6 Ways To Make Your D&D Game More Horrifying

I have wanted to run Ravenloft's Death House for the past 10 years. It's a white whale of mine. I can't really tell you why other than I pressure myself to run more horror stylized games the closer I get to Halloween and Death House fits the bill. It almost feels like a rite of passage. I probably will likely never run it and that's ok, but just in case you feel the need to make your games more horrifying, I have 10 suggestions that might help. Are there places in your setting where magic has gone wild? What if a magical H-Bomb went off and now the land is corrupted? Traveling in this zone will yield might magic items but the longer you remain there, the more like you are to get a mutation. If you are doing a sandbox adventure, mutation could lead to even more adventure hooks or just give PC an opportunity to point at each other in horror. Check outd100 Mutations From Forbidden Magicand100 Unexpected Mutations and Side-Effects In vampire movies, like Vampires by John Carpenter or Lost Boys, they often show a vampires victim slowly start to turn and how torturous the transformation is. They turn pale, they thirst and light begins or have a harsh effect on them. In myCrit Happens Zine #3 The Corrupdead, a Vrykolak (vampire) bite turn a PC into a Vrykolak in 1d6 + Con days. The variance shows how each person reacts differently to the bite. Like the ticking clock, high stakes ratchet up the tension. Zombie bites, in my setting of Kre'ash, are the real deal. Like the Vrykolak, these corrpdead zombies turn you in 1d4 rounds unless a limb is cut off ala World War Z. You could tell your players this will happen or you can show them, in game, of someone getting bit and turning very quickly. As with mutations, there could be a corrupted part of your setting where when you kill something, the land bring it back to life in 1d4 rounds with refreshed HP. The movie The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers are classic examples of trust no one. In a recent game dut game, I had an encounter with an NPC that had disguised himself, yet again, as someone I thought I could trust. I was truly shocked at the reveal and my PC decided to put an end to that by rolling a critical success hit sending a bolt through his skull. This kind of subterfuge could be a group of Dopplegangers trying to take over a town or maybe an evil wizard tries to ingratiate themselves into your party to find the McGuffin. The horror movie rule is, 'If you don't see it die, it's not dead'. Maybe your group kills a monster, thinking it's dead, but a second later, it disappears only to appear later like Michael Myers. Maybe your PC are fighting a Death Knight who could double as Jason Voorhees. How about a Construct your PCs defeat but it begins to put itself back together? This is all about the psyche-out. How can you let your players think the horror is over without it really being over. Why is this happening? This is what the audience is trying to figure out in movies like The Following, Midsommar and Cloverfield. Give your PC strange occurrences that seem to come out of nowhere to keep them guessing. In myCults of Kre'Ash zine, a cult called the The Whispering Madness has something called Cinder Juice. Cinder Juice puts PC into a dream like state where they must fight a nightmare. This nightmare cannot be seen by other PC but they can see the battle, and the wounds inflicted, by the nightmare. Body horror, check. Cinder, the demigod of dreams (now corrupted) can also signal followers to attack using the ringing of a bell or the clanging of a Blacksmiths hammer. Once the sound is heard, followers, draw their weapons and begin to indiscriminately attack. With this last example, I think of movies like The Crazies where 'normal' people become killing machines. As always, give your group a heads up of the kind of game you want to run and a let people opt into your game or work with them for the horrifying game that fits them. Leave a comment Subscribe now Crit Happens: The Witches of the Blackened Earth Grammar Fuel: Horror Genre & Subgenres SoRoPlay GamTools Zine: Horror Ref Vaesen Delta Green Agent's Handbook Delta Green Handler's Guide Arkham Horror RPG