Whats something that makes you shit yourself in D&D. For me its walking into a room and seeing a beholder.
>>44456870
When the DM describes a random door in extreme detail or asks odd questions like which way i turn the handle or which hand i'm using. I know he's playing me but what if he isn't?
Playing D&D
>>44456870
Depends on character level. But troll battleragers always make me flinch after this one incident where we breezed through one encounter and the DM tried to throw something at us more challenging. We were level 5 or 6 and the previous encounter was a bunch of variant kobolds with flight and a weak breath weapon.
>>44456870
>Are you sure?
>>44456870
Vampires. Motherfuckers give me the heeby-jeebies, always have since I first saw the Bela Lugosi film as a wee child. Doesn't help that mind control is also one of my "shit yourself" triggers.
>>44456870
>I'm running Pathfinder
Not having backup. I just have so much more of a psychological feeling of safety knowing "Okay, even if I get shitty rolls, at least my team mates probably won't"
Be alone and on low HP is my "Oh fuck" button in RPGs.
>>44457559
i am sure. knowing that at any moment the dice gods could say "fuck you" and hit me with a death ray, or a telekinesis ray. The beholder can just pick you up and drop you into a pit of acid at will *shudders*
>>44458217
I don't think that was a question, anon. The DM saying "Are you sure" is a sure sign that your life will be in the hands of the dice gods, and they may not be in a good mood.
>>44456870
This should give you a basic idea.
If you still have trouble play a session of Dread, the mechanics have a built in tension curve.
For detailed advice ask in a CoC thread.
>>44457559
This.
I even get the chills when I'm the DM saying it.
100% real talk: How many times in your life have you ever encountered a Beholder?
Because I'm pretty sure it's 0.
>>44457559
>2016
>Asking players if they're sure about carrying out an action
>Giving them the option to back out of something just because they might cry if you don't.
>>44456870
Nothing in D&D has ever made me feel even an inkling of fear.
>>44459586
It's not about whether they'll cry or not, it's about context. Anything the characters do in the heat of the moment can be as stupid as the players say it is. But if they have time to think twice about a risky decision, then a prompt from the DM to actually do so is perfectly reasonable.
Smart DMs throw in the odd "Are you sure?" even when the real risks aren't that great, just so it doesn't become a way of saying, "Don't do that!"
>>44459614
>But if they have time to think twice about a risky decision
And what gives them the right to time to think twice, especially when the DM is essentially saying "lol u sure? dis gonna be bad 4 u", so they can decide to just not do whatever they were gonna do.
If a player chooses an action, they have chosen. The only person who should second-guess them is the player, at their own prompting, not the DM giving them the choice to back out of a consequential action.
>>44459645
>And what gives them the right to time to think twice
In short: a character's knowledge about their surroundings is always richer than the player's. Sometimes the DM screws up and skips over some important information that the characters would notice - information that conveys the real risk of the situation - and "are you sure?" is a decent way of getting the players to re-assess what they know.
That's not to say that you can't run the game your way and have fun with it. I'm just saying that your fun is not the only true fun in the hobby.
>>44459605
Honestly, I have no idea how some people actually get scared during "horror" campaigns/settings.
>I'm playing a barbarian
every time one of my players rolls a barbarian, they do the dumbest shit, and then it manages to work.
Spriggans, I hate them.
>>44459683
They're actively looking for something to scare them.
>>44456870
The only time I shit myself during D&D it was because I had drank a lot of Mike's Hard Lemonade before the session and I was so wasted we started playing and this guy said something sort of misogynistic in front of our female player and I was so upset I stood up to confront him but I shit myself when I stood up and everyone just started laughing so I threw my pocket spaghetti at the closest one and ran for the door.
>>44457419
This.
My DM does that 'randomly' every few doors, but only about once every 30 doors something awful happens.
>>44459683
From the GM: Proper ambiance, a good setting of the scene, knowledge of what makes horror so scary, the ability to know what the character/player would find scary, and the most important part is the ability to do all of the above without actually making players so uncomfortable IRL that they can't get into the scene. You need to know your players, and you need to know them well.
From the player: Emotional investment into the scene/scenes, a willingness to be scared in the first place, and above all else, trust in the GM.
