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23:44, 28th March 2024 (GMT+0)

Do's and Don't's of Tabletop Horror?

Posted by girl in green
girl in green
member, 48 posts
Mon 24 Aug 2015
at 01:26
  • msg #1

Do's and Don't's of Tabletop Horror?

I've never really participated in an outright horror game, so I have some questions for the fine folk of rpol!

- Good horror is characterized by many things, particularly a distinct sense of powerlessness--but how does this translate into a tabletop rpg, where player agency is (rightfully) considered to be one of the most important ingredients of an enjoyable game? How do you instill that vital sense of powerlessness without making it an unfun experience for the players?

- I'm used to games with a more forgiving, narrativist bent, so the idea of losing a character from 3d6 SAN loss because they glanced at the wrong book or got critted by a random zombie mook or whatever is pretty foreign to me. Does the idea that you could lose your character at any time add to the sense of dread, or take away from it? I'm of two minds, I guess; it could be really effective to know that anyone's at risk at literally any time, but it could also be easy to become desensitized and start seeing everyone as a disposable statblock.

- Does anyone have any stories or anecdotes from a game that they remember particularly fondly? Online or in-person, player or GM, whatever. I'd love to hear some examples of effective horror in rpg gaming, if anyone cares to share.

- GMs familiar with running games in the genre, what are your personal "do's" and "don't's" of horror? Do you have any advice for others, or things you wished you'd known before you first started GMing horror games?
This message was last edited by the user at 01:31, Mon 24 Aug 2015.
Mrrshann618
member, 53 posts
Mon 24 Aug 2015
at 02:22
  • msg #2

Do's and Don't's of Tabletop Horror?

In reply to girl in green (msg # 1):

Combat has to be descriptive. not "the creature takes 2 hp due to armor" It has to be more like: "The bullet grazes the rubbery flesh barely making a mark. Hardly noticing the scratch the creature continues forward, tentacles waves menacingly"

Instead of "You loose 6 SAN points" -> Your eyes dart across the page. Unable to tear your gaze away you hardly notice the ache forming behind your eyelids. Slowly you feel drawn into the book, a sort of tunnel vision begins to tear away at the reality around till nothing but the words on the page are visible.....

DONT do mechanics, do descriptive.

Horror is in painting the picture, Read Poe! Extremely descriptive yet no gore compared to today's slashers
Gaffer
member, 1295 posts
Ocoee FL
40 yrs of RPGs
Mon 24 Aug 2015
at 04:15
  • msg #3

Do's and Don't's of Tabletop Horror?

I've been writing and running Call of Cthulhu (mostly) and Deadlands stories for a couple decades, including here on Rpol for several years. Especially in CoC, the characters are badly overmatched by the threat, even if it takes a while for this to become apparent.

My rule of thumb is that characters only die (or go incapacitatedly insane) when it has an impact on the story. This usually means at or close to the climax. On Rpol, a player leaving the game can provide an opportunity for a more gratuitous demise.

Also, I like to create relationships between characters or encourage them to develop in-story so that the loss of a player has an emotional impact. This can even extend to significant NPCs.
Catstacker
member, 4 posts
Wed 26 Aug 2015
at 18:56
  • msg #4

Do's and Don't's of Tabletop Horror?

Horror isn't about powerlessness.  Just the opposite, it's about the characters' desperate attempts to survive, escape or defeat the horror.  So the players need to have lots of power to do things, except that the solution has to be always one more die roll away.  Like climbing up a slippery slope, you want them to try different strategies that let them inch forward even as doom awaits them if they fall.  You don't want them to lose 3D6 Sanity from just looking at a book, you want them to lose sanity a few points at a time that has no way of being healed unless they defeat the monster, so that they feel like they're getting closer to failure even as they get closer to the end of the story.  It helps to have a time pressure too, a ticking clock that keeps them reaching for solutions instead of sitting on their hands and crying that they're all going to die.  Those are the characters that everyone wants to die next.
Waxahachie
member, 133 posts
The horn that wakes
the sleepers
Wed 26 Aug 2015
at 19:18
  • msg #5

Do's and Don't's of Tabletop Horror?

Remember that your character doesn't know that she even has sanity points to begin with. She may have a rough awareness of an equivalent of hit points (immediate physical well being), but usually she isn't thinking about her sanity and the fact that she is slowly losing it. In character, she very likely isn't even aware that her sanity is slipping away from her.

