seeds--milk goats succumbing to disease and instead of giving milk, it's blackened blood that comes out when a teat is pulled and the goat shrieks in agony from both having overfull udders and from the act of draining them. When nature starts going wrong, little by little always getting worse until it's way wrong--you've effectively undermined their reality. And when they realize this isn't something they can just swing a sword at, you will have unsettled them.
I really enjoy tremulus. It uses the Apocalypse Engine and there are no statistics for monsters. Because no monster should be accessible to player knowledge. You should check it out! I guess I should mention that it's Lovecraftian horror.
Nice video. I really like the sort of horror that stems more from human nature. I watch a lot of true crime. MY friends also bought me a game system that has this really interesting mechanic for the monsters. They basically gain bonuses the more damage they take. Also you only can banish/ kill them if you know what their weakness is. it is impossible to kill them just with normal weapons. So there is also a huge mystery component. Because if you spent no time planning and figuring out what you are fighting you are basically dead already. Game is called Vaesen - I can't wait to play it with my friends
Agreed with all of this....the unknown is the scariest part of any horror game and the fact that your character could be snuffed out easily. Another thing to play up on the relatable terrifying experiences....like being confined in a tight space, the darkness, or just terrifying nature of humans in some regards.
Crowd Control The best way to add fear to a 5e game is to add crowd control elements such as pits, nets, blinding dust, running water, nauseating smells, anything that means the character is at a disadvantage and not just fighting some creature in front of them, but now needing to desperately climb out of this pit before it fills with water or get out of the net before more goblins grab the ends and pull the helpless adventurer to the ground and tangled up. All traps should be survivable regardless of rolls. Good game play should get them out of the situation especially when the characters give up something valuable like weapons and shiny gold as a distraction in order to run away, an element that most players never experience. Running away with little more than their lives should be something nearly all adventurers experience at some point. Coming back to try and rescue whoever was captured adds to the story. Being captured adds to the story. Using NPC's as fodder is a good way to show your players how dangerous a place is. Cocky ones that run off on their own should die not because they have low HP (They should be just as tanky as the fighter) but because they made bad choices and are getting ganged up on, knocked down, disarmed and well, disarmed. Players earn points for keeping NPC's alive one way or another. Even in online games like League of Legends, the characters that are terrifying to go against are ones with effective crowd control. It's one thing to get obliterated quickly, sigh and look for counter items against that character. It's another to watch a circling champion with crowd control options move around and prepare their horrifying abilities such as grabbing you and pulling you to their team, knocking you up, slowing you down, blinding you or in any other way robbing you of your usual toolkit of abilities. Throw in a goblin that does 1d4 damage but has a blowgun who's toxin causes a weakening effect, forcing all rolls to be made at a disadvantage for a few hours, and they'll fear the moment you tell them they hear a *Fwoop* and a dart from the darkness fly right past one of them or they see one or two goblins with a blowgun. Crowd control means reducing their toolkit and options, and they should know when to run away.
I always think horror movies with no-name actors who are not widely known always work better. If they are not famous actors, they seem like real people. On another note, I ran a game over the weekend for my homebrewed horror system (They Came from the B-Movie) where all the player characters were elderly people in a retirement home called Shady Grove. They were part of a trial testing a new Alzheimer’s drug. Turns out the drug unlocked heightened dimensional senses in the human mind allowing the PCs to see creatures that exist all around us, but that our normal senses cannot perceive. There was a monster that fed on the minds of humans, draining their memories and mental energy (and elderly have a life time of memories) and making them seem like they are suffering from Alzheimer’s or dementia. So the elderly residents were the prey, but only the PCs could see the creature preying upon them. I ran it like Cocoon meets Call of Cthulhu and made the creature ("The Mind Sucker") really alien and nasty. In addition, all the PCs had physical caps for their stats because they were 65+ years of age. They also had to have a flaw, like "This damn hip" or "my arthritis" or "grumpy", because you do not get old without some flaws. The players had a really good time. They had to deal with not only the monster, but the staff, which was a real challenge. And even if the monster drained their minds (which happened to a few) no one would still believe them because it was seen as rapid, onset dementia.
I love horror games, and this really had some great tips. I'd probably have a hard time convincing my players to do it, but it's still something I'd like to do.
Looked this up for pointers since I'm running a horror game soon. Horror is a very challenging genre because you have to get your players to surrender their sense of agency or being in control. One of my favorite horror GMs gives a talk before he starts letting his players know that his game isn't fair and it's not meant to be. I love what you said about the players not being heros bit victims... Best way I've heard that said. Of course the key to RPGs is the sense of your choices mattering but the consequences need to be different in horror. It shouldn't be "do I win or face a setback" it should be "do I face a setback or die?" My game I'm planning now will have empowered characters but the powers won't help them and are likely make the situation worse a kind of twist I borrowed from Stephen King and Lovecraft... You might be psychic...but that just means your mind is so much tastier....
i agree with the part where you say that the party should not be able to damage the monster. I'm currently playing fatal frame 2 and in the start of the game you have nothing, you start to see visions and ghosts and you can't do anything to stop them, but as soon as you put your hand in that camera you feel like the hunter, because now you have a weapon, as soon as a ghost appear you will want to kill it, so the tension ends.
I appreciate your work here and the insights you provide. As I was watching, I was reminded of an older movie called "The Curse of the Demon" wherein some supposed demon is haunting certain people throughout the movie, but it is never shown, though several very creepy scenes have other strange and portentous events transpire to lend building tension. The corpses of the supposed victims are always found in locations that suggest that the massive amount of damage could easily have been the result of regular, mundane causes. Eventually, in the American version of the movie, they finally were forced by the studios to add a final scene wherein a terrible demon-like monster attacks the villain on a train track, though the original script called for nothing of the sort. Either way, even in that version, the monster only shows up to confirm its existence at the very end of the movie. Thanks again.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 ... 1957.. it was released in Britain under the name "Night of the Demon" and in America as "Curse of the Demon". I understand, though have not watched the British version to confirm, that they released it without the bad special effect cut-in at the end. I believe you can watch it on TH-cam for free. A good resource for a horror game.
I have a couple of problems running a horror game. First, all of my players have seen movies like Young Frankenstein and The Addams Family. A standard joke is: "You see a trail of blood leading down to the dungeon. You are armed with a nightgown and a candelabra. What do you do?" Second While it's all great fun to have the heroes all die in a story, the people are playing a *game* and would like to win. While death should come more often than in a standard D&D game, you can't serve it up every week. Finally the setting, sure blue lights, candles, fog machines and eerie music might be possible at home, a lot of games are played in school cafeterias. Most security people and janitors take a dim view of that sort of thing. I actually *do* run Call of Cthulu, but we play for fun (mostly)
Speaking of Warhammer, I know you play/played the RPG but did you ever get an army? I’m a big High Elf fan in the classic Warhammer Fantasy game, and (big surprise) Eldar in 40k. I also like Lizard Men in Fantasy and Necrons in 40k. Oh and on the topic of horror I think that yes D&D horror games will always be different from Call of Cthulhu... but you can still get a very different, more horror like game by adapting in certain horror tropes and creatures, similar to what the Ravenloft setting did. Sure it will always be more of a cross between high fantasy and horror than pure horror, but it can still be a fun alternative. And there is nothing to stop you from adopting unknown, Lovecroftian horror creatures into your D&D games.
I played Mordheim. Fun game--the forerunner of Frostgrave. I think CoC monsters don't work in D&D because character's have too many hit points. If the mists of Ravenloft had reduced characters to 1st level hp, THAT would have been horrific!
Great call to incorporate smells in the first couple sentences of the scene! I have a line in all my game notes to remember sounds and smells ever since Kenneth Hite mentioned it in a video somewhere.
I’m running Curse of Strahd right now and I realize that the sessions where everyone truly feels the horror vibe is when I spend a lot of time before hand working on descriptions, weird visions, shadows and false sightings. However, the players are now level 5 and their power level is pretty significant - it’s getting harder to scare them.
How to add Dread & Horror in to Curse of Strahd, .. 1.) rescue a crying child that turns out being a vampire. 2.) Have rats swam out of the walls or from a clothing cabnet. 3.) Have a monster tackle one of the PC down one of the tower's stair cases, divide & conquer leaving the tumbling PC with leg/ arm penalities from bruising or risk broken bones leaving them with movement problems. 4.) instead of kobolts or goblins, set a pack of a dozen ghoul grade school age children on one player. They are bound to lose/ fail a saving throw at that point. 5.) After they slip & tumble down a stair case have a child ask them if they seen her marbles anywhere around here. 6.) Have an/ or a group of invisible imps follow them around given mix advice along with blowing out their light sources. 7.) For the Ravenloft setting it Is " common " to cripple or kill off characters. 8.) Understand there is a " no touch " rule in RPG, but and yet when you are telling the PC that mice and rats are running over their character's boots, drag the bottom of your foot across the top of the person's foot or along their ankle when they are sitting at the table. 9.) Get one of the other players to play along with " come on man, .. What'S .. IN .. the BoX ?!" .. - seen the move " Se7en," .. ? type in( youtube- movie Seven " whats in the box.") 10.) Fight a " zombie " that looks like them ? 11.) Fake Out, " Let them get and easy WIN, " start a new adventure only to wake up later being still in Castle Ravenloft, that is if they fail their Will saving throws being under the effect of the Dream spell. 12.) I have been read up on Ravenloft since the 1990's and there are a few web site dedicated to Ravenloft. In the earlier printings. If people came in through the backdoor, their was a door man that ask for the characters to " sign in " on the ledger to notify their next of kin. Also so the castle residents can place their bets on how long the party will last, be it their lives or sanity lasting for a day or night. So in that way there are two time clocks that the imps chime each hour. One how long they still been alive and a 24 hour count down till they die. Also the imps talk about the number of ways the characters are going to die, insane or other wise. 13.) Back in the day with AD&D, when a PC was hit by a vampire they lost Two Energy/Class Levels without any saving throws. So you can have a 15th-level party ending up as 2nd-level rookies. Vampires were hide & seek, hit & fade till the PC party was too weak to challenge them. You had to out smart them, or have a lot of magic/ cleric to keep them at bay. ( Strahd show up, speaks politely and goes to shake hands with one of the PCs. The follows through with a slap on the back or sucker punch. Then the PC loss two energy levels. Follow by Teleporting away or Dimension Door. )
Coming to this quite late, but really enjoyed it. Funny you describing Alien. I re-watchex it recently, with my partner watching it for the first time. Having grown up in Iran, she knew nothing about it. Sad to say, she didn't find it scary, and I realised that for a modern audience there is actually too much of the alien in it. For the time, it must have been scary, but now we're used to such fast and complex special effects, it seems like when we see it, it just stands there doing nothing for a while. I'd love to see an edit where for every 20 second shot of the alien it was cut down to 2 seconds.
