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Thread: How to Run a Horror Campaign?
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2015-05-09, 09:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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How to Run a Horror Campaign?
Hey guys, I've been thinking about running a horror campaign recently. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to do so. I plan on using D&D 3.5, but I would rather have advice that can be applied to any system than things that specifically apply to that one. So what would you guys recommend for trying to make a horror campaign?
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2015-05-09, 10:50 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Run a Horror Campaign?
In my opinion, horror works best when the characters are weak or have their weaknesses exploited. Loss of control is scary. 3.5 allows for very powerful, competent builds, which may negate some of the effectiveness of the genre, unless you have everyone roll up PC's with the Commoner class.
But the characters can still be weak with respect to the horrors they are facing. Or at least they can believe they are weak, which is almost as good.
The Unknown is the real power behind horror. What you can't see or quantify can be terrifying. Use descriptions that heighten this
(e.g. - "As you strain your eyes, you catch glimpse of what looks like a misshapen little man squatting in the shadows just beyond the limit of your campfire. A moment later he's gone. It happened so quickly you're not sure if you imagined it. Then, over the crackling of the logs, you begin to hear a voice whispering from somewhere in the darkness. Strange, twisted words in a foreign tongue. A chill breeze blows across your neck and suddenly the flickering light is replaced with blackness. In the dark, you think you hear a heavily-accented voice repeating the same phrase over and over. 'My little sparrows, my little sparrows,...'."
Instead of: "The goblin sorcerer casts Darkness on your campsite.")Last edited by Maglubiyet; 2015-05-09 at 10:53 PM.
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2015-05-10, 04:52 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Run a Horror Campaign?
Firstly I would say that horror campaigns are usually considered 'DMing hard-mode', secondly from personal experience I have developed three rules for creating fear in PCs:
- Set up the good ending right from the start, the players need to be aware of the possibility of a happy ending where everyone survives and lives happily ever after and need to be invested in getting there, fear without hope is despair which makes for a "what's the point" attitude which doesn't work so well in an RPG, fear with hope creates panic which is much better for horror gaming, of course whether or not it's actually achievable is up to you, the players just need to think it is
- You need to create the moment when the penny drops, slowly hint at things that indicate the players are in danger or at what the threat is, if you do this correctly there should be a moment part-way through the session when one of their faces suddenly changes to 'Oh s***'. This also creates the sense of panic by introducing another resource the players need to worry about conserving, time.
- Lastly you need to set a timer, essentially the point where the previously mentioned happy ending becomes clearly unachievable and/or everyone is dead, this also links to the second point as when the penny drops is also when the players should become aware of the time limit, works better the longer it takes them as they start to realize how much time they wasted before time was of the essence.
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2015-05-10, 05:42 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Run a Horror Campaign?
They key, and most important thing, when dealing with monsters in a horror game, is that the players must not know how to "correctly" fight the monster. They must not know what the monster can do, how the monster generally behaves, and how the monster can be hurt. The uncertainty that anything they try might be a waste of time and resources, or at worst even make the situation worse for themselves, is what makes fighting monsters frightening.
You pretty much have to homebrew these monsters yourself, though in D&D 3rd edition that is often easily done by adding a template and making the creature look so different that the players won't know where the stats have been taken from.
Related to that, things always get frightening when the characters can't act at optimal efficiency. Severely reduced visibility and tight spaces are always good for that. In narrow tunnels they can only use stabbing weapons or light weapons, and at very low ceilings they can only move very slowly and pretty much only use daggers. Enemies with ranged attacks that sit in spaces that are hard to reach are also very unpleasant.We are not standing on the shoulders of giants, but on very tall tower of other dwarves.
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2015-05-10, 07:41 AM (ISO 8601)
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2015-05-10, 08:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Run a Horror Campaign?
I would go with Basic Fantasy as a GM who is used to run 3rd edition. Everything is familiar, but the system is much smaller and lighter. Lamentations of the Flame Princess would work too. Both games are free downloads. Anyone familair with 3rd edition can learn them inside out in one or two hours.
