Hi and welcome back to Narrative Control. This episode is a long one.  Justin and I are talking about Horror elements in stories and how to bring those into your games.

Hosts: Sean Nittner and Justin Evans

Length: 53:23 - Told you it was a long one

Show Notes

[00:28] Introduction: Horror in RPGs.  Breaking down the horror genre, distilling the elements and then talking about systems that back up those themes
[01:33] Sean trying to scare Justin.  Can you just make a fear check?
[02:10] Are we trying to scare the character or the player, or both?
[02:40] Call out to Rich, who asked us to talk about genres and the games that fit into them.
[03:30] What makes a horror story?  Different types.
Definitions: Horror Genres.
[04:00] Splatter horror.  Buckets of Blood!  Going for shock value.
[05:35] Haunted House.  Alien: A Haunted House in space.  Suspense horror, hidden from the audience as well as the protagonists.  Excitement of piecing the clues together and the edge of the seat suspense.
[06:50] Psychological Thriller.  Getting into the mind of the killer.  Warning: Spoilers.  Looking into the protagonists.  External conflict serves to spotlight the internal issues. 
[08:18] Pimping the Dresden Files one more time!
[08:49] Monster hunter story.  Action/Suspense vs. Horror?
[09:53] Survival Horror.  Hunted by the monsters.  The end is never certain.
Elements of a Horror Story
[11:27] Suspense. Will we make it out of here alive?  Not a very interesting question.  Only relevant in games where death is possible.
[12:30] Spiral into insanity. Getting into the mind of the killer.  What happens to you?
[13:12] Investigation.  Following the trail of clues.
[13:44] Paranoia. Who can you trust?
[14:50] Inevitable doom.  The story is about the struggle.
[16:08] Hope and Despair.  Balances the story, give the protagonists a reprieve or a allow them to accomplish something important.
Systems that support Horror Stories
[18:08] Justin’s game in the Fate System.  This Modern Death said this wasn’t possible.  How will Justin use Fate’s internal mechanics to tell a horror story? “Cuts himself to feel alive” is still an aspect!
[20:20] Making the story personal to the characters.  Players handing out aspects to each other, using back story, etc.
[23:13] Sanity decks.  A consequence for failing a resolve roll.  The cards give an aspect that reflects you’re loss of Sanity.  (Available at sinstergames.com soon).
[25:29] Dresden Files RPG will be much grittier than Fate.   There are fewer Fate chips and the GM is given license to really pound on the protagonists.  Not quite horror.
[26:35] Call of Cthulhu. One of the first games to offer a mechanic around sanity loss.  Sean has to get over his dislike of percentile system, but the sanity system was novel in creating consequences.
[29:25] Unfortunately Cthulhu became an inside joke.  Ryan Macklin talked about this on Master Plan on his episode on emergent play.
[30:55] Gumshoe. A game system designed specifically to facilitate investigation.  Each clue is found and then leads to another scene.
[33:32] Roanoke.  Uses a Doom Counter to measure the final endgame.  Allowing players to put nails in their own coffins.
[37:08] Dread.   The “pull” created an increasing level of danger… for everyone.  This makes the danger present visible to everyone.    Also, allows for a brief reprieve after someone dies.  Models survivor horror very well and creates a pacing system.
[41:18] Don’t Rest Your Head.  Uses Despair to make bad situations worse, but that fuels Hope, which can buy a brief reprieve.  Creates an economy of despair and hope.
[43:58] Don’t Rest your Head… again.  Players also have the ability to bring in horrific elements: Exhaustion and Madness.   Trading power for self destruction.  Players have to balance success against risking their character’s sanity.
[46:55] World of Darkness.  How unimpressed Sean is by the lack of Horror on WoD games.  Very hard to create suspense.  Can work when playing mortals, but much less so than when playing monsters.  There is some support from the system: Willpower, Virtue, Vice, etc. 
[52:00] Wrap up.  Looking for other suggestions for shows. Email us or get on the forums.

Direct Download: NC_Episode_020.mp3

Very clever sir!

