Running Horror Adventures in Dungeons and Dragons
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- Опубликовано: 24 окт 2018
- MONSTERS OF DRAKKENHEIM is 300+ pages of eldritch horror inspired monsters for 5e by the Dungeon Dudes! Coming to Kickstarter March 26th, 2024: www.kickstarter.com/projects/... We unmask the monster, and share our tips for running a terrifying horror adventure in Dungeons and Dragons.
2:12 Why Run Horror?
5:48 Knowing your Players
8:20 Get Inspired (and why reading horror is important)
14:08 How Horror Works
15:55 The Uncanny
17:09 The Unknown
19:23 Using Metaphors in your Descriptions
22:21 The Reveal
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Starring Monty Martin & Kelly McLaughlin
Produced by Clayton Masales 
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There's tons of great horror films and video games out there, but so many take place in a modern setting. What's your favourite example of horror that takes place in a fantasy setting?
Honestly for the little bit that I have run of Out of The Abyss, one of my favorite and most effective instances of horror has been the moment my players found the lair of a certain Derro (Don't want to spoil anything). My players had last seen him in the bottom of a flooding temple room beating a NPC party member to death with a stone, presuming dead they thought they would never see him again and to this day they have not, but the knowledge of finding his lair had my player incredibly on edge and watching their step increasing tension for the whole session!
Evil dead 3
Weird West is my favorite style of horror and, even if the game system was flawed, the Deadlands universe did a fine job of mixing fantastical elements with something familiar. The were especially creative by coming up with new horror creatures with unique flavor. Also, jackalopes.
Vampyre Hunter D: bloodlust. The books that this movie is based on are a good source for inspiration. It's a science fantasy take on gothic horror; well worth your tyme.
Dungeon Dudes
Wasting my time with your video padding stay on topic meme dudes
My advice for DMs running a horror game: understand the meta-game and break it. From Aboleths to Zombies, D&D has plenty of creepy crawlies to pick from, but for a really memorable adventure, take the time to create your own beast from the ground up and never, even to yourself, give it a type. If your heroes can't classify the creature, they aren't sure how to fight it and that player dread becomes character dread. Strahd is a great villain, but we know he's a vampire and we know the sunsword will whoop on him. What if instead the players come to a village in fear and after a proper build up are told stories of an ancient princess who lived in the castle: Saska of Tchimev Keep. It was said she delighted in misery, made pacts with fiends and bathed in the blood of maidens to stay forever young. The PCs will be asking is she a hag, a vampire, a warlock, a lich? No, she is Saska, she is eternal, she is evil, and she comes for you...
This goes along with a technique I use in game of giving inquisitive characters legends, myths, and folk tales about Creature X and making sure to mention these may or may not be true. It introduces uncertainty into their planning, and if they bank all their hopes on a false tale, the realization that they were wrong but only when it is too late is delicious.
We agree. A named horror is a knowable one. Referring to monsters only by their descriptions, or at best, an obscure moniker, really keeps the air or horror and mystery alive.
Between legendary moves, charm, minions, and spells like telekinesis Strahd really has nothing to fear from the Sunsword
Technically the term “aberration” is designed to encompass all creatures that you can’t classify. Once you can classify them as coming from a certain plane of existence, you name them from it. If they come from the material plane, then they get classified as “monsters,” which will have better kinds of classification just due to how the material plane works.
"You walk along the darkened hallway, with not even the torches lighting much of the way, and not even your bravery lighting much of your souls. As you near the end, you see a single simple wooden door, but somehow, you all feel a sense of dread, a sense of horror not directed towards the door, but what lies beyond.
You open the door, weapons ready, to see a room of tables, dripping crimson liquid onto an already soaked floor. On the tables, you all see body parts of all types of creature scattered about, as well as some tools and ritual books. A screeching can be heard, but it doesn't sound natural, as if every creature in existence roared in fury, and then...you see it.
The enemy before you all looks as if every single creature combined bits of themselves into one massive unholy creation, with two smaller but still twisted monsters beside it. It rises from it's crude throne, flames flare from braziers, and you see it fully.
For its left head, a Beholder eye constitutes it's right eye, while a Giants eye is it's left. It is a dragon skull shape, but human skin is stretched around it, with patches of scales and leather sewn into it. As for its second head, it was an ogre shaped skull, but had scales and leather binding it, with an oversized Giant jaw to match, and arms with crossbows and shields between each head. The creatures left arm is comprised entirely of interwoven Beholder, Kraken, and Mind Flayer tentacles, with mismatched color dragon scales covering parts of it, with the claw of a Bulette as a hand, and a massive shield strapped to its arm. The right is all interwoven bones of everything from dragon to deer to Terrasque to wererat, covered in an armor of plate with scales, sharp bone fragments, antlers, and horns protruding from all angles along the arm, and a hand of ogre shape, wrapped in human skin, clutching a huge, crudely made, double- bladed axe, with a church cross as a handle and twin anchors as blades.
It uses a ship mast as a leg crutch on its left, and a gooey, mainly gelatinous leg for it's right.
The whole mess of a creature has three semi-exposed hearts, and massive entrails spilling out of its stomach, but it is otherwise unaffected. It gives you a toothy snarl, and even its teeth are mismatched, with vampire, dragon, human, and even wolf fangs. You all shudder at the sight of this abomination gliding towards you, its charge supported by wing of various type, mainly dragon and even bat, and each wing has at least to human eyes sewn into it...
Roll for Initiative.
I run almost exclusively horror. I have found it essential to play on player's expectations. Things should never be what they seem. Never tell the players what you are describing. Sounds, and false perceptions will keep the players guising. Over describe mundane things. The players will assume its something greater than it is. One time I put a normal zombie in a wizard's robe. Naturally the players assumed it was Lich and blew all their high levels spells.
This left them at a massive disadvantage as they moved forward. This became a crisis as the floor gave out under the heavily armored fighter that fell into a pit of ghouls. The rest of the party was reluctant to follow, leaving the fighter on his own.Not every thing they encounter has to be relevant to the campaign. Keep them guising. Never let the players think they know what's happening.
The best horror is fear of the unknown. Mundane things should be more dangerous than it seems. Once I had the party come to the assistance of a village that had been robbed by bandits, only to find out the village turned into raving mad men when the sun went down and the bandits who had raided the town where in fact tortured and dismembered by the townsfolk and the players where being led to a similar fate.
