ah, my kingdom for a life's work

[Talisman]

RPGs and movies/TV shows are totally different animals. It's far easier to create and maintain a mood when you control the actions of the protagonists. Independant players, especially genre-savvy D&D veterans, makes it harder - even when the players are going along with it.

Action Horror/Fearless Monster Stompers is, IMO, less true horror than it is modern heroic fantasy, or perhaps quasi-sci-fi action. Horror relies on fear of the unknown and relatively weak heroes who must seek out the bad guys' weakness and (ideally) work together in order to bring down the monster. Action horror has much less fear, tension, and caution, and more shootin' and kickin' of supernatural ass. M-Force by Hex Games would be a good example of the latter.

IMO, at least.

[Username17]

There's, also the fact that, after fighting off ghosts, a zombie horde, a werewolverine pack and an ancient Tentacled Evil, the PCs' reaction to a rash of killings wil - quite justifiably - be: "Another monster. Suit up; Jake, you hit the museum; Fred, check up on local cults; Ann, stock up on spices. Everyone got their silver bullets, crosses, obsidian knives and Elder Signs? Let's roll."

This is totally anathema to the horror genre.

It's totally not. JE was totally right to bring Supernatural into this. In it, the main characters know pretty much everything there is to know about demons, monsters, and ghosts. And indeed, hunting and killing them is their actual life work. They go from town to town finding murderous monsters and putting a stop to them. And it's one of the scariest things on television.

Not because the main characters don't know how things work, indeed usually not even because the viewer doesn't know how things work because the main characters give a fair amount of exposition. No, it's scary because the monsters are really powerful and do horrible things to people. The fact that the heroes in that show are in no way guaranteed to save people at he last minute leads to very real tension.

• Example Episode
  There's an episode where the main characters go to a periodically haunted house only to find a group of amateur ghost hunters there checking out the same thing. As the heroes expect, the place seals up when the ghost starts manifesting and the other people start panicking. The heroes then have to run around herding cats and keeping non-professionals safe while fighting the main ghost. Unfortunately, one of the heroes and the intern of the amateur group get captured and the ghost starts torturing them. The other main character is fighting his way to the bunker, and he doesn't make it in time. The intern gets tortured to death right there in front of our hero. Then rescues happen.
  
  Because the main characters in that show can actually succeed or fail to save people, them trying to save people has genuine tension. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't, so you're on the edge of your seat while the main characters are struggling.

You don't need the darkness to conceal unknowable dangers to generate fear. In fact, that's a pretty shitty way to try to generate fear, because your actions don't really matter if you have no reason to believe that any particular course of action will be the right one. If the darkness holds known and real dangers, then fear is rational.

Once people over analyze things to the point where they know how the game works, then you can expect them to behave rationally. Real and consistent danger is a good way to do that. Having the GM just make shit up is not. If the GM is changing the rules, then it is the GM's whim that is making you live or die. The GM is a person that you know day to day, so really that's a pretty known quantity. You can go ahead and split up from the rest of the group and go skinny dipping, and whatever else. You're in the hands of a capricious god and you "know" when he'll decide to kill you or not. On the other hand, if you are in a completely logical universe that just happens to be extremely dangerous - well then taking things safely makes a lot of sense.

Alien doesn't stop being scary when Ripley starts fighting the monster. Halloween doesn't stop being scary when Jamie Lee Curtis starts fighting the monster. The monster being a known quantity in no way makes it less scary if the monster is still genuinely dangerous.

Grisly Bears are scary. Cartoon land is not.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty2]

It's totally not. JE was totally right to bring Supernatural into this. In it, the main characters know pretty much everything there is to know about demons, monsters, and ghosts. And indeed, hunting and killing them is their actual life work. They go from town to town finding murderous monsters and putting a stop to them. And it's one of the scariest things on television.

Not because the main characters don't know how things work, indeed usually not even because the viewer doesn't know how things work because the main characters give a fair amount of exposition. No, it's scary because the monsters are really powerful and do horrible things to people. The fact that the heroes in that show are in no way guaranteed to save people at he last minute leads to very real tension.

The problem is that we're talking about an RPG, and while this setup can work well on TV, it doesn't work so well for an RPG.