I just used the game Ker-Plunk in my Firefly game to play out a showdown:

The loser of the Battle of Wills each round has to draw a number of sticks = level of failure
If 3 marbles drop you lose your cool and back down.

It worked pretty well.

Heya Otherdarkmeat,

Welcome to the forums. Thanks for taking my request to come over here.

Thank you for mentioning your disappointment. You've said a number of times that system can't take the place of good GMing and I'd like to expand on the points you made regarding that.

I was at the same horror panel (at least I think I was, DDC a few years back) and I'm pretty sure that not only did Ken say that, but when he did the other two panelists (Brian and Ben), along with most of the crowd started nodding their head and giving "yeah, totally responses".

From personal experience with systems that use a mechanic to invoke personal struggle (if not personal horror), I agree as well. If you can't get the players to buy into the game, they aren't going to be affected by it. I was running a Dogs in the Vineyard game (my first stab at it no less) and was told by one of the players "I'm not a believer." The game is precedented on the characters being believers. But I thought I could roll with it, so I said cool, let’s try it out and see what happens. The entire time the Dog didn't want to do his job and no fancy dice mechanic or fallout system was going to make him do it. He just really didn't want to play the game I was trying to run.

That was my first stab at indie games, and it was kind of painful. A few years later (two nights ago in fact) I was running my Burning Wheel game, which has just been rocking the whole time and really pushing players to do awesome things and become horrible people doing it. Last game it hit a snag. That same player had joined and wasn't compelled by any of the story elements in a game. We had a major challenge and I had nothing to threaten, because there was nothing he cared about. I'm a better GM than I was years ago (or at least a GM more proficient with using the indie systems I'm playing) but I got the same results. Had I not given him compelling NPCs to interact with? Relationships to form? Reasons to be afraid? Maybe. Maybe there was more I could do. But frankly, I can only give so much attention to one player.

So, I start wondering. Can a game system make the game fun? Clearly not. No matter how good the system is people can buck it. But can a good GM make a game fun? Well, I'm not sure about that either. I think I'm a good GM, but I also think I'm better when I'm playing with players who are excited about them game. My thought on it is that, as Ken said the only way players are going to have fun (or get scared, or whatever) in your game, is if they want to. And to that end, neither system, nor setting, nor GM can really do anything to change that.

Now how does that story relate to your points and horror? Bob is a better horror GM than I am. Hands down. He rocks it. Some of the tools in indie games, however, have made my games scarier. So that I’m not being totally abstract I’ll use and example. Burning Wheel’s basic mechanic is Beliefs drive a character and reward them for acting on them. The GM’s job is to challenge those beliefs. When a player seeks out his belief and it is contested he states he intent “I’m going to impress my boss at work” presumably because that follows one of his beliefs (to gain prestige, the bosses favor, what have you). The GM sets the consequence of failure. Okay, but doing so is going to make your co-workers look bad. If you fail the roll, one of them is getting fired because you showed them up and they know they were fired because of you. Are you willing to take that chance? Now the players rolls the dice or backs the hell up. If they win, they can get the promotion or whatever, if they fail, they get it anyway but at the cost of hurting someone else. Either way, if they even pick up those dice they are saying that they are willing to hurt someone to get ahead. If they won’t pick up the dice, they are saying something else (maybe that they won’t hurt someone or maybe that they just don’t want it to be known that they will, etc). For me that creates personal horror. What kind of monster will I become to get what I want? External horror can be created just the same. There is something outside and you’ve got a belief to protect people. Will you risk your cool to find out what it is? Your sanity? Your eye? Your life?

So, when I’ve run WoD, mostly Mage, I tried to create horror and suspense and failed. I think if Bob had picked that game up and run it, he would have scarred the piss out of my players. For me, I think mechanics can aid in areas and help me to confront the players with meaningful choices. I also think they can get in the way. Sometimes a game has such a formal structure that the mechanics make it difficult to role-play because they distract and/or confuse the players. But that is another point all together.

