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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Firbolg in the Playground
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    Default Give Me Your Horror Rules

    Horror set-ups, in my experience, are... difficult to work with in roleplaying games. In anything with stats and hit points, it begs the question of why the players don't stand and deliver; in situations where the monsters are invulnerable to everything, there's some set of general rules that are (a) hard to follow, (b) have clear punishments for breaking, and (c) by no means should make an effective defense but work.

    This kind of setup also shows up in a lot of more traditional media examples. In the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the Headless Horseman is powerless to cross running water. In the Saw movies, you've got the rule of "Play the game if you want to live." Dealing with the fair folk, you know that they can't do anything to you as long as you do nothing to insult them, or have a promise. These are all effective rules for dealing with monsters under pressure, while not really diminishing their threat.

    As it turns out, though, crafting some monsters and good rules to protect yourself from them is really hard. Has anyone else gotten a measure of success making such rules before? Any tips or stories to share? Advice would be appreciated!
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    Default Re: Give Me Your Horror Rules

    I've always found the secret is evoking the right atmosphere. And that is hard. When your players are sat in a warm living room, surrounded by snacks, on a bright summers day, it can be really difficult to make them afraid. And the need to feel afraid. For their characters lives, souls, and sanity. And the nature of the rules don't help - in a horror setting, a werewolf should be seen as a terrifying engine of bloody destruction, yet the stat blocks in D&D traditionally tend often to be a little mediocre.

    You need to make your players feel weak, feel powerless. But at the same time, you shouldn't make their efforts feel futile, since that is no fun. You need to change their expectations of what constitutes a "victory". In a horror setting, slaying the villain, saving the damsel, and being proclaimed hero of the empire is not a victory that should be anywhere within reach. Some days, just bruising the villains ego, saving an innocent from an unpleasant fate, and getting away with your lives should be made to feel like a great victory against the odds.

    It is common advice when you have knowledgable players to change up monster stats, but that is even more vital in a horror setting. If a player is sat thinking "A ghost? Oh, thats fine, we can handle that" then you have a problem. There used to be a set of Ravenloft books called the "Van Richten's Guide" (to Vampires/Werebeasts/Ghosts/Golems/Mummies/Liches/Demons) that were released for AD&D (and re-released for 3.5 as Van Richten's Compendium) and they really went in to real detail into turning these creatures into truly powerful and difficult adverseries (and the books are a good read from a lore point of view too).

  3. - Top - End - #3
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    Default Re: Give Me Your Horror Rules

    Isolation often plays a HUGE role in horror. No use scaring them if any of the common protections are within easy reach. You want players to feel cornered and occasionally trapped (but always trapped is a little heavy handed). Burn the boats, scare off the mounts, seal them in the tomb. They have to find a different way out.

    Put them on the survival timer. Not only is the Big Bad hunting them, the environment is hostile, and they didn't come prepared to handle it. The desert, hot or cold, is wearing away at their body and mind.

    Then, right when they feel like they have nothing, you give them something small to help, just enough to squeak by to the next challenge. Maybe a gun with just a few bullets, maybe a room full of desks they can hide under while the monster prowls through.

    But the biggest rule is making sure ahead of time that your players are okay with the setup. If they're in the mode of regular RPG, the powerless feeling could be interpreted as Railroading.
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    Default Re: Give Me Your Horror Rules

    Quote Originally Posted by Fable Wright View Post
    As it turns out, though, crafting some monsters and good rules to protect yourself from them is really hard. Has anyone else gotten a measure of success making such rules before? Any tips or stories to share? Advice would be appreciated!
    The most difficult imho.

    So do you want to create your own system? Because in that case we might have to work out your premises first.

    My two cents: Horror system benefit from simplicity rather than complexity, because you want to uphold the atmosphere rather than do a math competiton. Players should always have a chance to win but it should never be too high - you need a good mixture of hope and despair.

    And if you feel like reading, here is a long version:
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    Creating a good horror adventure is probably one of the most difficult tasks a DM may encounter. That said, I highly encourage you to go for it as it can be a lot of fun.