First, the monster doing horrible things needs to be set up in a way that it doesn't seem like DM fiat. Otherwise it's not really so horrible. If a PC gets on the scene and "arrives too late", most PCs think it's just a premade set of boxed text that the DM had prepared. And while you may gross the PCs out with your gory descriptions, you're not really going to scare them at all. About the best you can do towards scaring people is make some display of power, assuming your system supports it. Like in GURPS severing a limb straight up shows that you do a lot of damage. In D&D, there's really no way to show how powerful someone is because no matter how badly you mutilate a commoner, he's basically still a commoner.

Of course, even this won't work if the PCs know the threat, since they're likely to understand exactly what the monster can do. So the fact that werewolf is super strong isn't something that really shocks them.

You don't need the darkness to conceal unknowable dangers to generate fear. In fact, that's a pretty shitty way to try to generate fear, because your actions don't really matter if you have no reason to believe that any particular course of action will be the right one. If the darkness holds known and real dangers, then fear is rational.

Once people over analyze things to the point where they know how the game works, then you can expect them to behave rationally. Real and consistent danger is a good way to do that. Having the GM just make shit up is not. If the GM is changing the rules, then it is the GM's whim that is making you live or die.

Only if the GM changes shit on the spot. You need to trust your GM that the monster was made ahead of time, and that the GM isnt' just arbitrarily deciding that you lose.

But aside from that, there's no difference between a GM created monster and one in the rulebook, aside that you may not know what the GM created monster can do. But in a horror game, that's absolutely a good thing. Because it gets players thinking and that makes them tense. How do we beat this monster? Do we want to try shooting it? Do we want to run because it's too powerful? What are we going to do? And that's very good for a horror game.

The problem with well known monsters is that quite simply, your tactics are already preplanned and there aren't really any surprises. You're not afraid because you have the situation well in hand and while you may get unlucky, there's no real fear or wonder if what you're doing is actually going to work.

Grisly Bears are scary.

Not in an RPG they're not. They're just another monster. You keep thinking that because life or death combat is scary in real life that it must be scary in an RPG. This is however not the case at all. When you're a police officer in real life getting into a shootout, you're going to be scared as hell. But in an RPG, you as a player running that character are not going to be scared. It's just another combat. Maybe it's lethal, maybe it's not, but in any case, you know how things are going to go down.

The majority of the scare factor of movies like Alien is that you had the Alien attacking people with stealth and surprise. Jumping out of nowhere. Now in a FPS game you can totally simulate that and make it scary by having people check around corners and shit, wondering where the attack is going to come from. In an RPG, it just tends to be an arbitrary matter of "well I've only got a +1 spot, I'm boned." And people just give up, because you have one means of fighting a stealth based monster and it's not particularly interactive in a tabletop RPG. It's just a die roll.

And similar stuff like zombies just aren't scary in RPGs. Yeah ok, there's a lot of zombies. It's an encounter. It may be an encounter that's impossible to win, in which case players make a tactical retreat, or it may be an encounter that PCs can win. But that really doesn't matter much, because PCs know the stats of zombies and can gauge what to do from that. It's not an emotional decision, there's really no fear, it's just crunching numbers. And once you're in a crunch numbers mode, you can't be scared, because you're in complete control of the situation.

The advantage of an unknown monster is that it takes away the security blanket of numbers. Now the player is uncertain. He doesn't know what abilities this monster may have or how to best protect himself. He's making educated guesses based on what little he knows, but nothing is for sure, and when he makes a decision as to what to do next, there's going to be nagging doubt that maybe it isn't the right one. Unlike when he knows all the variables, here he's collecting clues, trying to figure out the capabilities of the latest monster, or perhaps indeed what kind of monster it is. And there is a lot of terror at being taken out of your native element and entering unexplored territory.

[JonSetanta]

It's the situation of a horror monster encounter that makes the whole event scary, not the monster alone.
You know, a Lose-Lose scenario with a smidgen of hope.... at a cost.

And I think Frank doesn't like unpredictable monsters.

[CatharzGodfoot]

In a horror game, extras can act as HP. If the success of the game is measured in terms of (1) getting rid of or escaping from the monster and (2) keeping casualties to a minimum, things can get pretty tense regardless of how well known the monster is. Remember: the monster is not just a collection of abilities and numbers. The monster succeeds or fails as a source of entertainment based on its actions.


