Horror RPG - protagonist focus and the fear of the unknown

[Mad-Eye Moody]

I've begun the preliminary work on a project I've been meaning to do for quite some time.  I'm putting together a rpg in pdf format.  I'm quite aware that everyone and their dog has written a role-playing game, and they usually are quite terrible.  I want to do it right.  There's a lot of examples of great and innovative ideas that have come out of the forge.  While I don't think I'll end up coming up with anything that would be considered ground breaking or cutting edge, I do want to make sure I ask the right questions and produce a quality game.  I have not yet decided if the pdf will be commercially available or freely available.

The game will be one of cosmic horror science fiction.  I'm trying to create a gritty atmosphere that's dark and unknown.  I've found Clinton R. Nixon's article incredibly useful as far as the publishing end of things is concerned and Roy's Structured Game Design thread a perfect place to start as far as thinking about the system goes.

I've been reading up on Horror RPGs; searching out articles, reading sucessful horror games, etc.  I'm still having a little bit of an issue with figuring out exactly what I'm trying to accomplish.  As a GM, I have a definite preference for making narrativist decisions and I've tried my best to encourage it amongst my players as well.  The problem being, that I'm not sure how to reconcile the usual aspects of horror gaming (which often involves lack of player control, pre-set agendas, plans and ancient schemes) with the player empowerment that I've tried to foster in my sessions.  It's very difficult to maintain an atmosphere of horror when the players can exercise plot control.  How does one explore the theme of "fear of the unknown" and "humanity vs ancient evil" without making the unknown known and the ancient evil, familiar.  How does one encourage decisions to explore these themes without revealing the unknown or familiarizing the alien?

Perhaps I'm simply missing a basic concept.  I guess I'm trying to avoid "the impossible thing before breakfast" but still come up with a satisfying way to make the game focused on the protagonists while maintaining the exploration of the themes desired.

So, I guess what I'm looking for is a little help with how to maintain both the atmosphere of a fear of unknown while combing that with the exploration of such a theme and the protagonist centred approach that I favour.

Nathan

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Nathan,

Here are some older threads to check out:

An interesting review
Narrativism, player authoring, and horror story
Horror: Simulationism and Narrativism

Best,
Ron

[Julian Kelsey]

It's very difficult to maintain an atmosphere of horror when the players can exercise plot control.  How does one explore the theme of "fear of the unknown" and "humanity vs ancient evil" without making the unknown known and the ancient evil, familiar.  How does one encourage decisions to explore these themes without revealing the unknown or familiarizing the alien?

I'm considering a similar problem in a slightly different field, (encountering the mysterious, and the sense of doubt and uncertainty).

What is it that you want to explore? The nature of the unknown, or perhaps the nature of the fear response? The nature of humanity versus the nature of ancient evil?

So far as exploring fear, I think part of the trick may lie in distinguishing between characters being horrified and players being horrified.

If the game is about fear of the unknown, then perhaps have some code or guideline describing the effects of fear, or responses to the unknown, or whatever.

The players would be able to use information such a system provides about their characters; the characters are horrified but not necessarily the players. With that out in the open the players can admit that they are playing at fear, if they want to experience it then all the tricks of method acting are available to them, no need for hidden complicity.

If the game is about fear of the unknownthen codifying a characters expectation and uncertainty might be significant.

So far as expectation and uncertainty go, some scheme that represents a characters understanding of the situation, and the advantage that gives them. I'm interested in the ways such an understanding might be a disadvantage, those that are deep in the mystery are not able to function well back in the mundane.

I suspect that in well conceived narrativist system the surprise element could be stronger as you're not depending on just one player (the GM) to provide the twists.

[Clay]

Nathan,

So far it seems like we're talking about theory here, and not practice, i.e. an actual game.  Do you have anything definite?

I took the 24 hour game challenge concept and applied it when I wrote After School.  I had to do this because I found myself in exactly your situation; I had a lot of ideas swirling around and nothing ever came of them.  I limited myself to twenty four hours and two pages of closely spaced text (about 1200 words, or 5 manuscript pages).

If you want the horror to be more than just a genre though, system alone won't do it. Getting the proper sorts of responses is entirely in the province of the game master. System will define your relationship with the horrific, but getting the players to wet their pants, or the characters to demonstrate horror, is for the gm to do.

[Mad-Eye Moody]

What is it that you want to explore? The nature of the unknown, or perhaps the nature of the fear response? The nature of humanity versus the nature of ancient evil?

