Five Horror Archetypes to use in your campaign

More than most genres, a good horror story requires a good villain.  With that in mind, here are five horror archetypes to use in your campaign.

The Creepy Child

There is something truly unnerving when you take the innocence of a small child an juxtapose it with a malign intelligence.  A creepy child has knowledge beyond her years and usually manipulates the adults around her with terrifying ease.  A creepy child doesn’t always have to be evil, but should never be truly good either.

A good role for a creepy child is to dispense information.  Having psychic or oracular powers is plays to the child’s role as an innocent who knows to much.  Alternatively, an immortal child, like a vampire, might know too much just because they have been around for a long time.

A creepy child can also be used as the main villain of the piece.  If used as the main villain, it is probably best wait until the climax to reveal the child as the villain.  Give the players plenty of time to interact with the child first, in order to maximize the shock and horror when they realize the child is not as innocent as they believed.

A creepy child works well alone, but they can be used effectively as minions of a “boss monster”.  Imagine a malignant gnome who lures children into the woods and removes their souls.  During the final confrontation he could call his children to defend him, leaving the heroes in the uncomfortable position of having to mow down children to get to the real threat.

Dungeons & Dragons is filled with monsters that make good creepy children.  Child vampires, doppelgangers, fey changelings, and demonic possession are only a few examples.  On the other hand, keeping the reasons for the child’s behavior a mystery can be effective as well.

The Handsome Fiend

Beautiful and charming on the outside, the handsome fiend has a soul as black as pitch. Vampires are the quintessential handsome fiends, but demons in human form, doppelgangers, and beautiful unseelie fey all can all play this part.

A handsome fiend should be a charmer, quite possibly literally capable of putting others under his spell.  Unlike many monsters, the victims of handsome fiends often give themselves over him willingly.

A handsome fiend is usually intelligent.   He is unlikely to risk his life in a pointless combat.  Conflict with a handsome fiend usually comes when the heroes run afoul with one of the handsome fiend’s plots.  Even then, they are much more likely to attack the heroes with pawns, especially in the early battles.

Sometimes handsome fiends can can be a bit too overconfident though.  They are used to getting their way and are not used to the kind of persistence seen in the average adventuring group.

To truly play up the horror factor of a handsome fiend, it is important to emphasize just how vile the handsome fiend really is.  They must perform depraved acts that are totally at odds with their beautiful exterior. 

This should not be a character that the players feel they can compromise with.  Maybe he is a vampire who feeds exclusively on young children.  Maybe he is a fey lord who enjoys seducing young women and driving them to suicide for his own amusement.  He may even be stuck in a cycle of betrayal like Strahd, where he is forced to relive his depraved crimes again and again.

The Sympathetic Monster

The sympathetic monster was not born evil, but was driven to it by unfortunate circumstances or by simple bad luck.  There should be a sense that if things had gone just a little bit differently that a great tragedy could have been averted.

Frankenstein is the quintessential sympathetic monster.  As a result, golems, warforged, and other constructs work well in this role.  Lycanthropes also are good choices, since they may be decent people who have succumbed to the beast within. 

Of course a sympathetic monster doesn’t need to be inhuman.  A great warlord who is a great hero to his people but makes dark bargains with infernal creatures to “protect” his homeland can fall into this archetype as well.

To make the sympathetic monster effective in a horror campaign, he must cross the point of no return.  While your players may empathize with the monster, at some point the monster should make a choice that puts him beyond redemption.  In Frankenstein, this point was when the monster chose to murder Victor Frankenstein’s fiancée.  In the module Ravenloft, Strahd can be seen as sympathetic until he chose to murder his brother Sergei out of his obsessive desire for Tatyana.

The Monster Within

Most monsters are an external threat.  The monster within is an internal one.  Unknown to even the character (and quite possibly the player), he is actually the villain of the piece.  This is a lot like the Sympathetic Monster, except the monster within brings the horror home.