    So, what is horror? What is fear? Long story short, fear stems from the lack of control. People are never frightened when they are in control. Think about it: Death for example is scary because you cannot do anything about in real life, whereas in D&D it is mostly a status effect. But death is final. All your endeavours, all your hopes and dreams, and even your legacy will ultimately vanish in the void called entrophy. Saying that you have to give meaning to your life yourself is just a way to stave off the horror of demise by inventing an illusion.
    At least, that's what people think who are afraid of death.
    But let's not open that particular can of worms. Rather, let's go into the details of fear.

    Loss of control can entail several factors. The most obvious one is the lack of power. If you can fight something, it's not as scary. You can easily beat a cold. Cancer though... more difficult. That's one of the reasons why your average D&D zombie is not scary. It has poor stats and can overly be overcome. That's why ammunition in most survival games is scarce. That's why flight is usually a valid course of action. Of course, you have to be careful that the player characters can't just outrun every threat, because this gives them back some control.
    For that reason, you have to find something that keeps the PCs from escaping everything. Yes, you can expect your players to follow the plot if you like metagaming. But you can also burn their plane, entrap them in a place between the worlds and have their little sister missing.

    But loss of control can also entail a lack of understanding. People are afraid of the darkness because the lack of light makes it difficult to ascertain facts that are usually a given. The dark figure in the alley might just be an odd collection of trash with a hat in the daylight, but at night you cannot be sure. The more facts the players have, the more control they can establish. As soon as there are certain rules or patterns, a threat becomes more predictable and therefore less dangerous. A good DM therefore leaves events open to interpretation.
    In his essay "The Uncanny", Freud offers a brilliant insight in events that occur in daily life which may become uncanny. Imagine a person that rents hotel room 33. Completely common. The taxi driver demands 33 dollars. Still common. A crazy man states that the world will end in 33 days. Alright, now it's getting odd... I think you get the picture. Everyone has heard of probabilties and coincidences, but at some point the chances of something being a coincidence are rather low, but you still do not know what is going on. A different example is something unanimated seems to be animated, or vice versa. There are certain ideas of things, and when they seem to behave differently, we are likely to chalk it up to our imagination or a simple mistake. But if it happens again, we are unsure whether our old ideas hold up to the truth. And if our understanding of how the world works is wrong, what else is possible?
    For the same reason you never state that a zombie lurkes in the basement. A zombie can be categorized and is somewhat mundane to many players. "Show don't Tell" is the basic premise of every good story, and it is also important here. Describe the smell, the sound of movement, and suddenly a person scrambling towards the players. Is it a drunken bum trying to escape? The weird neighbour trying defend himself? Or an honest-to-goodness undead? The players don't know, so they have to take a risk of shooting an innocent or being infected. IF zombies are infectious, because that is another piece of information that the players hopefully don't have yet.

    That said, there are also lesser factors that are important to fear. For one, the current course of action should be at least disastrous for the PCs. Nobody is afraid because they cannot change the fact that scientists found a way to negate the greenhouse effect. No, they are afraid because their girlfriend might become blind, or their little brother might rot in hell, or their own life is at stake, or something else that causes a lot of discomfort. At the same time, it is noteworthy that hope has a major role in upholding the tension. Utter despair is a horrible thing, yes, but it should reserved for the very last moment when their little sister is dragged to hell. If everything is meant to be doomed, players may easily become fatalistic and frustrated. That also means that not every horror story has to have an unhappy ending.

    In this vein it is worthwhile to touch the lethality debate. Some DMs are of the opinion that a high body count is necessary to strike fear into the hearts of the players. It is not! Two reasons: One, as pointed out above, constant failures become tidious after a short while. Two, the idea behind that reasoning is that the loss of a character is the worst thing evar. But if the players don't even have time to become invested in their characters, their emotional discomfort is similar to removing a piece during a chess game. Put another way, very invested players may be shocked by the loss of a characters finger, while others just want to hang out and couldn't care less about a piece of paper. That's why players should have enough time to bond emotionally with their characters and the NPCs.

