Horror - Putting the Theory into Practice

[grandexperiment]

So I ran the Hanging Tree. It was a strange, difficult yet ultimately rewarding game. I must admit running spooky ghost story style horror is one of the hardest styles to run simply as it relies so heavily on the player buy in, as I theorised about previously. As a result, I found myself as GM to be strangely weaponless. With the style the GM must

Comments

[mattcowens]

It was indeed a fun game. One of the things I liked about it was the speed with which people got into character. I'm not sure that our in character noise was always helping the story along, but it was fun.

I think I have a slightly different sensibility when it comes to running horror. I am a big fan of a formula which includes:

*Isolated characters, physically or socially (ie: you know about monsters, but can't tell anyone)
*Several minor but undeniably supernatural occurences near the start of the game, to get the characters as close to the "I beleive in the supernatural" tipping point as possible
*A strong sense of personal danger, constructed in a way that's not easy to run away from

So where you'd play the early part delicately, so as not to ruin it with cheap scares, I might aim for a more hands-on frighterific opening, relying on player buy-in and carefully established boundaries to prevent massive sceanrio melt-down.

[grandexperiment]

"So where you'd play the early part delicately, so as not to ruin it with cheap scares, I might aim for a more hands-on frighterific opening, relying on player buy-in and carefully established boundaries to prevent massive sceanrio melt-down."This works for many types of horror and is particular good for slasher or monster horror (including Call of Cthulhu). Generally, this type of horror is easier to accomplish in an RPG (after all the fear for the death of your PC is something you feel OOC and helps for buy in) and I agree with all your suggestions for this type of game

[mr_orgue]

They also all had an element of player/PC choice about being involved. I think this is important but I am not sure why entirely.

Maybe because it dips into the ideas of curiousity and fear more directly? Good question...

[grandexperiment]

Yeah, I think deciding to subject yourself to horror is a powerful thing for a player to accomplish. It is sort of a ultimate "buy in". Interestingly enough, most people's reaction to playing in horror RPGs for the first time is one of denial and running away. I think a lot of this arises from it being in contrast with regular RPGing. As a result, it makes subtle horror a real challenge to pull off.

As I have said before, I am interesting in exploring the mechanic in Dread further. The mechanic doesn't determine success of failure but really pits the player's fear of being eliminated against the fear of being helpless in game. In general terms, a player has no story control unless they pull from the Jenga tower and risk death. I have heard of games where people were too scared to pull from the tower and so were helpless in game, which only made them more scared. This sounds like a much better way to approaching horror gaming than a traditional RPG in many ways.

RPGnet

[grandexperiment]

Here is a post I made on RPGnet in which I tried to help a person deal with a lack of player buy-in for horror scenarios. It includes some of Matt's great comments.

"Is there any way to help the players "buy in" do you think?"There are a number but this also depends from person to person