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How to run a good horror game
is a request that I see pop up on various internet boards and
chatrooms on a fairly regular basis. To help out all you horror
junkies, I’m putting together the collected recommendations that
I’ve found effective in my games.
Horror is truly an excellent
genre; it brings out a strong and recognizable emotional
response in all of us and can really bring out the best and
worst in both the characters and the people who are playing
them. Sadly, it’s also a misunderstood and often poorly
portrayed genre.
First off I want to be clear
about my definition of horror. Your typical movie critic or
video retail shop will lump pretty much anything with a monster,
ghost, or serial killer into the horror genre, and I have always
felt that this isn’t right. When you saw your last slasher film,
or zombie apocalypse flick, did you ever actually feel scared?
Did anything from those films actually keep you up at night? If
you’re like me, then the answer is a big hairy no. This is where
so many people seem to go wrong, they equate some kind of
monster or vampire or shadowy guy with a knife with fear,
something that sadly is not always the case (if it were then
this would be a much shorter article). Horror, real horror is
the kind that makes you scared, the monster movie that when you
see it in the theater makes you not only jump out of your seat
when the monster first leaps out of the shadows, but also makes
you sleep with the lights on that night.
Now that we’re clear on that,
let’s look at what to do to make your game scary. First off,
figure out what you want your antagonist to be. The exact nature
of the antagonist will dictate what tricks and toys you can use
to add fear to your adventure. A monster or mutant, ghost,
psycho killer, what ever works for you. Flesh out how you want
them to work, what their basic concept is. A Monster will
typically stalk the players through some kind of dark and
mysterious lair, a ghost might throw things and create visions,
a psycho killer might be hiding in plain sight (and could even
be one of the players!).
Monsters, Mutants, and Aliens:
Monsters
A good first rule is also a
classic horror movie tactic: Don’t show the monster. A lot of
the better horror movies, Jaws, Alien, ect. showed little more
then fleeting glances of the monster. This worked so well
because it takes the corny and bogus (a mechanical shark or guy
in a rubber suit) and turns it into the scariest thing known to
mankind, the unknown. When you don’t let the audience (or in the
case of an RPG, the players) know what they’re looking at, they
have the tendency of filling in the blanks. Seeing little, if
any part of the monster in an RPG is tricky, but can be done.
Keep the monster in the shadows, describe only small portions of
it at a time, a claw here, a tentacle there, a shadowy shape
moving at the end of the alleyway. If you really feel that you
need to describe the whole thing in detail, wait for the finale
when the players are all set to slay this dark terror of yours.
Just because they aren't
seeing the monster, don't let them KNOW they aren't seeing the
monster. Use your descriptions of the environment to raise the
tension, when someone gets scared their mind is much more likely
to play tricks on them. Work that into the descriptions, talk
about how the shadows seems to move, how there could be
something just meters down that dark hallway and they would
never know.
Try to avoid horde style
monsters when you can, yes a flood of undead can certainly be
scary, but they also have the tendency to be used as a kind of
cannon fodder. This goes back the definition of horror, massive
hordes of zombies, or aliens, or whatever are awesome, and can
present some fun combat encounters, but they usually don’t bring
out the same level of fear as a single mysterious enemy. Compare
the sci-fi horror classic “Alien” with its good, but much more
action oriented sequel “Aliens” and you’ll see where I’m coming
from. In action oriented horror stories the heroes usually have
plenty of resources that they can use to help them survive.
Resources mean confidence and confidence suppresses fear.
I’m not saying that zombie
apocalypse adventures/campaigns are bad. I’ve run and played in
them before and they can be very fun and entertaining. It’s just
that they tend to be more “action-packed” then “bone chilling.”
This goes back to my definition of horror, “Aliens” is an
awesome movie and would make for a sweet RPG adventure, but it
just doesn’t inspire fear in the way that “Alien” does.
