Plot and Story

advantage in familiar terrain: They know all the good hiding places and have easy access to aid and information. But by the same token, they have plenty of loved ones, friends, and allies who are suddenly in danger. They also have more to lose—they cannot simply turn tail and run if the going gets too tough. This fact can make the horror more immediate than an adventure that occurs in an exotic setting, because the game itself feels more real. The more clearly a player can picture the environment, the harder the horror hits home. And in most cases, it’s easier to envision a village or city than some foreign or even alien landscape. It’s important for a DM not to overuse the concept of exotic settings for horror adventures. If she only has one such adventure in an otherwise traditional campaign, an alien or foreign setting is just fi ne. If she intends to include multiple horror sessions scattered throughout the campaign, most of them should probably take place in more mundane settings, with the exotic environments used only to add spice. Otherwise, the players come to expect and prepare for horrifi c plots if they always fi nd themselves in odd locations before one occurs, whereas fear is more potent when the players have no time to prepare for it. Any horror the DM concocts will have less impact if the players think of it as something that only happens to them outside the normal confi nes of the campaign. Enough horror occurs in the real world; surely any campaign has villains and monsters that can wreak their terror in even the most pristine and innocent regions of the setting. Mix and Match Environmental Elements: Chapter 1 offers suggestions on using the environment to create a sense of impending horror, with supply shortages, increasing weather hazards, and the like. Consider using a combination of these elements when running a horror adventure. A sense of urgency can develop when a series of environmental circumstances lead into or feed off one another. For instance, geographical isolation can be accompanied by extreme weather, which can lead to growing shortages of food and fuel. Alternatively, the PCs might be stalked by a foe they are just barely strong enough to fend off. Unfortunately, their food and water grow scarce as they try to find their way back to civilization. Each time they are attacked, they are just a bit hungrier, a bit more tired (and thus a bit weaker), and a little lower on expendable magic than the previous time. The precarious balance is slowly tilted out of their favor; if they cannot find some way to rest, replenish their supplies, or escape their pursuer(s), they will soon be unable to ward off their enemy at all.

How Do the Plot and the Adversaries Mesh with the Environment? It can seem obvious to experienced DMs, but it’s still worth pointing out: The setting must enhance, or at least not interfere with, the plot of the adventure. If a story revolves around figuring out which member of a community is secretly a wererat who has been killing local leaders, the community must be large enough to present a reasonable range of suspects. If an adventure involves the discovery of a new trap-fi lled tomb, haunted by the spirits of an ancient race who died there ten thousand years ago, it most likely should be pretty distant from the nearest major community, or else someone’s going to wonder why it wasn’t unearthed before now. If part of an adventure’s tension comes from the PCs slowly running out of food in the dead of winter, it obviously should not be set so close to civilization that the PCs can just dash back and buy more rations. (Unless, of course, the entire region is in the grip of famine, which is a whole different sort of alteration to the setting, but no less appropriate.) See Chapter 3: A Horror Campaign for more on the use of setting in a horror story.

It’s practically impossible to have a horror adventure without some element of story involved. It doesn’t matter how terrible a villain might hypothetically be if she doesn’t do anything; it doesn’t matter how much a setting contributes to the mood if the PCs have no reason to be there. Some DMs prefer not to create overarching stories, instead simply presenting the PCs with the environment and allowing them to do as they will. This is certainly a viable style of gaming, but it’s perhaps less appropriate to horror games, simply because the what and why of horror are just as important as the who, how, and where. Even DMs who normally run freeform games should strongly consider developing a general storyline for their horror adventures, even if it’s only a bit more in-depth than what they’re accustomed to. At the same time, it’s very easy—especially in a horror game—for the DM to go too far, and become too rigid with his plot. Horror might be at least partly about fear and helplessness, but that does not mean that your players should be helpless to steer the game. Player choice must be as viable and important here as it is in any other game; if the DM designs a story so rigidly that the PCs can do nothing but follow from point A to B to C, without changing anything with their decisions, they might as well be reading a book or watching television. It’s a balancing act between the two extremes, and it takes practice and a working knowledge of a particular group’s preferences to get it exactly right. The best way to design a plot in a horror adventure (and many other types of adventure, for that matter) is for the DM to know the objectives and methods of the villains and NPCs fairly well, set them in motion, and determine how they will turn out if the PCs do not interfere. If he has a solid grasp on these factors, then it’s a simple matter to extrapolate what happens next after the presence of the PCs has thrown the original scheme to hell and gone. For instance, the DM has determined that a vampire lord seeks to kill a particular member of a small city’s populace, because prophecy claims this person’s daughter will eventually destroy the undead noble. He is making use of the city’s thieves guild to fi nd her, masquerading as a mortal who seeks her as part of a kidnapping scheme, whose profi ts he will share with the guild. If they are not stopped by outside factors (namely, the PCs), they will eventually succeed in locating her and turn her over to the vampire, who will doubtless slay her immediately. With this information, the DM is equipped to decide what happens after the PCs interfere. If they defeat or slay members of the guild, the organization will come after them, both to complete their original assignment