Ruin has come to that family. Also, as far as music goes, the label CryoChamber (on Bandcamp) releases absolutely outstanding dark ambient music. To borrow your phrase: I don't get a kick-back; I just think they're great.
The PCs of my party are very powerful and my brother is very good at convincing villains, so I decided that the villain will be a kind of mold that plays with their minds. Their flashy powers won't help and ya can't argue with mold. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic we will play by call. I think it kills the mood, but there's no way we'll break quarentine.
Refreshing to see someone watched this video. I thought was really good but didn't get many views. Check out the one on running mysteries too. I think it's even better.
I’ve personally found horror to be more atmosphere and giving players a goal that isn’t “kill the monster”. The best horror session I’ve done was when my players were in a dungeon doing a trial for a god of the heavens and cosmos. The last stretch of the trial that they’d picked was pretty simple “walk down the hallway”. I basically ripped the gibbering mouthers’ confusion effect and slowly turned up a looping gibbering the further they got down the hall while having said hall melt and warp into it’s true form. By the end the players understood that too many fails and they’d be swallowed up, one even nearly was and if it wasn’t for their fellow players bravely running back and nearly dieing, they’d have been swallowed up and lost to the mass. Horror works best at low levels, but at higher levels, it’s a matter of reminding players that no matter how powerful they are, they are but ants in a tube compared to the vastness they float in. Sometimes mechanics get in the way of that, so just play it fast and loose with powerful monsters. Make a theme and the. Make up mechanics to fit that them on the spot, after figuring out ac and hp of course.
Every time I come back and review this video, the plaster incident is one of the biggest signs of whether or not the players trust the dungeon master. The reason why that's so important is that the players need to be able to trust the dungeon master when they say there's nothing here or nothing else of significance and nothing special going on with the plaster. But it's important for the dungeon master to say that the character with the highest perception or knowledge about buildings should be able to foretell that the floor above them is compromised. There was another video a while back regarding traps in dungeons where if the players don't check for traps and you spring a trap on them then they will then slow the game to a halt by checking everything for traps. My opinion as a dungeon master is that the character that is most knowledgeable and skilled in that category should automatically detect it. What that does is it makes that player characters importance in the group critical when dealing with situations or trying to investigate. Otherwise they might be victims to traps.
YES! my pcs are nearing the end monster and it’s all about the slow simmer through the whole campaign... If every encounter is supposed to be horrifying then by the end it’ll be boring and pcs will be numb to it. Slow but surely build up the weird just like an orchestra building up to a tense moment. I can’t wait to unleash it on them
Having Tom Cruise be the guy who sacrifices himself to fix the god machine would be so unexpected it could be the horror movie of the century. However Hollywood would never let that happen and it would be a piece of crap😢
I agree. But Cruise would never let that happen. His characters always win. Except in Valkyrie. But he goes out like a hero. Guilermo Del Toro needs to do Mountains.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 I'm sure you're right about Tom. Best horror game I ever played was from this story. After some of us got possessed by aliens, one-character went crazy. When confronted by another character, the GM leaned over and whispered in the crazy guy's ear " it looks like Smith but is it Smith? It might be one of them, you've got a gun, use it". We all realize that was his internal voice, and the player reacted perfectly screaming out YES! YES! BLAM, BLAM. Best character death ever and some of the best roleplay ever.
Great advice, back in the 90's TSR released 2 modules 1 for Planescape And the other Ravenloft , both can with a cool CD that helped DM's run the module, give backstory, and provide sound effects/ music it. It was an awesome idea I wish they would have explored in greater detail , the plainscape one was actually set up to be a Minor that answered questions about Sigil. Im not sure 100% but I think drive through RPG had the sound files available for download. I agree with what you said about not revealing the monster until the last moment, that's what always made Lovecraft so effective ( and sadly why making a movie based on his work in horror so hard to do correctly). However there is no reason why the classic monsters can't inspire dread ! My favorite D&D supplements have always been the Vanrichten monster guides, I picked up his guide to the created when it came out the year I was 14 I think and was blown away. Each one described how to make custom monsters that seemed real , and just as important a real threat! I don't know why but I have yet to find anyone talking about them on TH-cam when it was extremely well received and the IP loved!
The issue with making a love craft movie is you can’t know it’s a love craft movie when you choose to watch it. So you can’t market it. Most successful ‘love craft’ movies have been an adaptation of an actual story just show a mystery.
DnD 5e. Five players. Level 12. Two fighters, a monk, a halfling wizard, and a drow warlock/bard. We were promised a sauna episode at a hot springs inn. Our DM scared the everloving shit out of us. We saw some shit that night.
I am currently running a fantasy/horror game in the Dreamlands outlined in Lovecrafts “Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath.” Dnd is a more practical game in this context where the two genres are more balanced. I’m also assisted by Andy Sandersons “Cthulhu Mythos” supplement for dnd 5E. Lots of fantastical and horrific things take place beyond the wall of sleep.
Keeping the monster unseen or merely glimpsed at the edge of the fading yellow light of the torch... Not showing is why the film "Cat People" (1942) works as well as it does. Fortunately, none of my players are plugged into the horror fiction of HP Lovecraft or Clarke Ashton Smith as I am. Even if I described an Elder Thing or a Flying Polyp, they'd have no idea what it was. Moreover, if there were Ghouls, they might have an idea of its abilities, but its stats would be a complete mystery.
I see what he did there. He created the expectation of words scrolling on the screen, only to have us realize in horror that the video was almost at an end. We timidly believed he would surely show us those words before that, but with each second that passed without a word appearing on the monitor we slowly lost focus of what he was saying. We strained our eyes and racked our brains trying to comprehend why nothing was coming on screen. And then, all too suddenly, the video had ended... Well played Profesor, well played (Slow clap)
It's never too late. This video is one of my favorites, even though it failed to connect with a wide audience. Check out my video on how to run mysteries. I think it's my favorite.
Great tips in this video! Near the end, Prof DM mentioned a vocab list of Lovecraftian terms to borrow. That would be neat, but I didn't see it on screen, or in the vid description either. Was that something we could look at?
Combine combat at the first showing of the monster with body horror. yes, let them attack the monster, let them injure the monster, but the wound not only immediately heals in front of their eyes, but it convulses and pulsates, growing into a new limb or eye or mouth, making it bigger, stronger, more undefinable....
I didn't find horror to be difficult to run in dnd. Had a mission start in a haunted mansion (ghosts were made dangerouse, the manipulated traps in the house), had a dank cave below filled with (deadly/modified) undead, the cave opened up to a shoreline with a Dilapidated Pirate ship (which only showed it's true terrible nature once they got out to see), and when the survived that ordeal they "Washed up" at a castlee that was run by a vampire lord and ghoul serfs. Campaign was divided into 4 parts, easily divided Mansion/Cavern/Ship/Castle Castle I designed the mansion to challenge level 3-6, cave for 5-8, ship 8-10, castle 10-12. (2nd Edition). You don't have to be able to kill your players in one hit to scare them, you simply need to convince your players that there is a chance that they "might" die in one hit. AND, never forget to describe the surroundings, and "set the mood".
I highly recommend Chronicles of Darkness. You're just a person in today's world dealing with supernatural things that are unknown. Even vampires are incredibly powerful and different. The system uses Integrity which feels a lot like CoC's insanity to me. Half to most of the weaknesses on vampires are just pop culture and don't work. You have no idea what they can do. They are truly overpowered compared to humans.
I love Call of Cthilhu but I circumvent the "Lovecraftian Horror is so common" problem by: 1- Having monsters be really vague or hard to see or have their descriptions being horrific in a way they cannot be pinpointed to the common loveraftian lore 2- Having the big names like Chtulhu really never appear. They are always a looming shadow and if they ever appear there is little time to describe them let alone let PC interact with them.... the PC are going to be dead or insane 3- Having original monsters (which might be inspired by traditional ones).
What do you say about rewarding the players for defeating the monster? My friend is currently running a local horror like system, and he placed an eldrich hunter after the party, the thing is we recently managed to kill the beast (a fight that cost half the party), and after a moment of silence for those that died the npc says "he will be back", we were felling pretty bad as it felt we suffered for nothing. I admit that I was not that happy, but since it is a horror system, I accepted, but the rest of the party were sad to the point the DM retconed the "he will be back" part
Hey Prof. Dungeon Master, on the topic of asking cell phones to be turned off or not used during the game, that wouldn't really fly with my group. Most of my players wouldn't have a problem with it, but there is one problem. He's my best friend of over 7 years, and I love him and everything, but he always uses his phone constantly while playing. Sometimes he'll even watch a video on it. It's always bothered me, but not enough to mention it. However, in a horror type game, it's very disruptive to the environment. He's an extremely stubborn person, and I can't imagine telling him to turn off his phone would yield any useful results. How would you deal with this?
Say: "Steve---thanks for coming to my games. I really enjoy playing with you. Here's the thing--the next session is a horror game I am working hard to build the atmosphere. Id' appreciate it if everyone kept their cell phones off during the game. Thanks."
I just want to follow up by saying that my friend had a defensive response when I first brought it up, as I expected, but he has been more responsive and attentive during gaming sessions since then. It's overall a better atmosphere, so thanks for the advice!
@@NickTheMCMaster Glad it worked out. Psychologists have identified cell-phone addiction as a real thing. I could put mine down for hours and not pick it up. Others have to check it every 10 minutes (for what I'm not sure).
arkhamarchivist.com/wordcount-lovecraft-favorite-words/ I like to concentrate on inexplicable events that build tension around locations and entities. Eg a character heads up one floor in the old house and opens a door, from below the others hear footsteps creeping across the planks toward him while the character on the floor above can't see or hear anything from the otherwise empty room (even though the player is fully aware and desperately wants to close the door!). I publicly, but behind the screen, roll a dice to see if the character gets away. I count down from 10 the steps toward the player and stop at 2, "You close the door". The players haven't encountered anything and have just been freaked out by an empty room. Next...
