Check out the D&D 3.5 book Heroes of Horror. While I'm not a fan of some of the mechanical stuff they include (e.g. the "taint" rules), it does have a whole lot of excellent advice on running a horror-focused fantasy game.
Yeah, taint is a bit dodgy (and lo there were many taint jokes). No one likes their character to be disfigured for just entering the dungeon area.
What really terrifies Players, in my experience is the combination of this:
1) A GM style that doesn't give a damn about CR, APL, etc. While Narrativists sometimes achieve this via literary fudging, the alien inscrutable simulationist inspires a lot more terror because he is perceived as not caring.
coupled with
2) The forces of evil essentially have the strategic, if not the tactical initiative (in terms of how military types understand initiative, not that roll you make at the beginning of an encounter).Normally in simulationist games, the party has the initiative the overwhelming majority of the time. Sure, evildoers and otherwise are doing their thing all the time, but most of the time, that thing is reasonably orthogonal to what it is that you're doing. Often it's not even local to you and even more often, you're oblivious to it. But when you're running horror, those zombie hordes are COMING TO YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD. If you look at the plot of a lot of these movies, books, etc, the turning point is essentially when the protagonists regain their balance and start executing a plan to take the initiative. Essentially you're in a box (in truly global horror, that box is the whole world), and the forces of evil are setting fire to it. If you're outside the box, it's not really horror to you, you can usually at least contest the initiative.
Yeah when I ran the Isger game in the zombie town (Isgerian Resident Evil) even though it was a tried and true (overdone?) plot, it still made them anxious and worried. Thus they cared if they won and it mattered when they prevailed. The city was the box, and the box had to be controlled (store packer first day?). They did venture a bit beyond it, but this central area was the box for many a session.
The street swarming with the undead does not have a CR. Well I suppose it technically does, but I am not calculating it. This led to them not just walking around everywhere, they had to use rooftops, trees, distract the horde to move to new areas. Sometimes they were stuck on the roof of a building, and had to wait it out. It was a bit Assassin's creed for a few sessions.
One time, the party fighter was separated from the group, and there was a major battle outside the walls. The fighter Rosehawker, had to get across town and close the portcullis. Let some out to fight the army, but keep most of them in the box. Well closing that portcullis was not easy, there were dead all over and they were not going to patiently wait for her to close the gate. With sword and shield she held them off, and finally closed the portcullis, a little too late. The good news, was there was not that many left in the city, they had flooded out, the bad news followed on from that. The crappy Isgerian army got eaten, but the zombies took a heavy hit to their numbers. Navigation around the city was now a bit easier, and the threat manageable, they could start to take back the city. Alas with zombies outside the wall they now roamed around a bit. The winter would sort them out in time, but the threat had now changed, the cat was out of the box. Now all manner of rogues and raiders were attracted to the city to loot it for all it was worth. This set up future conflict.
For the player, they had partially failed, and their failure would have political consequences involving the party and the realm. The army was toast, no more manpower was being sent to deal with this problem (apart from a few spies/advisors) so it was now totally up to the players and the dodgy factions also heading inbound. I almost forgot the short term consequences, that fighter on the walls had to fight so many undead, it was hard, their shieldwork was without peer and they still almost died. They got a level, but they nearly perished while trying to get the mechanism to work. So many zombies, and yes, not at an appropriate CR encounter, but they prevailed with grit and good rolling.
I really enjoyed running that horror game.
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Check out the D&D 3.5 book Heroes of Horror. While I'm not a fan of some of the mechanical stuff they include (e.g. the "taint" rules), it does have a whole lot of excellent advice on running a horror-focused fantasy game.Yeah, taint is a bit dodgy (and lo there were many taint jokes). No one likes their character to be disfigured for just entering the dungeon area.
yes I had a DM attempt the taint rules and when he was describing it he mentioned the new spell we could add at 3rd level "Remove taint" we spent the next hour or so coming up with jokes and little mimes for that spell, situations, and puns. I'm not sure when it became too much for the DM I just remember looking up and he had left.
"Surely removing your taint is bad for you."
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Yeah, I remember I scared my players when one fine session, they were trying to bring a dead pc via dark rituals and sacrifices. They had to feed the hearts of the slain into a hell portal in the mouth of the deceased. They didn't know what would happen.
So unfortunately, they were a bit cheap and skimped on the hell deal. So their buddy animated as some sort of demon zombie, grappled the party archer and over a few rounds, tore out the heart, ate it, and finished the deal, the portal closed and it fell over.
Portal closed, dead player woke up with a strange taste in their mouth and blood dripping from their lips. Their pal lying stone dead (but fresh) with a giant hole in their chest.
