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Thoughts on Horror HERO


Supreme

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For me, the definition of Horror as a genre necessarily includes a relative helplessness on the part of the intended victim(s). Think about Janet Leigh in the shower in "Psycho."

 

Okay, that's enough. You could also think about virtually every character in an HP Lovecraft story.

 

So, how do you go about this in a HERO campaign? How do you run a game wherein the monsters are far and away more powerful than the PCs? Maybe I just play too much Champions.

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FUD - Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. FUD is your friend, so don't be afraid to use him.

 

Let narrate a short Champions adventure I played in years ago. The Heroes were visting a small very isolated little town in the mountains when a blizzard hit. I forget why exactly. something to do with someone's DNPC I think. Although the Heroes could have easily left, the townspeople were stuck. In the middle of the blizzard the power went out and one by one the townspeople started turning up dead. No one knew why. The Heroes started doing the regular investigative bit, PRE guy tries to find out whats happening from the townspeople, INT guy goes to the library to look up the history of the place and CSI guy goes over the crime scene. Etc, etc, etc. Fairly standard bits, right?

 

At this point when we returned from our seperate directions, we found our 'indestructible' guy pinned to a wall with a silver dagger all but dead. His hardened, resistant defenses hadn't saved him. His regeneration wasn't working. And none of his exotic defenses had done him a lick of good. Fear set in. From that point on everybody knew that our characters would not be able to survive whatever had taken down our guy.

 

Uncertainty also set in when we realized that all of our investigations had been successful. Everyone thought they knew exactly what was haunting the town. But none of the investigations had returned the same information. A this point we knew we were dealing with something supernatural. But every investigative method pointed to a different cause. And even worse what supposedly would weaken it in one story, strengthened it in annother. A long discussion ensued where we thought we had figured it all out. And out we went hunting. Very quickly we turned into the hunted. One by one we were stalked and taken out. In the end we were able to unravel the mystery, banish our tormentor, and save our team and most of the town.

 

But even then we had doubt. We never had seen what had been hunting us. And years later we would find small bits of evidence that indicated that our actions had only held it at bay not beaten it. There was no doubt that the team was still being hunted and eventually it would strike. There were several more encounters over the next couple of years. ANd generally all they did was prove that we had guessed wrong about its nature. I don't know that anyone ever got more than a fleeting glance at it. We always drove it off. But generally only at some personal cost, and always after the previous methods had proven ineffective.

 

It was by far the creepiest villian we had in the campaign. And we never knew who or what it was. The key? We feared it. It obviously had the power to seariously threaten us and the (D)NPCs around us. And we never knew anything about it. Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.

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First, it is imperitive that you impart upon the players that they will probably LOSE if they try to take head on most of the creatures they'll encounter. Gamers are way too programmed into Thumping mode. Most horror games I have run usually have the players assembling bits and pieces to thwart the evils. These bits and pieces tend to be held onto by other normals or low level critters. The pieces also tend to be critter specific so the assembled Rod of Squel won't work on any other critter other than Squel.

 

To give the sense of horror and life and death feelings, usually I have the players using their 'powers and attacks' to get away from the baddie more than destroying him. They can't kill the demon Kullluth, but those little critters he just summoned to deal with the 'puny mortals' are a bit squishy.

 

Even if they can never defeat the demon itself, they can thwart his attempts. Of course that means that the demon will begin to take notice and, hopefully, the players have some sort of protection. The old "I cannot destroy him but I can stop him from destroying you... most of the time." Perhaps an enchanted base or medallions that take the individuals off of the demon's radar (he only knows about them when he or one of his minions sees them).

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A few suggestions:

 

Load every scene in the adventure down with details. The characters may ignore it all at first only to find that they missed some important information, or they may take pages and pages of notes only to find that most of them were red herrings. It will help add to the whole "what the hell is going on here" feeling.

 

Find reasons to separate the characters. A local citizen has some information, but for some reason or other, doesn't trust most of the party. PRE guy has to infiltrate a secret society/cult/old boys' network, and can't do it with all his drooling buddies hanging around. Roleplayer guy finds some out of the way shop or museum or local historical site that no one else cares about, and goes to check it out. When they're separated, make them think they're about to die...they're attacked by some weird thing, they're attacked by some unexpected foe, they're absolutely sure they're about to be attacked....

