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Insomnia 0.1
🕑 Added 2023-06-01 05:30:01 +0000 UTCIt’s time to dive into Insomnia!
Revisiting this project has been an absolute joy -- I hope that shows in the chunk I have for you today. Last time I approached this project, I had the same overall outline: create a horror conversion for D&D 5e in much the same way that Dark Matter represented a science fiction conversion. Instead of one elaborate setting, however, the book would include three mini-settings, each with just enough puzzle pieces to let you have a great time assembling it. And each setting needs only enough rules to adapt 5e to it.
Insomnia got off the rails last time when I realized I was inadvertently crafting a hyper-detailed equipment system for a modern RPG system that ultimately had very little to do with the whole horror theme. It was a simulationist and completionist approach, which meant I spun my tires a lot and got nowhere. Imagine a 30-page Google doc, half finished, all for the equipment for one setting. With these failings in mind and a much better idea of how to scale the scope of a project, we’ve retooled the planned settings and the outline as a whole.
I’m pleased to announce that the book is off to a great start! Not only have I finished a ton of the writing for each of the settings (everything but the host of drag-and-drop NPCs), but I’ve fully completed the modern rules conversion for Insomnia! This is a pretty slick system (if I do say so myself) that lets you play a huge variety of games in the modern day using 5e. I’m especially proud of the system to create human characters and the new modern skills.
This month’s sample is essentially the first two chapters of the book, minus a bunch of the art that’ll fill it up (as the artists are still broadly working on Extinction right now). Next month, I’d like to have a series of monsters completely finished so we can start playtesting Insomnia right away!
Please let me know what you think! Is there anything missing in Nowhere or the horror rules?
Comments
Suzuki
As someone who loves horror and knows how to run it in a D&D campaign, this is EXACTLY what I was hoping for! That said, this feels more like campfire-horror, or older horror, than the truly terrifying stuff I've read and written about. Personally, I feel the best way to do this is to establish something much, much bigger than the players. You can't beat it, only survive it, and to do that you need to actually try. Rather than piecing together what happened, you need to experience it first-hand to truly put the fear of God into your players. Usually this involves having your players face up against some sort of spawn of the big bad and beating it, leading to overconfidence, before shattering it by having the massive parent walk by in the background, for example. The mark of good horror is to never be able to fight the big bad yourself, instead only being able to run. You shouldn't ever be able to face the big bad head-on, only its minions; If you ever see the big bad, you have to run.
