There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

[MisterBaldy]

There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

Part of the attraction of "horror", is the adreneline rush one gets from "being scared". Most horror plays on the basic fears and paranoias that we all have as "normal neurotics" in this crazy, mixed-up world.

 

This doesn't translate well in RPGs. Most gamers look at the "horror" as just another big beastie that they MUST somehow destroy. It's just that simple. There's no "real horror" in RPGs.

 

The reason I think is because most RPGs are broken down into "mathematical equations"...and what gamer is afraid of the horror that is The Mathematics Beast from planet Algebra IV!

 

Well no gamer is...really. So, gamers look to overcome the situation with superior mathematical skills, knowledge of "table breaks", etc. One roll of the dice is all it takes...and The Calculus Creature from planet Pythagerus VI is no more, and he has perished due to the "superior math skills" of the Role-Playing Gamer.

 

So, with this said, I'll ask again...

 

There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

[yamamura]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

It all depends on getting the right players and GM. Players who are willing to forget the numbers and add to the setting by reacting appropriately to what is going on. Also a good GM that can set the mood and the scenes so the players can react. Unfortunately I think you are right, too many players look upon it as just another dungeon crawl and what monster do I defeat.

[Herolover]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

No there isn't. You are absolutely right. There is no real horror in horror gameing.

However.....

 

By that logic all RPGs and settings are flawed. What real love is there between characters? What real danger is there when a PC fights in combat? I may tell my player that his character is nervous as he prepars to enter the colesium to fight for his life, but is the player really nervous? (Maybe because he doesn't want to loose his character, but not because he fears death. To very different emotions.)

 

This is where the role of roleplaying comes in. No, you might not be scarred, but your character is and you have to roleplay that. 4th Edition Horror Hero had some great rules on PRE attacks and adding Psychological Limitations due to failed EGO rolls.

 

If you don't have it I reccommend you look it up. The basic idea of the PRE attack does a great job of showing the initial fear as the PCs see the big bad and either freeze or run away.

 

Now, I realize I am talking numbers and mathematics here and not "Real Horror". However this is what roleplaying games are. They potray life, they aren't life. In this potrayal of life it is far easier to use numbers and words to potray "how scarred" you are then it is anything else.

 

Yes, you are right there isn't any "real horror" in RPGs. However, you will find that when it comes to emotions there really aren't any other "real" emotions either.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

Well, there's no "real horror" in books or movies, either. All of the scenes depicted in them are make believe and we consciously know that, but are willing to ignore that fact and allow ourselves to become immersed in the reality that they create.

 

IMHO the problems in translating that process to RPGs are mainly twofold. One, as MisterBaldy and Herolover point out, is "playing the numbers" of RPGs, breaking everything down into stats and mechanics. I think yamamura is on the right track here; you need to downplay the numbers and concentrate on describing and reacting to the setting and mood. GMs shouldn't treat every situation as a mechanic to be resolved, and players shouldn't expect everything they encounter to be an opponent to be defeated. Sometimes a GM can simply describe a situation or have events occur which the PCs have no time or power to affect. Players who are willing to participate through roleplaying greatly enhance the horrifying mood of such scenes.

 

However, that highlights what I believe to be the other main problem: for many if not most gamers the adventure-based RPG is all about defeating opponents and overcoming challenges. It's an empowerment fantasy, and horror is ultimately derived from feeling helpless in the face of a physical or psychological threat. It takes a gamer of a particular mindset to enjoy that, but it also takes a GM willing to adjust a game away from those normal expectations.

 

It is possible to accomodate that sense of horror in an adventure RPG, though. One way is to make the overall threat something that the PCs can't overcome, either because it's more powerful than them or it's something that can't be dealt with through physical force. The PCs may defeat lesser manifestations or minions of the main threat, but can't grapple with it directly. "Zombie" settings are a good example of this - the heroes may be able to blow away squads of zombies, but there are hordes more in the wings and the source of them is intangible. Eventually the heroes will run out of ammo or stamina or whatever their advantage over the zombies is. (The website Twilight of the Dead is a good example of how to structure this type of campaign, particularly for HERO System.) Power level of the PCs relative to their opposition does make a difference for this kind of game, though; if the heroes are too strong to be directly threatened by the foes they face, they won't experience true horror.

 

Another way which can accomodate very powerful characters, is to have horrifying events occur to people other than the PCs, people less able to protect themselves or less immune to the threat than the heroes are. While the heroes may not be in personal danger they still experience the terror and suffering of others, which they're helpless to prevent either because they don't have the necessary abilities or because the events have already occurred and they can only view the aftermath. This is particularly effective if the victims of the events are people the PCs have come to care about, or if the PCs (and players) are motivated to help and protect others.

 

One outstanding example of this type of horror is Allen Varney's classic Champions setting, "Horror World" aka Anopheles, which he has put on his own website (with Hero Games's permission). Supers is normally the most "empowered" genre in roleplaying, but Allen is brilliant at using the two approaches described above to craft a truly horrifying RPG setting.

