One of the genres I don’t tend to run is horror. I have nothing against it. I love a good scary pic — The Thing (Carpenter! dammit!) scared the hell out of me and remains one of the best examples of how to do it. Alien — come on. Trust me on this one: The Autopsy of Jane Doe. Spare, superbly acted, tense, and short enough to not drag and still get the job done.

But it’s really hard to create that atmosphere at the gaming table for me. We’ve had a session here and there that’s been creepy, or discomfiting, but really scary? Nope. To try and keep that tension across a whole campaign? I’ve never seen it done, but I’m sure there are those that could pull it off. At best, we’d get a sort of Ghostbusters kind of vibe. It’s just not the players’ nature to play dark.

About the best I’ve managed is for my Dungeons & Dragons campaign. One of the things I noted when prepping for it…you’re dealing with monsters! This isn’t some heist film in armor with swords, you’re going into caves or what have you to take on some f***ing creature of the night to save a village if you’re noble, or nick its stuff if you’re not. It should be scary. Taking that angle and running with it, I ran that angle. The players were expecting light high fantasy. they got gore and misty forests with creatures that were trying to kill them. It was about the closest I managed to get, so far. (That my daughter started playing in a side game after this meant she got a taste of this. It works a lot better on kids. The psychiatry bills will be enormous.)