If you're from a 'narrativist' background, think about the Sanity mechanic like a narrativist. Characters aren't likely losing Sanity from "glancing at the wrong book," but by reading the disturbed writings of others and themselves being in turn disturbed by them. They have read and collated the contents. Consider the following quote from H.P. Lovecraft's Call of Cthulhu:

quote:
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

To me, this explains why the character is losing sanity best. It's not 'glancing at a book.' It is the piecing together of forbidden, disturbing, and terrifying knowledge, while the rest of the world continues to turn in ignorance of this as it did before. While everyone else think it's just another day, your character has consumed a piece of knowledge that she legitimately believes, and that terrifies her.

I think that's a much better way to read a Sanity Loss than "Whoop! Lost 3d6 SAN!" As a GM when I'm performing at my best, I'd do my best to try to explain that in context to the players - not only that their characters lost Sanity, but the why of it.
Brygun
member, 1973 posts
RPG since 1982
Author & Inspiration
Fri 28 Aug 2015
at 00:37
  • msg #6

Do's and Don't's of Tabletop Horror?

Oh lets see....

When D+D 3rd ed was starting out it first published just the Players Book. I used what little we had to run group at the time through a lower level adventure. We were all learning what worked and alot of what didn't.

As one point the only surviving player had taken shelter in the run down shack in the swamp with his party mates now being... dead? or lost? I forgot. Well he had found a wand of ligtning and had figured out it has only a few charges. The swamp bog monsters and crocidilles kept coming to the shack. It being their home and they had been off having a succesfull hunt... erm... guess what they hunted? Well the last player was really freaking out going on about how scared he was. He didnt figure out he was in the enemy base, so to speak. Just that whenever he got a little ways out into the deadly swamp he ran into another crocdile or swampy man eater thing, lightning-ed it and ran back to the shack. ^_^ Which was right back to the center of their motion but he didnt know it.

Another memory was the more successful Call of Cuthulu game. Tommy Gun Joe (whose player also plays on rpol now) had lost a sanity check early on and developed a split personality. That split would shift the cigar to the other side of his mouth then raise whatever weapon he had, typically a Tommy Gun, and fire until the clip was entry. Actually saved them from a few monsters by riddlling it with bullets. Well one day in the deep forest there was this shack see. People were missing see. The party found this somewhat hidden storage room with all these strange leather decorations and there was this book see. The Necronomicom. They started to read from the book. Tommy Gun Joe had been searching another area and arrived late. That meant when he failed his sanity check he was at the back with all the rest of the party in this narrow room between him and the source of distress. The cigar moved over. "OH @#*@#(" cried the players round the table. I believe most of them dodged sufficiently to survive for a while longer.

After those two I made another attempt at a Horror Campaign with pretty much the same players. Game failed due to one key factor. Having been scared @#(@#* less in my earlier games as soon as things got wierd the entire party hid in a small room, back together, weapons pointed out, ignored the screams, ignored the tearing metal and not at dawn but noon run the @#*#@#( back to town. hmmm...I think that is a compliment.
This message was last edited by the user at 00:39, Fri 28 Aug 2015.
Grimmond
member, 367 posts
Antler-care by LIV THATCH
"RALPH" The Wonder Llama
Tue 1 Sep 2015
at 01:11
  • msg #7

Do's and Don't's of Tabletop Horror?

spellcheck. always sspell check everthing tobesure that what youwri is clear a nd understandable as nothintakesaway from THE moment like A poorly wrien post and punctuation is also very important use it often pleaseI alsorec emend formatting 2


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Spell check. Always spell check everything to be sure that what you write is clear and understandable, as nothing takes away from the moment like a poorly written post. AND punctuation is also very important. Use it often ! Please ! I also recommend formatting too.

darknash
member, 98 posts
Tue 1 Sep 2015
at 16:22
  • msg #8

Do's and Don't's of Tabletop Horror?

Don't spend every 2nd to 3rd post reminding the players they are going to die or go insane. We know we are playing CoC.(or your other favorite game)
Piestar
member, 600 posts
once upon a time...
...there was a little pie
Wed 2 Sep 2015
at 12:23
  • msg #9

Do's and Don't's of Tabletop Horror?

I've been in a handful of CoC games, and they all suffered from the DM's rush to get to the horrible.

The good horror movies of my youth reveled in the build up.

In essence it reminds me of the early days of my role-playing back in the late seventies where every third level dwarf had a Dwarven throwing hammer (or axe of the Dwarven king) and co-workers would come in Monday bragging about how their second level party had survived their encounter with Asmodeus AND Beelzubub that weekend.

The only difference is that over time DM's got more subtle with DnD, and I've yet to find a CoC DM who has gotten a clue.

I'd like to run a horror game without the players knowing it was going to be a horror game, but I can't see that working on RPoL.