Good candidates for the monster within include lycanthropes (if you still use the infected variety), possession (demons, ghosts, and the occasional evil wizard), or even a psychotic break (perhaps after exposure to an evil artifact or Lovecraftian horror).

The monster within works best when the clues slowly pile up until the truth becomes undeniable.  Done well, this archetype can bring the horror to a very personal level.

While all horror requires buy in from your players, make sure that you don’t pull this one on someone who would feel their character has been violated beyond redemption.  Of course you can always work with your player to spring this archetype on the other members of the group.

After all, some twisted players would enjoy playing a demon possessed Elven wizard or a Halfling lycanthrope.

The Unstoppable Killer

When you kill something, it is supposed to remain dead.  The unstoppable killer doesn’t know this.  No matter how many times you take the unstoppable killer out, he just keep coming back for more.

Undead, from lowly skeletons and zombies to hate-filled ghosts fill this role well.  Golems also make natural unstoppable killers.  Unlike most of its kind, the unstoppable killer usually has some kind of regenerative capabilities that keep them from being easily dispatched. 

Perhaps the skeletons the party is fighting continue reform until an evil artifact within the room is destroyed.  Maybe a vengeful ghost will inevitably reform until her killer is brought to justice.   Sometimes the golem will not fall dead, no matter how many hit points of damage the party inflicts, until the word Emet is changed to Meit on it’s forehead.

While they are tenacious, unstoppable killers are rarely great plotters.  The puzzle should come from figuring out how to finally put them down once and for all.

Introducing The Critical Wounds System

I have argued in defense of healing in 4E Dungeons & Dragons in the past. It works off of the assumption that most hp damage is minor (e.g., muscle fatigue, shallow cuts, blows mostly absorbed by armor, parries, etc.), up until the hit that kills you.

This works for me, mostly because it is hit points have been an abstraction going all the way back to original D&D. After all, it is not as if a tenth level fighter was physically tough enough to be stabbed in the chest fifteen times in a row. Most of those hit points, even back then, were meant to represent the experience that allowed you to get out of harm’s way.

Still, I think with 4E D&D the pendulum may have swung a little too far the other way. While I don’t mind the majority of wounds being transient, it seems more dramatic to have enemies deliver the occasional telling blow to the heroes.

The Critical Wounds System

The Critical Wounds system is an alternative method of handling critical hits in D&D 4E. It does require a little more bookkeeping than the current system, but I believe the trade off is worth it. I will also admit that this system is in the early stages, and that it has not undergone any play-testing. I will be the first to admit that the system will probably need a little tweaking before it is ready for prime time.

The basic concept behind Critical Wounds is that there are some injuries that are simply harder to heal than others. These injuries are called “wounds”. Unlike normal hit point damage, wound damage on characters cannot be healed by powers or by using healing surges. Wounds can be healed by taking an extended rest or by the use of rituals. However, as these are life-threatening injuries, getting better is not guaranteed. After all, sometimes injuries can become infected, and even heroes can die from internal bleeding.

So enough of the fluff, let’s move on to the crunch.

Critical Hits

The current critical hit rules (where critical hits deal maximum damage) are still used for adjudicating critical hits against monsters. In this case, a monster is defined as any creature that dies at 0 hit points. The new critical hit system is only applicable to Player Characters and NPC’s with full character write-ups.

Critical Hits no longer deal maximum damage under the Critical Wounds system. Instead damage is rolled normally, but one-half of the damage (rounded down) is applied to the character’s wound total while the remainder is applied as hit point damage. Any special effects that occur on a critical hit still apply.

Wound Total

Wounds are tracked separately from hit points. While they affect the overall health of the character, they are not hit points and cannot be healed by healing surges, powers, and other effects that can heal hit points. Wound damage does count against the total number of hit points a character has, acting as a cap on the maximum number of hit points they can have.

