I'm sure you've heard this before, but if I've found that if you write (or GM) to scare or terrify, you'll fall flat. The real goal is disquiet. That is to say, write or GM with the intention of making them uncomfortable, making things seem not quite right, believable, but not right, and you yet them fill in the rest.
I'm really looking forward to following your campaign. I'm currently working on a horror game of my own, and I love the idea of having a "human landmine detector" whose efforts will help me make some decisions about my game.
Actually, my game is probably more "Horror Adventure", strongly influenced by the Universal Monsters and Hammer Horror.
The previous responder noted that its difficult to scare players and suggested unnerving them; I'm going to offer another solution: don't force them to get on the bus, let them get on the bus their damn selves. Give them plot hooks and horror tropes to cling to and see if they do. Just like you need to get the map from the old man in the tavern to start dungeon delving; you need to agree to stay in the creepy old house for the haunting to start.
If horror (even feigned horror) is the name of the game, they'll pay to play. Furthermore, this approach is less likely to damage relationships. Case in point, a friend running a horror game had a (female) player's character in a bad spot--or she put herself there, it doesn't matter for this story; her character was attacked by a would-be rapist. Unfortunately, the player had been raped in college (unbeknownst to the GM), and she freaked. This was years ago, I don't think she's spoken to him since. It's an extreme example, but you have to be very careful when punching people's buttons, especially when you do it on purpose.
--Drew
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Thank you, Drew. You are like unto a tiny, candy-coated god of helpfulness.--Menteroso
You should glance at All Flesh Must be Eaten. Even if you don't use the mechanics, it has some quite good advice on various zombie-fighting genres. The Pulp Zombie book is one of my favorities, tho not as modern as you are looking for.
You may find horror works better if you can keep the PCs confined to one location so you can build up their investment in locations and recurring NPCs. Stephen King in his prime was the master of building very detailed settings, then killing nearly everyone in them.
You may want to overtly ask your players if there are any off-limits areas. One of my players is a dad and reacts overly badly to kids in danger scenarios. Not all of these will come up if you ask -- you mentioned the player who had been assaulted in college -- might not have come up even if asked.
If you want to go for a more CoC vibe, you can encourage the PCs to have their own secrets and subplots, with the possibility that one or more are falling into (or haven fallen to) the horror. A dose of paranoia can shake up a PC group (or make it fall apart if things get too personal.)
I'm sure you've heard this before, but if I've found that if you write (or GM) to scare or terrify, you'll fall flat. The real goal is disquiet. That is to say, write or GM with the intention of making them uncomfortable, making things seem not quite right, believable, but not right, and you yet them fill in the rest.
Just a thought.
Hi FilamenaYoung,
You're absolutely right. "Horror" is a pretty generic term. I don't realistically believe I will freak my players out so badly that they will be genuinely horrified. I do believe I can make them uncomfortable, though, or shock them, or gross them out, or make them fear for their characters' lives in such a way that they become actively involved in the game.
A couple of examples:
* In the very second scenario we played, I had a monster looming through a window and showed a picture of what it looked like. The picture freaked everyone out and caused an audible gasp. They cleary were "in the moment" -- more fear than tension.
* In another scenario, a character called someone on his cell phone while investigating an unidentified dead body, and the cell phone of the dead body rang. I used an actual cell phone's beeping to make it even creepier -- although I thought the event was creepy (and couldn't have planned the circumstances if I tried), I don't get the impression the players were actually creeped out. Shocked maybe.
* I recently told one player that his character had dreams of cannibalism and that when he woke up, there was blood where his missing pinky used to be. I freely admit I was being gross, but I think it was effetive.
Uncomfortable is a good word to describe what I can best hope to achieve. In action horror, it's difficult to do more than that. Encounters against supernatural monsters, especially, tends to make my players just get pissed off and frustrated when they can't kill them with conventional means, as opposed to appreciating the horror of their situation. Or as Jeremy puts it, "this monster can't be defeated by guns so I will wait for the boxed text to give me a clue."
Only my brother actively enjoys playing the victim.
You know at this rate the columns going to run for like four years because you guys keep giving me interesting topics to blather on about!
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Mike "Talien" Tresca
http://michael.tresca.net
Case in point, a friend running a horror game had a (female) player's character in a bad spot--or she put herself there, it doesn't matter for this story; her character was attacked by a would-be rapist. Unfortunately, the player had been raped in college (unbeknownst to the GM), and she freaked. This was years ago, I don't think she's spoken to him since. It's an extreme example, but you have to be very careful when punching people's buttons, especially when you do it on purpose.
Gah, rape is a touchy subject. I've brought it up once in a game and, although it was appropriate in-game, it really disquieted the gaming group in a way that didn't feel fun. It was almost like they couldn't believe I would go there and then were disappointed that I did.