[Edit]
Intelligence is one of the most important things to surviving a horror game. A situation in which players control a small pool of characters and a DM controls the monster(s) could really be ideal. There's incentive to play that really dumb person who wanders right into the trap in some circumstances, because that gives a bunch of info in-screen right at the beginning of the game.

[Username17]

The numbers are only a "security blanket" when they are stacked in your favor. If you can see long odds, then they are not a security blanket. They are scary.

Players have to know the rules for a game to occur. And if they know that the rules say that they don't have to win, then that engenders a lot more fear than otherwise. As long as the TPK is a real and ever present danger, and actual defeat is literally in the cards - then fear can happen.

The thing that makes grisly bears not scary in D&D and Shadowrun is that the player characters have numbers that make them bad asses. Take that away, not the fact that the numbers exist. If you don't know the numbers, then the game is unfair. Losing at an unfair game isn't frightening, it's infuriating.

-Username17

[Absentminded_Wizard]

I think the definition of "fair" in the horror genre is a little different. When a (good) horror director introduces an original monster, the monster's gimmick will be something logical and consistent that the protagonists can figure out. It might also be something really hard to overcome (like Freddy Krueger's "You can avoid me by not going to sleep; good luck with that."). The key is that the workings of any new monster properties must be consistent for the same monster.

[RandomCasualty2]

The thing that makes grisly bears not scary in D&D and Shadowrun is that the player characters have numbers that make them bad asses. Take that away, not the fact that the numbers exist. If you don't know the numbers, then the game is unfair. Losing at an unfair game isn't frightening, it's infuriating.

No. Setting the numbers to unfair levels and expecting the PCs to still play by the rules is what's infuriating. If PCs know that they're playing a puzzle game where violence may not always be the answer and they may have to think out of the box, a lot of players can live with that. Some anal people who want to know all the rules and can't live unless they know exactly how reality works will object, but I say that horror is not for them. If you're a control freak, you just aren't going to like a horror game, because part of horror is not being in control. Supernatural horror in particular is about realizing that the world doesn't necessarily behave how you expected it does.

Most however, get noticeably upset if they're just totally mechanically hosed and there's no secret solution to help them. Stating the wolfman 10 CRs higher than the level of the group isn't scary, it's just the DM being a douche and putting his PCs into an unwinnable situation, and every player is going to realize that as such. And this doesn't generate fear or horror, it just generates hopelessness. We've all been in that situation with the bad DM who throws some uber monster at a low level group and there's literally nothing you can do. Meeting a great wyrm at low levels isn't frightening at all in an RPG. It's incredibly deadly, but it's not frightening. Being numerically hosed isn't scary, it's just plain unfair.

[CatharzGodfoot]

No. Setting the numbers to unfair levels and expecting the PCs to still play by the rules is what's infuriating. If PCs know that they're playing a puzzle game where violence may not always be the answer and they may have to think out of the box, a lot of players can live with that. Some anal people who want to know all the rules and can't live unless they know exactly how reality works will object, but I say that horror is not for them. If you're a control freak, you just aren't going to like a horror game, because part of horror is not being in control. Supernatural horror in particular is about realizing that the world doesn't necessarily behave how you expected it does.

Care to give an example?
Because what I'm seeing is that if you know how tough the zombies are, and therefore you try to sneak in and blow up the research facillity, that's unfair. And when you have no idea how tough they are, so you start shotgunning and get swarmed by exploding zombies and everyone dies, that's Supernatural Horror.

[Prak]

No, sending CR 10 zombies against a group of commoners is Unfair. Sending zombies against players in a 90210 game is Supernatural Horror, because they're all going to think that the world works the way it does in 90210, but if a columbine kid goes in, shoots the principal, and the principal gets up and takes a bite out of the kid, that's not the way they thought the world worked.

It's like Cthulhu and his non-euclidian angles... it's confusing, but at least it has internal consistancy, even if that internal consistancy is tentacles.

[Talisman]

I'm going to have to agree with RC here, Frank - big numbers =/= scary. Big numbers can be a component of scary, and usually should...it's hard to feel scared of something you have a good chance of taking in a fair fight...

