In-game Fear

[M. J. Young]

I've got a bit of a problem with a scenario, and Fruitsmack's thread on http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=7485">Suspense in RPGs was very close but not quite on it, so I'm starting this as a separate thread to discuss it.

I inherited this scenario as an unfinished work from E. R. Jones, and I'm hoping to finish it for publication. He wanted to do several horror settings for Multiverser, but left to do other things before finishing them. This one was nearly finished conceptually, and needed writing and filling out to get it ready for the public. I've done a lot of that, and gotten initial feedback from a few players.

The scenario has a pretty creepy feeling and a lot of ways to die quite horribly in it, and run right I can see that it would be very frightening. However, one of my regular players looked at it and said, "So, there are a lot of terrible ways to die. Who cares? Pick one, and get it over with, and go to the next world."

So that, in a nutshell is my problem. I can see all the horrible ways to die, but nothing that suggests the character should stay alive. I've done worlds which are scary, in which the character fights to stay alive because there's something at stake. Here, there's nothing at stake.

I've written a Game Ideas Unlimited article sort of on point, entitled http://www.gamingoutpost.com/GL/index.cfm?action=ShowProduct&CategoryID=54411&ProductID=68903&publisherid=54849">Control, which goes into some detail in how to generate and maintain fear in play. It maintains that fear exists to the degree that we perceive a lack of control. As long as we believe everything is in control, we're not afraid; but  we are only afraid if we have something at stake, even if we are not in control.

Thus one of the counters to fear is action, trying to do something about the problem. To restore fear, you must show that the action is futile.

Resignation is a second response to fear, the sacrifice of whatever was at stake as worth the cost of something else. Fear is then restored by extending the threat to that which might have been saved.

Faith is the only other response I've identified. If a person believes everything is really in control, even if not within his control, his fear is removed. The only way to bring fear back in that case is through doubt.

My problem appears to be that my players have nothing at stake; and there's not much I can do with this world to create something to take that place. Does anyone have any other ideas on this?

I mean, it could be gory and gruesome and still be fun, but the point was to make something nightmarish so as to cause people to be afraid.

--M. J. Young

[jdagna]

I'd say the problem your player had may have stemmed from the fact that read it instead of playing it.  The GM's experience is always different from the player's.  Likewise, a murder mystery is pretty well ruined once you know whodunit.

Anyway, on the issue of fear, I like to think in terms of psychology and stress-causing situations.  Basically, there are four kinds of situations: those in which no choice is possible, and those in which choices much be made between two good options, two bad options and one of each.

The most stressful situation is the lose-lose scenario, in which you must make a choice, but the choice is between which option hurts least.  For example, choosing whether to have your hand or your foot cut off.

Cases that offer no choice aren't as stressful because you just have to survive or accept it.  A truly futile situation is probably more of a no-choice situation than a lose-lose situation.  A win-lose choice is obvious and causes almost no stress.  Likewise, a win-win choice in which both options are good causes little stress.

Thus, generating fear is a balacing act.  You want to give them a choice, but make both options bad. However, if the options are too similar or too bleak (such as a dozen ways to die) you devalue the choice and eliminate the stress/fear.  Call of Chtulhu is an excellent example of a system that produces compelling lose-lose choices.  Do you read the book and go insane, or allow your ignorance to guarantee that you'll be ripped to shreds?

The stress level is also affected by the weight of the decision.  Even win-win decisions can cause high levels of stress if the situation is very important (which college to go to, for example) compared to a trivial situation (what type of ice cream to eat).  Thus, the player must believe his decisions are important - that they will have an effect on the game.  Again, Call of Cthulhu does well, by clearly quanitfying the effects.

Of course, ultimately it's "just a game" and players can choose to discount the weight of the choices, thereby avoiding the stress/fear resulting from it.  Players have to be willing to be scared, which makes me think you need some sort of carrot dangled out in front in some way.

[Cemendur]

So that, in a nutshell is my problem. I can see all the horrible ways to die, but nothing that suggests the character should stay alive. I've done worlds which are scary, in which the character fights to stay alive because there's something at stake. Here, there's nothing at stake.

My problem appears to be that my players have nothing at stake; and there's not much I can do with this world to create something to take that place. Does anyone have any other ideas on this?

I mean, it could be gory and gruesome and still be fun, but the point was to make something nightmarish so as to cause people to be afraid.

I just read a synapsis of Muliverser. So when you die, you enter a new dimension? What if in your horror version, each death leads to a more grim world?

