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Just sayin'
Just sayin'
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Interesting. I’ll have to check out that L5R book.If you want to scare players, fear of the known is what you need. Fear of the unonown doesnt work at a table with dice and pizza.
Let them see the aftermath of what something can do. Let them read up in character about what it was that caused all that carnage. Let them learn what they're dealing with.
Then let them realise they're stuck in a castle with it and they can't leave because of the storm.
And it's hunting them.
There's a book for Legend of the Five Rings call Bearers of Jade that has some of the best, most practical advice for running horror scenarios that I've ever read. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in running horror.
How do you build up the tension and anticipation that a jump scare requires? I've found it almost never works in the real world of gaming.Some good ideas in this thread. To my way of thinking there are three layers to ‘horror’ in RPGs:
Jump scares are the easiest to create mechanically, being completely driven by GM narration. They can also be slotted in to many scenes and scenarios. Clearly they work directly on the players, with no actual interaction with the PC. I guess the only concession I would make to rules here is if someone’s character is unfazeable in some way they I wouldn’t use this technique on them as that would be contrary to the definition of their character.
- Jump scares
- Fear of the unknown
- Fear of being powerless
Fear of the unknown is interesting in that the existence of a defined set of monsters in a book starts to leach this away. In my group, we quite often will start with just a monster description when the characters are still inexperienced (and in a horror-focussed game that state might not change very often), and avoid using the name of the monster. Naming something gives you power over it. For games with a mysterious element we tend to let the players give their own name to the monsters. I think stats are useful, because it helps the GM run the monster as intended, rather than just making things up on the fly; it can be too tempting to add a new ability just to thwart the players left-field idea that should neutralise the threat but comes ‘too soon’. Let the players have their victory and reveal the next, deeper and darker level of horror that can now be glimpsed... So, stats are good but commonly known stats are the death of fear. Make your own monsters up for best effect.
Fear of powerlessness can take one of two primary forms in my opinion. Being imprisoned or captured in some way is one, but the other is knowing that you are hopelessly outclassed. This can help keep the fear levels up once the ‘unknown’ has started to be understood by the PCs. They might have worked out that the non-Euclidean Beast hunting teenagers on campus is vulnerable to titanium, but managing to land a blow on such a weird creature as a science-nerd character whilst weathering an overwhelming potential for attack will still likely be scary. The chance of success is very low. Now, some players may not be invested in their characters to the point where the potential for death moves them, so this is probably best saved for later in the game when they are more invested (or simply don’t try to do horror games with people who don’t actually identify with their characters - it won’t work).
So, for a horror game I would start with the unknown, season with a smattering of jump scares at key points, and transition to a state of known powerlessness as the adventure progresses. That doesn’t mean I would build a railroad, more that I would change the emphasis as the game evolved. Having the monster appear and eviscerate a red shirt as a demonstration of it’s capabilities can provide the confirmation to the players that this thing is mostly out of their league. If we are talking about Great Old Ones then the focus is more likely to be finding books or cave paintings etc. that tell you about the last time the thing rose, or graphic predictions of what will happen when it rises for the first time. Hopefully they will chose to play smart and find a way of overcoming the odds beyond simply ‘I hit it’.
My initial thought is no because taking agency away from players is a very risky thing to do. Maybe there are players out there that enjoy it, who knows. BUt my experience would be that they would resist, hard. Even if only subconsciously - they would seek to do this or that but findingo ut they coudln't would lead to frustration. They don't want to play Final Destination the RPGWhat makes monsters or horror scary (and I don't mean the modern take of torture or snuff porn) is the lack of agency the victims get. They're helpless, even when they think they aren't. Whatever happens, WILL happen, and nothing they can ever do will stop it.
This lack of control over their situation is what leads to fear, panic and the desire to do something, anything to stop the inevitable.
Can RPG rules replicate that in a way that all players will want to follow it?
Sure, but rp depends on information. The GM then has to be very careful in what he reveals such that the mystery is preserved while not depriving the players of information about the scene.I have to go with Yes and No.
Yes because once you define a monster with labels, stats, fear points and the like it's just another beast to fight or evade. *yawn* The trick is to use your flavor text to invoke fear of the unknown while placing the players in a position of decisive action. Consider the following examples of the same situation:
GM #1 A monstrous shape passes just beneath your rowboat. Its sheer size is maddening and the boat nearly capsizes in its wake. What do you do?
versus
GM #2 Something huge passed under your rowboat, make a Perception check. [roll is successful] It's a Star Spawn of Cthuhlhu, take 1d10 fear points and make an Agility check as the boat nearly capsizes.
No because stats are the "physics" of the game. The DM had better have a good handle on their monster's capabilities even if the players don't. This doesn't mean players should know everything or you have to statblock Yog-Sothoth. What I mean is that through investigation, exploration, roleplay et cetera the players should be able learn just enough about the monster to make informed decisions that can possibly defeat it.
