I'm looking for input (mostly brainstorming) on a certain aspect of my current project, that being a setting that successfully conveys a sense of menace to the players.

THE GAME

This is a realistic fantasy game (tech. as per 1000-1300 A.D. Europe) in which the sense of menace is a very important part of what the game is about.  The game is about ordinary people, about being alone in the dark, about being part of something larger than yourself, about the value of hopeless struggle, and about the inevitability of death.  Small bastions of relative safety are carved out of a larger environment that is hostile and threatening (this is true on virtually every scale).

The way things are currently set up, there is much hidden knowledge that, if discovered by the PCs, will point to an image of the world that is quite frightening.  I have a nice Cthulhu-esque metaphysics that effects things like the stars, deep and dark places, and the enemies of Man.  However, this game is not intended to be like Call of Cthulhu, in which the cosmic horror is all it's about.  Nevertheless, I want to get off on the right foot and not wait for hundreds of adventures to establish the desired feel.

THE GOAL

For the general populace, including starting player characters, a sense of being threatened should be present, though subtle.  Like the threat of nuclear war in the '60s.  Or maybe the fear some people seem to feel about the threat of terrorism. 

Some subtle signs of the hostile world's effect on human culture should also be evident, kind of like how seeing fallout shelters today evokes the Cold War fear of nuclear holocaust.

The goal is to create a sort of deep-rooted, pervasive, relegated-to-the-background vibe, such that:

1 - it can be conveyed to players (perhaps imperfectly at first, and then with more fidelity as time goes on) in a few hours of play

2 - it can be "shown, not told", surfacing through play rather than relying on pre-game orientation talk

3 - it seems like a generalized thing, the nature of the world, not just a fact about such and such a bad-guy near here

4 - it's widely known

LIMITATIONS

5 - it can't overshadow everything else

6 - it can't break or severely distort recognizable human culture -- whatever it is that threatens people, it must make sense that society has not morphed into some extreme, weird form to combat it

THE THREAT

Most of the danger that threatens Men has a common source.  However, I feel it is important that encounters with pieces of this Evil Threat not make the threat come off as:
    * simple
    * effable
    * predictable
    * contrived

To accomplish this, I intend to avoid recycling many specific types of encounters.  Once something is seen too much, it becomes understood and familiar, and ceases to be effectively scary.

Observant, curious characters should be able to tie some Evil Threat phenomena together, possibly correlating physical characteristics or symbols (though obvious connections should be infrequent), or thematic elements (this kind of subtle connection can be more common). 

So, a major part of my attempt to give my setting the desired feel will be coming up with a great variety of Scary Evil Things, and various ways in which they might be connected to each other.

HELP!

Any suggestions within the constraints of these goals and standards are welcome.  Feel free to propose Scary Evil Things, brainstorm ways to flavor urban and rural communities, or comment on evoking frightened vulnerability in roleplaying, etc., etc.  This gameworld is already fairly solid in my mind, and I'll elaborate as needed.  My next post will provide some examples of my own attempts to tackle both the hostile environment and the Evil Threat.

Thanks,

-Dave

P.S.  Potentially important metaphysical point that might curtail some brainstorms: the world isn't naturally human-averse, quite the opposite, the problem is that human-averse things have gotten into it.

There exist sizable chunks of untamed land, much of which is filled mundane threats: boars, bears, lions, wolves, etc.  There are also areas where bandits or toll-charging thugs prey on the roads.

Then there's the danger of nighttime, especially on full moons, when sylvan creepies come out and fey weirdness kicks in: sprites, lycanthropes, sleep-walking, disorientation, hearing things.

Primarily, though, The Threat derives primarily from a source that is alien and fundamentally inimical to life, embodying entropy, dissolution, and destruction without creation.  This Cthulhu-esque schema has manifested in the world in various ways:

HISTORY:

-Massive plagues of supernatural origins.

-When stars get too big and bright, destructive comets fall and create craters of evil.

-Mythology claims that the Gods had to re-create the world once already after Evil got in and wrecked it.

EVIL RACES:

-Frenzied Orcs who cover the Southern half of the continent and have nearly exterminated Man in the past.

-Aquatic shark-men who prey on Men at sea.

-Large arctic lizard-men who raid from the frozen north.

-Daemon-possessed werewolves in the remote Northwest working on some foul project.

-Maybe kobolds/goblins.

-A darkness-shrouded crater in the Northeast from which swarms of horrific daemon-creatures periodically emerge.

MONSTERS:

-Giant insects, mutant plants, oozes, abominations (including massive Grells), semi-corporeal nasties, maybe undead.

-Aboleths, sea serpents, maybe a kraken.

EVIL PLACES:

-A large, central forest Orcs once controlled, permanently cursed.

-Scattered patches of land that Orcs have desecrated, also cursed, gross, and dangerous to varying degrees.

-A spooky, fog-shrouded lake.

-A small, impoverished nation ruled by a ghoulish nobility.

ISOLATED ENCOUNTERS:

-Wander into strange place, leave normal reality for shifting, chaotic plane inhabited by nasties.  Escape only by analogy-logic.

-Get your brain scanned by some malign entity.

-Get possessed by some malign entity.

-Go insane or get cursed from: entering a cave or haunted structure; following desirable thing into foreign place; dreams, daydreams; getting entranced by complex stimuli (art, music); staring into mirrors or water; mucking with mystic rituals.  Curses should be known of, be a part of cultural folklore, and be frequent enough that PCs wandering through a dense population center for more than a couple days may hear of multiple incidents.

TYPES OF CONNECTIONS BETWEEN EVIL THINGS:

- recurrent symbols, in clothing, arms, or tattoos

- analogous ritual diagrams

- distinct smells

- breakdown/corruption of stuff nearby

Hey there Dave,

I got full of ideas when I read the first post... but the second lost me for good. Only due to the races! All else is cool and can be really worked out nicely:the feeling you want can be really compelling, the omens and portents all evoke a good horror game, the epoch suggested allows for some deep violence on the individual and widespread levels. It brought me images of movies like The Omen, Reign of Fire, 28 Days Latter,The Exorcist (The Beginning)... all applied to a Dark Ages setting. Can't tell you that I haven't had some inspiration in this same direction before.

-the world isn't naturally human-averse, quite the opposite, the problem is that human-averse things have gotten into it.

Hiya,

I'll tell you my metric for questions like this. It is: what is the reward system of the game?

Does it involve character improvement? Does it involve losing characters? Does it involve interactions among the players? Does it involve consequences of dice rolls (or whatever)? And so on.

Whatever your answer is, compare it to the thematic or atmospheric issues that you described in your first post. Do they match? Do they reinforce one another?

If the answer is "no," then you've discovered how to address the questions you raised in the first post. I'm willing to bet that's the current answer, actually.

A lot of people get it backwards - they say, "if you get it from the start (meaning theme and atmosphere), then the reward system can be about character-advancement (as usual), and it'll all work anyway, because you got it, right?" Which does not work consistently; "it" will only work for people who are very close to the source material, and very close to the author.

Instead, try it the way I suggested.

Best, Ron

I agree with dsmvites, the races/monsters in the second post threw me from a really good crest in the first. You'll have an easier time creating an impending doom feeling in a world of just humans (or nearly just humans) as the sentient race. Why? Of course, your players will have an easier time relating to them (at least most of your players, I would hope). But adding whole races of orcs and werewolves removes some of the mysticism I think you're trying to attach to this Otherworld Doom. They are too jarring, while at the same time providing a "gray area" that I don't think you want.

Maybe if you replaced them with humans that have been changed somehow? Mostly in the mind, not physically (too much, small physical changes can be good). Physical changes usually are scary or startling, but a changed mind or warped culture is disturbing on a more subtle level. Replace your orcs with maddened savages (what drove them mad?). Replace your shark-men with pirates who refuse to set foot on land (why?). Replace your were-wolves with nomads who keep wolves and refuse to leave the cold lands (why?!).

Whichever way you take it, one thing that I find creepy is large displays of effort for no apparent reason. Like an old and defensible wall in a field (what was it built to defend against?). Or a good road that leads into the wilderness and stops. Those drawings that can only be seen from a plane are weird to me. Particularly in medieval times, you had to have a REALLY GOOD reason to break off working on the harvest to build a wall, and it usually involves a lot of people working together. This is linked to the fallout shelter you mentioned in your first post.