 

It all goes back to Bartman's FUD. The monsters don't even have to be overwhelmingly powerful. If the characters never know when the attack will come, it doesn't really matter whether the monster has a Susceptibility to oxygen. If the fear is there, the horror genre is likely there too.

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Perception is reality

 

I think the Horror genre revolves around a perceived sense of helplessness on the part of the player(s). In a role-playing game, it is really hard to evoke that feeling of helplessness on the part of the players. In the few successful games that I have been able to bring out that fear in the players I followed some very basic steps.

 

1) Very detailed backstory- This is real important. The Horror genre, even more so than the Fantasy genre, requires details. The players get wrapped up in the story more and more as the unveil clues to the nature of the beast and how to kill it. The information, as illustrated by Bartman's story, may be contradictory or outright false.

 

2) Familiar setting- Horror games work well in a setting that the players can picture without too much thought. In one game, I used the imagery from a town in the Sierra Nevada's as the backdrop to a ghost story. Since it was a place that the players had all visited a couple of weeks before, it was easy for them to fall into the scene. It is much more difficult to incite a fear/horror response in Fantasy or Science Fiction game. I give kudos for Bartman's GM for being able to do so in a Champions game.

 

3) Contrast the setting between the tranquil times and the growing horror times. Weather, as cliche as it can be, is a great mood setter. One of the most creative uses of weather I used was in the D&D module Ravenloft 2, where a whole chart detailed the weather from a rather mild partly cloudy sky to a torrential downpour at the climax of the story. Other things can also serve as contrast. NPC moods is a good one.

 

4) Exaggerate the unknown- Also known as lie your pants off. In this, every shadow cast from a tree at night becomes a twisted monster looming outside your window. Rats in the sewer are three feet long when glimpsed from the corner of the character's eye. Provide clues that the bad guy is much more powerful than any character could imagine. So many options here that you can create and choose from a long menu.

 

5) Solitude- This one isn't nearly so important in a role-playing setting, where the characters are usually self-sufficient and heroic. If the characters are isolated from each other, however, they may be made uneasy without as much effort. Other forms of isolation can come from background. A cleric who suddenly feels his holy connection weaken or a mage who's familiar disappears are both appropriate for conveying a sense of the not right.

 

Remember that you are using the setting and characters as a conduit to the players. You want them to be the uneasy ones. The more powerful a character, the less likely it is you're going to scare his player and the more extreme the reaction is once you manage to. Throw away characters never work. Players don't care about them enough to worry.

 

I could go into a lot more detail, but I think that I've said enough for now. Besides, I have to get ready for work. Hope this helps.

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I actually ran a really successful horror game set in the modern world that lasted on and off for over three years. Alot of the advice here is good.

 

I agree that making sure fighting the monster is a bad idea is central to the genre. However, really strong monsters are not enough. I would strongly suggest you limit the power of the characters as well.

 

I'm not saying you should be playing -25 points loosers, but avoid 75/75 characters like the plague. Think back on all the really good horror movies you have seen, how many of them have Navy Seals as protagonists? There is a reason for it. The few horror movies that have capable characters usually make sure to kill off a bunch of people just like them right away to underscore the point that their fancy skills and gear won't help them, but that is advanced horror gaming and it is probably better to start lower on the scale to help get your players out of the regular "whack it" gaming mentality.

Confidence is the bane of Horror games. When your player character resembles Indiana Jones or Neo it's hard not to get confident.

 

Instead of a CIA special ops team, you need the PCs to be a school teacher, a gas station attendent, and a couple of tourists. Then you need to make sure they do not have access to institutions that can protect them so they have to deal with it themselves. Heck, even a couple of small town cops can be great PCs, all they have is a shotgun & a couple of pistols. Like that's gonna stop the ooze from beyond the stars....Just make sure they can't call in the big city SWAT team to deal with the Mummy of Om-Genna-Net-Ru.

 

Confidence is the bane, you have to keep your PCs off balance and away from support structures or backup. Freak weather is really hand for this, as are PCs with just enough Psychic power to percieve a threat that is invisible to the rest of the world. This is also the reason you don't see alot of Fantasy Horror. Conan just doesn't need all that much backup and it's hard to scare him just cause he is alone in a spooky cave.

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Originally posted by Law Dog

I've got to admit though that without the right group, horror falls flatter than a pancake. I always seem to attract at least one that wants to be a moster-whipping superman in a game a normals vs the unknown game.

