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View Full Version : How do you do horror in your games?



Parvum
2016-02-21, 10:56 PM
Either stuff you've tried that worked really well (or maybe really didn't work) or stuff your GM pulled that nearly made you void your bowels. From the cheap shots to the techniques of maintaining dread, what's memorable horror to you?

Geddy2112
2016-02-21, 11:32 PM
Horror depends on the setting and system. Most of the time, I use the "what was that" style of horror when I DM. Players hear a sound, see a figure/image, and constantly don't know where/what the thing is, suspicious of every twist and turn.

One of my friends ran a one shot Call of Cthulhu, a haunted house or something. He dimmed the lights and had 1920's big band playing softly in the game room. He would actually make the "thud, thud, thud, thud" noise of something walking upstairs, and juxtaposed unnatural events with a very average house for the time. We were pretty afraid to move or interact with anything in game, and had guns at the ready.

Traab
2016-02-22, 12:07 AM
There are a few ways you can do it, but it depends on how into things you want to be. Some of that creepy suspenseful background music, im sure you can get some off of youtube from various horror movies playing quietly in the background could help set the mood. Also, as the dm, you can do all sorts of things to get paranoia and fear cranked up by things like randomly rolling, making notes after asking the players specific questions about their actions. "Did you look behind you after entering that room?" Stuff like that. Its less horror and more suspense, but that can be a good mood setter. Otherwise, having really good descriptions of unsettling things can help. It probably also will vary greatly depending on what sort of campaign world it is. I mean, call of cthulu versus say, forgotten realms, would have very different themes to combine with horror. After all, in forgotten realms, dealing with abyssal creatures, various undead, and spectral horrors are kind of par for the course, whereas in call of cthulu, all that stuff would probably drop your sanity like a sack of rocks.

Tiktakkat
2016-02-22, 12:47 AM
Depends on the circumstances.
Sometimes I will just get extremely florid in describing something mundane, and leave it to the players to worry about just how bad something can be to deserve such an in depth description.
Sometimes I will refer to other horror depictions and invite comparisons, particularly with combinations, and let the players create their own specific visions.
Rarely I will describe the physical effects that certain fear and morale effects have on the characters.
Perhaps the best I've ever managed was just overstressing the otherwise simple. In on LG adventure, I overly stressed how the patron "hopped" to his feet when the party returned after dealing with a Wastri cult. In another LG adventure I "demonstrated" how the abandoned puppet moved because of the (unseen) mice living in it, including they eyes and mouth moving - right before the choker dropped off the ceiling to attack.
All share in putting most of the horror on the players to think up for themselves rather than trying to tell them what is scary. Let them scare themselves.

Lacco
2016-02-22, 03:21 AM
Ooooh, oooh a horror!

The best games of horror I did were in non-horror setting. When we played CoC, everybody expected it. When we played Shadowrun, nobody did...

So, few pointers:

1. Nightmares are your best friend.
In dreams, you can hit them with anything. Their weapons are not where usually. Their friends disappeared. Somebody is knocking on the door. You see shadows moving under the door. You open them, there is nothing here...
Best thing you can do is let them play as usual, but - to quote the classic - in nightmare, every decision you make is the wrong one.
...you see only darkness. And the darkness blinks.

2. When waking up, world is a blur...
Let them wake up. Everything is fine.
Except it isn't. They are still in the nightmare.
And the wound they received? This will stay even after they are awake...

3. Hit them with the uncanny.
Normal things can be scary if you change small aspects. How would you react if everyone who walked around you in the street started looking at you. Everybody. People walking to windows just to see you - but with the same, expressionless face...

3. Strange sounds? Check. Visions of doom? Check. Faceless people? Check.
Make them roleplay visions of the evil they are facing. However, from the point of view of different people.
I wrote a screenplay for this one - specifically saying what to say and when, asking the players to only add small details.
They touched an ancient amulet, which sent them a vision. They all had only few lines, but could "live" through the eyes of the people in the vision.

4. What did you see? I didn't see that.
Take one player outside, play a small scene with him (2-3 minutes tops). Emphasize something.
Now take the others, play the same scene. However, the "something" is not there.
Example:
Player talks to a guard. The guard's face starts slowly changing, his voice sounding omnious, with a voice of madness telling him the prophecy...
The other players see him talking to the guard. Guard is an okay guy, telling him how he likes the city and they should stay for the carnival...
Or don't take the player outside, if your players can separate player-character knowledge. You'll see how they enjoy it.

5. There is no spoon.
I draw my sword!
There is no sword at your side. You see only small silver dagger. Your blood-stained robes...
What?
I said "you already have your sword in your hand".

6. Make players cooperate with you.
Send a small piece of paper with "please nod and smile at me, then write several smileys on the paper and send it to me" to one of the players.
Do the same as you did in point 4, but now all players except one or two should be "on it". They will say strange things, ask even stranger and when the players are already freaked-out, they will switch to normal talk and ask them why are they looking so strange.

7. Do you hear the strange music? Or whispering? Do you hear anything at all?
Prepare a good sountrack.
And add some whisperings, really silent, at random times.
Wait for the players to notice the whisperings (my players noticed after 3rd or 4th run of the song due to the fact they argued between them - but when they heard it...).

8. Don't show. Tell.
Never show them what really is behind the horror. The faceless people on the street, turning to you at unison and walking really slowly towards you? You touch them with a sword, they disappear, but every time you touch them, another dozen appears.
They touch you... and it's like they cut you.
(PS: Don't give them stats).

goto124
2016-02-22, 06:40 AM
The moment my equipment disappeared, I wouldn't be able to take in the horror because I'll be wondering "why is the GM doing to me?"

Handing pieces of paper does not help.

Not to mention all the out-of-genre stuff. If everything I try doesn't work or leads to more bad things, it screams 'railroading'.

Lacco
2016-02-22, 06:56 AM
The moment my equipment disappeared, I wouldn't be able to take in the horror because I'll be wondering "why is the GM doing to me?"

See, it's already working!

GM's stealing stuff from players: instant horror! (imagine it as a demotivator poster, but I can't make one right now...).

With this one - it's important not to do it for too long and use sparingly. Short, really weird nightmares are the way to get your players used to it. Also, it doesn't work with players that don't want to be afraid - however, if they like horror genre, they will be more willing to cooperate even on the subconscious level.

Out of topic: What's with the players obsessed with their equipment? This and imprisonment may be the topics that incite the "player breakdown" the most with people I know.

goto124
2016-02-22, 08:26 AM
Especially in *cough* DnD 3.5e *cough*, equipment and magic items are a very important part of the character. Without those equipment, the character loses a lot of power and could end up helpless.

Lacco
2016-02-22, 08:38 AM
Especially in *cough* DnD 3.5e *cough*, equipment and magic items are a very important part of the character. Without those equipment, the character loses a lot of power and could end up helpless.

...that explains a lot. But not the obsession :smallsmile:.

Back to topic: Feeling powerless is one of preconditions for feeling dread/fear - basically, if you know what it is, and you know how to fight it, the horror feeling is gone.

If you know your +5 vorpal sword of anything-slaying kills could help you combat the thing, but it's gone... that's a start.

If you know you have it by your side, hear the thing in the hallway, and attempt to draw it only to find out that it's gone... that's even better.

And then you wake up.

And then you hear the thing in hallway.

Strigon
2016-02-22, 08:58 AM
Especially in *cough* DnD 3.5e *cough*, equipment and magic items are a very important part of the character. Without those equipment, the character loses a lot of power and could end up helpless.

Being helpless is a huge part of being scared.
Now, you can be scared without being helpless - see most of the scenes in Alien, where they had guns and flamethrowers yet were still terrified - but it makes it a lot easier. Because what is the opposite of fear? I'd argue confidence. Anything that removes confidence leaves more room for fear.
Look at all the horror games that have been pumped out over the last few years: Amnesia, Slender, FNaF, and the dozens in between, and you'll notice you don't have an effective weapon in any of them. All you have is a tactic that, if you use it properly, lets you live a few more minutes.

Fri
2016-02-22, 09:42 AM
Kill players for real when their character is dead, but force them to move so they can't just cower in the corner of the dungeon by, for example, filling the dungeon with water that will slowly drown them.

...which dungeon, the in-game one or the one they play the game in?

Up to you :smallsmile:

JoeJ
2016-02-22, 12:00 PM
Kill players for real when their character is dead.

I think there's a law against that.

dascarletm
2016-02-22, 12:09 PM
Sounds like a great new movie idea.
[Creepy Voice]
"Want to play a (roleplaying) game?"
[/Creepy Voice]

Segev
2016-02-22, 12:28 PM
One thing that makes horror hard in games is that it requires a certain amount of investment. Setting up 'atmosphere' can feel cheesy rather than spooky in a tabletop environment. And even the best RPers often have a tendency to spout jokes and have fun with their OOC chatter. Asking them to keep it to a minimum can help, but it still feels artificial.

And I know that one of the things that can sell horror is having the characters joke...and have that joke fall flat in just the right way. A "laughing at the howling dark" sort of thing that only accentuates how unsettling things are. But making THAT work...I haven't figured out how to do it, myself. Not at a table full of gamers.

One thing you might try is amping up the reveals with how unconfident the PCs are acting. The more bravado, the less they actually get to see. The Bad Things happen to NPCs or to their stuff, and they happen when the PCs are not around to do anything about it. They're always too late. The more frantic the PCs get, the closer the Things come to being visible; caught leaving the room, or give the more frightened-seeming PCs that sense of being watched. Let them participate in an event with positive success against the Bad Things, because they're there to do something about it. But play on the very fears whose exhibition justified them being the ones exposed to the horror.

Slowly isolate the most confident ones, until they lose the confidence that their stats are sufficient.