Characters with wound damage can also suffer additional debilitating effects. When a character has wounds equal to or greater than one-quarter of his hit point total, he suffers a -1 to all defenses, attack rolls, ability checks, and skill checks. When his wounds are equal to or greater than one-half of his hit point total he suffers a -2 to all defenses, attack rolls, ability checks, and skill checks. A character with wounds equal to or greater than three-quarters of his hit point total is truly on his last legs. He suffers a -5 to all defenses, attack rolls, ability checks, and skill checks. In addition, he is only capable of moving at half-speed.

Healing Wounds

A character can attempt to heal wounds when he takes an extended rest. However, with grave injuries healing is far from assured. When the character takes an extended rest, they must roll an Endurance check (this is subject to any wound penalties the character is suffering).

The DM should then consult the Difficulty Class and Damage by Level chart (DMG p. 42. Note that the target numbers have been updated). If the character makes at least an easy success on the chart, there is no change. If the character makes a moderate success on the chart, he heals a number of wounds equal to a medium normal damage expression. If the character makes a hard success, he heals a number of wounds equal to a high normal damage expression. However, if the character fails to make an easy check, they take an additional number of wounds equal to a low normal damage expression.

It is possible for another character to use the Heal skill in place of the wounded character’s Endurance skill check. There may also be rituals in your campaign which can assist in healing wounds. I will detail one such ritual in an upcoming post.

Example in play

Almirith is a second level eladrin warlord with 27 hit points, a bloodied value of 13, and a healing surge value of 6. His party encounters a group of kobolds. During the battle, he is struck by a critical hit that deals him 11 points of damage. Almirith applies 5 points as wound damage and 6 points as hit point damage. Since 5 wounds is less than his one-quarter of his hit points, Almirith suffers no debilitating effects.

The next round he takes 6 points of additional damage, which are applied to his hit points. He is bloodied because his total hit point damage (12 hp) plus his wound damage (5 wounds) is more than his bloodied value (13). Almirith decides it is prudent to expend a use of inspiring word, which heals him 9 hit points and removes the bloodied condition.

The party dispatches the remaining kobolds and takes a short rest. Almirith takes this opportunity to expend a healing surge, which heals his remaining 3 hit points of damage. However, he is unable to heal his 5 wounds.

After travelling deeper into the dungeon, the party encounters a group of goblins. Almirith gets hit with another critical hit by a goblin hexer, dealing 9 points of damage. He takes 4 points as wound damage and 5 points as hit point damage. Since his wound damage (9 wounds) is now more than one-quarter his hit point total, he suffers a -1 to all defenses, attack rolls, ability checks, and skill checks. He is also bloodied because his wound damage (9 wounds) and hit point damage (4 hp) equals his bloodied value (13).

Almirith goes most of the rest of the battle without taking damage. He thinks his luck is improving when an enraged goblin skullcrusher manages a critical on him and rolls 15 points of damage! He takes 7 points of wounds damage (bringing his total to 16 wounds) and 8 points of hit point damage (bringing his total to 12 hp damage). 16 wounds plus 12 hp exceeds Almirith’s hit point total of 27, so he goes down.

Almirith’s luck finally does change as he rolls a 20 on his death saving throw. He is able to spend a healing surge and stands up. However, he is not in good shape. He still has 16 wounds. Since this is more than one-half his hit point total he suffers a -2 to all defenses, attack rolls, ability checks, and skill checks. Almirith is currently at 6 hit points. He uses another inspiring word and would normally heal 8 hit points. However, because of his 16 wounds his hit point total is capped at 11. This also means until he can heal some of his wounds, he is considered bloodied.  Things are not looking good for our hero. 

Still, through a combination of luck and skill he manages to survive the encounter.  His party sets up camp to take an extended rest.  Almirith rolls an Endurance skill check.  Almirith is not skilled in Endurance and has no Constitution bonus, so his roll is 1d20 - 1 (+1 from one half his level -  2 from wounds).  He rolls a 12, which is a moderate success.  Almirith rolls 1d10+3, the medium normal damage expression, for a total of 8.  This reduces his remaining wounds from 16 to 8.  Not great, but at least he doesn’t start the day bloodied. 

A little feedback...