The problem with 3rd edition is that it's a game in which players tend to pour long over a tactical situation, trying to figure out the optimal position of PCs and enemies to get all kinds of small bonuses to dice rolls and defenses. Horror games work best when the players are not thinking about numbers at all (other than their hit points) and envision the encounter as a scene, not as a chessboard.We are not standing on the shoulders of giants, but on very tall tower of other dwarves.
Spriggan's Den Heroic Fantasy Roleplaying
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2015-05-10, 08:40 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Run a Horror Campaign?
Once in a while, if the players haven't been making much rolls or they're stalling a bit while in some creepy place, it might be fun to make a roll, but not label what it's for. I sometimes do this in the OOC threads of my games to give the players a little bit of paranoia. But only once in a while. Too often and they'll be on to you.
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2015-05-10, 09:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Run a Horror Campaign?
Description, description, description! This is especially important in horror games. Not just for the unknown (people might get upset that their knowledge skill checks don't work on goblins without reason), but for the people, the setting and the monsters. One big aspect of horror is to subvert the everyday. So one day the friendly blacksmith is wandering without a head, trying to grab the heads of other beings, including animals to put in place of his own, and has probably done so for other people. (Okay, not the most horrifying example, but work with me, please) It'll have far more of an impact if they know the blacksmith and the people he's been swapping heads for, and know what the rooms looked like before the blood.
Also, when the **** hits the fan, it'll give the players a better idea of what they do and do not have on hand. I think other game types work with fudging, but not horror as much given the tenseness. They need to know what they can reasonably scavenge to fend off the horrors you have planned.For all of your completely and utterly honest needs. Zaydos made, Tiefling approved.
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2015-05-11, 02:28 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Run a Horror Campaign?
I must agree with abovementioned - we sometimes change the game style to horror and it works because no rolls/very little rolls are made during the horror scenes. The players accept this mostly and in these times they also accept any ruling, even contrary to usual conditions.
Spoiler: ExamplePC: I want to summon a spirit.
GM:You sense the spirit does not want to come. Your summoning usually goes easily, but now it is exhausting. Roll at -X dice.
PC: I rolled 9 successes!
GM: Not good enough. You see the spirit forming in front of you...however its image starts to twist in front of your eyes and suddenly you realize it is not the spirit you wanted to summon...and it is not under your control.
So - will they know it is a horror campaign from the start?
Ideas for the "I'm weak" feeling:
- let them start in the NPC classes (I dunno how they are called, but you know - warrior, expert...). They are weak. Everything out there is especially dangerous.
- everyone gets fixed (and ver small) amount of HP per level - maybe only CON modifier? Maybe lower the dice by one or two increments (1d6 becomes 1d4/1d2; 1d10 becoes 1d8/1d6?).
- magic items are rare/hard to find/not so powerful/do not work all the time/have strong drawbacks/have their own plans/are all working for the enemy (pick up to seven, feel free to mix&match)
- no monster manual. I would go even further and state - don't give the monsters any stats.
Spoiler: Ideas for dread- never show the monster first. Build it up. Let them find the results, hear the stories, read the journal entries, but the monster itself should remain 'invisible" for most of the time (they may catch a glimpse, see shape, sense movement, hear the breath, but not the monster). In case of horrors, even the best description is still only description - if they see the monster, they will try to kill it. So - don't show it until they are ready for the "oh ****" or "good ending" that dysike mentioned. Want to be especially evil? There is no monster.
- combine several uncomfortable situations. Old creaky building? Claustrophobic space? Why not make the creaking stronger...something is standing on the roof...
- strange is good, weird is better. The best horrors are not explained completely. The best monster encounter should leave the players asking "what the hell was that...?". Animated skeleton doesn't freak out anyone anymore. Animated skeleton, that reconstructs itself from bones around? Better. Animated bone dust that tries to get under their skin? Even better. Animated bones that try to incorporate themselves into their bodies...?...
