OD&D Horror?

[gloriousbattle]

Curious if anyone has ever done horror rules using OD&D. Thanks.

[Falconer]

Horror is obviously an element of mainstream OD&D. So what do you have in mind?

[aldarron]

Nov 17, 2009 2:09:36 GMT -6 Falconer said:

Horror is obviously an element of mainstream OD&D. So what do you have in mind?

Indeed. Many of the monsters, undead in particular are horror inspired and other than adapting the campaign setting, there wouldn't necessarily be any reason new rules would be needed. However, Carcosa may be the sort of thing you have in mind, for Lovecraft/Poe style horror. For the more traditional Hollywood monster types one could turn to the 2e Ravenloft boxed set for ideas. The pdf is very cheap on rpgnow. But really, OD&D already is set up to play as a horror game if one wants by the campaign world one creates. I have been increasingly appreciative of how much the Horror/mystery genre relates to D&D, perhaps at least as much as Scifi/fantasy. Possibly this goes back to the Blackmoor setting and the horror movie marathon that influenced Arnesons creation of Castle Blackmoor. There was a thread on K&K looking for literary parrallels for the dungonering party. The thing that came to my mind was Scooby Do. Yes, its a silly cartoon but it is also a story about a group of characters of different classes traveling from place to place into adventure scenerios where they confront and defeat monsters.

[geordie]

I started writing Spookhunters for S&W Whitebox, but I got sidetracked. Might rework it as a two-page ruleset.

[Finarvyn]

The Tainted Lands boxed set by James Ward was written for C&C but would be a simple conversion to OD&D.

[Falconer]

Howard wrote lots of what I would call "horrific but heroic" fantasy. Many of the Conan stories are of that vein. "The Phoenix on the Sword" is a pretty straight-forward example of this. Of course, Howard also wrote straight horror. Lovecraft wrote lots of straight horror, but then there's the masterpiece, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath which is "horrific but heroic"—Randolph Carter is basically John Carter taking a horrific landscape head-on and victorious.

Call of Cthulhu RPG convention has it that the PCs will descend into madness and/or suffer horrific deaths. The horrific deaths thing definitely exists in D&D, though. When one PC dies, it's heroic; but a TPK is just horrific. Especially at the hands of ghouls, I tell ya!

The sanity mechanic is fine, but to me it's not so much about "horror" per se as it is a part of the flavor of the CoC "1920s" post-Enlightenment/Industrialism setting. But this sort of setting is so successful for horror since the supernatural elements stand out in stark relief or even opposition to the mundanity of the setting.

Just on a practical level, in my experience, allowing the PCs to be heroic is part of the winning formula of D&D. While I enjoy a healthy dose of Lovecraft's inspiration in my games, and while sometimes it just so happens that events "fun turns to tragedy" of a horrific sort, I wouldn't heavy-handedly steer events towards that ends.

While I prefer a standard D&D medieval setting, I also enjoy a 1920s "Lovecraft Country" setting, but even there, I wouldn't go out of my way to deny the PCs the opportunity to be heroic. In this context, as I said, the CoC sanity mechanic would be appropriate, IMO, but it's not because I'd be doing a "horror" game. Regards.

[geordie]

Nov 17, 2009 11:12:02 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

The Tainted Lands boxed set by James Ward.

has anyone played this yet, is it any good ?

[irdaranger]

Sort of following up on Falconer's post, I think D&D is heroic because of Hit Points. There's fighting, fighting, fighting, valiant death. At 0 HP (or -10 HP, depending on your rule set) you're dead. But you "just" dead.

In a Horror setting no one "just" dies. They're pierced with claws, then eaten. Or they're torn in half, and then eaten. Or they're bound up and eaten while still alive. In a Horror setting every monster is a Purple Worm.

I think a proper "Horror" version of D&D would keep HP as a system for accruing mundane damage (e.g., being stabbed by Cultists' knives), but it would be explicitly clear that pretty much every monster can bypass HP and tear you limb from limb on a single failed Saving Throw ("Quick! Save vs. Dismemberment!"). There should also be plenty of room in the rules for a GM to kill people in the most gruesome way possible ("A tentacle darts from the crevice, grabs Heinrich by the ankles, and pulls him through it so quickly he leaves skin on the edges. You hear crunching and slurping noises.").

[bluskreem]

IMO D&D is not well suited for horror. The basic mechanics focus to much on heroic combat. While Such combat is great for a climax, if used casualy it ruins a horror atmosphere rather quickly. I think lacking skill system only compunds this problem for OD&D.

[blissinfinite]

I think a lot depends on how the DM describes events and outcomes. Sure, you're rolling dice but those dice rolls can determine split skulls, severed heads and hacked limbs or any manner of dismemberment or death that you can come up with to push the boundaries of the mood you are trying to create.

"Quick! Save vs. Dismemberment!"

I do like that though!

[aldarron]

Nov 17, 2009 13:24:42 GMT -6 irdaranger said:

I think a proper "Horror" version of D&D would keep HP as a system for accruing mundane damage (e.g., being stabbed by Cultists' knives), but it would be explicitly clear that pretty much every monster can bypass HP and tear you limb from limb on a single failed Saving Throw ("Quick! Save vs. Dismemberment!"). There should also be plenty of room in the rules for a GM to kill people in the most gruesome way possible ("A tentacle darts from the crevice, grabs Heinrich by the ankles, and pulls him through it so quickly he leaves skin on the edges. You hear crunching and slurping noises.").

I see where you are coming from but think its more a matter of how the DM chooses to describe combat. Also, exactly the sort of damage you are talking about could be handled using the hit location tables in Supplement II. Save vs dismemberment, heh, that's a cool idea.