The other thing about horror that I think requires hammering home is that it's not about helplessness so much as it is about betrayal. Not treachery, mind. While that can contribute, it's not about a sense that your friends might turn on you. It's about betrayal of your very expectations. Things are not right, and the knowledge of that doesn't help because you're still not able to plan properly. You don't know the rules, or the rules don't make sense, or - best for horror - the rules actively feel counter-intuitive.

One of the best examples of this in a game I've seen was in Deadly Premonition. An under-used aspect of that game was that the monster-things couldn't sense you if you held your breath. This, obviously, had a bit of a built-in time limit. And, worse, the idea that they can't see you just because you're holding your breath doesn't "feel" true, so you're walking right by these things that you viscerally feel are moments from gutting you, holding your breath and hoping you don't let any gasps out.

If the player is at all invested, he can empathize with his character: holding one's breath is something we've all done, and we all know that it gets harder as you prolong it, and it raises stress, and stress makes it harder to hold your breath. And if you have to run? Or you're hard of breath from running? Good luck holding it...

It's not, therefore, about being helpless. It's about the things you have to do being difficult, counterintuitive, and dangerous in their own right. You're not without recourse, but your recourse isn't the normal, confidence-inspiring things that let you control your own environment, possessions, or even your own body.

Betrayal of your own perceptions is also good. Even players well into the throes of Monty Python quotes are made nervous when they fear they failed a perception check. If their PCs' senses are betraying them, that's a "failed perception check" writ large, because what you're describing may conceal things that are of real concern.

One GM ran a kind of monster that killed people and, rather than stealing their face, stole their place. The monster was right there, but you couldn't SEE it. You'd hallucinate conversations with it, and even when it stabbed your friend right in front of you, you would see them chatting amiably, and only notice your friend on the ground bleeding out well after the monster had left. That was pretty horrifying.


So horror is about betrayal, and mostly that betrayal should be of your players' expectations, perceptions, and understandings. The rules should exist, but be alien and uncomfortable. And you should reward investment with deeper involvement (as well as more exposure to danger), slowly isolating those who won't invest until that very isolation builds the sense of dread for them, as well.

Silus
2016-02-22, 07:27 PM
I tend to favor horror tropes such as Nothing is Scarier, Alien Geometries, and Bizarrchitecture (along with various mind games).

Like the party hears about, say, an old Dwarven Prison with a still intact evidence room full of old school magical goodies. But oh no, nobody that's gone there's ever come back and it's rumored to be haunted and all that jazz. Players say "bah" and head off 'cause hey, undead are easy to kill.

Players get there and enter, full of bravado and gumption. They go through a few rooms and down a hallway and come to a dead end. No encounters so far, just a dank old prison. They turn around and head back down the hallway and...wait, was this intersection always here? And...We didn't pass through this cell block on our way here. I could have sworn...

Wait, what's that noise? Something's here. Something's all over here. The sound, whatever it is, seems to suffuse the prison and dampen the party's meager light source. An unnatural gust blows through and snuffs the flames, both magical and mundane. The party hurries to get back light and when they do they are greeted with handprints and words all over the walls, declaring that there is no escape, that the party will die here, tortured and alone, and that the things in the prison, the remainders of the convicts left to rot in their cells, know they are here and they are coming.

*Shrugs* Just an idea.

That or Doppelgangers and sleeper agents (think Marble Hornets).

Draconium
2016-02-22, 08:11 PM
While I've never run a full-blown horror-themed campaign, I have incorporated certain elements of horror into my games before. I find it makes for an entertaining game, as it really keeps the players guessing about what will come next.

Overall, I agree with what Segev said earlier. Betray their expectations and perceptions, and it will put them increasingly on edge, causing them to slowly start becoming more nervous and paranoid. The longer it goes on, the more horrifying and memorable the game will be.

goto124
2016-02-22, 10:14 PM
The game will have to be pitched as a horror game to begin with, I believe.

A lot of horror tactics seen here feel cheap when used on a player who didn't want to get invested in a horror game. Why is the GM springing stupid 'helplessness' mechanics on me, mechanics that render all my skills and equipment useless? Why is my equipment suddenly gone or broken? Why does everyone I met suddenly disappear into the darkness, or get killed by stuff I never get to spot? Why am I always too late? Why is the GM passing notes?

If I go back down the same corridor and realize it's not the same place, I'll think "the GM changed the place to artificially make me lost". It's rather obvious, the horror is lost, I just feel cheated.

I find that betraying my expectations doesn't make me feel horror. Okay, it does, but on a more meta level - "what the hell is going on with this campaign? I didn't even sign up for a horror game!"

Machinekng
2016-02-22, 10:51 PM
I kinda feel that horror and fear are key to pretty much any situation where the PCs are putting something at risk. There's nothing better to make people feel invested in a game than to put them on edge.

The fear of the unknown is a pretty powerful tool. Not just not knowing something, but just knowing a little bit. Seeing evidence of something, enough to get an idea of what's out there, but not enough to actually prepare for it. That gets peoples' imaginations flowing, and they can usually work themselves up better than you can.

As a GM, I'm not a big fan of theatrics such as candles or dimming the lights. Usually, it takes more effort than it's worth, and your players could easily see it as corny.

LastCenturion
2016-02-22, 11:26 PM
It's nice to see this thread, as horror has always been my favorite genre of game to play tabletop. As far as digital goes, the games seem either too scary and I end up too scared of losing to try and accomplish any of my goals, or too trite and I'm never even worried about it. I think surprises are either not used enough, or overused, as a matter of course.

I don't know how relevant this is, but I ran a horror game a while back where the monsters couldn't really be seen, but they were spread out over a whole city. The players had to survive until help came without knowing anything about what they were facing, besides the small flash of a claw, a padding sound in the shadows, etc. I agree with what others are saying about how fear of the unknown is a powerful motivator. Another idea I've considered, but never run, was a world where the characters are slowly having their vision shortened, but don't realize it because they spend most of their time in enclosed areas or very dark spaces. Eventually they can no longer see, and don't know when it happened. Most of my horror games end up with my players dying...

Side note: the players in the city game ended up dying in a "throw caution to the winds" attempt at forcing their first small chance of escape. I think I made it too scary, because the opportunity was never realistically going to result in them escaping. I guess death is still an escape.

Darth Ultron
2016-02-23, 12:15 AM
The first big component of horror in my games is a lack of facts and information. The unknown is a very basic, primal fear. And some of the best fear is the fear the players create themselves. When they don't know what a creature or thing is, they will often imagine the worst.....and often much more then it really is too...

Loss is the next big one. The players must deeply feel a loss. Like being effected by something or loosing something of value that they can't simply cure or replace.

Then you get to pure evil. The really dark stuff. Nothing builds pure horror more then pure evil. Assuming you have mature players you can go right to the edge.

goto124
2016-02-23, 12:18 AM
Most of my horror games end up with my players dying...

Guess I shouldn't attend your horror games :smalltongue:

Is the horror genre the best time to have a linear/railroady campaign? After all, you're helpless and getting pushed about by your circumstances...

Thrudd
2016-02-23, 01:02 AM
I feel that horror in a ttrpg is hard to impossible. It may depend on what is meant by horror, of course. Not hard to use horror themes or horror-like conventions. With an appropriate setting and rules, you can create a sense of paranoia and tension, as the players fear for their characters' lives. Actual horror, as in scaring people, I don't see it happening. Players pretending they are scared, or acting out how their characters would be scared, sure. To me, that isn't the same thing.

Note, a game is not the same as simply telling a story. A good story teller can tell a scary story that draws people in and makes use of setting and ambiance to accentuate it. You can scare people, creep them out, make them jump with proper timing and performance.
A game implies that players have some proactive role. They aren't just listening, they are thinking about what actions to take. They know it could all go wrong at any moment, but they are thinking about how to succeed at their goals and mitigate their losses. They may be entertained by the creepy flavor of the game's setting, but having the ability to affect the outcome of the game counteracts the feeling of helplessness necessary to actually be scared. Also, being scared requires a level of immersion in the game world that is rare if not impossible to achieve.

I go for tension that comes from the fear of loss of characters and the knowledge that the dice are deciding their fate. A fight or a chase or an attempt to hide and sneak could go wrong. Surprises can be behind any door, around any corner. I can play up these situations with some flair to sometimes get a reaction out of people. That is as close to horror as I think is possible or productive to attempt. I don't expect players to engage in contrived scenarios in a disingenuously "immersed" way, which is what I feel is going on when people try to do horror most of the time.

Lacco
2016-02-23, 02:41 AM
At first - I must say Segev's autopsy of horror is quite interesting. I never considered this point of view, even when I used it (mostly subconsciously).


Guess I shouldn't attend your horror games :smalltongue:

Is the horror genre the best time to have a linear/railroady campaign? After all, you're helpless and getting pushed about by your circumstances...

To the second I can reply: yes and no. Now, I'll not be talking about campaigns, just adventures - I'll explain later why.

However, partially linear adventures are the easiest to work with when you are working with horror. If the players can go wherever they want, it makes the GM improvise a lot (or have horribly complicated preparation). Consider the classical haunted house - the PCs are inside, and while they can choose which way to go in the hall (there are 7 doors, 2 staircases), you still know that they will be inside the house.

It's a bit harder with open non-linear world, but it can still be done. Yet it will be a bit harder for the GM.

And - the dread needs time to settle. If you want to really scare your PCs and players (because I think horror in RPGs is about scaring players), they need slow buildup of the dread. From the first observation of unusual they need to go through uncanny to scary. You can't skip it - because you'll get the Monty Python jokes and OOC as they shake off the stress (it's natural reaction). However, if you go via the slow buildup, they will not notice it on conscious level and will become unnerved.