- dreams. Nightmares. One of the strongest weapons in the GM's arsenal, because...there are no rules in dreams. Start realistic, get weird. Remember to jump from one scene to other without any explanation. Sudden changes of scene ("and you fight off the last goblin. You suddenly see you are out of beer and the barkeeper is asking what would you like more" - ok, this one is not very subtle).
- choose good soundtrack/ambience. Prepare your own if you need to (softrope is good for this). Let them hear things (very low volume).Once I played a sound of girl's voice talking (basically warning them) very quietly in a loop while they discussed their plans. It took them 15 minutes to finally hear it - and once they did, I stopped it.
- madness is your friend. Illusions and mind control doubly so. They see table full of food - deliciously looking. However, there is a weak but sickening smell in the air. Oh yes, the food is old and rotten, however they cannot stop eating now...
- I especially liked Cthulhu Dark combat rules - if they fight it, they are dead. Also, once they fight it, the suspense is mostly dead - at least if they switch into the "I will move there, you cast this, he will shoot it" way of thinking.
- remember - they have 5 senses...and maybe even the sixth. Let them see glimpses, strange shapes. Let them smell the rotting stench or sweet scent of rot. Let them hear strange sounds, strange voices. Let them taste in their mouths something so horrible they will not want to think about it. And let them feel that something doesn't want them here...
I think that's all for now... so, do they know it's going to be a horror campaign? Do they want to be afraid?Call me Laco or Ladislav (if you need to be formal). Avatar comes from the talented linklele.
Formerly GMing: Riddle of Steel: Soldiers of Fortune
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2015-05-11, 10:15 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Run a Horror Campaign?
I've commented on horror campaigns before. Rather than retread old ground, I'll simply exercise a sublime level of ego, and quote myself.
The bottom line is that D&D, as a system, is not ideal for a horror campaign, but it is functional. Just remember that the key to horror is that you can't fight it. You can't fight the weather, the environment, the atmosphere, the noise. Horror must be mental and inevitable. Most of the horror must be happening inside the players' minds. As soon as you enter combat, as soon as the horror becomes a matter of dice and paper, it leaves the mind and becomes routine. So keep it inside their heads as much and as long as possible.
Keep in mind also that it requires a certain degree of mental readiness. Make sure the players are willing to engage in a full horror campaign, as opposed to a one-shot. Make sure you have vents built into your story, to allow some degree of decompression between exercises in terror and futility. Be aware of the limits that go from "fun scary" to "I feel ill and need to step outside."My headache medicine has a little "Ex" inscribed on the pill. It's not a brand name; it's an indicator that it works inside an Anti-Magic Field.
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2015-05-11, 11:06 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Run a Horror Campaign?
Just wanted to reiterate this. It's important that the players all be on board because a large part of successfully scaring them is them being in the right mindset to begin with. Also, some players don't want to be scared. And some players who wouldn't mind being scared just don't like being powerless.
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2015-05-11, 11:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Run a Horror Campaign?
I have only been in one genuinely creepy RPG game, and that was when I was playing Call of Cthulhu. One of the most important things that you can do is set the mood correctly. Dim the lights. It might seem small, but being in the dark can have a profound psychological effect on your players. Also, another thing that you should remember is that the monster is usually only scary until the players see it clearly. You know the monsters in Amnesia with the screwed up mouth? That thing had me sh*tting my pants until I actually stared it in the face and realized that it's just a dude with a screwed up mouth.
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2015-05-11, 02:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Run a Horror Campaign?
It is also important that you don't annoy your players. Yes, running from the dreadful ghost girl with no eyes is scary, doing so every five minutes is not. Same for riddles: Some riddles fit the mood perfectly, but if the players are stuck for 15 minutes and get bored, the mood falls apart.
It is difficult to get the right feeling for timing and pacing, but you must keep track of the general mood. Quality beats quantity in regard to eerie encounters, and a riddle that must be solved for the story to continue might threaten the atmosphere.
Also, putting the players under pressure helps a lot. Find a reason why they can't just turn away.What can change the nature of a man?
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2015-05-11, 05:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Run a Horror Campaign?
