Knowledge skills and horror games

[WarKitty]

I'm running a horror game (WoD Innocents). My question is about how to handle various knowledge skills. I'm more used to games like D&D where if you get a good enough knowledge roll you have a pretty good idea what you're facing. In horror, I don't want to give out that much detail because I'm worried it would spoil the atmosphere. At the same time I don't want to punish players for taking knowledge or research skills.

Advice?

[Flickerdart]

It seems like insanity should be your answer. Rolling Knowledge/Research could be a choice - do I want to know what this thing is (and risk that knowledge breaking my mind) or should I try to deal with it in ignorance?

[WarKitty]

It seems like insanity should be your answer. Rolling Knowledge/Research could be a choice - do I want to know what this thing is (and risk that knowledge breaking my mind) or should I try to deal with it in ignorance?

Eh, insanity seems too much like punishing players for using their skills. I don't really want to do that. What I want is for their research to lead to more of an "oh crap" than "oh that's how we defeat that." Or at least "oh this might work but it might not."

I guess I'm kind of answering my own question, aren't I?

[Honest Tiefling]

Two suggestions:

1) They learn of the thingy. They just don't learn nice things. Yeah, apparently that thing that is currently munching on the populace was mentioned in this one book written on human flesh that causes anyone to read it to bleed from the eyeballs and scream until they clawed out their own face with their own hands. The text sadly didn't mention how to kill it before the writing was replaced with toothmarks. In this scenario, they have the following bits of information:


It has some sort of mind magic or somehow can drive people to mutilate themselves.
Eye-bleeding is a troublesome sign, and anyone showing this should be carefully monitored.
The cult of people who write things down on human skin parchment might have more information on it, or ways to deal with it and put it back.
That exact same cult might be known to dabble in planar experiments, so that might be a part of the explanation of what it is, but hardly the full one.


They don't learn how to kill it, they don't learn of weaknesses, and they don't learn what it is. Doesn't mean that possible origins, events, powers, and signs can't be given as a result of knowledge skills.

2) You learn what it is NOT. If you happen to have a very scientific type of character, you could run a thing where they are trying to perform experiments and figure out what the thing is through process of elimination. Of course, other characters could turn on them for being so eager to face the beastie. These experiments are not being performed without a price, as many would require experiments on victims or engaging the thing, neither of which are safe plans. Eventually this might lead to a solution, but not without a lot of sacrifice and blood.

[Necroticplague]

Why does knowing what you're up against kill horror's atmosphere? All knowing what you're up against does is tell you how screwed you are. Plenty of horror works well if you know every detail about it, and then the sense of helplessness comesfrom realizing exactly how horribly outclassed you are. Sure, you might know know how strong it's offence is, but you stopped caring at "enough to kill us faster than we can kill it". If it's weak and only a threat because it was unknown, then it wasn't very suitable for a horror monster.

[Madbox]

Have their knowledge be somewhat inaccurate. Not excessively, just a bit here and there.

As an example, consider vampires. According to various stories, staking them kills them, decapitation followed by cremation kills them, and exposure to sunlight kills them (yes, nitpickers, the sunlight deal was invemted by the silent film Nosferatu. I'm using it anyway.)

So if the players with knowledge skills ask what they know about vampires, give them all of that, and then point out that those are all just old stories. Who's to say that any of those work? Maybe one does and the others don't. Maybe none do. Maybe it's all a bunch of hoopla and a shotgun to the face will work just fine. They now have a few ideas to try out, but nothing concrete.

[Darth Ultron]

I'm not sure what the game rules of that game are, but I'll just assume they are not like D&D's where they are made to ''ruin the adventure''.

Even better if the game rules don't demand you must follow set things.

So if the rules don't force you to tell the absolute truth, then you can have lots of fun. Knowledge is it's own special type of horror. Sure it's scary not to know something...but it's also scary to know something.

So if you can avoid the D&D like ''the monster is an X, read the monster manual page X'' you can have the monster be an ''known unknown''.

Like say the Pc's discover a monster that is a ''shapeshifter'', but it's not a monster type from page 33 of the rules. That does not tell them the ''hard core game effects they can use to their advantage''. So they know it can ''change shape'', but don't know the details.

And knowledge lets the DM toss out horror stories...''This beast was first seen in 1911 when it ate several loggers and wore their skins like a coat...and on quiet nights, people could hear the men's voices from the coat crying out for help as they were somehow kept alive by the beast...

[Slipperychicken]

Why does knowing what you're up against kill horror's atmosphere? All knowing what you're up against does is tell you how screwed you are. Plenty of horror works well if you know every detail about it, and then the sense of helplessness comesfrom realizing exactly how horribly outclassed you are. Sure, you might know know how strong it's offence is, but you stopped caring at "enough to kill us faster than we can kill it". If it's weak and only a threat because it was unknown, then it wasn't very suitable for a horror monster.

I agree with this. The monster from The Thing comes to mind. It was still quite scary even when the protagonists knew its strengths and weaknesses and had a pretty solid plan to stop it. If anything, it became more scary when they realized what the monster could do if they failed to destroy it.