Also, keep the "otherness" impersonal. People want to feel special, like they mean something, and being destroyed by something that wishes them malice or harm is almost okay. Being destroyed by something that doesn't (or can't) acknowledge you, but is still sentient, is terrible. It invokes a sense of worthlessness and helplessness that eats at our very ideas of "self" and plays havoc with our egos.

I like the notion that people know the world was destroyed and rebuilt after everything went wrong sometime in the past. That gives players something to rally against.

In terms of actual monsters, I would recommend against species for the most part (you mentioned grell). I think monsters are more... monstrous when they are unique. It even helps in the meta-game: the players themselves never know quite what they're going up against, they only have whatever clues their characters have uncovered. It isn't too hard to make up some monster tables that would let you roll up a new monster pretty quickly. You could tie them in with your "encroaching doom" if you really just made the tables into "modifications" to add to existing people or animals.

Hope some of these ideas help!

You have some interesting ideas about how this cthulhu-like horrors is part of the setting. That is fine, but what I see as more important is how these 'horrors' affect the characters, and what choices the characters face when they are up against them.

In many dark fantasy games the 'unspeakable horrors' is mostly just something out there that the character don't have any emotional connection with. And when they meet the horror it is in physical combat, and then the dark fantasy game has turned into a kill-the-monster game.

try to think about how these 'scary evil thing' affect the characters (and the NPCs), and think about how you can enforce this in the system. This will then bring the horror much closer to the characters.

And by the way. I agree with Douglas and Catlin, if you really want monsters (other than humans), they should not be well described, but something mysterious that never can be fully understood.

- Anders

IMPORTANT NOTE ON "EVIL RACES"

Alas, my use of the term "evil races" brought with it all the wrong connotations. 

You might be able to talk to it, reason with it, and most importantly, empathize with it.  Right?  We could just take a step back and view Men vs Orcs as Red vs Blue.  Right?

Wrong. 

Only humans are used for those "gray area" roles in this game.  Anything non-human is intended to be 100% non-empathizable.  They do not speak the same language or share the same goals (mostly) or thought processes as Men.

The Orcs are marked by a powerful daemon.  They believe (correctly) that they are bound for afterlives of eternal torment, and that the only respite is granted for slaughtering tons of Humans.  When they see you, they will try to kill you, or tie you up and ritually sacrifice you to the daemon.  That's it.

Orcs are encroaching doom.  They lack the organizational structures to sustain long, widespread military campaigns, but they outnumber Men and are individually quite powerful.  They have come close to wiping out humanity twice in the last three centuries.  A whole bloodline of Men, comprising 1/4 of the population, has been eradicated from the Southwest, their entire kingdom fallen to the Orcs.  The walled major cities have existed for times in states of siege, with all the farmland around them burned and spoiled.

I have not found a satisfactory answer to the question, "What do Orcs do when they're not killing Men?" but I think their role is important enough that I'll keep working on it.  Suffice to say, no Human will ever encounter an Orc family or Orc hunting/fishing/farming community.

My intent is that, while the Evil Threat itself is fundamentally alien to this world, it has long-term agents within this world, and those agents have forms and behaviors that allow them to survive here.  I called these "evil races", but perhaps "monsters that eat and reproduce" would have been more appropriate.  The lizard-men and shark-men are basically predators with interesting back-stories, never evincing more than animal intelligence individually.

dsmvites wrote:
would it be too much of a stretch to suggested you to keep things Human based, and put the threats as immaterial and possessing regular people and animals? It would enhance the paranoia and put the feeling of dread closer to the average person.

Castlin wrote:
I agree with dsmvites, the races/monsters in the second post threw me from a really good crest in the first.

Castlin wrote:
Maybe if you replaced them with humans that have been changed somehow? Mostly in the mind, not physically (too much, small physical changes can be good).

Castlin wrote:
Whichever way you take it, one thing that I find creepy is large displays of effort for no apparent reason.

Castlin wrote:
Or a good road that leads into the wilderness and stops.

Castlin wrote:
Particularly in medieval times, you had to have a REALLY GOOD reason to break off working on the harvest to build a wall, and it usually involves a lot of people working together.

Castlin wrote:
Also, keep the "otherness" impersonal. People want to feel special, like they mean something, and being destroyed by something that wishes them malice or harm is almost okay.

Castlin wrote:
I like the notion that people know the world was destroyed and rebuilt after everything went wrong sometime in the past. That gives players something to rally against.

Castlin wrote:
In terms of actual monsters, I would recommend against species for the most part (you mentioned grell). I think monsters are more... monstrous when they are unique.

Castlin wrote:
It isn't too hard to make up some monster tables that would let you roll up a new monster pretty quickly. You could tie them in with your "encroaching doom" if you really just made the tables into "modifications" to add to existing people or animals.

Anders wrote:
In many dark fantasy games the 'unspeakable horrors' is mostly just something out there that the character don't have any emotional connection with. And when they meet the horror it is in physical combat, and then the dark fantasy game has turned into a kill-the-monster game.

Anders wrote:
try to think about how these 'scary evil thing' affect the characters (and the NPCs)

Anders wrote:
they should not be well described, but something mysterious that never can be fully understood.

Anders wrote:
think about how you can enforce this in the system. This will then bring the horror much closer to the characters.

"MONSTER" ATTRIBUTES

Any brainstorm help in generating setting-appropriate creatures for encounters would be appreciated.  Also, feel free to critique my brainstorms below. 

Note: the mutants are intended to be unique, not recurring; the same probably goes for the alien, and maybe the incorporeal as well.

Incorporeal

These creatures provide excellent opportunities to point toward the alienness of the Evil Threat.  Their capabilities should be heavy on events that never happen in the real world, and disdain physics and spacetime where possible.

Appearance brainstorms:
- invisible
- black shape of fluctuating dimensions
- black humanoid shape
- pinpoint of light
- illusion that suits its purpose (often human?)

Capabilities brainstorms:
- Pass Through Solids/Liquids
- Teleport
- Be In Multiple Places At Once
- Enter Your Mind
- Cause Insanity
- Drain Vitality (aging?)
- In general: mental powers good, touch attacks bad (is it incorporeal or not?!)

Alien Physical Creature

Stuff clearly not evolved by nature for survival.  Another good opportunity to portray the alienness of the Evil Threat.

Appearance brainstorms:
- internal organs on outside
- secretions
- useless protrusions
- incompletely-formed limbs
- incompletely-formed sensory organs
- oddly located sensory organs
- multiple mouths
- crawling with bugs
- dropping body parts as it moves
- semi-liquid
- amorphous
- sulphurous smell
- rotting meat smell
- moaning
- gibbering

Capabilities brainstorms:
- engulf you
- absorb you/turn you into more of it
- corrosive/rotting touch
- make you flee/vomit/scream/faint/freeze
- spit corrosives

Mutated Physical Creature

Start from a bear, wolf, lion, boar, python, crocodile, etc.  The more lavish your disgusting mutations the better -- it is necessary to get to the point where PCs will assume a mental state different than the original creature.  This assumption will then be borne out when the thing attacks you with no regard for its own survival.

Physical modification brainstorms:
- skeleton & internal organs visible through rotted-away skin
- secretions
- useless protrusions
- extra limbs (fully-formed or otherwise)
- extra sensory organs (fully-formed or otherwise)
- extra mouth(s)
- crawling with bugs
- dropping body parts as it moves
- sulphurous smell
- rotting meat smell

Capabilities brainstorms:
- corrosive/rotting touch
- make you flee/vomit/scream/faint/freeze
- spit corrosives
- particularly deadly teeth/claws

Mutated Inanimate Object

The quest to make plants, fungus, etc. scary and not silly...

Physical modification brainstorms:
- change in color
- faint glow
- looks dead
- smell rotten

Capabilities brainstorms:
- rapid growth to snare or engulf you
- emit spores that kill you
- emit spores that make you hallucinate
- strangle you with vines

Hmm.  So, suppose you are a sword-wielding adventurer, and you wander down a dark path, and the GM confronts you with some oozing abomination.  He describes something with malformed appendages, visible digestive organs, and randomly scattered eyeballs.  It screams and slithers toward you, leaving a trail of rotting vegetation and mucous in its wake.  Is this experience made any more effective by some particular mechanic?  Such as rolls to avoid puking, screaming, fainting, running, being paralyzed with fear?  Taking temporary damage to a Composure or Sanity stat?