...once you know that.

When you're a low-level D&D adventurer, a CR 20 dragon is scary to the characters. Hell, zombies and dire rats are scary to the characters. None of these things are scary to the players, and that is the heart of the horror genre. More than any other genre, horror requires the viewer/reader/player to become emotionally involved.

If you know the numbers and you know the GM is hosing you, that's damn infuriating. The only way to salvage this situation is to make it clear that the monster is a puzzle monster...there is a way to beat it if you can find it...which taks us right back to the unknown, since you have to figure out the damn solution to the puzzle monster! Otherwise, your choices are (1) stand and die, or (2) flee because you know you have no chance of victory.

That's not horror. That's not even good action. That's unfair, infuriating, and bad GMing.

[Username17]

Tension happens when you know that the Director does not know if your character will live or die, and neither do you. Tension does not come from you not knowing the rules. It comes from you knowing the rules and simultaneously knowing that you may win or lose. That is exciting. "Playing" a game where you do not know the rules is not exciting.

For things to be properly horrifying, it has to be really knife edge. You have to know for sure that you have a very real chance of success (otherwise it's just depressing), and know that you have a very real chance of failure (otherwise it's just routine). That's all your system can deliver. And if it does deliver that, you have to accept that there is a very real chance that the game will end with all the players being killed.

The thing where the Director reads off some atmospheric piece about shadows and dripping blood and stuff that unnerves people is fine, you'll even want to do that - but that's just a set of single-author fiction that is being appended to the cooperative storytelling game. Coop storytelling doesn't function if one or more people doesn't know how things work. All that the rules can deliver is the certain knowledge that danger and hope are real.

And if you pull Gygaxian crap about how the rules are in a constant lava lamp of bullshit changes that no one knows or anticipates, then the rules aren't even delivering that. Yes, 4e D&D is never ever going to be scary, because danger and hope are not real. But if a horror rule set was doing it's job, you'd know that you have a real chance to save Betsy the cheerleader, and you'd know that if you saw her get carved up into pieces that it was preventable. That's what a horror system can and should deliver.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty2]

Care to give an example?
Because what I'm seeing is that if you know how tough the zombies are, and therefore you try to sneak in and blow up the research facillity, that's unfair. And when you have no idea how tough they are, so you start shotgunning and get swarmed by exploding zombies and everyone dies, that's Supernatural Horror.

Nah, part of Supernatural Horror is giving the heroes the idea of how tough something is through their own investigations. Supernatural horror never starts with a hero being the first to die. In fact, usually it begins with a hero investigating other deaths. Alternately it can begin with a hero "killing" the monster, only to realize that the monster didn't die like he thought.

Good examples of Supernatural Horror would be Nightmare on Elm Street, The Ring, Fallen, Final Destination and the X-Files episode with the evil doll that caused people to commit suicide (There's actually a few other X-Files that would likely fall into this category as well, but that's the most obvious that comes to mind). Basically in all cases, it's clear from the beginning that the heroes are dealing with something beyond some normal beast and that beating it is going to take information and investigation, not just brute force.

And that's important because you have to take them out of brute force mode for a horror themed quest or game. Because really, monsters aren't scary to gamers. We've fought wraiths, minotaurs, dragons, liches and trolls. Sharp claws and life draining abominations just aren't scary for us anymore. We've been there and we've done that.

However it is scary when we're up against something that can't simply be killed through mundane means, or maybe we don't even know what the true cause of the problem really is. All the while this stuff gets our heroes (and more importantly, their players) thinking. Frank's method of super deadliness doesn't really get players thinking. Sure it scares characters if they're properly role played, but players just adopt a fatalistic attitude that eventually their luck runs out and they die. And once you've accepted the certainty of your character's death, you're really not scared anymore. You're just waiting for the inevitable, because shit, you know the numbers, and you know that the only reason you're still alive is because you've been lucky.

And we don't call those horror campaigns, we just call them games run by Killer DMs. Nobody is scared, they're just waiting to die.

[Bigode]

You have to know for sure that you have a very real chance of success (otherwise it's just depressing), (...)