    In order to have the players on the edge, you have to build up tension. Slowly. Ease the player into the mood. Get them invested, let strange things happen, until they slowly start to piece together the clues. Not everything has to be related, but there shouldn't be a street of red herings either. Don't forget the element of threat. And use the important scenes sparingly but effective. Every room soaked in blood turns mundane fast, but three drops of blood at the right time (e. g. out of a PC's eye) might do the trick. Here are some tricks to make the scenes meaningful:

    First, TIMING. Again, don't turn your adventure into a ghost show. Leave room for mundane scenes.

    Second, obey the dichotomy of shock effect and disturbing effect. A shock effect is everything that appeals to one's survival instinct – a loud scream, an unnerving touch. A disturbing effect is something that plays your cognitive processes and perception. You know the feeling when something just isn't right. You come home to celebrate your birthday, but your parents are pale and your best friend is missing. Or the entire floor is wet and sticky. Both effects are different, but it is said they work best when you introduce a disturbing effect first and then add a shock effect a few seconds later while the players are still tense.
    There is the optin of having OOC shock effects, and they may work. But once again, use them very sparingly. It may become funny or annoying, and this will kill your mood. Also, it breaks immersion. My advise would be to use them once. Preferably a real scream from the DM that is also uttered by a NPC.

    Third, a summary of one and two: Don't overdo it. Ever played a video game where you die in the same scene again and again? That's irritating, not uncanny.

    Fourth, there is another dichotomy, namely the one of visceral and cerebral horror. Visceral is your typical blood and gore style. Body mutilation is horrible indeed, but you have to be a grand storyteller to convey this style. Detail is the key. Describe how the needle pierces the black center of the eye, how the goo slowly poor out... Alternatively, you can present the players with the aftermath. Describe the white gooey ball on the floor, let them find the corpse and the tools later and have them piece together the scene in their own minds. Imagination can be worse than description.
    Cerebral horror is... difficult to describe, really, and more prominent in the Eastern horror movies. It is something you can only fathom with your mind. Imagine you are trapped with something incorporeal, that sees you, hates you, is near you. Utter malice, if you will, and you are the target. Of course, you don't make a voice say "I hate you", but you provide clues. A broken glass, a hiss, or maybe a lost journal.

    Fourth: Tension and tension release
    You probably know the suspense curve. Typically, it starts low and increases towards the climax, as it should be. But at the same it is difficult to uphold the constant pressure. Cat scares are one way to do so. A creak in the bedroom, you trembling open the door, and oh it was just a cat. You know, a perceived threat that really isn't one. Another way to do so is by denying many things the players would usually rely on. Information and NPCs – are they really reliable? Probably... not.
    At the same time, it is really exhausting to be on the edge for a long period of time. During a long adventure, you need some means to release the tension. A joke and a safe haven usually to the trick. Just don't forget to tear down the safe haven towards the end. Usually it's just easier to have a short horror adventure.

    Fifth: Topple the players
    It is always nice to have a twist towards the ending that twists the guts and forces the players to adapt. The uncle is actually the murderer, and the gardener actually a victim. The zombies broke into the previously safe shelter. Surprises are good, but don't force them if they feel arbitrary. Bonus points if the characters could have prevented it if they had found the clues or succeeded otherwise. Especially in the final of a one-shot adventure, you may turn into a devil in disguise. But make sure there was a way the players could have seen.

    Sixth: Beware the flow
    So, you have brilliant riddles and the perfect gore scene? Great. Unfortunately, the players can't solve it and the scene is tied to an object that the players ignore. Frustration is the bane of atmosphere. Therefore, you should ALWAYS have a backup plan and be flexible. Maybe there is a different way that is just more costly. Maybe the scene can be adapted to a similar situation. Tense atmosphere requires some sort of progess, so make sure it is possible.
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    Default Re: Give Me Your Horror Rules

    The most basic horror is the Unknown. If you want good horror, you keep people unknown. ''Something'' is out there attacking people.....''something''.