I'm interested in having my game be about the exploration of the unknown and the emotional responses it causes, primarily fear.  Linked to that is the exploration of ancient evil and the implications of it's discovery on identity, worldview and emotional stability.  Encountering/discovering that humanity is not alone in the universe and that also coming face to face with the fact that what is discovered is a threat to all who discover it will definitely be something that is dealt with.  The fact that the ancientness of what is discovered and the implications it has on religion, worldview, identity, etc. will also be explored.  Tied into all of this would be the fact that when any of the above is challenged, the theme of losing control over one's situation will definitely emerge.

If the game is about fear of the unknown, then perhaps have some code or guideline describing the effects of fear, or responses to the unknown, or whatever.

I will probably end up coming up with some system for describing the effects of fear.  I'd also like to come up with some way to encourage the demonstration of the impact on the character's identity and the loss of control and issues of power and powerlessness that can occure.

The players would be able to use information such a system provides about their characters; the characters are horrified but not necessarily the players. With that out in the open the players can admit that they are playing at fear, if they want to experience it then all the tricks of method acting are available to them, no need for hidden complicity.

I do quite agree with you.  While it would be nice for participants to have a genuine emotional response, I do think that willing immersive behaviour is preferable to trying to engender and emotional response from someone who's unwilling or uninformed about what's really going on in the game.

So far as expectation and uncertainty go, some scheme that represents a characters understanding of the situation, and the advantage that gives them. I'm interested in the ways such an understanding might be a disadvantage, those that are deep in the mystery are not able to function well back in the mundane.

That's definitely something that I'd love to capture.  Where one's exposure to the mystery encourages character behaviour that no longer seems completely rational to those without such a high level of exposure.

Nathan

[Mad-Eye Moody]

So far it seems like we're talking about theory here, and not practice, i.e. an actual game.  Do you have anything definite?

I've run a few test sessions of something very similar to what I'm trying to accomplish.  I don't really know what to say about it.  The players reacted well to others making statements about the mental state of their characters (though it was mostly GM made statements).   I've had to deal with a bit of conflicting creative agendas though.  I'm going to have to have primers about the type of decisions I'm trying to encourage before any future sessions.  I don't really know what else to say about my practical experience.

I took the 24 hour game challenge concept and applied it when I wrote After School.  I had to do this because I found myself in exactly your situation; I had a lot of ideas swirling around and nothing ever came of them.  I limited myself to twenty four hours and two pages of closely spaced text (about 1200 words, or 5 manuscript pages).

I think I'm going to have to do something similar.  It would really help me get thinks more solid.  I am having a lot of ideas swirling about as well.  I think it would be worth my while to set aside my next off-day to getting things to a shareable format.

If you want the horror to be more than just a genre though, system alone won't do it. Getting the proper sorts of responses is entirely in the province of the game master. System will define your relationship with the horrific, but getting the players to wet their pants, or the characters to demonstrate horror, is for the gm to do.

I agree for the most part.  I think that the players could get their characters to demonstrate horror, but it will take more work.  There's a lot of tried and true horror/terror gaming techniques that a GM can employ to ensure atleast a creepy atmosphere.

Nathan

[Mad-Eye Moody]

Hi Nathan,

Here are some older threads to check out:

Thanks.  Some of those addressed almost exactly what I'm concerned about.  However, the best thread I've found so far was Vincent's Standard Rant: Power, Credibility and Assent.  The problem I'm having figuring out how to allow players some control over things while maintaining the themes related to the unknown is purely a matter of credibility and assent.  I'm beginning to think that a good way to go is to explicitly tell the players that they cannot make any statements about the actions of anything that is supernatural, they can only make statements about their reactions, the results of their reactions and other factors (movment of vehicles, opening and closing of airlocks, decisions of the local authorities to help them or not, etc.).  They can make statements about their characters *seeing* unnatural things, but they can't make any statments about whether or not they were hallicunations or if they actually saw anything-- the GM should encourage players to keep such sightings unclear and barely percieved-- shadowy movements and glimpses seen only by one person or simply discribe how their character reacts and not define what they see at all.

I think an example is needed.

GM:  In the top right corner of your vision, the warning "insufficient power" appears.  The green view of your nightvision goggles flickers a few times and fades into darkness.

Player: I pull out my flashlight and flip my goggles up out of the way.  I want to make sure everyone's still acounted for-- I'll shine the light around and count off the forms.  "One... two... three..."

GM: "Four"

Player: What?!  There's only three of them.  I want a closer look at each of the forms.

GM:  You shine your light around and find that there are three people with you.  Dr.  Porwic,  Your partner Laura and her mother Beth.  But you're certain you saw a fourth figure the first time you looked around.

Player: "Did you guys see that?  There was a fifth figure right with us!"

Player2: "What are you talking about Chet?  I didn't see a thing."