Also, don't over rely on undead. Players expect undead when they see a corpse at the base of a tree. They don't expect the tree to come alive and attempt to suck the liquid from their bodies.
I've done the living tree thing in a different game. I can say that it will catch players by surprise.
Oddly, I actually over did more with haunted objects than with undead. I now have a player who gets very suspicious if there's a random teddy bear or featureless doll in a room. Could make for a red herring if I'm feeling mischievous.
Just to say, I'm probably going to use the zombie in wizard robe idea. I haven't tried that on my players. What I did do was a possessed rod that controlled a regular person. Poor NPC got slaughtered because the players thought he was an evil mage. Didn't help that the NPC was surrounded by dead bodies.
I sacred the #%% out of a group by just having an albino deer (random wandering woodland creature with unusual appearance roll) walk across the road within their sight.
They tried worshiping the deer... offering it gifts, asking it for advice and if it had a quest for them to take on.
It was just a white deer.
hence, the word choice 'sacred'?
@@takdudung I am a native English speaker and it took me 5 minutes to figure that out...
This what I love about players. Sometimes they cleverly bypass a whole bunch of material I meticulously prepared (and not just with a bunch of lucky nat 20s), and sometimes they do wonderfully zany things I never could have anticipated.
In fact one time I had a similar encounter, though not scary. The players met a vendor selling all kinds of fantastical wares. Most of them couldn't quite identify the gadgets, but one PC clearly understood the stuff to be just sticks and metal and glass cobbled together. The merchant was in fact quite insane and I thought for sure the players would write him off but he actually managed to turn a profit that day. Just for a giggle I made one of the items actually work once.
That's hilarious
How ever did you stifle your laughter? I wouldn't have been able to.
My favorite horror session i ran was for a group of 5 lvl9 pcs (dnd 5e). They were sent to a mining town to figure out why the shipments of silver from the mine have halted without word. So they arrive to find out that there was a group of dwarven miners that were trapped in a cave in. The next day, the miners corpses were discovered by the townsfolk, having turned and killed one another, forgoing weapons and using tooth and nail.
So the first thing my party decides is to split, the druid and eldritch knight will take the elevator down. (70ft drop, only operable from the top of the shaft, so they had another party member lower them down before wandering off). Being a mining town that has been there for a while, the mine was vast, and complicated. The druid had the good idea of leaving marks so they could find their way back. So they explored for the next several hours, and when they decided to turn back, that same marking they had left, was on EVERY SINGLE path. Something, or someone has been hunting them, and its intelligent.
The rest of the party is talking with the townsfolk trying to get more information, and eventually come to the conclusion that there is some kind of monster down there. They gather the townsfolk and only by the grace of a natural 20, do they find their lost party members, the whole while the air seems to be getting heavier, harder to breath.
But after an hour or so of investigation in the mine, one of the npcs disappears, than another. They decide its high time to to leave, so they charge towards the exit, finding the lost npcs huge bites taken out of them. They arrive only to find the elevator had been raised, the druid turned into a vulture and flew up to lower the elevator. But as he does so two elk horns slowly emerge in the darkness, attached to a skull, on a muscular but gaunt body as though starved. They fought the wendigo (which I got from Dungeon Dad) and the druid found out the elevator had been locked from the top.
Through clever tactics, they were able to survive and slay that wendigo, but who said that was the only one? A priest of Yeenoghu had infiltrated the town and was slowly gaining followers over the course of months prior, and making offerings Yeenoghu being pleased gave him a pair of those demons. It was a fun session, and even the murder hobo who never gets invested in anything was shaking in his chair. >:)
This is a really cool scenario! I can see so many ways to expand this into a full-blown adventure or campaign as well. Thank you for sharing.
Not sure if your familiar, but Wendigo's are amazing creatures for horror. The resource i got mine from was Dungeon Dad on youtube. I did have to make modifications to it, so it better fit what i needed, but overall the theme was the same.
They are invisible if you are more than 30ft away from them, if you are within i think 60ft you have disadvantage on wisdom saves (the air getting harder to breath). I made them large, and gave them a climbing speed equal to their walking speed for creep factor. The whole plan of this monster is to charm its opponents (while dealing psychic damage) to get them to attack one another with uncontrollable hunger, and then supplement that with its own hit and run tactics.
(this is just from memory so forgive misinformation) In the real world mythology of these creatures, they are created by individuals who are exceptionally greedy or more commonly individuals who engage in cannibalism. Generally seen with a elk skull with horns included, on a furry almost ape like body. Its just a shame they didn't make it into 5e officially.
Seeing how its spooktober, figured i might as well hand out a perfect monster for the job to any dm who needs one. Oh, and a point you made tangentially multiple times. Keep the monster hidden for as long as you can, and slowly build up the suspense by making it clear that something is wrong. Because nothing, no matter how terrifying it may be is going to scare your players as bad as their own imaginations. So revealing the monster is more of a mercy than anything, and should be a reward for their efforts. I think that's the best advice i have ever received for running a horror game.
Overall, great video, and a few things i was unaware of, that i will definitely include this Halloween.
@@vadaritis I absolutely love this scenario, i ran something similar with a homebrewed quicksilver golem, that dealt wisdom damage over the course of the encounter due to the madness it inflicts. I loved watching the players hurriedly run through the mines from it. I cant wait to give your wendigo a try!
Amazing
@@vadaritis TFS had a Wendigo in their 5E game too. They started off in an isolated island town that appeared to be deserted, with groups of docile deer wandering around during the day. Lannipulator kills a deer after arriving and as they explore the town he begins feeling wrong, and transforms into a deer creature as night approaches. They find out about the Wendigo through visions and dreams perceived by Lanny and an NPC who they freed from the Wendigo's control(a fawn). Their expert handling of their scenario kept me on the edge of my seat the whole 2 sessions. Probably one of my favorite episodes from Team Four Star.
16:42 "A doll nailed to a tree" [...] "These things are pretty normal"
You don’t nail dolls to trees!?
Horror element idea: An ornate chest with carved faces. When a player approaches, the chest hobbles away with the faces crying "no no no!" If somebody opens the chest, the faces scream with agony and the single beating heart inside turns black and shrivels up until the chest finally becomes still.