Feedback.  Every DM I know craves it.  We always want to know what our players think of our games, how they thought of the most recent session went, and how they feel the recent plot lines are coming along.

This is only natural.  The GM is creating a collaborative story with the players, and he wants to make sure everyone is having a good time.  Knowing what aspects of the campaign are working for the players helps the GM tailor the game to the taste of his players.  Feedback can also help the GM become nip potential problems in the bud before they erupt at the game table.

Unfortunately, figuring out how to get high quality feedback can be difficult.  Well, at least from the players I game with.  Usually, the most a GM will get is a “it was great”.

While we DMs are an arrogant bunch, it is hard to imagine that all games we run are equally great.  How to get more accurate information?  Well, DM’s are also a wily bunch, so here are some of the methods I have seen in action.

The Questionnaire

Yes, I have actually seen GM’s hand out questionnaires after a session.  Sort of like if the GM was running a training seminar instead of a role-playing game.  The questions generally go something like this:

On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being totally disagree and 10 being totally agree do you think:

1. There were sufficient combat opportunities.
2. There were sufficient roleplaying opportunities.
3. There was too much damn combat!
4. There was too much damn roleplaying!
5. The NPC’s were not annoying.
6. There was sufficient treasure (even for that damn greedy halfling).

All I will say is, if you ever need a definition for sarcasm, all you need to do is print out some of these questionnaires.

The Mandatory Write-Up

One GM I know required session write-ups from each player after each session.  He let the players know that he was using these write-ups to assign experience.  Unknown to them, it was also a method of getting feedback by seeing what each player thought was important about the game session.

The advantage of this technique was that it was a much subtler method of gathering information.  The downside was that many players considered these write-ups onerous.  After all, writing doesn’t come easy to everyone.  So perhaps a method that doesn’t foster resentment is in order?

Get them drunk

Which brings me to my favorite method, heading down to the local pub after a game.  After all, it is said that “in vino veritas”, which translated from Latin means “in wine there is the truth”.  I once ran a Changeling game where the group would regularly head down to our local watering hole, Flossmoor Station after the game.

This worked pretty darn well.  Few gamers resent going to a bar.  More importantly, they definitely tended to have more candid conversations concerning the game when they were deep in their cups. 

Sadly, these late night excursions have become less common as we have slowly turned into respectable family men.

So I open the question to all of you.  What methods do you recommend for getting the truth out of those wily players?

Settings with a difference: Post-Apocalyptic D&D

Post-apocalyptic settings are more commonly associated with science fiction than fantasy. Whether nuclear holocaust, biological warfare, or some other horror, we keep imagining ways we will destroy ourselves in the future.  Nevertheless, there is no reason why your Dungeons & Dragons campaign can’t use the trappings of a post-apocalyptic world as well.

The first thing you need to decide when creating a post-apocalyptic campaign is what the world was like prior to the devastation, and perhaps just as importantly, what caused it to be destroyed. There are infinite possibilities for what the world used to be like, but the most common choices are fantastical or technological.

Starting with a standard fantasy world pre-apocalypse will probably save you a lot of work. The cause for the devastation should be equally fantastic. Perhaps the world was collateral in a war between the gods. Maybe creatures from the far realm broke through and have claimed vast swaths of the changed and twisted landscape. Perhaps, like Dark Sun, sorcerer kings drained the land of its life.

Another possibility is a formerly technological world which has taken on fantasy elements after an apocalypse. Magic may be real, it may be misunderstood super-science, or a mixture of the two. The cause of the apocalypse may be anything from the standard nuclear holocaust to something more unusual, like the development of portal technology breaching the walls between dimensions and allowing all manner of horrors in.

Using post-technological fantasy worlds in D&D does require a lot more work on the part of the DM though. The DM will need to figure out how technology works and how it interacts with magic. Is use of technology forbidden due to its association with the holocaust? Is it just another power source, right next to martial, divine, and arcane? Is all “magic” simply misunderstood science? The DM needs to answer all of these questions prior to the beginning of the game.

