Hey there everyone, Elias here, .... I've Posted on the Forum a few times looking for help or handing out my two cents...... but today I'm looking to build something from the ground up with all of you.
My current pathfinder setting has a very simple rule, stay above ground, and in the light, and you're ok..... go underground in the dark.... and your sanity is fair game. I've had Ghoul Nests and Derro dens... and mindflayers in alien ruins.
I really want to hammer the dichotomy home with this next adventure... I haven't gotten many ideas yet, but i know i want it to be dark, unforgiving and claustrophobic. so far, the only Concrete concept that i have is that the entrance to the dungeon in this adventure is in a well.... it will be dark and wet, and not many ( if any) direct combat encounters.
so then friends, Have any ideas for me?
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A friend of mine(on these boards and off) helped me with a game concept where a dragon was the villain(cliche, I know. At least I didn't go with Red Dragons). He had an interesting twist to add to my thought.
You see, I was going to have the dragon kidnap noble/royal females to make a half-dragon army.
My friend suggested I use a Great Wyrm Gold dragon who wanted to "help" the human race. He was behind the kidnappings, and was selectively breeding humans to get better humans, who he would eventually send out to take over the world.
Add the Advanced template to humans for this, with some Dragon Disciples and half-dragons, giant eagels and rocs for the air force, etc...
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
One thing you might try is start with a mechanic where as the players adventure in the underground, they are slowly leached hit points.
This will immediately heighten up the danger as the players will be worried on how long they have spent underground and worried on 'when' they meet any danger and how much damage they take in battle as it will 'shorten' their time underground. This becomes very 'scary' when something like a cave-in occurs behind the players, they go down a chute, or in some way they have to work rapidly to find a way back to the surface.
Small groups of stirges or similar Con sucking monsters (maybe create something like Bloodroots or have some tiny Leaches pools of water that cross the path of the players).
Small groups of Shadows can also be good for their Str draining and are less 'lethal' but will still worry the players as they start to have Str dip in value (we had a GM do this to us recently).
There are a variety of undead and diseases that drain or 'attack' attributes other than Con which can slowly 'break' characters or a group of encounters.
The key in this sort of set up is making sure to have bits of stuff to keep the players motivated to keep going and staying in the hazardous environment. Corpses of possible past adventurers can be both 'treasure' and horror.
I might suggest the players finding a few 'corpses' a random points with small bags of a few uncut rubies or gems that 'look' like rubies. The corpses might even have some mining gear like picks on them.
The players will conclude that there must be 'somewhere' deeper into the site that there is a cave or source for the uncut rubies. This will be the cheese that keeps them going as they find a few corpses or occasionally find a few uncut rubies among the rough walls.
One sort of setting item to give a particular 'feel' to the dungeon would be to have the 'walls' of the dungeon filled or covered in roots. This would give an 'organic' feel to the dungeon. Players would be traveling among the 'roots' of some possible plant. This can be a 'possible' explanation for the hit point drain as players find themselves constantly getting scratched or pricked by the roots. If the players stop to rest then they will find bits of roots slowly digging into their flesh as their is a small amount of animation.
The rubies then could be the possible 'fruit/potatoes' of the plant. The plant will be concluded to the players to be very vast or colony like as it will be very hard to destroy (weed like and very vast). Also destruction would eliminate the rubies. There will be a down side obviously that it becomes 'clear' after a while that the 'plant' needs blood to make rubies (this should be something the players decide or discover over a while) which should lead to a dilema for the the players (the plant is neutral so destruction should anger druids and yet it feeds on blood as part of the fertilization process).
do you have access to heroes of horror? The 3.5 book. There are lots of great ideas in there on how to run a game that keeps your players uncomfortable and afraid. Everything from dark rituals, to 'taint' and sanity rules. I think there was a similar 3rd party product for pathfinder around here somewhere.
Found the 3rd party product horrific fears a pretty good one in my view with some descent ideas in there.
It also looks like paizo will be putting out some products next year to support their horror adventure path planned for the first half of next year, so if your game is still going then I am sure there will be loads of inspiration both in the adventure and in the companion and chronicles books that come out to support them.