If the party falls victim to the same curse, they find themselves trapped as carved faces on an ornate chest. A new party enters the house, and one member of approaches the box.
Creepy.
Well, that's horrifying.
I am going to shamelessly rip this off for my campaign...
Thank you
'Uncanny' is translated from the German 'unheimlich' or un-homely. Made famous by Freud, he defined it as something which is incredibly familiar while being undeniably 'different' or novel
One time our DM had just finished giving a horrific description of a scene when some really creepy music came up from the basement . We all looked at each other and one player joked that things were getting too real . The son of the player whose house we were playing at had just turned on a video game and the timing was cinematic . We have laughed about this for years .
I once asked my player "are you sure?" And he took back, contemplated and got scared. Another time I just made my downed villain think "Come closer" as the mindmage read his mind. Mage run away, villain escaped certain death.
I want to share an experience I created for my players that they really liked. I don't know if this would work every week but it did great for one session.
They were going into a house that was haunted so before the game even started I had all the lights turned off with only candle lighting the way. The candles I put in front of my players were the white candles that when they melt they start to bleed. I set up two coat racks with Halloween costumes cloaks so it looked like someone was just at the edge of the darkness. Then I had 3 different sound devices setup. One setup for Thunderstorm in the background, one setup for screams that I controlled with my Phone to set a startling scream that completely shocked my players. The last one I used for tension music. I also had other weird props on the table that added to it. Like a brain in a jar, night crawlers in a jar (With air holes and released afterwords lol), fake tarantulas. At one point our cat jumped on the table and made one of my players scream. It was great.
It was a little difficult at times for reading some of the character sheets and dice but it was fine for a session. It also really helped my players had no idea what I was planning from the get go I believe. The hardest part was getting my Wife to leave so she didn't know what I was planning.
Edit: I should mention that I spent many years working at a theatre so my night vision is really good. So I could still read all my notes. If I ever do something like this again I want to find a way to make the windows flash with Lightning.
I WANT to play your horror campaign! yeesh, so much detail, amazing.
Also, I'm stealing these ideas! hehe
Bloodborne will be the setting for my horror campaign.
Bloodborne is a fantastic setting for a D&D game!
My own setting is greatly inspired by Bloodborne and Dark Souls with lots of my own twists. I’ve scared the crap out of the players a few times with things that only certain party members can see. An insight, sanity, or stress system can really help with executing this kind of horror. The air is thick with terror, and thus the Howling Dark surrounds you on all sides...
Shout outs to Edgar Allan Poe
The cask of amontillado
I'm huge into Lovecraft. "The Colour out of Space" is essential, but so is "Pickman's Model", "The Picture in the House", and "The Hound".
P.M. gives a good look at what /really/ scares someone, especially if your player are going through some haunted house that have portraits on the wall.
T.P.i.t.H. is probably my all-time favorite ones. The slow build up to the grand reveal gives me goosebumbs every time.
T.H. gives a more haunted approach to encounters and worlds as things keep occurring and people keep getting hurt by something unknown and unnameable.
Seventeen minutes into this video, and I already know I'm going to be looking at it a couple of more times today.
Second viewing, and coming up with all kinds of ideas for my next session. Sitting here laughing at myself like a madman.
Glad we could spark some inspiration! Seems like you have a frightfully good adventure idea cooking!
Oh yeah.
(2018) "The real world is super scary these days"
Just you wait
I like to use SCP's for inspiration on horror. It really touches a lot on horror factors like the uncanny, the unknown, the discovery, etc. Sometimes I'll take them straight from SCP and give them stats from a monster in the MM with some tweaks to make the SCP abilities balanced and fit in the world.
Great show with great ideas. My take
If you or doing horror then you really should consider the three main ways that people are going to really feel the horror the horror it’s going to be internal (including body horror and loss of control), external (think terminator or Jason) and the unknown/unknowable (Great Old ones and non-anime tenticle monsters can fit here). Also, raising the stakes really helps crank up the energy. Never forget the ..it gets worst moment!
Help hint 1 - use a temp stat (I call it nerve ) derived from (int + cha/wis)/2. They can use it to save and in general and every time it is used it decreases by 1 (fail save by 2). Once gone assign some effect and the best are really BAD. They run out of nerve and the monster’s song can be heard by that character and they walk toward the waiting spider to be cocooned for later consumption (but those not under the spell can maybe save them grabbing them or releasing them) but no one wants to loose control.But hey the group has it under control..then they see two cocoons. They locate the lair and there are hundreds and the song starts all around them all.....
Hint 2 - use the three unfair abilities on your Jason - Spell turning, Regeneration and teleportation walking. If they are not using the secret to beat the monster then they keep coming and all they can do is put it down only to have it “rise from the grave” start with regeneration and then add other tricks each time it falls and comes back. Have some nobody show aa trick to when it rises and maybe how to investigate how to put it in the ground maybe...till next year
Last hint- it is okay to only do light or comedic horror. Maybe your group has seen to much rl badness or they just will not scare because they are too tactically minded. Using comedy will take help you get the horror feel and still meet group comfort level (watch Infinity war again and you see what tonal changes and do for you)
Great show guys
Bloodborne is diffinitively a game that I think would fit really well in a D&D horror setting. Everything from the atmosphere to the enemies are quiet horrifying. The only downside(for the DM) is that it is quiet difficult to create that atmosphere, so an really good/experienced DM might be required.
Our DM brought us into a modified version of the Death House from Ravenloft. Totally engrossed, I have clung to the idea of protecting the ghost children. The children yanked on some real life emotions. I'm really impress with it and how it has affected my role playing and my character's emotions.
Death House is a fantastic little module when run well. Sounds like you had a frightfully good time!
Sorry this is so late: I just had a cleric allow the boy possess her after his sister possessed a ranger. All he had to do was say, "Please don't leave me."
15:50 That abrupt transition of Monty's face from serious to gleeful is hilarious and charming at the same time XDDD
I'm sorry but I cracked up at "What just ate my leg?"
5:00
"Everything have nightmares even monsters."
"What do monsters have nightmares about?"
"Me"
Doomguy
@@anthonymay9295 Doomguy?
@@DaDunge doomguy
@@Josh-mk7ok No idea who that is, I quoted Buffy and The Doctor (Both who has that line).