I would guess that it would only be really effective if some sort of permanent loss was incurred, and I'm not sure if I want PCs to hemorrhage possessions and attributes every time they see a monster...

Pardon me if my responses sound negative; I'm actually rather on the same page with your perspective, just trying to trouble-shoot here.

Ron wrote:
what is the reward system of the game?

Ron wrote:
Whatever your answer is, compare it to the thematic or atmospheric issues that you described in your first post. Do they match? Do they reinforce one another?

Ron wrote:
A lot of people get it backwards - they say, "if you get it from the start (meaning theme and atmosphere), then the reward system can be about character-advancement (as usual), and it'll all work anyway, because you got it, right?"

Anders wrote:
Ok, here is the point: Horror outside the character is very hard to get to work, because it all depend on how good the GM is to describe the monster (or the horror scene), and many players like to play cool characters that do not react on these horrors.

Anders wrote:
My idea was a mechanic that will give the character a bonus against these horrors, if he jeopardise his humanity or if he jeopardise the people he have relations to or his sanity or other thing that mean something to him.

I like where this idea is going. It reminds me of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, with the more obnoxious Tolkienisms removed. You might want to check out the WFRP core book for ideas on how to convey that kind of paranoid flavor through art and prose passages (or just to get an idea of what's been done already.) Personally, during my experiences playing WFRP, I wanted a more down-and-dirty horror story when everyone else wanted a more traditional dungeon-crawl, so I'm really looking forward to your finished product!
I think you'll get more effect by showing your players reasons for their characters to be xenophobic, rather than telling them how to roleplay. Let their characters be open-minded and "modernist" if they want, just make sure that those characters are the first to be betrayed by "misunderstood" NPCs, stricken with plagues and hexes, and eaten by awful Lovecraftian horrors that they should have been shunning instead of buying a Coke and keeping company.
Also, modern paranoia has a different flavor than medieval paranoia. In the game itself, I'd avoid references to modern things like terrorism and nuclear scares in favor of witch-hunts, plague-years, and prophets of doom. The timelessness of fear will likely come through by itself.

Hy there Dave,

I read your (many) posts and came to some questions:

a) There seems to be a discrepancy between the mood first suggested and your developed idea. At first you conjured us visions of paranoia and pervasive fear and you used term like the nuclear scare and cold war. You also added up a notion that mankind was special in the setting and the heroes would face (besides regular challenges for survival) an Otherworldly threat. Then monster races appeared in the posts and when you developed your ideas we ended up seeing a gibbering aberration as opponents. Thus, the question: how do you want to terrify your characters? With gross violations of natural order or subtle fear of an unspeakable evil that may be among them?
If the answer is the first, it seems like you really liked the Crab clan in Legend of the 5 Rings. Otherwise, you got back to those subtle feelings you brought forth with modern fear comparisons.

b) I read you description of orks and kept thinking: "why do they NEED to be orks?". There was no impediment whatsoever to the possibility of 'orks' meaning savage human tribes perverted by Otherworld evil. When I told you about immaterial foes my intent was not DnD related ("Goooosssh a ghost... [and I dont have a weapon +1]"), but instead something otherworldly bound to act in this plane through possession. These beings could pop up in your neighbor's family or may have taken over a whole nation (that tore itself apart). In the end it all comes down to question A above.

c) Finally, despite your answers above there is still a possible addition to the brainstorm. I got myself thinking in "What do they gain with it?" and translated to "Why the hell are they going to be heroes?". Of course, to save their hides. But, what if: some castes had a purpose and a role preventing this otherworld taint to spread? Something like nobility with laying of hands, sworn to protect their people from ______ (insert evil threat here); or clergy with prophecies granted by _______ (whoever rebuilt the world after some Great Big Mess) bound to guide people on this new beginning. They could even advance (not in ranks or levels, but in Essence) whenever they upheld their purpose.

Well... just adding to the brainstorm.

Douglas.

ops...
ps: if you really intend to keep the setting in the directions you lately upheld could me, Castlin, and Anders Larsen develop a pure human paralel setting?! The idea seems to good not to be worked!
;-] Just kidding!
Cheers
Douglas.

billvolk wrote:
I like where this idea is going. It reminds me of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

billvolk wrote:
I think you'll get more effect by showing your players reasons for their characters to be xenophobic, rather than telling them how to roleplay. Let their characters be open-minded and "modernist" if they want, just make sure that those characters are the first to be betrayed by "misunderstood" NPCs, stricken with plagues and hexes, and eaten by awful Lovecraftian horrors that they should have been shunning instead of buying a Coke and keeping company.

billvolk wrote:
Also, modern paranoia has a different flavor than medieval paranoia. In the game itself, I'd avoid references to modern things like terrorism and nuclear scares in favor of witch-hunts, plague-years, and prophets of doom.

It is important that no matter how much they advance they not become a class apart, because that generally leads to the feeling that one is a badass and is in control

Your suggestion about sketchy NPCs is interesting -- I do intend to have corrupt humans as the occasional threat, but I don't think it'd be appropriate to instill great distrust of all strangers.  With such a hostile environment, most humans tend to be pro-human.

dsmvites wrote:
a) There seems to be a discrepancy between the mood first suggested and your developed idea. At first you conjured us visions of paranoia and pervasive fear and you used term like the nuclear scare and cold war. You also added up a notion that mankind was special in the setting and the heroes would face (besides regular challenges for survival) an Otherworldly threat.

dsmvites wrote:
Then monster races appeared in the posts and when you developed your ideas we ended up seeing a gibbering aberration as opponents. Thus, the question: how do you want to terrify your characters? With gross violations of natural order or subtle fear of an unspeakable evil that may be among them?

Castlin wrote:
I'm also a little confused as to the ultimate goal now. I understand there's this impending horror, but is it intended to be the ominous, just-out-of-vision, pervasive doom, or slimy tentacled gooey monsters? Either is fine, but they both seem to be showing up, and I think you'd have a hard time reconciling them. The physical nature of the second will probably disrupt the abstract nature of the first.

dsmvites wrote:
b) I read you description of orks and kept thinking: "why do they NEED to be orks?". There was no impediment whatsoever to the possibility of 'orks' meaning savage human tribes perverted by Otherworld evil.

dsmvites wrote:
When I told you about immaterial foes my intent was not DnD related ("Goooosssh a ghost... [and I dont have a weapon +1]"), but instead something otherworldly bound to act in this plane through possession.

dsmvites wrote:
"Why the hell are they going to be heroes?"  Of course, to save their hides.

dsmvites wrote:
But, what if: some castes had a purpose and a role preventing this otherworld taint to spread? Something like nobility with laying of hands, sworn to protect their people from ______ (insert evil threat here); or clergy with prophecies granted by _______ (whoever rebuilt the world after some Great Big Mess) bound to guide people on this new beginning. They could even advance (not in ranks or levels, but in Essence) whenever they upheld their purpose.

Castlin wrote:
Well one mechanical way to emphasize this would be to focus slightly more on food than most games I've played do.

Castlin wrote:
when your enemies eat light and brains and dreams, your muffin seems all the more humane,

Castlin wrote:
If you made most of the tainted humans clearly "outsiders" or very visibly different (not necessarily physically, their behaviour could just be alien), it might help.

Castlin wrote:
your players would probably have an easier time emphasizing with "modern" doom (nuclear war, terrorism) than "medieval" doom (comets, witch-hunts). If you could find a way to wrap those old ideas in modern feeling, I think that would be very effective.

dsmvites wrote:
if you really intend to keep the setting in the directions you lately upheld could me, Castlin, and Anders Larsen develop a pure human paralel setting?! The idea seems to good not to be worked!

I'd personally be more scared by degenerate, savage, tainted humans than by non-human Orcs, myself: look at the Reavers in Firefly/Serenity, or the islanders in the Peter Jackson version of King Kong, for some really upsetting models. It's always more upsetting to recognize some glimmer of humanity in the enemy you have no choice but to kill -- especially if you think, "maybe one day that could be me."

As a further step, you could tie this in with either or both of two very different mechanics:
1) If you're really desperate, you can use Evil's own methods to defeat it, increasing your power but ultimately turning yourself into that which you fight (Anders Larsen's idea, and akin to Ron Edwards' Sorcerer)
2) If Evil defeats you, and you survive, you begin to come under its sway -- you are increasingly cowed, morally broken, until finally you become a sniveling minion of those you once fought. (This works well with your idea of "facing a superior foe who you may hold at bay for a while but will eventually come to drag you down into madness and destruction.")