[Vondy]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

It also depends on how attached the player is to the character and how much of an actual threat there is to the character in the game. I've seen some playhers get very concerned when their beloved X was in danger. Okay, I admit it, that's not horror. Its concern. Another factor is how good a role player the player is, and how caught up in their imaginations they get. I've scared a few players before (but I'm creepy) and had one who refused to come to the game until I stopped running raven loft because he had a nightmare after the game, but then, most of them can't get scared because they think algebra instead of story. By that same token, is there horror in a horror novel? I've never had a horror novel scare me in my life.

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

this is an idea Lord Zod had for a game. Basically all the players are steriotypical "normals" in a regular town in midwestern USA. Built on 0+50 points or so, and being basically normal characters.

 

Enter Stanly.

 

Stanly is built on 150+100 pts of pure horror monstrosity. Special TK manuvers to trip people at range, teleportation to get into closets, shapeshift to inconspicuous forms, stanly is a B movie monster.

 

The game continues with stanly eating various NPCs and PCs. then let it run from there.

 

Depending on the people and the roleplaying, it should be fairly close to horror as a genre goes

[MisterBaldy]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

Now Roy_The_Ruthles,

 

Bring the point totals to 200+150 disads...and that might be a "true horror" game...

 

...and a total "party-kill" to boot!!!

[Captain Obvious]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

Along those lines, I've been reading Arcane Adversaries, and have been developing evil plans to bring the Kings of Edom into a Heroic level Fantasy setting....

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

Now Roy_The_Ruthles,

 

Bring the point totals to 200+150 disads...and that might be a "true horror" game...

 

...and a total "party-kill" to boot!!!

 

i never said that game was supposed to be survivable... it's more based on movies where about 1/2 the characters get eaten...

[MisterBaldy]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

i never said that game was supposed to be survivable... it's more based on movies where about 1/2 the characters get eaten...

Especially if your the "pretty & popular girl", that has to check out the noises in the dark...wearing only your underwear!!!

[Sketchpad]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

If you actually play it right, a horror game can be quite frightening ... but you also should know your players well and set it up right

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

Especially if your the "pretty & popular girl"' date=' that has to check out the noises in the dark...wearing only your underwear!!! [/quote']

 

stay away from baths/showers and making out. that increases survivablity by an easy 10%

[Guest darthvegita666]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

the most real horror i had in a game was when we showed up at the gms house and he decided to run the game in his boxer shorts

 

he was a fat hairy guy

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

stay away from baths/showers and making out. that increases survivablity by an easy 10%

Somewhere on this site there is a list of the typical powers associated with virginal characters in B horror flicks.

 

Basically it comes down to Luck, Combat Luck, Extra Running (only to stay one step ahead of the monster)and Extra HTH damage (only for suprise attacks), all of which are lost if the character willfully gets naked or decides to "do it".

 

Heck..you could even have it as a set of Mystery Powers required by all female characters, without explaining what the powers or conditions for loss are.

It'd explain why in those films the girls are usually shown as utterly worthless... they don't have many points left. So the player who whines about only getting 25 points to start with because shes a girl and decides to dump it all into COM, seduction and PS: Cheerleader might never know that her actions have effectively canceled out her inherent special "girl powers"

 

(BTW... if its not obvious... I don't think this way in R/L.. I am channeling my inner Genre Fiend)

[Curufea]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

Hmm, "real" versus "unreal" emotion.... very tricky question.

Ideally a good roleplaying game can provoke real emotions from an unreal setting. It is a simulation in which players take on roles, after all.

 

I think you would be best thinking of it as "levels of dissassociation". The less the empathy for your character and the setting, the less likely you are to express any relevant emotions (or at least in any real way).

 

If a GM can build the world correctly, and take the players along with them, anything is possible.

 

For this reason games that are close to real life, are the easiest ones to GM this way - the players have the least amount of trouble with something so viscerally known.

 

Ideally, you don't want a system getting in the way. You want emotional reactions to emotional events - you don't want to spend 5 minutes looking through rules and rolling dice and consulting charts.

 

Real emotion is possible in system based games, but is much easier in systemless.

[Jhamin]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

Spooky Campfire stories are a long, well loved tradition that if done correctly can really send a shiver down the spine.

 

A good horror RPG has to be done in the same way. Minimal book consulting, minimal hex mats, lots of atmosphere, lots of dread.

 

You have to abandon any concept of horror checks or sanity loss. If the player thinks their character is doomed, that is worth more than -1d6 sanity will ever be. The characters have to be in mortal danger in every encounter, and they have to know that their lives depend on getting away from the monster or that "it's around here somewhere, am I safe or not?" thought process will always seem cheezy. And they actually have to have a chance to escape, otherwise they give up. Fatalism isn't scary. You have to balance fear and hope to keep people really on the edge.

 

And you absolutely have to have the right players. People who keep themselves at arms length from their charaters will never get scared.

