Caveat: I'm a horrible player for a horror game.
But there was a thread on RPG.Net a couple months ago, [Horror] What scares you?, and while there are a lot of good, standard answers (body horror, loss, dis-empowerment), one of the posters actually broke horror, in an RPG context, into three large categories that I liked: Dark, Creepy, and (as I summarized it) Suspense. I'd add in Helpless trait as well, even if (because) it just irks me.
Dark is horror based around the lack of good choices - do we kill the children or release the disease into the larger population. The choices of nastily horrible and horribly nasty. This is my favorite to have subtly done, and best done by not hammering the horrible choices, but letting the PCs be PCs and then having an outsider note how this is really, really fuckin' weird. Such as the incident that caused us to coin "Gunteel" as a portmanteau of "gun" and "genteel".
Creepy is horror based around atmosphere. Your name etched in glass. Body distortion and twisted. Mold and and random holes in the walls where you realized you've been watched. The creepy little girl, the off insectoid voice that I used for the tutor demon in Exalted, all examples of creepy ambiance.
Suspense is horror based around unknown and the eventual surprise. It is the most time delineated RPG horror trope because so much of games are seeking answers, and when you find them shooting it repeatedly. For example in Deadlands up until we had the ritual to stop the end of the world there was a sort of futile desperation setting in as we just kept trying to move forward and floundered. But the moment we had a solution we turned back into our highly lethal selves again.
Helplessness is horror based around being ineffectual. Nothing you do matters because it will have no grander effect. For me, games around about "doing things" so I will always turn and fight or resist, sitting there moping isn't all that fun for me. However, used in a limited sense, it can inspire fear/trepidation and cause players to start scrambling for a solution to end that helplessness. But over used and it turns into "Really? Another thing we can't hit until you give us the solution? Let me know when we can do something again."
Showing posts with label Horror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Horror. Show all posts
Friday, September 14, 2012
Friday, October 28, 2011
What I Find Horrific
Wednesday was my usual Deadlands game and I had a great time there, but it did cause me to realize something - I'm a horrible player for horror games (consonance for fun and profit!).
A lot of horror is built around disempowering the protagonist. And that doesn't make me feel afraid or nervous, it irritates me, rather than causing me to want to escape my deep-seated reaction is to turn and charge.
For me, the horror in games is the consequences of choices made - having to make horrible choices versus having gruesome things happen to my character, especially if there's no control over it. "This horrible thing happens to you." "Do I get to try to avoid it?" "No, there's no escape." "Oh, well fine then."
It is probably why I don't like horror movies much - they aren't scary - they can be startling and cause me to jump and react; they can be gruesome and cause me flinch or become nauseated; but horror? Fear? Scared? Not really.
For me horror are those moments when someone looks around them and say, "My god, what have I done?" That's horror. Shock gruesomeness doesn't horrify me, nor do bad things happening to me that I have no control over. But something horrible happening that I could have prevented? Now that's horrifying because then I'm an agent of the awfulness that on some level - it is my fault. Remove agency and you don't have horror, you have life.
This isn't to say anything bad about the GM, I'm the one who can't do horror games. But I've should have realized that, even in Call of Cthulhu games I tend to be a fighter, and I tend to make choices that interact with the plot versus avoiding it in an attempt to save my life/sanity.
Plus it is a game where the fun for me comes from interacting in the world. Sitting somewhere safe makes for a an alive protagonist, but not much fun. Just some sleepy, pre-work thoughts on horror.
A lot of horror is built around disempowering the protagonist. And that doesn't make me feel afraid or nervous, it irritates me, rather than causing me to want to escape my deep-seated reaction is to turn and charge.
For me, the horror in games is the consequences of choices made - having to make horrible choices versus having gruesome things happen to my character, especially if there's no control over it. "This horrible thing happens to you." "Do I get to try to avoid it?" "No, there's no escape." "Oh, well fine then."
It is probably why I don't like horror movies much - they aren't scary - they can be startling and cause me to jump and react; they can be gruesome and cause me flinch or become nauseated; but horror? Fear? Scared? Not really.
For me horror are those moments when someone looks around them and say, "My god, what have I done?" That's horror. Shock gruesomeness doesn't horrify me, nor do bad things happening to me that I have no control over. But something horrible happening that I could have prevented? Now that's horrifying because then I'm an agent of the awfulness that on some level - it is my fault. Remove agency and you don't have horror, you have life.
This isn't to say anything bad about the GM, I'm the one who can't do horror games. But I've should have realized that, even in Call of Cthulhu games I tend to be a fighter, and I tend to make choices that interact with the plot versus avoiding it in an attempt to save my life/sanity.
Plus it is a game where the fun for me comes from interacting in the world. Sitting somewhere safe makes for a an alive protagonist, but not much fun. Just some sleepy, pre-work thoughts on horror.
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