fear and loathing

[rafael]

i am hoping for feedback and advice.  please forgive me if i am vague, unclear, or mistaken.  i'm still learning from you all.

i am thinking that horror is a genre that, when handled correctly, works because we fear loss.  in a movie or novel with vapid, two-dimensional characters, it's hard to get really involved, hard to feel genuine fear as they peer into the darkness.  when the killer strikes, there may be a shock, a startling noise and movement, but we don't feel a vicarious loss if the character is not accessible to us in some way.

i am thinking that i would like to make the characters human, to give them something that will endear them to the players (and to each other).  i had the idea that if each character possessed a dark secret, a shame, some past trauma that plagues her psyche, that the characters would somehow become more... real.  there is also an attached catalyst, some ostensibly harmless reminder of that horrific experience, and when under stress, and when confronted with this catalyst, the character might well succumb to random neuroses (an opportunity, perhaps for good role-playing).

i am sure that someone else has considered (and applied) this idea, but i haven't run across it yet, in a horror rpg.  have any of you encountered such a thing?  either way, is it viable?  does it make sense?

for instance, kelly is an anthropologist.  while on a dig in a foreign land, she was captured by guerillas during a coup.  tortured for weeks, surviving on scraps in a filthy prison, kelly gave up hope.  however, miraculously, she survived the ordeal.  that was years ago.  now, she is an investigator of the occult.

during a climactic moment, when her teammates need her to perform a dangerous action whose failure could mean someone's death, she suddenly looks down and sees what looks like a small tin cup.  for several weeks, while a prisoner, she'd been forced to eat and drink out of a tiny cup of tin, and although she's actually looking at a steel measuring cup, she thinks that it's that same tin cup.  the player perhaps makes a roll (a "will check" or something akin to that), and if the roll is a failure, kelly basically loses it.

the player can permit a random roll, or might well insist on choosing and role-playing the psychotic episode, be it catatonia or a regression to childhood behavior.  either way, it is not a positive moment for poor kelly.

my idea is that this helps to flesh a character out, to define past experiences.  furthermore, it introduces a sort of suspense -- after all, there are not many battered tin cups out there (i can't recall the last time i saw one).  still, kelly saw something that reminded her of one, and this was a sufficient catalyst to remind her of her agonizing captivity.

does this make sense?  does this really lend credence to the character's persona, make her more tangible, more sympathetic, more human?  is it a paltry mechanic that really doesn't help?

any comments or feedback would be greatly appreciated.

thanks.

[.deadguy.]

[Mike Holmes]

So, essentially, the player makes up some hook to which the GM can link the horror of the story? I suppose that makes sense. I think that anything that you can do that makes it easier to relate to the character as someone that can experience horror is going to be effective.

But that doesn't neessarily mean that the "something" has to be horrific or "traumatic" itself. In fact, if you had many players whose characters each had something horrific in their past that might seem unrealistic. Even worse would be linking to them all at the same time. And worse than that would be linking to those things more than ocnce or twice in a character's run in a game.

I could maybe see it as a one-shot sort of deal. Like "And Then There Were None." (Ten Little Indians). Everyone is brought together under mysterious circumstances, and one-by-one they start to dissappear. As the game progresses the players must determine what it was from their horrific histories that links them all together. Or something like that. That might be an interesting concept. Or might lead to gaminess if the players new "the rules" of the scenario before hand. Hard to say.

But, in general, just making the characters believable humans should suffice to make horror more potent.

Mike

[Laurel]

i am thinking that horror is a genre that, when handled correctly, works because we fear loss.  in a movie or novel with vapid, two-dimensional characters, it's hard to get really involved, hard to feel genuine fear as they peer into the darkness.  when the killer strikes, there may be a shock, a startling noise and movement, but we don't feel a vicarious loss if the character is not accessible to us in some way.  

I  think you are making some good points.  The problem I've had in most horror RPGs that I've played in is that we all end up making vapid, two-dimensional characters even when we know better, and yes that diminish the effect enormously.    

i am thinking that i would like to make the characters human, to give them something that will endear them to the players (and to each other).  

I think this a very good thing, but I'm not sure if just foccussing on dark secrets and shame is the way to go.  Instead, I'd recommend that characters are made "endearing" by providing them with a good counterbalance of strengths and flaws that are demonstratable through direction character action (roleplay) as opposed to passive player action (dice rolling).

when confronted with this catalyst, the character might well succumb to random neuroses (an opportunity, perhaps for good role-playing).

Personally, I'm not big on making emotional catalysts random.   Instead, I think events that provide them need to be carefully orchestrated out by the GM and the power let to the player to adopt a stance and react accordingly.  

the player can permit a random roll, or might well insist on choosing and role-playing the psychotic episode, be it catatonia or a regression to childhood behavior.

Why make the episodes psychotic or immediate?  After all, what if Kelly sees that cup and stares at it in dazed horror for a minute, wanting to run away, until nudged by a team mate and moving forward despite her instinct- only to end up in a scene where the group is attacked and she is captured-- and wakes up in a cell again?  Horror is a subtle genre, and sometimes the key to making things really scary requires subtly too.  I think its good to let the players not have their reactions governed by a mechanic, if you're shooting for a game with deep, meaningful characterizations.

But in general, I think you're on to something.

[rafael]

mike, laurel, thanks for the feedback.  good ideas to consider, and i'm grateful.

[Paul Czege]

Hey deadguy,

i had the idea that if each character possessed a dark secret, a shame, some past trauma that plagues her psyche...

There are games, like Kult, that have mechanics for this, presumably based on the idea that horror manifests for a player when horrible shit is done to the character. In my experience, it isn't true.

Check out http://indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1382">this thread from last April for some discussion of this exact topic. A quote:

"My experiences with traditional horror RPG's have never really scared me the way horror fiction and movies sometimes do. And for a long time I figured it was just the GM having lesser horror skills than directors and published authors. I don't think that anymore. For me, a lot of the emotional intensity of a horror novel or movie comes from relating to the protagonist's reaction to the situation. And in an RPG, that aspect of the story isn't delivered to me. I have to create it. Narrativist horror succeeds because authorial power allows each player to expose his own personal fears in the game. It creates a synergy among participants, almost an emotional communication of synchronous feelings of vulnerability, of hopes and fears. That's what horror is to me."

Paul