Oh great and powerful Professor dungeon master. What about games that I have been running such as vampire the Masquerade since 1996? I would love to up my DM abilities in that particular RPG any suggestions please
I love how you hit on using the theater of the mind instead of dungeon tiles... I notice this when I try to watch people play on fantasy grounds and such. Everyone is mulling over their positions and movement and the action just drags and the fight takes 30 minutes... I lose interest. Starts to feel a little like wargaming instead of roleplaying. When I was I kid it was all theater of the mind and I prefer that.
I would like to know your thoughts regarding the new D&D's adventure, Ice Wind Dale. Not sure if its been released yet. It is supposed to be more horror related.
Hi! I recently discovered your channel and started watching your videos, which I'm thoroughly enjoying. About the topic at hand, I've always loved the Ravenloft D&D setting, but find it difficult to successfully run it because of many of the reasons you point out (heroes with superpowers are hard to scare), even though the product line has loads of advice on the subject from the 2e to the 3.5 days. Are you familiar with the extended campaign setting besides the original adventure for Ad&d 1e? What are your thoughts about it?
I think 1e is able to instill horror. It’s just a different game. You can run monster that you’d need to have magic weapons to damage. 5e has softened those immunities. All you need is to use any random demon and they are immune to weapons under +4 and the world might not have +4 weapons. The goal becomes finding weaknesses or a true name and the monster hunts the players trying to stop them. The trick is the players should start not knowing what the monster is. They aren’t prepare and ignorant of the true horrors. Their first encounter should break them. Someone dies. The creature is too strong. They should want to give up. This set up is much different than your average DnD game. You can do horror in DnD but the outcome is different than normal. It might be difficult in 5e though with our changing lots of things. I don’t even think it’s hard to scare people with super powers. Just make a monster where those super powers aren’t effective. Maybe the monster has a wasting curse that flips healing. So short rests don’t heal and make you more tired.
Would it be prudent to say that tactics, if not the enemy, are possibly antithetical to storytelling? According to this, they may be in terms of establishing any sense of mystery and dread.
Great Work, Professor! I'm currently playing a game of Cthulhu 7th Edition as DM with my friends and your video really helped alot in further thinking all of this through. Creating effective horror is a walk on a razors edge. So easy to mess up.
If you're running CoC 7th ed, make sure you check out Seth Skorokowski's videos; he reviews a lot of adventure modules for the game. Might be a big help to you.
I'd like to point out, there is a different approach to the horror. The best example of it, would be Resident Evil 2. The original one, not the remake. It's often called a survival horror. The second resident made it work despite contradicting some of your tips, given in the video. I'm not saying, those are the wrong tips, quite the opposite. I'm saying, it can be done differently. For example, the generic zombie in that game is lethal at the start, but later on, it's just an obstacle. It's not lethal at all. You have the resources, the skill, and the knowledge of how it works. But, despite knowing the mechanics, and behaviors of many enemies, the game is still scary as hell. It's because there's always that looming, unknown, great danger, that can strike at any moment. A common zombie can be easily killed, but you want to preserve ammo and health for the big monsters. The monsters, that are actually scary, cause they're strong, can attack at any time, and you don't know their stats or behaviors. So, you end up running away from zombies as much as you can, forcing you into a mindset of a prey, even when it comes to common zombies. And the control scheme, clunky on purpose, is fuelling this mindset further. What I'm saying is not, thaat your way is wrong. I'm saying, perhaps it would also be interesting to do horror more like in Resident Evil 2.
INSIGHT HORROR INTO D&D GAMES 1.) D&D are superhero self fulfillment fantasies . Game Balance in AD&D ment only humans can become god like, other races had level caps. In 3.5e, giant/ animal base humanoids had skill point/ rank penalties. a.) horror monsters can not have class levels, then Ravenloft monsters can have class levels, but a werewolf is a werewolf in beast man form. A 10th-level fighter in wolfman shape fighter as a normal 5hd werewolf. Then 3.5e came out, a 3rd-level rogue werewolf in wolf form has a high hide and move silent skill ranks and can do sneak attack damage. "Out from the under brush, something just bite your left calf. take 1d4+2d6 dmg. you now have a limp with a --3 movement penalty." b.) How do you put horror and dread in a Fighter with 80hp ? i.) be a dick, that is how. ii.) " You come to a dungeon room cover in matted straw." x.) there are bear traps hook to chains under the straw , if you step in a trap, make a Fort save or fall prone do to sudden . If the player fails fort save, then their character falls into 1d6 more bear traps. You have to use a crow bar to open the traps or make a str check DC15. xx.) Under the straw matting, the floor is cover with two foot wide, two foot deep pit traps that has 1d3 spikes doing 1d3 damage, If you step in one and trip, the character can also fall into other ones for hand dmg. "Your characters are have a very bad moment, their hands are bleeding after being impaled , also their feet. Also did any of you get one of your hands catch in a bear trap that was set in the pungy stick trap ? By the way the monster is heading your way and know you all are really going to have a hard time of out running it this time." c.) I always give player characters max hp at first level, and start the campaign out with 4th to 6th-level characters." It is Action hero Adventure !" i.) Ever watch the first Rambo movie ? Have you seen the scene where Rambo was in the mine being attacked by rats ? ii.) rats, centipedes , and large insects do between 1d2 to 1d4 damage. And these are the creatures any farm kid has to deal with in a normal fantasy setting. No one without at lest 3hp would make it to being a teenager, let alone a young adult. And just by kill vermin around the house will make AD&D a 2nd-level fighter or 3rd-level rogue. In 3.5e you can start the game at 3rd-level by just killing vermin. In Star Wars Sage, Starting hero characters at first level begin with full hp and have their Con score add to their hp/ vitality with Con bonus hp modifier, also they still get a --10hp before they die. Then again Star Wars has more lethal weapons. A Star Wars Soldier/ fighter class can have around 25vit/hp at first level. Storm trooper armor looks like full plate. As a kid around the age of 9, I step into a fire ant mound that went to my knee cap. It was one of the worst times in my life. My leg was left bleeding from all of those ant bites, and it took nearly a week before the swelling to go away with the insect lotion. A horror gritty life like realism game, have a hornet crawl under a fighter wearing plate armor. It is the little things that get you the most....
Did you just recommend trying to scare a 6th level fighter with fort saves and strength checks? I don't think that's being a dick - at least, not the way you think.
@@krispalermo8133 I must apologize. I took something you said out of context to give you, a stranger to me, a hard time. Thank you for responding to my juvenile vitriol with patience and respect. You area good person.
@@samchafin4623 That is a very nice reply you written. I normal try to wish the person I leave a post on the weekend to have a nice weekend cause it is polite. And it helps me to place dates to when I last made a post to a given comment. Some players/ people I have game with react that if the encounters are to hard to get through or if they can not have an easy win. Then you are just screwing them over with a heavy hand. And it is a " dick move " to do. The way I read your first comment, I though you were saying my tactics in running a game were " fair," and not being heavy handed. Other wise I though you were saying " I was being too hard on myself." So I wrote a " thank you," as a response. ( I did not think you were being " juvenile," I wish more people now days had your sense of decency.) P.S. If you ever had a character that ran into one of my " trap " rooms. You will also call me a " dick," and a few other foul words with names add onto them.
@@krispalermo8133 I'm lucky that you're decent enough not to have read my initial comment with the snark I had intended. If I may, I'd like to offer a snark free critique of your initial post: if I tell a group of players that the floor of the room is covered in hay/straw, they aren't going in it because it is obviously a trap. Play with their expectations instead, and put all the traps on the bare floor around the hay. Also, a fighter/paladin killed by hornets isn't horrific, and it definitely isn't heroic. I think the professor is right; if you want to scare the big HP tank, you need to put a slightly less powerful HP tank with the party, and kill him in one hit. Better yet, make the fighter's primary weapon haunted (which isn't a curse, and won't be identified as a quality of the item). Every time the fighter wields his weapon, there's a chance he gets possessed for a round or two by the angry ghost inhabiting the place - like a 50/50 shot; something where most of the time the fighter just wields a back-up weapon, but in a pinch he might risk getting possessed. It struck me that in what you said, there's a little thread of a feeling that you as the DM are playing against your players, and I think that style of play inevitably feeds player frustration and resentment. Maybe I'm reading something into your comments that isn't there, but you talked about players reacting this way, so I guess it won't hurt to reiterate. I think players love overcoming long odds and life and death situations, but they're frustrated by attacks they feel like they couldn't possibly avoid, especially if it happens repeatedly. And thank you for letting me go off on a rant on you here. It's probably more about me than you, but hopefully I've said something that isn't complete crap - and keep playing some kick-ass D&D!
It does rely too much on a player's actual dexterity instead of the abilities of one's character, thus the impetus of playing someone who is not the player. Dice remain the great equalizer.
Thanks. This video was a slow burn. When it came out, almost no one watched it--and I thought it was one of my better ones. I'm glad it had replay value. Cheers!
The hardest part for me in my game with close friends is that one of them has a tendency to always crack a joke. He doesn't mean harm, he just can't help himself sometimes. Usually not a big deal, but when you're trying to build tension or dread, man can it undermine the atmosphere. Great video with awesome tips! Thanks
4 yrs ago but still relevant! I'm about to start my zero level adventure in Shadow of the Demon Lord with my veteran D&D group. Watching all the horror tips I can as I'm trying to get a Lovecraft/Howard vibe mixed with original Brothers Grimm.
There's a TH-cam channel, Horror Babble, where the narrator, Ian Gordon, reads aloud literature in that lowered octave you mentioned while speaking at a slower pace than is generally conversational, as he eerily conveys that sense of remoteness and dire consequences looming just out of sight. In any case, great video, and I am once more going to borrow your descriptive dialog as the heroes descended into the crypt. Like, word for word! Cheers on 50, and I await the next anxiously!
@@beeezlebub My train comes in at about 10:45pm and I have to drive about 20 minutes to my house. Many nights I listen to readings in the car, which can be eerie with all the fog we get out here on the forested roads at night.
