Halloween - Horror Gaming, Player Authority and Ciphers

[grandexperiment]

With Halloween coming up, I have made plans for a one-off horror scenario. I am using the World of Darkness rule set as it provides a relatively blank canvass and as it matches my preferred style for the genre (explained below

Comments

[ubiquitous_cat]

One game that I haven't had the chance to play yet is Dread, I mention it for the task resolution method which should hopefully inspire fear in a one off.

It's the Tower of Terror, ok that might be my name for it, it's the Jenga tower, each time a player tries a task they have little or no skill in or of particular difficulty then they have to remove one or more blocks. If the tower collapses the character is out of the game.

I know how tense Jenga can be normally so I'm hopeful that it could add to the player fear.

[catnip_mouse]

I agree that it would be difficult to get the players spooked in a shared narrative style game. The two big drivers for horror are fear of the unknown and not being in control.

I hadn't really considered characters being close to the players before. I guess it's beause a lot of horror games don't do characterisation in a big way. Perhaps terror strips away most of our sophisticated persona, leaving just the animal instincts.

[grandexperiment]

I think horror RPGs (and horror in general) work by pushing the buttons of the players/audience/reader. Fear is something we have all felt and can be tapped easily. Experiencing horror second hand or just through a PC is a different proposition.

I think this is one reason why the Tower of Terror in Dread works so well. It creates a resolution system which makes the players anxious, transferring the character's anxiety to them.

[stephanie_pegg]

On a slightly random note, a friend once told me about playing in a game where they played themselves. Very literally. The GM did a whole bunch of tests like making them sprint a hundred metres and working out what weight they could benchpress so that he could get the PC stats exactly right.

[grandexperiment]

The idea of playing people like yourselves is cool. I think trying to accurately stat each other is weird

[stephanie_pegg]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by 'cipher.'

To me, calling someone that would imply that they keep their thoughts and emotions very much to themselves, and I can see people do that in both real life and in roleplaying games. But you use the word in the context of people playing their own personalities, which usually aren't mysterious or enigmatic.

[grandexperiment]

When I use the term cipher for a cipher PC, I mean that the PC adds very little to the player's own personality. The PC is a cipher, not the player. I hope that helps.