Now, think how radically different your setting depending on which mechanics your system uses:
1 but not 2: "Fight not with monsters, lest yet become a monster" becomes the theme of the game -- someone has to defeat Evil so that humanity can survive, but the heroes must constantly struggle to use as little dark power as possible in the process.
2 but not 1: "Better dead than Red" becomes the theme -- heroes are encouraged to do their utmost to defeat evil, and to risk everything, because if you win, there's no downside, and if you lose, well, that's still a moral victory as long as you die trying, because at least you died as a human being.
1 and 2 together: Now the whole game becomes an awful balancing act. If you defeat evil by evil means, you become evil, and menace everything you once defended; but if you are defeated by evil, then you're enslaved and warped into something evil, along with everyone you love and fight for.

The specifics of this aren't the issue, really. What I want you to think about is how huge a difference the mechanics can make to the whole feel of the game, and how crucial it is that your mechanics support the mood of the setting.

David wrote:

Ron wrote:
what is the reward system of the game?

It's funny, most of what I hope to achieve when I play in settings like this has nothing to do with the system.  The first things that come to mind when I hear "rewards" are "knowledge" and "cool experiences", followed by things like "becoming famous" and "acquiring wealth and allies".  These things, to me, are rewards in themselves, without needing to confer any future advantages on any sorts of tests.  (Does this mean I'm mostly a Narrativist at heart?)

The prerequisite for all these rewards is curiosity, the adventuring mentality wherein spooky or mysterious things should be investigated.  Beyond that, behaviors that tend to earn these rewards are careful thought, cautiousness, clever problem-solving and tactics.  The punishment for charging in fearlessly is usually death.

At the moment, the system involves a kind of advancement in between modeling reality (skills improve slowly with practice) and giving fantasy gamers what they've come to like (skills improve quickly by virtue of succeeding in game goals).  It's not entirely concrete yet, and supposing I choose in the direction of just modeling reality, then I'm not sure if there truly is a rewards system at all.  Players simply keep track of what their characters earn within the game world, and pursue whatever interests them in-game: wealth, cool trinkets, better armor, etc.

I suspect I may be thinking too narrowly about "rewards system" as a concept...?

David wrote: However, I do not think it's possible or desirable to try to institute a policy that every encounter with Evil must entail a dramatic moral quandary and damning choice.  That sounds more like a story arc than an encounter type to me.

Judd's research suggestions just reminded me that I am not really prepared to get heavily into systems and theory talk regarding this game.  My original goal for this thread was specifically to develop the setting.  Let's return to that.

(Of course, anyone who proposes a gameworld element is certainly welcome to propose a mechanism that accompanies that element if they have one in mind.)

As I don't wish to discourage anyone who is enjoying non-setting discussions here (nor seem ungrateful to those offering help in such areas!  I do appreciate it), I have created a new thread and linked some relevant posts from this thread.

So: monsters/geography/history/culture, anyone?

Gotcha on separating out reward systems as a separate issue -- that makes sense. Big caveat, though: If the mechanics, and especially the reward system, do not line up with the setting you invent, then actual play will not take place in your setting*: It'll drift into something that sorta looks like your setting but doesn't have any of the cool stuff you envisioned. (Apparently this happens to D&D and, especially, World of Darkness players all the time: "Where'd the epic battle between good and evil/angst-ridden intrigue go? We're just gettin' missions and killin' stuff.")

As for setting specifically, besides my earlier suggestion of using insane/degenerate humans for your "horde" bad-guys instead of "Orcs" (there are some good Conan the Barbarian stories that do this, besides the Firefly and King Kong models I mentioned earlier), I like the idea of having all the other "monsters" be unique. I'd suggest some kind of Creepy Details Table with random generation for quick beasties, or (more complex) a point-buy Build Your Own Abomination system for GMs to use. I would definitely not have any of these villains have their own culture, society, or system of values -- that way it shouldn't be possible for anyone to say, "oh, well, from their point of view, they're really the good guys."

Conversely, I'd make your humans, and their history, culture, religion, geography, etc., all as close to historical Europe (or rather, to the popular idea of historical Europe) as you can manage. These guys provide your players' point of view: If they're alien and hard to understand, then (a) your players will be struggling to feel sympathy with their own characters and the people they're supposed to protect, and (b) the monsters won't stand out as much. The bog-standard "generic fantasy setting" has a lot to recommend it, at least for people who've played D&D, but, better yet is the "generic fairy tale kingdom." Read a lot of fairy tales (Grimm's, etc.) and watch a lot of fantasy or medieval movies (Lord of the Rings, Kingdom of Heaven), and model your society on that. That way, your players can quickly slip into character, because everything is recognizable: "Okay, we've got castles, villages, kings, knights, priests, and peasants, let's go" (even if the priests worship the Sun-God instead of Jesus, or if some of the knights are warrior-women... I'm doing that in my own The Shadow of Yesterday game). It's very clear and comfortable who "we" are -- which makes "them," your savages and monsters, all the more horrifically alien by contrast.

* That is, as long as other people are playing the game with only the rules to go by: If you, personally, are present, especially as a GM, you can override this phenomenon.

Sydney-

We're definitely on the same page about a lot of this stuff.

Sydney wrote:
If the mechanics, and especially the reward system, do not line up with the setting you invent, then actual play will not take place in your setting

Sydney wrote:
using insane/degenerate humans for your "horde" bad-guys instead of "Orcs"

Sydney wrote:
I like the idea of having all the other "monsters" be unique.

Sydney wrote:
I'd suggest some kind of Creepy Details Table with random generation for quick beasties, or (more complex) a point-buy Build Your Own Abomination system for GMs to use.

Sydney wrote:
I would definitely not have any of these villains have their own culture, society, or system of values -- that way it shouldn't be possible for anyone to say, "oh, well, from their point of view, they're really the good guys."

Sydney wrote:
Conversely, I'd make your humans, and their history, culture, religion, geography, etc., all as close to historical Europe (or rather, to the popular idea of historical Europe) as you can manage.

Sydney wrote:
Read a lot of fairy tales (Grimm's, etc.) and watch a lot of fantasy or medieval movies (Lord of the Rings, Kingdom of Heaven), and model your society on that. That way, your players can quickly slip into character

Yeah, that definitely sounds like the right track to me. Only two quibbles, really:

David wrote: At the moment, my plan is to make signs that Orcs were once Human extremely few and far between, requiring a large amount of experience and deduction to see...

Actual historical research has taken the place of this [i.e. fairy tales & films]; hopefully, what I lose in immediate familiarity I make up in satisfying realism.

Sydney wrote:
2) If Evil defeats you, and you survive, you begin to come under its sway -- you are increasingly cowed, morally broken, until finally you become a sniveling minion of those you once fought.

Sydney wrote:
"Better dead than Red" becomes the theme -- heroes are encouraged to do their utmost to defeat evil, and to risk everything, because if you win, there's no downside, and if you lose, well, that's still a moral victory as long as you die trying, because at least you died as a human being.

Nice. Some additional ideas:

- enslave you
- enthrall you
- make you love the monster

Sydney wrote:
I'd recommend that you make it damned obvious that the Orcs were human once -- and equally obvious that if you try to negotiate or to show them mercy for a second, they'll eat you alive -- and then totally not obvious what happened to them, why, or what can be done to fix it, if anything at all.

Sydney wrote:
Howard was a big Lovecraft fan, thought of himself as a "weird fiction" writer who just happened to be adding a pseudo-medieval setting, referred explicitly to "old ones" in his work, and invented some truly cool demons, ape-men, fallen civilizations, and degenerate savages that are well worth imitating.

Sydney wrote:
Let me do my best to explain the Ron Edwards school of thinking about "rewards systems," because you're right that you're not quite getting his meaning, and it is absolutely crucial.

The rewards that matter are the ones for players, not for characters.

David - It's late and I'm a newb so this post may fall flat.

When I think about what it might have been like to live in a dark ages Europe, I think there was always a 'fear of the uknown'. What people didn't understand, they feared, and most likely destroyed.

This is how myths and religions were started, long before science explained certain things. (I'm not supporting or denouncing Creationism or Evolution, that's not the discussion here.) Magnetism was magic. Thunder was Thor crafting in the sky. The world was flat and dinosaur bones were dragons.