One of the horror focused thoughts I had was to get a high level monster that roamed the level 1 to 4 areas. You pick one that’s immune to normal attacks and maybe most spells. It always approaches with a distinct sound or smell. All the other creatures are on edge as well. There are signs of it in rooms and along corridors. The concept is for the magic to defeat it becomes the quest. Maybe they travel for information on it. Maybe no one knows and you face the monster with a new ability and die. Then a devil or demon cuts a deal with a PC with the power to kill it. And it works to corrupt the PC for ever after. Either they die and add to the rumors of the dungeon or they become heroes for defeating it. It goes against the normal DnD advice because they should only run away from this creature. It is not an encounter they can win to see it means death. My thought is to use a golem or golem like creature. Something immune to mundane weapons and magic.
I wrote my own 1 shot last year that is a much more simplified blend of DnD and Call of Cthulhu. Great for new roleplayers. The game was mostly narrative based. It went incredibly well and was extremely creepy and engaging. These were the key takeaways I had.
1. Make sure the characters are contained in the setting. Make sure each character has some motivation to see the whole scenerio through. Also physically keeping the characters in the setting (Horrible storms, locked building, disabled vehicle) creates the uncomfortable feeling of being trapped. It also prevents the characters from just running away.
2. Limited resources is key. If your group has access to weapons, keep it at a minimum. Also try to figure out how to prevent the group from just calling in backup/police to solve the problem. You want them to feel alone.
3. Creepy ambiance noises and music is key to setting the mood. It really does wonders.
Good tips!
1. Characters can be compelled to fight by attacking family members or friends. Many horror movies has a child be a victim and a mother or father now has to fight otherworldly foes that they would otherwise ignore. The thing can cause a ‘sickness’ that just progresses till death. You can ignore it but there are consequences for that. You can eventually make the PC’s ‘sick’ now even the most selfish are motivated. There is no escape the horror follows you.
2. Two ways to keep help away. The first is seclusion. They’re deep in the woods. Travel into and out of the area takes a long time. Even if help is called it will be too late. You can even have no phones in the wilderness. In ‘Scream’ the murder just cut the phone lines and taunted the victim. The danger was near and the police were far. This was in a suburb.
The second way is to use the super natural. The police aren’t equipped to help and they don’t believe you anyway. In horror movies characters might contact a priest but then they don’t have the knowledge necessary either. You need your expert that society shuns. Your van Helsing if they exist.
Slasher movies often like to take place in the woods. Demon or ghost infestations can be any but no one can help.
I've realized that something a lot of people overlook in regards to vampires is the tale of the original Bram Stoker's Dracula. Sunlight didn't kill him, it simply rendered him mortal so he could be killed.
Just imagine the look on your players' faces when they bring in some sort of daylight spell... only to realize that this vampire is not burning up in the daylight and is just as deadly during the day.
Vampires have had to be revamped (heh) time and again in order to sustain their mystery and threat, which is why they have endured in our collective myth.
Yes! Finally someone who has read it. It's this forgotten detail that irks me to no end.
Traditional vampires tales were very different from even Bram Stroker. Look onto them if you want to surprise your group.
My favorite thing to tell people about Dracula is that he was killed by a Texan with a Bowie knife.
That's so cool!
Many years ago, I ran a Shadowrun game where the characters had to travel through a sewer. I turned off the lights and gave the players flashlights to see their sheets. It was spooky. They found a little girl and their lights passed through her translucent form. After running away, they found the target facility and broke in. The laboratory was deserted and the only lightning was red. I switched on a lamp with a red bulb for light. As they explored, I described the carnage around them of the biohazard experiment gone wrong...
THAT is a pretty cool handout idea!
My game shop owner 15 years ago ran a Star Wars game where everyone had to draw an index card to see which character they will play, one lucky guy got to play Darth Vader. It was a bioweapon lab, with a weaponize cyborg animal to be a horrify animal animal like " Wolverine." One player asked what animal was in the test tube tank, the DM/ owner quickly reach for a stuff animal on the floor without looking, picked up and dropped a pink stuff rabbit on the table before everyone to see. He had such a happy grinning face. It was his Monty Python moment.
Random player Strom Trooper, " Oh no, it is the Pink Vorpal Bunny, why did it had to be the P.V.B. ?!"
Imperial scientist, " How would you know about the P.V.B. project trooper ?"
Imperial Lt.," Cause it things like this which troopers make up to entertain themselves with."
Vader raises his right hand and flex it into a fist, everyone grows silent expecting to see some just choked, " Why did they have to recreate the P.V.B. , .. again ?"
Trooper, " Again, .. My'Lord ?"
Vader, " It was but, a flesh wound."
Later on in the game,..
Leia, " What type of monster would turn such a cute creature into such a murderous beast of a monster.?!"
Han, " It is .. cute .. that is why it is horrorfying . That is the Empire for you."
Group of mauled troopers, " OMG, it will not stop attacking, nothing stops it. The little beast took offf both of Vader's legs at the knees. ! "
End of the adventure Leia makes a subconscious untrained force skill: Friendship with spending a Force Point on a charisma check. And has a loving pet P.V.B.
Is it safe to come out from underneath my +1 security blanket???
Lol. I'm glad you found this video. This and the "How to Run Mysteries" are among my favorites.
I'm a little late to the party. But I wish to share a story anyways.
While DMing a high fantasy home brew, I put my players in a place outside of their comfort zone. They were in these mines deep beneath a dwarven city, these mines were sealed away with explosives and the surviving miners were all driven mad.
In there, my players found themselves clinging to a torch for dear life while they move from one lit spot to another while they hear the shambling horrors all around them in the dark. These things feared the light, but with the light ever so slowly dying, for the first time since I started DMing, I was so happy to see my players hold their breath.
They found a safe spot where they managed to salvage a lantern but barely enough oil for it, and that's when they thought they found a survivor, this dwarven miner was on his belly on the floor and the moment their healer pat him to see if he is asleep or dead, her hand was latched to its skin, and the "dwarf" laid motionless while from its belly emerged tentacled and insect-like limbs which slowly dragged her towards the darkness.
My group disbanded not long after that due to real life circumstances, but I still remember that session.
Damn dude, tell us more?
Using Aquelarre (a spanish game with system similar to Call of Cthulhu with a historical but folklorish medieval setting. translates on "Coven") i can assure you a vampire or a werewolf can be made amazingly scary. the point wasn't try to confuse your players, but make very very clear what were the steaks and how helpless they were in comparison.
I agree. The werewolf you describe horrendous murder scenes. Werewolf clues can be sparse maybe it looks like animal attacks. The trick is for the first encounter they must be unprepared. When the wolf doesn’t die to normal attacks they know something is wrong. Someone should lose a life when they find the monster. Only after that first engagement should they be able to plan and be prepared for a werewolf but all that time the werewolf is hunting them.
Vampires can be the known culprit or you just describe a wasting disease. The victim has strange dreams then disappears. Violent attacks happen at night and people say they have seen the deceased walking around at night. I think it’s important to have someone connected to the party to be a victim of the wasting disease. Maybe have it happen after they see someone die of it so they know the consequences. If you want to steal the Dracula story. The heroes are on a clock. They need to find and kill Dracula before the wasting disease kills their friend. And the clock doesn’t stop because a new victim is chosen after the first.
The vampire is practically invulnerable during the night. The hero’s best bet is to locate the vampire during the day. They have research where the vampire rests at night and enter those places during the day. Vampire lairs can be as creepy as you want filled with human blood cultists or strange animals or ghouls and zombies. The trick is to set the atmosphere.
The vampire can set up dummy locations just to trap the party so the PC’s have a list of five areas but only one is right.(I think this is the plot of Dracula. A real estate agent is one of the heroes and they investigate all the properties Dracula has bought.)
In Dracula the vampire escapes and the heroes chase him back to mainland Europe. You could have the heroes find ‘a’ vampire but not THE vampire. Or the vampire can turn to mist and escape. It’s very difficult to kill a vampire. They can be plenty scary with the right set up.
Even if the party already knows it’s a vampire because of the puncture marks on the neck. It’s still is a race against time. Also, you can put the puncture marks on any artery. A vampire should be smart enough to hide their activity. The victim could also cover their neck and react violently when you try to investigate and the NPC’s shoo you away for disturbing the sick patient.
Just don’t make your vampires good and sparkle in the daylight
I used to watch Mattew Colville's channel for RPG insight and ideas. Ever since he was mentioned on Critical Role and picked up 200k viewers overnight, the community there has gotten very "Critical Role". I now come here for RPG ideas and advice. You're doing a fantastic job, I have watched every video and subscribed from the beginning. Thank you for your time.
I still watch Matt Coleville, but I'm glad you watch DungeonCraft. He and Critical Role produce high-quality content and it's very flattering to be put on the same level with them. It certainly makes us want to keep going. Thanks for watching our tiny fetus of channel and spread the word, SL!
Agreed. Your content is awesome Professor we will be trying your ideas about the d20 rolls for magic use as this is a new idea to get used to it. Later we'll try your idea of abolishing initiative and reworking hp. Baby steps. Lol. I love Ravenloft and Cthulu, and I feel like your ideas of handling magic use, hp, and initiative that too can really bring back the feel of horror.
Coville is definitely a high fantasy, miniatures and maps kind of DM. He's great with the generic PC adventuring in the generic world going from adventure to adventure. That's not a slam. That is definitely a game a lot of people like. Its just good to have variety.
The cell phone observation in spot on!
Killed my CoC round
Horror works when you have tension build to the breaking point and then have a release.
Comical release a NPC says something along the lines of " well....that's something you don't see everyday." when the giant tentacle bursts from the grave yards moldy unkempt soil.
Constant tension becomes numbing after a while.
Build it...break it...build it again.
True.
Found your video purely by accident but oh how we have enjoyed it. Watched it twice and bookmarked it as a precursor to our next horror game. Thank you. Stay well, stay safe. Helen with Kat and Terri with Robyn (Eastern UK Fenlands)
Thank you for watching!
This is why I love running low-level D&D, preferably with players who haven't memorized the monster manual. I gave a new player a real fright yesterday with just a ghoul and a dark night, some atmosphere and creepy descriptions. I never said "its a ghoul"... just described it. They had to take a break afterward to calm down, muwhahah.