Ghosts
These can be fun, as it gives
the GM lots of room to work. Poltergeist style ghosts tend to
work well, in that they get all the bonuses of being invisible,
so you don’t have to worry about showing the shark. Where you
can have a lot of fun though is with what else Ghosts tend to
do, make visions and hallucinations to scare the players. A
shadowy figure moving at the end of a hallway, a blood spattered
room that is clean and spotless moments later, creepy messages
written on walls, all these can appear and disappear when the
players need a good WTF moment. Naturally hallucinations work
best when they are tied into the plot or character of the ghost.
When you design the ghost’s back story exact concepts for what
kind of hallucinations will work should come to you.
Psycho
Killer
This is your slasher movie
staple bad guy, some dark figure with a knife, axe, ice pick,
machete, or whatever power tool happens to be available. This
guy can be tricky to get right as (in my opinion anyway) there
just aren’t many good (and by good I mean scary) examples of
this character in film. Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers are two
classic boogeymen that jump right to mind as being not as scary
as they should be. The problem with them is that while they are
both nasty imposing figures, they are also fairly known threats.
They come from outside the group and are usually identified as
being individuals in their own right, so there really isn’t any
mystery about them. They come right out in front of the heroes
and almost seem to say “Hey guys, how’s it going? I’m Michael
and I’ll be your boogeyman for this evening, I’m strong and
nearly unstoppable, but I only move at a walk. So as long as you
run and scream a lot you should have no trouble staying just out
of my reach until you can figure out how to drop a piano on my
head or something.” Obviously, unless this is exactly what
you’re going for, it’s usually better to take a slightly
different route. “Scream” while still not doing a really great
job of keeping the villain scary, does bring to the forefront
and important element in creating a good, scarier then before,
atmosphere: mystery. Scream isn’t so much about Ghostface
stabbing an entire high school’s student body to death as it is
about a handful of people trying to figure out who he is before
he gets around to stabbing them. When you import him into an RPG
a character like Ghostface can really be fun to use, because he
can directly attack a core component of the group, teamwork. Try
this trick, when you plan out the adventure, set up a couple of
places where the players will want (or be forced) to split up.
Normally you’d keep going and just hop around the table from one
player to the next giving each a few minutes of play time until
they can team back up. With the Psycho Killer you might want to
try something a little different. Send all but one player out of
the room (have them go pick up the pizza, refill everyone’s
Mountain Dew and the Cheetos bowl, take a smoke break,
whatever), run the remaining player for a few minutes, and then
have him switch with a player that’s out of the room and run
that player for a little while. If your group is small enough,
do this with everyone, if it’s a larger group you may want to
only do this with two or three of them. When you call everyone
back into the room and resume normal play, the killer has struck
again. With a little prodding the players will start looking at
each other when making their list of suspects, and might not
want to be alone with each other. This technique will also work
with a shape changing monster should you want to take that
route. Also not that Ghostface likes to call his victims ahead
of time, this gives him character, something that the players
can interact with. Michael and Jason by comparison look very
flat and two dimensional to the point of being interchangeable
with each other.
Adventure Design and the Game Session
Setting
the Mood
Some people really like to
play this one up, and it certainly can help out a bit. Play in
the evening and keep the lights a little lower then usual. It
might not be a bad idea to rearrange your lamps a bit to make
this work, but a good layout is to turn off any lights that
don’t directly light your play area. The goal is to try and
eliminate the outside world, make it feel as if the universe is
composed of the table, the players, the gm, and blackness. It
seems to help focus the imagination and remind the players that
they can never tell if something is out there.
Soundtrack
Some GMs swear by a
soundtrack, and they can certainly contribute to a game if
applied correctly. This is a place where a laptop computer can
really help support the GM. Preloading a laptop with some music
tracks that will fit the mood of certain encounters will allow
that song to be quickly brought up, or taken out with minimal
room for error. It’s usually not a good idea to just take a CD
that seems to contain appropriate music and throw it in the
stereo and hit play. Not only does this make the music more like
background noise then a soundtrack, but almost without fail it’s
going to play songs that really don’t match the action. Nothing
ruins the mood more then playing a piece of music that just
plain doesn’t fit. Soundtracks to movies and video games are a
good source of music that is specifically designed to enhance a
mood without taking away from it. Soundtracks also tend to be a
little less known, so the music will seem more like part of your
adventure and less like something that’s been playing on the
radio for the past five years.