One thing that makes horror work, I think, is playing on something that superstitions were built around: ritual.
Don't make the monster, necessarily, unkillable. Make it unapproachable. Make it threaten them or what they care about, as Red Fel suggests, in ways the heroes' powers won't help them.
And then give the players ways to hold it off, stave it off, keep it at bay. Rules that are strange but repeatable, but which are fragile and easy to break even on accident.
Rules like:
- It can't cross a bridge
- It is hedged out by a line of salt
- It can't see you if you hold your breath
- It can only hear non-rhyming speech
- It can't touch you if you can't see it
- It only attacks you if you see it
- It can't move (or be hurt) if it is being watched
- If you walk without rhythm, it doesn't notice you
These things should work, should keep them safe...but should cost effort and stress to maintain. Horror and superstition go hand in hand. Rituals that anybody can perform, but which can be screwed up easily. These can lead to close proximity to the monster, to the horror, with tension and danger but without it being guaranteed. It builds the suspense by providing a "victory condition" that relies solely on chance and their dedication/skill at the ritualistic task. It can also, in and of itself, make the characters FEEL more vulnerable.
Rob a man of his sight - especially by making him volunteer not to use it - and he feels far more vulnerable than with it. Tell somebody to hold their breath, and they can...but for how long? And what if they're startled? Or need to sneeze? People can speak in doggeral couplets, but if all it takes is one accidental bit of normal communication...
And there is a large subset of the geek population to whom the words, "Don't Blink," are chilling.
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2015-05-11, 08:36 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Run a Horror Campaign?
Thanks a lot. Now I've got that song stuck in my head >.O
These things should work, should keep them safe...but should cost effort and stress to maintain. Horror and superstition go hand in hand. Rituals that anybody can perform, but which can be screwed up easily. These can lead to close proximity to the monster, to the horror, with tension and danger but without it being guaranteed. It builds the suspense by providing a "victory condition" that relies solely on chance and their dedication/skill at the ritualistic task. It can also, in and of itself, make the characters FEEL more vulnerable.
Rob a man of his sight - especially by making him volunteer not to use it - and he feels far more vulnerable than with it. Tell somebody to hold their breath, and they can...but for how long? And what if they're startled? Or need to sneeze? People can speak in doggeral couplets, but if all it takes is one accidental bit of normal communication...
And there is a large subset of the geek population to whom the words, "Don't Blink," are chilling.
Granted, I only included that detail after a session and a half of careful atmospheric buildup- my players were already so creeped out by that point that they had previously spent an entire session walking down two almost entirely empty hallways without realising that that had been all they did, aside from arguing for nearly twenty minutes on whether or not, and how, to enter an unoccupied room that they could clearly see the entirety of. And this without anything more threatening or dangerous than vague noises happening.
As an aside, a simple trick that can be very helpful (as long as you're not too obvious about the setup)- take things the players know full well are scary, or at least very dangerous, and have those things act irrationally terrified of the actual horror monsters you want to use. As always, 'show, don't tell' is key. Don't just say 'these big scary things are scared of something', have their behaviour be altered in some strange way, from as simple as avoiding a certain area to the more complex, like ritually summoning something nasty... to stake out as a sacrifice to something worse.
Anyhow, with proper setup and atomsphere, anything can be frightening. I managed to cause my players to react with stark fear to the discovery of a pink teddy bear mostly buried in loose paper. For the curious, they were right to be afraid, given that actually was one of the monsters- it was a teddy bear, it had just had the soul of a murdered child bound to it to make it a stealthy, superfast killer golem that could only move while unobserved. And they knew that there were more than a hundred of them in the complex with them, since they'd found the remains of the children... I can't be the only one who noticed that similarity between the Weeping Angels and the toys in Raggedy Ann and Toy Story, can I?
Er, anyways... the twist being that the golems had filled the entire complex with shallow drifts of paper just tall enough to conceal their tiny forms, and used that to move freely. And when the players started deploying camera drones to lock them down, the golems used their speed to stir the paper up in clouds so that they could get at the PCs once again.