 

I ran a very successful Beyond the Supernatural game for several years. I did it by mostly eliminating alot of the PC book keeping & just having the players roll to hit & make skill rolls while all the action took place in the narrative.

 

Of course, Playing on the floor of Hex's candlelit bedroom at 3 in the morning in a.... questionable neighborhood all added to the atmosphere.

[MisterBaldy]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

I think you make some excellent points Jhamin, and they are very well received.

 

"Sanity Loss" was a game mechanic that was introduced in the original version of the Call of Cthulhu RPG (from Chaosium)...as a game mechanic to simulate the effects of the "horrors" that your PC (or NPC for that matter) encounters. Interesting idea...but hardly "scary".

 

It seems to me that RPGs just desensitizes role-players from those "basic fears", even the "campfire ghost stories".

[tomd1969]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

Speaking of CoC, most of the horrors contained in that game are nigh-impossible to kill--many (thinking the Outer Gods and the Great Old Ones, such as Cthulhu himself) only take 1 point of damage from any attack, no matter how large (nuclear weapons? Pfft!!!), and they have a *lot* of hit points.

 

I GM'ed a game of CoC once, and the bad guys had called up three lesser Outer Gods. A player tried shooting it with his pistol (he was unfamiliar with the game). He rolled the maximum damage possible. When I didn't make any notes of how much damage he did, he asked, "Aren't you going to write it down?"

 

I smiled, shrugged, and said, "I already did." The look on the players' faces was priceless once they realized what I meant.

 

(Side Note: That one player got peeved about that. I tried to explain to him that there are just some things in this world that you can't destroy by conventional means. He never came back to the game because he felt that I was being "patently unfair." Just as well--I'm not the one who tried shooting an Outer God. )

 

In those heady days, I believed that everything needed stats, including those Outer Gods. Today, I'm more than likely to just skip it... after a certain point, it becomes almost as if you're writing up a force of nature--plus, you're introducing the possibility that someday, somehow one lucky player will get that pistol shot in that will kill an Outer God--not very conducive to the horror genre. Now, the Servitor and the Independent Races I would definitely write-up, being more limited in scope. Writing up Nyarlathotep? Azathoth? Yog Sothoth? I don't think so.

 

So, now I warn my players (if we're playing horror) that there are some things in this world that I did not bother statting out because it is pointless. If these things get a hold of you, it will be assumed that you are dead, period--there will be no escape, no bargaining, and no fighting your way out of it. You're dinner.

[MisterBaldy]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

Now, this is HORROR...and is the most FOWL!!!

[tomd1969]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

 

 

Almost as FOWL as that joke.

 

(I can't believe I've stooped so low...)

[Super Squirrel]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

Part of the attraction of "horror", is the adreneline rush one gets from "being scared". Most horror plays on the basic fears and paranoias that we all have as "normal neurotics" in this crazy, mixed-up world.

 

This doesn't translate well in RPGs. Most gamers look at the "horror" as just another big beastie that they MUST somehow destroy. It's just that simple. There's no "real horror" in RPGs.

 

The reason I think is because most RPGs are broken down into "mathematical equations"...and what gamer is afraid of the horror that is The Mathematics Beast from planet Algebra IV!

 

Well no gamer is...really. So, gamers look to overcome the situation with superior mathematical skills, knowledge of "table breaks", etc. One roll of the dice is all it takes...and The Calculus Creature from planet Pythagerus VI is no more, and he has perished due to the "superior math skills" of the Role-Playing Gamer.

 

So, with this said, I'll ask again...

 

There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

Oh, you can make players scared with the right GM. It requires the ability to set a certain pacing and tone to it. Being able to give creepy, dark descriptions is also a required ability. It is not something I think I'd ever be able to achieve.

[MisterBaldy]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

Oh' date=' you can make players scared with the right GM. It requires the ability to set a certain pacing and tone to it. Being able to give creepy, dark descriptions is also a required ability. It is not something I think I'd ever be able to achieve.[/quote']

You must be dealing with some really timid players then Super Squirrel.

 

They're probably frightened of their own shadows...

 

BOO!!!

 

Did I scare you?

[BigJackBrass]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

The best work I've ever found on this topic is Ken Hite's "Nightmares of Mine," published by Iron Crown. Have a read of that and you might find some interesting ways to up the tension level.

 

That said, do we actually want horror in our games? Tension, excitement, that first frisson of fear yes... but real horror? If it were possible to create that level of raw emotion in a game then I doubt you'd get many returning players. At best what people want from a "scary" experience is a safe scare, something like a rollercoaster or movie where everyone knows there is no danger.

[MisterBaldy]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

At best what people want from a "scary" experience is a safe scare' date=' something like a rollercoaster or movie where everyone knows there is no danger.[/quote']

I beg to differ...

 

You can be killed on a rollercoaster, even though the possibilities are rare, they do happen...to the tune of approximately four people per year.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: There's No "REAL HORROR" in a Horror RPG setting...is there?

 

So, you're saying the lethality level of RPGs isn't high enough?