Your final point was that if you don't see the horror in it you might be looking in the wrong place. I don’t think we’re really that far off. I know game rules, by themselves can’t create horror (or excitement, etc.) but I think they can really help. In Dungeons and Dragons a fighter never cares about taking hit points of damage, they are abstract and meaningless. But in FATE taking a consequence of “dislocated shoulder” means a lot more. Either way the GM could say “your hear a crunching sound a real back in agony, when you look down you see your arm hanging limply from your side like a grocery bag swaying on the straps that are your flesh.” But if he forgets to say that in D, the fighter disregards the wound. If he forgets to say it in FATE, he still writes down “dislocated shoulder” on his character sheet and everyone knows he’s messed up.

I’m going to end before I ramble any further. Do you think mechanics can aid in storytelling?

Sean,

First off, thanks for not taking my initial post as an attack. I thought back on it, I realized that I can sometime take a very impassioned stance on discussions/debates, and being that text lacks tone it could easily be miscontrued.

Second, for anyone who might decide to read our rambling exchanges, we do know each other. I just forgot to sign my first post. I'm Mike B. Not trying to keep it a secret.

On to the meaty stuff. I agree with you. Game mechanics do not create the mood, but they can be used to enhance aspects of roleplaying. I just find that indie games tend to hyper focus on clever (but situational) mechanics, not so much on background material, leaving that mostly to the shared narration of the players. While WoD has standard fare, general mechanics, they load up their source books with rich source material to create situations and plots.

But to clearly answer your question, mechanics can and do aid in storytelling. Some great examples are the cards and play aids that Justin makes available on his site. Some of the best stuff I've seen in all my years of roleplaying. I also love the tension building concepts of using manual dexterity or puzzle games, but they should be used cautiously as they an alienate a subset of players who play RPGs because they lack the manual dexterity or puzzle solving skills.

I have much more to share, but I'll leave that for future posts. On a parting note, I do want to say that you and Justin are incredible GMs in your own right. I have witnessed you creating moods and use immersive props to run some kick ass games.

-Mike B.

I recognize that this player and I have very different play styles. This is hard because our styles used to be more similar but I've changed and he hasn't. The issue for me is one of agency vs. experience. I define agency as the ability to exert your will in the game and experience as the ability to be affected by the game and be changed by it. This players and an all agency kind of guy. Sometimes he's character will change, but it's on his terms, when the things come along that he wants to have change his character. The player makes characters that are made of cool. They are Batman. And he does a good job of bringing the awesome. My preference, as I know Mike B. has pointed out many times is that I want to fail, I want to be broken, I'm a character masochists. And this isn't because I want zero agency, but it's because I want my agency to grow out of experience. I like characters that get kicked around a lot before they can be cool. Either by being dumb, slow, jerks, or just unlucky, I want to see all my characters just barely scrape by. I want to pay John McClane.

Because of that, when I run games they are more designed for John McClane than they are for Batman and we get friction. So yeah, I see that we are pretty different. I went for a while not running for him and just started again, which may not have been a wise move on my part.

Regarding Dread, this is point that has been made several times and the author as well as fans have had a couple of solutions.

1.) Pull early. Make your shaky hand, wobbly pulls and scare the crap out everyone because you just made it more dangerous for them by leaving them a crooked as hell tower. I know a player who does this all the time and he loves watching the tension ratchet up really early as he puts everyone in danger.

2. ) Refuse to pull. This doesn't mean you can't act, it means you can't win in any conflict. But it also means you can't be taken out of the game. So, if there is a fire in the barn and you're trying to get out before the barn collapses. Just don't pull. Allow the barn to fall on you. You'll be burnt, maybe have a broken leg, maybe be suffering from internal bleeding with only hours to live... but you wont' be burnt to death and you won't be stuck in a hospital (because that is also effectively taking your character out of the game, which can only be done if you knock over the stack). As a fan of failing forward (e.g. Han Solo fails all the time) I think this is a really valid option.

3. ) Designate someone else as you puller. There are always times when someone cannot physically pull, so you just have someone else do it for you.

4.) As you suggest, when tension is high, when the tower is teetering back and forth, BOOM! Go out with game and knock that sucker over.

And finally, thank you guys both for the compliments. Coming from GMs (and frankly just cool people) like Mike and you, that really means a lot.