I've never understood why the Monster Manual is meant to be adhered OR meant to be read by players. Personally, it's the corebook that I avoid getting, relying on designed, intelligent adversaries instead.
@@commandercaptain4664 Gygax said players were not supposed to have or read it... but of course they did.
We are starting our first Call of Cthulhu campaign today and this really helped to smooth the edges a little. Thanks :D
Thanks! I love that game and this video didn't get many views--although I thought it was useful. Check out the "Running Mysteries" one.
One thing that CoC players don't ever seem to note is that Lovecraft and Co. NEVER actually used the same monsters more than once. Most of the references weren't for actual USE, they were for off-hand references to be made to create a sense of connection and context.
Awesome video Professor. I love injecting horror into my D&D game (and my in-laws love playing Dread). Looking forward to implementing your advice.
Let me know how it works out.
Congrats on 50 good sir.
You nailed down something here that I never could really put my finger on, that being the horror aspect of d&d is missing (at least for high level characters). It’s still the best rpg on the market. That go too ol hat that just fits every occasion but it certainly has its faults. I think chalking up those faults rests primarily on that lack of scary, worrying aspect of what makes players clutch those dice and pray to whatever god their players worship.
You mentioned distractions and things that deviate from the experience. It’s a good point, my favourite sessions have been an all in approach from the players, jumping into survival mode, thinking of ways to beat their surroundings and keeping the dm’ing fast and loose. Anytime dice get in the way, players asking to search every nook and cranny or ask to sense motive every single interaction with npcs it all just Boggs the experience down.
What are the skills you allow your players to ask for and what are the ones you typically do not, if any? I know from my experience most of the social skills are rolled behind screen, by the dm. It seems you also do a lot of rolling (perhaps fake rolling) for these Horror sessions and keep the story going more than giving players too many choices at bogging down the flow of painting the scenes. Would you say the goal of a horror campaign is to make it as close to a choose your own adventure book as possible but still give the illusion the players are making choices?
As always, thoroughly enjoy your channel, many great insights into making D&D better.
Cheers!
PS. I know I’m pushing it here but what’s your take on core d&d vs supplements? I myself remove all supplements and stick to core, as I see them as means to allow for more munchkin characters, with spells, feats and tactics to best every occasion, removing more of that horror aspect that d&d is missing.
I love the core concept of D&D. I don't use any supplements, and I only use the core of the core: 6 stats, roll high. I'll talk more about this when I review Tracy Hickman's Extreme Dungeon Mastery. That book addresses the idea of skills, and in a nutshell, it's this: if you are playing an archeologist, you have all the skills an archeologist would have. If your character wants to read hieroglyphics, I say, "Okay--roll a 10." That's it.
Does an archeologist know how to read ancient languages? Yes. Does he have a high sub-machine gun skill? Mmmmmm....I'm going to say no. Can a circus acrobat walk a tightrope? Yeah. Is she an expert at water-skiing? Nah. That's it.
DUNGEON CRAFT appreciate the reply. Yeah, I basically do a similar thing. All players get maximum skills that their class allows at first level and I give them bonus skills equal to their int. Plus what their class gets per level up. If they don’t have the skill after that, then they just don’t have it. I do this because their hero’s, they are above the average person, they bring skills to the table and i hate the idea of limiting a player if they Truely want a fighter that can use magical device. Of course this kinda blows up as soon as people go beyond core.
Look forward to the review of extreme dungeon mastery.
Cheers!
It can't be easy to put out a quality video every week, so thank you. The only bad part of watching them is knowing, I will never get to play in one of your games.
It isn't easy at all. I don't know if I can do it every week. I shoot for every two, but sometimes I have a lot of content. As for playing in my games, who says you can't? I'll be at GenCon next year and the year after, Lord willing.
Well, guess I'm running a horror game now. You've convinced me to finally do it.
This is a really interesting topic, and you're absolutely right--Stephen King said it is very difficult to inspire terror, even though this is usually his first goal, and if he can't achieve that he will horrify you, and if that's a fail too---he's not proud. He'll go for the gross out. One of the things King does so effectively is combining mundane horror and supernatural horror. You want to see monsters? turn on the 6:00 evening news--you're bound to see monsters a-plenty right there. His super natural villains pray on the character weaknesses of the communities he creates, turning them into monsters--whether it's the local barber surgeon suddenly turning serial killer, or a group of boys who are goaded and bullied into exploring the joys of tying lit tapers to a stray cat's tail.
Let's say you're running a vampire---always a crowd favorite. How many of the towns folk are going to be under the Vampire's charm when the characters first arrive? How many more will just be on his payroll? Don't overlook payroll henchmen. They are actually really good because detect evil and detect charm won't be terribly revealing. Your wizards won't pick up anything beyond greed and other attendant petty vices from these NPC's at first. Think of Larry Crockett from Salem's lot. What would detect evil have picked up from him other than he's a greedy, lustful real estate salesman? Yet, think about how much harm he cause his town by not only selling the Marston House and local wash tub to Barlow through his man Straker, but also by covering up the murder and sacrifice of Ralphie Glick so Barlow could come take up residence in the Lot. It doesn't take Barlow long at all to turn the reality for the whole town of Salem's Lot inside out. This is where the horror lives---the terror lives the players fearing for their character's lives.
Also when things happen for no reason at all. Say they are in a village--they know something here is corrupting the land, but they've only just arrived and seen some evidence of what is happening--pumpkins filled with maggots instead of seeds--milk goats succumbing to disease and instead of giving milk, it's blackened blood that comes out when a teat is pulled and the goat shrieks in agony from both having overfull udders and from the act of draining them. When nature starts going wrong, little by little always getting worse until it's way wrong--you've effectively undermined their reality. And when they realize this isn't something they can just swing a sword at, you will have unsettled them.
I love horror. All of our games eventually devolve into some type of Lovecraftian horror.
Thanks Professor!
I really enjoy tremulus. It uses the Apocalypse Engine and there are no statistics for monsters. Because no monster should be accessible to player knowledge.
You should check it out!
I guess I should mention that it's Lovecraftian horror.
I have the opposite experience, started with call of Cthulhu and turned it into non-lovecratian horror.
GD it, as soon as he said "you enter your ancestor's tomb", my brain went "Darkest Dungeon!!!!" Spot on, good sir!
I got it at "antediluvian."
Honestly this sounds like Mothership, great TTRPG
One of the best around.
Nice video. I really like the sort of horror that stems more from human nature. I watch a lot of true crime. MY friends also bought me a game system that has this really interesting mechanic for the monsters. They basically gain bonuses the more damage they take. Also you only can banish/ kill them if you know what their weakness is. it is impossible to kill them just with normal weapons. So there is also a huge mystery component. Because if you spent no time planning and figuring out what you are fighting you are basically dead already. Game is called Vaesen - I can't wait to play it with my friends
I have Vaesen and it's on my review list. Look for it in a few months.
Agreed with all of this....the unknown is the scariest part of any horror game and the fact that your character could be snuffed out easily. Another thing to play up on the relatable terrifying experiences....like being confined in a tight space, the darkness, or just terrifying nature of humans in some regards.
Crowd Control
The best way to add fear to a 5e game is to add crowd control elements such as pits, nets, blinding dust, running water, nauseating smells, anything that means the character is at a disadvantage and not just fighting some creature in front of them, but now needing to desperately climb out of this pit before it fills with water or get out of the net before more goblins grab the ends and pull the helpless adventurer to the ground and tangled up.
All traps should be survivable regardless of rolls. Good game play should get them out of the situation especially when the characters give up something valuable like weapons and shiny gold as a distraction in order to run away, an element that most players never experience. Running away with little more than their lives should be something nearly all adventurers experience at some point. Coming back to try and rescue whoever was captured adds to the story. Being captured adds to the story.
Using NPC's as fodder is a good way to show your players how dangerous a place is. Cocky ones that run off on their own should die not because they have low HP (They should be just as tanky as the fighter) but because they made bad choices and are getting ganged up on, knocked down, disarmed and well, disarmed. Players earn points for keeping NPC's alive one way or another.
Even in online games like League of Legends, the characters that are terrifying to go against are ones with effective crowd control. It's one thing to get obliterated quickly, sigh and look for counter items against that character. It's another to watch a circling champion with crowd control options move around and prepare their horrifying abilities such as grabbing you and pulling you to their team, knocking you up, slowing you down, blinding you or in any other way robbing you of your usual toolkit of abilities.
Throw in a goblin that does 1d4 damage but has a blowgun who's toxin causes a weakening effect, forcing all rolls to be made at a disadvantage for a few hours, and they'll fear the moment you tell them they hear a *Fwoop* and a dart from the darkness fly right past one of them or they see one or two goblins with a blowgun.
Crowd control means reducing their toolkit and options, and they should know when to run away.
Wow. That narration was incredible. He should do trailers
You officially creeped me out reading that scene. Awesome work
I always think horror movies with no-name actors who are not widely known always work better. If they are not famous actors, they seem like real people. On another note, I ran a game over the weekend for my homebrewed horror system (They Came from the B-Movie) where all the player characters were elderly people in a retirement home called Shady Grove. They were part of a trial testing a new Alzheimer’s drug. Turns out the drug unlocked heightened dimensional senses in the human mind allowing the PCs to see creatures that exist all around us, but that our normal senses cannot perceive. There was a monster that fed on the minds of humans, draining their memories and mental energy (and elderly have a life time of memories) and making them seem like they are suffering from Alzheimer’s or dementia. So the elderly residents were the prey, but only the PCs could see the creature preying upon them. I ran it like Cocoon meets Call of Cthulhu and made the creature ("The Mind Sucker") really alien and nasty. In addition, all the PCs had physical caps for their stats because they were 65+ years of age. They also had to have a flaw, like "This damn hip" or "my arthritis" or "grumpy", because you do not get old without some flaws. The players had a really good time. They had to deal with not only the monster, but the staff, which was a real challenge. And even if the monster drained their minds (which happened to a few) no one would still believe them because it was seen as rapid, onset dementia.
I love horror games, and this really had some great tips. I'd probably have a hard time convincing my players to do it, but it's still something I'd like to do.
