Hey bodhi,

I've decided for myself that the best chance my game has of capturing a sense of wonder, is to reward the players for trying to instill a sense of wonder in the other players.

I think you've hit the nail exactly on the head with this observation. I couldn't agree more. There have been a number of discussions on The Forge recently about creating horror for players. The traditional perspective, that I disagree with, is that you create a sense of horror for a player by doing horrible shit to the character. In my experience, it doesn't work.

And I think wonderment and horror are near synchronous. It doesn't happen from the GM inflicting wondrous and surreal descriptions and happenings on the characters. I wrote about how I think Narrativist horror works to one of those threads:

"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."

I think a play group creates wonderment the same way, through emotional communication of vulnerability, hopes, and fears via distributed Authorial power.

Paul

p.s. Check out this thread for the discussion of horror I quoted from.

Paul Czege wrote: There have been a number of discussions on The Forge recently about creating horror for players. The traditional perspective, that I disagree with, is that you create a sense of horror for a player by doing horrible shit to the character. In my experience, it doesn't work.

Hey Mike,

Upon rereading my post, I'm thinking it came across a bit harsh. And I hadn't intended it to be. So, I apologize. No hard feelings?

And how about it...an actual play example of Sim horror or wonderment to discuss? I've played Sim, but actual horror and wonderment weren't part of the experience, despite the efforts of the GM. So I feel like I need an example of how it might work.

Paul

Well, my easiest example would be a CoC game in which the horror arose from straight sim. The GM had a picture which detailed a villain with tentacles concealed beneath his jacket. We were shown the picture, but we didn't notice. Sessions later, we were shown the picture again, as a prompt - and that was a horrifying moment. It was exactly one of those events in which you find your prior understanding of the world crumbling (it helped that I had little to no familiarity with the setting). But then if thats true then.. and then.. Oh god...

Now I want an example of narrativist horror, rather than assertions than it is the One True Way.

Paul Czege wrote:
And how about it...an actual play example of Sim horror or wonderment to discuss? I've played Sim, but actual horror and wonderment weren't part of the experience, despite the efforts of the GM. So I feel like I need an example of how it might work.

Mike,

Your argument almost seems like a plea for authorial power, which, in my opinion, is the most likely tool to help players get to where you suggest they should be. It's like permission to let go, to dig deep, and to get invested in what's going on. Now, before I go any further, I don't want to make the mistake of linking authorial power and narrativism - I'm just saying that games where authorial power is discouraged often set up the contentious relationship between players and GM that you describe, where the GM's job is to scare the players, and the players instinct is to hold out as long as they can ('cause that's what their characters would do), where a game with explicit authorial power is like an invitation to the player to join in on the fun (whether that fun be the producing of scares or wonder, or something else entirely). Am I over generalizing? Probably, but I think you see what I'm saying.

And since Gareth requested it, here's an example of narrativist horror (although proving that it's narrativist and not just great character sim is hard, just as Gareth's example doesn't explicitly prove it was sim. As with his example, you'll all have to take my word for it).

Last summer, during the Sorcerer game I ran, Matt Gwinn authored one of the most disturbing scenes I've ever witnessed. It involved Matt's Character, Wilcox, a sort of well meaning but lovelorn loser, whose search for a soulmate was complicated by some intense fetishism (mostly voyeurism, but an appreciation for underage girls was there too). Wilcox, in a moment of unusual heroism, went toe-to-toe with some nasty demonic thugs, saving the life of 15-year old Lara Bion (an important NPC attached to another player character). Rather than taking Lara to the authorities or to the other PCs, Wilcox fled with her to his apartment, the one place he felt safe.

Wilcox was a still photographer for a major studio, and Matt described his apartment as a ratty little dive, dimly lit, the walls festooned with photographs of celebrities and none-celebrities alike, all in comprising positions, all totally unaware they were being photographed. As it turns out, when one your Demons is a camera, it's easy to get these kinds of pictures. Pretty creepy.

And then there was Lara. Scared, vulnerable, clinging to Wilcox. For the first time in his life, Wilcox felt needed by a female. And he took advantage of it. Just prior to that, Wilcox - badly in need of some patching up - summoned a Demon, whose only request in exchange for Binding was that he got to watch. It was scary because the Demon, like all the rest of us, knew exactly what was going to happen. He didn't tell Wilcox to do it, he just asked if he could watch.

Shortly thereafter I pulled the veil on that particular scene. It was intense enough, and it stuck with me on the ride home that night. To this day the images are etched indelibly in my mind. Scary stuff, sort of like a car wreck. I don't know about the others, and I don't know about Matt, but it creeped me out, and I was the guy running the show.

How was it narrativist? Well, it's hard to explain. It was a combination of the game's mechanics, some explicit authorial power, the use of Kickers, deliberate attention paid to our premise, and the engagement of the whole group as an audience (which began several sessions prior to this scene, when our group chargen session established up front that each of the players would be interested in each of the characters' stories). The result was that Matt was empowered to draw us into his story, if only for a bit, and it was pretty damn unsettling.

Okay, that's it for now. I hope some of this made sense.