Let's take Silus's great example (as it goes through all the phases):


Like the party hears about, say, an old Dwarven Prison with a still intact evidence room full of old school magical goodies. But oh no, nobody that's gone there's ever come back and it's rumored to be haunted and all that jazz. Players say "bah" and head off 'cause hey, undead are easy to kill.

We get the foreshadowing about haunting and all that jazz. Although the players dismiss the part about haunting, unconsciously it sets their minds to horror and maybe even prepares them for things to come.


Players get there and enter, full of bravado and gumption. They go through a few rooms and down a hallway and come to a dead end. No encounters so far, just a dank old prison. They turn around and head back down the hallway and...wait, was this intersection always here? And...We didn't pass through this cell block on our way here. I could have sworn...

There you have the strange. Nothing visible, nothing tangible, just strange. People get nervous because this is (I'll use Segev's terminology) betraying their perception and expectations - they expected undead - why there are none? And what's with the strange navigation?


Wait, what's that noise? Something's here. Something's all over here. The sound, whatever it is, seems to suffuse the prison and dampen the party's meager light source. An unnatural gust blows through and snuffs the flames, both magical and mundane.

There it goes to the uncanny - noises are expected in the dungeons, but the feeling of "somethings's all over here", the sound that dampens the light... this goes straight to the "what the hell?" and takes it to "this shouldn't be happening, what is this...?"


The party hurries to get back light and when they do they are greeted with handprints and words all over the walls, declaring that there is no escape, that the party will die here, tortured and alone, and that the things in the prison, the remainders of the convicts left to rot in their cells, know they are here and they are coming.

And we have the handprints, the strange writings. The "they are coming" written thousand times with blood on a wall is direct, tangible thing, they can't ignore. And which couldn't be done by anyone easily.
At this point, the players start to become scared.


*Shrugs* Just an idea.

And a good idea it is. I'll definitely borrow it if you don't mind. However, it reminded me of Grave Encounters - and I still want to make that as one-shot :smallsmile:.


The game will have to be pitched as a horror game to begin with, I believe.

A lot of horror tactics seen here feel cheap when used on a player who didn't want to get invested in a horror game. Why is the GM springing stupid 'helplessness' mechanics on me, mechanics that render all my skills and equipment useless? Why is my equipment suddenly gone or broken? Why does everyone I met suddenly disappear into the darkness, or get killed by stuff I never get to spot? Why am I always too late? Why is the GM passing notes?

If I go back down the same corridor and realize it's not the same place, I'll think "the GM changed the place to artificially make me lost". It's rather obvious, the horror is lost, I just feel cheated.

I find that betraying my expectations doesn't make me feel horror. Okay, it does, but on a more meta level - "what the hell is going on with this campaign? I didn't even sign up for a horror game!"

Quite the contrary - my experience is that if I pitch the game as horror, as opposed to placing horror elements in my standard games, it will be harder to bring the players into the right mood. I have never run a successful horror campaign. I thought about why it always falls flat and the answer was easy - the players were not invested. They knew it was horror. They expected it and thus they never got into it.

What helps is to use your standard campaign and put horror elements into it. The players are already invested into the game and - this is important - if they are looking at the world via the eyes of the character, they will get scared - if they stay in character.

However, if they play the game as power fantasy, where they just want to kill the threat, and view their character as equivalent of their character in MMORPG, the feeling will be lost, because they will immediately get out of character, wondering about why "the GM is doing this to me" instead of "what is happening to my character?". And this is exactly what you wrote - when used on a player who doesn't want to be afraid/feel even the fear via their character, these tactics are all useless.

The thing is, the OP asked for advice how to do it, so I assume his players are OK with getting scared in character. Or he wants to test it.


I feel that horror in a ttrpg is hard to impossible. It may depend on what is meant by horror, of course. Not hard to use horror themes or horror-like conventions. With an appropriate setting and rules, you can create a sense of paranoia and tension, as the players fear for their characters' lives. Actual horror, as in scaring people, I don't see it happening. Players pretending they are scared, or acting out how their characters would be scared, sure. To me, that isn't the same thing.

Note, a game is not the same as simply telling a story. A good story teller can tell a scary story that draws people in and makes use of setting and ambiance to accentuate it. You can scare people, creep them out, make them jump with proper timing and performance.
A game implies that players have some proactive role. They aren't just listening, they are thinking about what actions to take. They know it could all go wrong at any moment, but they are thinking about how to succeed at their goals and mitigate their losses. They may be entertained by the creepy flavor of the game's setting, but having the ability to affect the outcome of the game counteracts the feeling of helplessness necessary to actually be scared. Also, being scared requires a level of immersion in the game world that is rare if not impossible to achieve.

I go for tension that comes from the fear of loss of characters and the knowledge that the dice are deciding their fate. A fight or a chase or an attempt to hide and sneak could go wrong. Surprises can be behind any door, around any corner. I can play up these situations with some flair to sometimes get a reaction out of people. That is as close to horror as I think is possible or productive to attempt. I don't expect players to engage in contrived scenarios in a disingenuously "immersed" way, which is what I feel is going on when people try to do horror most of the time.

You make a good point - however, I disagree with the "players pretending they are scared". I had some occassions where players were genuinely scared - IC and OOC. However, this was a group that enjoys horror movies and loved to get scared.

I even had one ocassion, where I presented them with a scary monastery (welcome drink: flashing light in mist, starters: creepy acting birds). When they wanted to enter it (already in the "uncanny" phase), I stated with my (I think the term is) cheesiest deep villain voice "As you enter the monastery, a gust of cold wind washes over you and your lights flicker and go out. You feel that there is something evil inside, and it doesn't want you to enter". I looked around the table and the three players were all pale. They looked at each other and the leader of the party stated: "Then we leave. I don't want to go inside". The others agreed.

The issue I see is one of the playstyle (if players go for the power fantasy, it's hard to make them so invested/immersed that this will be effective) and even game system. If the system gives you fireballs, necromancy and makes one character the power equivalent of magical bazooka, then it's hard to make them feel powerless - and if you do, it may make them metagame (which works for horror as well as slapstick scenes do). The same goes for the magic words: "Roll initiative". I have noticed (in live roleplaying), that whenever a combat starts, the players stop - absolutely - to think as their characters, and the immersion is gone. They switch to combat mode, taking the dice, rolling. Sometimes, they roll for initiative without combat even starting. So if you can somehow make them not reach for dice - it will work better.

Another thing is, the preparations for non-linear horror are quite more complicated. And you have to take a lot of things into the account. It helps to have small, closed space where they have to move.

Part of your post
having the ability to affect the outcome of the game explains why it's so hard to make them scared. For the horror to work, they can still attempt, or work against it, but their attempts can only get things worse. And this is the straw that usually breaks the camel's back - if they are used to their attempts having impact, about things being beatable (the famous "if it has stats, it can be killed"), the horror is usually gone and the metagaming kicks in.

My advice - if you want to give horror elements a try - are nightmares. There you have a free hand. In dreams (especially magically induced dreams) the power doesn't lie in the hands of the player. If he reaches for dice, stop him and instead ask him to describe, or immediately continue. Try a short one - 5 minutes tops - with only one player (at my first attempt I told my other players that this is a dream, so they would not break the moment). Go from strange via uncanny and finish by the scary. Then end it - as nightmares usually end - abruptly, by the character waking up. If possible, provide foreshadowing (the player will appreciate that it wasn't just a scare, but information). And you'll see if it works. If you want to try it :smallsmile:.

Silus
2016-02-23, 04:14 AM
And a good idea it is. I'll definitely borrow it if you don't mind. However, it reminded me of Grave Encounters - and I still want to make that as one-shot :smallsmile:.


Hey, feel free =D I'm actually going to be typing up a post in a little bit asking for assistance on the grander mission/campaign (Well more like module sized deal but yeah) so you may get some ideas there as well =D

Edit: Also, a lot of my horror inspiration comes from movies like Grave Encounters, 1408, In The Mouth of Madness, Evil Dead (the older one), a liiiiittle of the Woman in Black, Marble Hornets, and similar. Big fan of scaring my players by NOT throwing stuff at them then bringing something in straight outta left field at them, preferably something they either are ill-prepared to fight or something they CAN'T fight (See: 1408, Grave Encounters, etc.).

Comet
2016-02-23, 04:23 AM
Making the players scared is really hard and usually more about showmanship than storytelling or game mechanics. Lights, spooky sounds, screaming at them when theird guard is down, whatever works.

Making the players nervous is a lot easier and usually enough to make them play as if their characters were scared. This is enough for me, more often than not, since I'm much more about story than immersion.

Kami2awa
2016-02-23, 08:02 AM
There is a lot of advice online on how to run horror RPGs. It is one of the areas that RPGs rather excel at.

A few things that turn up in a lot of this advice:

1) Less is more. Your average horror scenario has just one monster (or one type of monster) whose threat is built up over the course of the adventure. Random encounters typically don't happen in horror films.

2) The unknown is scary. The last thing you want is for the PCs to realise what they're up against until at least halfway through the scenario. The monster needs some means to scare the PCs without showing itself. A large part of the challenge is finding out just what the danger actually IS. I doubt there is a single horror story where the main characters know exactly what they are up against from the start.

3) Careful build-up is essential. A monster charging at you is, ironically, not frightening. Find the victims of a monster attack, weird traces left behind, and so on creates expectation and anxiety in the players that should be carefully built up during the game until the climax.

4) There's a lot of things that scare people. Check out the Fear Mythos for a list of common primal fears. Insanity, parasitism, mind control, common phobias, darkness, corruption of what should be harmless... all these things frighten people. They often claim that they aren't scared of these things... they are usually wrong.

5) The horror world looks normal on the surface (even if "normal" for the PCs is a world of elves, dwarves and dragons). Horror hides in the shadows, and conceals itself from the normal people of the world.