Hrm. Although, all that being said, I'm not sure how well a horror campaign would work; a few sessions, sure, but maintaining the atmosphere of bleak helplessness, especially in a system not designed for it, could get awkward. I'm not sure. Then again, I'm not a horror fan at all, I just seem to have an odd talent for writing some every once in a while. And if anyone wants to use my 'Weeping Cherub' toys (or whatever you want to call them), feel free.
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2015-05-11, 08:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Run a Horror Campaign?
The best way is to play your monsters as intelligent beings. Traps, schemes, hampered survival all contribute.
DMs only roll dice for the sound they make
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2015-05-11, 09:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Run a Horror Campaign?
I'm somewhat hesitant to suggest this, but I do know that it can work well if done right: If you can, go meta.
Find out if your players have any real-life phobias or things that really ick them out. Then slowly incorporate them into the game - it's amazing how quickly the line between player and character can start to blur.
Keep a close eye on your players, though, and know when and where to draw the line. You want to make them uncomfortable, but not so uncomfortable that they leave the table. This is the voice of experience talking here, so don't end up with the regret of having pushed things too far - it may be an irrational fear to you and the others, but to the player concerned it might be genuinely upsetting.
In the two instances were I've had this happen, one was arachnophobia (fear of spiders), the other was leporiphobia (fear of rabbits).
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2015-05-11, 09:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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2015-05-11, 09:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Run a Horror Campaign?
I think you can. Describe horrible things happening to NPCs, and even if the PCs are reasonably capable and can put up a fight, you may well send the players home with nightmares. Things like capture and harvesting for grim purposes like sacrifice or consumption, or experimentation without moral restraints. (Developmental biology can get gruesome on its test subjects—one of the many reasons biologists use mice, flies, and worms in the lab is that we feel okay about deliberately monkeying around with them in ways which would be horrifying in a dog or human.) Make the PCs know that awful things lie in wait for them, should they fail, and as long as the enemies aren't trivial, the possibility of that happening to them will keep them on their toes.
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2015-05-11, 10:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Run a Horror Campaign?
You can be scared without being helpless, but you can't be scared without believing that you are at least a little bit helpless, or at the very least that you're in some kind of danger. If they're just something you could smack aside, and you believe you can just smack it aside, then obviously you aren't going to be scared. It's the difference between someone who is afraid of spiders and someone who isn't. I know I can just step on a spider and that I don't really have anything to be afraid of. Someone who is afraid of spiders doesn't think they could just step on a spider.
Me: I'd get the paladin to help, but we might end up with a kid that believes in fairy tales.
DM: aye, and it's not like she's been saved by a mysterious little girl and a band of real live puppets from a bad man and worse step-sister to go live with the faries in the happy land.
Me: Yeah, a knight in shining armour might just bring her over the edge.
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2015-05-12, 02:56 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Run a Horror Campaign?
The characters don't have to be unable to do anything to defend themselves or others. But I think the source of all fear is a lack of control. And in many RPGs the PCs are usually highly trained experts who know exactly what dangers they are dealing with and how to best deal with them. To create a horror atmosphere, that needs to be taken away from them. Not to the extend that they can't do anything, but at least to a degree that they no longer know what actions would be best, and are also uncertain which actions might actually make things worse for them.
And that is why old Survival Horror games have such terrible controls and save systems. At the very beginning it might have been limitations of the hardware, but those were quickly overcome. But the games still controlled terribly for long years after that because it makes the games genuinly more scary. When you're able to shot all the zombies reliably in one hit, you're in control of the situation. If you know that your aim will be terrible and slow, things instantly get a lot more exciting.
In an RPG the methods are different, but when you're in control, know what you need to do, and able to do it, there isn't really any need to be afraid.We are not standing on the shoulders of giants, but on very tall tower of other dwarves.
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2015-05-12, 08:16 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Run a Horror Campaign?