I once ran a dungeon that had "weeping skeletons" in it, a play on the weeping angels from doctor who, it had the party nervous and on their toes the entire dungeon as they slowly realized that they were trapped in the maze-like depths with beings they couldn't kill that were always following them as soon as they looked away. It was a good time.
We talked a lot about horror elements in Dr Who. For a quirky show, it really has some truly terrifying episodes.
Oh doctor who Dungeon and Dragons! Sounds fun!
Kelly was 100% spot on with his Evil Dead comment. To me there is nothing worse than combining humor with horror. That movie HAD so much potential. You're not laughing if you're the one running from the guy with the chainsaw, your friend has just been gutted, you can't see and don't know where you are.
Horror, dread, and terror are words we severely overuse. If you know anyone who has severe anxiety issues I think you'll agree. I know a guy who is occasionally literally paralyzed by simple things like getting his annual license sticker for his car. He just cannot leave the house by himself and get it done.
Horror tho is another stage completely. It should be filled with adjectives, sensory stimulation and non typical life experiences. There are many videos involving sounds of cemeteries, rain and thunder, slurping noises, menacing whispers that aren't clear, faint moaning, coarse breathing, squishing steps in a swamp, vague growls, the light crack of a twig snapping, very distant screams (human? or beast?).... You're descriptions should be accurate but POINT to something much worse. They should feel a supernatural cold sapping them. It should never be corny or too exaggerated. It should be applicable and accurate. No undead noises if there are no undead.
Turn the lights down, use a cheap black fabric tablecloth, and/or use it to darken the background behind you, use only small flashlights (put them right up close to a dark, opaque surface to minimize the light), if they can't see in the game leave the lights completely out for a few minutes, then use maybe 1 small candle, make a small bowl of spaghetti and dye it red for those fumbling around blindly (you feel this), wet fur, or a bowl of wet moss, dirt in the middle of the table for them to smell.... and (only a little) dry ice in a bowl.... (don't suffocate yourselves please)..... you feel this bite your leg (sharp with fur)....
Terror is fear multiplied by confusion AND impending death. 🤨 Don't overuse it.
Great video guys! I am new to your channel and absolutely love what you guys do!
I’ve always been a fan of lovecraftian horror and planning to run a campaign on it pretty soon.
Horror discription: A party is exploring an abandoned mansion/trapped in a mansion “As you walk down the hall you pass a great mirror that’s fogged and faded with age. You walk cautiously past it and just as it leaves your sight you hear the grandfather clock chime, the sound echoing through the skeleton of the house.” Distracting the players with a description and getting them to focus on something only to have something creepy to happen in a room they’ve already been through. The grandfather clock that chimed was broken when they first inspected it.
With the descriptions you guys have makes me really look forward to watching you guys run a horror campaign.
I find it hard to keep the fear factor up in dnd. As soon as the players gets enough information it turns our as a regular combat. And the creep is gone. When they find out it's an Oni or something the mystic disappears and the normal ''kill it'' attitude starts.
I find World of Darkness much more appropriate for these kind of story tellings :)
Have ghosts/spectres that don't "die" until their bones are laid to rest. That way, your players still get a bit of combat while you know that the ghost/spectre will come back. After a few combat encounters, the "kill it" attitude should leave.
Evil Dead going into Army of Darkness, this is what my DM based our horror run, imagine our horror when after killing our doppelgangers, they then began to rise as skeletal horrors, with a skeletal cleric with a turn living spell and negative ray. Only with the help of npc Ash Williams were we barely able to win this campaign.
I'd say that the BEST horror is unexpected Horror, for example when playing Fallout 3, when you go into the simulation to save your father and everything is in black and white, THAT was one of the biggest sticking out points of the game because it was SO unexpected. There's also the Amusement Park in Nier Automata and it being the lead up to Simone, going from the terrifying clown robots to the building scattered with corpsed with an indicator that the people you're looking for are in there, to the actual REVEAL of Simone decorating herself with the corpses of your fellow androids and using skewered corpses as weapons against you... That was utterly spine tingling to the point that any time I hear the THEME of the amusement park it sends a chill down my spine. Build up is the key.
A great book for Horror sessions is The Supernatural Handbook by Lucian Soulban for Mutants and Masterminds. One advice he gives is that you don't have to get graphic with the scene....let the players minds describe it. I ran a horror series that ran with horror as subtle touch. I also suggest The World of Darkness, a modern horror game.
If I missed you mentioning this in the video sorry but a big tip to help GMs is
LV 1-3 are the ideal levels for true dangerous horror in D&D 5e. The higher the lv the harder to pull off horror is. You CAN do it a higher levels but with increasing difficulty...
Also look into very strong curses (the kind that need a special quest and or WISH to cure and are not removed by remove curse, the madness rules in the DMG, And use many hazards and magical location effects. More cursed magic items should show up in a horror campaign and more privation and taxing scenarios. (such as high risk of exhaustion and disruptions or subtractions from long rests), etc.
One of my most memorable and horrific roll playing experiences was during a session of Shadowrun. Although not normally a horrific setting, the atmosphere that our game master had established was superb. One of the things he did to make the experience most memorable was to have Glenn Danzig's "Black Aria" playing in the background throughout the session. Coupling that with dim lighting (employing candle light really helped set the mood) made all of us ready to jump at the slightest provocation. In addition, he only gave certain bits of information to certain players at certain times, so at no point did any of us, as players, have the whole story of what was going on. Long story short, we all died horribly in the end... most of us, at the hands of our fellow players as paranoia, suspicion and possession overtook us all.
This couldn't have come at a more perfect time. Thank you for the great help always!
One thing I learned from my old DM is use not just fear but trauma as a weapon. Remember that the party is human too. I will never forget that session with my old DM where the party was able to save nearly every villager from the castle of powerful vampires except one. The horror for the players was not the vampire but the constant nightmare of remembering that they failed to save that one villager who will now be a vampire thrall they have to kill.
I'm gonna be participating in a DnD horror one-shot on Sunday...interesting timing for this isn't it?
Glad this is out! Working to more properly use horror and fear in my players Out of the Abyss campaign, so far they seem less on edge though now that they are in Gracklstugh and this video helps me plan and work out future events! Fantastic video as always!