To be honest, I'm not sure a good horror game is possible in this format, hard to build the required suspension of disbelief.
Brygun
member, 1974 posts
RPG since 1982
Author & Inspiration
Fri 4 Sep 2015
at 03:12
  • msg #10

Do's and Don't's of Tabletop Horror?

May have been mentioned...

Fear is in the mind of the players.

In my own example I scared the players not necessarily the characters. It also shows that if there appears to be no chance of a win they will just leave or give up (the hide in the house example).

Some reward or hope that there is possibly something on the other side of the bridge of horrors to get them within reach of the tentacles of fear.

While you are offering to the characters you want to look for the reaction of the players.
Heath
member, 2886 posts
If my opinion changes,
The answer is still 42.
Tue 8 Sep 2015
at 17:30
  • msg #11

Do's and Don't's of Tabletop Horror?

The original question states "tabletop," so I will address that.

SOUND:
I always, always put on a soundtrack to match the theme.

I also use audio clips.  For example, when they once were approaching an unknown creature in a cave, I played clips of purported sasquatch and other creature screams I found online.  (I did this at RPOL too, and it was very effective.)

VISUALS:
A picture of a creature is great, but make sure it's the right one.  I find the most grotesque, horrific picture to print and show them.  For example, for a werewolf, I used things more along the lines of "American Werewolf in London" than D&D illustrations.  (These days, you could also do video clips, though I haven't tried yet.)

I also act out some things with hand gestures as I speak.  If something surprising happens, I talk soft and then yell out something...or huddle my body closer and then spring out quickly when something happens.

I roll a lot...secretly.  For some reason, rolling a lot in secret really, really scares players.

DESCRIPTIONS:
I do not call things "vampires" or "trolls" or whatever.  I usually find some foreign word to use.  For example, I used a Scandinavian word for Troll once, and the characters had no idea what they were going out to fight.  It increases suspense and surprise.  Had I just said they were going to confront "trolls" it wouldn't be as intense as, "You hear frightful rumors of the creatures in the forest called the 'Treppan,' which grow up to 500 pounds with mossy green skin, hands like claws that drag nearly to the ground..." etc., etc.

The fact that the characters must die has to be real.  If there is no real danger for them, there is also no real horror.  I think the most fear my characters have is when they encounter creatures that drain their hard-earned experience points.  Find what the players really fear about what could happen to their characters and tap into that.

Examples: When we played a game with mutations, losing their mutations was a huge fear because they grew attached.  Recently here at RPOL, the main character (a warrior) lost an arm, and he has been struggling to fight and use only one arm for over a year (real time).  But he chose to confront the risk...
chupabob
member, 89 posts
Wed 16 Sep 2015
at 06:52
  • msg #12

Do's and Don't's of Tabletop Horror?

The term HORROR in reference to the literary genre is very broad, and in gaming, even broader still. If one goes in with the expectation that players are supposed to be frightened, and that is the only way to successfully roleplay horror, then one will almost certainly be disappointed. When I run a horror game, I don't even try to do that. I certainly don't expect it when I am player. As a player, I might roleplay a startled character. As a GM, I try to set a certain mood with some music or gothic descriptions, and then I set away. If the players aren't into it, I sure as heck won't try to force a scary tone on them.

DO try to play up to the tropes.
DO put forth some effort to set a mood.

DON'T try to hard. If it isn't happening, it isn't happening, and there is still plenty of opportunity for fun to be had.

DO be willing to kill off characters easily.
DON'T be exclusionary. If a player character dies, try to wrap up quickly so that the player isn't just left excluded from the game. Then the player may enter a new adventure with a new character -- or better yet, the survivors can retire, and everyone starts the next adventure with new characters.

Specifically in reference to question about control...
DO be willing to take away control for SHORT periods of time. In fact, I would do it off screen. If the PC gets possessed by a spirit and kills people, have the PC suddenly look down and notice blood of her hands, then let her figure out what happened.

DON'T take control of the PC for the purposes of getting another NPC and forcing the player to watch from the sidelines.

Here is an excellent example of this principle of limited control in practice. One of the designers of Call of Cthulhu was discussing on a podcast a game which he had ran involving Men in Black. These MiBs were based upon the old urban legends in which strange characters who acted very unhuman-like and bullied witnesses. In this game, every time the PCs encountered the MiBs, they appeared and acted more and more like humans. At one point, the PCs searched a room and found one of their own members unconscious and tied up. When they freed him, he told them that an MiB had captured and replaced him. The player then asked, "Wait, am I the Man in Black?"

GM: "Yes, you are."

Player: "No, I'm human. I have my character sheet right here."

GM: "You didn't know it, but the character you are playing has been a Man in Black for the previous three scenes."
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