How to Run a Horror RPG Campaign That Actually Scares Your Players
- markstiltner
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Practical techniques for building dread, controlling information, and keeping your table on edge session after session
Horror at the tabletop isn't about big monsters with high damage. It's about the door your players refuse to open. The NPC whose story doesn't add up. The slow realization that something is deeply wrong, and their characters can't stop it.
Most GMs struggle to make horror land because they reach for the wrong tools. This guide breaks down how to run a horror RPG campaign using techniques that consistently create real tension at the table.
Dread Comes from the Unknown, Not the Stat Block
The most common mistake when running horror in D&D 5e is treating monsters as the source of fear. Hit points aren’t scary. Real dread comes from unknown mechanics, unclear motives, and outcomes players can see approaching but can't prevent.
Signal inevitable doom without revealing how or when. Use prophecy, cursed artifacts, or NPC testimony that later proves accurate. Players fear a confirmed bad outcome more than a hidden monster, because fate can't be smiteed.
Creatures that grow stronger based on hidden player triggers, or relentless slow-moving stalkers with alien motives, generate tension through inevitability.
Keep Characters Mortal
Here's one of the easiest RPG tips for game masters: scope your campaign to levels where fear still works. D&D 5e characters become demigods beyond level 10. Horror needs vulnerability.
Levels 1 through 5 are the sweet spot. You can push to level 10 with careful escalation. Beyond that, your players PCs are the ones everyone should be afraid of.
Structure Your Campaign for Escalating Tension
A horror campaign follows a natural arc of rising dread. This seven-phase framework provides structure without rigidity:
The Hook. An anomaly that seems explainable by mundane means. Tie it to something personal.
The Investigation. Multiple paths forward: research, interviews, exploration, observation.
The Ticking Clock. Time pressure forces hard choices. Each delay has consequences.
The Escalation. The threat notices the party and pushes back. Mystery becomes conflict.
The Revelation. Scattered clues coalesce into terrible understanding.
The Confrontation. Resolution through combat, ritual, destruction, or escape.
The Aftermath. Consequences settle. New hooks grow from the wreckage.
For any conclusion you want players to reach, plant at least three separate clues pointing to it. Players will miss some and misinterpret others. That's expected.
Design Encounters Around Survival, Not Victory
Horror encounters ask "can the party survive this?" rather than "can they win this fight?" Think in categories:
Survival. The creature can drop anyone in two rounds. Success means getting out alive.
Puzzle. The threat is invulnerable to standard attacks. Victory requires discovering and exploiting a specific weakness.
Pursuit. A slow, relentless stalker. Terrain, hiding spots, and dead ends matter more than attack rolls.
Attrition. The creature can be killed, but the resource cost is steep. Players must decide whether the fight is worth it.
Describe creatures through wrongness, not power level. "It moves in a parody of human gait, joints bending in directions they shouldn't" creates more dread than "a huge faceless creature attacks you."
Control Information Across Sessions
This is how to make tabletop RPG sessions scary over a campaign, not just one night. Mix accurate, inaccurate, and partially correct NPC information so players constantly reassess their assumptions.
Witnesses to horror are rarely coherent. They contradict each other, fixate on irrelevant details, or omit the one crucial fact. Persistent uncertainty keeps players unsettled session after session.
Describe Absence, Not Detail
Prioritize your descriptions over any prop or playlist. Emphasize what's missing, what's obscured, and what feels wrong rather than spelling out every detail. Never fully describe cosmic entities. Focus on sensory details that shouldn't exist: colors outside normal perception, sounds felt in bone rather than heard.
Layer in dim lighting, ambient music, and physical handouts after your descriptions are solid. They support your words. They don't replace them.
Let Players Laugh
Players will crack jokes during tense moments. That's a good sign. Humor signals that the tension is working and they need pressure release. Stay in your consistent tone, let the laugh happen, and pull the atmosphere back. Don't punish humor.
Look to the Classics, Save Prep Time
You don't need to invent horror from nothing. Adapt proven frameworks from Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, or John Carpenter. Re-skin classic horror plots into your setting. Pre-built horror adventures, like the R'lyeh Rising series, give busy GMs ready-made investigative structures designed for this exact purpose.
Questions & Answers
How does running horror differ between one-shots and full campaigns? One-shots can lean on unexplained monsters and isolated dread. Campaigns need villains with clear motivation, history, and evolving goals to sustain tension over many sessions.
What happens when players fail in a horror campaign? Failure creates consequences, not endings. A completed enemy ritual shifts the campaign's direction. A missed clue means the threat escalates. Let failure open new story paths instead of closing the book.
Can horror work alongside heroic fantasy? It can, but horror works best as the primary mode. If you want horror arcs inside a heroic campaign, run them at lower levels and commit fully to the atmosphere for their duration.
Ready to Run Horror at Your Table?
R’lyeh Rising is a 1920s Lovecraftian campaign setting made for 5e. Sign up now to follow the Kickstarter and get Early Bird pricing, and get the Detective Class PDF for free.