Of course, their would have to be a way to alter this. A way to enter into a more ideal world, or even paradise.

Faith is the only other response I've identified. If a person believes everything is really in control, even if not within his control, his fear is removed. The only way to bring fear back in that case is through doubt.

I would add Hope/Vision/Dream.

[Marco]

Well,

For starters Multiverser might not be the best setting for horror. If I know I wind up somewhere (likely) better when I snuff it, it makes snuffing it less horiffic.

But that problem exists, to a degree, in every system ("Let's get our characters killed so we can play a game we like!") or "Well, I died. See you later. Call me for the next game." (or the guy just rolls a new character).

In horror games (mostly) the "standard" penalty of brining in a 1st level guy doesn't make much sense.

Finally, most horror *is* about staying alive--not fighting for a cause or (often) trying to rescue someone else (Aliens played on this--and was scary--but in an RPG I think it'd have been more action and less fear-based).

Our solution (and it's a tough one to implement) is that the player must enjoy something the character does *not* (getting stalked, killed horribly, etc.). That means *no* or very little penalty for dying, and an entertaining road to that "final destination."

That is: you can scare the player--but the actuality of death is usually so un-fun that it overshadows the joy of getting stalked and, as I said, killed.

Our one-shot horror module Season of Worms puts this into effect: The players are given two-sets of pre-gen characters. One set are the mean popular kids. The other are the misfits. In a (scripted--this is a one-shot, 1-trick module) the players take turns playing both sides of the fence.

Then the popular kids decide to go up to the abandoned house--and all die. But the players are still at the table, playing the second set of characters who get to save the day.

It's a *trick* module (it's a LOT more like a how-to-host a murder mystery than normal roleplaying: pre-gen characters, scripted scenes, etc.)--but in execution, the players have been "scared" (we have playtest notes from a guy who ran it in the module.

It's not something I'd do a lot of--but I think it represents "sliding the slide-bar all the way over" in the Players-have-fun-getting-their-characters-killed direction.

-Marco
Season of Worms can be found here (look under Horror):

http://jagsgame.dyndns.org

[Jake Norwood]

It's also important that their are things much worse than death, especially for a Multiverser character. Dismemberment with no way out, loss of loved ones, and other "stakes" can exist for someone that death doesn't scare. Or the conflict could involve an obstacle to the "rebirth," so that if you die, it's real...and that's what the PCs are trying to fix.

Jake

[Windthin]

I think I might see the crux of your problem here: death holds no fear.  There are many ways to incite fear: the utterly unknown, the eerily familiar, the shockingly alien.  Sometimes the thing that keeps people going is simply... survival.  Not giving them time to think, requiring them to keep bouncing from one situation to another, always off balance.  But this Multiverser scenario.... well, frankly, if fear holds no fear, if it is meaningless, if your characters do not feel they have anything really to lose, then you've lost before you started if you place all yours bets on that.

When a player faces losing a character they love, who they've invested extraordinary amounts of work and time with, death takes on a greater importance.  But here, again, you just move on, as I understand things.

But there are things worse than death.  Like NOT dying.  If death is a release... what happens when you cannot find release?  Or are not granted it?  In this case, what if death in this world only leads them right back, shaken and battered and feeling hollow and having to face it again until they get it right, find a way out.  Think of Groundhog Day.  What if a painful, shattering blow lands... but does not bring death?  Pain is possible, capture, torment, the loss of much more... but not death, not unless they can find a way to true death?

Find other aspects that could truly be horrific, also.  Subtle or blatant corruptions of mind, body, and spirit are a good way to go.  What happens if your players' wind up in a world where the first thing that happens is their souls are bound, meaning that if they die this time, it's for good unless they can retrieve that all importance essence?

Be creative.  KNOW your players.  In a game I uesd to help run, a forum, I had a trickster of sorts who was widely feared... because he did chaotic, often seemingly unrelated and dangerous things to toy with the PCs.  One of these things was nearly inciting brawls in the tavern by putting the words in PCs mouths they were often thinking but wouldn't actually say aloud.  Another was preying on their individual fears and memories.  I knew my players, I knew their characters, I was able to creep them out by being just a little too close to the mark.  Knowledge is a powerful thing...

[Mike Holmes]

That's a neat turn for Multiverser, Windthin. Make the players unable to 'verse, and keep them in some hell world, trying to figure a way out.

Justin, awesome analysis. I couldn't agree more about the whole lose-lose thing.

MJ, it seems simple.