Segev
2016-02-23, 10:04 AM
First off, thanks to all who've said such nice things about my earlier post. I'm glad you liked it. :)


Another thing occurred to me: there is an art to setting up a sense of a scene such that the audience feels a sense of danger, of impending doom, while the scene itself is a breather or even (on the surface) relaxing, safe.

This one, right now, I can't quite put my finger on how to define, but...how often have you watched a scene where things were going well, and something about how the characters were enjoying themselves, were experiencing some bonding, enjoying each others' company, and it's warm and comfortable and... you, the audience, feel like it's about to be shattered?

In horror movies and stories, this is often the initial set-up, especially for "cabin in the woods" type things (including, IIRC, the movie by that title): there's only fun and goodness, but the quiet surrounding it somehow oozes danger, despite the action focusing on things in the comfortable and known.

In other shows, where it's not horror, this can be a breather. And you can feel the difference between a real breather, when yes, things are going to get bad/hard/sad again, but this moment is really real and is something from which to draw emotional strength...and the other kind, where yes, the characters are happy and you like what you're seeing, but you know that it's fragile and ephemeral and...it not only won't last, but the bonds and good times here are actively going to shatter and make the next drop all the worse.

You know that, not only is the villain going to do something evil next episode, but somehow that one of the characters here may not survive this very scene. Somehow, and I wish I could put my finger on the technique used for it, the audience is made to sense the "monster in the dark" where the "monster" and the "dark" are very figurative. It's not "view from the monster's perspective," and it may never show literal darkness. But you know something - a danger, a hazard, a monster, a coincidence, a diabolus ex machina...something - is going to spring. And it probably will actually kill one of the cast. Or otherwise ruin this happiness. Not just end it, not just interrupt it, but taint, ruin, destroy, or snatch it away in a cruel fashion.

If you can figure out what the technique is to achieve that, I think you can set up horror for your PCs and players. Immerse them in their PCs' good times, in building up that sense of relief or even just fun and joy. If they're so invested that the players don't even notice the aura, the shattering horror of it will be devastating and have the full impact on the players it does on the characters. If they're metagaming and genre-aware, they'll sense it COMING the whole time, and be waiting, waiting...waiting for that hammer to fall, never knowing what it is, from whence it will come, nor upon whom it will fall. And that, too, is a form of horror.

I don't know how to do this, but I recognize it when it's happening. IT's a perfect Xanatos Gambit of horror-presentation: if they're invested, they never see it coming and are whammed by it. If they're protected by their "audience barrier" of the 4th wall, they feel it coming and the not knowing how or when builds the suspense and dawning terror. Each sweet, happy moment becomes more terrifying as they wonder, "will it hit now?"


The third episode of Puella Magi Madoka had this sense, for me, especially the scene right before the event that anybody whose watched it knows to which I'm referring. When Mami and Madoka are talking BEFORE they enter the fight, and Madoka promises to think about her wish and make one after this is over. And Mami is so happy to have somebody who'll join her in this war. It's an uplifting scene that, in the MG series it had been pretending to be up to that point, would have been the "yay! power of friendship level up!" prompt. And they clearly were going for that. But somehow, something about that scene had me on edge the whole time. "This is going to end badly." I didn't see the death coming, not directly, but that build-up of tension and horror made the fight far more dreadful to watch than otherwise, because it ... felt more high-stakes than it "should" have. And because of that build-up, I had none of my usual, "Okay, how will she be brought back/turn out to have survived?" cynicism; I immediately bought her death and knew it was permanent. The moment that mouth closed.

I can't put my finger on what it was about the tone nor how it was achieved, but it was...edgy. Not in the pop-culture sense, but in the "put me on edge" sense.

Segev
2016-02-23, 10:13 AM
Sorry for the potential double-post, but I felt this was a distinct enough topic to warrant its own. How many people here are familiar with the concept of "two-sentence horror stories?" There are a few collections floating around the internet, if you google for them, and they tend to have some that are common between them (honestly, mostly the best ones). They vary in quality; some are really lengthy and don't deliver much, but others are really quite good and chilling.

Because of the format, they set up a sense and a scene, not really a full resolution. But they're excellent fodder for ideas on how to create horror when you have limited time, media, and ability to enforce investment.

One of my favorites goes something like this:

"Daddy, check for monsters under my bed," my son asked me as I tucked him in. When I did, humoring him, I saw him - my son - quivering under there and whispering, wide-eyed, "Daddy, there's something on my bed!"


Another good one is:

I swear, in all the time I've lived alone in this house, I've closed more doors than I've opened."


It may be a fun exercise to either hunt these down, post them here, and analyze them...or try to come up with our own to analyze and study for ideas on how to perform this art.

Steampunkette
2016-02-23, 03:10 PM
These days most of my RPGs are online. Particularly with Roll20 and Skype together.

Normally I run combats in Skype for speed, while I allow players to RP in text. But when it's horror time I flick on the call and break out a deep, resonant, tone. I usually have a healthy description of things written ahead of time, and most of my players are not expecting a deep voice from a female DM. :smallwink:

Shifting tone can make people incredibly uncomfortable, and increase the feeling of discordance that horror and dread almost require.

GungHo
2016-02-23, 03:14 PM
I put a flashlight under my chin and speak into an autotune device.

Lacco
2016-02-23, 03:55 PM
Now that I think about it - I also switch to a deeper or sometimes "throaty" (? no idea how you call it in English - the kind of voice when you have completely parched and dry throat...like a sandpaper) voice, and tend to lean in and get more silent, to the point of whispering.

I also add a certain amount of nervosity or tension into my voice. Works miracles.

I never prepare any text for the horror parts, only few key words, which I am sure I want to put in. The method I use is direct and fast answers to anything the PC/player does/says - that way the tension does not disappear and the unconscious "time limit" (my fast responses) provokes their own nervosity (and their fast responses, which usually play into my cards). It helps that I know my players quite well.

@Segev - I only remember the one about the last man on Earth, who sat into a chair. And then there was a knock on the door...

@GungHo - I tried using candles for this, since they add more to the atmosphere. I found out that the burned hair/scorched meat smell can be nicely used to unnerve players... and paramedics :smallsmile:.

Esprit15
2016-02-23, 04:47 PM
A few things. One thing to do is treat horror the same as any other serious moment ingame.

Biggest thing, I'll shift my tone when something becomes serious. I don't normally smile, and adopt a character's physical mannerisms and speaking habits when playing them. If it's purely narrative, my tone becomes more flat and precise. I make sure to ask people to be clear about their actions ("Where do you look for traps?" is a good example, when looking for traps may result in triggering traps). A big thing is to not respond to jokes. Don't encourage easing of tension. Give the deadpan response that kills a joke, even, if you really want to squash a mood that detracts from the tension.

In horror specifically, it helps to know your players. Use some of their real fears. John hates snakes? Scatter some imagery that would remind him of it, and be clear of its reminiscence of his fear: the long, snaking path, the stones in the walls bumping out like the scales of a great serpent. Bob works with kids or has one? Imply in the background that whatever happened (or is happening) didn't spare children. Perhaps it even targeted them, an easy way to lure other people.

One issue with horror in tabletops is that it frequently (though not always) flies in the face of many RPG mindsets. One has you as a powerful hero, the other focuses on taking that away and reminding you of how predictable, fallible, and mortal you really are. The universe is far weirder than you can imagine, and not in the Carl Sagan sense that instills wonder, but the Lovecraftian sense that breeds fear. If you feel like you can win, then the fear subsides. But back to gameplay, if you can only lose, then what was the point? If there isn't a win or lose condition, then it becomes sight seeing unless you get your party invested.

Silus
2016-02-23, 10:03 PM
So related to the horror biz, got a...rather important question:

How do you deal with a player that opts to make that one character? Like the one specifically designed to stonewall everything you're throwing at them. Mind and memory games? Excellent will saves, never effected. Things that hate the light and cause endless amount of pain in the dark? Omni-directional floodlight. Undead? Smite/rampant holy abilities. Yadda yaddda yadda you get the idea. Turning your Texas Chainsaw Massacre on Elm Street: Halloween Friday the 13th Edition into little more than a cheezy haunted house.

How do you deal with that beyond telling the player that the character isn't appropriate for the tone of the campaign?

Draconium
2016-02-23, 10:10 PM
So related to the horror biz, got a...rather important question:

How do you deal with a player that opts to make that one character? Like the one specifically designed to stonewall everything you're throwing at them. Mind and memory games? Excellent will saves, never effected. Things that hate the light and cause endless amount of pain in the dark? Omni-directional floodlight. Undead? Smite/rampant holy abilities. Yadda yaddda yadda you get the idea. Turning your Texas Chainsaw Massacre on Elm Street: Halloween Friday the 13th Edition into little more than a cheezy haunted house.

How do you deal with that beyond telling the player that the character isn't appropriate for the tone of the campaign?

That sounds like a case of a player deliberately attempting to destroy the mood of the game, and that's no fun for anyone else. I would probably ask a player being disruptive to either please stop with that kind of behavior, or else leave the table. I mean, I'd try and be polite about it, but That Guy tends to ruin the game for others, and my motto as a GM is to try and let all the players have fun. The exception is if the other players are okay with it, but even then, I'd probably avoid gaming with him in the future.

Silus
2016-02-23, 10:20 PM
That sounds like a case of a player deliberately attempting to destroy the mood of the game, and that's no fun for anyone else. I would probably ask a player being disruptive to either please stop with that kind of behavior, or else leave the table. I mean, I'd try and be polite about it, but That Guy tends to ruin the game for others, and my motto as a GM is to try and let all the players have fun. The exception is if the other players are okay with it, but even then, I'd probably avoid gaming with him in the future.