[Ashtagon]

D&D style Knowledge skills used to find information about a monster should only work for creature types that have been studied by scholars and that knowledge exchanged with other scholars. If the critter is an unformed beast born of the hidden chaos unbeknown to mankind, that's it. It's unknown. You know only what you observe it do.

It's knowledge of what your species collectively has researched and disseminated. It's not a commune with deity spell.

Bear in mind too that sometimes knowing that it hasn't been seen (or at least, catalogued) by mankind before can be useful in itself.

[Red Fel]

D&D style Knowledge skills used to find information about a monster should only work for creature types that have been studied by scholars and that knowledge exchanged with other scholars. If the critter is an unformed beast born of the hidden chaos unbeknown to mankind, that's it. It's unknown. You know only what you observe it do.

It's knowledge of what your species collectively has researched and disseminated. It's not a commune with deity spell.

Bear in mind too that sometimes knowing that it hasn't been seen (or at least, catalogued) by mankind before can be useful in itself.

A great deal of this. Knowledge skills are for things that are commonly known, or things that your character personally knows. If a one-of-a-kind being-that-should-not-be from beyond the stars appears, there is no knowledge of it. It is a completely new thing in the world; the best you can do is learn from observation.

Or run. At full speed. Far, far away.

Alternatively, go with Honest Tiefling's suggestions. Either you learn what little is known by slavering cultists who may not be all there, or you simply observe what the thing isn't through scientific observation and possible dissection.

Particularly dissection.

EDIT: That said, horror isn't about your skills not working. In ideal horror, your skills work just fine; they just won't save you.

So let the PCs perform Knowledge checks. Let them learn that the creature has a hide resistant to ranged weaponry, that can only be pierced by a legendary thrice-blessed weapon long-since lost. Let them learn that it has acid blood and toxic breath, and simply observing it for more than a few minutes warps sanity and distorts vision. Let them learn that the last time such a creature came to the planet, disaster was left in its wake, a substantial chunk of the world's population died in agony, and our trauma was so deep and complex that we convinced ourselves that what caused it was something called the Black Plague.

Let them learn all sorts of neat things that will not save them. That's horror.

[Slipperychicken]

D&D style Knowledge skills used to find information about a monster should only work for creature types that have been studied by scholars and that knowledge exchanged with other scholars. If the critter is an unformed beast born of the hidden chaos unbeknown to mankind, that's it. It's unknown. You know only what you observe it do.


Way I figure it, an expert in monster lore should at least be able to make some inferences about an unknown monster. It might be a new thing, but it may either share something with known monsters (whether real, theoretical, or fictional), or else possess attributes that might be inferred from observation. By which I mean that a monster expert should be able to make something of it, even if just an idea of its weak-spots or hit points.

[WarKitty]

D&D style Knowledge skills used to find information about a monster should only work for creature types that have been studied by scholars and that knowledge exchanged with other scholars. If the critter is an unformed beast born of the hidden chaos unbeknown to mankind, that's it. It's unknown. You know only what you observe it do.

It's knowledge of what your species collectively has researched and disseminated. It's not a commune with deity spell.

Bear in mind too that sometimes knowing that it hasn't been seen (or at least, catalogued) by mankind before can be useful in itself.

WoD knowledge skills are more general than D&D knowledge skills, from what I understand. It's less "what do I know about this specific monster" and more "what do I know about this sort of phenomenon, or this subject."

[Kami2awa]

D&D style Knowledge skills used to find information about a monster should only work for creature types that have been studied by scholars and that knowledge exchanged with other scholars. If the critter is an unformed beast born of the hidden chaos unbeknown to mankind, that's it. It's unknown. You know only what you observe it do.

It's knowledge of what your species collectively has researched and disseminated. It's not a commune with deity spell.

Bear in mind too that sometimes knowing that it hasn't been seen (or at least, catalogued) by mankind before can be useful in itself.

This is something I wonder about with a lot of "lore" in many fantasy settings - how on Arda did anyone ever discover it? For example, in Supernatural there is a monster killable only by being stabbed 7 times using a bamboo knife blessed by a Shinto priest. This leads one to imagine just how many different knives, numbers of stab wounds, and types of priest were tried before someone found the one permutation that worked!

It turns out throwing the monster into a woodchipper also works.

The information available will only ever be what is known already, and probably not widely available. This can lead to interesting backstory, because knowing anything about the monster requires that someone has encountered it before. How did that happen? And what became of the witness?

When I run modern horror settings, rolls vs any kind of "Occult Knowledge" skill will give information on the "IRL" paranormal - on things like folklore, UFO legends, ghost sightings, and so on. So for example, it might reveal that ghost sightings are associated with sudden drops in temperature, or that a particular site is known for UFO spotting.

[Flickerdart]

This is something I wonder about with a lot of "lore" in many fantasy settings - how on Arda did anyone ever discover it? For example, in Supernatural there is a monster killable only by being stabbed 7 times using a bamboo knife blessed by a Shinto priest. This leads one to imagine just how many different knives, numbers of stab wounds, and types of priest were tried before someone found the one permutation that worked!
It's not the one permutation that worked, it's the one known permutation that worked. There's no reason to assume this knowledge was arrived at through the scientific method, either. Perhaps the monster cornered a Shinto priest, who hastily blessed a letter opener he had on hand as a last ditch effort, and then whoops, it worked, better write it down.