Looked this up for pointers since I'm running a horror game soon. Horror is a very challenging genre because you have to get your players to surrender their sense of agency or being in control. One of my favorite horror GMs gives a talk before he starts letting his players know that his game isn't fair and it's not meant to be. I love what you said about the players not being heros bit victims... Best way I've heard that said. Of course the key to RPGs is the sense of your choices mattering but the consequences need to be different in horror. It shouldn't be "do I win or face a setback" it should be "do I face a setback or die?"
My game I'm planning now will have empowered characters but the powers won't help them and are likely make the situation worse a kind of twist I borrowed from Stephen King and Lovecraft... You might be psychic...but that just means your mind is so much tastier....
i agree with the part where you say that the party should not be able to damage the monster. I'm currently playing fatal frame 2 and in the start of the game you have nothing, you start to see visions and ghosts and you can't do anything to stop them, but as soon as you put your hand in that camera you feel like the hunter, because now you have a weapon, as soon as a ghost appear you will want to kill it, so the tension ends.
I appreciate your work here and the insights you provide. As I was watching, I was reminded of an older movie called "The Curse of the Demon" wherein some supposed demon is haunting certain people throughout the movie, but it is never shown, though several very creepy scenes have other strange and portentous events transpire to lend building tension. The corpses of the supposed victims are always found in locations that suggest that the massive amount of damage could easily have been the result of regular, mundane causes. Eventually, in the American version of the movie, they finally were forced by the studios to add a final scene wherein a terrible demon-like monster attacks the villain on a train track, though the original script called for nothing of the sort. Either way, even in that version, the monster only shows up to confirm its existence at the very end of the movie. Thanks again.
I do not remember seeing that movie. What year did it come out?
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 ... 1957.. it was released in Britain under the name "Night of the Demon" and in America as "Curse of the Demon". I understand, though have not watched the British version to confirm, that they released it without the bad special effect cut-in at the end. I believe you can watch it on TH-cam for free. A good resource for a horror game.
I have a couple of problems running a horror game. First, all of my players have seen movies like Young Frankenstein and The Addams Family. A standard joke is: "You see a trail of blood leading down to the dungeon. You are armed with a nightgown and a candelabra. What do you do?" Second While it's all great fun to have the heroes all die in a story, the people are playing a *game* and would like to win. While death should come more often than in a standard D&D game, you can't serve it up every week. Finally the setting, sure blue lights, candles, fog machines and eerie music might be possible at home, a lot of games are played in school cafeterias. Most security people and janitors take a dim view of that sort of thing. I actually *do* run Call of Cthulu, but we play for fun (mostly)
I concur, Tim. Thanks for writing!
Silly wabbit, RPGs aren't for winning. 😁
I run a weird west game based on Stephen King's Dark Tower, which is more like Horrific Fantasy than pure horror, but this actually helped a lot!
Really nice work. Been DMing for 38 years (on and off) and learning a lot from this channel.
Speaking of Warhammer, I know you play/played the RPG but did you ever get an army? I’m a big High Elf fan in the classic Warhammer Fantasy game, and (big surprise) Eldar in 40k. I also like Lizard Men in Fantasy and Necrons in 40k.
Oh and on the topic of horror I think that yes D&D horror games will always be different from Call of Cthulhu... but you can still get a very different, more horror like game by adapting in certain horror tropes and creatures, similar to what the Ravenloft setting did. Sure it will always be more of a cross between high fantasy and horror than pure horror, but it can still be a fun alternative. And there is nothing to stop you from adopting unknown, Lovecroftian horror creatures into your D&D games.
I played Mordheim. Fun game--the forerunner of Frostgrave. I think CoC monsters don't work in D&D because character's have too many hit points. If the mists of Ravenloft had reduced characters to 1st level hp, THAT would have been horrific!
Great call to incorporate smells in the first couple sentences of the scene!
I have a line in all my game notes to remember sounds and smells ever since Kenneth Hite mentioned it in a video somewhere.
I’m running Curse of Strahd right now and I realize that the sessions where everyone truly feels the horror vibe is when I spend a lot of time before hand working on descriptions, weird visions, shadows and false sightings. However, the players are now level 5 and their power level is pretty significant - it’s getting harder to scare them.
How to add Dread & Horror in to Curse of Strahd, ..
1.) rescue a crying child that turns out being a vampire.
2.) Have rats swam out of the walls or from a clothing cabnet.
3.) Have a monster tackle one of the PC down one of the tower's stair cases, divide & conquer leaving the tumbling PC with leg/ arm penalities from bruising or risk broken bones leaving them with movement problems.
4.) instead of kobolts or goblins, set a pack of a dozen ghoul grade school age children on one player. They are bound to lose/ fail a saving throw at that point.
5.) After they slip & tumble down a stair case have a child ask them if they seen her marbles anywhere around here.
6.) Have an/ or a group of invisible imps follow them around given mix advice along with blowing out their light sources.
7.) For the Ravenloft setting it Is " common " to cripple or kill off characters.
8.) Understand there is a " no touch " rule in RPG, but and yet when you are telling the PC that mice and rats are running over their character's boots, drag the bottom of your foot across
the top of the person's foot or along their ankle when they are sitting at the table.
9.) Get one of the other players to play along with " come on man, .. What'S .. IN .. the BoX ?!" .. - seen the move " Se7en," .. ? type in( youtube- movie Seven " whats in the box.")
10.) Fight a " zombie " that looks like them ?
11.) Fake Out, " Let them get and easy WIN, " start a new adventure only to wake up later being still in Castle Ravenloft, that is if they fail their Will saving throws being under the effect of the Dream spell.
12.) I have been read up on Ravenloft since the 1990's and there are a few web site dedicated to Ravenloft. In the earlier printings. If people came in through the backdoor, their was a door man that ask for the characters to " sign in " on the ledger to notify their next of kin. Also so the castle residents can place their bets on how long the party will last, be it their lives or sanity lasting for a day or night. So in that way there are two time clocks that the imps chime each hour. One how long they still been alive and a 24 hour count down till they die. Also the imps talk about the number of ways the characters are going to die, insane or other wise.
13.) Back in the day with AD&D, when a PC was hit by a vampire they lost Two Energy/Class Levels without any saving throws. So you can have a 15th-level party ending up as 2nd-level rookies. Vampires were hide & seek, hit & fade till the PC party was too weak to challenge them. You had to out smart them, or have a lot of magic/ cleric to keep them at bay.
( Strahd show up, speaks politely and goes to shake hands with one of the PCs. The follows through with a slap on the back or sucker punch. Then the PC loss two energy levels. Follow by Teleporting away or Dimension Door. )
I see a DUNGEON CRAFT video, i give a like. Great video! looking forward to campaign part 3
Thanks, Nick!
Yes, I’m still holding my breath here.... ... @.@
Coming to this quite late, but really enjoyed it. Funny you describing Alien. I re-watchex it recently, with my partner watching it for the first time. Having grown up in Iran, she knew nothing about it. Sad to say, she didn't find it scary, and I realised that for a modern audience there is actually too much of the alien in it. For the time, it must have been scary, but now we're used to such fast and complex special effects, it seems like when we see it, it just stands there doing nothing for a while. I'd love to see an edit where for every 20 second shot of the alien it was cut down to 2 seconds.
8:31 "... even if you just wound it ..." -- The Professor
"If it can bleed, then it can die." -- Dutch, /Predator/
Ruin has come to that family.
Also, as far as music goes, the label CryoChamber (on Bandcamp) releases absolutely outstanding dark ambient music. To borrow your phrase: I don't get a kick-back; I just think they're great.
Best channel ever.
Thanks, man. Keep sharing. The best channel ever needs more than 304 views.
Excellent advice.
The PCs of my party are very powerful and my brother is very good at convincing villains, so I decided that the villain will be a kind of mold that plays with their minds. Their flashy powers won't help and ya can't argue with mold.
Unfortunately, due to the pandemic we will play by call. I think it kills the mood, but there's no way we'll break quarentine.
Refreshing to see other people around the world play ttrpg's, horror is my go to as well.
Refreshing to see someone watched this video. I thought was really good but didn't get many views. Check out the one on running mysteries too. I think it's even better.
I’ve personally found horror to be more atmosphere and giving players a goal that isn’t “kill the monster”. The best horror session I’ve done was when my players were in a dungeon doing a trial for a god of the heavens and cosmos. The last stretch of the trial that they’d picked was pretty simple “walk down the hallway”. I basically ripped the gibbering mouthers’ confusion effect and slowly turned up a looping gibbering the further they got down the hall while having said hall melt and warp into it’s true form. By the end the players understood that too many fails and they’d be swallowed up, one even nearly was and if it wasn’t for their fellow players bravely running back and nearly dieing, they’d have been swallowed up and lost to the mass.
Horror works best at low levels, but at higher levels, it’s a matter of reminding players that no matter how powerful they are, they are but ants in a tube compared to the vastness they float in. Sometimes mechanics get in the way of that, so just play it fast and loose with powerful monsters. Make a theme and the. Make up mechanics to fit that them on the spot, after figuring out ac and hp of course.
The reason they could not shoot the alien in Alien, was because the acid blood melt through the hull. The alien is quite vulnerable to bullets.
Every time I come back and review this video, the plaster incident is one of the biggest signs of whether or not the players trust the dungeon master.
The reason why that's so important is that the players need to be able to trust the dungeon master when they say there's nothing here or nothing else of significance and nothing special going on with the plaster. But it's important for the dungeon master to say that the character with the highest perception or knowledge about buildings should be able to foretell that the floor above them is compromised.
There was another video a while back regarding traps in dungeons where if the players don't check for traps and you spring a trap on them then they will then slow the game to a halt by checking everything for traps.
My opinion as a dungeon master is that the character that is most knowledgeable and skilled in that category should automatically detect it.
What that does is it makes that player characters importance in the group critical when dealing with situations or trying to investigate. Otherwise they might be victims to traps.
Thanks for this. I'm gearing up to run a horror game soon after a long break and this advice is very helpful.
YES! my pcs are nearing the end monster and it’s all about the slow simmer through the whole
campaign... If every encounter is supposed to be horrifying then by the end it’ll be boring and pcs will be numb to it. Slow but surely build up the weird just like an orchestra building up to a tense moment. I can’t wait to unleash it on them
Thanks for posting. Let me know how it goes!