Also, I have found that setting the mood is extremely important in horror games. Even if its just playing a few soundbites from your laptop at key moments, or dimming the lights a little.
Th Key to "Horror" is to mess up with the players minds. Let the players create the horror for you.
NEVER show you monsters, only let them hear, smell and feel them. A claw sliding across a stone wall. The "tok, tok" from bones on the floor. A alien scream, somewhere deep within the dungeon or a quick gust of wind at the players neck.
This will play with the players minds, they will thing about "what is it?" and awake their own horrors.
Use the off-play things, like lightning, sound etc. Try to avoid playing in bright sunlight, it's easier for the player to feel the horror if it's dark outside. >:)
Don't stay away from classic horror "themes", they are classic because they work, but don't use them to often. For example, the well, if it's in a town use the town from "Sleepy Hollow" as an example, this style always plays good with Horror.
And always remember Splatter =/= Horror, the best horror films of all time don't have a lot (if not no) blood in it. :)
Last but not least stay away from a battle map, to create a horror atmosphere nothing is more destructive then mathematics. :)
I Like Kalyth idea, it's a criminal-horror mix, very nice. :)
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NPCs that teach by example.
The PCs enter a new village.
They meet a few locals, see that the NPCs here, while not as awesome as the PCs, AIN'T 1st level Commoners.
Half an houre before sundown they start getting nervous and begin their daily Lock Up Everything And GET INSIDE FAST! routine.
Have an NPC the PCs have met, the Cpt of the Guard - 10th level Warrior or something, accidently drop his wedding ring (something important to the NPC but not valuable to the PCs) outside before rushing indoors and telling the PCs, Hell no, I ain't going back out there; the heirloom can wait til sunrise!
AND LATER
The PCs approach a ruins that goes underground in the dark and a really badass NPC runs, screaming, to them to save them before they enter. Out of breath and terrified for the PCs, the badass is relieved to reach them in time and quickly urges them to STAY AWAY from there.
In all cases, feel free to to give the PCs a Sense Motive check, DC -10, (let them know the DC) to see the NPCs really are afraid of the dark and for the PCs safety. Even better, have a bad guy NPC downplay the Dark. Tell the PCs to make an opposed Sense Motivive against his Bluff -- they KNOW he's lying, of course, that's how the DM uses metagame knowledge to his advantage ;)
Finally,
OMG, go to NobleKnightGames.com and buy a copy of I6: "Ravenloft" by Tracy Hickman.
Not only is it the greatest module ever written, not only could it be pretty much run as is even though it was 1E, not only did it inspire a LINE of HORROR NOVELS, it's a Horror adventure. No, it's THE Horror Adventure (sorry Tammeraut).
awesome ideas everyone.... i've already got those creative juices flowing.
kalyth, what you've described is Almost identical to my " cult of the dark mark" ... they're the generic " dressed in dark robes, chanting in alien tongues" of my world, and if they do anything well, they blend in with the normal populace.
Smerg, I love the idea of the blood sucking tree... and i think it deserves a dungeon all it's own for it's unique flavor.
the particular dungeon seems to be crying out for feelings of cold, wet and isolated. I'm leaning towards using some Alan wake style play with light and dark..... as well as the light and dark spells.... think of it....hungry shadows creeping in from the crevices in the walls.. the only thing fending them off being their torches and their lanterns...... which the shadows seem to be able to put out.
at the core of the dungeon is a massive firepit, in which burns a constant, heatless blue flame. surrounding the pit is a collection of bones, a party of adventurers who struggled through the well's depths before... and found themselves trapped there, to affraid to venture from the flame's light. However.... the flame does nothing and the shadows simply watched and waited as the adventurers were driven mad by fear and isolation.
The number one point of horror is not what happens, but how the audience (ie the players) feel about what happens. You can have a horror game about them running through a field of flowers and bunnies if you can make the flowers and bunnies seem creepy enough.
Horror takes the most emotional envestment on the part of the GM. You have to know just what the feeling of the moment should be and then invest it in everything you do as a GM, from the way you describe the setting to how you roll your dice.
When it works it's beautiful. When it doesn't it sucks. Good luck and when I have more time I might come up with some more specific suggestions.
Call for perception rolls to mess with the characters' minds.