[Necroticplague]

WoD knowledge skills are more general than D&D knowledge skills, from what I understand. It's less "what do I know about this specific monster" and more "what do I know about this sort of phenomenon, or this subject."

That's how knowledge skills in dnd work as well. Knowing about a monster is a subset of a much broader range of topics. So knowlege (religon) tells you standard pelorite burial rituals, the holy symbol of kord, the most common depiction of the evening glory, and the difference between a bone creature and a skeleton.

[ClintACK]

Start with fear of the unknown.

Then dribble out knowledge in little bits that make you wish you didn't know that.

Example:
They find the remains of a victim -- it's the missing caravan guard! His face is in a rictus of horror.

Knowledge check: That smooth hole in the shiny breastplate reminds you of some invertebrates that feed on shellfish by drilling through the shell. (Do you want to make an Investigation check?)

Investigation check: The inside of the breastplate is a bloody mess of bone and skin with most of the flesh eaten away. Sucked out through the hole? That must have taken hours, and there's no sign of a struggle. (Would you like to make another Knowledge check?)

and so on, until they've got enough things to worry about in the quiet before the next encounter. (Knowing the creature paralyzed the victim without knowing *how* the paralytic was delivered would be nice. :) )

[Segev]

I was in an Unknown Armies game a few years ago. Most of us were magic in some way, and thought the game an interesting romp that was just a little on the "out there" end (which UA really strives to be). The one PC who had the second-least magic in the party had, as her only magic ability, a skill that amounted to true sight (when successful).

Her player was the only player to think the game we were playing was a horror game. Apparently, whatever she saw that the others did not made the game more and more twisted and terrifying, just because she knew more of the truth.

So knowledge can make things more horrible, if done right.

I never did find out what made it so, in that game; I was too busy with my teenaged Entropomancer who got retconned into having a girlfriend by a time shenanigan perpetrated by the Compte de Saint Germaine in response to his increasingly suicidal actions which apparently broke things at one point. My PC spent a number of parallel lifetimes correcting and re-correcting a lot of events under the Compte's..."direction." His Fear Stimulus, by the time the retcon was done, was "Rule #3."

He knew three rules he learned from his time with the Compte.

Rule 1: Sometimes, things have to happen, for a reason.
Rule 2: Not everything has to happen, but some things should anyway.
Rule 3: The Compte is a Jerk.

[Honest Tiefling]

This is something I wonder about with a lot of "lore" in many fantasy settings - how on Arda did anyone ever discover it? For example, in Supernatural there is a monster killable only by being stabbed 7 times using a bamboo knife blessed by a Shinto priest. This leads one to imagine just how many different knives, numbers of stab wounds, and types of priest were tried before someone found the one permutation that worked!

1) A lot of settings have divining magic, so you can skip the messy experimentation and go directly to asking the gods/fates/spirits/Cthulhu/whatever.

2) A lot of settings with high magic could literally just experiment until they found it out. I think this approach works very well for a horror game, since you have people strapping monsters to tables to stab them to death until something works. Have fun trusting your new allies!

[Grim Portent]

I'm going to chime in with the other people saying that knowing what a monster is, and even what it's weaknesses are, doesn't really affect whether or not it's scary. In my personal experience knowing what you face actually makes people more scared because they are more likely to understand the danger they're in.

For example, in a Dark Heresy game, if you mention the word 'Genestealers' to any player who knows what it is they'll immediately try to NOPE their way out of there because they know what a genestealer is and how little chance they have against them.

Contrast this with what happens if they see a '4 armed xeno with sharp claws' and fail their Forbidden Lore (Xenos) test and have no idea what it is, they shoot at it or even (amusingly) charge it in melee, and promptly get eviscerated or implanted by a creature that can kill supersoldiers, unless they get stupidly lucky and kill it.




In WoD I'm personally of the opinion that the more you know the more terrifying things become. Human society is pervaded and surrounded by things that are dark reflections of humanity or worse. Everything humanity believes is a shared illusion and there are beings who seek to tear that illusion apart and cast everything into nothing. Possibly the worst part is that with a little effort or luck you can become half the things that you once though existed only as nightmares.

Assuming, given it's Innocents you're running, that the party will be children you should probably try to keep any lore the PCs know as a result of rolls framed in fairytales and children's stories, or if you want to go dark go for a campfire story style, the sort in which entire groups of young scouts go missing and the like.

[Segev]

A lot of settings with high magic could literally just experiment until they found it out. I think this approach works very well for a horror game, since you have people strapping monsters to tables to stab them to death until something works. Have fun trusting your new allies!

Combine this with the standard fantasy trope that such knowledge tempts people to dark acts to gain more power, then twist it through a horror filter (perhaps this is WHY "knowledge breeds madness"), and the experimenters BECOME part of the horror.

The author of Worm has a serial he's currently writing and putting online called "Twig" that is an amazing horror setting. It's not really quite treated as one, but the elements are all there. Imagine James Bond in Call of Cthulhu meets Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.