Well I'm having the problem right now for a planned horror game down the line. The guy is specifically rattling off character builds that would not only make it hard to deal with/manipulate his character as needed (memory modifications, illusions, etc.) but would extend those buffs to the party. And I'm not seeing any real valid reason other than "Well it would trivialize this or that" and "overcoming obstacles by subverting them".

Draconium
2016-02-23, 10:30 PM
Well I'm having the problem right now for a planned horror game down the line. The guy is specifically rattling off character builds that would not only make it hard to deal with/manipulate his character as needed (memory modifications, illusions, etc.) but would extend those buffs to the party. And I'm not seeing any real valid reason other than "Well it would trivialize this or that" and "overcoming obstacles by subverting them".

Hmm, all right then, try talking to him. No, seriously - if the game hasn't started yet, you can talk to him and nip the problem in the bud. Point out to him that the largest aspect of an effective horror game is atmosphere, and if he creates a character that will wreck the atmosphere, then the entire game will go from "horror" to "cheesy" faster than you can say Spooky Scary Skeletons.

To me, participating in a full-blown horror game means that everyone will have to agree to certain terms beforehand. These terms mostly boil down to trust - trust in the players not to ruin the mood, trust in the GM not to pull stunts just to troll the players, things like that. Of course, you have to leave it vague enough to be able to betray their senses and expectations in a way, but without any trust, then you get situations like goto was describing, with the players hurt and bewildered because they feel like they aren't having fun, or the GM uber-railroading the campaign, stuff like that. You have to find the right balance, with just enough trust to be able to roll with whatever a GM throws at you.

Thrudd
2016-02-23, 10:35 PM
So related to the horror biz, got a...rather important question:

How do you deal with a player that opts to make that one character? Like the one specifically designed to stonewall everything you're throwing at them. Mind and memory games? Excellent will saves, never effected. Things that hate the light and cause endless amount of pain in the dark? Omni-directional floodlight. Undead? Smite/rampant holy abilities. Yadda yaddda yadda you get the idea. Turning your Texas Chainsaw Massacre on Elm Street: Halloween Friday the 13th Edition into little more than a cheezy haunted house.

How do you deal with that beyond telling the player that the character isn't appropriate for the tone of the campaign?

If it's possible to make that character, and the players have that attitude, then this isn't the correct system for a horror game.
You're trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Use a system where characters are more vulnerable, or house rule to deny abilities and classes which will make the horror theme less horrifying. Of course, I believe that a D&D type game, regardless of house rules, is not really capable of creating actual horror. As was said earlier, the horror part ends the second initiative gets rolled and players start thinking about how to fight the monster.

Steampunkette
2016-02-23, 10:55 PM
It's not the system that's wrong, Thrudd. It's the player.

That's a player who doesn't -want- to be scared. They don't -want- to play in a horror game. They want to continue fantasying it up like there's nothing wrong in the world. Putting it into CoC won't help, as they'll just do their best to deadweight there, too.

Far better to acknowledge that that player probably won't want to be at the table for that game and move on.

goto124
2016-02-23, 11:46 PM
How do you deal with that beyond telling the player that the character isn't appropriate for the tone of the campaign?

It's now a comedy campaign :smalltongue:


To me, participating in a full-blown horror game means that everyone will have to agree to certain terms beforehand. These terms mostly boil down to trust - trust in the players not to ruin the mood, trust in the GM not to pull stunts just to troll the players, things like that. Of course, you have to leave it vague enough to be able to betray their senses and expectations in a way, but without any trust, then you get situations like goto was describing, with the players hurt and bewildered because they feel like they aren't having fun, or the GM uber-railroading the campaign, stuff like that. You have to find the right balance, with just enough trust to be able to roll with whatever a GM throws at you.

And this is why you let players know you're running a horror campaign. Otherwise the players won't be in the right mindset required for many horror elements to work.

It's like trying to run a horror game in DnD 3.5e. A lot of houserules and homebrew stuff will have to pop up to go with the horror theme, and then it get really obvious.

Thrudd
2016-02-23, 11:47 PM
It's not the system that's wrong, Thrudd. It's the player.

That's a player who doesn't -want- to be scared. They don't -want- to play in a horror game. They want to continue fantasying it up like there's nothing wrong in the world. Putting it into CoC won't help, as they'll just do their best to deadweight there, too.

Far better to acknowledge that that player probably won't want to be at the table for that game and move on.

It's a player playing the game they are presented with, making completely understandable in-game choices. In CoC, they don't have the same options.

Yes, of course the player needs to buy into the premise of your game in the first place, if they refuse to cooperate then they really shouldn't be playing. But D&D is especially poorly equipped for horror as a premise in the first place. It's a game about characters growing more powerful over time as they fight monsters. This is the antithesis of horror.

Ninjaxenomorph
2016-02-24, 12:11 AM
Yes, how dare somebody bring a vampire hunter to a gothic horror game. Or a medium to a haunted house. Or a rogue to a trap-filled tomb full of horrible traps.

I know it's hard to do real horror in D&D/other similar systems. Partially because in horror its so rare to actually win, to emerge triumphant after a long ordeal. And its not just the players; in a lot of horror the victims (or, in other words, the characters that the PCs will stand in for) are woefully unprepared. Horror is when you can't do anything or when anything you can do is futile, which goes against what pretty much every RPG stands for.

Steampunkette
2016-02-24, 12:19 AM
I disagree, vehemently.

Horror is not one narrowly defined idea of "Weak and fleeing from danger". That's a myopic view, all things considered. It's up there with defining all horror as jumpscares or all horror as body-horror.

There's a lot of dread and horror that can be created even with someone having power to fight back against it. Heck, that's the whole core of Zombie/Alien horror films in which a well arm group of people fight against either overwhelming numbers of terrible foes or are picked off by a handful of opponents.

D&D is great for horror, so long as you embrace all of the angles rather than just one. With the potential for jumpscares, being weak in the face of an enemy that you have to flee and fight another day (when you're stronger), body horror, buildup of dread, recoil disgust, and more.

Add in illusions and you can pass papers to party members instructing them to describe actions that aren't really happening, but are happening within the illusion that a party member failed to save against (or doesn't get one for reason X, Y, or Z).

Add in Dopplegangers, Mind Control, and the like and you can go full "Evil Dead" with enemies that the player can't confront because they can't see them, only the horror that the enemies create... at least at first.

D&D, like most horror, eventually ends with the protagonists defeating the horrible thing and leaving. The only question is whether they walk out of the dungeons of dread laughing about a party member's fart joke at the villain's expense or questioning what kind of evil exists in the hearts of men and elves. Set the tone and work the atmosphere right and you can wind up with the second one.

Steampunkette
2016-02-24, 12:31 AM
Great example from Out of the Abyss, below.

Sarith, a drow prisoner, is infected by demonic spores of the demon queen of fungus. Through proper roleplaying and twisting of character you can create a strong dissonance over the course of his portion of the adventure by altering his personality as the hold of the spores becomes more powerful.

Take him from standoffish defeatist drow longing for a trip to Neverlight into a manic and almost euphoric aid to the party willing to do whatever it takes to make them happy so he can get them to come with him to Neverlight. Have him become almost obsequious over the course of a dozen play sessions before his head splits open into a spore cloud that may or may not infect the other party members.

Giving them the clues that something is wrong before you go all Cordyceps can create discordance and discomfort. And it can make a jump-scare headsplosion that much more powerful to your players as they realize that he was being manipulated from the get go by something inside his skull.

Horror is powerful and flexible. And it definitely fits within the confines of D&D.

As to the "Medium in a Haunted House" thing. Freaking EMBRACE that thing. Describe things that aren't happening to the group and, after the fact, clarify that it was what the Medium saw. Do that repeatedly until the party starts getting inured to it. Horror and guts and blood and gore and violence until it becomes almost passe because it's never real.

And then have it be real. Watch your players scramble to respond. Congrats, you just recreated the remake of The House on Haunted Hill. The shrink fakes a bunch of ghost stuff and primes people for ghosts and HOLY CRAP WAIT THERE ARE REAL GHOSTS! NOOOOO!

Vampire hunters in Gothic Horror games are also -great- ways to hang the horror on the party. The VH (Vampire Hunter or Van Helsing? You pick!) knows some of what's going on. They can identify certain monsters or traps or whatever. They gain bonuses to shooting vampires and know to use silver on werewolves. Very great! But ultimately it doesn't have much impact on the horror you're setting out to inflict through description. In the example with the medium they're just as likely as to get lulled as the rest of the party, after all.

goto124
2016-02-24, 12:39 AM
Add in illusions and you can pass papers to party members instructing them to describe actions that aren't really happening, but are happening within the illusion that a party member failed to save against (or doesn't get one for reason X, Y, or Z).

Add in Dopplegangers, Mind Control, and the like and you can go full "Evil Dead" with enemies that the player can't confront because they can't see them, only the horror that the enemies create... at least at first.

What's with all the paper-passing? What, yet another will save against mind control? Why are there so many dopplegangers? Why can't I see any of my enemies? What's the point of all my spells if I can't even get Line of Sight 90% of the time? The DM might as well place antimagic fields every 5 feet!

Draconium
2016-02-24, 12:46 AM
What's with all the paper-passing? What, yet another will save against mind control? Why are there so many dopplegangers? Why can't I see any of my enemies? What's the point of all my spells if I can't even get Line of Sight 90% of the time? The DM might as well place antimagic fields every 5 feet!

One thing Steampunkette forgot to mention - the players have to have the right attitude/mindset. If your players are actually reacting like this, knowing that it's a horror-themed campaigns... Then horror-themed campaigns may not be the right kind of campaigns for them.

goto124
2016-02-24, 12:50 AM
Also, this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?419451-The-most-paranoia-inducing-dungeon).