- Scott

hardcoremoose wrote: Your argument almost seems like a plea for authorial power, which, in my opinion, is the most likely tool to help players get to where you suggest they should be. It's like permission to let go, to dig deep, and to get invested in what's going on. Now, before I go any further, I don't want to make the mistake of linking authorial power and narrativism - I'm just saying that games where authorial power is discouraged often set up the contentious relationship between players and GM that you describe, where the GM's job is to scare the players, and the players instinct is to hold out as long as they can ('cause that's what their characters would do), where a game with explicit authorial power is like an invitation to the player to join in on the fun (whether that fun be the producing of scares or wonder, or something else entirely). Am I over generalizing? Probably, but I think you see what I'm saying.

hardcoremoose wrote: where a game with explicit authorial power is like an invitation to the player to join in on the fun (whether that fun be the producing of scares or wonder, or something else entirely). Am I over generalizing? Probably, but I think you see what I'm saying.

And since Gareth requested it, here's an example of narrativist horror (although proving that it's narrativist and not just great character sim is hard, just as Gareth's example doesn't explicitly prove it was sim. As with his example, you'll all have to take my word for it).

How was it narrativist? Well, it's hard to explain. It was a combination of

contracycle wrote: At what point in the above was authorial power exercised, and how did it contribute?

I find, personally, that any intense roleplaying experience comes from near pure Actor Stance, with sojourns into total Immersion, when I can manage it. I have quivered with rage at a plot development which should strike me as a player as simply another complication, but which struck my character as a infuriating incident.
Probably, though, the most intense, scary RP experience I've had was in my friend's Star Wars campaign. We had decided to infiltrate the Black Ship, knowing that it would expect us, welcome us (as you welcome a morsel of your favorite dessert) and then attempt to consume us. Eric can set a scene, but for me, it was only partly his doing. I felt my character's instincts fighting, his killer animal instinct fighting with the Force-bred instinct against wanton violence. It scared me, because I'd managed to enter total Immersion at that point, and it scared the shyte out of Corwin. I know at least a few of the others who were present were also feeling that way, as well. It was an amazing story, with a lot of awesome RP. It boiled down to the Actor stance (though we wouldn't have known to call it that) and allowing us to feed off of each other's emotional input and output.
Thus, for myself at least, I think the most horrifying or wondrous experience would come from Actor Stance, rather than Author Stance, and from Immersion moreso than from setting up the scene.

I'll try to respond to this as best I can, but I'm gonna' miss a lot of good points, I just know it.

Mike,

I absolutely do not mean to devalue or marginalize your experiences with simulationist horror. I've had plenty of decent experiences with simulationist horror in my time, me running the game, my friends in complete "my guy" mode. My point was that, at that level, the games often became me against them - me trying to scare them, they being aware of my goals and working hard to short circuit them. It's tough, but at my railroady best (and I mean functional railroading, as in everybody had a good time with it), I managed to evoke some fine emotional responses.

My point regarding authorial power has little to do with the fact that "we made it up". That alone doesn't make something scary. I look at it more in terms of emotional response. As a GM in a sim horror game, I have to find a way to push my player's buttons. If I know my players well, or if I get lucky, I can hit the emotional buttons that trigger fear. You talk about functional players in a sim game working with the GM to be scared, i.e., they want to be scared, and that definitely makes things easier. As I see it, and what prompted my previous comments, I see authorial power as a natural extension of this sort of cooperation...it's the player saying "this scares me."

The scene from the Sorcerer game could have been done Sim. It would have been up to me, the GM, to pick up on the cues and to create the situation, but having done that, the scene probably would have had similar impact. But because Matt stepped up, I didn't have to struggle to find something suitably creepy to present as story content. Maybe I'm just lazy.

A few final points...

What I'm reading with all this Actor Stance and Immersionist talk is that to experience "horror", the players need to feel like they are actually there, in the scene, and that authorial stance leaves them too far removed to "feel" it. That's cool, I can understand that sentiment. I doubt that Matt, as author of the scene I've been discussing, was as disturbed by it as I was. Even so, I'm not talking about extreme narrativism or authorial power here - much of the scene above was done completely in-character, with the actual authoring taking place over a number of sessions (including our group character creation session).

And, in regards to that, I wonder if we're talking about the same feeling of horror here. Are we talking chills-down-the-spine, cold sweat, teeth-chattering type fear, or a feeling of quiet dread that sits with you for hours afterward while you question your own belief system. I'm talking about the latter.

Finally, I apologize for confusing narrativism with authorial power. The terms are not interchangeable, and I've been doing that somewhat freely. In all of my above posts, assume that when I am talking about narrativism, I am actually talking narrativism with the explicit use of authorial power, and when I mention simulationism, I'm talking about that with the explicit non-use of it.

Thanks,
Scott

Hey Moose,
I hope this doesn't shoot down your argument too much, but the scariest moment I can recall in a game was the time you ran Ravenloft and ripped my half ogre's face off when he looked up inside the well canopy. For some reason that particular campaign seemed scariest to me (from a character perspective) and I had no authorial power at all. Hell, back then we didn't even know what authoroial power was.

On another note. The scene you discused with Wilcox didn't bother me as much as it did you. It was definetly a satisfying scene for me as a player and I think it defined my character's disfunction as well as I could expect. What bothered me the most about the scene in question (and really the whole character concept) was my fear of the other players confusing me with my character. At the time we didn't know each other all that well and that was definetly a concern of mine.

,Matt G.

Hello,

I cannot, for the life of me, see that we are discussing nothing more than preferences about the following distinctions:

1) Scaring others vs. being scared oneself

2) Startlement over "dread realization"

3) Horror vs. terror as I described them in the Little Fears review

Mix and match your preferences across these variables. Suit to appropriate role-playing. Recognize that not all Simulationist horror is alike; ditto for Narrativist horror. Be done.

It seems to me as if this topic always goes into tailspins, every time, because it is that simple.

Best,
Ron