Unless the difference in our thoughts' just semantics, I'm gonna disagree with that. What's the problem with a game where you knew you were doomed, but not how or when, and where you might achieve at best some transitory success - not achieving the actual characters' final goal (perhaps that's where the semantics is: maybe you mean when there's not even transitory success)?

[Talisman]

Tension happens when you know that the Director does not know if your character will live or die, and neither do you. Tension does not come from you not knowing the rules. It comes from you knowing the rules and simultaneously knowing that you may win or lose. That is exciting. "Playing" a game where you do not know the rules is not exciting.

I'm not talking about not knowing the rules. I'm talking about not knowing the specific details.

If we're playing D&D and I throw an ogre at you, you can just go "Okay, it's an ogre." Yes, it may have class levels, but fundamentally it's a melee bruiser, who hits hard but has a glass jaw Will save.

Now, if I describe a green-skinned humanoid with two tentacles sprouting from each shoulder, you don't know what you're facing. Is it something I made up? Is it a guy with a template? Is it a reflavored human fighter?

You know the rules of the game, but you don't know what this new monster can do. It's an unknown quantity, at least until you hit it and your axe bounces off, or it turns into smoke and flies away.

That's what I'm talking about - not keepimng pl;ayers in the dark as to the rules, but as to the specific monster details.

For things to be properly horrifying, it has to be really knife edge. You have to know for sure that you have a very real chance of success (otherwise it's just depressing), and know that you have a very real chance of failure (otherwise it's just routine).

And facing a monster 10 CR above you doesn't do that. It simply ensures failure...which, as you state, is depressing.

Big numbers =/= scary.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

Some points:

1. Fear of the unknown is not the single, ultimate way to create a tense atmosphere in an rpg game. There are many ways to shape the mood of a game, and most of those are directly dependant upon the Gm and the players. That said, good rules can aid that end, and effectively not having rules is certainly not helpful.

2. There is a difference between a puzzle monster and not knowing how your character can interact with the world or the monster. A simple known creature can be a puzzle monster. The puzzle is not being unable to discern what effects your actions will have. The puzzle is figuring out how to overcome the obstacle with limited resources, within a new, unique, and dynamic situation.

3. Investigation of the setting and the monster does not automatically mean that the players can't know what a monster does. There are all kinds of investigations that can occur, even when you know exactly what a monster is.

4. An rpg game is an asymmetric game. The Gm and players don't have an equal power relationship. Yes, a good Gm plays by the same rules as the players or as the game dictates. But the Gm also is the one who decides Npc motivations, power, goals, environments, forces of nature, etc. All those decisions contain more power than any Pc can have. So the real question is: What power discrepancies do the Gm and the player want in the game? In any sort of game, we don't want the power imbalance skewed so that the characters actions are meaningless. However, players of a horror game might want to fight against the odds. It might be fun to play a game where your characters are fighting an even (or even losing) battle. I think Paranoia is like this. In short, having the players at a disadvantage does not mean that fun or a scary mood is lost.

[JonSetanta]

I'd assume that fear of the unknown is essential in horror. Having set monster abilities unrevealed to players =/= having shifting values unpredictable to all that play.

It's a matter of perception; the monsters know what's going on (but don't necessarily care) and act like it, while the human (or whatever) victims don't.
They are "in the dark".

At least IMHO when I stare down a probability carefully plotted out and visible the thought goes through my head that hey, we might have a chance, in about 1-out-of-X attempts. Then I weight risks using resources at hand, and plan a course of action.
Even if such a plan fails I don't feel fear in the process nor dismay when I don't succeed because I know that with more attempts it COULD HAVE succeeded, and if there's only 1 chance then... oh well.

On the other side, if I stare down a challenge with no information, no option of comparison to known situations, and no calculation of success, that is fear.
Hesitation results.

So if you want a good horror RPG, sure, make the numbers in line and obey the RNG, but for fuck's sake allow the GM to mix things up so that players won't know what hit them.
Have a firebreathing werewolf or an aquatic vampire, and slap such surprises on the PCs when they least expect it.
Shock of the new with a nod to classics is essence of good horror.

[Username17]

It's a matter of perception; the monsters know what's going on (but don't necessarily care) and act like it, while the human (or whatever) victims don't.