    Way too many games have way too many ''hard rules''. Once you know a monster is X, then it's Y. It's great for rules, but bad for horror.

    The first step is to remove all the free information most games just give away to the players. You want to dump the ''roll to identify and know all about the monster'' type stuff. Make the monster unknown.

    The next step is to, make the monster much more horrible. Again, way too many games do the bland mechanics of the monster does X and does Y damage. Wow, scary. And even when they do abilities it's that the monster does X, per Y rules and Z limits. Again, wow, scary. So you need to dig deep, and add some real horror stuff. The type of stuff they can never put in a ''rated G rule book''.

    And finally you do want a more lethal game, with character death. Get rid of all the Safe Space stuff like ''max hit points'' and ''plot armor''. Go for more ''minimum hit points'' and ''anyone can die''.

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    Default Re: Give Me Your Horror Rules

    I'm going to disagree with Darth Ultron, here, on one key point: "too many rules" isn't necessarily a bad thing, beyond the usual rules bloat issues any system can suffer. It doesn't directly impede horror.

    Now, that said, he's right that a degree of the unknown goes a long way to creating the proper atmosphere. When you know it's "a werewolf," there's an amount of comfort that knowing what you face grants. You know you need to survive until the full moon sets, that you want silver weapons, and that it's not - say - teleporting around or able to go through solid matter that its strength can't batter down.

    But there's certain elements that work regardless of the knowledge, or become worse with knowledge. That werewolf is not going to be impeded by the wooden walls of your shack out back. It probably can smell you even if you hide, and can track you by scent even if you can't see it. These things are scary, and reduce your power in a situation. Even the mighty D&D character has to worry about these things, and know that his non-silver weapons are going to do significantly less damage to this creature, which is perfectly capable of inflicting great harm on him.

    Worse, you can use the situation to take the power the characters do have and turn it into a double-edged sword. That werewolf? It's the kindly baker's wife who's become beloved to the PCs for her sweet personality and helpful nature. It's pretty awful to know the slavering beast that you're going to have to put down is somebody you actually like.

    It can get worse if the werewolf, while cursed, is still cognizant of who she is, but twisted. The baker's wife was a sweet lady, and she has a few kids she's adopted. The werewolf has all her memories and skills, but is malign. She hasn't turned any of the kids because she enjoys terrorizing them. One or two have already gone missing; possibly baked into the meat pies she served the town last month, with the baker assuming (somewhat rightly) that his wife made them, while she assumes he did (because she doesn't remember doing what the werewolf did).

    Here, we have the horror of knowing that you can't save everyone, or that trying to save a beloved person will lead to risking the lives of others. It restricts how the heroes can fight, if they're not willing to kill her, so even if they're dangerous to the horror monster, they are constrained.


    Another device is to change up the tactics. Sticking with our werewolf, she doesn't confront the PCs as a group in an open combat. She doesn't stand for multiple rounds of initiative, exchanging blows. She fights like an ambush predator. In our small town, having multiple NPCs the players care about and like will be useful to this tactic: the werewolf, knowing she's being hunted, will deliberately tip PCs off to who she might be going after. Several people, in different parts of town, so the party can't cover them all. She uses her sense of smell to tell where they're going, and stalks the ones she thinks least defended. If the party splits up, or she can lure them into a narrow confine, she strikes from hiding, dealing a blow, maybe two, and retreating to hide again.

    She uses the dark of the night to her advantage. She has scent, after all, as well as potentially supernaturally good night vision. Strike at light sources. Attack the ones who have the best vision in the dark first, or attack the ones without it when they're alone.

    She doesn't stay and fight, either: she hides again as soon as possible, minimizing the damage she takes. If she's a regen type werewolf rather than a DR type werewolf, this works even better. She can take a few hits and retreat to heal, while the party is down a few hit points here and there.

    And while they don't know where she is, they can't just hide from her, not if they want to protect the other NPCs. They have to hunt her, in her element.



