For those used to TTRPGs, you know that many types of stories can be told through it. It can range from Comedy - which is present at almost every table since people like to joke around - to Drama, or even Romance. They can all be present, and sometimes even in the same campaign. All that said, it's undeniable that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons leans towards Action, considering its mech൲anics and focus on combat.
What if you want to apply Horror to it? Though there are systems more suited to this, such as Call of Cthulhu, applying these elements to D&amܫp;D is perfectly possible anꦆd can lead to amazing stories.
5 Be Vague With Descriptions ⛎
It may not look like it, but this is one of the most straightforward and efficient things you can do to add a thriller to your stories. We have a subconscious fear of things we don't understand, and you can use that to your advantage.
Whenever you need to describe something, give them literal descriptions of what they can see and nothing more. If they roll well on detecting traps, for instance, don't tell them they found all the traps. Tell them that they found X traps, and if they ask whether there are more traps, just say, "These are all the traps you have found," even if it is all of them. They have no way of knowing for sure, and you're not lying; even so, the uncertainty will make them anxious.
Never give them a straight answer, making them wonder. Another example is if they find footprints from, let's say a Dragonborn. Good perceptions can give lots of details, such as the weight of the footprints, format, fingers, or claws. But if they say, "This is definitely from a Dragonborn, right?" just shrug it off, as obvious as it is. They will have full confirmation of what they're doing from simply having a lot of information that leads to the same conclusion, but there'll still be the weight of you, the DM, never saying, "Yes, you are 100 percent correct". And that is very impactful.
4 Deadly Monsters ♛
This detail sounds obvious, but it's important to be careful when executing. When presented with a powerful enemy, our goal in an Action game is to defeat it, no matter how hard it is. However, in Horror stories, our goal is to survive. Sure, you can survive a monster by killing it - Action and Horror can be mixed, after all - but escaping the monster is just as valid of a plan.
The trick here is that you have to be careful about how deadly the monster can be. A creature that kills players with a single blow is too powerful as they won't know how dangerous it is without the monster killing a player. You can leave traces of how dangerous it is throughout the environment, for example - with dead bodies all around. Another good trick is to have a powerful, friendly NPC being afraid of the monster - or worst, have the monster kill this NPC.
Another thing you can do is a danger that isn't physical - There's a reason the likes of Call of Cthulhu have a lot of creatures that mess around with the victims' minds. You can use nightmares, where you have the freedom to break reality itself and traumatize the character in a way that can even end with their death, and they can still wake up. They'll be physically okay, but they will have suffered at the hands of the monster. And failing to escape the creatures in a nightmare can still give consequences, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:such as exhaustion or madness (which we'll get into later).
3 🧸 Create Peaceful๊ Moments
If we're going for horror, then what is the point of having moments of peace? Well, the idea here is simple; If you put too much pressure and never release it, things will explode.
Though the idea of the horror genre is to have tension for long periods of time, if every scene has tension, the audience will either never relax - thus making them not enjoy what they're seeing - or they'll get used to the tension and no longer be afraid - we are capable of adapting to most situations. Your players need to have moments where 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:they can rest, even if they know that, eventually, something bad will come. It'll be a perfect calm before-the-storm moment.
Besides, that will surprisingly help build more tension later. Once the players are already suited to the calm situation they're in, they'll be suspicious of anything that can break the moment, so it's okay to let the characters have peaceful nights occasionally. More than occasionally, in fact. It's okay for most in-game nights to be like this. Then, when your monster shows up, you'll have plenty of tension to use.
2 Madness
Though not presented in the Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide offers extra rules in case you wish to apply madness as a game mechanic. It can be difficult for a player to roleplay these effects on their character; thus, having them as actual rules can help create a sense of dread in your story.
The Guide mentions how spells and items can give this effect in case you're using it at your table, but you can also homebrew abilities that drive characters mad in the creatures you put at the game. Resisting these effects will demand either a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Wisdom or Charisma saving throw - it's up to the DM to decide which roll they'll ask. Alternatively, you can use the seventh hidden ability score called Sanity - Well, technically eighth ability score, but Honor is not relevant now.
The𓆏 DMG also has a series of effects that Madness can cause, divided into short-term madness, which lasts a few minutes; long-term madness, which lasts a few hours; and indefinite madness, which never ends. For example, short-term can make you stunned or briefly lose consciousness, long-term can make them unable to speak for a time or experience hallucinations, and indefinite can make them alcoholics or actual muderhobos, making them enjoy senseless killi🧸ng.
1 Gore
This is a part that we heavily encourage you to talk to your players first, during a session zero or something similar. Horror usually leads to powerful and unsavory descripꦫtions, especially since what is going on probably involves gruesome deaths.
It's important to know whether your players are okay with finding bloody body parts around the dungeon or if they'll get a gory death at the hands of whatever monster is hunting them down. Many people are sensitive to these topics; you can make them feel under the weather if you become too graphic.
Still, the aforementioned vagueness is a solution here too. Instead of the monster tearing a person in half right in front of the players, they can see the victim being dragged into darkness as they scream in terror until they hear a loud noise of something being torn and liqღuids falling on the ground making the scream stop. In other words, you can heavily imply what happens without making them imagine too much and still get people terrified in the process.