A question: What is the Evil Threat's purpose? Maybe I missed it in the posts. Is it trying to hide something? Prevent mankind from discovering something? To prevent mankind from growing spiritually, socially, economically, etc. Is the Evil Threat mankind's first mistake? First nightmare? Is it simply trying to keep mankind in the dark, ignorant and in fear? Does it feed off of that fear?

Here's another little idea before I log-off: Maybe give the player's very little information on what lies beyond their borders. Historically speaking, people didn't roam far from home. They hear rumors, but can't verify it without seeing for themselves.

Watch the movie The 13th Warrior for a good visualization of this concept.

I have been thinking about how to make horrors outside the character work. Even though I have never GMed a horror game, I will typically have elements of horror in my games, so I will draw on these experiences.

A monster taken from a monster section, from whatever rpg that is used, is never scary, because the players know what it is, and you can only get this horror feeling, if the player don't know what it is (horror is about what you don't know). It may work the first time, but there can only be so many monsters in the book, so at some point you have to reuse a monster. At most you can make the player fear for there characters life, but that is really not the horror feeling.

A list of element that the GM can put together to form a unique monster will work better (I guess it is what you are going for), but even here there can be a problem. If you show this monster too directly too early, you will risk degrading it to just another weird monster; and the horror feeling is gone. So the trick is the process of how to reveal the monster.

On thing that is interesting to work with is how the monster affect its surroundings. Maybe it will make people go insane, maybe it will cause weird mutations in animals (They grow human arms, or begin to sound like crying children). Maybe strange phenomenas happens like tree begin to eat each other or water turn to blood. All these things can happen without anyone have seen the monster yet.

Another interesting thing is if there is some strange reason for why the monster has appeared. Maybe it is something that happen once a year, on the same day that some evil wizard died. Maybe the monster have a mission - something it tries to accomplice. Maybe it is drawn to certain emotion, like jealousy or hate.

For some reason patterns in chaos can be scary. It is much more interesting if the monster leave behind a recognisable pattern, than if it just leave chaos.

In general, it is better to think about what a monster do, that think about what it is.

- Anders

Carl wrote:
When I think about what it might have been like to live in a dark ages Europe, I think there was always a 'fear of the uknown'. What people didn't understand, they feared, and most likely destroyed.

Carl wrote:
Here's another little idea before I log-off: Maybe give the player's very little information on what lies beyond their borders. Historically speaking, people didn't roam far from home. They hear rumors, but can't verify it without seeing for themselves.

Carl wrote:
This is how myths and religions were started, long before science explained certain things.

Carl wrote:
A question: What is the Evil Threat's purpose?

Anders wrote:
A list of element that the GM can put together to form a unique monster will work better (I guess it is what you are going for), but even here there can be a problem. If you show this monster too directly too early, you will risk degrading it to just another weird monster; and the horror feeling is gone.

Anders wrote:
So the trick is the process of how to reveal the monster.

Anders wrote:
On thing that is interesting to work with is how the monster affect its surroundings. Maybe it will make people go insane, maybe it will cause weird mutations in animals (They grow human arms, or begin to sound like crying children). Maybe strange phenomenas happens like tree begin to eat each other or water turn to blood. All these things can happen without anyone have seen the monster yet.

Anders wrote:
Another interesting thing is if there is some strange reason for why the monster has appeared. Maybe it is something that happen once a year, on the same day that some evil wizard died. Maybe the monster have a mission - something it tries to accomplice. Maybe it is drawn to certain emotion, like jealousy or hate.

Anders wrote:
For some reason patterns in chaos can be scary. It is much more interesting if the monster leave behind a recognisable pattern, than if it just leave chaos.

Anders wrote:
In general, it is better to think about what a monster do, that think about what it is.

David wrote: Right now, known vs. unknown is (I think) divided between lands humans live on and lands they don't.  But most of the land they don't live on is just forest, and forest, while capable of housing all manner of monsters, doesn't really evoke "fear of the unknown" as a general rule....

It seems you need your game to create suspense. Poke around for books and web pages focusing on techniques for writing horror. Other useful subjects are film treatments of horror. What makes a movie or book scary? If you want your game to be about dread and horror, your design should help make that happen. Don't just leave it to the GM and players.

Sydney wrote:
In the medieval consciousness these stories convey, human civilization consists of tiny, fragile islands -- villages and towns -- isolated from each other by a sea of forest: dark, chaotic, hostile.  . . .

Sydney wrote:
Of course the woods can house "all manner of monsters." But most of the time, they should be appallingly empty.

Sydney wrote:
And when the monsters do show, don't think D&D: There should be no "routine monsters."

Sydney wrote:
A single wolf should be scary -- a serious threat to the player-characters.

Sydney wrote:
One of the deepest horrors is that of being put in a situation where the only way to survive is to do something wrong -- let the monster feast upon the wounded while you take the opportunity to run away, or promise the fairy queen your firstborn child if she'll only let you go.

Sydney wrote:
The quality of nightmare -- of a waking nightmare -- comes from something else: from the erosion of the boundary between our internal world and the external world . . . The scariest answer to "Oh my God -- what was that?" is always "What do you think?"

Those are all good ones. It's also very potent (look at how many stories do this) to have the monster go "let's make a deal" -- just this once, it'll help you out, or let the girl go, but you have to do this one little thing. And it's also very potent for the monster's goal to be to enslave the heroes -- not kill them, not brainwash them, not mind-control them, but put them in a situation so bad that they agree to submit to it forever.

Hi, newbie poster here though I've been reading Forgeish stuff for a while.

From the tone of what the OP has been telling us, I get the feeling that he is naturally inclined towards the 'keeping secrets'  methodology of GMing. In an individual game, for some GMs and groups this works, for others not; that's not what I'm going to address here. What I am going to say is that trying to keep 'metaplot'ish secrets from the players, as a matter of Game Line Policy -- like the true nature of Orcs discussed above -- is simply not going to work. Period, full stop. The players will know the metaplot 'secrets'.  There are any number of reasons for that, some innocent, some not -- they may be GMing a game themselves, they may have already played one campaign in this world, they may have read the rulebook because it was interesting before they could persuade the rest of the group to play -- but to you, the designer, the motives and reasons aren't important. What's important is that it's not going to work beyond your personal playtest group, and even then firewalling from version 2.2 characters the secrets that haven't changed since 1.4 is going to be hard.

Therefore, you can't make the creepiness and horror of the setting derive from secrets, or at least, not from secrets that are spelled out in the setting description of your RPG.

If you want to make some of the horror derive from the fact that the characters don't know what's going on, I think you have a relatively small set of options::
1) Have a set of mysteries which you don't provide the answers for. Exalted is an example of a game with a very, very detailed setting which nevertheless leaves some canonical mysteries explicitly unanswered. The only problem with this is that the player involvement with the secrets not in this category is still infected -- e.g., players in an Exalted Solars or Dragon-blooded game are usually well aware of the existence and nature of the Sidereals, even though their characters supposedly do not (at least, as a rule).
1a) Expand the set of mysteries and provide some sets of possible answers to them, without constraining a GMs choice in an individual campaign.
2) Make your description of the setting more sketchy, and provide tools for expanding on it. Makes lots of work on the GM, though, and depends on that 'one person's creativity'.
3) Make tools for the players themselves to create mysteries, and leave the answers unknown at the start to all, including the players creating them. Not all mysteries need to be handled this way, of course, some can be determined ahead of time by either category 1 or 2, but this greatly expands the possible scope of the unknown available to you. I also think you can look at a lot of media for inspiration -- mysteries develop along with TV shows but (usually, anyway) the writers do a pretty good job weaving it all together at the end. Does anyone believe that the writers of Alias knew exactly what was in Rambaldi's prophecies until the very end? Or that the writers of Lost even now know the true nature of the Others? Or that the writers of Battlestar Galactica know whether No.6 really is in Baltar's head or not? I don't. And yet there are clues scattered. Make tools for the creation of the mysteries, the accumulation of clues, and the decision of mysteries -- whether revealed to the characters or not -- and I think the level of fear of the unknown will go up.

David wrote: Lendrhald inhabitants understandings of the world are based largely on myths.  The world is flat, the Western Sea goes on forever, the stars are daemon ships, etc.  Thus far it's provided good intro flavor, but hasn't affected play at all.

Adam wrote:
It seems you need your game to create suspense. Poke around for books and web pages focusing on techniques for writing horror. Other useful subjects are film treatments of horror. What makes a movie or book scary? If you want your game to be about dread and horror, your design should help make that happen. Don't just leave it to the GM and players.