Reltzik
2016-02-24, 01:16 AM
The main element of horror is dread. It's not the splatter-slaughter or the dying or realizing that the killer was your dad. It's the anticipation of all those things. It's knowing that things are going to go really, really, bad... and secretly wishing that they'll DO so because the anticipation is even worse.

Two of the best ingredients for horror are ignorance and helplessness. Ignorance, because there's few things scarier than the unknown. Helplessness, because there's few things scarier than being powerless.

In a game, helplessness is the harder of the two to implement. To hell with genre, the whole point of a game is for the players to DO things, to make choices and to ultimately be heroes. They can't do that if they're helpless. The ideal model for GMing is to make sure the players' choices matter, and then do the bare minimum to set up the next sequence of choices. Anything where the players sit back like they're watching a movie is bad, unless it's a movie that rapidly leads up to a moment of decision for them.

However, helplessness can be implemented in ways that leave the players with choices. First, you can leave them helpless in one regard but able to act in another. Maybe they're going to turn into a werewolf and are powerless to stop it, but they can still save the town from the dragon during the day. Maybe they've got a larval alien queen growing inside them and it will eventually burst out of their chest, but in the meantime they can... oh wait, that was one of the sucky sequels, ignore that. Alternatively, they can affect anything... but they can't affect EVERYthing. They have to choose, and every choice is bad, but it's bad in different ways. Who do they save and who do they not save?

Ignorance is much, much easier to implement. Make them not know what's attacking them. Force them to fight in the dark or run in the fog. Every blind corner is potential death. The monster strikes -- and they just see a blur of claws and fangs and blood, they don't get a good look at it at all. Someone is the doppleganger... but you don't know who. You have to slowly reveal things, but the key word here is SLOWLY.

It's important that the players get invested in something. If you have nothing you fear losing, then horror just doesn't work. It doesn't matter if the NPCs get slaughtered if your players can't even bother remembering their names. If they see vampirism as a cool new set of stats, they won't dread being turned into a vampire. And if they think there's a revolving door of death where they can score an easy res or bring in a new PC, then their own character deaths won't much phase them. This is going to be particularly hard if the players REALIZE that everything they care about is something you can use against them. One system that I'm just realizing handled this well was Wraith: The Oblivion from the old World of Darkness. Wraiths (ghosts) had passions, things and people in the living world that they cared deeply about and kept them from completely passing on. Passions were perpetual liabilities, but also sources of power and deeply character-defining.

Dread is the key. You need to have anticipation of almost-certain negative consequences.... and then you have to live in that anticipation. The only instant consequences should be the ones that let the players know the consequences are there, so they'll dread them in the future. If they're crawling through a dungeon and trip a trap, there should be a click... and then nothing. Just the scout with his foot on a pressure plate that he daren't let up. And then the zombies should attack, and the scout will have to decide whether to risk the trap and run, or stand his ground in an uneven fight. ALWAYS draw the anticipation out, every chance you get. (Just not too much or you'll piss off your players.)

Steampunkette
2016-02-24, 01:32 AM
Reltzik: Please run games for meeeeeeeeeeee!

Seriously, this dude has encapsulated a lot of what I failed to get across.

Lacco
2016-02-24, 02:15 AM
Lot of good posts in this thread... and I miss it because of sleep :smallsigh:


It's not the system that's wrong, Thrudd. It's the player.

That's a player who doesn't -want- to be scared. They don't -want- to play in a horror game. They want to continue fantasying it up like there's nothing wrong in the world. Putting it into CoC won't help, as they'll just do their best to deadweight there, too.

Far better to acknowledge that that player probably won't want to be at the table for that game and move on.

I agree with both you and Thrudd. You both have valid points.

If a player doesn't want to get scared, they won't. Horror requires certain investment...and immersion. If the player starts to ask "Why is the GM doing this to me?", he is either not invested enough, immersed enough, or his playstyle involves too much power fantasy & requires a clear "win" scenario to be satisfied. And that won't work.

...hmm...it would be interesting to find out whether the "GM against me" is prevalent because of a system or it's only player-based...

Back on topic: so yes, the player has to want - even subconsciously - to be scared or they won't like what happens next. So know your players. Also - someone stated that they use the real-life fears of their players. If you want to do it, handle with care - this can be taken easily as attack on person. I know that one of my players has necrophobia - and a strong one. Since she joined our group, zombies and any kind of walking/crawling/shambling/moving dead are disallowed - she wouldn't be able to handle it OOC. I am allowed to use demons, pure evil manifesting as a spirits, elementals, large spiders, mutants, anything but dead. And I accept this limitation - and won't use it.

Best thing to use are subconscious fears - but you have to observe the players a lot to find out what those are.

As for Thrudd's post - it's true, that some systems give you a lot of firepower, and expect that you use it to "win" - overcome the enemies, kill the monsters, beat the scenario - practically programming (conditioning? no idea what the correct word would be) players to a certain expectations - for example, everything has stats and can be killed if you find the correct weapon/spell and use it on the weaknesses of the enemy. If you take this away by providing the perfect horror enemy (e.g. 100% concentrated pure evil, unstoppable black substance pouring and dripping into their safehouse, consuming everything...), they snap out of the game - because their expectations have been so broken that they start asking, whether this is only GM "having fun" with them...

So yes, I ran good horrors in Shadowrun (where players expect bad things to happen to them) and Riddle of Steel (where they practically play mundane heroes). And my observation is, once the players feel that combat has started, they immediately lose focus and snap out of the immersion ("roll initiative" is a magic word that does that - at least that's my observation).

A question would be - can you state in which systems you ran successful horror adventures/campaigns? And in which the immersion went away too quickly? I have some overview of the systems that are usually played, but not all.


Beautiful post about dread

:applauds:
This is what works, because you are targeting both player and character. Also, did you read Nightmares of Mine?

Darth Ultron
2016-02-24, 05:37 AM
How do you deal with that beyond telling the player that the character isn't appropriate for the tone of the campaign?

Remember a real horror game is one where the player is effected, not the character.

Fake horror is ""um, I rolled a 2, so ok my character acts all afraid of the snakes and gets a -2 to stuff....". Wow, just look at the horror.

So in a real horror type game you want to avoid the lame "roll a 1d20 save vs fear" and do more real fear. Though you need to have and idea of the players fear/horror threshold, and do things "just under their line".

Illusions are a good example. Don't use the ones with lame mechanical effects. Use the other ones. Like a phantasmal image of a door covered in blood that spells out some character names. Even if they see through the illusion it is still spooky.

Using foes that are "almost" too tough can be scary. You could just go above the "rules level" for foes. Or if your a rule zombie yourself, you can use foes "right on the line". And if you can handle the "unfairness " you can use foes the characters can't handle.

You can also knock the characters down a peg or twenty. Most games are full of curses, afflictions and such. Use them. Though if your in a game like D&D 3e+ you will really need to jump through some hoops so that the super uber optimized characters are not at 100% all the time.

Kami2awa
2016-02-24, 08:16 AM
In D&D, horror comes down to presentation. The D&D world tends to be the world of a horror story anyway - the world is full of monsters, undead things, devils, evil killers, and so on.

Making it a horror story actually means holding back on these things. In a normal D&D game, you encounter, say, a dozen vicious goblins in their forest hideout and slay them easily. If you're running a horror game, there is a lot more buildup. You first find a village that the goblins destroyed... and crucified the villagers. You track them into the woods and run into their traps and a horrific gibbet they constructed with the impaled remains of animals and people, as a warning to outsiders to keep away. You happen across a ritual site to Magluibiyet, with complex symbols on all the trees painted in blood. Getting to the goblin's hideout involves squeezing through tiny, claustrophobic tunnels in nearby caves.

These are goblins, an enemy that most D&D players laugh at, and mow down in droves with ease. They can be made disturbing simply by creating the right atmosphere before the players encounter them.

Now replace them with a monster the PCs haven't encountered before, and have to put together clues as to what on Earth it is from the traces they find and the few terrified survivors they meet (and can they trust them?).

Practically anything dangerous (or dangerous-seeming) can be made into a horror story.

Segev
2016-02-24, 10:51 AM
To some degree, the difference between a given scenario being a horror or action scene is dependent on the characters involved. Take a somewhat classic horror story involving a cleaver-wielding family of degenerate cannibals who hunt people through a slaughterhouse, their barn, and the surrounding woods, dragging them back as they catch them in horrific barbed chains, with butcher-hooks wielded as capture implements, etc.

This is terrifying to somebody unarmed, or armed less well, or even armed comparably, because these crazy people are horribly dangerous and know the area better and will do things that are terrifying on a visceral level. The helplessness comes from the sense of being hunted.

But the more competent the protagonists are at navigating that kind of terrain, at detecting ambushes, and at combat in general, the less "horror" and more "action" it becomes. Put a team of well-armed special forces in place of the group of hapless teens as these cannibals' prey, and even if there's a game of cat-and-mouse going on, the jump-scares are replied to with calm turns and steady, controlled bursts of weapons fire. The ambushes are turned around not with desperately cobbled-together traps that are of uncertain providence, but with deadly precision.

That said, a character who is a "hunter of horrors" in a horror game is not out of place! But he cannot have advantages that make him flat-out better at the kind of horror being inflicted than the horrors, themselves.

A man with floodlights facing creatures of the dark should very much be providing his allies with shelter and driving off the terrors. However, the brightness of his light should spell out just how dark the surroundings are. Anything could be out there. The light blinds them to anything outside its radius. The horror starts to build as his light sources start failing, whether by hook, crook, or happenstance. Monsters harmed by light might hurl stones or fire bullets to shatter the bulbs. Or they can be environment-warpers, themselves, lowering fog and the like into place. Thick smoke can create darkness even when fire burns nearby. And tools which reach into the light to yank people out - whips, those chains with hooks on the end mentioned before, mancatchers, etc. - can be used from the "safety" of darkness into which the light-blinded characters cannot see well enough to pick out the movement.