    The ambush predator tactics are something a lot of horror critters can use. Heck, you can do it with kobolds or with even normal "demihuman" race rogues and assassins. A single well-trained assassin who uses poisons and traps and ambush to strike and run away, denying the party a chance to set up any sort of formation or proper group tactics, can do a lot to minimize the major disadvantage that single threats face against parties: action deficit.



    The other side of the coin is the horde. Zombies are popular for this. Easily dispatched individually, enough of them will wear down the party. Horror here can be achieved by simple attrition. It's a different kind of horror, but it is a real worry. The feeling that, no matter how strong you are, your resources will eventually run out. Never give them time to rest longer than a breather. Don't let them replenish supplies and spells.



    Finally, the best way to make horror different from normal "fear for your life" combat is to have rules that are understandable, easy to follow in short spurts, but don't feel safe. One of the best implementations I've seen is in a game called Deadly Premonition, where the zombie-shadows can't see you; they sense your breath. As long as you hold your breath, you're invisible to them. Sadly, the game underutilizes this mechanic in favor of allowing you to fight them like an action hero, but it still is a great mechanic for building a horror monster. You can understand it, but even as you hold your breath and they walk right by you, your instincts are screaming at you that they're RIGHT THERE and will GET YOU. And you can only hold your breath for so long...

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    Bugbear in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Give Me Your Horror Rules

    Looking at the Savage Worlds horror companion, having in depth rules for fear and sanity help. Being around these monsters at all is a problem not just getting hit by them.

    Rules for magic and magic rituals that are powerful but can come at a great cost.

    Villains that are dangerous and hard to kill.

    Rules for disfiguring wounds also help. Like having a stump leg while fighting Shia Labeouf.

    But system universal Advice is to have creepy descriptions. That really helps to set the tone, and people have to die steadily.

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    Default Re: Give Me Your Horror Rules

    Quote Originally Posted by Rhedyn View Post
    Looking at the Savage Worlds horror companion, having in depth rules for fear and sanity help. Being around these monsters at all is a problem not just getting hit by them.

    Rules for magic and magic rituals that are powerful but can come at a great cost.

    Villains that are dangerous and hard to kill.

    Rules for disfiguring wounds also help. Like having a stump leg while fighting Shia Labeouf.

    But system universal Advice is to have creepy descriptions. That really helps to set the tone, and people have to die steadily.
    I actually think rules for fear and sanity hurt. They separate the player from the character, at least the way they're usually handled. "Your character is terrified!" they insist. "And also nuts! Therefore, you lose control of him and he does this stupid thing that makes you lose the game!"

    Far better if the rules aid in connecting player to character. This gets into the same area as social mechanics, to a degree. If madness gives you bonuses to notice things that pertain to your madness, but also makes you see things that aren't there, that starts to make it more interesting. You can't just assume that your PC is "seeing things" because you know your madness is high. He might be seeing something legitimate. Penalties associated with persuasion efforts to get people to believe things related to your madness, or possibly the opposite: things that disagree with your madness, would also help capture the feel while tying you to your character's perceptions and abilities.

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    Default Re: Give Me Your Horror Rules

    Quote Originally Posted by Thrawn4 View Post
    So do you want to create your own system? Because in that case we might have to work out your premises first.
    The system I'm working with is Unknown Armies 3e. I know the rules, the sanity system is key to the game and simple, and there are ways of breaking down players without killing them or making them unworkably insane. That's fine, I'm just trying to figure out how to run the game and make unique monsters for it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Thrawn4 View Post
    And if you feel like reading, here is a long version:
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    *awesome*
    This is greatly appreciated! Saving this to campaign notes. I'm aiming for cerebral horror, mostly, and definitely going to keep notes on this for building atmosphere. The setting has done clear work with uncanny elements as a cosmological thing, so I can definitely work with that. Any advice for going the route of non-body horror?

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth Ultron View Post
    The first step is to remove all the free information most games just give away to the players. You want to dump the ''roll to identify and know all about the monster'' type stuff. Make the monster unknown.
    This isn't a d20 system, and infodumps are impossible. I'm honestly worried about the players finding *anything* about the monsters, which makes it difficult to get to a conclusion. The monsters are mostly going to attack character relationships and sanity meters (which in turn directly effect their base stats), and the players have no way of directly attacking the monsters. The question is how they can escape.