Having Tom Cruise be the guy who sacrifices himself to fix the god machine would be so unexpected it could be the horror movie of the century. However Hollywood would never let that happen and it would be a piece of crap😢
I agree. But Cruise would never let that happen. His characters always win. Except in Valkyrie. But he goes out like a hero. Guilermo Del Toro needs to do Mountains.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 I'm sure you're right about Tom. Best horror game I ever played was from this story. After some of us got possessed by aliens, one-character went crazy. When confronted by another character, the GM leaned over and whispered in the crazy guy's ear " it looks like Smith but is it Smith? It might be one of them, you've got a gun, use it". We all realize that was his internal voice, and the player reacted perfectly screaming out YES! YES! BLAM, BLAM. Best character death ever and some of the best roleplay ever.
Great advice, back in the 90's TSR released 2 modules 1 for Planescape And the other Ravenloft , both can with a cool CD that helped DM's run the module, give backstory, and provide sound effects/ music it. It was an awesome idea I wish they would have explored in greater detail , the plainscape one was actually set up to be a Minor that answered questions about Sigil. Im not sure 100% but I think drive through RPG had the sound files available for download.
I agree with what you said about not revealing the monster until the last moment, that's what always made Lovecraft so effective ( and sadly why making a movie based on his work in horror so hard to do correctly). However there is no reason why the classic monsters can't inspire dread ! My favorite D&D supplements have always been the Vanrichten monster guides, I picked up his guide to the created when it came out the year I was 14 I think and was blown away. Each one described how to make custom monsters that seemed real , and just as important a real threat!
I don't know why but I have yet to find anyone talking about them on TH-cam when it was extremely well received and the IP loved!
The issue with making a love craft movie is you can’t know it’s a love craft movie when you choose to watch it. So you can’t market it.
Most successful ‘love craft’ movies have been an adaptation of an actual story just show a mystery.
DnD 5e. Five players. Level 12. Two fighters, a monk, a halfling wizard, and a drow warlock/bard. We were promised a sauna episode at a hot springs inn.
Our DM scared the everloving shit out of us. We saw some shit that night.
I love you in so many levels
Thanks for watching!
I am currently running a fantasy/horror game in the Dreamlands outlined in Lovecrafts “Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath.” Dnd is a more practical game in this context where the two genres are more balanced. I’m also assisted by Andy Sandersons “Cthulhu Mythos” supplement for dnd 5E. Lots of fantastical and horrific things take place beyond the wall of sleep.
Great advice! I always thought that my Call of Cthulhu games kind of dragged. Now I see why :-)
Keeping the monster unseen or merely glimpsed at the edge of the fading yellow light of the torch... Not showing is why the film "Cat People" (1942) works as well as it does.
Fortunately, none of my players are plugged into the horror fiction of HP Lovecraft or Clarke Ashton Smith as I am. Even if I described an Elder Thing or a Flying Polyp, they'd have no idea what it was. Moreover, if there were Ghouls, they might have an idea of its abilities, but its stats would be a complete mystery.
Really good video
But none of the words scrolled on the screen when you said they would
I see what he did there. He created the expectation of words scrolling on the screen, only to have us realize in horror that the video was almost at an end.
We timidly believed he would surely show us those words before that, but with each second that passed without a word appearing on the monitor we slowly lost focus of what he was saying. We strained our eyes and racked our brains trying to comprehend why nothing was coming on screen. And then, all too suddenly, the video had ended...
Well played Profesor, well played
(Slow clap)
Excellent advice. I love a good horror RPG. 😎
Thanks for watching! This video has few views, but I think it's one of my best. Ditto for the one on running mysteries.
Players in a horror game aren't victims - they are unsufficient heroes. They want to fight but ultimately can't.
11:43 damn, dude!
My tip for horror sessions is to make your players feel helpless while still having agency.
I know this is super late, but I'll be stealing this for when I play Ten Candles.
It's never too late. This video is one of my favorites, even though it failed to connect with a wide audience. Check out my video on how to run mysteries. I think it's my favorite.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 I'll check that out too. Thanks Professor!
Talking about being late...
Great tips in this video! Near the end, Prof DM mentioned a vocab list of Lovecraftian terms to borrow. That would be neat, but I didn't see it on screen, or in the vid description either. Was that something we could look at?
Your "horror voice" sounds just like Brandish Gilhelm, who is also a genius.
LOL I'll let him know you think that!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 lol he already knows
Combine combat at the first showing of the monster with body horror. yes, let them attack the monster, let them injure the monster, but the wound not only immediately heals in front of their eyes, but it convulses and pulsates, growing into a new limb or eye or mouth, making it bigger, stronger, more undefinable....
I didn't find horror to be difficult to run in dnd. Had a mission start in a haunted mansion (ghosts were made dangerouse, the manipulated traps in the house), had a dank cave below filled with (deadly/modified) undead, the cave opened up to a shoreline with a Dilapidated Pirate ship (which only showed it's true terrible nature once they got out to see), and when the survived that ordeal they "Washed up" at a castlee that was run by a vampire lord and ghoul serfs. Campaign was divided into 4 parts, easily divided Mansion/Cavern/Ship/Castle Castle I designed the mansion to challenge level 3-6, cave for 5-8, ship 8-10, castle 10-12. (2nd Edition).
You don't have to be able to kill your players in one hit to scare them, you simply need to convince your players that there is a chance that they "might" die in one hit.
AND, never forget to describe the surroundings, and "set the mood".
I highly recommend Chronicles of Darkness. You're just a person in today's world dealing with supernatural things that are unknown. Even vampires are incredibly powerful and different. The system uses Integrity which feels a lot like CoC's insanity to me.
Half to most of the weaknesses on vampires are just pop culture and don't work. You have no idea what they can do. They are truly overpowered compared to humans.
I love Call of Cthilhu but I circumvent the "Lovecraftian Horror is so common" problem by:
1- Having monsters be really vague or hard to see or have their descriptions being horrific in a way they cannot be pinpointed to the common loveraftian lore
2- Having the big names like Chtulhu really never appear. They are always a looming shadow and if they ever appear there is little time to describe them let alone let PC interact with them.... the PC are going to be dead or insane
3- Having original monsters (which might be inspired by traditional ones).
That voice is friggin creepy and convincing!
What do you say about rewarding the players for defeating the monster?
My friend is currently running a local horror like system, and he placed an eldrich hunter after the party, the thing is we recently managed to kill the beast (a fight that cost half the party), and after a moment of silence for those that died the npc says "he will be back", we were felling pretty bad as it felt we suffered for nothing.
I admit that I was not that happy, but since it is a horror system, I accepted, but the rest of the party were sad to the point the DM retconed the "he will be back" part
I think if the GM thinks it's appropriate, they should do it.
Hey Prof. Dungeon Master, on the topic of asking cell phones to be turned off or not used during the game, that wouldn't really fly with my group. Most of my players wouldn't have a problem with it, but there is one problem. He's my best friend of over 7 years, and I love him and everything, but he always uses his phone constantly while playing. Sometimes he'll even watch a video on it. It's always bothered me, but not enough to mention it. However, in a horror type game, it's very disruptive to the environment. He's an extremely stubborn person, and I can't imagine telling him to turn off his phone would yield any useful results. How would you deal with this?
Say: "Steve---thanks for coming to my games. I really enjoy playing with you. Here's the thing--the next session is a horror game I am working hard to build the atmosphere. Id' appreciate it if everyone kept their cell phones off during the game. Thanks."
Letting him know ahead of time might work. That's a good idea. Thank you!
I just want to follow up by saying that my friend had a defensive response when I first brought it up, as I expected, but he has been more responsive and attentive during gaming sessions since then. It's overall a better atmosphere, so thanks for the advice!
@@NickTheMCMaster Glad it worked out. Psychologists have identified cell-phone addiction as a real thing. I could put mine down for hours and not pick it up. Others have to check it every 10 minutes (for what I'm not sure).
That guy shouldn’t play with horror gamers. Keep him in the murder hobo zone or you’ve wasted everyone’s time
arkhamarchivist.com/wordcount-lovecraft-favorite-words/
I like to concentrate on inexplicable events that build tension around locations and entities. Eg a character heads up one floor in the old house and opens a door, from below the others hear footsteps creeping across the planks toward him while the character on the floor above can't see or hear anything from the otherwise empty room (even though the player is fully aware and desperately wants to close the door!). I publicly, but behind the screen, roll a dice to see if the character gets away. I count down from 10 the steps toward the player and stop at 2, "You close the door". The players haven't encountered anything and have just been freaked out by an empty room. Next...
Oh great and powerful Professor dungeon master. What about games that I have been running such as vampire the Masquerade since 1996? I would love to up my DM abilities in that particular RPG any suggestions please
I love those two books - what are they?❤
Can you do some Delta green content, I really want to get my playgroup to try it.
I love how you hit on using the theater of the mind instead of dungeon tiles... I notice this when I try to watch people play on fantasy grounds and such. Everyone is mulling over their positions and movement and the action just drags and the fight takes 30 minutes... I lose interest.
Starts to feel a little like wargaming instead of roleplaying.
When I was I kid it was all theater of the mind and I prefer that.
I would like to know your thoughts regarding the new D&D's adventure, Ice Wind Dale. Not sure if its been released yet. It is supposed to be more horror related.
Hi! I recently discovered your channel and started watching your videos, which I'm thoroughly enjoying.
About the topic at hand, I've always loved the Ravenloft D&D setting, but find it difficult to successfully run it because of many of the reasons you point out (heroes with superpowers are hard to scare), even though the product line has loads of advice on the subject from the 2e to the 3.5 days.
Are you familiar with the extended campaign setting besides the original adventure for Ad&d 1e? What are your thoughts about it?
I think 1e is able to instill horror. It’s just a different game. You can run monster that you’d need to have magic weapons to damage. 5e has softened those immunities. All you need is to use any random demon and they are immune to weapons under +4 and the world might not have +4 weapons. The goal becomes finding weaknesses or a true name and the monster hunts the players trying to stop them.
The trick is the players should start not knowing what the monster is. They aren’t prepare and ignorant of the true horrors. Their first encounter should break them. Someone dies. The creature is too strong. They should want to give up.
This set up is much different than your average DnD game. You can do horror in DnD but the outcome is different than normal.
It might be difficult in 5e though with our changing lots of things.
