DataPacRat Posted May 11, 2006 Report Share Posted May 11, 2006 I just read Neil Gaiman's spooky novel, "Coraline", where the title little girl goes through a locked door and finds her "other parents", who have black buttons instead of eyes... and that started me thinking, and I've realized that it's been a long time since I've been in an RPG - or even seen one - that was actually /scary/, that dealt with the primal fears of childhood - of the dark and what might be lurking in it, of what's on the other side of mirrors, of dolls that never stop staring at you, of spiders and bugs and cocoons and dry scratchy dust and little scuttling things seen just out of the corners of your eyes... remember the first time you saw Tim Burton's movies (Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Nightmare Before Christmas), when /you didn't know what was going to happen/, and just maybe a little boy really was going to get eaten by a spider... and then all the grown-ups started treating the spider as if he were the eaten child? I know at least half the fright-value of such things comes from the lack of knowing - is a black cat bad luck, or a friendly guide? Will you wake up one morning as a cockroach? Is eating that apple really a good idea? - which kind of makes statting things out for an RPG a catch-22. However, a few odd RPGs manage to do the trick - Puppetland (where everybody is a puppet, but Punch has killed the Maker), or Pumpkin Town ( http://www.memento-mori.com/games/pumpkintown/ )... except that I've never been able to find anyone willing to try /playing/ in such a system. So, if you wanted to write up some sort of boogie-man in HERO, or a shadow-scuttler, or that boy-eating spider (now having to deal with his own horrors: brushing his mandibles each night, fitting in at school, and eating vegetables), how would you go about it? Hm... Something like "Mental Illusions 12d6, 0 END (+1/2), Persistent (+1/2); Self Only (-1), Only Works On Grown-Ups (-1/2), Always On (-1/2), Limited Effect ("He's an ordinary human boy", -1)", perhaps? But would that also affect home movies and store security cameras? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freakboy6117 Posted May 11, 2006 Report Share Posted May 11, 2006 Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/... for the boy eating spider buy it as a distictive feature something like subtle wrongness only noticed by children and a multi form to turn back into the spider form Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Powerhouse Posted May 12, 2006 Report Share Posted May 12, 2006 Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/... for the boy eating spider buy it as a distictive feature something like subtle wrongness only noticed by children and a multi form to turn back into the spider form The boy eating spider, is that something that the original poster made up or is it in that novel? Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weldun Posted May 12, 2006 Report Share Posted May 12, 2006 Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/... Hmm. I already had some thought down this line over here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Schultz Posted May 12, 2006 Report Share Posted May 12, 2006 Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/... Another RPG that has done this is "Little Fears" - it's a game explicitly about childhood terrors. I own a copy and played it once at a con, but it can be a bit TOO intense, IMO - essentially, it's about the Boogieman coming out and taking children to Closetland during the night, returning them in the morning, and about how none of the adults will believe them. The 'dark' aspects of this game come from the fact that the Boogieman is essentially Satan, and Closetland is Hell. It's like "Nightmare on Elm Street: the RPG", only with children aged 6-14. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DataPacRat Posted May 12, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 12, 2006 Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/... The boy eating spider' date=' is that something that the original poster made up or is it in that novel?[/quote'] I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that Coraline is mainly spider-free, and entirely boy-eating-spider-free - that's just something I came up with, and am deciding whether to work out some more details or not. (Of course, first I'd have to figure out what sort of /universe/ would allow the basic premise...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BcAugust Posted May 12, 2006 Report Share Posted May 12, 2006 Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/... I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that Coraline is mainly spider-free' date=' and entirely boy-eating-spider-free - that's just something I came up with, and am deciding whether to work out some more details or not. (Of course, first I'd have to figure out what sort of /universe/ would allow the basic premise...)[/quote'] *coughs* Actually, the WOD has human eating spiders who change into what they ate. Or at least the 2.0 one does. Hmm, on the main question...I've never done specifically childhood fears, but WOD I had a couple of moments, mainly by being very careful with my descriptions. Make the world... well, slightly off, not obvious, but use words that sound slightly off for how you'd describe things in the normal universe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alibear Posted May 12, 2006 Report Share Posted May 12, 2006 Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/... Nothing will ever be scarey to players until thier characters are actually threatened. To do that you need to make them normal people. 0 - 25 point characters with perhaps 25 points with of disads. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susano Posted May 12, 2006 Report Share Posted May 12, 2006 Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/... I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that Coraline is mainly spider-free' date=' and entirely boy-eating-spider-free - that's just something I came up with, and am deciding whether to work out some more details or not. (Of course, first I'd have to figure out what sort of /universe/ would allow the basic premise...)