Plot
A
typical horror plot is usually based around two key questions:
1)
Who/What is trying to kill us?
2) How
do we escape or make it stop?
As you can see these are also the same core questions typically
associated with mystery stories. As a result it’s usually a good
idea to try and think of the adventure as a mystery when you
start designing it. Give your players lots of areas to explore,
clues to find, and so on. This is actually a pretty rewarding
way to go as it’s really great to see that look on a players
face when they finally figure it all out.
Surprise
Them
If possible, don’t let them
know that it’s going to be a horror game until it’s already is.
Have the adventure start like any other adventure that you run.
Maybe the player characters are sent to look for someone or
investigate something, it might even be as simple as having them
start off by doing something totally mundane like driving to the
movies.
Suck
Them In
Sometimes it’s good to start
off with the third question of “Where are we?” The mysterious
ghost ship, the abandoned military base, the creepy house at the
end of the street, all these give players a good location to
explore initially. Once they are all in, slowly bring out the
bad. An adventure might start with the player characters going
to an amusement park trying to find a friend only to result in
them getting locked in after closing time and stalked by an axe
wielding maniac. By letting them look around as the place is
closing down you can establish not only the setting, but also
slowly work in the creepiness of the location as park guests and
employees leave.
Red
Herrings
As always when dealing with
mysteries throw in a red herring or two. Hinting that the killer
is the Principal of the local high school, only to have the
players discover that Principal Smitty is the next victim is
good, but don’t overdo it. If it happens once or twice it’s a
cool twist, if it keeps happening it’s annoying and makes the
players feel like they can’t win.
Use the
System Against Them
This works best when the GM
uses a GM screen, something I strongly recommend that all GMs do
in every game. Nearly every game system out there has some
mechanic for allowing the players to make a roll to see if their
character notices something. Perception, Spot, ect. all provide
ways for the players to notice a hidden object or something in
passing. Use this system against the players, have them roll to
spot something and, no matter what they roll, you tell them
something like “You don’t notice anything out of the ordinary.”
What you don’t tell them is that there was nothing out of the
ordinary to notice. But, because they made the check and assume
that they failed it, they end up on edge worried that there’s
some key piece of information they are missing, or a monster
lurking just out of sight. For systems that give automatic
success (rolling a 20 in a D20 game for instance) just throw
them something small and not especially valuable, an almost
empty lighter, a pen, some other small thing that doesn’t really
have a purpose but might be handy in a later encounter.
Combat,
or Lack There of…
One thing that I realized
very quickly about RPG horror adventures is a relative lack of
combat. Combat can certainly happen, but when compared to more
typical adventures, there tends to be a lot less shooting. A big
part of this goes back to the invisible monster formula that
worked so well in films like Alien and Jaws. The less you see of
the monster, the scarier it is. Unfortunately engaging in combat
with the monster usually means seeing it. This isn’t to say that
you can’t have any combat encounters in the adventure, just that
it’s more likely that combat will come from some kind of third
party that just happens to be in the area, such as mobsters,
guerillas, pirates, or whatever would be appropriate for the
adventure setting. This third party could in fact be the reason
the players are in the monster or killers hunting grounds in the
first place.
Reduced combat encounters can
be a tough hurdle to overcome for a GM, even an experienced one.
So much of the rules and character stats are dedicated to combat
that it can be very hard for a GM to wrap their head around the
idea of leaving it all by the wayside. If you do it right
though, it works and it works well. Often a lack of combat will
actually make the adventure that much more frightening and
suspenseful. Not only will you have more time to dedicate to
describing the environment, but part of inspiring fear is to
take people out of their element, out of a place where they feel
safe. With so many RPG characters designed with combat in mind,
being in a position where a laser pistol, machine gun or sword
isn’t the solution can help make it clear that the character is
in a place that they don’t belong.