Here😁have a 👍
Your first Q&A brought me here. Thanks for plugging it! Excellent vid :)
I'm literally studying both Dracula and The Bloody Chamber short stories at college right now and I've been wanting to run games based on them. These guys mentioning those two books at the same time is the scariest thing I could possibly encounter.
'The Mist' gave me some good lasting inspiration for cosmic and dark horror.
Idea: develope indoor areas that the players return to often, and make it so nothing bad ever happens within them.
Then specifically use a monster that you would expect in the wild invade these buildings, and find a way to trap the players inside with it.
The safety that a Home provides is often overlooked, until it fails.
Hey guys! First of all, great video with lots of awesome advice!! I did have a couple of things that might add onto your pieces. Some of the consequences you mention at 27:50 might be loss of limb or eyesight, things that are not easy to overcome without access to high-level magic. Another consequence might be losing actual levels (a la 3rd edition). Telling your player "You are now a 4th level fighter, not a 5th" might seem like a dick move, but it can seriously motivate them. One other way of bringing in the unknown is by using the known. Having something you know, something safe, something understood actually turn out to be something else entirely can be terrifying. It's that moment at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers where you see Donald Sutherland is one of them!
Finally, a great supplement for all of these tools is the 3rd edition supplement *Heroes of Horror.* It holds up pretty well.
Thanks again for this, though - very solid, actionable, playable advice for the DM at the table. Nicely done!
Heroes of Horror is a great recommendation and one of the books we consulted when preparing this episode! It has a lot of great advice in it.
Three years later, and this has been a wealth of thought-experiments, knowledge, and insight! Thank you for sharing, I think this has helped me a lot with my upcoming Horror-Arch!
Great material :)
Some good tips about pacing here, pacing, atmosphere, narration style, and the unknown, all good tips for creating a palpable horror sessions.
i just wanna take a moment after this video to appreciate how amazing these guys are and how helpful they can be
i love your content and its so enjoyable to watch as well as EXTREMELY HELPFUL THANK YOU!!!
Wow, thank you!
Phobias are a great way to incorporate psychological horror. I have a phobia about being stuck in a tight space and I used that to design simple coned pit traps that narrowed. I had the players roll a d6 to determine if they wedged in upside down, right side up, both arms pinned at their side, or one or both arms pinned above their head. Claustrophobia, darkness, and gravity is all it takes to terrorize those involuntarily paralyzed. I almost felt guilty about the rat.
GREAT video guys. Killer tips! Thanks!
i have been mastering Ravenloft since 2e and i can't get enough of Strad.
i had found that players who face strong opponents in a hostile environment, made the horror themselves.
I just set the environment, give them lots clues of how "powerful" the evil is, without giving details. And then they start making the horror work.. they tend to be more engaged with the story and more inspired to roleplay than to hack and slash.
The most effective horror moment my DM has ever pulled was when we arrived at the castle of a count who is secretly a vampire (not Strahd) in search of my eldritch knight's missing fiance. We were served lunch by a crazy old crone, who was very vague about the lumps of greyish meat in the fatty broth we were presented with.
Even after our tiefling, the only one to taste it, found it to be very tasty and apparently harmless, I'm still convinced that they tried to serve us people soup.
How would you recommend doing several horror adventures or a full campaign that really emphasizes horror without the risk of losing your edge or running out of scares? My inclination is to mix up more traditional horror/monster adventures with normal adventures (to reset) and an occasional "Monsters are due on maple street" type adventure where the real horror is what fear makes NPCs to do each other and the players.
I recommend using the Cthulhu Mythos as those stories are told over an extended period of time.
With captions turned on and you guys talking about the curse of strahd I have just spent at least 15 minutes laughing about “Christmas rod”
Christmas rod is a great campaign. Highly recommended!
Great video as always guys! I love it when a D&D campaign adds horror elements, even if it's not the entire campaign setting (that said, I admit to being a Ravenloft fan from back in the day) Your advice reminds me of a documentary I saw a long time ago about the Alien films where several people commented that the sequels weren't as scary as the first one, because in the first film, you never saw the whole xenomorph. Part of its head, a bit of it's tail... you never got a full look at the creature, and the viewer's imagination filled in the details... with something even more terrifying than anything even H.R. Giger could have dreamed up. (And that's saying something!)
Well done! I’ll be using some of this advice in my Halloween one shot this weekend!
The Sorrowsworn from Mordenkainens Tome of Foes are my favorites to use to scare my players
One of my favorite moments was when I had one of The Lonely walking towards them in a hallway. I believe I described it as "A tall humanoid figure with arms like spears and black tears dripping from its eyes". The fighter immediately started running from it and a glowing +2 sword I gave him last session turned black and started to drip the tears of The Lonely.
Pretty much watch your videos as they come out. 3 years in the past and you guys look the same. Lmfao love it. Keep up the cool content dudes.
The horror of Resident Evil (Director's Cut, 2, and 3) was mostly in running low on resources.
You know, I almost expected a jump scare in the middle of the Unknown section XD!!!!
They aren't movies or necessarily horror specifically, but the largest sources of inspiration I'm pulling from for my homebrew right now are the Loriwynn/Shadowmore blocks in MTG and the Evil Within games.
Personally I've ran two short horror campaigns using the Xenomorph from the Alien series as the main focus, because I just find the first movie so gosh darn terrifying. The first time I did it, I made the mistake of unveiling the monster too soon and it quickly just turned into a generic "kill the monsters" story. The second time I ran it, I set the campaign in a dark woodland area and had the Xenomorph stalk the party, striking from the shadows and retreating when the characters try to confront it, keeping my players in the dark as to what exactly they were up against, and after the first session one of my players, who lives close to a wooded area, begged me to drive her home because she's scared to walk through the woods at night after what happened in that session, so I consider this second attempt at horror a success.
Lmfao My Halloween session ended up more like an episode of Scooby Doo (everyone said they still had tons of fun, so that's a plus!), but I think I learned a bit based on how my players behaved and will be better prepared for future horror adventures.
I think the key here is slow burn suspense in the buildup to encountering the horror monster and obscuring its type so the players don’t know its stats and abilities. You want to freak out the characters because that’s role playing but not necessarily the players because that’s metagaming. If the players are worried about what might happen to their characters they’ll be scared enough.
