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How to run the "horror" setting?

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Fri, 2012-12-28 17:59
#1
Burbank Burbank's picture
How to run the "horror" setting?
Hi there and sorry for the possible mistakes, english is not my native language. So for the subject: I'm planning my first EP campaign, i already have my players's concept so i can bake them a personnalised one and i have some subjects of my campaign pointed out. But i struggle with the "horror" theme of the game. I've already done a shadowrun campaign, the tech part of the game is not a problem for me. But i've mostly do some "light hearted" games (mostly a In Nomine campaign that was very ironic, and also explored some modern fantasy with Fireborn). I'm not comfortable with how to scare them, or make the scene not just a funny bloodbath. I don't really know what i'm searching for, inspiration or advices, so i thought i should come here. Thanks for reading :)
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Fri, 2012-12-28 20:40
OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture
Horror is really difficult.
Horror is really difficult. It's a collaboration between the writer and the reader that is singular in fiction. To engender fear, revulsion and the Heebiejeebies in the reader you have to make the reader care about some part of the story. Here are some basic tools; 1. Suspension of disbelief. This is paramount. The reader (player) can't make a personal investment of emotion in a setting/situation that they don't believe in. Don't go wild with the more esoteric elements of EP's setting. You have bring EP down to a level that the player as well as the character can identify with.The plot has to have a human scale. 2. Empathy. If you can achieve suspension of disbelief. You then have to develop empathy for the setting, plot, and the npc's in the *player* not the characters. Hopefully the player's investment in their characters will help with this but it's still the player who has to be able to put themselves in the setting, respond to the scenario and react to the characters in an empathetic way. The story still needs to be humanistic and human centric, Macabre is easily converted to disgust if the readers are not putting themselves in the story. Horror can't happen to someone else. 3. Use the unexpected and out of place. [this is not the same as a bunch of plot twists!] [url=http://www.writersdigest.com/tip-of-the-day/horror-mysteries-and-setting... is a pretty good article about that. Stephen King does a pretty good job of this. The point is; once you've established the first two conditions you get to play with the audience. Using surprise, juxtaposition, risk and fear of the unknown are ways to wrack up the tension. In RPG's it also helps to challenge the characters in ways for which they are not prepared. Don't put evil in black hats. Don't attack from the most obvious position. Do make small children evil. (all small children are the most dangerous and evil protagonist one could want to meet.) 4. Use foreshadowing to create dread. Fear of the unknown is the most common and compelling fear of humanity. However, complete ignorance is not scary. Getting shot in the back without warning or whipped by a tentacle out of nowhere is surprising but not horrific. Piranas (and small children) are scary because the character has some expectation of their presence in the murkey water but no clear indication of where or when they might attack until it's too late. The insane (and small children) are scary because the character knows a psychotic break is possible but doesn't know what might trigger it. Do use potential piranas, the insane (and small children) to instill dread in your characters. If you're wondering what I have against small children, (besides the obvious). As I got out of my truck after work the other day I was hit, In the Face, by a snowball launched from the mitten of a "little Sticky Person" who lives next door. That was surprising. Now, until the snow melts, I live in fear every time I leave the house while the sun is up. Which is a pretty good example of everything I just said. (when do these little bastards have to go back to school?!) Here are some other thoughts about writing horror that i happen to agree with; http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/10/11/25-things-you-should-know-abo... An NPR interview with Stephen King http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128239303 A fairly large online resource for horror writers http://horror.fictionfactor.com/articles.html
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Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.

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Sat, 2012-12-29 06:51
Lorsa Lorsa's picture
Eclipse Phase is much more
Eclipse Phase is much more than its horror theme. It is a vast a dynamic setting in which you can run a multitude of different scenarios and campaigns. Don't get hung up and feel you HAVE to be scary. If you can't do it you can still enjoy the game. As OneTrikPony says, it is important to first build a baseline of the world, give a sense of what's normal. You can't start the first scenario by encountering exurgents, it really won't be quite as scary. It wasn't until the 6th adventure I introduced parts of TITAN-legacy tech and even though it was very little and small managed to get a much larger reaction compared to another GM who had us see (through camera) exurgents on the third game session (second part of the first adventure). Feeling a strong connection to the character, setting and what is normal is extremely important. That's why most good horror movies builds up suspence and doesn't introduce the true creepiness until halfway through the movie or so. So my suggestion is to start by a few non-horror adventures, making them all the more creepy when they appear and also to GO SLOW. Don't throw things in the face of players or drop them into the mouth of hell, let the small things be creepy and slowly build up. And as OneTrikPony says, the expectation of something can be even worse than the actual encounter.
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Sat, 2012-12-29 07:35
Burbank Burbank's picture
Well, my players don't know
Well, my players don't know the universe of EP beyond the scope of character creation, so it will be my job to build expectations. I thought of something like that, beginning with some city mysteries then explore the harsh environnement of a planet/moon to show what's really alien for us in our system and (maybe) the first encounter with morph death and intricacies, and then begin to introduce them with the scary part. As OneTrikPony said i think they must create empathy with their characters before they can be scared. Thanks for these advices and the link, i begin to understand even though i think i'll have some work before i'll be able to handle that (maybe trying a horror scenario inside an other game running campaign). And juste for OneTrickPony, i usually swicth sidewalk when i see a child coming front, so you're not alone.