A being who can ignore illusions and share that power with others, who can avoid having his memory altered, means that no, you can't simply rely on basic obfuscations to be "scary." So he can see reality for what it is? Make reality itself frightening. Horrible. Put the solution to the problem in the illusions, in the false memories. Make safety lie in accepting the deceptions.

Don't make the alterations conceal things which are dangerous, not at first. Just make the alterations things that the rest of the totally mundane world thinks are real, or have always been real. Now, the PCs who are immune to memory alteration are the ones who look insane: they're insisting things are different than everybody knows they are. Build that sense of isolation. Make the PCs lose the trust of the NPCs who could help them. Make THEM seem the crazy, dangerous ones, so that the horror becomes a realization that the people who are being victimized think they're the ones behind it. The horror can stem from being helpless to convince others, rather than from being terrified that their own perceptions are wrong.

Imagine the illusion-proof hero being confronted by his deceived friends, who think he's killed an innocent man in his delusions. They gather around him, trying to restrain him, to keep him from hurting himself or anybody else again, and as they're doing this, the monster that only he can see is creeping up. The more he tries to warn them, the more they think he's nuts. He can try to fight them, but he'll hurt them if he does. If they manage to restrain him, he watches in horror, trying to fight his own friends, as the monster creeps up and snatches Julie away. And when he wails in horror, begging them to see...they ask him, "Who's Julie?"

Parvum
2016-02-24, 04:16 PM
I think I wanna bookmark this thread- it's full of gems! I'm so glad there are horror aficionados here. I think horror with tabletop games is super interesting- even though it's hard. Hard enough that some people seem to think it's impossible! But I'm with the dreadcrafters here. I think it's just a unique avenue for another brand of deeply affecting horror. I especially dig all the tips about manipulating helplessness- Reltzik's helpless but able to act and Segev's agency inversely proportional to bravado. I'm going to need to remember those!



I never prepare any text for the horror parts, only few key words, which I am sure I want to put in. The method I use is direct and fast answers to anything the PC/player does/says - that way the tension does not disappear and the unconscious "time limit" (my fast responses) provokes their own nervosity (and their fast responses, which usually play into my cards). It helps that I know my players quite well.

This is interesting to me. I like to prepare text because while I'm a decent writer my improv skills don't reflect that as well. I use boring words or, running on autopilot, insert humour into a description. Preparing some words ahead of time might help from killing the mood, though.

JohnnyCancer
2016-02-24, 04:42 PM
A simple mechanical trick is to not have the players track their HP numerically. Use descriptive terms to describe their pain and injuries. The players get scared when they're not 100% sure how close to death their characters are.

Parvum
2016-02-24, 08:00 PM
A simple mechanical trick is to not have the players track their HP numerically. Use descriptive terms to describe their pain and injuries. The players get scared when they're not 100% sure how close to death their characters are.

I heard an idea about keeping track of the character's health yourself, and only telling them how wounded they are without using numbers. I like the idea but I can see some headaches with it.

Had an idea of mixing this with the wounds/vigor system so players still handle their own vigor while you secretly keep track of their wounds. They keep track of the larger numbers and get some more familiar feedback on their status while you deal with the (much smaller) wound count and keep players from calculating exactly how much damage they can take from a hazard or enemy, keep them guessing.

goto124
2016-02-24, 08:05 PM
Use a system that supports a more deadly, lethal health system such as Wounds.

Do drop hints on how wounded the characters are, in description. "Blood drips down your forehead". "Pain pierces right through your left leg". Things that make the player feel helpless.


Is mind-control magic a good or horrible idea for horror? Mind-control could be so far down "you're helpless" it goes straight into "you're not in control of your character, you're just watching the DM fool around". It draws attention to how you're not a part of your character, quickly breaking immersion. It's hard to feel scared and helpless when you're not immersed in your character.

Gamgee
2016-02-24, 08:55 PM
My players are not the types to get scared. At least most of them. They can get paranoid but not truly afraid. The best way to frighten them is to play 40k rpg since I run it so brutal like a Dark Souls style difficulty.

Cealocanth
2016-02-24, 09:18 PM
In a RPG, I find that horror is mostly based on the GM. You can try to use mechanics in the game to create tension, but it usually ends up diffusing it instead. I find that the trick is to do it mostly through the careful adaptation of the setting. It needs to evolve with the players, with the primary goal being the formation of a persistent fear of the unkown and a sense of desperation. The players need to feel like they are fighting for their lives, that they are giving it all they have and even then it's not quite good enough. They also need to not understand what they are up against. Feed them glimpses of the monster but make most of it manifest itself in the player's imaginations rather than in the mechanics (don't be afraid to take some of their ideas, chances are they are scarier then what you originally imagined.) Even in an RPG style situation, basic horror storytelling applies.

it's very, very hard to do proper horror with an established monster. Ghosts, zombies, and vampires have been done to death. Everyone knows that silver bullets are for werewolves and that you shoot for the zombie's head. I find that better horror situations work when you don't understand the monster. My personal favorite of this is body horror. One of the scariest things that people face is disease, when a force they cannot perceive is causing unwilling changes to their bodies and minds. This stuff freaks people out to the point that some people can't actually handle it in an RPG. Too many people have had a relative die of cancer or heart disease for that type of thing to not hit close to home.

Segev
2016-02-24, 09:33 PM
I disagree on the established monster bit. I agree on the GM's essential role. A well-done monster, even one that's "understood," can be an excellent horror creature. It's all about atmosphere, expectations, and playing to the right ones while betraying others.

Werewolves and vampires are ambush predators, if nothing else, and that alone can build atmosphere.

Reltzik
2016-02-24, 11:00 PM
ghosts, zombies, and vampires have been done to death.

......

Bad pun!

Parvum
2016-02-24, 11:01 PM
Is mind-control magic a good or horrible idea for horror? Mind-control could be so far down "you're helpless" it goes straight into "you're not in control of your character, you're just watching the DM fool around". It draws attention to how you're not a part of your character, quickly breaking immersion. It's hard to feel scared and helpless when you're not immersed in your character.
That is one of the reasons I am personally very much against brutally ripping agency away from the player. I can see that horror might require you to play around with what power characters have but actually telling them that they can do nothing is just a huge no-no to me. It's a dink move to one of the players in your game to tell them they can't play the game, and it will lead to the kind of frustration that kills the mood. That's why I liked those earlier ideas of playing with player agency in interesting ways.

When it comes to status effects, I hate things like paralysis. Anything that forces a player to have no option, to surrender completely and say "Nothing I can do," will ever have the same effect as something that limits their choices to a few key decisions and makes them say "I could have prevented this!" Things that stagger them so they can only take one action at a time could suggest that if they had moved instead of attacked then the whole encounter would have been different. Something that knocks their body unconscious but shunts their soul out in such a way that they can invisibly follow their party and help them unseen. Having the character turned into a beast- or, if you don't want the party catching wise, having the player play a normal animal following the main party for food while the character has been misplaced and is trying to find the others.

But I could see some situations where even full on paralysis can have enough of an effect that it's worth it to do. The effect of passing notes (or using even subtler communication) to have players silently drop out of conversation one by one until only one person is left mobile could have quite an effect (would it be going too far to take the paralysed players and pose them to taunt the last remaining character?). I also remember a monster known for its ability to teleport everyone in an area to a random spot outside the location it guards. So the players become aware that the monster can teleport party members away. But there is a small number of these monsters who can't teleport people- instead they turn whoever fails their save invisible and paralyses them, giving no indication that they weren't telported. I still don't like the idea of taking away their ability to act, but depending on your group the idea might be entertaining enough to the victims that they'll sit back and enjoy the show rather than get angry or bored.

Dominate-type things would be the same, I think. Personally I would let that character act twice in a turn, once on their own and once under something's control, so they can still try to do something. It gives them more than a saving throw per turn, anyways. When it comes to other things like charm... I'm iffy on charm use on players in the first place, since the only way I can think of doing it would be either describing the NPC in the most positive light with subtle DM hints that they're a good ally to have, or just straight up telling the player they're charmed. I mean, it might work. But it really depends on the player. And would it kneecap your horror to have someone playing safely for the baddies? I'd steer clear.


I disagree on the established monster bit. I agree on the GM's essential role. A well-done monster, even one that's "understood," can be an excellent horror creature. It's all about atmosphere, expectations, and playing to the right ones while betraying others.

Werewolves and vampires are ambush predators, if nothing else, and that alone can build atmosphere.
I feel like a lot of the issue people have with using known monsters is that they're reducing them to their monster movie weaknesses. Which is a bit reductive, I think. Yeah, having a silver weapon means you aren't fighting an invincible slavering wolf-man whose bite can transform you into a beast. Now you're just fighting a regular slavering wolf man whose bite can transform you into a beast. But even then it's an oversimplification- the monsters in horror shouldn't be puzzles to solve like they are in a regular game, or at least they shouldn't feel like it. They should feel like a threat. You can do this with a normal human being, you can do this with a human who turns into a bat, too.

That said, I am all for twists on monsters! Like that example of the light hating monsters from above? Say the wicked creatures have been smashing lights and hiding in their dank caves slaughtering anyone who comes in. The characters need to get through their lair and they have loaded themselves up with flashing things, floodlights, light spells and everything shiny because they know the monsters clearly loathe the light. They manage to keep the creatures at bay with all their preparation, but in the heart of their layer they awaken something by carelessly swinging their flashlights around. (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/additionalMonsters/lurkerInLight.html) Once the lurkers in the light are awakened and revitalized by the touch of light, they might even thank the PCs and spare them before darting off and setting to work. It might seem like a boon until the players find the evidence of that work. The creatures in the darkness the PCs had been fending off start to appear in the glow of their lights as they travel, brutally dismembered and arranged in grisly displays. Their sacrifice fuels the gate spells needed to bring in more lurkers, ones who never met the PCs or decided to spare them. As the population of cave dwellers is decimated and the lurker population booms, the cave slowly fills with torches and magical light fixtures and the echoes of tiny laughter. None of the light the players have brought is any use, and their only hope of escaping alive is to stick to the shadows and the darkness, blind but invisible.