Seriously, when was the last time you started up a horror movie and they were like "Yeah, something's gonna get you. I don't know what, maybe it's a firebreathing werewolf or some shit. But be afraid, because you could easily die!" That shit does not happen. You know why? Because even if Jason was actually real, the sum total of people he has ever killed doesn't make him as big a killer as Tuberculosis over the same period.

Unknown sources of injury and death are just statistics. They aren't scary unless they are large. The fact that some people die of violence somewhere isn't frightening, it's just a statistical fact - right next to the fact that driving around gives you an actually much larger chance of getting hit by another car and dying. No one makes horror movies about how there are drunk drivers on the road and you have a not inconsiderable chance of having your life ended by one of them.

---

That's not how the formula works. The formula is that you get told straight up at the very beginning that the killer is on the loose. You almost invariably get the name of the villain, and the viewers of the movie (the people who are supposed to be scared by it) actually get to see the villain's powers up close and personal, usually in the first scene and often before the opening credits have even rolled.

Horror of any kind is asking you to embrace an immediate fear to exclusion of the general statistical awareness you always have. You're supposed to put away the knowledge that cigarettes are killing you with grim certainty while every oreo and jello shot brings you that much closer to liver failure. And you're supposed to do it in the name of the fear that Candyman or Freddy or Jason or Dracula is going to come and kill your ass right now. And if you don't know what they do, if you don't know why you're supposed to be afraid of them rather than all the other ways to die - it's just not going to make an impact.

The monsters have rules. The monsters have names. The monsters give specific voices to the darkness or you just don't care. Because every single person will die. If not now, then soon. And people die from accidents and disease and stuff all the time, and it's a much bigger killer than violence will ever be. So if there's no name, no immediacy to the threat of violence, it just doesn't even fucking matter.

-Username17

[JonSetanta]

Seriously, when was the last time you started up a horror movie and they were like "Yeah, something's gonna get you. I don't know what, maybe it's a firebreathing werewolf or some shit. But be afraid, because you could easily die!" That shit does not happen. You know why? Because even if Jason was actually real, the sum total of people he has ever killed doesn't make him as big a killer as Tuberculosis over the same period.

Uh, I was like... never. When I sit down for a horror I don't have expectations. The fear is revealed to me in pieces that are then confused and misinterpreted later after I walk out of a theatre with a puzzled expression.

That shit does happen, not specifically, but in the form of vampire-werewolves and werewolf-vampires (Underworld 2, although action-horror) that use set rules presented in new and interesting ways.

Also, I don't appreciate assaults by lolcats in course of srs horror RPG discussions.
Those fuckers have Toxoplasma gondii which is a REAL HORROR because we know what it can do and who the fuck keeps giving it to us, but not how we can stop it.
Well, OK, there is one good solution (kill all cats) but sheaaah right like that's happening ever.

Someone sneezed in Brazil?
SHUT. DOWN. EVERYTHING.

[PhoneLobster]

Seriously, when was the last time you started up a horror movie and they were like "Yeah, something's gonna get you. I don't know what, maybe it's a firebreathing werewolf or some shit.

I watched Stephen King's "It" the other day.

"It" was a lot like that. "It" also sucked.

I found myself yelling at the screen "What the hell is the monster's motivation in this scene! What the hell is in it for him? Is he eating people? Scaring people? Just arsing about? What damn you WHAT?" Which may or may not have impacted the viewing experience of the 5 other people watching it with me, I could hardly tell over the sound of them also yelling, groaning and laughing at that ridiculous cock up of a movie.

And the dialogue... the characters... their utterly demented relationship and the oddly sexual overtones of the relationship between the five men and one woman... the lame Stephen King self insertion character...

And WTF? The King insertion character just DECLARES that he "feels" the monster will be weak to silver? The guy who dedicates his life to preparing for the monsters return has an assault kit consisting of plastic hard hats and flash lights? They utterly ignore the character who begs them to bring SOME kind of fire arm and then ultimately several of them die in a situation where they wouldn't have if they had had, well, ANY weapon more advanced than a sling shot and two silver rocks... Hell if they had just brought THREE silver rocks or a long slightly sharpened length of wood...

