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Drammattex 10-20-06, 03:01 PM

Congrats to Mike Mearls, David Noonan, and the "Expedition to Ravenloft" design team for an informative and once again 'tons-o-fun' podcast. In this podcast, Mearls and Noonan discuss running a horror D&D game, providing tips for DMs and Players, talking over strategies for making horror work in RPGs, and their personal history with running horror games. The designers popped on to talk about the process of creating the "Expedition to Castle Ravenloft" module. Check it out here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/pod/20061020a). What were your impressions of the podcast? ________________________________________ ___ I found that Mike & Dave face the same challenges I do when running a horror game, the greatest challenge of which is probably the medium itself. The standard RPG is played in someone's house around a pizza or a bowl of Cheetos, miniatures, ringing phones, roommates, kids, family members, or what have you. Horror is... I believe they referred to it in the podcast as "a fragile flower." It's all about creating atmosphere and heightening the tension so that the players themselves get the willies. Someone cracks a joke, the pizza man comes, a cell phone rings... you're done. The tension is broken and you have to start over to build it all up again. Mearls & Noonan said horror is the opposite of comedy. Joe Bill of Annoyance Productions (improv comedy) said "Improv comedy is the buildup and sudden release of tension." Think about that. The doctor tells the man "You have cancer. You only have a month to live." (tension established) The man says "Can I get a second opinion?" The doctor looks at him and says "You're ugly, too." (tension broken) One of the things Mike & Dave said in the podcast was that players can contribute to a horror game by going with it- just going with it and making an extra effort to play your character's reactions to the scene instead of fighting it. "Chew the scenery like a method actor if you have to," they said; it's often perceived that the DM's job is to entertain the players, but this is not the case. It's everybody's job to pitch in and contribute to the game. This, by the way, is the basic principle on which improvisation is founded, and D&D is an improvisational form- whether it's popularly recognized as one or not. The fault of the last campaign I ran was that tension could only be established for about five minutes before one of the players took an opportunity to crack a joke and pop the bubble. I laughed along with them so I wouldn't look like a spoil sport, but it did undermine the drama of the story. It was my fault for not stopping that when I could. I think it's challenging to keep a good atmosphere/mood going in D&D unless the players and the DM cooperate to not only play the statistical board/combat/stat game, but also use their imaginations to the utmost in order to paint the scenes. That should go a little ways towards making horror work better in D&D games.