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Sat, 2012-12-29 08:47
Lorsa Lorsa's picture
Personally when I see kids I
Personally when I see kids I think about how scared I used to be of large cool guys and then just assume now I am a large cool guy so they are scared of me. :)
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Lorsa is a Forum moderator [color=red]Red text is for moderator stuff[/color]
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Mon, 2013-01-07 10:55
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
One method I like to use is
One method I like to use is to pre-imagine various creepy, horrible or just weird details and then sprinkle them into the game as necessary: The morbidly obese man with an unhealthy attachment to his dogs. Entering a dark room and, when reaching for the light, touching warm flesh... and then realizing that there is flesh underfoot too. The window with the blinds down where the light leaking through is glaringly *wrong*. The little jingle that seem to come from somewhere, slowly getting distorted. The nanotech growths that repeat the last messages of a doomed crew... including children asking for their parents. Leaving out information can also be useful. Just read some of the good SCP Foundation entries - [REDACTED] is far more worrying than any clear description: http://www.scp-wiki.net/featured-archive Generally the more uncertainty, ignorance and unknowns there are, the better. This is of course diametrically opposed to the normal sf situation, where research and intelligence will solve problems. So how this tension plays out determines a lot: is it defeatable horror (enough undaunted investigation will be able to find a solution), undefeatable horror (it is so far beyond human understanding that there is no way of ever solving it... without becoming exhuman), or some uncertain mix? Making the players uncertain about whether running for the hills/nuking the site from orbit or whether to stay and investigate is a good thing, especially if some PCs or NPCs take the opposite tack. "OK, you stay. But when I get to the shuttle, if I do not hear back from you - and you better sound like yourselves! - I will launch OMEGA at this facility. You have an hour." (You can guess who gets eaten first in this scenario... and then a distorted version of them starts hounding them with a countdown...)
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Extropian
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Tue, 2014-06-10 21:06
NoEther NoEther's picture
Break the rules.
Break the rules. I find it hard to establish horror when players can predict and understand the actions of their antagonists. For example, the TITANs are outside human (or transhuman) comprehension, that means that the players can't understand what governs their actions. This links in with the earlier comment about using surprise, and one way to surprise is to make the enemy do something that the players thought was impossible. I would also let the players establish a "safe" location, and then show them how unsafe it is. This is sort of violation should be fairly horrific.
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Thu, 2014-06-12 13:12
jackgraham jackgraham's picture
I finally got around to
I finally got around to reading Epidiah Ravichol's _Dread_ recently, and I recommend it to anyone running any horror game. The rules (i.e., how to use the Jenga tower) take up all of 10 pages. The rest of the book is a treatise on how to run horror, & Eppy does a very thorough job of covering all the bases. I think the big thing to realize is that EP allows for several different _kinds_ of horror, and they're each done differently. Say, I feel a blog post coming on. I'll be back when it's written... :)
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J A C K   G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth!   http://eclipsephase.com :: twitter @jackgraham @faketsr :: Google+Jack Graham
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Thu, 2014-06-12 14:07
Leng Plateau Leng Plateau's picture
Know your players
Know your players and how they take their horror... most importantly know what creeps them out, what squicks them, and where their buttons are. Once you have these, use them sparingly but use them to push your intense scenes. One small note: Also learn the buttons that go too far and avoid those.
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At least with Lovecraft, nobody pretends the gods are nice. And wherever you end up, there is guaranteed to be tentacles.
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Thu, 2014-06-12 14:37
consumerdestroyer consumerdestroyer's picture
With my players, I'm always
With my players, I'm always surprised by what freaks them out. Sometimes I run them through some shit that seems fairly horrific and (to their credit as role players) they RP their characters being as freaked out as the stress value/traumas inflicted would warrant, but every once in a while some minor thing like an airlock shutting of its own accord on a derelict ship happens and the [b]players[/b] get jumpy.
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Thu, 2014-06-12 15:17
ORCACommander ORCACommander's picture
jackgraham wrote:I finally
jackgraham wrote:
I finally got around to reading Epidiah Ravichol's _Dread_ recently, and I recommend it to anyone running any horror game. The rules (i.e., how to use the Jenga tower) take up all of 10 pages. The rest of the book is a treatise on how to run horror, & Eppy does a very thorough job of covering all the bases. I think the big thing to realize is that EP allows for several different _kinds_ of horror, and they're each done differently. Say, I feel a blog post coming on. I'll be back when it's written... :)
mmm google is giving me trouble. would it be this by chance? http://dig1000holes.wordpress.com/dreadhouse/
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Thu, 2014-06-12 15:48
Erulastant Erulastant's picture
http://www.tiltingatwindmills
http://www.tiltingatwindmills.net/dread/index.html is what you're looking for
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You, too, were made by humans. The methods used were just cruder, imprecise. I guess that explains a lot.
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Thu, 2014-06-12 18:30
Lorsa Lorsa's picture
consumerdestroyer wrote:With
consumerdestroyer wrote:
With my players, I'm always surprised by what freaks them out. Sometimes I run them through some shit that seems fairly horrific and (to their credit as role players) they RP their characters being as freaked out as the stress value/traumas inflicted would warrant, but every once in a while some minor thing like an airlock shutting of its own accord on a derelict ship happens and the [b]players[/b] get jumpy.
I don't find that very strange at all. It's the suspension and the things you don't know that scares you the most. Truly horrific shit can be very hard to imagine well in your mind but an airlock that closes of its own? Anyone can picture that, and since they don't know what caused it they'll be all the more frightened.
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Lorsa is a Forum moderator [color=red]Red text is for moderator stuff[/color]
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Fri, 2014-06-13 07:03
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
That's a good point, Lorsa.
That's a good point, Lorsa. In Continuity, I like to start with a persistent itch, or a feeling of something on your skin inside your vac suit.
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