Me and my homie played dnd last week, we played dragon of icespire peak (to kill time). He a dwarf cleric, and his companion a DMpc human fighter, were heading towards the butterskull ranch by foot. Halfway I thought it would be fun to add something interesting to the travel, so I made a little horror-home brew side quest. My homie cleric sat down aside of the road to a forest to assemble the tent, the dmpc headed to get firewood. Then I made the dmpc come back and tell the cleric that she found a crack shack aside of a pond where a bunch of logs were stacked outside the shack. The cleric went to investigate and when he approached the place he entered the abandoned log cabin he found a trapdoor underneath a bed but then heard footsteps of another creature outside, and it turned out to be a hurt dwarf lumberjack. The cleric and the dmpc patched the dwarf up and was told he was ambushed by 2 drows. The dwarf told he forgot his jacket at the ambush place and I had the dmpc head with the dwarf to find it. The dwarf picked up a bloody woodcutter axe to defend himself and before he and the dmpc left he told the player to cook some food to when they returned. He found some meat in a cabinet. I told the meat looked like chicken or pork and it smelled bad. He started cooking it and after a while after the others not returning he heard some light scratching from underneath the bed and when Hyde played crushed the lock he saw a small basement with a corpse, 2 skeletons and a drow that was bleeding out from his missing leg. The drow moaned “don’t eat the meat” and pointed at the half eaten corpse of his drow friend and his missing leg. Then he heard running outside and turned around to see the the mad dwarf running at him with his axe even bloodier. The player took him out with one guiding bolt and then he tried to save the drow but he had already passed away. He took the axe (a magic item that whispered hunger and had a +1 to health for each time he ate human meat) *an item he obviously sold cause he was a cleric. After that he found a journal in the basement and we ended the session after him burning that unholy place to the ground and having a last conversation with the dmpc before she died. After that he said that was the only time he got creeped out by dnd. TLDR: I made a spooky dnd session and my player got spooked.
My group has been dealing with a Killer Shapeshifting Clown that can turn into their fears and invades their dreams (IT+Krueger). The clown resides in a town called Castle's Rock, a small town settlement that is largely farmland for the main City in my campaign. Oddly though there are strange inexplicable instances that happen here. It's a town entirely filled with Stephen King references and quests. Old Farmer hasn't been seen for several days after having adopted a new puppy, A rose that emits the energy of perfect calmness, A pink crystal ball (Wizard's Glass from the Dark Tower). A Merchant that has mysteriously showed up and sells people items they believe to be direly important and in turn sell their souls for them in a shop called "Material Desires."
King has a lot of good atmosphere in his books, even in many situations, purposefully using the weather and surrounding area to represent things (think high level dragons that affect an area X miles away from their den.)
I've learned that All Horror is about Flavor. Opening a door and seeing a room absolutely crowded with Smiling Clown face painted Skeletons will cause the one innocent humble and wholesome character to react at such a terrified speed they'll close the door before the group can see it...Then they'll prep for a big fight only to have the skeleton horde...Disappear.
I'm working on a short horror campaign and there are a few bits in here that I'll be keeping in mind as I flesh out my notes.
Eberron is a perfect setting for å horror campaign or adventure. Everything from the undead to the daelkyr could give the players the heebie-jeebies
The Shining translates perfectly into a D&D adventure. Just spice it up a bit, the bartender is an incubus, the one room has a water hag in it, iy has a new creature: the blood pudding, the maze is filled with shambling mounds, and white puddings, and the crazy axe wielding npc can't be killed until you reach the center of the maze and destroy his horcrux..his finished book.
Nice touch with the t-shirts!
Probably the most helpful video i have seen of yalls to date, im actually running a horror session tomorrow and will definatly be taking all this into account.
Thank you! What's the theme of your horror adventure?
@@DungeonDudes undead, its sounds kind of convoluted but a necromancer is taking people and using them to grow his power, but he did this like 150 years ago and now he is back and obviously he takes an npc they care about (she makes really awesome magical food for them) plus a few more and they will have to venture into his haunted mansion to find them (i know classic troupe but im going for that lind of feel) what happened was that the necromancer all the people he took and his mansion (body, soul and all) shifted to another plane but now he is back, its full off long flights of stairs that leed nowhere in particular, doors that open to empty rooms and long hallways to get lost in. Im going for a maze theme with the building and all the while its haunted by the souls (ghosts) of the people he has taken, and 1 of my friends is joining us playing a ghost who beseches the party to help free them but they arent all nice, also includes some other undead aswell
@@DungeonDudes also my first time running anything like this been DMing for almost 2 years now
Good video, and totally agree with Coppola's Dracula. I add 3 things:
Game recommendation: the Old World of Darkness by White Wolf, especially Vampire: the Dark Ages so thoroughly immerses the player and storyteller in horror and dread, AND gives that vocabulary you were talking about in an elegant manner.
Video Game recommendation: Eternal Darkness for the Nintendo Game Cube. Nails the Lovecraftian story better than anything I've seen.
Description recommendation: a drop of blood out of place is more unsettling than a river of red stuff. Humans look for patterns to make sense of things and feel in control of even crappy situations, but if something violates the natural, expected order, that's where you creep them out. A few small sounds and shadows in the distance are worth more than a slobbering, indescribable horror rolling init.
Great points. A little bit of horror goes a long way, especially at the start of the build.
I am a new dungeon master and it was really hard coming up with an adventure for my players that they were comfortable with so thank you #dungeon dudes
I’m doing a horror version of gnomengarde from Dragon of Icespire Peak.
Because of a lot of homebrew in the early game, my players have made it to level 3 before the game intends them to. Because of this, they’re going to be facing a much more deadly, terrifying mimic. I’m home brewing a monster that is a mix of the mimic and a gibbering mouther, and adapting the whole encounter to a “The Thing” kind of story. Running it soon so I’ll let y’all know how it goes
Since I think it would fit with the darker themes, like horror and suspense, why not talk about some of the White Wolf Publishing games, or as I like to call them "the World of Darkness family of games"?
World of Darkness, and most of its sister games have this wonderfully dark, seemingly noir, ambiance to their default setting. Games like Vampire the Masquerade, Werewolf the Forsaken, Changeling the Lost, Prometheus the Created, Geist the Sin Eater, and Hunter the Vigil have these wonderful sort of spins on the mythos so many people have grown used to that it really helps to sell things aren't quite as we're familiar to us or what we think we know. All of which are great for Horror themed games and Halloween themed games in general. By playing a game that plays with expectations of the players that aren't familiar to the system and setting you can apply things a bit more distinctly than you would probably be able to get away with in D&D or Pathfinder.