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    Finally, the best way to make horror different from normal "fear for your life" combat is to have rules that are understandable, easy to follow in short spurts, but don't feel safe. One of the best implementations I've seen is in a game called Deadly Premonition, where the zombie-shadows can't see you; they sense your breath. As long as you hold your breath, you're invisible to them. Sadly, the game underutilizes this mechanic in favor of allowing you to fight them like an action hero, but it still is a great mechanic for building a horror monster. You can understand it, but even as you hold your breath and they walk right by you, your instincts are screaming at you that they're RIGHT THERE and will GET YOU. And you can only hold your breath for so long...
    THIS. This is what I was trying to ask for in the OP. Any more examples of things like this?

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    I actually think rules for fear and sanity hurt. They separate the player from the character, at least the way they're usually handled. "Your character is terrified!" they insist. "And also nuts! Therefore, you lose control of him and he does this stupid thing that makes you lose the game!"
    The selling point of Unknown Armies is the most beautiful horror system on the market. Your stats are directly related to your five sanity meters. As you grow more inured to violence, you can punch people better, but lose your ability to relate with others and make friends. As you grow more inured to the horrors of the unknown, you're better at understanding things that don't make sense, but worse at noticing normal things that do make sense. Freakouts can be a good thing, because when they happen, you're safe from any further sanity meter changes.
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    Default Re: Give Me Your Horror Rules

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    I actually think rules for fear and sanity hurt. They separate the player from the character, at least the way they're usually handled. "Your character is terrified!" they insist. "And also nuts! Therefore, you lose control of him and he does this stupid thing that makes you lose the game!"

    Far better if the rules aid in connecting player to character. This gets into the same area as social mechanics, to a degree. If madness gives you bonuses to notice things that pertain to your madness, but also makes you see things that aren't there, that starts to make it more interesting. You can't just assume that your PC is "seeing things" because you know your madness is high. He might be seeing something legitimate. Penalties associated with persuasion efforts to get people to believe things related to your madness, or possibly the opposite: things that disagree with your madness, would also help capture the feel while tying you to your character's perceptions and abilities.
    Well that depends if you are trying to scare the player or the character.

    With the existence of things like VR horror games, I wouldn't bother trying to scare the player. Make the character upset and give the player the tools needed to role-play that mindset.

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    Default Re: Give Me Your Horror Rules

    Quote Originally Posted by Rhedyn View Post
    Well that depends if you are trying to scare the player or the character.

    With the existence of things like VR horror games, I wouldn't bother trying to scare the player. Make the character upset and give the player the tools needed to role-play that mindset.
    It...isn't really horror if the player isn't feeling it. "Yeah, man, my PC's, like, scared and stuff. AAahhh."

    You don't have to get the players to pants-wetting or jump-scare-primed territory, but you want to capture the feel of it. And telling them, "You feel scared now," just doesn't cut it. That's what a lot of fear mechanics do.

    Honestly, UA's is better than most, but it still falls a little short. But if it's what the OP is working with, it can be made to work. I'll trust he is happy with that aspect.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fable Wright View Post
    THIS. This is what I was trying to ask for in the OP. Any more examples of things like this?
    Off the top of my head, the other one that comes to mind is the Weeping Angels from the Doctor Who episode Blink.

    If you haven't seen it, I strongly recommend finding it and watching it. If, for some reason you can't, here's the rules they operate by: as long as anybody can see them, they're stone statues. Of angels, covering their faces (so they don't look at each other). When nobody is watching them, they move unbelievably fast. Blink, and one that was across a gymnasium might be a foot and a half from getting you when your eyes open again.

    Their specific trick is making people vanish. The precise mechanism I leave for you to find out in the episode, as it's not relevant to them being scary. Don't watch later episodes with them to draw horror ideas; they tried too hard to make them Even Scarier and wound up making them meh, in my not so humble opinion.