A lot of horror is about losing control, and fear of the unknown, but in the medium of roleplaying games, too much lost control and uncertainty ruins the experience. You need enough to lead players around, but not enough to show them that the rabbit was always in the hat to begin with. You need to dangle enough personal and overarching motivation in front of the players, and make sure that there's always that degree of "I'm not quite sure..."
Horror is a two-way street, and is, in my experience, very hard to pull off well due to its nature.
>>44459683
>>44460339
To add something on that I forgot; having lower powered characters helps ease along the fear of horror, but it is very possible to make a good horror situation with characters that are immensely strong powerful.
Also, what helps horror, is consuming a lot of horror, and doing it academically. Watch horror films, read horror essays, talk to people about their fears, but not in a really creepy way. Study films, watch videos explaining things, and so on and so forth. Find the common threads and pick at them, internalize. Examine yourself, and so on.
Horror is great, and fiendishly difficult. Everyone has to be in on it. And if you get any advice at all from these two posts, then listen to this:
Horror works because of the unknown. Familiar things can be made unknown, and they are often the scariest. Think very hard about fully showing the monster, possibly wait until the very end of the scenario, whether it's victory for the PCs, or victory for you.
tell you what worried me was the time we were doing an urban intrigue campaign and i found out from my DM's girlfriend that his search history for the last three days was all serial killers they'd never caught.
>>44456870
After a couple of sessions, my players have started panicking as soon as I tell them they can hear weird noises without knowing where they come from.
It is oddly satisfying.
>>44459568
>100% real talk
A-anon its a make believe game. It's not our fault you have never beaten a beholder.
>>44456870
>What's your will power save?
As a DM, nothing makes me smile more than when I do the eventual big reveal of the BBEG and watching the PCs faces go from, "yeah, I think we can handle anything you throw at us!" to, "oh shit, incoming TPK!"
Though for me, said reveal is usually the BBEG riding into battle on one of the following things:
> a reanimated ancient red drago-lich
> Two beholders pulling him along in a sleigh
> BAMFing in with a, "surprise, motherfuckers!" and firing off a Twinned Disintegrate at the tank and healbot
> A airship raining fire and brimstone (literal and figurative) upon the city/castle the PCs are occupying
And my personal favorite:
> BBEG projecting his image onto the sky for everyone to see him monologue while an army of zombies, skeletons, ghosts, ghouls, and ghasts rain down from his floating island city/home base as he's raised it from the depths of the ocean
Illithids/Mindflayers are pretty creepy/spooky for players as well, mainly due to the whole, "eating a sentient being's brains for lunch" and looking like it's calamari stuck onto some humanoid's body.
>>44460489
There's also the part where mind flayers don't just eat brains. Getting pulled away from a mind flayer after the character has been mindsmacked and stunned is a far worse fate than just having their brains eaten.
The 3.5 source book Lords of Madness is loaded with some totally decent examples of Illithid society and things that are much more colorful than getting brains eaten.
If I met this guy in D&D I'd be pretty scared.
>>44460702
I've never heard getting pulled away is a bad thing. In the monster manual it says brainsuck is an instant death. What are you getting this from and what supposedly happens to you?
>>44461120
Illithids reproduce by sticking their young (think tadpoles) into the ear of another humanoid being. Then they attach themselves to the nervous system, devour and then take over the brain. They eventually take over the host body and it forms into an Illithid.
That's just the surface level of the nastiness.
It's probably worse to be a "test subject" in their lairs and or cities.
An Illithid slave would be a pretty grim fate as well.
>>44457600
underrated post.
it's so bloated it's not even funny.
>>44459568
many a times. back when i was level one the DM would send as many beholders at us just for shits and giggles.
honestly? Nothing, I'm not worried about character death or loss of items.
In fact, often times I have to reassure my DM that my death was okay and that there's no need to apologize for it. Mostly because there are 20 other builds I want to playThere are some in my group that don't take PC death as well as I do
>>44459568
Twice that I can remember.
>>44456870
Beholders don't make me shit my pants because the type of DMs that use them are always the type of DM that just weebs that spam "KewL xDDD" monsters in room after room and end fights when they've decided they've shown the players who's boss, and call it a "campaign"
>>44468841
not in my experiences. they can be a great but terrorfying addition to a campain if used right