Well stated. Running into a "Schroediger's Monster" (love the term BTW) is incredibly frustrating and annoying.
Emphasis mine. This bears repeating and should be in a DMs Bible somewhere. I try to keep my flavor text in succinct bites of 1-2 sentences.
Mr. Lovecraft succinctly states everything a DM really needs to know about running a successful horror game.
I would be interested to know how the upcoming Alien rpg handles the xenomorphs given they are desiged to be as fatal as possible. They have two mouths and bleed acid. They are dangerous in almost every conceivable way, even in defence they cause harm. You aren't meant to fight them, you're meant to maneuvre them into the requisite puzzle solution so that pressing the big red button finishes them off.I'm not sure that's quite true; the players may, after all, want to run away. I think you need some sort of stats whenever the monster and players interact, even if they are something like Cthulhu Dark's "if you try to fight a monster, you lose and die".
How do you build up the tension and anticipation that a jump scare requires? I've found it almost never works in the real world of gaming.
Fear of the unknown also almost never works. Players tend to be blissfully ignorant of what they don't know is there in my experience. See my earlier comments about pizza and dice in a well lit room.
Fear of being powerless has another name. GM created frustration. How often can players think that having their agency taken away is fun? Because that's what powerless means in RPG terms.
While all three of those methods can and do work to varying degrees of success in written and visual media, the medium of the RPG has very different demands and constraints from other forms of entertainment.
Avoiding titles in D&D can be really impactful. In one game I described a vampire as a well dressed pale man who seemed unimpressed by the party. When they attacked him I described misses at hits that instantly healed. That more than anything unsettled them.
I would be interested to know how the upcoming Alien rpg handles the xenomorphs given they are desiged to be as fatal as possible. They have two mouths and bleed acid. They are dangerous in almost every conceivable way, even in defence they cause harm. You aren't meant to fight them, you're meant to maneuvre them into the requisite puzzle solution so that pressing the big red button finishes them off.
Here’s the thing: playing a horror game is like getting on a rollercoaster or going into a haunted house at the fair. You know that you are going to be put in situations which are ‘scary’ and you want that. It’s the same with watching horror films. People want to be shocked and / or frightened. Playing a horror RPG or adventure provides the same kind of ‘safe scare’ that some people want.
Second, being powerless doesn’t mean being tied to a chair with no options. It means being totally outclassed and knowing that your character could die at any moment if they try to confront the threat directly.
D&D is (to be trite) about killing things and taking their stuff. Horror is about trying to avoid things killing you to take your soul, whilst at the same time trying to out smart or subvert this overpowering threat. Or at least get away; think about ‘hut in woods’ type horror scenarios where the main objective is to survive. That might be the best your character can hope for in a horror game, and that is ok (from a genre perspective, at least)! So, the odds are long and your character could easily die if they fail to pull off their plans. That is powerlessness with agency still in place.
I wouldn’t run anything for a group like that, or play in anything they were interested in. I’ve got better things to do...like dying of tetanus after being saved from crucifixion.If you have a group who reject the idea that facing over whelming odds and needing to play clever (i.e. not simply employ direct confrontation) makes a good game then they will never enjoy horror. Don’t run horror for a group like that.
For me, horror films, TV shows and books, with the exception of Eraserhead, are a bunch of people trying to survive against monsters, overcome monsters, defeat monsters or whatever. They are not particularly scary for me and I treat them as Bug Hunts.
Eraserhead, on the other hand, totally creeped me out when I first watched it and again when I watched it 15 years afterwards. I'm not going to watch it again.
A relatively recent monster movie I liked was Absentia.
Modern day setting with call backs to dark fairy tales about creatures living under bridges... and that fairyland penchant for taking people hostage. It's probably a good fit for a game of Changeling The Lost.
Never heard of that, but just looking at the stills on IMDB is a impactful. I can live without experiencing that film.Honestly, though, the most horrifying film I've ever seen, the one that still disturbs me 30 years later from the first time I saw it as a child. The film so dark that makes Arranofsky's Requiem for a Dream look like an 80s sitcom in comparison, that is probably one a the only films that I admire that simply would not watch again because I don't need another 3 decades of fresh nightmares, has absolutely no monsters.
It's actually a cartoon...
The Ninth Gate is't scary at all, but I wouldn't know what to categorize besides horror. It is one of the most entertaining films in the genre though, I've lost count of how many times I rewatched it. And again no monster (unless you count the director)
OMG I had forgotten all about this.Yeah Absentia had an interesting enough premise to overcome it's budget, or rather lack thereof. Funnily though \I was thinking over most of my favourite horror films, and the majority don't have any sort of monster. If anything I'd say it's the exception rather than the rule, as far as my tastes.