    Also from Doctor Who are the Silence. You'll never know you've seen one, because you lose your memory of them and everything that happened while looking at them when you stop seeing them. And it's generally not noticed; unless you stop to think about how you got where you are, you'll just gloss over the missing time. One of the most effective bits involving them is when the heroes realized how they worked, and started using markers to leave tick marks on their arms to count them when they were looking at them.

    A few times, they are exploring a spooky place, and everything is fine, then they'll look at their arms and realize a dozen more ticks have appeared on them without having remembered doing it.


    From fairy tales, we have the admonishment to Red Riding Hood to "stay on the path." Now, this one wasn't supernatural, as it turns out, but I've seen implementations, particularly involving fae, where it is. Stay on the path, and the monsters can't get you. Step off, and they can. Here, part of the horror is the monster appearing to be coming for you and trying to scare you off of it, or deceptions in place that make the path harder to spot. Or the monster not being constrained from being ON the path...it just can't attack YOU while YOU are on it. Nothing saying it can't feint at you, or spook you, or threaten you, or lure you off, or otherwise try to trick you.


    Ghosts can also be fae-like in certain ways, particularly regarding rules of behavior that you don't fully understand. For instance, a ghost might have a habit of addressing the living by names of those it knew in life, and then treating them like that person. As long as the living act their role, the ghost won't flip out and do horror movie stuff to them. Of course, if you don't know your role, you might mess up. To an extent, the ghost might laugh it off, calling you "silly" or worrying that you're not well, not acting like yourself. But mess up too much, and the ghost doubts your identity, and is mad at you for "fooling" it. And, of course, if the ghost has identified you in a role of somebody it wants to hurt anyway, you may STILL not be safe...


    My werewolf example hopefully highlighted the importance of staging and presentation. You can use even a fully-known monster as long as you use it well and play to its strengths and themes.


    There's a D&D monster that appears in one particular module. It's called a Vestige. It looks to all like some normal person, fitting for the scene, unremarkable. Might even look like somebody you know. You can converse with it. Nobody - not even the victim - notices when it stabs somebody. Nobody notices the victim fall to the ground due to blood loss. People will keep conversing with an illusion of the victim, in fact, while he bleeds out at their feet. Only after the victim is dead and the monster moved away does anybody notice.


    In Wildbow's web serial Pact there is a demonic shadow-monster that consumes history along with flesh. Specifically, if it eats you, nobody remembers you ever existed. Battles with it will tend to be tinged with relief by the survivors, who think everybody got away safely. You could literally run a fight with such a monster and have all the PCs escape, and have entire NPCs who never existed because of the fight. If you're really confident in your abilities, you can even run the game with NPCs that are there, but you never let the players know are there. Attribute their actions to other NPCs, have things occur that these NPCs do without explaining how they were done, and gloss over it if anybody questions. Then, when they face this thing, you know the NPCs in question are joining them. But don't tell the players.

    Start being more heavy-handed with the clues of things that happened because of NPCs who were eaten by it after the fight, after the party thinks, "Everyone got away."

    This WILL be hard to pull off well, though.

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    Default Re: Give Me Your Horror Rules

    Quote Originally Posted by Fable Wright View Post

    The system I'm working with is Unknown Armies 3e.
    Do you also use the setting? I like both the system and the setting, but I think they don't mix well.
    Also, I never found a decent plot (the example in the book was awful).
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    Default Re: Give Me Your Horror Rules

    Quote Originally Posted by Thrawn4 View Post
    Do you also use the setting? I like both the system and the setting, but I think they don't mix well.
    Also, I never found a decent plot (the example in the book was awful).
    I'm using the setting and the system, with the caveat that I'm running it for people who don't own the books. You're right that Unknown Armies becomes a very different game if the PCs are allowed to be Adepts, and one not particularly suited to the default setting. At that point, I'd likely run it like Geist: the Sin-Eaters instead of as a horror game. You're in a weird world and celebrate it, but beyond your small pond of reality are some really, really big fish. Just replace Geist's Underworlds with UA's Otherworlds and you're good.

