Role-playing horror movie monsters

If you are like me, you love horror movies and role-playing. Wouldn’t it be great to incorporate some of your favorite monsters into Dungeons & Dragons? Well, fortunately, I have given this idea way too much thought so you don’t have to.

Some monsters are trivial to incorporate into a game with no changes necessary (i.e. Dracula, the Wolf Man), but others can be trickier. In this post I will give suggestions on running five monsters from classic and modern horror movies in such a way as to keep the feel of the movies.

The Blob

A villager finds a strange rock (it could have fallen from the sky as in the movie, magically appeared out of nowhere, or something related specifically to your campaign). When he touches the rock, a small, fast moving purple ooze (treat as a black pudding) comes out. The more it eats, the larger it gets until the entire region is in peril.

Pinhead

Treat Pinhead as a kyton (chain devil) but instead of summoning other devils, he is able to create them out of victims (a slower process, but more horrific if ran well).

Frankenstein’s Monster

Treat Frankenstein’s monster as a flesh golem, but instead of being created by a necromancer or priest, a tinker gnome (or similar) created him through “technology”. Play him as an non-threatening creature unless provoked and, obviously, the gnome should be portrayed as crazy. An unexpected plot could be to save the monster from the townspeople.

Project Metal Beast

For those who have not seen the movie, the metal beast was a werewolf captured by the military and had body armor fused to him in much the same way that Wolverine’s skeleton was modified. Since the werewolf would regenerate quickly, the bonding did not kill it. To run this monster in a game, start with a base werewolf, but replace his skin with mithril plates. The armor class would improve based upon this change, but the encumbrance would not be affected. Also, the metal beast is always in wolf form.

The Stuff

The Stuff, from the movie of the same name, was an ooze-like substance marketed as a marshmallow-like desert topping. There were two problems with this marketing plan though. First, after ingesting a quantity, it takes over the mind of the victim causing them to want to eat more and also to feed it to family and friends. Second, after a sufficient quantity had been eaten (about 9 meals), the stuff would start oozing out of the nose, mouth, and anywhere else it could escape from; in the process, the victim would be consumed. To run stuff should be easy. The mind-control should be easy to role-play, and the rest should be treated like the blob above as multiple stuff’s will join to make a larger one.

Hopefully these suggestions will help you to add horror to your games this Halloween season. If you have any ideas on how to run other monsters, please leave a comment.