and for revenge. If the PCs expose their employer’s true nature to the guild, will they remove themselves from the affair? Continue to serve the vampire? Turn on him? The DM should decide ahead of time what the Guildmaster is like, and therefore how she is likely to react to such circumstances. If the PCs flee with the intended victim, they might escape the guild, but the vampire lord will follow. Can the PCs confront the vampire lord directly? Have they a chance of slaying him, or even of survival? Can they at least wound him enough to force him to retreat, giving them opportunity to hide the woman elsewhere? Clearly, while the DM has a plotline planned for the story, the actions of the PCs definitely have an impact on where it goes. Perhaps most important, the DM must be willing to let the story take its course, even if the PCs do something completely unexpected or succeed in defeating a foe she never thought they could. It can be hard for a DM to let go of a favored plot, but better that than to make the players feel useless. Besides, it’s always possible to salvage a new plot from the ashes of the old. Given the above example, suppose the PCs do slay the vampire lord. Is the story over? Well, yes—for now. But the vampire lord might have had minions, or allies, and since it’s now clear the prophecy regarding the woman’s child didn’t refer to the vampire lord himself—after all, it was the PCs who killed him—maybe it referred to one of them instead? Are they willing to wait around and fi nd out? (Of course, it’s possible the prophecy did refer to that child. After all, it was because of her—even though she has not yet been conceived, let alone born—that the vampire lord encountered the PCs in the fi rst place.)

Mystery in a Horror Adventure

Mystery and horror go together so perfectly that some people automatically associate the two. Both are based on the unknown, on hidden danger and a desperate struggle to snatch victory from overwhelming odds. Mystery stories can be diffi cult to tell in the context of a D&D game, but they certainly aren’t impossible. Authors have written entire books on how to craft a good mystery, something well beyond the scope of Heroes of Horror. The following pointers should, however, form a suffi cient foundation to get you started in the right direction. First, when planning your game and dropping hints and clues during it, it is always better to include too many clues than to include too few. As the DM, you have the advantage of seeing the big picture; your players do not. It might seem a bit unrealistic for a masterful, intelligent villain to leave hints as to his presence, identity, and plans all over the place. Could he really have been foolish enough to allow that child begging on the street corner to have witnessed his crime, and to leave a scrap of paper imprinted with his employer’s symbol unburned beside the fi replace, and to be the only person in town to have purchased that one vital ingredient for the incantation he’s planning to cast? Any one of those is a bad mistake. All three, and your villain might seem more criminally stupid than criminal. Remember, however, that your players aren’t likely to see all these hints. As soon as they fi nd one trail of breadcrumbs that leads to your villain, they’re likely to follow it. They might never know that you planted other trails. If you only have one string of clues to the solution of your mystery, the players (and the plot) are in trouble if they miss it. If you have several, they might fi nd the second even if they missed the fi rst, or the third if they missed the second. Along similar lines, conundrums and puzzles that are too easy are better than those that are too hard. If you’ve put together a fi nely crafted mystery, full of false leads and layers of conspiracy, you don’t want your players stumbling across the one piece of information that cuts through the whole thing in a matter of minutes. Still, a game in which the players feel they are accomplishing nothing bogs down very quickly, and the frustration can reduce their desire to participate in a similar mystery in the future. It’s better to make the clues a bit too obvious and let the story end too quickly than to make the clues too diffi cult and the story stretch too long. The players will feel a sense of accomplishment rather than resentment, and you can always make your next mystery harder. Finally, too much of anything—including mystery—gets stale. Intersperse investigations and mysteries with more action-oriented or political stories. Bored players can bring down any game, of course, but mysteries are particularly vulnerable to player malaise. After all, if the players aren’t into the story, they’re likely to miss even the most blatant clues, thus slowing the game down even further. Use other sorts of games between mysteries, and be sure to include

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BAITING THE HOOK

Nothing ruins a good story like having the PCs just walk away from it, and this is especially true of a horror adventure, into which the DM is likely to have put a great deal of thought and preparation. In many groups, this isn’t a problem; the players are eager to leap into whatever the DM has planned. Some, however, require a bit more encouragement to involve themselves in dangerous or frightening situations. As mentioned above, having the horror strike home—victimizing the PCs’ closest allies, for instance—should encourage even the most reluctant character to get involved. Alternatively, the DM might offer a prize too great to ignore—perhaps an item the PCs have sought since the start of the campaign. Sometimes the horror comes to the PCs. If they are being stalked through a haunted foundry or trapped on a ship, they cannot simply walk away; in fact, escape might be the greatest prize they can hope to win. One additional type of hook that is particularly appropriate to the horror genre involves consequences of the PCs’ own actions. Perhaps the monster they face here is the ghost of someone they allowed to die years ago, or a demon they failed to fully destroy. If the characters are not all good-aligned, the individual seeking vengeance or justice against them might even be justified in her vendetta, even if she is choosing to take it out on the PCs’ loved ones rather than on the party members directly. Most players will not be able to walk away from such a plot hook, precisely because it involves their own actions—and even if they try, it’s likely to follow them.