I think players preparing just leaves new avenues for horror to happen.

Silus
2016-02-25, 12:19 AM
With regards to the mind control bit, what of a sort of "lost time" type of mind control? Like the party goes into, say, a haunted house around ~10am, horse around for ~1-2 hours and when they exit it's night and quite a few of their supplies have been used (rope, lamp oil, things that wouldn't really tick players off like wands or potions) and it's clear that SOMETHING happened but they have no memory of it. Like totally blank parts of their memories but everything seems to flow together so nicely except for the brief voids.

Like...The Silence from Doctor Who.

Segev
2016-02-25, 12:44 AM
"Lost time" is tricky in an RPG because it necessarily robs the players of control over their characters' agency. When it's lost due to mind control making them somebody else's meat puppets, that's usually "acceptable" because they wouldn't have had the control anyway. But when it's supposed to only be a memory thing, it's...tricky.

I've contemplated how to do it at times. The best way I've come up with -and I've never had a chance to try it out - would be to let them know of the lost time, and then do flash-backs and play out individual moments of it when consequences of their actions need to be gauged. This still poses a problem, since doing it "out of order" would mean they got puppetted into place for the individual scenes, still. But it gives "big" decision-points a bit more oomph.

Unfortunately, one of the strengths of this kind of narrative is the ability to have seemingly out-of-character actions put on display "later" in the lost time, only to provide context and explanation later in the narrative by showing "earlier" bits. This is...less feasible unless you can predict your players' choices with their characters that well such that you can tell them what they were seen doing and later they agree, "Yeah, that's what I do," once they have the context and background.

goto124
2016-02-25, 10:29 AM
My issue with mind-control is that it makes you realize "heh my character is doing things I wouldn't do, without my initiative! I'm not my character!" Immersion = gone.

While roleplaying is typically about playing a character who takes actions you wouldn't perform, it also draw attention to the gulf between player and character. In a horror game where it's VERY important to keep immersion intact and retain tension, anything that breaks immersion will not help with horror.

Segev
2016-02-25, 10:39 AM
My issue with mind-control is that it makes you realize "heh my character is doing things I wouldn't do, without my initiative! I'm not my character!" Immersion = gone.

While roleplaying is typically about playing a character who takes actions you wouldn't perform, it also draw attention to the gulf between player and character. In a horror game where it's VERY important to keep immersion intact and retain tension, anything that breaks immersion will not help with horror.

Yes and no. Mind control can come in two forms: one is where your very thoughts are altered such that you act because you want to act as your master commands. This is the one that cannot be adequately maintained in a sense of player/character connection, because the player recognizes the external compulsion, while the character does not.

The other form is actually pretty terrifying to imagine happening, and is something that need not break the player/character connection: your body acts without your consent or control. You can't STOP yourself from swinging your sword at your friends. Or, in a horror scenario, you can't stop yourself from sitting in that chair and strapping yourself into the restraits. Or (if the rules don't have a "self-harm" prevention clause) from peeling back your own fingernails, or walking into the fiery inferno, or jumping off the cliff, or scooping your own eyes out with a spoon...

The knowledge that your character is a helpless passenger in his own body, experiencing what is happening but unable to stop or control it, is a form of mind control that is imminently suitable for horror. And most versions of D&D-style domination work that way (though not all).

It's the fear of paralysis magnified by the fact that your body is DOING SOMETHING even though you can't tell it what to do.

goto124
2016-02-25, 10:55 AM
So erm, what's the difference between the two? You make the self-harm so gross the player forgets the player-character gulf?

Silus
2016-02-25, 11:02 AM
So erm, what's the difference between the two? You make the self-harm so gross the player forgets the player-character gulf?

Think of type 1) as "Your mind and body belong to me", whereas type 2) is "I only need your body, feel free to watch as I work it like a puppet".

Segev
2016-02-25, 11:30 AM
So erm, what's the difference between the two? You make the self-harm so gross the player forgets the player-character gulf?


Think of type 1) as "Your mind and body belong to me", whereas type 2) is "I only need your body, feel free to watch as I work it like a puppet".

Yeah, this. The "self-harm" isn't the important part in either case.

Case 1 breaks the immersion because the PC is totally okay with what's going on while under that kind of mind control, while the player recognizes that he's lost control of the character.

Case 2 maintains the immersion because the PC is just as aware as the player that he's lost control. The player's frustration and helplessness as his PC's body acts is shared by the PC himself.

Kami2awa
2016-02-26, 03:25 AM
There is a third way to do mind control which requires a cooperative player. When a PC is controlled, take them aside and tell them they are now working for the bad guys in secret. Give them a basic objective (e.g. "steal the wizard's staff, lead the PCs into the old mines"); beyond that they don't even need to know who the bad guys are. This means that the players won't even necessarily guess that the controlled PC is affected. Obviously, some players will baulk at this but in my experience most won't, especially if assured that this is temporary.

And if you do it to "That Guy" then he or she'll come up with ways of being evil that you would never even have dreamed of...*

*Disclaimer: Use this last bit with caution.

Parvum
2016-02-26, 12:08 PM
And if you do it to "That Guy" then he or she'll come up with ways of being evil that you would never even have dreamed of...*

Oh, I've been meaning to ask about 'that guy.' When you've got someone in your party who basically makes their own encounters by doing their own thing without telling the party (activating traps or alerting monsters on their own, or stealing the Talisman of Ultimate Evil and secretly holding it for the entire campaign, frequent mysterious vanishings) can you maintain the horror? I mean, ideally you just talk to them. But they are instigating because that's how they have fun, so if they're game for horror in the first place can you DM in a way that lets them have their fun without killing the atmosphere or making the world seem safe? Because honestly, instigator archetypes are invaluable for a horror book or movie, wandering off corridors alone and completely trusting a disembodied voice that tells them to bleed onto a rock with a pentagram on it. Can't there be a way to give them a fun horror game too?

Segev
2016-02-26, 12:46 PM
Oh, I've been meaning to ask about 'that guy.' When you've got someone in your party who basically makes their own encounters by doing their own thing without telling the party (activating traps or alerting monsters on their own, or stealing the Talisman of Ultimate Evil and secretly holding it for the entire campaign, frequent mysterious vanishings) can you maintain the horror? I mean, ideally you just talk to them. But they are instigating because that's how they have fun, so if they're game for horror in the first place can you DM in a way that lets them have their fun without killing the atmosphere or making the world seem safe? Because honestly, instigator archetypes are invaluable for a horror book or movie, wandering off corridors alone and completely trusting a disembodied voice that tells them to bleed onto a rock with a pentagram on it. Can't there be a way to give them a fun horror game too?

Just let them go and suffer appropriate consequences. If they instigate and get killed, their death is a warning to the other PCs and can help build the horror with the realization that "yes, we can die." If they become corrupted and a pawn of evil, they're now the mole in the party's midst, and that has its own elements of horror. In true horror, rarely is the mole honestly free from terror, either. He may think he is, but he's deluding himself. Unless the mole started off as The Monster (e.g. a gothic horror where it turns out Dave was Dracula all along; what you thought the portraits were accurate?), he's a pawn or subject to "losing himself" worse than anybody else by his association with The Evil.

Parvum
2016-02-27, 11:41 AM
But is there any way to let your instigator instigate without straight up punishing that behavior or having them actively try to hinder the party without hurting the horror?
I mean I like the mole idea but I feel like it should be used sparingly, or at least not consecutively.

Gideon Falcon
2016-02-27, 07:56 PM
Instead of hik being the mole, you could work with him so that, while the character is still one of the heroes, the player intentionally has him make bad decisions, like wandering off alone and such. Even the other That Guy, the one who made a character that invalidates the scenario can be recruited in this way- that is, if they're willing.
having a fallguy in cahots can be very useful- for instance, have one player secretly make two characters- the first one starts out the game with everyone else, then gets killed off in some horrible way- even NPCs the characters are familiar with can feel like redshirts in dying, but nobody expects a PC to become the first victim without a botched save. Then, the second character comes in so the player isn't shafted for cooperating- which may take some work to keep from breaking immersion.

Segev
2016-02-29, 12:07 PM
Part of the problem with "letting the instigator instigate" without "hindering the party" or "hurting the horror" is that the last two are...at odds.

The "instigator" characters in horror stories do hinder the party. They bring the horror down upon them. When the party goes unhindered, when they can plan and work together like a well-oiled machine, that by itself reduces the horror. It isn't going to eliminate it, just as failing to operate in that way isn't enough to make a horror scenario work, but it is going to diminish it.

Horror is very much about trying to make "man vs. himself" a sub-struggle no matter what the surface struggle (often "man vs. monster") happens to be. The tired and trite line about "the monster was you all along" is still true, even if not literally so, in horror: the conflict with the monster in horror in part exists to force to the surface the flaws of the characters and force them to confront them. In well-done horror, the monster is often directly trying to bring these flaws out and exploit them. And, if not, it is still those flaws which cause the characters who do die to do so. Because they could have made better choices, but their flaws got in the way, and exposed them to the danger.

That may also be part of why the nature of the danger is more horrific when there are rules one can follow for "safety," but they don't "feel" safe: the struggle is of your rational mind vs. the instinct to run/scream/fight, or of your faith vs. what you can see, or of your own motives vs. what is best for the group.