I don’t even think it’s hard to scare people with super powers. Just make a monster where those super powers aren’t effective. Maybe the monster has a wasting curse that flips healing. So short rests don’t heal and make you more tired.
Thx from Denmark. What is your opinon on GURPS?
Delta Green is worthy.
The list of words commonly used in lovecrafts vocabularly unfortunately wasn't on the video ):
I noticed that as well and have been looking for just such a list recently.
Would it be prudent to say that tactics, if not the enemy, are possibly antithetical to storytelling? According to this, they may be in terms of establishing any sense of mystery and dread.
I think patchwork fantasy is due for a reshuffle of stats'n'skills to make sure everything is scary again!
I really this channel
Where's the list?
Great Work, Professor! I'm currently playing a game of Cthulhu 7th Edition as DM with my friends and your video really helped alot in further thinking all of this through. Creating effective horror is a walk on a razors edge. So easy to mess up.
If you're running CoC 7th ed, make sure you check out Seth Skorokowski's videos; he reviews a lot of adventure modules for the game. Might be a big help to you.
I thought the The Mummy was with Brandon Fraiser
I'd like to point out, there is a different approach to the horror. The best example of it, would be Resident Evil 2. The original one, not the remake. It's often called a survival horror. The second resident made it work despite contradicting some of your tips, given in the video. I'm not saying, those are the wrong tips, quite the opposite. I'm saying, it can be done differently.
For example, the generic zombie in that game is lethal at the start, but later on, it's just an obstacle. It's not lethal at all. You have the resources, the skill, and the knowledge of how it works. But, despite knowing the mechanics, and behaviors of many enemies, the game is still scary as hell. It's because there's always that looming, unknown, great danger, that can strike at any moment. A common zombie can be easily killed, but you want to preserve ammo and health for the big monsters. The monsters, that are actually scary, cause they're strong, can attack at any time, and you don't know their stats or behaviors.
So, you end up running away from zombies as much as you can, forcing you into a mindset of a prey, even when it comes to common zombies. And the control scheme, clunky on purpose, is fuelling this mindset further.
What I'm saying is not, thaat your way is wrong. I'm saying, perhaps it would also be interesting to do horror more like in Resident Evil 2.
INSIGHT HORROR INTO D&D GAMES
1.) D&D are superhero self fulfillment fantasies . Game Balance in AD&D ment only humans can become god like, other races had level caps. In 3.5e, giant/ animal base humanoids had skill point/ rank penalties.
a.) horror monsters can not have class levels, then Ravenloft monsters can have class levels, but a werewolf is a werewolf in beast man form. A 10th-level fighter in wolfman shape fighter as a normal 5hd werewolf. Then 3.5e came out, a 3rd-level rogue werewolf in wolf form has a high hide and move silent skill ranks and can do sneak attack damage.
"Out from the under brush, something just bite your left calf. take 1d4+2d6 dmg. you now have a limp with a --3 movement penalty."
b.) How do you put horror and dread in a Fighter with 80hp ?
i.) be a dick, that is how.
ii.) " You come to a dungeon room cover in matted straw."
x.) there are bear traps hook to chains under the straw , if you step in a trap, make a Fort save or fall prone do to sudden . If the player fails fort save, then their character falls into 1d6 more bear traps. You have to use a crow bar to open the traps or make a str check DC15.
xx.) Under the straw matting, the floor is cover with two foot wide, two foot deep pit traps that has 1d3 spikes doing 1d3 damage, If you step in one and trip, the character can also fall into other ones for hand dmg.
"Your characters are have a very bad moment, their hands are bleeding after being impaled , also their feet. Also did any of you get one of your hands catch in a bear trap that was set in the pungy stick trap ? By the way the monster is heading your way and know you all are really going to have a hard time of out running it this time."
c.) I always give player characters max hp at first level, and start the campaign out with 4th to 6th-level characters." It is Action hero Adventure !"
i.) Ever watch the first Rambo movie ? Have you seen the scene where Rambo was in the mine being attacked by rats ?
ii.) rats, centipedes , and large insects do between 1d2 to 1d4 damage. And these are the creatures any farm kid has to deal with in a normal fantasy setting. No one without at lest 3hp would make it to being a teenager, let alone a young adult. And just by kill vermin around the house will make AD&D a 2nd-level fighter or 3rd-level rogue. In 3.5e you can start the game at 3rd-level by just killing vermin.
In Star Wars Sage, Starting hero characters at first level begin with full hp and have their Con score add to their hp/ vitality with Con bonus hp modifier, also they still get a --10hp before they die. Then again Star Wars has more lethal weapons.
A Star Wars Soldier/ fighter class can have around 25vit/hp at first level. Storm trooper armor looks like full plate.
As a kid around the age of 9, I step into a fire ant mound that went to my knee cap.
It was one of the worst times in my life. My leg was left bleeding from all of those ant bites, and it took nearly a week before the swelling to go away with the insect lotion.
A horror gritty life like realism game, have a hornet crawl under a fighter wearing plate armor. It is the little things that get you the most....
Did you just recommend trying to scare a 6th level fighter with fort saves and strength checks? I don't think that's being a dick - at least, not the way you think.
@@samchafin4623 Thank you very much, have a good weekend.
@@krispalermo8133 I must apologize. I took something you said out of context to give you, a stranger to me, a hard time. Thank you for responding to my juvenile vitriol with patience and respect. You area good person.
@@samchafin4623 That is a very nice reply you written. I normal try to wish the person I leave a post on the weekend to have a nice weekend cause it is polite. And it helps me to place dates to when I last made a post to a given comment.
Some players/ people I have game with react that if the encounters are to hard to get through or if they can not have an easy win. Then you are just screwing them over with a heavy hand. And it is a " dick move " to do.
The way I read your first comment, I though you were saying my tactics in running a game were " fair," and not being heavy handed. Other wise I though you were saying " I was being too hard on myself."
So I wrote a " thank you," as a response.
( I did not think you were being " juvenile," I wish more people now days had your sense of decency.)
P.S. If you ever had a character that ran into one of my " trap " rooms. You will also call me a " dick," and a few other foul words with names add onto them.
@@krispalermo8133 I'm lucky that you're decent enough not to have read my initial comment with the snark I had intended. If I may, I'd like to offer a snark free critique of your initial post: if I tell a group of players that the floor of the room is covered in hay/straw, they aren't going in it because it is obviously a trap. Play with their expectations instead, and put all the traps on the bare floor around the hay. Also, a fighter/paladin killed by hornets isn't horrific, and it definitely isn't heroic. I think the professor is right; if you want to scare the big HP tank, you need to put a slightly less powerful HP tank with the party, and kill him in one hit. Better yet, make the fighter's primary weapon haunted (which isn't a curse, and won't be identified as a quality of the item). Every time the fighter wields his weapon, there's a chance he gets possessed for a round or two by the angry ghost inhabiting the place - like a 50/50 shot; something where most of the time the fighter just wields a back-up weapon, but in a pinch he might risk getting possessed.
It struck me that in what you said, there's a little thread of a feeling that you as the DM are playing against your players, and I think that style of play inevitably feeds player frustration and resentment. Maybe I'm reading something into your comments that isn't there, but you talked about players reacting this way, so I guess it won't hurt to reiterate. I think players love overcoming long odds and life and death situations, but they're frustrated by attacks they feel like they couldn't possibly avoid, especially if it happens repeatedly.
And thank you for letting me go off on a rant on you here. It's probably more about me than you, but hopefully I've said something that isn't complete crap - and keep playing some kick-ass D&D!
Where's the words scroll man? I neeeeeeds my adjectives
Dread... I find the jenga tower gimmick extremely off-putting.
It does rely too much on a player's actual dexterity instead of the abilities of one's character, thus the impetus of playing someone who is not the player. Dice remain the great equalizer.
Bueller?? Bueller??
AWESOME!
I rewatch this EVERY time I have to run horror, especially the example at the end to get myself in the right mindset. This is such a GREAT video.
Thanks. This video was a slow burn. When it came out, almost no one watched it--and I thought it was one of my better ones. I'm glad it had replay value. Cheers!
The hardest part for me in my game with close friends is that one of them has a tendency to always crack a joke. He doesn't mean harm, he just can't help himself sometimes. Usually not a big deal, but when you're trying to build tension or dread, man can it undermine the atmosphere.
Great video with awesome tips! Thanks
Big time. Personally, that really vexes me. Thanks for watching!
I'm not going to lie; it's pretty irritating. But a chat with them about it is coming up.
@@raggarex Good luck!
4 yrs ago but still relevant! I'm about to start my zero level adventure in Shadow of the Demon Lord with my veteran D&D group. Watching all the horror tips I can as I'm trying to get a Lovecraft/Howard vibe mixed with original Brothers Grimm.
Thanks. This is one my favorite videos. It's got replay value.
There's a TH-cam channel, Horror Babble, where the narrator, Ian Gordon, reads aloud literature in that lowered octave you mentioned while speaking at a slower pace than is generally conversational, as he eerily conveys that sense of remoteness and dire consequences looming just out of sight. In any case, great video, and I am once more going to borrow your descriptive dialog as the heroes descended into the crypt. Like, word for word! Cheers on 50, and I await the next anxiously!
I love HorrorBabble
@@beeezlebub My train comes in at about 10:45pm and I have to drive about 20 minutes to my house. Many nights I listen to readings in the car, which can be eerie with all the fog we get out here on the forested roads at night.
I love it while driving or commuting! Ian's voice gives me the creeps all the time!!
I'll be checking it out.
Horror Babble is awesome! 💀☠🐙
One of the horror focused thoughts I had was to get a high level monster that roamed the level 1 to 4 areas. You pick one that’s immune to normal attacks and maybe most spells.
It always approaches with a distinct sound or smell. All the other creatures are on edge as well. There are signs of it in rooms and along corridors.
The concept is for the magic to defeat it becomes the quest. Maybe they travel for information on it. Maybe no one knows and you face the monster with a new ability and die.
Then a devil or demon cuts a deal with a PC with the power to kill it. And it works to corrupt the PC for ever after.
Either they die and add to the rumors of the dungeon or they become heroes for defeating it.
It goes against the normal DnD advice because they should only run away from this creature. It is not an encounter they can win to see it means death.
My thought is to use a golem or golem like creature. Something immune to mundane weapons and magic.