It was just a possessed zombie with a great grapple and strength (and special attack), but it freaked those players right out, it was totally an unknown.
I had something similar(though much less gorey) happen in one of my horror-game sessions. It was a small group, only 2 regular players with occasional guests, so the party asked me for some NPC backup on occasion. The had been traveling with a female Elven Ranger(archer style) who helped them traverse terrain outside of towns. The game was very heavy on the RP side of things, so there were lots of character interaction and dialogue.
Spoilered for length:
The ranger had died during a battle, and the players wanted to try to bring her back. Luckily, one of the players was a cleric, but the rules for bringing back the dead in Ravenloft are particularly harsh compared to other settings. The spellcaster must make a caster level check against a certain DC, or the subject returns as an undead of the DM's choice...
The player missed the DC by 1.
After a moment of defeat and despair, the elf slowly opened her eyes, sat up, held her head, and asked "what just happened?" She said she felt alright; a little stiff, but otherwise okay...
*Everyone makes a save versus Fear/Horror* Her wounds were not closing. In fact, as she goes to stand, bit of entrails and old blood seep from the large wounds in her abdomen. She had indeed been returned from death, but as a "Curst" (Faerun Monster Manual). She was an intelligent undead.
Over the next several sessions, her "humanity"(elf-ity?) slipped more and more, as she lost her grip on pretending to be alive. She'd snap at the players, hesitate when they were in danger, eventually becoming jealous of their being still alive. Eventually, there was a standoff, and she exiled herself from the party for the mutual safety of all involved.
That is solid gold. Love it.
They should have put her down though. An undead elven archer with no humanity can be a very deadly bandit.
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I ran a short horror game once that started out fairly normal. The PCs were part of an underground resistance movement that were trying to stop the evil theocratic local government.
They were big-shots. I had them make 5th level characters from another part of the world that had heard about the problems in this area and wanted to come help. I told them to powergame as hard as they wanted. They were all powerhouses (even the rogue).
They showed up in town and no one would talk to them about anything that might be wrong. Everyone was clearly afraid but refused to say anything except that everything was fine. They made contact with two people who might be a part of the resistance. One of them was and told them that they really needed to be more subtle and to get the hell away from him before they got him killed. The other was an informant that sold them out.
Then comes the Theocracy's enforcers to investigate. The PCs were expecting a fight. They got a slaughter. By the end of the first round they realized how far in over their heads they were and tried to run. They all died except for the rogue, who managed to get away and hide.
Then the Enforcer raised all the other PCs as undead and sent them after the rogue. The rest of the party had to hunt down and kill their former friend.
Then, when they were all dead, I had them roll up 1st level resistance members who were investigating what happened in the town. Their badass now-undead former characters became the main villains of the campaign.
None of those players ever really powergame anymore. :)
Listen to this panel: Horror In RPG's From PaizoCon
This. I'll be running Carrion Crown soon, and I'll be listening to this a couple times during my prep.
Listen to this panel: Horror In RPG's From PaizoConThis. I'll be running Carrion Crown soon, and I'll be listening to this a couple times during my prep.
Side rant:
Carrion Crown would have been awesome if not for the campy, silly, over-the-top "haunts." Immersion was crumbled under crunchy, gamey, "let the cleric just blast it so we can move on" parts. The story elements were so overblown, it was like something out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. I was cringing all the way out of the prison.
Everything else about that AP, story-wise,(the parts I got to play, mainly the first book) were solid. But, just as soon as a "haunt" appeared, it turned into "boardgame mode."
What are your thoughts are on using figurines in horror games?
I use figs for Pathfinder and fantasy games but I've never used them in a horror game.
-MD
What are your thoughts are on using figurines in horror games?
I use figs for Pathfinder and fantasy games but I've never used them in a horror game.
-MD
Personally, I think they're fine. They simply show position of characters, terrain, etc etc. A lot of the story-telling and action happens away form the gameboard, for the most part. It serves the same purpose as a non-horror game.
Really, it depends more on the game itself. 3.5e/PF rules are pretty married to using minis. Definitely possible to play without, but that's all up to the group.
( dot. )
I am currently running Carrion Crown. My group just finished the first level of the prison. I have been running Syrinscape (free) in the background. It came with 2 soundsets, and the Creepy Forest one has been great for atmosphere!
We use minis on a battlemat and it works just fine for us.
We have found the haunts to be fairly effective, but we don't have a cleric in the group, so everything supernatural is just a touch harder!