So what’s a GM supposed to do
to fill in the time? Use the setting, atmosphere, and clues to
keep them busy. In the course of an adventure there are plenty
of things that a hero might have to overcome without using their
fists. Again look to popular fiction, you’ll see that in most
horror the Heroes spend a lot of their time going around town,
gathering clues, and trying to find useful materials or
information. Try and emulate that, figure out what you want your
overarching story to be in relation to what’s going on, and feed
it to the players piece by piece. For each new location or clue
try and come up with some kind of riddle, puzzle or trap that
the players will have to overcome before they can proceed. Maybe
the players, while searching for clues about the origin of the
monster check out an old military base and get trapped inside
one of the buildings or rooms. While they find an important
piece of information there, they are now trapped and need to get
out before the monster kills again or worse yet before the
building is demolished the following morning with them still
trapped inside.
Never
say No to MacGyver
When dealing with puzzles and
traps it’s a good bet that the players will come up with a
solution that you didn’t think of. This is GOOD. A GM loves it
when his plan comes together, a good GM loves it when the
players plan comes together. If the solution that the players
come up with sounds reasonable, LET IT WORK. The impossible
should be out of course, but if the players decide to use the
welding torch’s gas tank as a rocket to knock down the wall
instead of welding together a ladder out of scrap to climb over
the wall, then by all means let it work. Most horror heroes have
to use their brains to survive, so let the players use theirs.
Failure
to Launch
Every now and then making the
players think they are about to enter combat is enough to get a
good rise out of them. For example they could walk into a room
in a haunted mansion and have the door slam shut behind them and
the light go out. Call for an initiative check (which the
players will of course win) and let them take an action or two,
then the light comes back on and the door is unlocked. If
appropriate you can also use this trick to introduce a clue or
effect, perhaps a message scrawled on the wall that may (or may
not) have been there before the lights went out. As with all
tricks this is something that shouldn’t be used more then once
or twice.
Keep
firing! Keep Firing!
It’s tough, but it is
possible to actually make the players fight nothing at all. With
fake spot checks, good description and atmosphere there’s a
chance that well armed players might choose to open fire “just
in case.” Use this. Let them make their attacks, and have them
roll perception/spot/search checks to try and locate a target.
Let them shoot at shadows for a few rounds and then call combat
over. An extensive search of the area will reveal nothing since
there never was anything there to shoot.
Captain,
I think I Found Something...
If your adventure requires
that NPCs get killed off, you might want to consider just
disappearing them. Coming across the bloody mess that was once
their friend just tells someone that whatever is out there is
nasty. Finding no trace of their friend at all is much scarier
because there’s no telling what happened to him.
Ending
it
A big part of horror is the
hero overcoming an enemy that is bigger stronger and better
equipped then they are. The monsters are always sneakier and
faster, the killers always able to survive multiple gunshot
wounds, and ghosts can pretty much ignore any law of physics
they want. In the end the players will have to discover or
create a way to beat their opponent. How you as the GM want to
approach the end is up to you. Usually the villain has some kind
of weakness, monsters usually end up at the mercy of some kind
of modern machine, killers either pursue the heroes right into a
trap the heroes set up or make a critical mistake after the hero
learns the killer’s identity, ghosts usually have some critical
weakness like sunlight, or have an object or person that they
are bound too. Similar to non-combat encounters taking out the
villain is usually a matter of giving the players the tools and
seeing what they do with them.
You’re
Safe…. Or Are You?
A cheap trick, but one that
works occasionally is to pull the same stunt that is often
pulled by horror movie directors. Make the heroes feel like
they’ve won, make them feel like they’re free and clear and
ready to move on, and then bring the villain back for one last
battle. You can do this in RPG saws well if you know how. First
end the adventure in a way that appears to result in the villain
being destroyed or the heroes escaping. Have a break, give out
any appropriate awards (experience points, whatever) then, if
there is time in the evening (“Come on guys, we’ve got time to
start the next adventure, lets kick it off so that you can be
thinking about it until next time!”) , or at the beginning of
your next session start back up right where you left off, as the
heroes walk away the villain emerges from hiding (the monster
jumps out from the bushes or stands back up, the killer sits up
on the gurney he’s being hauled away on) and attacks for one
last brief combat encounter.
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