GM: Beth responds only by shaking her head with a puzzled look on her face.  Dr. Porwic steps back from you and starts muttering quietly.  "They've infected him.  You can't trust him.  He's going mad.  Seeing things.  They're out there and they got him.  He's crazy... crazy... crazy..."

Player 2: Dr. Porwic turns and bolts down the corridor.

Player 1: I shout after him to stop but he disapears into the darkness and as his footsteps echo through the corridors.  No one can tell if he went right or left at the next junction.

Player 2: "What are we supposed to do Chet?"

Player 1: "We'll have to find him.  He's the only one who knows the release codes for the ship."

Player 2: I see a form appear behind Chet but when I blink it's gone.

---
Here Player 2 has made a statement about his character seeing something.  As Player 2 can only make statements about his character and doesn't have the ability to make credible statements about the supernatural/unknown forms that they've been encountering, no one knows for sure if it was simply Laura's eyes playing tricks on her or actually one of the beings.  Only the GM can make such a statement with any credibility.  It would have been preferable if Player two would have made this statement instead:

Player 2: Chet sees me look over his shoulder, suck in a little breath and blink a few times.  I take a step back and weakly say "wha--"

Does this seem like a good direction to go to accomplish what I've been expressing that I'm trying to do?

Nathan

[jdrakeh]

Two books that you will find invaluable in your efforts to produce a protagonist oriented cosmic horror RPG are:

Nightmares of Mine at http://store.ironcrown.com/detail.jsp;jsessionid=aDrZ8miY20Dh?itemId=2023&category=2040

and

Supernatural Horror in Literature at http://www.vintagelibrary.com/pd.cfm?pcode=hpl14

Also, given a look at Principia Malefex here: //www.malefex.com might be worth your time.

Sincerely,
James D. Hargrove

[Mad-Eye Moody]

Two books that you will find invaluable in your efforts to produce a protagonist oriented cosmic horror RPG are:

Nightmares of Mine

Kenneth Hite sure has a lot of great stuff to say as far as horror RPGs are concerned.

Supernatural Horror in Literature

Much of Lovecraft's work has passed into the public domain.  Anyone interested can find a copy of Supernatural Horror in Literature at http://www.gizmology.net/lovecraft/works/super.htm

Also, given a look at Principia Malefex here: //www.malefex.com might be worth your time.

I'll take a gander at the website and the free downloadable stuff on their site.  It's always good to see examples of how other people do things.

Thanks for the resources.

Nathan

[Clay]

Nathan,

Save for the futuristic setting, you're describing Call of Cthulhu quite nicely (and that could be done well with Delta Green). The things you're looking for, again, are in the province of the game master.  The published adventures define traditional adventure design simply by being some of the oldest material available. But you can take the exact same system and play a very narrativist game, where priorities are provided by the players throughout the game. I did this recently with great success.

Conceptually then, I'd recommend taking a look at how you can differentiate yourself from Call of Cthulhu. Otherwise you're headed down the same road, and you'll have the problem of asking yourself why someone would choose your game over the other, more established game.  Your plan to build something concrete is probably the best step you can take in that direction.

[Mad-Eye Moody]

Nathan,

Save for the futuristic setting, you're describing Call of Cthulhu quite nicely (and that could be done well with Delta Green).

Lovecraft's works are definitely an influence of mine.  I have some experience with Call of Cthulu and I just got my hands on Delta Green.

The things you're looking for, again, are in the province of the game master.

I think that anything that's in the province of the game master can be encouraged and reinforced by a system design that encourages what the GM is trying to accomplish (or at the very list doesn't get in the way).

Conceptually then, I'd recommend taking a look at how you can differentiate yourself from Call of Cthulhu. Otherwise you're headed down the same road, and you'll have the problem of asking yourself why someone would choose your game over the other, more established game.  

In some ways, I will be heading in the same direction as Call of Cthulu, but hopefully I'll be able to get onto a different road.  Hopefully I can distinguish myself enough though having elements of the system that mandate a particular form of credibility for the players in a relatively innovative manner.  I believe that the system can be used to reinforce narr decision making quite strongly.

Your plan to build something concrete is probably the best step you can take in that direction.

Yeah.  Another thought that's crossed my mind might be to work more on constructing a well done sci-fi horror setting.  If I can't sufficiently differentiate what I'm working on from Call of Cthulhu, atleast putting together a high-quality setting would be a good direction to go.  Even if I were to develop a series of additional protocols to be followed during game play to encourage decisions that explore the expressed themes, I believe people would find value in it.  Even if they don't, I think it will only help my own GMing and understanding of RPGs to take the time to do this.

Nathan