If you're using sound/music tracks in your game, you ought to check out Tabletop Audio - they have lots of horror, fantasy, sci-fi themed music mixed with sound tracks that are each 10 minutes long. Excellent stuff! And he takes suggestions. I needed some Japanese music/sound for use in my Kaidan game, and he created one called Samurai HQ just a couple weeks ago!
One great resource you can easily adapt to Pathfinder is the D&D 3.5 book Heroes of Horror.
It has a very long section of advice for game masters on how to set an appropriate mood, pacing, how horror gaming differs from heroic gaming, and different styles of horror.
I wasn't that big a fan of some of the game mechanics it included (e.g. the Taint rules), but its general advice on how to run a horror game is top-notch.
[EDIT: And now, looking over this thread, I see that I gave exactly the same advice almost exactly one year ago...]
I believe people are often aiming for the wrong thing when they do horror games. Fear is not exactly an emotion. It is up close, flesh and blood, and directly tied to your person. It is not what you're going to get people to feel when their characters in a RPG are threatened. It doesn't really work all that much better than stuff jumping out at their characters.
The closest I have gotten is something more akin to a classic tragedy. The end is already written, and the players learn rather early on what it will be. The lights of the setting are snuffed out one by one. The hopes offered are shot down or shown to be lies. When one threat is defeated, it is shown to be inconsequential. People they care about are hurt, betrayed or killed. Victories always come with a heavy cost. And, in all this misery, the heroes can eventually manage to wrest some small (but important) victory that makes it worthwhile. A candle burns brightest in darkness.
While subjecting your players to this rather punishing structure, you need to focus on making the NPCs feel alive and real (otherwise who would care?), and changing moods, normally from dark to light and back (otherwise you will breed only fatigue. It is the humour and brighter moments that let you hit the players harder).
[EDIT: And now, looking over this thread, I see that I gave exactly the same advice almost exactly one year ago...]
It was good advice then, and is good advice now. :)
The other things I could suggest would be to lok in the Book of Vile Darkness from 3.5...
That book contains a lot of things to really ramp out the groutesqueness in a campaign (with specialty torture items, feats to really emphasis depravity and grotesqueness, and many other things to make people queemish)
The other thing I would suggest is Horrow of the GOW for some more ideas on horror based creatures and The Genius Guide to Gruesome Undead Templates.
The Genius guide in particulair is really nice since it offers ways to create a sense of shock from seemingly horrifying looking things (making will saves when first gazing upon something to not be shaken from just how hideous or utterly pervese a creature looks).
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I believe people are often aiming for the wrong thing when they do horror games. Fear is not exactly an emotion. It is up close, flesh and blood, and directly tied to your person. It is not what you're going to get people to feel when their characters in a RPG are threatened. It doesn't really work all that much better than stuff jumping out at their characters.
I completely disagree. Fear as an emotion in a RPG is hard to pull off, but when it happens, it's glorious. The DM has to set the right mood, and you have to have players who are willing to immerse their characters into the game setting, and aren't just there to test out the lastest splatbook feat combo or powergame/min/max. It's not for everybody. I've had players so shook up, that their characters went out of their way to avoid important story locations and scenes for fear of their character's safety.
I've run horror campaigns for several years, and player chemistry is a huge, huge factor. If one player isn't getting into the scene, they can throw the whole mood off. The players have to allow their characters to be afraid of things, and be affected by things other than hp loss or stat damage.
Low to No magic settings work best, I feel. The more powerful(big numbers and dice) abilities a player can throw around, the less scary everything in existence becomes. But if you're a level 2 spellcaster, with no armor, few hp, and only a few spells left for the day, survival becomes a much higher priority(making encounters more nerve-racking). High-magic horror can be done, it's just a lot more technical than I like dealing with.
As for the horror itself, nothing gets under the PC's skin like the fear of the unknown. As soon as something has a stat block, it stops being scary. Of course, everything the PC's encounter has a stat block, but as long as the players are unfamiliar with what they're up against, they have to think on their feet and actually form strategies.
The Ravenloft 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide(not the normal D&D one) and 3.0 Campaign Setting have a wealth of advice for setting moods and helping establish a scary atmosphere. I found myself consulting lots of horror-writing advice threads more than gaming-related ones.
I've had many successful sessions that never had a single combat encounter, but still had players rolling dice, interacting with the setting, etc. So, it's not just "magical tea party," or even LARPing; we're still sitting at the table, rolling dice, and playing the game.
There is a game system that's somewhat old called Deadlands, the entire game is basically about fighting fear... and all the creepy crawlies in the old west and post apocalypse. The marshal's section (gm section for those not in the know) details several ways to use fear against the party and how to build fear and terror.