WindwalkerDM's page

Hello all.

Running a solo campaign with my friend, and this time around, I am not the DM but the player. It is a strange feeling already, filling my very own character sheet after being the designated dm of the group for, like, 17 years?

Since we all have jobs now and only me and my precious dm has timetables that can meet, we decided to have a go at a solo campaign. We are pretty fresh into pathfinder, though we have been playing Forgatten Realms various editions and Eberron, with a dash of Alternity, for nearly two decades.

I am playing Ken Selani Warwick, a paladin/rogue devoted to Khalistria. After running away from my father -with the help of some extraplanar allies of my murdered mother- I was hiding my years away in Sandpoint, far away from the dangers of my father. I had only one friend, Sandru, and Koya as a guide. They both knew me as a stray orphan. For a couple years now I was working as a bodyguard on a brothel (pixies kitten), in exchange for a meager salary and a small, permenant room inside. I made a small shrine to Khalistria in my room, devoting the pleasure sounds rising from the brothel as prayers to her. Meanwhile, I am plotting a long, devious revenge plan to destroy my father's world of fame, rich and glory, for it was he who killed my mother. I am still hoping Khalistria will accept me, a celestial paladin into her ranks, because the strongest desire in me is revenge, even though my mother tried to teach me otherwise. She wanted to rise me as a champion, and things were working fine, till my father killed her and tried to kill me as well.

The mechanical design of the character is based on making only a single, devastating attack to kill enemies as quickly as possible. The idea comes from the books of Lee Child, the Jack Reacher novels. Inside one of them he mentions melee combat is all about economy of actions, so you should try to get things done with as few hits as possible. And since you can hit a person minimum once, you should take them down with that one hit. So my celestial character has very high strength (18) and charisma (18), mediocre constitution (12), acceptable dexterity (14) and wisdom (14), good intelligence (16). Being a celestial really tidies up the ability scores which are essential for a solo player. I am not sure if this fits in with the standard point delivery system at any rate. But since I am going in solo my DM decided these scores were fine. I also rolled damage reduction 2/Evil starter trait from celestial table. (Physical difference from humans is self-animated hair.) I have started the game as a Paladin 1/Rogue 1, played three sessions already and now I am P2/R1. The idea is to combine improved feint, vital strike, smite evil, power attack and some other bonuses on top of two-haded sword's nice damage output with good strength bonuses to kill enemies with as few hits as possible. I have laid out the plan of progression for the character up to level 13 where the build will be complete, as a Paladin 5/rogue 7/fighter 1 character. (If I survive that long, that is.) At that level I am expecting to deal 12d6+25 damage hits. I will be making a single attack per round, though, instead of three normal attacks. I am not entirely sure that this will be more damage, but I think it's worth a try. It's fluffy, different, original-ish. At least I am pretty sure it's uncommon.

So here you go, you got the fluff, you got the mechanics. I will try to post headlines after each session to share the news, with hopes people will find it interesting.

See you around.

Very nice everyone, thank you. I believe in time we can turn this into a more or less solid resource for fear related gameplay techniques.

I am trying to summarize what have been written by you. What I want to do is to boil all these down to some kind of "fear 101", a "how to" guide for fear realted gameplay.

One other thing I believe is true: You cannot prolong fear for too long. Human physiology and psychology fights against it and tries to turn it into other feelings after some time. So sometimes you should let your players experience other, more neutral tone feelings like the feeling of progression, success, pride etc. But be carefull, to much joy or jokes may change psyche in a way that prevents any more fear for that session. This may also be used to end fear themes for the day.

* Fear of the unknown: People fear what they don't understand. However some players strictly want to keep control of everything in the game. (Control freaks?) When you try to create tension and fear in some way, like sounds suddenly stopping when players open the door, their minds begin to think like that: "Hey, I didn't roll for stealth, how the hell did they hear me? The dm is bending the rules again!" Well maybe if he keeps playing normally he will find out the reason, but for the rest of the game such players loose their connection. On the other hand, I believe it is not healthy to dismiss ideas because they may not work on different kinds of players. So for the rest of this study we will take into consideration "normal/average player", and it will be up to individual dm's to handle different kinds of players.

*Music: If you can find the right kind of music, it may help inducing fear/tension. This is under category of environment. I believe a low sound volume is essential, to prevent distractions and to keep it subtle. Music should not become the primary aspect, it should just help you.

*Low number of players/lower level of characters make it easier: When playing one-on-one or with a couple, it is much easier to drive things towards what you want. This is true for all aspects of the game, including fear related issues. Also lower level characters make it feel more like a "survival" kind of game rather than "hack&slash" so it helps. I wonder, what would still make the players fear after long time, when they are in their 13+ levels.

This is it for now. Please warn if I missed something. I will gather everything under a much better format next time. Also please forgive language errors, English is not my main.

Thanks for the replies friends.

Seemingly we can deduce these things from what we have discussed:

1-)Subtly finding out player phobias and playing towards this.
This approach may or may not be something good to do, depending on the severity of the phobia. Now I remember one of my players reaction to giant scorpions, which were being used by goblins to poison the water supplies of a town. He led a group of specialist rangers who were called night whispers (lash user rangers, swinging from tree to tree, hence the sound and the name) He bravely stood and fought against a white dragon young with his fellow friends... but in the first sight of giant scorpion he ran back. Many of the night whispers had died because of this. I remember him gathering his feet below himself to remove them from ground... where perhaps he believed a scorpion may sting him.

2-)Chance of success: there seems to be a balance point between possible success / failure rates, when revealed to players somehow, seems to create a tension. But this kind of tension is mechanical and mathematical, surely some players love it but some dont.

3-)Time pressure: some kind of time pressure may require players to think differently, which may stimulate different reactions in their brains, hopefully including tension. Combined with other elements this may prove usefull.

4-) Setting: World of darkness seems to have advantage when used right, because it's very nocturnal and instinctive. I also remember warhammer 40k rpg -the inquisitiorial one- was very easy to die in, which created another level of worry. Each shot being fired at you could end you right there. This may also be considered inside chance of success...

Overall: Still not enough. What I can say at the moment is...

Pushing players out of their ordinary thinking route makes it easy to incite fear/tension. No body feels fear in their normal state of mind, because everyone knows this is just a game. You have to make them think "hey, it is very easy to die in this system" or "in this setting, death comes in very horrible ways." This means they have to compare the system/setting they play in with other systems. We all do this instinctively, especially if we have experience with more than one system. ADdition of time pressure into equation may change how mathematician players minds work, causing them to feel some tension they don't normally feel.

Please, send more experiences and help me gather all the information together.

X-COM based RPG... I need it so badly...

I don't know why... but in my long years of DM'ship I became to hate druids and monks. For entirely unknown reasons. Everything else is welcome.

Hello all;

Been a DM for 15+ years now. Calling out for all the DM's and players alike now.

As a player, did you ever experience tension, fear or terror during your plays? Under which conditions did this happen to be?

As for DM's, did you ever hear your players catching their breath, turning pale with fear during your campaigns? What was the thing that caused this?

Maybe if we can collect these memories here under a topic, so that DM's that want some tension in their plays can make use of them.

Any other strange feeling / cause for these may also come in handy.

I wonder what makes players cringe... I know this is borderline subjective but... is the tension just limited to "save or die" dice throws? Just for the mathematical output of chance of success? Or is it the creature design, the temperature and illumination of the room played, the dm's voice... Let us find out.