Survival Horror - Dragon's Demand variant.

[gcShad0fx]

So I'm a HUGE fan of survival horror games, and all things dragons. I'm getting ready to run a new session. First time running in pathfinder. I picked up dragon's demand book and have chosen to use it as a base for the new game. I say base because i have already modified some of it to fit my story. Not much, but my own flare.

Was curious on thoughts as to how to go about turning it into more survival horror style. I want a unique story experience, as well as keeping it fun for the players.

Thoughts?

[Joey Virtue]

So what do you mean by survival horror?

Im also running this adventure soon so I want to know what you are really looking for before I make suggestions.

[Gluttony]

I'd say your best bet in a generic sense is to play it as normal, with very little change, up until the auctions. Once the "nobody leaves town" warning is issued, THEN start picking people off.

Basically get them used to not being hunted down at every opportunity, that way they feel nice and safe and comfortable before you start having the horrors and dragons trying to kill them and making it very hard for them to rest safely.

[gcShad0fx]

The general idea is the Resident Evil feel, that suspense, and surprise you get from now knowing what's around the corner.

[Vazt]

Spend time in town getting to know folks. Make memorable connections and then put them in danger in cinematic ways, particularly post auction. Exploring the mansion could be very lovecraftian with bizarre items from beyond the tapestry, the mere sight of which act as cause fear or confusion spells. play up the time deadline and the panic of the town. Don't give any of the beasts they encounter names, just descriptions that turn kobolds into maniacal swamp denizens mutated by the emanations of dark tapestry magics. Tentacles, lots and lots of tentacles...

[Douglas Muir 406]

Agree with Gluttony and Vazt. Start by playing it straight, and give them time to get attached to the village and the people. After a few sessions of running a "normal" game, suddenly start throwing curves at them.

A threshold question here is, how familiar are your players with D&D / Pathfinder? If very, then they'll know that kobolds are kobolds; if not, then you can start on Vazt's "mutated by dark tapestry magics" thing.

What else... make the book worse. Scatter some minor bad books and scrolls around: you read it, boom, DC 20 Will save or go mad for d3 days. Blacken the reputation of the dead wizard; have the townspeople be visibly glad he's gone missing. He was getting into deeper and darker stuff towards the end there...

Dragons are boss-scary but they're not horror-scary. So have the horror part be that *the dragon wants to use the book*. Set up that this is a Horrible No Good Very Bad Idea; basically, everything to do with the book should be scary and go horribly wrong. So the thing is not so much to kill the dragon and take his stuff (that's gravy) as to stop him from getting the book and using it.

Totally have gross and evil creatures picking off lovable townspeople. Oooh, ooh, wait: combine A and B. Add a self-important minor spellcaster NPC who says that the answer is obviously to use the book AGAINST the dragon. Give him a shot at doing so, and then have all hell break loose -- he transforms into a mindless raving vampire-thing, fifty zombies and skeletons rise out of the graveyard, and a third of the town goes violently insane. And that was after reading one page...

Season to taste.

Doug M.

[Douglas Muir 406]

Incidentally, if you want to run a short (1-2 sessions) survival horror, let me recommend the classic module Hangman's Noose by Nicholas Logue. It's 3.5, but is available as a .pdf from the store here and runs easily in PF. You're locked in a building with a bunch of NPCs, and the unkillable monster starts picking them off one by one. When they're all gone...

Also good in this vein: Souls for Smugglers Shiv, the first installment in the Serpent's Skull adventure path. That AP was kind of meh -- it got super grindy in the back half -- but the first installment is one of the best openers for any AP ever. It's the "Lost" module: you wake up shipwrecked on an island, with almost no gear or equipment or weapons, and the local fauna just starting to nibble at your toes. With cannibal islanders, mysterious flying monsters, and PCs half crippled by lack of access to stuff, it lends itself *very* well to survival horror.

Doug M.