Mind you, it involved a supposedly good character resorting to attempted rape. I never described the rape itself, and it turned out to be a demon of lust influencing the would-be rapist...but ultimately I felt like I may have gone too quickly for the "easy shock" of rape.
Conversely, I ran Love's Lonely Children, which involves Y'golonac and child molestation. This scenario, one of the best for Cthulhu ever, in my opinion, really plays up the creepiness of child abuse and engenders the appropriate horror. What was amazing about how the game played out was that I actually had a movie type scenario: one investigator broke into the house while the others chased the cultist/molesters by car. So one lone investigator is by himself in a house filled with horrors, taking pictures and sending them to his fellows, who are in pursuit of something far, far worse than they imagined...
Man I love that scenario. Anyway...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Drew Bergstrom
The previous responder noted that its difficult to scare players and suggested unnerving them; I'm going to offer another solution: don't force them to get on the bus, let them get on the bus their damn selves. Give them plot hooks and horror tropes to cling to and see if they do.
My next column, which you'll see shortly, takes exactly the approach you described…I didn't even tell them we were playing Call of Cthulhu scenarios (not the system, just scenarios) until later. They got on board pretty quickly after the first few scenarios.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Drew Bergstrom
Just like you need to get the map from the old man in the tavern to start dungeon delving; you need to agree to stay in the creepy old house for the haunting to start.
Funny you should mention haunted house scenarios -- I have a whole topic on haunted house scenarios and the challenges involved with them in a future column too.
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Mike "Talien" Tresca
http://michael.tresca.net
Michael - I'm also looking forward to following this (followed your link from over on the DGML).
Thanks for coming on over! As you will recall from some of my previous threads, my gaming group's style of play isn't for everybody. We'll see how well it's received on RPG.net.
I'm looking forward to your input on the columns, as I really enjoy your journal entries and accessories!
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Mike "Talien" Tresca
http://michael.tresca.net
You should glance at All Flesh Must be Eaten. Even if you don't use the mechanics, it has some quite good advice on various zombie-fighting genres. The Pulp Zombie book is one of my favorities, tho not as modern as you are looking for.
That's probably the one action horror game I don't own. In fact, because I was writing Blood & Brains: The Zombie Hunter's Guide at the time I got into action horror gaming, I intentionally avoided reading it to try to avoid writing something similar.
I'm pretty sure the zombie genre is the same all around though. I should pick it up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by L.J.Steele
You may find horror works better if you can keep the PCs confined to one location so you can build up their investment in locations and recurring NPCs. Stephen King in his prime was the master of building very detailed settings, then killing nearly everyone in them.
Interesting question. Part of modernity is travel and communication (as opposed to medieval-style isolationism). Because the PCs will eventually play well-funded agents, travel is part of the game's narrative. That said, I think confining the investigators for short periods of time, like in a haunted house, works very well precisely because they're so accustomed to move wherever they like and speak with whomever they wish. Isolation is an important part of what made The Thing and Jaws so scary.
Even more horrifying than being stuck in a haunted house, I think, is being stuck in the middle of a city and discovering NO ONE CARES. I enjoy the overt horrors of monsters and scary things that go bump in the night, but I find human apathy and bureaucracy even more.
Quote:
Originally Posted by L.J.Steele
You may want to overtly ask your players if there are any off-limits areas. One of my players is a dad and reacts overly badly to kids in danger scenarios. Not all of these will come up if you ask -- you mentioned the player who had been assaulted in college -- might not have come up even if asked.
Very good point. I never asked any of my players this stuff; to be frank, as a bunch of middle class white guys we're all blessed with few real-life horrors. As a recent father, children in danger recently freaks me out much more than it ever used to…I'm finally starting to understand why movies with kids in danger bothers my mom so much.
One interesting example recently was swearing. I don't swear much in my games, and since we usually play at my parents' house when I visit, we don't use foul language in their presence. But we played a game where the agents were undercover as drug dealers, and the F-bombs were flying. I think we all felt a little uncomfortable doing it, but it felt authentic. I never considered asking anyone if they had a problem with it (I never asked myself if *I* had a problem with it), but in retrospect I should have.
Quote:
Originally Posted by L.J.Steele
If you want to go for a more CoC vibe, you can encourage the PCs to have their own secrets and subplots, with the possibility that one or more are falling into (or haven fallen to) the horror. A dose of paranoia can shake up a PC group (or make it fall apart if things get too personal.)
Oh, they do. Because this campaign was plotted out from start to finish, I seeded every character's background with plenty of insanity. One character may or may not have been abducted by aliens, another witnessed "brain bugs" kill his partners, a third has flashbacks to interrogations by people in lab coats and is exhibiting strange abilities...
Great advice!
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Mike "Talien" Tresca
http://michael.tresca.net
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