The players come upon a dessicated corpse sitting on a throne in a crypt.
"Wait...did...did his finger just twitch?"
"Was that a whisper, or just the wind?"
"I could have sworn I saw a figure in the shadows of the flickering torchlight..."
Things like that. They don't actually need to be true, they just need to plant the seeds of uncertainty.
Also, music can help a lot. The players had come across a chest. It was rusted shut, so they had to hack into the side of it with a pickaxe. One of the characters reached his hand into the hole in the chest. This really tense violin music came on right when I was narrating that the inside of the chest felt slippery and he could feel hair. The reaction from the players was quite satisfying.
I heartily recommend the Bioshock soundtrack. It was available for public download for a while, so you should be able to find it somewhere.
An Aboleth would fit into that concept very well. With all their illusion abilities, a single one and a few skum could be disguised as any type of weird things.
Invisible Stalker..... just the name is pretty terrifying. Think about it.
Invisible Stalker..... just the name is pretty terrifying. Think about it.
Voyeurism? Female PCs beware!
Invisible Stalker..... just the name is pretty terrifying. Think about it.Voyeurism? Female PCs beware!
Because Male PCs love being watched unawares by creepy creatures?
Because Male PCs love being watched unawares by creepy creatures?Invisible Stalker..... just the name is pretty terrifying. Think about it.Voyeurism? Female PCs beware!
More like because any character able to cast invisibility, or for that matter any character with a ring of invisibility can become an "invisible stalker". ;)
More like because any character able to cast invisibility, or for that matter any character with a ring of invisibility can become an "invisible stalker". ;)
So all PCs beware.
I really want to hammer the dichotomy home with this next adventure... I haven't gotten many ideas yet, but i know i want it to be dark, unforgiving and claustrophobic. so far, the only Concrete concept that i have is that the entrance to the dungeon in this adventure is in a well.... it will be dark and wet, and not many ( if any) direct combat encounters. so then friends, Have any ideas for me?
Are you truly married to the well as the entrance? I think that should be how they get out not get in. An exit reaching up towards the sky and light plays nicely with the desire to escape the tight, dark confines underground. Though an exit and entrance is just a matter of direction.
I'd play with the whole above/underground thing you have going and put them underground unexpectedly when they are radically unprepared for it.
Like have the earth swallow them. Or even an entire building they are in.
It'd help to know things like what level? How well equipped etc. Do you want a HORROR game or just a dark scary place? There's a big difference. I don't find heroic fantasy lends itself well to actual horror.
I really want to hammer the dichotomy home with this next adventure... I haven't gotten many ideas yet, but i know i want it to be dark, unforgiving and claustrophobic. so far, the only Concrete concept that i have is that the entrance to the dungeon in this adventure is in a well.... it will be dark and wet, and not many ( if any) direct combat encounters. so then friends, Have any ideas for me?Are you truly married to the well as the entrance? I think that should be how they get out not get in. An exit reaching up towards the sky and light plays nicely with the desire to escape the tight, dark confines underground. Though an exit and entrance is just a matter of direction.
I'd play with the whole above/underground thing you have going and put them underground unexpectedly when they are radically unprepared for it.
Like have the earth swallow them. Or even an entire building they are in.It'd help to know things like what level? How well equipped etc. Do you want a HORROR game or just a dark scary place? There's a big difference. I don't find heroic fantasy lends itself well to actual horror.
I DMed an adventure once where the players were sent to rescue this village off in whoop-whoop from bloodthirsty elves and a headless horseman, only to find out that the village is really populated by transformed animals and led by an evil wizard/druid/vrock alliance, the elves were acting in retaliation and the headless horseman was a restless paladin the villagers killed.
And I took the liberty of granting the enemy PCs access to every item the PCs sold to the town merchants, and every item they'd bought from the town started malfunctioning.
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I really want to hammer the dichotomy home with this next adventure... I haven't gotten many ideas yet, but i know i want it to be dark, unforgiving and claustrophobic. so far, the only Concrete concept that i have is that the entrance to the dungeon in this adventure is in a well.... it will be dark and wet, and not many ( if any) direct combat encounters.
The first question is what level are the characters in your group?