 

Oy! Isn't that the truth. I was running my game set in a New England college with PCs like a Pre-Med student, a TA, and a 16 year old prodigy scholorship student, then the new guy wanted to play a CIA commando, or a Chi-Gun mystic. We eventually comprimised with a martial arts guru.

 

After the third game he came up to me and said that he didn't really believe it when I told him his Katana would be less than useless in this game, but said that he was really enjoying it all the same.

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Originally posted by Law Dog

I've got to admit though that without the right group, horror falls flatter than a pancake. I always seem to attract at least one that wants to be a moster-whipping superman in a game a normals vs the unknown game.

 

Oy! Isn't that the truth. I was running my game set in a New England college with PCs like a Pre-Med student, a TA, and a 16 year old prodigy scholorship student, then the new guy wanted to play a CIA commando, or a Chi-Gun mystic. We eventually comprimised with a martial arts guru.

 

After the third game he came up to me and said that he didn't really believe it when I told him his Katana would be less than useless in this game, but said that he was really enjoying it all the same.

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Originally posted by Law Dog

I've got to admit though that without the right group, horror falls flatter than a pancake. I always seem to attract at least one that wants to be a moster-whipping superman in a game a normals vs the unknown game.

 

Even the best of groups have to be "in the mood" or willing to be persuaded to get "in the mood," to make a Horror game work. I think a lot of people play role-playing games to escape into a world where they are larger than life. Horror games, by their very nature, involve making the characters seem less powerful so that the element of fear has a better chance of working. Sometimes people want a good scare and other times they want to kick ass and chew bubblegum. There's the single biggest talent a potential Horror GM can develop; when to play Horror and when not to.

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1. Never let the players know exactly what's going on or exactly what will happen next. If they think they're in control, they won't be afraid.

 

2. Always stack the odds against them, but allow good thinking to even them out at least a little. In horror, it's the smart, not the strong, that survive. High STR doesn't matter one whit if you're dumb enough to go investigate the mysterious noise eminating from the darkened basement alone.

 

3. If they slip up, KILL THEM. No matter how good the GM is at plotting, pacing, or narration, horror just doesn't work without the specter of a high body count dogging the PCs' every move. A protective GM is the equivilent of a "benevolent universe" as far as they're concerned, and that notion is just as toxic to horror gaming as it is to horror films or literature. Coddling the PCs and fudging in their favor might work in a heroic genre, but it should be very, very rare in horror.

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Ran Chill for over 2 years straight with a regular gorup, and my 3 year+ long Fantasy HERO campaign involved a very dark world full of undead like Ravenloft. Lots of great advice here. but heres my few nuggets.

 

1) Make someone else important to the story.

 

The reason you do this is they are more easily expendable than the players. Even if you are an unforgiving GM, you still might spare them where you woudl have no restraint gutting one of your own NPCs in front of them.

 

This also takes away an element of their control. They can pick and choose their own actions, and try to protect themselves. but when another need to be protected, and you don't handle their actions directly, there is a sense of urgency. The control is lost and that security blanket fades away.

 

2) Use all 6 senses.

 

Nothing hits home better than describing a smell or taste important to the story. The scent of fomaldehyde, the iron tinged taste of their own blood, the rolling of thunder lasting for 30 second and seeming like an hour. all of this is vital in this sort of game.

 

Now remember, you are not really there to glorify it. this is not Vampire. Let them know when the hair on the back of their neck stands up from the screeching wail they hear. Make sure they know the goosebumps raise on their arm as they reach blindly in the darkness and feel tattered flesh pull away into their hand.

 

3) Set expectations, then trounce them....

 

This is a real winner. If you fight zombies over and over, you begin to know the nature of zombies. Thats when you have one that has an infectious contagion. The vampire you been playing cat and mouse with might start bringing small children along as a diversion. Etc... etc...

 

Hope these help.

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More thoughts.....

 

Horror is one of those genres that begs for extras. Newspaper clippings, journal entries, some cheap costume jewelry, anything. Any little prop that you can let the players experience with their own senses will increase the tangibility of the world.

 

A good selection of good sound bits is also helpfel. There are hundreds of cheesy sound effects CDs, so you have to be careful to weed them out in favor of the good ones. Not always easy. Creating your own from online resources is also an option. Some good spooky music is often helpful too. Just make sure that it doesn't become intrusive to the action.

