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Synthesis & Synchronicity #3

I don't run horror campaigns, as I long ago learned that a constant diet of horror doesn't work well for most player groups. This doesn't mean that I don't use the genre, it's just that I insert horror elements into my conspiracy, adventure, heroic, superheroic or other campaigns from time to time as a change of pace (or I run a "one shot" as I did a few years ago for a Halloween run).

There have been entire books written on Horror, the memes, idioms, metaphors, and basic story structures for running the genre, but the one thing that they always forget is often the most essential.

A horror games centers around the concept that the player characters don't have access to all the information about what is going on, why it is going on, how it can be solved and what the rules are in the game.

This is why many "standard" horror games fall flat, the players can look the symptoms up in the rulebook and say "We've got a Type 37 Demon in league with some Cultists of Hastur and a wild card of a Type 3 Haunting. We should ignore the ghost, it can't actually affect solid matter, and instead concentrate on killing off the cultists as the demon can't manifest if they're all dead."

This happens in Call of Cthuhlu ("Rule One : Burn The Books!"), in the World of Darkness, in GURPS horror, and far too regularly in Bureau-13 (Stalking The Night Fantastic). It's a sure way to take a horror scenario and make it mundane in the eyes of the players, and turn the story into a "destroy the monster, sack the treasure and get out of dodge" mindset stupidity that D&D/D20 generally forms in many players.

So, the right way to do it is to always have a set of rules prepared as what is really going on, what is the cause, how it can potentially be stopped, and make sure that these rules are not obvious, easily available or within the knowledge of the player characters. There should be rules that they can find out (from books, tv, pop culture, etc) that are just plain WRONG. And there should be things going on that are outside of the rules.

By leaving so much hidden, it keeps players on their toes, knowing that they are NOT necessarily on top of things, in the know or even going to win in the end. If there are things they can't explain, then there are things that can drive them a bit crazy, make them act a little irrational, and in other words succome to the horrors that they are facing in their mindset.

One of my best one-shot games in recent years used a collection of pre-generated characters who were all patients on an Island Asylum. Each of them had a secret problem that had led to them being in a doctor's care that was experimenting with unusual drugs. The game was set in a real feeling 1960s, but the characters were isolated from most of the cultural setting.... and the first thing they do is wake up to find the staff is missing, dead, or (in the case of the one person they could find) acting crazy and locking themselves away from everyone else in fear. All the characters had been experimented on with an unusual mix of psychtropic drugs. Several of them suffered from delusions, while others randomly would see things from the effects of the drugs. There was no obvious way off the island.... and a sense of impending doom...

Was there supernatural threats? Yes. Was there a reason for everything that happened? Yes... but it was buried very deep.... almost impossible for them to find all the little details.

And the characters had the problem of each other to deal with as well.... The War Veteran, The Hippie Poor-little-rich girl, The Man who thought he was the one that shot Kennedy, The Meglomaniac Midget, the Strange woman with Amnesia about her past... distrust, cultural friction, and just plain madness and drug effects haunted their actions.

See, the characters and players thought they knew the rules, thought there was a rational reason for things going on, and then whenever they tried to act on their answers, they discovered the rules were not what they thought, that they had made the wrong conclusions and the stakes were greater than they expected.

If you do introduce a classic element to a situation, always put a twist on it to make it show the rules are not what they seem. Playing Buffy the RPG? How about a Vampire that wears chainmail under his clothes to prevent getting staked? Or how about a demon that's not out to destroy the world, but simply is looking for a hot date and loses his cool around the ladies and puts on his "game face"?

Or if you're running Call of Cthuhlu, what about having the PCs enlisted to help stop some cultists by what turns out to members of a rival cult (helpful good guys turn out to be bad guys)? Or maybe that evil book, if burnt, releases a great horror into the world that was being blocked by its existence? And who says running away is always the answer? Maybe for once running away is what gets you noticed, and simply sitting still gets you ignored by the creature? Or perhaps the ghoul that apparently has been digging up the graveyard is simply an overly Zealous monster hunter that's decided that dead bodies attract ghouls and vampires, its easier to burn them all then find out which one is the threat? Or maybe all the strange coincidental stuff isn't the result of anything more than just that, coincidence?

Don't let yourself get bound into rules on how a monster is supposed to act or what its weaknesses are, be willing to change the rules and you'll have the players facing a mystery that is far more interesting in the long term. The rules don't have to be fatal, just require creativity and teamwork. By playing the game this way you'll find that your players will enjoy it when you do insert a horror story into the campaign... but be sure to know when its time to stop. There's nothing worse then the 22nd sequal to Nightmare on Elmstreet, with yet another collection of new rules on how you have to kill the villain. One horror story in every half dozen or dozen stories is usually enough to keep your players with an appetite for horror adventures and having fun.

Other Notes:

Kiralee now seems to have a full roster for her game (if everyone who has said they will be involved actually comes and can mesh together). I've got to spend some time with her doing some of the preparation for the first storyline and with fine tuning Quartermain over the next few weeks.

It looks like the recession is starting to hit the game industry, with Hasbro making layoffs (and possibly closing the Seattle WOTC operation, moving remaining staff etc to their HQ in New England). Also Cheap Ass is having layoffs, and a few of the smaller game companies. Our local area gamestore is also reducing staff, though the reasoning here is a bit complex (They closed for a month this summer to rennovate, lost 1/4 of their stock in storage to a flood while this was going on, and have invested in product lines that aren't necessarily moving while failing to order some materials that their customers, like me, specifically wanted as soon as they came in. Some of this was due to distributor problems, as there are some distributors who have been sitting on games for months that should have been out to the stores. Can't sell what you don't have.)

They say the real estate bubble has peaked... and we were at a whoping 3% vacancy rate in rental properties in the Boston Area before the college student exodus back into the area, a big improvement from last year's 1% vacancy rate they tell me).... though part of this might be some new rules at local schools forcing more students back onto the campus for their living arrangements (and said schools buying up real estate to build housing for students).

The Tech job market is remaining very flat locally, and that means a lot of jobs that are not there anymore. Same is happening in the financial market (a lot of folks we know work in either one or the other or both of these fields). If you live outside the Boston Area, don't think of it as a mecca to move to to find work, we're not as bad as Seattle is right now or Silicon Valley, but like NYC, we're not in great shape unless you want to be a screener at the Airport. If you're here and have a job, try to stay with it for the next few months, more if the Idiot in the White House decides to force us into an unnecessary and expensive war with Iraq, as things are not going to get better for a while.

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