The well is a centerpiece of medieval life, so any cult/monster activity around it will be noticeable. An abandoned village would be one way around this. Otherwise, a cult which enforces secrecy and people who talk about strange things they saw at the well disappear.
If they do rescue someone who is a disguised cultist, do not make it a beautiful female, that has been done to death.
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One word: Fog.(credit for this goes to the book, Heroes of Horror)
It will drive your PC's crazy! Why is the fog underground? Is it the reason we keep getting weaker(see HP loss suggestion up-thread)? Why does it look like something keeps walking through it?
"SOMETHING JUST BRUSHED AGAINST MY LEG!!!" = Rat under the fog, but they don't need to know that...
This is all a bit cheap, but it works.
First of all, make sure that the party has to go forward. This can either mean you literally block their return with a rock slide or similar, or you dangle something to entice them.
You also want to limit their perception, so they can only see and hear reliably for a short range, then it's all echoes and half-seen movements. Corners and changes in gradient work really well for this, because no amount of light helps if your view is blocked by a lump of rock.
Then you hit them hard. Not enough to kill the characters, but enough to take a chunk out of them, forcing them to stagger on, or use resources to get back to fighting fitness. The aforementioned ability score damage is perfect for this.
You want to do this early, as close to the beginning of the "dungeon" as you can, because their weakened state will do a lot of the work of creating the tense atmosphere. They'll be much more cautious about turning the next corner if they're not at their best, but nor can they turn back. They'll twist themselves up.
Squish them too. A tunnel is much more scary if only one person can go through at a time, and even then they have to go on hands and knees, so they can't wield a weapon. You might end up with the halfling or gnome taking point, which only adds to the tension.
Give them false hope. A healing potion turns out to be empty, expired, or only half as effective as normal. A flicker of daylight is revealed to be a trick played by some mischievous spirit, or is the lure of some kind of subterranean equivalent of the angler fish. The party stumble upon a shrine to a god of healing, only to find it desecrated beyond use.
Don't use monster names out of the book. A good GM does this anyway, but you want to describe the entities stalking the party, and because you're going for horror, you don't want too much detail either. You want half-glimpsed shadows, the barest scent of decay, a barely audible whisper... is that your name? If the party is cold, wet, bruised and battered, and can't see more than a few metres ahead of them, then even the humble orc can be frightening if described well enough.
Basically, you want to make them uncomfortable and uncertain. You don't want to take away their toys, because that breeds resentment, but you want to make it much more difficult for them, so that they can't rely on standard strategies, equipment, and so on.
When or if they survive, they'll realise they had a whale of a time.
I should point out that you have done an excellent job if you kill the entire party and they tell you they had a great time!
Indeed, the session which led towards Call of Cthulhu being my game of choice for over a decade ended in a total party kill!
One word: Fog.(credit for this goes to the book, Heroes of Horror)
It will drive your PC's crazy! Why is the fog underground? Is it the reason we keep getting weaker(see HP loss suggestion up-thread)? Why does it look like something keeps walking through it?
"SOMETHING JUST BRUSHED AGAINST MY LEG!!!" = Rat under the fog, but they don't need to know that...
+1. My experience with horror games has been, the less you tell them the better. Have things happen that have no explanation, rather than be directly threatening. Hint obliquely to bad things happening.
The best horror game I ran was last halloween. (I'll try to make this short and examples of this principal). I used the silent hill soundtrack, and made my players play by candlelight (they had trouble seeing their sheets, all the better). They were not allowed to turn the lights on, which meant they had fun peeing by candlelight.
The characters were hired to investigate an estate previously owned by an enchanter. The academy of Enchantment in my homebrew setting have a bit of a black mark on their history for the obvious potential abuses of charm spells. Long story short, the townspeople figured out he was up to no good, and he was executed. His wife killed the children and hanged herself, though a couple of family members were never found.
On their way inside, an old man told them that, ages ago, he'd gone in with ten of his friends to burn the house down. After they'd done so, they realized only 9 of them had come out. When they returned the next morning, the house was completely intact (again, did not explain).