[fitz]

I'd import the CoC "Sanity" characteristic in an OD&D horror campaign for one reason only: as soon as the players see that on their character sheet, they know exactly what's in store. And it's not going to be nice. That's one of the great things about well-established tropes, it shortcuts a whole lot of exposition that might otherwise need to be constantly repeated.

For all that D&D has its roots in pulp fantasy/horror, it really doesn't try to mechanically represent any horrific potential. You see a crowd of deliquescing corpses pushing their way out of their foetid graves, and what do you think? I'm betting it's never "Aiee! That's so frightening and unnatural I may have just soiled my chainmail breeks!", but more likely "Zombies! Get 'em!"

Sure, the DM can do his or her best to make the scene a bit more creepy, and some are really good at it. But they get no help from the game's mechanics.

[gloriousbattle]

Nov 17, 2009 2:09:36 GMT -6 Falconer said:

Horror is obviously an element of mainstream OD&D. So what do you have in mind?

Not trying to start an argument, but I would differ with this opinion.

In Call of Cthulhu, and similar horror games, an ordinary person facing the fear of the unknown is the major element. In a typical COC adventure, the pcs are likely to freak out an possibly run on meeting their first supernetural monster, even if it is just something as weak as a deep one or zombie, which the pcs could probably beat.

In standard OD&D, the dynamic is very different. Here, it is heroes facing the supernatural, and they are often going to stand and fight, even if they would likely lose. The probable response of a pc group meeting a deep one for the first time in an unconverted OD&D game, even one set in the modern world, would probably be to grab the nearest tire irons and go beat the crap out of it.

[Falconer]

Heheh! In the OD&D campaigns I've refereed, the first session almost always ends in horrific TPK if the "heroes" take this approach! Fear is very quickly learned. That's unconverted OD&D / standard OD&D.

And in the only CoC game I've ever played in, my revolver worked just swell against those monsters. :-)

[irdaranger]

Nov 17, 2009 22:28:39 GMT -6 gloriousbattle said:

In standard OD&D, the dynamic is very different. Here, it is heroes facing the supernatural, and they are often going to stand and fight, even if they would likely lose. The probable response of a pc group meeting a deep one for the first time in an unconverted OD&D game, even one set in the modern world, would probably be to grab the nearest tire irons and go beat the crap out of it.

You must play with a much more suicidal type of gamer than I do. My guys very often exercise the better part of valor. Particularly when they facing something with more tentacles than they have Hit Points.

More to the point, what you describe is an attitude towards play, not a rule set. You could play CoC that way too, if you wanted to. And probably with the same odds of survival.

[blissinfinite]

I'm enjoying this conversation.

Here's something that I found on the Akratic Wizardry blog and have thought about using some of these concepts in my campaign.

He uses Wisdom as a measure of ones sanity:

If a character witnesses an unspeakable horror, the Game Master may require the player to make a saving throw (versus ‘spells,’ if using a system other than S&W). The saving throw should be modified by the severity of the horror in question. If the character fails his or her saving throw, he or she loses points of temporary Wisdom. The exact amount should be determined by rolling 1d6. If a ‘6’ is rolled, the character also permanently loses one point of Wisdom (i.e., one permanent point of Wisdom and five temporary points of Wisdom). Temporarily lost points of Wisdom may be regained at a rate of one point per day of complete rest.

I liked this concept and I think it can be used nicely to enhance the tension and horror element of OD&D without much tweaking.

You can read the rest here:
akraticwizardry.blogspot.com/2009/07/sanity.html

[dwayanu]

The paralysis effect of ghouls is pretty horrific: you can't fight back, or run, however much you want to ... but maybe you can scream as they peel off your skin ...

Then we have the level-draining undead. That's not so bad with first-level characters, although it may be disturbing when they rise from the dead. Losing levels hits hard enough for most players, though, to bring in not just fear but the sense of wrongness key to horror. Even if you've got magical resurrection, you're unlikely to have such a quick fix for this (apart from a wish). There's only so much one can do to fend off such monsters. To see a beloved character turned into a pawn of evil and cruel foe of his or her former friends is gruesome. Yes, vampires can be pretty horrific!

Poison often is not especially horrific, just very deadly. A bit of research into real-world poisons may suggest more horrible effects than a quick, clean kill. Empire of The Petal Throne has quite a few poisonous or contagious monsters, and that second effect -- disease -- is especially well suited to a horror theme. Supplement II is a good start.

[chgowiz]

I like my horror to be long, drawn-out. Take dwaynu's poison idea - I think a really horrific aspect is to give the player 1d6 turns or 1d4 days - then it becomes an effort to save the player with each step taking him closer to eternity.

Slow draining would be interesting as well. Maybe, similar to the touch of the Nazgûl, the level drain is an ongoing thing versus the immediate effect.

Paralysis, dwaynu has it awesome... a band of ghouls and they drag the first victim away to eat him while the rest battle on...

[tavis]

I think some of the difference can be what the people in the world are doing. A horror game could use the same wandering monster tables, but when you roll up 30-300 bandits they're not Robin Hood and his Merry Men but rather cannibals from a Rob Zombie movie. Townsfolk are likely to be hiding dark secrets ranging from monstrous in-breeding to their treatment of one another. The prevalence of evil towns in a world made using the JG random encounter tables also suggests that horror may be part of the basic OD&D genome!

An example of this difference in fiction is to compare Michael Shea's Dying Earth novel A Quest for Symbilis to Vance's originals. Shea has often written in the horror genre, one of the few Vance didn't use, and I feel that his take on the setting is darker and crueler in instructive ways.