World of Darkness, the core game of the same name, is the player just playing an ordinary person that gets caught up in these dark secrets of the supernatural that they were unaware of. In Werewolf you play a werewolf, which is normally depicted a classic scary monster (especially in D&D and Pathfinder); in Vampire the Masquerade you play as a vampire, which is another one of those classic horror monsters; in Prometheus you play as a living statue, one of those less seen scary monsters but still a staple in some D&D settings and campaigns; In Geist you play a spirit, another one of those classic monsters from the horror genre; Demon the Fallen has you playing as demon with a twist, and once again we're talking about being a classic scary monster and staple of fantasy games; and Hunter has you playing as someone who hunts the supernatural, the typical antihero to an action movie with horror trappings when you think about it.
I can't believe we forgot to shout out to WoD. They are absolutely worth checking out for horror inspiration!
Well, maybe you can rectify that with a follow-up video
Just picked up my copy of Vampires the masquerade V5 today at my LGS. I played v1 and v2.... Holy crap the nostalgic power I felt as I was retelling our "covens" story to the LGS owner. And we agreed, both at the same time that horror and intrigue are powerful narrative tools that really do move us. The last time we met with our story teller was 9 years ago.. but those memories are as fresh as morning dew. "Tips his hat generously to you" Thanks for all you do.
It's always useful to dip into the supplement books for Vampire & Werewolf for horror ideas too, it's amazing to do a more modern setting or borrow bits from them and mix them into something like Ebberon to create spooky laboratories and other places of abandoned technology with a modernish feel that the main D&D game lacks.
I would like to think y'all guys for making episode about dungeons & dragons all your content has really helped
I tend to run "a sandbox with a path", and use horror on some of the side content.
It gives the party the opportunity to "nope the F out" if its too much. Unless that pesky paladin twists their arms...
I also like to sprinkle in rare horror themed artifacts/relics of considerable power. Oh so tempting to use, but not so good for actually getting a long rest.
My favorite creepy relic that I've used in a campaign: a fragile glass sphere with a very expensive looking ring inside, bearing a large gem with a symbol carved onto it. Upon breaking the glass, if the party does do this, any nearby light sources will temporarily dim, the ring's gem will glow softly, and all the sounds of insects, birds, etc. in the area fall silent, leaving only the sound of the wind rustling the trees, which seems almost to contain a hint of whispers in it. That night when the party sleeps, the ring will call out to all of the players in their dreams, urging them to wear it, especially the magic users. If someone puts on the ring, this ceases. The wearer will be passed a note to roll play sleep walking, waking up not in their bed, wandering around during long rests, staring at their own reflection, inspecting the players gear with curious eyes, or staring at other party members as they sleep... If the party realizes the wearer is being possessed in their sleep, and only if they establish a rapport, they may interact with the ghost in the ring, while the player sleepwalks. The entity will initially inquire as to where, and when, it is. If treated well, the entity will share it's insights and expertise in ancient arcana & history, and can make insight checks of it's own, though it can't relay these until the wearer sleeps. Though very powerful, the being in the ring is weakened and totally dependent on a wearer from whom it draws power in their sleep. In combat certain benefits to it's wearer. But the ring decreases regained health from a long rest by half, and causes them to need longer sleep. The ring is indestructible, and when not worn by anyone, it will call out to anyone nearby, in dreams, or in barely heard whispers, urging them to wear it. This will continue unless it is put on, or once again sealed in glass by a glass blower. If the party decides to re-seal the ring, while a party member is wearing it, or if the wearer enters a glass blower's workshop, etc. the ring will attempt to cast Geas on the wearer, causing the wearer to flee. The being will urge the party to slay all the living members of a particular noble house (mixed bag of alignments), the more brutally the better, as well as urging them to seek a "truly willing" host for the ring, a displaced acolyte of the ghost's order perhaps, or someone who is willing to give 'all that they are' for a favor...
Just got an idea for a Telltale Heart one shot. Players investigate the disappearance of a missing relative, tall to the roommate who seems incredibly charming, but perhaps slightly unnerved. As they investigate, there are bumps, knocks, visions, eventually leading to the revelation that the old mans heart beneath the floorboards has mutated into a horrifying monster.
Two of my favorite "horror" reads are 'Wolfen' and 'The Keep'. Both became lackluster movies but are terrific books. Both utilize misdirection to build on. Great source material for adventures.
We'll have to check these out!
I love the horror genre in both books and movies and I am trying to incorporate it in my home game, so thanks for the video. The Changeling is one of my favourite horror movies and I am going to mix it with The Ring for my next quest.
Eternal Darkness would be one of the best video games that draws from Lovecraft's stories.
I've begun implementing a system I found and modified for my starfinder campaign. It is a madness system. The reason is for the sake of wanting Cosmic horror added to the sci Fi world they're playing in. Already, I have players that have learned that delving into the horror will give people boons for skills to help identify the things they will encounter, but also hinder their sanity rolls as a result. That makes some players go "oh hell no, not touching that" and others drive right in with a smile. It's so far a good implementation. I simply create all my creatures for these purposes from scratch using the stat tables the game provides. This way, no one knows how to defeat anything. They have to figure it out.
My players once ran into a small village that has been taken over by en elder oblex. The villagers kept insisting that the players stay awhile and rest abit which unnerved the players so much that they decided to leave. When they did they noticed that every single villager was staring at them and weren't blinking. They ran away. :)
I wanted to make a combat at low levels where the enemies used vicious mockery as there attacks so I made these masks that changed into the faces of loved ones and said the last things the characters would want to hear. Not attacks the players horror spots but the characters. My only regret was that vicious mockery gives disadvantage on attacks sooo it took a little while.
I recently watched Vin Diesel in The Last Witch Hunter. "What sacrifices are you willing to make", are you willing to let the risk of your personal demon rise again persist, so you can hold onto a power you'll need to face even worse nightmarish creatures? Or will you risk it all just to be "normal" again, and take your chances?