[Draco_Argentum]

I'm going to disagree with Frank a lot and RC slightly less.

If I know the numbers and abilities it will never be scarey. Its just a calculated success chance.

If I don't know the numbers/abilities its closer but still not scary. RPGs don't have the audio visual atmosphere of a movie. Without that its too easy to be detached, its not you in danger, you aren't there and you know it. A big screen and surround sound can make it enough like you're there to be fearsome.

Terror is a very immediate response to stimuli. Some guy you know talking at you just doesn't do it. Thats why people just aren't scared when they drive a car. Mostly you don't have anything happening that presses the button. Its only when someone cuts you off that your heart pounds.


How are you going to cut me off in an rpg? Wheres the 'oh fuck this shit is dangerous' moment?

[Judging__Eagle]

I'm actually going to really agree with Frank on this.

Mostly because I own and have played Betrayal at House on the Hill; several times.

The game has about 50 different "scenarios."

These range from "one of you knows a bogeyman serial killer; only the mystical dagger that you guys found can really kill him."

Actually, I can link the scenarios book, since there's an errata'd PDF of it online.

Rule book: http://www.wizards.com/avalonhill/rules/HOTH_Rules.zip

Survivor's Book: http://www.wizards.com/avalonhill/rules ... 120105.pdf

Traitor's Tome: http://www.wizards.com/avalonhill/rules ... 120105.pdf

A demo of the Game: http://www.wizards.com/avalonhill/hoth_ ... thdemo.asp

Really, this game already exists, it's just random in which scenario you play.

You could easily create more by:

1) Including more Omen cards
2) Creating new rooms to draw an Omen card in
3) Create replacement scenarios
4) Modify existing scenarios

The game is frightening at the begining since you very well know that you don't know what can happen.

The amount of meta-gaming and meta-thinking that goes on early on is very high. You want to make yourself succeed as much as possible, the problem is that you don't know if you will be against or with the other players, and you also don't know which character could turn into the traitors, so it's a fine line of trying to help the other characters, but not getting hurt yourself.

Once the Haunt actually starts though, then it's really frightening. Both for the Traitor and for the Survivors.

You know that there are strict rules governing what each side can and can't do; but often you don't know what the other side is trying to do right away to beat your side.

As a result you're trying to both accomplish your own task and sometimes trying to disrupt the other side.

[Bigode]

Someone sneezed in Brazil?
SHUT. DOWN. EVERYTHING.

Shut the fvck up, you retard. What the fvck, am I expected to hear racism from you, of all people?

[Username17]

The question of fear in a game is a very interesting, because of course nothing can actually happen to you in a real sense as a result of the results in the game. The key then is to have the players be uncertain as to the fate of things they care about in the game. Developing player-character connections is difficult, but not particularly relevant to the game system. While the game can certainly break connections by having a lethality rate that is "too high" (no one gives a fuck about losing Paranoia characters or henchmen in Ars Magica), actually creating connections is a factor of role playing and you literally can't legislate that.

Which means that you're left trying to convince people to make emotional connections to their characters and then be rationally convinced that those characters may lose. You can't just have a series of simple but surreal encounters with monsters from a new Monster Manual, because there's no reason to believe that any it does or does not pose any real threat to anything you care about. Fighting a new monster that you don't know the capabilities of is no more or less frightening than the week between game sessions. Not knowing what your team is up against is not structurally different from not knowing what your team will be up against next game.

You have to spend a fair amount of time building up NPCs and in-character relationships and such. You have to do that because otherwise them dying will matter to you no more than taking losses in Warhammer. But then, once you've achieved "give a damn" for each of the characters, you have to have real and comprehensible threats to them. You have to understand and be able to rationally appreciate a real threat to these things you care about.

Otherwise yeah, the threat is no more real or immediate than the fact that you could be hit by a car or a meteor any moment of the day while you are outside.

-Username17

[JonSetanta]

Someone sneezed in Brazil?
SHUT. DOWN. EVERYTHING.

Shut the fvck up, you retard. What the fvck, am I expected to hear racism from you, of all people?

Just... wow.

http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/9225 ... careo3.gif

Reference to Pandemic 2.

I'd ask you about the "of all people' but I really don't care.