[/quote'] Be careful what you come up with. Last time someone did that I wrote up Child of the Wasps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DataPacRat Posted May 12, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 12, 2006 Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/... *coughs* Actually' date=' the WOD has human eating spiders who change into what they ate. Or at least the 2.0 one does.[/quote'] ... Well, shucks. I only bought a couple of books for the old WOD (eg, the were-rat book), and none so far for the new one. Now I'm torn between asking you for more details, and wanting to keep using my own imagination... ... Oh, heck, I've viewed so much fiction my imagination is completely comprimised anyway - feel free to offer any references you like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DataPacRat Posted May 12, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 12, 2006 Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/... Be careful what you come up with. Last time someone did that I wrote up Child of the Wasps. An idea I've squirreled away in the back of my brain to use elsewhere, right beside the rats geneered to be used for human organ transplants (not the rats' organs, the whole rat - just slip it inside someone one way or another, and they'll hook themselves up; how'd you like a heart that has fur, a tail, and occasionally squeaks? Or, in a game with magic... how'd you like to be /transformed/ into a rat, and then stuck inside somebody else's torso as their liver or lung or the like? If you're lucky, maybe you'll get to be a brain transplant...), and the Game where each time another player gets you to lose a point they can give you one command, to do /anything/, which must be obeyed (from 'kiss me' to 'love me' to 'turn into a German Shephard'; smarter players usually try meta-commands, with varying degrees of success). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DataPacRat Posted May 12, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 12, 2006 Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/... And surprisingly on-topic for this thread is today's Bizarro: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/fun/Bizarro.asp?date=20060512 . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BcAugust Posted May 12, 2006 Report Share Posted May 12, 2006 Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/... ... Well, shucks. I only bought a couple of books for the old WOD (eg, the were-rat book), and none so far for the new one. Now I'm torn between asking you for more details, and wanting to keep using my own imagination... ... Oh, heck, I've viewed so much fiction my imagination is completely comprimised anyway - feel free to offer any references you like. Not much details. Basically, they're the new Spider spirits(2.0 has only werewolves as were creatures now), that when they slip through the cracks in the world, take on Spider form. If they can find a human sleeping, who is weak enough and small enough, they coccon them at night, then climb in, starting to eat the brain, becoming grossly fat and taking it over... As they eat more and more of the body, they start taking on spider traits on the outside. Plus, since their main "goal" is more, they try and capture other people to do this too, using the body. Foolish ones use force, elder ones... well, you can imagine if you were the spirit of Spider what webs you could weave. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DataPacRat Posted May 13, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 13, 2006 Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/... A PC proposal I just made to a GM; anybody care to comment on it? One family of spider-boogiemen have gotten into a fairly regular pattern; in the dark, they frighten a child as much as they can, until the day finally comes when they're exposed to the Light, or the Parents' eyes, when they're permanently turned into ordinary house-spiders. However, one spider-ling was a little different. Somewhere along the way, his education had been neglected in one important aspect: he was only supposed to /frighten/ his assigned Boy with threats of eating him, not /actually/ eat him. And on his first night Out of the Closet... he ate his Boy whole. And then discovered he couldn't get back home, to the Other Side of the Closet... and when the Boy's Parents came and turned on the Light... he didn't turn into a tiny little house-spider... he turned into the Boy he'd eaten. Now, he has to deal with his own terrors: being cut off from the Boogie-realm, brushing his mandibles each night, fitting in at school, and the fact that no grown-up can see him as a Spider but other children can... his only guide to human behaviour being the ghost of the Boy (who's now even /more/ scared of the dark than before). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucius Posted May 13, 2006 Report Share Posted May 13, 2006 Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/... Nothing will ever be scarey to players until thier characters are actually threatened. To do that you need to make them normal people. 