 

Climate is also a neat little trick. Try a Horror game at about five degrees cooler than the normal game sessions. Soft lighting also helps. In one game I ran, each of us had one oil lamp to see our character sheets by. It was actually quite bright in the room, but the quality of light was more conducive to the mood.

 

More thoughts will come later. Great thread Supreme. I really like seeing all the posts from the other HERO fans.

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I ran Chill every Friday for two years - the key was always the Players. I did everything I could to handle mood - we played by candle light soft instumental music in the background - I worked on pacing and description - I did my best to avoid the pitfalls of overuse and MOW (Monster of the Week) - I tried always to keep in mind the basics of horror - Isolation, Uncertainty & Hope (Never forget Hope - characters have to believe that the struggle is worth it) - but in the end it all came down to the players - The best sessions were not always the ones that I put the most effort into - they were sometimes even ones that I look back on now and go 'What was I thinking when I put that plot together?' went amazingly well. If the players came ready to play they got the scare they were looking for - If not, well we would have been better off ordering a pizza and watching a video.

So the best advice I can give you is that If you have a group that is willing to be scared take good care of them, If you don't don't even bother running it. Oh yeah and don't be frustrated by the occasional outbursts of laughter - I can mean you've just done or said something very foolish or it can be a release because you're actually getting to someone.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think you can get a general idea of the nature of fears and phobias, but it is going to be real hard to pull off replicating the sheer "gut" reaction to a phobia in a verbal/written setting. I think talking to your players about nightmares and dreams would be a better starting point. Depending on how "deep" your players express themselves, there is a lot of good fodder for thought in dreams. Don't forget your own!

 

You can get a story idea (or three) from more "clinical" ideas too. There are likely places online that describe dreams. I can do some research to see.

 

At the risk of pulling the topic from phobias and fears, there are many other places you can draw inspiration from. Obviously, there are movies, stories and even music. Art can be a big inspiration. I have a set of the Tarokka (fake Tarot) cards from the Ravenloft Forbidden Lore boxed set. Some of the pictures are quite evocative.

 

I feel the iminent threat of pulling this message into several sub-topics, so I'll quit for now.

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A veteran CoC Keeper, I have used many of the mentioned methods and a couple of the biggest keys is the players and the setting. If they are incapable of getting into the mood then the mood will never solidify. Make sure you game someplace quiet, away from distractions, preferably with lighting control and music. Your mood can quickly be destroyed by phones, a player surfing on his laptop, or wives/girlfriends (husbands/boyfriends) poking in.

With the hi tech stuff nowaways, you should be able to make several playlists on a laptop, connected to a stereo system to really control the changing of tones.

Alot of rules carry over to the Hero system, but keep in mind that Hero players have developed the wrong mentality for horror play. Hero players expect that they are important. Call of Cthulhu players just wonder how long it will be before they die or go insane.

The key: Let the players know you have no qualms about them dying. Don't say you will kill em instantly, don't say you might save them from real nasty doom. Tell them that the tone is very realistic and if they encounter something, there always is the chance they will die, by their own fault. Knowing they can die has kept my players happy.

Your point levels, weapons, and whatever don't matter at all. Not one tiny bit. It merely sets the tone for what they will encounter, because what they encounter will always be tougher, nastier, sneakier, and harder to track and the generic resources at their disposal. Low point campaigns really are for the GM; it makes it easier to come up with nasties.

Oh, and come up with some nasty horror psychological rules. I personaly like modelling after simplified CoC style checks:

Make an INT check. If fail, your brain keeps you from fully realizing the horror of what you encounter. If successful, you fully take in the situation and take full horror dice.

Horror Dice, for me, was: xD6 Drain (Int, Ego, Perception (1m fade rate)) for minor horrific things, xD6 Drain (All Characteristics, variable time frame (like CoC)). Nothing scares players like their characteristics getting ripped down...

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I think that more than death, you should show the players that they can loose something very important.

 

CoC showed us the way, with insanity. That's a way you can use, changing the SAN (mental health ?) points to real psychological consequences, related to what they saw or went throught...

 

A good exemple is GURP's fright table. The more you miss your roll (I'd say EGO roll ?), the more you get (phobia, psychose...)