Long story short, I made two versions of the house. One 'normal' version, and one 'silent hill' version, wherein everything is all Effed up (if you've played the good silent hill games, you generally get to see a 'netherworld' version of everything). Then, for the horror version, I Rearranged the rooms a little bit and even switched out a couple. I made sure the 'netherworld' version of the house had illogical architecture, like the Winchester mansion (though simpler).
I learned a couple of interesting things from this game. First of all, my players were far more creeped out by the house the first time through, when nothing was happening. They knew there was something bad there, but the building up of tension scared them far more than anything they fought. I find the Ring very scary, and nothing f*cking happens for most of the movie.
Second of all, the things that DID scare the players had no explanation. For example, on their first trip through the house,the dining room was perfectly clean and had several place settings. My players spent 5 minutes trying to figure out what this meant, when it meant nothing. At some point, they found a journal from a servant girl he was abusing, which said she'd "done things. horrible things, without knowing why." Pretty obvious she's talking about something sexual, but whatever my players imagined was way grosser than what I could describe, and I didn't feel squicky going into detail. Later, in the entryway, the found the shadow of his wife swinging from the chandelier, and heard creaking, but saw no body. In a normal D&D game, this is where she'd attack, but in a horror game, there's no damn explanation, and the fridge logic will drive your players insane.
I'm sorry, I didn't really apply my story to your campaign.
My point was, any time your characters are underground, you ought to change atmosphere. First, have above ground music, and below, even two different sets of combat music (If you don't play with music, A: why? B: start). If you can dim the lights or something, do so. Candlelight would be annoying long term, but a little dimming wouldn't hurt.
Second of all, always always always have things happen underground that don't have explanation. Weird sounds (metal banging, giggling,) weird smells (baking bread, something burning, feces, something rotting), weird feelings (why does the wall feel spongy here?) and, most of all, weird things ('why is there a pile of ladies' shoes in the middle of this dungeon?' What does 'five hands' scrawled on the cave wall mean?).
Anything you can do to make your players go "WTF" is awesome. So are unknowable things like lovecraft. Yes, you should explain some WTFs (or do so implicitly), but don't explain all of them.
Also, it's ok to modify monsters a little bit. For example, I added a zipper to Krenshar. for some reason, my players thought unzipping its skin was creepier than peeling its skin back.
Lastly, big is not scary. I don't care of your chimera is made of satan, worms, and zombie roseanne, if it's above a large zize, it isn't spooky. Pinhead, pyramid head, freddy kruger, carnage, venom, leatherface, all of these things are mediumsized. Ogres are scary in pathfinder, but only because of backwoods hick rape. If they were a size larger, they wouldn't be. Why isn't godzilla scary? he's too damn big.
Hope this helps
Why isn't godzilla scary? he's too damn big.By this logic, Godzooky is terrifying!
Lulz. I didn't say that the rule works in reverse. Also, yes, that is terrying, but for entirely different reasons *shudder*.
Oh yes, take advantage of Uncanny Valley. Ever wonder why dolls are creepy? Uncanny valley may have the answer! Really, though, humanish things are often really scary if they fit this trope.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UncannyValley
Atmosphere, it’s all about atmosphere.
You can have self mutilating, child sacrificing, puppy eating demon worshippers running around, but in the end, one Monty Python reference, a slice of pizza or the latest movie can ruin your game. Hell, even tactical banter or dry math calculations kill any possible horror.
Just my two cents on creating atmosphere:
First encounter: low on CR, but ruthless and cruel. A simple 30 Ft spiked pit trap. Put in some undead if you want. And have the party jumped by some food scavenging demihumans mid rescue. But hurt them.
Secrecy: Just tell a random player to roll his Will Safe and nod at the result. Nothing more, nothing less.
No way back: To be blunt, just collapse the cave in their faces. Let’s say under folk harass the good people of a small town. They hire their favorite heroes. But they don’t like their pace. Se when your party returns for a good night’s rest in a warm bed, they see their tunnel of light collapsed by concerned townsfolk.
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Lulz. I didn't say that the rule works in reverse. Also, yes, that is terrying, but for entirely different reasons *shudder*.Why isn't godzilla scary? he's too damn big.By this logic, Godzooky is terrifying!
Wait.. why are you terrified of Godzooky? He's a klutz more than half the time!
Read "The Skinsaw Murders"
make it scary!