Threlicus wrote:
Hi, newbie poster here though I've been reading Forgeish stuff for a while.

From the tone of what the OP has been telling us, I get the feeling that he is naturally inclined towards the 'keeping secrets'  methodology of GMing. In an individual game, for some GMs and groups this works, for others not; that's not what I'm going to address here. What I am going to say is that trying to keep 'metaplot'ish secrets from the players, as a matter of Game Line Policy -- like the true nature of Orcs discussed above -- is simply not going to work. Period, full stop. The players will know the metaplot 'secrets'.  There are any number of reasons for that, some innocent, some not -- they may be GMing a game themselves, they may have already played one campaign in this world, they may have read the rulebook because it was interesting before they could persuade the rest of the group to play -- but to you, the designer, the motives and reasons aren't important. What's important is that it's not going to work beyond your personal playtest group, and even then firewalling from version 2.2 characters the secrets that haven't changed since 1.4 is going to be hard.

Therefore, you can't make the creepiness and horror of the setting derive from secrets, or at least, not from secrets that are spelled out in the setting description of your RPG.

If you want to make some of the horror derive from the fact that the characters don't know what's going on, I think you have a relatively small set of options::
1) Have a set of mysteries which you don't provide the answers for. Exalted is an example of a game with a very, very detailed setting which nevertheless leaves some canonical mysteries explicitly unanswered. The only problem with this is that the player involvement with the secrets not in this category is still infected -- e.g., players in an Exalted Solars or Dragon-blooded game are usually well aware of the existence and nature of the Sidereals, even though their characters supposedly do not (at least, as a rule).
1a) Expand the set of mysteries and provide some sets of possible answers to them, without constraining a GMs choice in an individual campaign.
2) Make your description of the setting more sketchy, and provide tools for expanding on it. Makes lots of work on the GM, though, and depends on that 'one person's creativity'.
3) Make tools for the players themselves to create mysteries, and leave the answers unknown at the start to all, including the players creating them. Not all mysteries need to be handled this way, of course, some can be determined ahead of time by either category 1 or 2, but this greatly expands the possible scope of the unknown available to you. I also think you can look at a lot of media for inspiration -- mysteries develop along with TV shows but (usually, anyway) the writers do a pretty good job weaving it all together at the end. Does anyone believe that the writers of Alias knew exactly what was in Rambaldi's prophecies until the very end? Or that the writers of Lost even now know the true nature of the Others? Or that the writers of Battlestar Galactica know whether No.6 really is in Baltar's head or not? I don't. And yet there are clues scattered. Make tools for the creation of the mysteries, the accumulation of clues, and the decision of mysteries -- whether revealed to the characters or not -- and I think the level of fear of the unknown will go up.

Clicked the "Post" button by accident on that last one, sorry...

Adam wrote:
Poke around for books and web pages focusing on techniques for writing horror.

Threlicus wrote:
The players will know the metaplot 'secrets'. 

Threlicus wrote:
you can't make the creepiness and horror of the setting derive from secrets, or at least, not from secrets that are spelled out in the setting description of your RPG.

Threlicus wrote:
1) Have a set of mysteries which you don't provide the answers for.

Threlicus wrote:
1a) Expand the set of mysteries and provide some sets of possible answers to them, without constraining a GMs choice in an individual campaign.
2) Make your description of the setting more sketchy, and provide tools for expanding on it.
3) Make tools for the players themselves to create mysteries, and leave the answers unknown at the start to all, including the players creating them.

Threlicus wrote:
Make tools for the creation of the mysteries, the accumulation of clues, and the decision of mysteries -- whether revealed to the characters or not

greyorm wrote:
You have great material to mine here to answer the question "what do the players DO?" Make all those myths REAL. Make that the way the world really works.

greyorm wrote:
A daemon ship comes down -- a falling star -- and maybe it lies at the center of horrible things creeping into the village at night...and...oh my god...what are they doing to the children they abducted?!

greyorm wrote:
Next, put those myths right into play, as the things characters are expected to encounter.

greyorm wrote:
So what do the players do? They stumble into the middle of all of this.

Unknown Armies (not an Indie game! Oh no! Unclean! Unclean!) has a really great approach to this issue: Every character is defined as having a "trigger event" -- some utterly shattering experience where they stumbled across the supernatural reality underlying our everyday world, and after which they can never rest easy with "normal" again. The characters aren't living in a world where the supernatural is obvious and all over the place; but they're not seeking it out because they're adrenaline junkies, either: They seek it out because some deep, personal need in them has been awakened.

There are some great examples in the rulebook: a cave-diver (someone who takes SCUBA gear down into underground lakes and swims around... very dangerous) who came across a sunken temple, unimaginably ancient; an abused kid, taken in by an older woman who ran a sort of informal shelter, who saw the woman get shot in the head by a child-beating dad and keep on fighting him until all the kids were safe; a gay college student who had a one-night stand with a tremendously charismatic stranger with chains running through his flesh and wants to find him again; a paramedic at 9/11 who found the head of a mannequin in the ruins, took it home, and discovered it started talking to him; a girl who discovers her parents aren't really her parents and that her name is an anagram of a cult leader's....

The really brilliant thing in Unknown Armies is that the "trigger event" is made up as part of character creation: The player comes up with it, not the GM (although the GM has input), and it's already happened. So instead of the player making up a "normal" person and the the GM guessing at what might make an interesting "welcome to the world of adventure" kick-off, the player makes up something that he (or she) finds interesting and the character's already in motion when the game starts.

David wrote:
Agreed.  "The unknown is good at being creepy" was a reference to things like monster encounters, not meta-plot secrets.  The meta-plot secrets aren't there to contribute to any initial or short-term impression, and the correct initial and short-term impressions must be achievable without them.

David wrote:
There are several mysteries in the world (a giant, collapsed tower built by unknown means; an island only visible in the full light of the second moon; an abandoned Orc ziggurat on the border of human territory from which chanting can be heard on solstices), but I don't have a ton of them per area, and not all of them are creepy. 

David wrote:
Good idea.  However, a "design your own mystery" game is not inherently creepy.  So, for now, let's focus on the kinds of mysteries to use.  Perhaps we can generate a list of elements like I've been doing for monster capabilities and appearances.  With that in place, designing a system to enable GMs (and/or players? probably not) to generate new mysteries shouldn't be hard.

David wrote:
One complicating factor is that I want human beings and human culture to feel familiar and real.  Thus, if the PCs had the same experiences as everyone else, they would be in the middle of some daemonic struggle etc. only very infrequently.  So, why do the PCs have different experiences than regular folks?  To date, my answers have been:
1) because the PCs are more risk-taking and thrill-seeking than regular folks  (I've been operating under the assumption that the players are curious and the characters will go poke at anything supernatural-seeming.)
2) because given an undefined inch of the world, the GM is more likely to put something interesting there if the PCs are entering it

I am getting the sense that many posters here believe this list ought to be supplemented in some way, perhaps via:
3) a Character Creation process that demands change and encourages exploration
4) a suggestion that GMs start games with some dramatic event (possibly related to larger cosmic forces and plots)

Sydney wrote:
The really brilliant thing in Unknown Armies is that the "trigger event" is made up as part of character creation: The player comes up with it, not the GM (although the GM has input), and it's already happened. So instead of the player making up a "normal" person and the the GM guessing at what might make an interesting "welcome to the world of adventure" kick-off, the player makes up something that he (or she) finds interesting and the character's already in motion when the game starts.

Threlicus wrote:
As a player, I would find it cool if there *were* big-picture things that were meaningfully unknown.

Threlicus wrote:
See, this is emblematic of how you're approaching the problem -- please, give me more lists of weird things to stick in the setting.

Threlicus wrote:
I'm going to talk a bit about the generation system, which I *do* think will be hard to get right, and will actually prove to be the crucial part of the system.

Okay, I lied.  Sorry Threlicus, I couldn't find any place to address your suggestions.  I've already got 3 threads going:
- setting material
- types of rewards systems that could work in my game
- specific rewards systems that could work in my game

I don't want to start a 4th, "types of content-generation systems that could work in my game."  I liked your idea of finding some way to ensure that world-consistency was a priority in generation, but the best way I can think of to do that is by providing world-consistent elements to use in that process.  (Brainstorm lists!  Brainstorm lists!)