My problem appears to be that my players have nothing at stake; and there's not much I can do with this world to create something to take that place. Does anyone have any other ideas on this?

Like Jake said, just give them some stakes. Loved ones are the best. Want them to fear death? Then get the character to fall in love with someone in that Universe. Someone who can't 'verse. So when the PC dies, they lose the loved one.

Basically, I'd say that the scenario should work fine as written, as long as you can get the character to put down "stakes" in the current dimension. Start with the damsel in distress gambit, and work from there.

Mike

[Cemendur]

Or you could have a Jacob's Ladder re-occurring Nightmare or is it Hallucination or is it real. . . With each death you go to another POV. First Hallucination (past). Death leads to Nightmare and recognition of the death and past sequences as hallucination (past future). Then death leads to "reality" (present) with recognition of prior pasts as hallucination or memory. Its been awhile since I've seen the film, but that could be an interesting model for a completely different type of horror.

[M. J. Young]

I want to thank everyone for the suggestions. Some of them are excellent but wouldn't work in the givens of this particular world (but I'll be sure to remember them). But I think these two ideas could be quite useful:

[*]Creatures whose attacks are dismembering but not usually fatal; survival after losing a limb or eye or something in Multiverser results in continuing with that loss thereafter until some means of repair or substitution can be managed. One of the mythic game characters has a mechanical arm, and one of the characters in the novel has a cybernetic eye, for this reason.[*]The central horror could be made not to be fatal, but to entrap the character, sap his energy to near nothing, and then permit him to recover. Since the central horror is very plant-like, the idea of using the character as a replenishable food source has a lot of appeal, and could be a very horrifying experience. A character so trapped would be unable to do much to free himself, and probably has little hope of anyone else freeing him.[/list:u]
I think those things might do it. Any comments on these?

--M. J. Young

[Mike Holmes]

I am too curious about this. What is it about the setting that makes it impossible for the character to come to have some stakes in the setting? I can't imagine. I mean, if the only thing that exists in the setting is rock and horrors that will rend you, I'll find a cliff and jump, knowing that I'll end up in a nicer dimension.

Can't you change the dimension slightly somehow to make it capable of supporting something worth caring about?

Mike

[M. J. Young]

I am too curious about this. What is it about the setting that makes it impossible for the character to come to have some stakes in the setting? I can't imagine. I mean, if the only thing that exists in the setting is rock and horrors that will rend you, I'll find a cliff and jump, knowing that I'll end up in a nicer dimension.

Can't you change the dimension slightly somehow to make it capable of supporting something worth caring about?

Mike

I apologize for quoting the entire post; normally I think that's gauche and annoying, but this time I couldn't figure out what not to include.

We have a reputation for doing things no one else would try, and this is certainly out there. There is no rock, no cliff, no "easy way out" here.

The universe is filled with an oily viscous oxygenated liquid; breathing is perhaps not so easy as normal, but you can breathe and swim through the blackness of space. There are no stars in any sense we would mean; there are creatures swimming out here that use luminescence to see near themselves.

There is some gravity; it is minimal in the outer areas, but grows stronger as the source is approached. The source, from which the name of the world is derived, are great net-like webs that float in this space. The webs are a symbiotic construct formed by two parasitic creatures (a fungus and a worm). They aren't sticky; but if you remain on them for long, you will become wrapped in the threads.

There is a humanoid race that lives on the webs. They're not human, but are genetically and physically similar. An oil in their skin prevents the web from taking them when they are young, although as they age they fail to produce this and fall prey to their own environment. They communicate telepathically with each other, and will be curious about a creature who looks so like them and yet different, but they can't communicate with humans this way. They are ultimately cruel and dangerous, although that might not be immediately apparent.

The center of the web is called the garden, and it supports several beautiful but deadly forms of plant life and serves as the center of symbiotic construct. It grows in intelligence by pirating nerve fiber from its victims, and attempt to lure life forms to itself for food. The entire web is connected to it, and all the worms working together as a sort of corporate mind to support it.

I didn't create this; my job is to make it work. E. R. Jones put it together, and he is not available to consult on the matter at present (he's a very difficult man to find). I'm trying to stay as true to his vision on this as I can, but I don't think he recognized this as a potential problem. As you say, if that's all that exists here, once I know that, I'll kill myself (although Multiverser does have some mechanics to make suicide difficult, a "lost your nerve" roll, as it were). So I need to give a lot of thought to how to make it truly frightening.

--M. J. Young