The sense of danger, to oneself or something one cares about, must be real. That's the core source of fear. Horror is fear made into an all-pervading ambiance. Specifically, it is fear couched to some degree in unknowns. One can be terrified of something one fully understands, but horror really loses its grip in the face of knowledge. Terror is immediate; horror is sustained. While horror can be exhausted - as can any emotion - it lasts longer than terror. Horror is to terror what love is to passion.
Like love, horror must be sustained with some effort and, occasionally, mixing up the sustaining mechanism.
But the crux of horror is a pervasive sense of unease.
And no, total helplessness is actually not conducive to horror. Horror needs hope. It needs some means of possibly overcoming. It also needs that means to be of questionable utility, either due to small chance of working or due to how easy it is to botch.
This is why I cannot emphasize enough the power of defensive rituals - the simpler (but easier to screw up), the better - which can be used to thwart, for a time, the Bad Thing(s). "Don't blink," and you're safe. But. everyone. blinks. "Hold your breath so they don't see you" is easy...for a time. But you will, eventually, have to breathe. "Don't step on a crack" is a silly child's game, but if there are THINGS that lurk in cracks to pull you through them, gruesomely crushing you to fit...
Give the characters things they can do to be safe. Horror stems from the uncertainty of the ability to do it perfectly, and from the danger that arises if they fail.
"Don't step on a crack" while the floor is slowly cracking into finer and finer pieces becomes much more worrisome.
Spaceships and space stations make great horror settings because, while we engineer our survival to be something with redundancy and with routines we can follow to make it, well, routine, when something goes wrong, it goes wrong FAST.
In fact, you could liken a village that lives in the metaphorical shadow of a supernatural horror that will get you if you don't follow certain rituals - rituals the whole town cooperates to make routine and regular - to a space station full of people who follow certain procedures to maintain their air supply and prevent leaks. Something goes wrong, and the ritual is put at risk or the routine is subverted, and now you're losing air or the monster is coming.
Ritual combats horror when it's made routine. People grow accustomed to the way of life that keeps them safe, and half-forget about the danger. It's kept at bay. They're just very careful about following the rules. Horror sets in when you don't know the ritual, or don't have the means to perform it sustainably.
This is why "zombie apocalypse" stories invariably reach a new "steady state" with walled towns that have careful procedures for screening entry. They settle into a new normal wherein human life is protected as a matter of routine. The horror is early, when nothing is in place to protect and the danger is everywhere. (The horror also returns when the ritual safety is broken, or when the humans venture out of the safe areas. Just as horror can come from a modern human wandering into the wilderness, and having to contend with the wild that we tend to forget is not, in fact, well-lit and easily tamed.)
Horror is not about helplessness, directly. It is about knowing there's a limit to what you can do, and hoping it's enough. It's about not knowing what the threat is, and having to figure out what to do to protect yourself. You can do things...you just don't know what. Helpessness breeds terror. Faint hope and impending danger breeds horror.
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2015-05-12, 09:15 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Run a Horror Campaign?
The thing is, you can do "jump scares." You know the ones. Something happens that's sudden and startling, or grotesque and disturbing. Those don't require anything - you can pull them off - but they aren't real, lasting, soul-gripping terror. That comes from a feeling of inevitability - the idea that there is something terrible, and it can't be stopped. Feeling powerful, feeling like you can stop it, interferes with that feeling.
But more than that, it's simple psychology. The character is a construct that exists between the world of the game and the mind of the player. As long as the player can hide behind that character, nothing can truly make them afraid, because it's happening to the construct, not to a person. What you can do, to get the fear where it needs to go, is to minimize that construct. Not render it helpless, but render the mechanical functionality meaningless. When the players aren't making skill checks or attack rolls or saves, they're roleplaying. They're placing themselves into the character, eroding the barrier between the game world and the person. That's where you hit them. That's where the fear becomes a real, tangible thing - where the numbers on the character sheet become irrelevant is the point where the person becomes vulnerable.My headache medicine has a little "Ex" inscribed on the pill. It's not a brand name; it's an indicator that it works inside an Anti-Magic Field.
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