Turning the generation system into a rewards system probably wouldn't work in my game (pending discussions in the middle thread above, linked for your convenience*), and just leaving it in the hands of GMs/players without providing any elements probably amounts to a "Feel free to make stuff up but try to make sure it fits!" note.

*To anyone checking out that thread, please read replies 15 & 16 and then scan prior arguments before responding.  It's really hard to discuss a lot of this stuff without people being clear on the details of my current position.

just wading in with 2 cents.

someone psoted that medaevil peopke (and superstitious people in general) fear the unknown.  the more unknown there is, the more fearful they are.  This sounds right to me.  and when something bad happens and they cant work out why, they invent bad things, because 'better the devil you know...'

But in your world, the bad things are real I suppose.  This makes them known, which makes them less fearful.  so how do you have known bad things and at the same time have the unknown?  I think you hit the nail on the head before - you might know 'what', but you dont know 'how' or 'why'.  how do the bad things make bad stuff happen, and more importantly, why do they do it.  So I think that although you are trying to write a setting, maybe you shouldnt set motivations of the bad things in stone.  If you leave that to the players, then you are giving them soemthing to do in your setting besides defend themselves against attack.  Youre making it investagatory.  There is scope there for a number of motivations for players other than pure defence.

have you played 'Paranoia' recently?  I have fond memories of this game.  Your character could be killed at any time, but of course you had 6 other clones.  how fun was that game? the constant threat you talk about was there, because the players were always in a perpetual state of confusion, being knocked from pillar to post and doing stuff under orders and threat of death, but without understanding the whys and wherefores. 

David wrote:
We were thinking that characters should start off more or less like everyone else, to encourage identification with Humanity and "regular people".  It's important to our thematic structure that PCs not feel a class apart.  If we can come up with a way to do that and to give PCs personal reasons to plumb ickyness at every opportunity then I'm all for it...

David wrote: One complicating factor is that I want human beings and human culture to feel familiar and real.  Thus, if the PCs had the same experiences as everyone else, they would be in the middle of some daemonic struggle etc. only very infrequently.  So, why do the PCs have different experiences than regular folks?  To date, my answers have been:
1) because the PCs are more risk-taking and thrill-seeking than regular folks  (I've been operating under the assumption that the players are curious and the characters will go poke at anything supernatural-seeming.)
2) because given an undefined inch of the world, the GM is more likely to put something interesting there if the PCs are entering it

I am getting the sense that many posters here believe this list ought to be supplemented in some way, perhaps via:
3) a Character Creation process that demands change and encourages exploration
4) a suggestion that GMs start games with some dramatic event (possibly related to larger cosmic forces and plots)

Other ideas are welcome...

Man...  Plenty of takers for theory discussion, but no one wants to add to my brainstorm lists...

I'll happily continue to clarify my positions (see below), but let me reiterate that my hope for this thread is to get specific suggestions for stuff in the world.  If anyone wants to put forward their opinions on a general strategy, I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd accompany those opinions with some usable examples.

stefoid wrote:
But in your world, the bad things are real I suppose.  This makes them known, which makes them less fearful.

stefoid wrote:
I think you hit the nail on the head before - you might know 'what', but you dont know 'how' or 'why'.  how do the bad things make bad stuff happen, and more importantly, why do they do it.

stefoid wrote:
So I think that although you are trying to write a setting, maybe you shouldnt set motivations of the bad things in stone.  If you leave that to the players, then you are giving them soemthing to do in your setting besides defend themselves against attack. 

stefoid wrote:
Youre making it investagatory.  There is scope there for a number of motivations for players other than pure defence.

Warren wrote:
"Regular people", when presented with ickyness, would try to do anything to avoid plumbing it. If you want players to create characters that want to plumb ickyness at every opportunity, then those characters aren't going to be regular people.

Warren wrote:
Personally, I think the Unknown Armies way is a winner here. They are everyday, humdrum people until something happened. And now that has happened, they are everyday, humdrum people who are driven - by this something - to go headlong into ickyness.

greyorm wrote:
The reason everyone was afraid of nuclear war wasn't because it had happened and we knew what it would be like, but because it never did, and yet...it could. All too easily. That's what was terrifying about it. The possibility, the real concrete possibility, rather than the reality.

greyorm wrote:
Let me know if I'm off-track.

I think the horribleness of the enemy is going to give rapidly diminishing returns. Theres more mileage in despair.

Make civilisation dependent on some MacGuffin that holds back the Dark.

Then show the characters that their corner of civilisation has only 6 months (or weeks, or years etc.) supply of MacGuffins left.

Hey David,

I really like the idea of this setting, which is why I keep coming back and checking on it. I think you may want to check out Earthdawn, origionally by FASA, now with an edition by RedBrick in New Zeland (earthdawn.com link), and another by Living Room Games in the US. You could look up Earthdawn in wikipedia for a good overview of the setting. Much more fantasy than you may want with elves/orks/windlings (little faerie type people), etc. But one of the best aspects of the game is that it's set in a post apocalytic "re-emergence" from hundreds of years of underground hiding while "things" (Barsaivians call them Horrors) ravaged the surface during a surge in the magic level of reality. Many Kaers (hidden cities) were sumarily cracked open like freshly cooked clams, to various icky ends. One of the main premises in the setting is that Horrors "Mark" their victims, most of the Marks establish a form of telepathic communication, domination, feeding on feelings, etc. One of the recognizable side effects of being Horror Marked is that you will fail to create works of art. Any creative endevour is twisted by the Horror, consciously or unconsciously. There-fore, every Name-Giver in the land is taught at a young age at least one creative skill ("Artisan Skill"), and it has become a common ritual, that you must perform your Artisan Skill before they'll let you past the gates of any city/town. This is a great example of the "McGuffin" mentioned in the last post. And there's always the paranoia of "what if I can't see the corruption in this person's art"? The text give an example of a character accusing a fencing master of being "Marked" and the court demands an Artisan Test on the spot. He performs a massively complicated sword dance, twirling and cutting, exquisite foot work, masterfull handling of the blade, etc. Once finished, the lord looks to the accusing character, as everyone in the hall was really impressed at the Master's skill. The character (A Swordmaster Adept) non-chalantly replies, "While that may have fooled the court, and even some of my fellow Swordsmasters, and while excelling technically, you did not fool me. Each of the techniques and cuts you used would not have led to a clean death. Your opponents would have slowly, and with excruciating pain, bled to death. Some of them may have taken _days_ to die."

Earthdawn also has some really good Horror powers that you could add variations of to some of your BrainStorm Lists.

Namaste,
Joshua

So after reading though this thread I think I’m ready to add what may be inconsequential but may add some flavor to the setting. Recently I’ve been doing some research on the Black Death, a most notorious plague in our history and I’ll come back to this in a minute, but keep it in mind.

First starvation, one thing that stuck from me early on was magic seems to be only though pacts with dark forces and some (most?) dark things in this land have the ability to or work towards defiling the land. When another poster brought up the value of food I thought the idea was great and fit the setting perfectly. When encountering such a creature whose very presence spoils the land if the characters are far from home starvation is quite possible even if they survive the encounter. No matter how great a warrior you may be without food or water you will die.

Now back to plagues and other fun things. As I was reading though various commentaries on the Black Death one thing that was mentioned was loss of faith in the church as they could do nothing to help the dying. This can mean a few things in game terms. First, there hasn’t been much talk about government, they are unified and man tends to group in large walled cities. It’s been mentioned that legends and myth are to be prevalent but the subject of religion has not been broached. What are the power structures in the realm, how do they protect themselves from the threat of evil? Have they too become tainted to grow their power before the inevitable fall? How do the commoners see the structures of power with a threat that at best can be only kept at bay for a time? What are the views of the political rulers towards the evil beyond the walls and who supports them? Have people become disillusioned with them as they continue to fail and if so who can they turn to? The moral of troops cannot be good when they know facing this evil can lead to fates far worse than death.

Ok there’s what I have to add, but I like to say I like this concept.

As I have read through this thread, a lot of people have spoken about tension but IMHO, not a lot about letdown.  I use this term to refer to the normal moments in the PC life.  I see a couple of related issues...

1.  How does the player know what is normal?  I ask this because if there is too much horror, I would be wondering why the PC isn't living under a rock and being extremely xenophobic.  My association with this would be a desire to isolate themselves from contant with the outside world.  This tendency would counteract curiosity to some degree.  I guess this would relate to the technique of making a safe haven only to destroy it later.