After determining what the world was like, the next thing to decide is how badly the world is damaged. The worse off the world is, the further from standard D&D it is, and thus more work has to be to put into it. However, the more extreme worlds tend to be the most memorable as well. I tend to split my post-apocalyptic settings into three broad categories: Ruined Earth., Extreme Points of Light, and Recovered Earth.

In a ruined earth setting, civilization is still decimated by whatever destroyed the world. While some outposts of “civilization” may exist, these are usually brutal enclaves, like those found in the Dark Sun setting or the Mad Max movies. Normally, the strong rule the weak, and no true justice can be found. Often, some form of gladiatorial entertainment is the closest thing that passes for the courts. In a ruined earth setting, the characters probably have banded together for survival, rather than a desire to acquire riches.

As you may already be aware, the so-called “Points of Light” setting assumes a dangerous world with occasional bastions of civilization. The “Extreme Points of Light” assumes a world in even more dire straights, but with some form of civilized society still in existence. Usually, there is some insulating factor that kept civilization extant while the rest of the world burned.

One example I can think of is the comic book Meridian. In that world, the surface of the planet had been devastated, but civilizations still exists far above the surface on floating islands. The islands were interconnected by a fleet of airships, and few people born in the clouds ever traveled to the dangerous surface below. Meanwhile, life on the surface is much like the ruined earth setting described above.

The closest to the traditional D&D campaign is the recovered earth. In this setting, some time has passed since the cataclysm and the world has had some time to recover. Despite this recovery, some areas of the world are still marked and some creatures still changed by the events. Sword & Sorceries Scarred Lands is a good example of this setting. Even the post-Spellplague Forgotten Realms has some aspects of this, with unpredictable Changelands and creatures sporting Spellscars.

Any of these settings can offer a change of pace from your typical D&D campaign. Hopefully, the tips above will help, but if you need additional inspiration there are several pre-made settings with apocalyptic themes to check out. Dark Sun (AD&D 2E) and Desolation (Ubiquity) are definitely good places to start.

Or I suppose you could just watch a Thundarr the Barbarian marathon on Boomerang.

 

In the far future of 1994!

Settings with a difference: The Boat Game

Choosing a dynamic setting is one of the most important steps when planning a campaign.  Unfortunately, it is all too easy to gloss over the setting when designing the overall campaign. This is regrettable since a setting that is a bit different from the norm can make help make the difference between a memorable game and a forgettable one.

One campaign idea I have found to work well in the past is one which we called “The Boat Game”.  When this campaign was conceived the Lords of Tyr had just ended a long running campaign that had brought our characters from first level to early epic.  One of our goals for our next campaign was to learn from the mistakes of the first one.  Some of our concerns included:

1. Rotating DMs: This has actually proved a more of a blessing than a curse.  However, stylistic changes between the DMs could be a bit jarring at times.  We wanted to ensure that these stylistic changes could be minimized.
2. Shorter Story Arcs: Our previous campaign had an epic feel and scope.  We were looking to move to a more episodic style of campaign.  Shorter story arcs would allow us to change out DMs more frequently and avoid burnout.
3. Missing Players: Since we are an older crowd, real life often gets in the way of our gaming.  Still, it can be frustrating to deal with absenteeism.  We wanted to make the occasional disappearance of party members as painless as possible.

Our solution for these concerns was to create a boat based game.  All of the character in the game would be hired on as mercenaries on a merchant vessel.  This particular vessel would also supplement its income with occasional treasure hunting.

Most adventures would occur on land.  When the boat came into port either the captain would have some job for the characters or adventure would come to the characters.  The boat acted like a home base for the adventurers to return to, more like a town or local pub might act in a more traditional game setting.  The occasional adventure at sea would occur now and then, but would be more of of an opportunity to crack open the Monster Manual and use some of the rarely seen aquatic monsters.

More importantly, it addressed some of the issues I mentioned above.  Making the adventures occur when the boat made landfall both helped smooth over stylistic differences between the DMs and contributed to a more episodic feel.  Also, it helped minimize the problems caused by missing players, since it was easy to manufacture reasons for these characters to stay behind on the boat.

