I haven't tried yet Curse of Strahd and such, but I feel that magic can lower the horror significantly. Magic can detect, light most dark areas, having offensive and defensive means. And mostly, it makes unknown less scary imo, for example a cleric pc that worships a god, faces a mysterious cult that worships an evil god and summons evil creatures. So what? The cult may be mysterious, but the principals are similars, and the cleric can also conjure/summon creatures. Even if I face something stronger, it still becomes less scary. What do you think?
Scary isn't as much content as it is presentation. I naturally skew towards being scary as a DM, no matter what genre of campaign I run (high magic, Gothic horror, steampunk, etc)
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I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
I think Curse of Strahd being one of the better selling campaigns, and Van Richten's Guide to Ravensloft providing a whole book on how to prep and run a variety of horror/scary games sort of serves as evidence that a not inconsiderable number of players feel it works in their D&D games. To the notion "but light", a lot of horror, and the psychology of fear easily speak to that. When afraid, it's common for a child and even adults to clench their eyes shut. Not wanting to see is a common expression of feeling dread. Sure IRL a kid is screaming about monsters and the parent comes in and turns the magic light switch on and *presto* no monsters. But that's not really what happened. The monsters were never there in the first place. On the other hand, imagine a world where a child screams about monsters, the parent comes and switches the light switch, *presto* and the monsters are there, and they are not afraid of a little illumination. Rather they welcome the viewer behold them in their horrific manifestation. If you wrap your head around that, you can see how the story mechanics and tropes that usually play for "heroic fantasy" in D&D, can be turned on their head with a shift to a more horrific or gothic tone.
Survival Horror (anxiety induced by lack of power, supplies and knowledge) is way easier to simulate than True horror (developing real fear from fictional danger), due to the proactive nature of playing DND. The players are the problem solvers, and rather than fear, frustration is caused when they cannot kill the enemies or survive the scary encounters. We can be kind of scared of a big enemy like the Tarrasque or an sleeping Ancient Red Dragon but tapping into that fear without putting the players into unwinnable boss fights is hard. I think it might take stuff outside the game to make it scarier (with atmosphere, role play and setting the mood). If you know your player's phobias and possible past encounters with IRL supernatural phenomenon it would cement it even better. One of my friends has thalassophobia, so fighting krakens on the open ocean scared him more than anything else.
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I haven't tried yet Curse of Strahd and such, but I feel that magic can lower the horror significantly. Magic can detect, light most dark areas, having offensive and defensive means. And mostly, it makes unknown less scary imo, for example a cleric pc that worships a god, faces a mysterious cult that worships an evil god and summons evil creatures. So what? The cult may be mysterious, but the principals are similars, and the cleric can also conjure/summon creatures. Even if I face something stronger, it still becomes less scary. What do you think?
Scary isn't as much content as it is presentation. I naturally skew towards being scary as a DM, no matter what genre of campaign I run (high magic, Gothic horror, steampunk, etc)
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
I think Curse of Strahd being one of the better selling campaigns, and Van Richten's Guide to Ravensloft providing a whole book on how to prep and run a variety of horror/scary games sort of serves as evidence that a not inconsiderable number of players feel it works in their D&D games. To the notion "but light", a lot of horror, and the psychology of fear easily speak to that. When afraid, it's common for a child and even adults to clench their eyes shut. Not wanting to see is a common expression of feeling dread. Sure IRL a kid is screaming about monsters and the parent comes in and turns the magic light switch on and *presto* no monsters. But that's not really what happened. The monsters were never there in the first place. On the other hand, imagine a world where a child screams about monsters, the parent comes and switches the light switch, *presto* and the monsters are there, and they are not afraid of a little illumination. Rather they welcome the viewer behold them in their horrific manifestation. If you wrap your head around that, you can see how the story mechanics and tropes that usually play for "heroic fantasy" in D&D, can be turned on their head with a shift to a more horrific or gothic tone.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Survival Horror (anxiety induced by lack of power, supplies and knowledge) is way easier to simulate than True horror (developing real fear from fictional danger), due to the proactive nature of playing DND. The players are the problem solvers, and rather than fear, frustration is caused when they cannot kill the enemies or survive the scary encounters. We can be kind of scared of a big enemy like the Tarrasque or an sleeping Ancient Red Dragon but tapping into that fear without putting the players into unwinnable boss fights is hard. I think it might take stuff outside the game to make it scarier (with atmosphere, role play and setting the mood). If you know your player's phobias and possible past encounters with IRL supernatural phenomenon it would cement it even better. One of my friends has thalassophobia, so fighting krakens on the open ocean scared him more than anything else.