2.  Does the player needs to know what safety is?  i.e. do you need sessions where mundane things are done in order to balance out the extraordinary?  In other words, I see some people (not necessarily anyone here) so worried about the horror that they end up making the horror "normal."  The game world can't be too horrifying, otherwise (again this is just me) there is a sense of "why aren't these people either wiped out or prepared for "horror encounters."

In other words, don't let the pursuit of horror destroy the verisimilitude of the rest of the game.

My 2 cents,

Sean

sean2099 wrote:
In other words, don't let the pursuit of horror destroy the verisimilitude of the rest of the game.

Man...  Plenty of takers for theory discussion, but no one wants to add to my brainstorm lists...
I'll happily continue to clarify my positions (see below), but let me reiterate that my hope for this thread is to get specific suggestions for stuff in the world.  If anyone wants to put forward their opinions on a general strategy, I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd accompany those opinions with some usable examples.

I think you hit the nail on the head before - you might know 'what', but you dont know 'how' or 'why'.  how do the bad things make bad stuff happen, and more importantly, why do they do it.

Right.  Make the players feel threatened without understanding why or exactly how -- any suggestions of ways this could be pulled off?

So I think that although you are trying to write a setting, maybe you shouldnt set motivations of the bad things in stone.  If you leave that to the players, then you are giving them soemthing to do in your setting besides defend themselves against attack. 

The Evil Threat does have some defining characteristics (alien to this reality) and goals (destroy this reality and humanity).  So, for now, assume that a given Evil Thing has motivations that are known to the GM but not the players.  Giving players control over that sort of thing is part of the larger "players creating setting" topic in another thread.

NN wrote:
I think the horribleness of the enemy is going to give rapidly diminishing returns. Theres more mileage in despair.

NN wrote:
Make civilisation dependent on some MacGuffin that holds back the Dark.

Then show the characters that their corner of civilisation has only 6 months (or weeks, or years etc.) supply of MacGuffins left.

Certified wrote:
some (most?) dark things in this land have the ability to or work towards defiling the land. When another poster brought up the value of food I thought the idea was great and fit the setting perfectly. When encountering such a creature whose very presence spoils the land if the characters are far from home starvation is quite possible even if they survive the encounter. No matter how great a warrior you may be without food or water you will die.

Certified wrote:
It’s been mentioned that legends and myth are to be prevalent but the subject of religion has not been broached.

Certified wrote:
What are the power structures in the realm, how do they protect themselves from the threat of evil?

Certified wrote:
Have they too become tainted to grow their power before the inevitable fall? How do the commoners see the structures of power with a threat that at best can be only kept at bay for a time? What are the views of the political rulers towards the evil beyond the walls and who supports them? Have people become disillusioned with them as they continue to fail and if so who can they turn to? The moral of troops cannot be good when they know facing this evil can lead to fates far worse than death. 

Telarus, wrote:
I think you may want to check out Earthdawn, originally by FASA, now with an edition by RedBrick in New Zeland (earthdawn.com link), and another by Living Room Games in the US.

Telarus, wrote:
one of the best aspects of the game is that it's set in a post apocalytic "re-emergence" from hundreds of years of underground hiding while "things" (Barsaivians call them Horrors) ravaged the surface during a surge in the magic level of reality. Many Kaers (hidden cities) were sumarily cracked open like freshly cooked clams, to various icky ends.

Telarus, wrote:
One of the main premises in the setting is that Horrors "Mark" their victims, most of the Marks establish a form of telepathic communication, domination, feeding on feelings, etc. One of the recognizable side effects of being Horror Marked is that you will fail to create works of art. Any creative endevour is twisted by the Horror, consciously or unconsciously.

Telarus, wrote:
There-fore, every Name-Giver in the land is taught at a young age at least one creative skill ("Artisan Skill"), and it has become a common ritual, that you must perform your Artisan Skill before they'll let you past the gates of any city/town. 

Is all the cool stuff you mentioned in the FASA edition of Earthdawn?  A friend of mine has it.  I looked through it long ago, and don't remember any of this (though that could just be a reflection on my memory)...

Foolish Name-givers! Knowledge is a powerful tool in this age of magic. Knowledge of the Horrors, however, invites their touch upon your mind and heart. The wise Name-giver will remember this and be wary.
• Vasdenjas, Great Dragon, Master of Secrets •

Joshua-

Thanks for taking the time to type all these powers up.  Some of them (Dream Shape, some of Corrupt Reality) are already on my lists, but many others I think I can adapt and add.

Telarus, wrote:
• Animate Dead: Your basic trap the fleeing soul back into the body
• Forge Horror Construct: twist a living or dead being into a monstrocity that will follow it's masters bidding.
• Thought Worm: A type of mental domination
• Karma Boost: Allows the horror to offer marked characters bits of it's own power to use.

Telarus, wrote:
the creation of eerie sounds or changes in temperature
the transformation of mundane objects into slime-covered monstrosities

Telarus, wrote:
This slow, globular-shaped Horror has six short, thick tentacles.
When it moves, bulky masses shift and rotate beneath its scabby hide.
A shimmering haze rises from it
it emits a cool, sterile smell like rubbing alcohol.

Telarus, wrote:
• Damage Shift: Allows the Horror to transfer the damage it just took from one attack on-to anyone within touch or sight distance

Telarus, wrote:
• Skin Shift: One of the nastier attack powers, this rips the victims skin away from the muscles and ligaments, and rotates in around his/her body.

Telarus, wrote:
• Disrupt Magic: The ability to pick apart the astal patterns of spell/enchantments/powers.

Telarus, wrote:
The Horror uses a unique magical effect to turn music played in its vicinity into wretched, grating noises. Apparently the Horror delights in the disquiet this causes and often manifests where music is being played.

Are you still looking to identify an Evil Threat, or do you have one in mind already?  The reason I ask is that I would expect ane vil intended to be thematic would need to be consistent and identifiable, have some sort of underlying logic that can be recognised.  Hodge-podge evil isn't very scary IMO, things need to have a sense of coherency to feel really dangerous I think.

I also wnated to suggest soemthing else, which is that you express some of the deapsir mechanically or grapically.  I once proposed a visual display of the characters soul, so the player could watch it descend and know that the character would go to hell when it died.  I think if you want players to keep something in mind, it has to appear before them in some form.  Call of Cthulhu is famous for its sense of attritional helplessness, although I did not enjoy this personally.

contracycle wrote:
Are you still looking to identify an Evil Threat, or do you have one in mind already?  The reason I ask is that I would expect an evil intended to be thematic would need to be consistent and identifiable, have some sort of underlying logic that can be recognised.

contracycle wrote:
I also wnated to suggest soemthing else, which is that you express some of the deapsir mechanically or grapically.

You have DECRIBED the Evil Threat, but you have not told me if you already have one in mind.  ASre yoiu asking us to comie up with an Evil Threat, or to expand upon yours?  If the latter, we will need to know what it is.

contracycle wrote:
You have DECRIBED the Evil Threat, but you have not told me if you already have one in mind. 

contracycle wrote:
ASre yoiu asking us to comie up with an Evil Threat, or to expand upon yours?  If the latter, we will need to know what it is.

Have you read P. C. Hodgell's novels, Godstalk, Dark of the Moon, and Seeker's Mask?  The ultimate enemy in those is, conceptually, the same as yours: a being of primal chaos that attacks creation by corrupting the essences of things.  Dark of the Moon, specifically, focuses on servants of the enemy, called "changers", whose bodies have become plastic, to the point where they can impersonate almost anybody (though they need to drink blood from their victims.)  And in land under the enemy's influence, corpses that haven't been cremated reanimate to hunt the living.

Michael wrote:
servants of the enemy, called "changers", whose bodies have become plastic, to the point where they can impersonate almost anybody (though they need to drink blood from their victims.) 

Michael wrote:
And in land under the enemy's influence, corpses that haven't been cremated reanimate to hunt the living.

Interesting though it is, this thread has now reached the point where enough information has been posed and exchanged. If anyone wants to spawn daughter threads (preferably in Actual Play), that would be fine.

Best, Ron

Ron wrote:
this thread has now reached the point where enough information has been posed and exchanged. If anyone wants to spawn daughter threads (preferably in Actual Play), that would be fine.

I should have been more clear. This thread is now closed.

Best, Ron