Troll Lord Games

Hey all, I'm a fan of dark fantasy, but i'm a little unsure of how to create a dark fantasy atmosphere for a campaign. All my experience is in high/low fantasy. I could use some advice on creating a dark fantasy. Any advice?

It depends on your definition of dark fantasy.

Look into Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (1st and/or 2nd edition). That should give you some ideas. It's dark, but you could call it fantasy with horror or gritty. It also has some elements of epic fantasy (though not usually at the player's level) and some high magic.

I too am (well was when I ran games) was a low fantasy leaning GM. That said, there were times I had the itch to run a darker more horror themed game.

To me it was all atmosphere in explaining the setting and the game. Lean towards more darker and sinister descriptions of things. Everything from fog to the sounds of the night, or even the looks that one gets in the local pub. For that, I would read some good classic horror books, (Dracula is the first to come to mind but Poe and a few others rate up there too) and pattern my descriptions from the books.

Also, I would remember that horror isn't action, it is suspense … With that, I'd use the books again as inspiration on how to build suspense and put notes all over the place in my adventure to remind be to stay focused on the suspense.

Then I would dig into some of the horror modules. The original "Raven Loft" was great inspiration on that area. Plus, I had (well have somewhere) the "Beyond Supernatural" game. I'd use those as more ways to focus the flow of the adventure.

Finally, the setting of the mood at the game table. Normally, I avoided sound props (CDs with sound effects) for my game, and I'd have generic 'classical' or Celtic type music in the background just to have background noise. However, for a horror game, I'd use sound effects fairly heavily … there is nothing like explaining a pack of wolves howling in the distance, but getting closer. And then as the party is talking play a wolf howling fairly softly, then a few minutes later have it play lower and then … Plus, I would have all the famous creepy horror movie theme music playing in the background.

As others have said, it depends on your definition of "dark".

For a Gothic setting, i'd suggest Ravenloft (AD&D 2nd Ed), which should port to C&C quite easily. Actually there is a well done C&C Ravenloft conversion which you can find online. Horror and Sanity checks are always fun. Heh.

Alternatively, if you want a post-apocalyptic feel, check out the Midnight setting from Fantasy Flight Games. It's a setting where Evil has won and the world in plundered- only a few small vestiges of Good hold out in a desperate bid to fight back. It was written for 3E, but you could focus on the flavor of the setting with only a few rules tweaks.

-Fizz

The expanded Ravenloft isn't just Gothic, it covers just about every common flavor there is, especially in the 3E books.

Maybe give the Tainted Lands boxed set a look, along with the Black Libram of Nartarus if you want to stay C&C as much as possible.
But most importantly, as the guy above said, move some of your game/encounter planning from action and combat to suspense and fear. To me, a game is only dark if it feels dark. When I go dark, I actually like to dim/turn out the lights and play by candle light. Also, if you're like me and use music/audio/effects during your games, give Midnight Syndicate a look. They have some great albums of intense dark fantasy soundtracks. (and not just fantasy, some stuff that would work well for cthulu or jack the ripper type dark rainy London back alley stuff).

Check this out. If you dim the lights and loop this in the background to get your game going, the game will go dark, I promise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3w2OCylUTU

If you really want to take it to the next level, you can add simple theatrics. Something I do from time to time to make the game feel different, is while I'm talking, I'll leave my spot and walk around the table behind the players. So they have to turn their heads and sometimes I'm out of view. Maybe I'll raise my voice at one point and put my hand kind of harshly on a shoulder to startle them. Then, when you walk around next time, they're nervous because they don't know what you're going to do. This will really put them in the mood if your players are anything like mine.

Some easily convertible goodness:

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/8 ... rawling+ch

Also, Gygax Magazine (great publication that takes me back to the days of Dragon Magazine) has an article in issue #2, Weird Vibrations, which has some suggestions for integrating Lovecraftian elements into fantasy genre gaming.

Or is Dark in your goal, All the PCs play evil aligns???

Suggested "good bad guys" for themes would obviously be M. Moorcock's Elric series and now Steven Erikson's Bauchelain & Korbal Broach's First Collected Tales... "The Desire for goodness, Mister Reese, leads to earnestness. Earnestness in turn leads to sanctimonious self-righteousness, which breeds intolerance, upon which harsh judgment quickly follows, yielding dire punishment, inflicting general terror and paranoia, eventually culminating in revolt, leading to chaos, then dissolution, thus, the end of civilization. And we are creatures dependent upon civilization. It is the only environment in which we can thrive." Lectured Bauchelain.
Mr. Reese frownded. 'The desire for goodness leads to the end of civilization?'
"Precisely, Mister Reese."

Two nastier "Bad Guys" you must respect are hard to find...

Personally, I could never pull off such gaming.. to play at "evil" and unfair play.. is just too odd and much work for me.. good luck!

dig crypts and things.
dark and cool.
great setting material

http://d101games.com/books/crypts-and-things/

Great ideas. Thanks for the suggestions. By dark I was thinking along the lines of witcher. Lots of ghouls, ghosts and undead. I like the lovecraftian feel amd Poe is a great reference.

I would think anything by Tanya Huff or Wayne Barlowe's "God's Demon" would give that kind of darker feel.. with the later getting all the way down to the final dark frontier.

jdizzy001 wrote:Great ideas. Thanks for the suggestions. By dark I was thinking along the lines of witcher. Lots of ghouls, ghosts and undead. I like the lovecraftian feel amd Poe is a great reference.

Given that, I stand by my WFRP advice. It's heavily influenced by lovecraft. Also, any of the Cthulu games are bound to have some ideas you could incorporate.

I've been (for some time) reading up on warhammer fantasy. I give it two thumbs up! I love the chaos theme. Very cool!

I love Warhammer 2E during the lower career ranks, but if your game lasts until the higher ranks where they get really good at blocking, dodging, etc... the combat bogs down waaaaay too much and I stop liking it.

Ravenloft has some perfect "realms" for the kind of gaming your talking about, and you don't even have to keep them in the Ravenloft setting to keep that "feel", you can take them out and us them as the core for your own setting. The Pathfinder world setting has a very similar area as Ravenloft that you could use as well, and it is a bigger area, a country.

If money is any issue, find a good map online, or draw one yourself, and set up the "societies" to have these evil secrets underlying their communities.