I found the movie very enjoyable, and knowing Vin is a huge geek and nerd who loves D&D, and has a passion for such things(still amazing the idea someone that jacked, being a D&D player☺), made it even moreso.
And that leads me to this.
At first, I found the JCVD Street Fighter movie bad, because it didn't follow the source material(it did, in some places, but rarely). But then I learned of Raul Julia's story with it, and that greatly helped me accept it, and once I got past my personal issues with the movie, it also helped me understand how directors can have their own takes on such things. And when you look at it more for simple entertainment and not so much true to story, you can enjoy it in different ways(even if those ways weren't the intent).
Anyway, loved the video, dudes☺.
Lol my dog doesn't usually pay any mind to my videos, but the howl at the beginning startled her!
There are some wonderful lists of themes and trigger warnings to check with players online. For my first ever DM session I ran a game and just asked for triggers and they responded. Then when we played a game I accidentally hit upon something a player hadnt thought of warning me about and they had nightmares. Luckily we got it all sorted for future games and now I'm very strict on trying to build up a big database of things that may scare people and making my players go through the list. Fingers crossed this never happens again.
Currently writing and running a gothic horror adventure, so very few whimsical creatures that I really like but don't fit. Instead sticking with all the grossest giant insects and undead stuff kind of like in the Castlevania environment. Just ran session 1 last night and it went super well! My players seem engaged in what mysteries I have set up so far and can't wait to get killing werewolves and hags and investigating hauntings, etc.
My players are trapped in Death House as we run through Curse of Strahd. I fucked up two weeks ago and had level one characters fight four animated suits of armor, it was supposed to be one on the third floor. This week, we got up to the third floor and they refused to move until they got rid of the suit of armor on the third floor. They took twenty minutes freaking out about it. Instead of having to fight it, when they lassoed the armor, I had it fall apart. And even after that, the gnoll barbarian refused to go further until she had thrown all the pieces down the stairs.
Doing a lot of research on running a horror game right now in the GURPS system. I run a regular remote D&D game where I try to blend drama and comedy in the tone (Indiana Jones, firefly, MCU, etc). The horror game will be a "one shot" adventure (probably over a weekend), that we're going to do in person after we're all vacc'd because one of our members will be moving to texas in the fall. I've given them the time period and location (Nevada, late tech level 8 - year 2045), but I haven't told them what kind of game it will be. My original thought was having them find out in game would add to the fear & tension. I'm fairly certain they'd all be on board, but I'm having second thoughts having seen this now.
I wish I could give this video two likes. Outstanding delivery of the subject matter! Thank you so much for putting this together. I was just thinking about a hag-based adventure and everything you said was helpful and relevant.
Thank you so much. We loved making this video and are always excited when someone discovers it and finds it helpful.
Imagine runing a horror game and all the players are leaving the table because they are scared too much XD
A good idea for inspiration comes from these horror story RUclips channels, like Unit 522 or whatever. They really do well at the “horrifying realization” that causes that fight or flight response. It can’t be a jump scare because it is just someone reading a story.
Great video guy. Gives me some ideas.
Very late to this party, but have to agree on metaphors, especially when not discussing th horror element directly, being incredibly effective in creating dread and foreshadowing events to come. The Most Dangerous Game, while not being a strictly horror story, has some of the best subtle foreshadowing in the game. The phrase “blood-warm water” sticks with me years later.
I scared the pants off of my players when I had the vampire who was the main villain of this campaign kill off an illusionist who was a friend of the party. Up to that point the illusionist had been played for laughs - he was fairly inept. When the party enters the dungeon with the now-dead illusionist and suddenly the stairs they entered by disappear. I had the Illusionist was using really subtle illusions - basically making doors and traps disappear and reskinning monsters. In the beginning low-level skeletons and ghouls looked like tougher foes like the Main Vilnian or the illusionist, then they ran into what looked like a half-dozen skeletons which turned out to be Vampire Spawn. Halfway through they were so paranoid that they didn't trust ANYTHING that they saw.
One of the scariest movies I ever saw was The Birds by Hitchcock. It had no gore in it, yet it was scary af.
"what just ate my leg?"...omg lol irl
this video made me think about how thin the line between a vengance paladin and a redemption paladin is. I can totally see a redemption paladin which actively hunts the evil that has gone to far, which is similar to what oath of vengance is
In my version of the Lost Mines Of Phandelver I accidentally terrified my party, and not in a cool way either - I actually apologised for it. I added in a whole lot of additional off-book stuff about the drow to make drow villain Nezznarr more than the “random evil drow wizard” the adventure presents him as. In my version he has an insane drider girlfriend he is trying to restore to sanity. Anyway at one point she escaped from the box he kept her in, and the 4th level party is timorously tracking a deranged drider through the dark dripping mine tunnels. They can hear her mad screams echoing towards them, and suddenly one of the screams sounds very close by - and I let rip with a massive psychotic scream. Party was absolutely shell shocked because it made them shit their pants - acting was a little too good apparently. One player cried, and we had to stop playing for about half an hour while I apologised and said I just thought they’d jump a little, I never would have done it if I knew it would be that upsetting. Fortunately we worked things out and people understood my intentions hadn’t been malicious and I told them I would not do it again. We carried on and finished the adventure successfully. One player told me afterwards that it was a sort of roundabout complement to how immersed the players were that they reacted like the threat was real.
One of my favorite improvements to death house in curse of Strahd was that instead of the house being torn down and showing decay it looked like a normal house with candles and fireplaces lit and I had the players do perception checks to things they were seeing while exploring the house like a mirror in the bathroom showing their face rotten with melting flesh then they look at the mirror again and there’s nothing there,
Or eating the banquet in the dinning room and one of the players suddenly being unable to stop eating so when another player comes in their seeing the player eating rotten meats and maggots so he stops the first player knocking him out of his trance to see the food and throws up then when they leave the dinning room it’s back to normal like all of it was a illusion, the players loved it cause they had no idea what was going on and it gave a real haunted house feel that put the players on a different kind of on edge then if I had just made the house a typical see this house yes it’s haunted
The scariest part of jaws (to me) was knowing the shark is nearing but you can’t see it. Knowing the shark 🦈 was about to pounce and unable to get out of the way. I still fear my legs dangling in the ocean while treading in deep water.
Foreshadowing is one of the most important aspects of horror.