Dungeons And Dragons Campaign Ideas
Do you have any creepy effects I could add to my Dungeons and Dragons campaign?
I am running a horror game based around a necromancer. The pcs do not know that he is a necromancer and there is very limited magic in the world but somehow this NPC has a lot of power to control undead. I was wondering if you could lend me some creepy ideas for the game. Like canteens of blood and torture and stuff to just really make them freak out. Stuff you would see in horror movies. I am using the Heroes of Horror book, but I want more specific examples, original ideas from you guys please. It can be as grotesque, creepy, and horrific as you please.
True horror is borne in the mind, and the failing of movies is the inclination to have to “show” us everything and assume “grossing” out the audience equates to horror. Take a lesson from the Cthulu sessions and Ravenloft notes. Horror is taken from the unnatural, something that violates our basic notions of what should be, and leaves our minds unable to cope.
Props: Most will be cheesy. After all, your players are sitting around a game table, and even in a “haunted house” they know it isn’t real. That doesn’t mean you can’t use them. Just use them sparingly, and don’t make them the focus of the game. For example, cherry red jello mix that hasn’t been put in the fridge, in low light, will look a little like blood and be liquid. Perhaps the crone fortune teller runs her finger through blood and traces a pattern on an old metal plate. Pour a little of this mix on a plate and simulate this if you wish. Then, after you’ve wiped off your fingers, pull out the “tarot” deck or have them roll the bones. Ravenloft is famous for having fortunes that can be interpreted loosely, or you can stack the deck.
Handouts: One of the best horror games I ran was based off the House on Gryphon Hill adventure, found at the Wizards of the Coast free adventures section (1st/2nd edition). It involved dream cards, disturbing events, and they manifested after the very odd beginning where the adventure literally started, with NO explanation, in a fight in a crypt with a vampire. The party awakened after the beatdown, but the fight seemed so real. Then the disturbing dreams began….
Settings: Insane asylums, a mansion on the bayou, etc.
Lower the lights (if you play at night, turn off the lights – but only once for effect – if they’re in a dark room, light a candle or use a flashlight to simulate how little they can make out in the tomb they’re in, etc.)
Background music: Instrumental pieces rather than anything with a words or hard beats. Violins and stringed instruments can really evoke a classic sense of creepy.
Voices for your NPCs. Simulate the rasp of a zombie gurgling out words by its master. You may get a laugh at the first attempt or so, but over time, they’ll adopt it and love you for doing it.
Use your words!!! Remember, lengthy descriptions can bore players, and if there isn’t a major event attached, they’ll tune out. Still, keep a few one liners on hand (the claws of an ancient oak, corrupted by rot, stretch across the road, forcing your horses around it, etc.)
Let imaginations run free. Remember, your players are NOT going to really be horrified, but they do have attachments to their characters, and if they’re true roleplayers, they will feel a little fear for what might happen. When they see the mist ahead of them and a stubborn merchant with a broken cart won’t flee from it, let them hear his unnaturally high pitched scream, a noise that shouldn’t emerge from a human mouth. Let them see a cloud of misty red droplets move deeper into the mist. It was fog a minute ago, but they’ll think twice about entering it.
(Described a 2nd edition monster, a Crimson Death, and the horror of its story is that truly damned vampires might become one when they are physically destroyed, hunger without a form. The only way to fight it was when it consumed a body and became substantive for a time. That’s a creepy monster, one that should invoke horror for the sheer unnatural way it exists).
Rarely, roll the dice and do the usual DM activity of pretending something important was done. Ask a player what his hit points are before rolling. Maybe 1-2 times a session should keep things edgy.
If you wish, there’s various systems about horror and “sanity” points to simulate that while you, as a gamer, may not be losing your sanity, your character might. The SRD 20 website for 3.5 rules has a free-license variant of this.
Whew. Good luck. A good horror game is worth the time.
The Dances of Fate, part one.
