Well, WrA, the season of spookiness is upon us, so let’s talk horror themes in RP!
I’ve always felt that horror and dread are hard themes to pull off in a colorful, over-the-top MMO environment like WoW, but I’m sure more skilled DMs than I have managed it.
So, for all you DMs out there, have you ever run an event that borrows heavily from the horror genre? If so, how did you go about building an atmosphere of fear and dread? Was it a success, or do you feel like you could have done better? Finally, what tips might you have for DMs hoping to run spooky, scary RP events this holiday season?
For everyone else, what is your experience with horror or Halloween themed events? Have they ever managed to creep you out? What sort of things could such events incorporate or touch on to send shivers down your spine and get under your skin?
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I’m no DM, but I do have an idea of how you can pull off good horror.
Nothing Is Scarier.
Don’t outright show the scary thing at first, hint at it - have it duck behind something just out of sight, show its shadows on a wall, have it make noise while unseen. Let the dread and anticipation build like a finely grilled steak cooked to perfection.
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Yes, did something with a bit of C’thrax influence, nightmares, illusions, mind controlled grunts that acted like zombies. All while whispers were going on added with this creepy music i played over disc. Apparently my environmental emotes were enough to really creep and startle some folks.
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My guild basically is Ghostbhsters/a Witcher school, so we handle our share of spoopiness
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I find that horror is hard to pull off but it can be really good! Usually it’s about building off a sense of dread rather than describing some baddy.
My most memorable “scary” RPs haven’t had any combat at all, as far as I can remember. The one that sticks out was us exploring a specific set of ruins not long after a Kaldorei expedition. We were following their footsteps as things got increasingly more gruesome.
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I may be the minority, but my personal interest in horror is the psychological stuff. Kinda like “How can that be real…” and things that scare you simply because they’re so… I don’t want to say horrifying cuz that is redundant but hey. To build a sense of fear and dread I usually find very difficult to do in a campaign with multiple people, as being alone (The player) can heighten the tension. Kinda like how Lovecraft keeps his protagonists stuck in place and usually alone. Minus the racism of the 20th century.
For Halloween events, we used to do a costume party as Forsaken on MG. We’d dress up and just sorta hang out at Scholomance. Nothing too creepy I’m afraid, except when a near skeleton came in a bunny outfit. Tail and ears.
We did not know what to think.
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I’ve always found the most horrifying thing in games like these (ones with lots of enemies everywhere but with powerful protagonists who can blast through them all without breaking a sweat) is the idea that there are normal people out there who can’t survive as well as you, and they will die or suffer if you don’t find them fast.
The thought that, even if my bombastic hero can find some way to survive that random explosion at his feet or invading Old God army or whatever, there are still plenty of others nearby who -can’t- and my handy-dandy Cloak of Shadows+Vanish is not enough to save them all as well. That I’ll have to change tactics, try something new, try to be everywhere at once, and have to worry about small things that wouldn’t bother a seasoned adventurer but can hurt the mortals caught up in them.
(Then again, I have friends who tease me because I freak out during cutscenes when some poor nameless NPC dies as a way to introduce a new enemy type, so this style might not affect everyone.)
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I was DM for an eternal darkness roleplay.
Bone Thief’s were a great source of horror for my group. (Skeleton creatures that burrow into humans and take control of them.)
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I’m notoriously the horror DM of my guild. Anyone in a group with me is gonna have a spooky time. 
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Surprisingly I have little experience with specifically themed horror aside from a plot friends and I did some years back now with a spooky guy doing spooky things with spooky plants, but then, I suppose I do tend to infuse a bit of casual horror into most of my stuff with my undead since I don’t shy away from the gross bits of that and some may find that horrifying.
This year the boyfriend and I are doing a spooky scene but it’s wholesome spooky of the ghost of one of my character’s parents showing up to play with their arcane cat and tell them he’s proud of them.
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Horror is actually one of my favorite genres. But rather than things like violence, gore, torture, etc it’s more of the more psychological types like The Strange Case of Dr. Jerkyll and Mr. Hyde or Frakenstein. I hosted one event that had some mercenaries travel into Nazmir. And two sets of people got two different perspectives of the events; but leaving clues of course to help the players figure it out.
Add in some player involvement with a player character hallucinating seeing his long lost sister when it was really an enemy and it led for some honestly cool rp when he was defending the boss. At least, the group seemed to enjoy it a lot. And I was happy as a dm to see them figure it out and overcome it.
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