“The Boat Game” was a lot of fun.  In the end I suppose we didn’t end up sticking very well to the guidelines we created.  Once again we gravitated to an epic storyline, which pretty much shot the episodic nature we were going for in the foot. 

Ultimately, it ended sooner than expected because of some of those pesky real life reasons I mentioned above.  I still miss it though. 

Getting (and keeping) the party together

When starting a new D&D campaign, the first adventure usually brings a little extra baggage with it.  Namely, introducing the party members to one another.  While it is usually not difficult to come up with a reason for characters to band together for a fight, finding plausible reasons for characters with wildly different backgrounds and personalities to stay together can be difficult.

In fact, many DM's will gloss over this initial meeting, either by saying something like "you have been adventuring together for awhile", or the time honored "you are all in a bar when a wizard walks in the door".  Both of these solutions are somewhat unsatisfying.  The former leads to a party that should know each other well but doesn’t.  The latter is such a cliché that it is difficult to maintain suspension of disbelief once it has been used. 

Of course there are a number of tricks to bring the party together and to keep them together.  My favorite two methods for bringing a party together in a hurry are what I call the Dragonlance Method and Pick Two Friends Method.

The Dragonlance Method is named for the technique Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman used in Dragons of Autumn Twilight .  At the start of the novel, the Companions are returning to the Inn of the Last Home after an extended time apart.  When they last parted company, they had vowed to meet back at the inn five years later.  Many of them make good on their vow, only to find much has changed in the intervening years.

In some ways this is similar to "you have been adventuring together for awhile", but it has several advantages.  The primary one is that while it gives the party members a strong reason to interact and assumes they have some basic knowledge of one another, the passage of time helps explain the gaps in their knowledge.  Five years can be a long time, and it might help explain why two party member who described themselves as “best friends” in their character background seem to be unable to stand each other once the game starts.

While we have lifted the Dragonlance Method directly in at least one recent campaign, you don’t need to be so obvious.  Maybe the characters fought together in a recent war, especially if they were on the losing side (ala Firefly ).  Maybe they all grew up in the same village, even if they haven’t seen each other since they were children.  Any common event to tie the character backgrounds can be used.

A variant of this is what I call the Pick Two Friends Method, which I first came across in West End’s Star Wars RPG.  This is similar to the method above with one major exception.  Instead of having a single common background element shared by all members of the party, each player chooses two characters to share some element of their character’s background with.  If done well, this can create a group with strong ties to each other, without seeming forced.

For example, imagine the following six-member party:  Dern (Dwarven Fighter), Tomas (Human Infernal Warlock), Bran Brightbelly (Halfling Bard), Ceriel (Deva Paladin), Shen Swiftfoot (Shifter Druid), and Brother Roland (Half-Elf Cleric).  This seems like a pretty diverse group.  However, the DM asked them to pick two other party members and incorporate them into their background.

After spending a bit of time talking with one another, the players come up with the following ties:

1. Dern (Dwarven Fighter): Brother Roland Saved His life when he was wounded during a tour as a caravan guard.  Spent time exploring the reaches with Shen Swiftfoot.
2. Tomas (Human Infernal Warlock): Used to run two man cons with Bran Brightbelly. Loved the same woman as Ceriel.
3. Bran Brightbelly (Halfling Bard): Used to run two man cons with Tomas.  Was converted to worship of Erathis by Ceriel.
4. Ceriel (Deva Paladin): Converted Bran Brightbelly to worship of Erathis.  Loved the same woman as Tomas.
5. Shen Swiftfoot (Shifter Druid):  Spent time exploring the reaches with Dern. Grew up in the same village as Brother Roland. 
6. Brother Roland (Half-Elf Cleric): Grew up in the same village as Shen Swiftfoot.  Saved Dern’s life when he was wounded during a tour as a caravan guard.

This not only binds the party together, but also establishes roleplaying hooks for the characters.  Not shabby for a process that often takes only 15 minutes chatting around the game table!