Horror gaming? Why?

[Uncle Dark]

A good book that speaks to this thread is Stephen King's Danse Macabre, in which he looks at American horror film between 1950 and 1980, examining and exploring its themes.  It would be interesting to see a DM 2 which looks at the ideas he develops in light of films from 1980-2000, but I don't think Mr. King's going to do that for me anytime soon.

IMHO, the best horror fiction is fiction which explores a particular emotional theme.  For instance, Clive Barker's novella The Hellbound Heart (which became the movie Hellraiser) is about people who use sensation to fill emotional voids.  His Cabal (filmed as Nightbreed) is about masks and people who decieve each other about what they really are.  The Damnation Game is about the fear of death.  The supernatural elements simply allow the exploration of these emotional territories to be staged on a grand scale.

Also, the supernatural elements sometimes allow us to look at aspects or consequences of a particular process in a clear, overt way that burying them in a more subtle, "realistic" story would.  Taking the examples above, the Cenobites from THH are the ultimate sensation junkies: emotionally voids driven to inhuman extremes of pain and pleasure.  The Tribes of the Moon (Nightbreed) from Cabal give a striking contrast to the human monsters (the psychologist, the sherrif, the priest) in the book.  Sure, the 'breed are monsters, but they don't hide it.  You know what you're getting into.

One more point before I get off the stand: I am very hard to scare, at least as far as games and movies are concerned.  I just don't feel a visceral fear reaction to pretend threats.  Creepiness, on the other hand...

What I loved about The Ring is that it was sublimly creepy.  The line was drawn between the "real" world of the characters' lives and the "imaginary" world of the video.  The way this line was blurred over the course of the seven days was fantastic.

I guess that means that creepiness, to me, is that creeping feeling that reality is coming apart, or was never what I thought it was.  And not in a good way.

Lon

[Seth L. Blumberg]

Hello, VegasThroat, and welcome to the Forge.

While this is a very interesting discussion, it's customary here at the Forge not to post to threads that have lain idle for more than a month or so.  It's better to start a new thread and include a link to the old one.

Also, VegasThroat, you might want to take a look at the GNS article for some insight into the "narrative/role-playing" vs. "accumulation/accomplishment" issue, and why we try not to treat it as a dichotomy.

[Seth L. Blumberg]

Okay, I see Clinton has already pointed this out.  I'm going to slink off into the corner with my tail between my legs for a bit now, if you'll excuse me....