 

Also, the death of the character is not the most horrible thing that can happen (or a stupid death for a long loved character), for this also happen in other games.

 

Especially if you play in semi historic medieval settings (japan is a good exemple)

 

And if your character die, you just have to make an another one... New background, new motivations, new mentality... Some players enjoy that.

 

On the other hand, I feel that the worst, for a player, is to see his character going down.

 

So, that's my t to make horror scenarii :

 

First of all, horror is not only fantastic.You can play horror films without any alien, ghoul or vamps. The ambiance is what makes an horror movie.

 

 

2. Start by playing "normal" scenarii, two or three, in which the supranatural (or whatever) may seem to appear, but dosen't. So, the players will learn to like their character, to developp his life, friends, wife, children...

 

3. Once they feel that the game is something else, just start to throw in "horror" things, so they can't really understand what happens. This is a great strength of the Hero System, versus CoC or Chill. When you give your players a CoC character sheet, they know what to expect... Horror and supranatural are worst when the players don't think that it could happen...

 

4. Then, you can go deeper in the horror. Their friends, wife, children may disappear. They need to be lost. They can't explain what they experienced to anyone, for they will appear mad. They can't figure out what happens. Flee the Buffy syndrom (you can't find anything you need in XVIth century books). They should guess what can happen, but can't get any certainty about htat (is this a vampire ? what kills the vampire ? Are the cross, the holy water and the stake in the hart useful ?)

 

IMHO, horror is like erotism : the less you see, the more it works...

 

5. Hurt your players. Life isn't easy, and dealing with horror shall have consequences. Not only death, which is a kind of liberation, an end to all this, but more horrible : psychological limitation, physical injures... A maimed character is worst than a dead one. You can't just throw it away. you have to integrate this in your character psychology...

 

Make them loose their lives. No more friends,no more social contacts. They may become, for others, killers or even worst.

 

Once, John Wick said that the things the players remember the most is when they go throught the story, but get badly hurt all along. I agree.

 

 

Of course, all this is hard, and you may become a badass GM. But then, your players will get what their looking for...

 

Just keep the other ideas, for all of them are really good.

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Originally posted by Sketchpad

Speaking of horror ... what's everyone's take on Horror/Fear Checks? Should it be an Ego Roll? Would it be modified by the creature's Presence?

 

Hmmn. To me, Horror is more about mood and atmosphere. It is a chance to create a very specific emotional response in the players. The concept of Horror/Fear checks is very artificial to me and would hinder the fun of playing in the genre. You might consider keeping that kind of thing off the table entirely.

 

On the other hand, a "behind the scenes" approach may work well. I personally would do it as a Cumulative Transformation: Sane Person to Insane Person based on EGO or PRE instead of BODY. The amount of dice rolled would depend on how horrific the scene, creature or situation is. The Transformation damage would be healed normally with REC. Maybe even a REC score based off of EGO and PRE. As the character(s) start loosing touch with reality, the more I would tweak with the "perceptions" they are having. Paranoia and hallucinations are a good way to do that. Nothing real overt, but the guy at the newsstand starts looking at them in a strange way (he's really not) or his eyes glow slightly for just a second (again, not really). Usually I would base it on recent events, so that it would have some relevance. Heck, for that matter, sometimes the weird hallucination/paranoid response would be legitimate. Just to spice things up. So, in short, I guess you could use Fear/Horror checks. I just tend to do that kind of stuff anyway, so the mechanic is lost on me.

 

Just my thoughts.

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Originally posted by Sketchpad

Speaking of horror ... what's everyone's take on Horror/Fear Checks? Should it be an Ego Roll? Would it be modified by the creature's Presence?

Either a regular old PRE attack, or for the more passive stuff (i.e., learning something frightening) have characters make INT vs EGO or PRE rolls -- their own INT vs whatever. :D

I also don't like to run games where the characters become permanently damaged by fright checks like CoC is so fond of. To me the best part of gaming is the development of characters over time. This can't happen if your characters only last two sessions before going to the booby hatch.

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Re: More thoughts.....

 

Originally posted by nolgroth

Horror is one of those genres that begs for extras. Newspaper clippings, journal entries, some cheap costume jewelry, anything. ...

I've been experimenting with the idea of children's rhyming songs (ala "Nightmare on Elm Street"). Also campaign-specific urban legends are always good.

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