The Shining - I guess you could make an argument the Hotel itself is a monster, but not the type you could overcome in any physical sense.
The Wicker Man (the original, not the hilaribad remake) didn't have a monster, unless "monster" can mean a village of Pagans.
Does The witch in The Witch count as a monster? I guess so, but it's not the witch herself that the horror is focused around, rather the breakdown of a family from the inside. I almost think the film would have been just as effective if they left out the witch entirely, or left it up to viewer interpretation whether she was real or just the product of paranoid fantasies driving a wedge between family members (of course, then we wouldn't have gotten the awesometastic Black Phillip seduction scene)
The Ninth Gate is't scary at all, but I wouldn't know what to categorize besides horror. It is one of the most entertaining films in the genre though, I've lost count of how many times I rewatched it. And again no monster (unless you count the director)
No monster in Let's Scare Jessica to Death either. Just a lot of f-ed up mind games.
Cube gives a situation sort of like The Shining where I suppose you could consider the environment a monster, but I wouldn't classify it as such. Same problem with Oculus - can a mirror be a monster?
I'm not sure where to draw the line between a scary regular old person and a monster either. Does the sadistic rich gamemaster in Would You Rather? count? What about Robert Mitchum's character in Night of the Hunter? Or the opportunistic killers in You're Next?
Honestly, though, the most horrifying film I've ever seen, the one that still disturbs me 30 years later from the first time I saw it as a child. The film so dark that makes Arranofsky's Requiem for a Dream look like an 80s sitcom in comparison. That is probably one o the only films that I admire yet simply would not watch again because I don't need another 3 decades of fresh nightmares, has absolutely no monsters.
It's actually a cartoon...
Most of the time. The rest of the time, you run them over with a steamship.In Black Christmas no one ever confronts the killer, it's just a weird voice on the phone and various (NPCs) being murdered.
In Call of Cthulhu the big-bads are, IMO, better left off stage as frightening possibilities...
With that, however, I fully agree. Which is why I like Unknown Armies so much!Regular humans can be plenty creepy/dangerous without resorting to tentacles.
Rest assured, it already is in a GM's handbook. Namely, most PbtA titles include it, Dungeon World included!This is HUGE and again, should belong in a GM Bible somewhere. I think titles should be avoided period unless a character's background or experience says otherwise (e.g. the 1st level ranger with undead as a favored enemy gets a pass on common undead)
Well, I think he means "RPG players quickly come to odds with their characters committing atrocities".Really? Can you cite any sources? People who have endured or committed terrible things are at a high risk for PTSD among other things.
Most of the time. The rest of the time, you run them over with a steamship.
Depending on whether you've got a steamship.
I was camping with a bunch of friends in someone's field once. Someone had bought speakers, and we'd all bought booze, so there was a good time had by all and we went to our tents kinda drunk.My dad had Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds when I was little and it used to scare me shitless...
But I have often heard it said that (a particular) comedy game wasn’t funny. And that was seen as a basic failure of the concept. A horror game that isn’t ‘scary’ at least at an intellectual level seems to have fundamentally missed the target, to me.I am not convinced that horror games are about scaring you players anymore than comedy games are about making them laugh.
My take is that in both instances you are basically looking at an action/adventure games that are informed and constrained by their respective genre conventions.
As such you are likely to get a few good laughs during the horror game and a few tense moments in the comedy one, though one of the two is more likely to have a happy ending than the other.
I am not convinced that horror games are about scaring you players anymore than comedy games are about making them laugh. My take is that in both instances you are basically looking at an action/adventure games that are informed and constrained by their respective genre conventions.
As such you are likely to get a few good laughs during the horror game and a few tense moments in the comedy one, though one of the two is more likely to have a happy ending than the other.
One important subgenre if horror I feel we may be passing over to a degree is the one where the protagonist (in film usually a woman) feels they may be going insane and increasingly can’t distinguish between reality and illusion/dreams...
One important subgenre if horror I feel we may be passing over to a degree is the one where the protagonist (in film usually a woman) feels they may be going insane and increasingly can’t distinguish between reality and illusion/dreams, perhaps haunted by ghosts, a cult, mysterious figure or doppelgänger.
Examples include The Haunting, Images, Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby, All the Colors of the Dark, Carnival of Souls, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death and many more.
There’s a great book by Kier-la Janisse called House of Psychotic Women all about the subgenre.
It is probably a bit difficult to create pre-made investigation/supplements for as the madness usually needs to be tied to the specific circumstances or psychology of the protagonist and isolation is such an important element in its effectiveness so playing as a group would probably dilute that. Some may also see shifts between reality and illusion as disempowering or even railroading.
But I think Tynes In Media Res does a good job of capturing the feel of the subgenre in CoC. A narrowly focused PbtA or storygame where the session is built around a discussion with the players as they build their PCs would also work pretty well for it.
The Other's works along similar lines although with some twists.