0 - 25 point characters with perhaps 25 points with of disads. What makes you think you have to cripple the player characters to frighten them?? A powerful character can be threatened - it just takes something even MORE powerful. But I think the key to getting players scared is to put them in the dark. If they DON'T know what's going on, and their efforts to find out only lead to more mysteries, THAT can do it. Or throwing something at them that is just intensely weird, like Child of the Wasps. Lucius Alexander The palindromedary thinks classical music is scary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thia Halmades Posted May 13, 2006 Report Share Posted May 13, 2006 Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/... That's because the Palindromedary has no culture, Lucius. Sheesh. Okay, in answer to this question 'How do you scare people?' we have to really dig deep into the topic, and there's a level of detail I don't want to go into here. The best phrasing I've ever heard is what Stephen King called 'frission' - the moment in between knowing and unknowing when you're entirely coiled to react, and the reaction is usually "HOLY **** WHAT THE **** IS THAT?!" That's frission. Horror and Kafka aren't diametrically opposed, but they aren't the same; Kafka is using surrealism to ask his philosophical questions. Burton is using claymation to tell what is often a surprisingly deep story. Me? I just run horror games. And the best way to run a horror game is actually to take the kid gloves off and stop worrying about how to create horror. In other words, if you think to yourself "What's scary?" you'll spend hours just trying to assemble your opening plot line. You can't do that. You have to begin with an event, and then - as we say in Hero - reason from effect. Here, I'll give you an example. "About six months ago, you received a letter from the courier. Set on expensive parchment, and marked with a notarized seal from the town of Corvalis, in your home town of Darkon. You snap the waxen seal and rub your fingers together to get the red stuff off as you unfurl the letter. 'To Whom It May Concern; We regret to inform you that your uncle, Jacob A. Hammet, has not been heard from for a year and a day at the time of this writing. Per his instructions, when such a period time were to pass, you were to be notified post haste to return to the estate. We sincerely regret being the bearer of this news. However, the estate is to be bequeathed to you and those others who have received similar notifications. Thank you for your time & attention to this manner, Bryan Pruitt, Esq." You pack your belongings and return to the mansion in which you spent your youth. Upon arrival you're met by other childhood friends, who are in fact your family more than anyone could be. They'd seen some incredible things in their time, and had received letters like yours. You look upon the mansion for the first time in nearly a decade. It's begun to break down. The bruised eyes it has for windows glare at you from their collapsing frames. The stairs creak as you set foot upon them, and the stones in the walk way slip from beneath your feet, clearly having turned wild without anyone to keep them in line. A murder of ravens have set themselves a pleasant home in the old apple tree in the front yard; the apples have long since ripened and gone to rot. The stench of decaying fruit hangs heavily in the air. You step towards the front double doors, and you can hear the howling draft as wind passes through the various shattered windows. You cautiously turn the handle, and dust rains down on your head as you push the main doors open. "You begin to make your way up the steps, to your uncle's study. You twist the knob, but it's clearly locked. One of your compatriots glances around and says, "Well, it's unlikely he knows 'Shave & a Haircut.'" and knocks swiftly on the door in the well-known tune. You hear the scraping of a piece of furniture - possibly a chair - a ghastly moan and the shuddering slam of the same chair between thrown against the door twice! But the pattern is unmistakable. "Okay, I take that back. He clearly knows Shave & A Haircut, and I definatly don't want to find out if he wants to play spoons in the band." This is roughly analagous to the opening of my actual Ravenloft game. The 'fear' element comes not just from the obvious symbolism (you'd be surprised how well the basics work in a crowded room), but also from the notion that this is Ravenloft, and things really do go bump in the night. The premise is of course that you return home to find your uncle dead, and the story that ensues is of how he got himself that way, the events that transpired up to his death, and how to avenge him and/or continue his work. A lot of what I'm getting at here is that horror isn't generated by mechanics. Mechanics are used to reflect horror. The things that scare us are primal. Questions of the afterlife. Death & dying. Being unforgiven, committing unerasable sins, losing everything we've ever loved. Other things that scare us are the unknown. What is behind that door? How long has this place been like this? Does anything else live here? Why does the house look at us so maliciously? What was he working on and how did he get killed? Would the floor PLEASE stop creaking like that? What was that scuttling sound? I think that attempting to build a mechanic and call it horror is going about it backwards. You want to build horror, and then dovetail the mechanics into it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manic Typist Posted May 13, 2006 Report Share Posted May 13, 2006 Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/... I think the mechanics of horror and the mechanics of hero are two seperate entities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OddHat Posted May 13, 2006 Report Share Posted May 13, 2006 Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/... Description and setting are everything. Horror World from Champions in 3D did a great job. My character Black Alice was pretty effectively creepy from the PCs point of view. Her ambushes and raw power also helped. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
massey Posted May 13, 2006 Report Share Posted May 13, 2006 Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/... Horror: Rosie O'Donnell, naked. And horny. For you. Must get away... must get away... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susano Posted May 13, 2006 Report Share Posted May 13, 2006 Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/... Horror: Rosie O'Donnell' date=' naked. And horny. For [i']you[/i]. I'd rather face Cthulhu. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
austenandrews Posted May 13, 2006 Report Share Posted May 13, 2006 Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/... I think the mechanics of horror and the mechanics of hero are two seperate entities. Exactly. If your question begins with "How do I write up...?" then you're already off on the wrong foot. Think up the scary stuff first. "Writeups" serve the scary. If you think of something that's scarier than what's already written, the writeup must be changed. I find that a feeling of smallness or helplessness is critical in horror. That is to say, render a character's usual tactics moot. If fighting back is the usual response, make fighting back futile. You can't shoot a ghost, or a possessed child, or tentacled, extradimensional gods, or Freddy Kruger. You can shoot zombies, but you can't shoot them all. Especially in Champions, you have to pull the rug out from under the PCs for them to truly be scared. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucius Posted May 13, 2006 Report Share Posted May 13, 2006 Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/... Horror: Rosie O'Donnell' date=' naked. And horny. For [i']you[/i]. Must get away... must get away... I'd rather face Cthulhu. Which goes to show that horror is personal. I don’t find Ms. O’Donnell any more horrifying than any other attractive woman, but I realize some people are intimidated by celebrity. However, if you’re trying for a horror game, I find it hard to see what better place to start than your own reactions, and what you know is most generally regarded as horrible. Unless you really know your players well, it’s hard to know what their personal terrors are. Mechanics are very secondary to setting and description in this. Mostly, you just want to be sure that the players/characters common or obvious reactions will be thwarted or unhelpful. If a player character is able to kill with his bare hands, present him with something that he not only CAN’T take out that way – describe it so that it’s obvious he doesn’t want to even TOUCH this thing with his bare hands. Or make it something that looks like a child, so he’s loathe to commit violence – and once he becomes convinced the boy is a demon and DOES seize him and break his neck, have the little boy stand up again, head lolling, and ask “Why are you being so mean to me?†in a very hurt tone…. Lucius Alexander That's because the Palindromedary has no culture' date=' Lucius. Sheesh. .[/quote'] No, it’s just the palindromedary heard somewhere that classical musicians can use a weapon capable of harming a palindromedary; the dreaded crab cannon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weldun Posted May 14, 2006 Report Share Posted May 14, 2006 Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/... It's all about being descriptive. I once had a group of PCs investigating a rash of disappearances along a stretch of highway. They were checking out an old house, when a began describing to them shuffling noises. I kept having them make perception checks every now and then (usually when they had entered a new section) and kept telling them that they couldn't tell where it was coming from. As they went up stairs, I had them make another perception check, then described to them a smell by saying that it smelt "like copper, with a hint on ammonia." As they approached the first door, I told them that the smell was getting stronger and it seemed to be coming from behind the door. Another perception check and "it seems that the shuffling sound has also been coming from behind said door." They opened the door as quickly as they could, with both the blasters ready to pounce. The room was empty. The smell was gone, and the shuffling noise was once again impossible to localize. When they came to the second door, they kept asking me what the heard, smelt and felt. I told them that all that was off was the shuffling noise. When they opened this door, still ready for action, I described a large bear "raised upon his haunches, teeth bared. There's something not quite right about this bear though, an eerie silence to it. Okay, segment twelve. Surge, your first up, what do you do?" Well, Surge called out "Cross", and delayed his action. This call was for the two blasters to wait for the brick to pounce the target, and then all three would slam it. However, before the brick could act, the teams mentalist had his go, and tried to use mind-control to calm the beast. I told him that his attack roll had failed "almost as if the mind of this bear had long left it." As this was the description I had given him the last time they had faced a zombie, he freaked crying out "Zombie!" One coordinated attack later I said, "Well, you literally beat the stuffing out of the bear. And I mean stuffing, as in 'stuffed and mounted'." Meanwhile, my players finally stopped shivering. As I said, it's all about being descriptive. It helps to take your time, as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
"V" Posted May 14, 2006 Report Share Posted May 14, 2006 Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/... Must agree with the concensus here - you won't scare your PCs just by pitting them against bigger badder opponents. You scare PCs by having them realise that one way or another the (SCARY THING) can change their life for the worse one way or another. If the only threat is possibly taking more STUN/BODY (and possibly even having to write up another character) then you don't have fear - you just have a tactical problem to solve. Without knowing the specific PCs it's impossible to come up with a genuinely creepy example - horror can never be generic, and examples would sound trite unless tailored ("Threaten DNPC" sounds crass- having the PC realise that his younger sister's 'steady' who has been mentioned for several sessions as an off-stage npc is probably the psychopath the team has been hunting for most of the campaign and she has just left town on a weekend away with him... that can work - given the right PCs- whether the psycho has combat stats worth spit or not) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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