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    Honestly, UA's is better than most, but it still falls a little short. But if it's what the OP is working with, it can be made to work. I'll trust he is happy with that aspect.
    Oh? Now I'm curious. What's your gold standard for sanity mechanics?

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    Off the top of my head, the other one that comes to mind is the Weeping Angels from the Doctor Who episode Blink.
    *headdesk* I can't believe I forgot them as an example! There are many words to be said about Moffet, but he does make one-off creepy episodes well. Definitely going for a rewatch there.

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    There's a D&D monster that appears in one particular module. It's called a Vestige. It looks to all like some normal person, fitting for the scene, unremarkable. Might even look like somebody you know. You can converse with it. Nobody - not even the victim - notices when it stabs somebody. Nobody notices the victim fall to the ground due to blood loss. People will keep conversing with an illusion of the victim, in fact, while he bleeds out at their feet. Only after the victim is dead and the monster moved away does anybody notice.
    Hm... only problem with this is that the PCs aren't likely to find out the oddities of the death, unless they speak with the mortician. But yeah. The horrible realization of "Wait. What... was I talking to?" that can ensue is amazing. This is a nifty idea. And a lot easier to get to work than something like Ur.
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    Default Re: Give Me Your Horror Rules

    Quote Originally Posted by Fable Wright View Post
    I'm using the setting and the system, with the caveat that I'm running it for people who don't own the books. You're right that Unknown Armies becomes a very different game if the PCs are allowed to be Adepts, and one not particularly suited to the default setting. At that point, I'd likely run it like Geist: the Sin-Eaters instead of as a horror game. You're in a weird world and celebrate it, but beyond your small pond of reality are some really, really big fish. Just replace Geist's Underworlds with UA's Otherworlds and you're good.
    I confess that my favorite thing to play in UA is an Entropomancer. Playing one with a subtle deathwish just adds icing to it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fable Wright View Post
    Oh? Now I'm curious. What's your gold standard for sanity mechanics?
    Eternal Darkness is the best implementation I've seen, but it's a video game. I'll spoiler the description in case anybody wants to play a relatively old game to see it for themselves.
    Spoiler: This...can't...be happening!
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    When your sanity gets too low in Eternal Darkness, the game starts playing you. One of the more subtle instances is hit-or-miss depending on the style of TV you have; the volume indicator appears on screen and starts to drop, along with the volume of the game. If it is similar to your TV's actual volume bar, it can send you scrambling for the remote you think you must be sitting on, or something. After a few seconds, the volume restores itself.

    Another has a monster appear out of nowhere and kill your character faster than you can do anything bout it. Then it goes to the game over screen, but the screen is subtly corrupted from normal. Then the screen flashes and your character says, "This... can't... be happening!" and you're back to whatever you were doing before that happened.

    I think it also has one where, when you save the game, it says "save deleted."

    There are a few others, but that's the general idea.

    Now, this works primarily BECAUSE it's a video game. It also is still trite, but it's unique compared to most sanity mechanics.

    What I like about it is that it plays with the player's perceptions. Makes the player no more certain than the character that what he's seeing is(n't) real.

    I've never played Bloodborne, but I'm told that there's a relation between madness (measured by "Insight") and ability to see the real horrors of the world. As you gain more insight, the serial killer starts to be revealed to actually be a betentacled horror. That kind of thing.

    Were I designing a sanity system, I would have it be such a double-edged sword. Madness comes in flavors or specialties. You have a phobia of the dark, or a delusion that there's a wicked conspiracy, or suffer/enjoy a narcissistic megalomania. Your madness rating would be added to perception checks and to other rolls where its specialty might be...appropriate. It would sharpen your ability to see real dangers, threats, or opportunities, or to capitalize on the same, by being a bonus for those things so, to borrow d20 rules, you could exceed the DC with it even if you couldn't without it. Unfortunately, it also will make you see things that aren't there, believe things that aren't true. Your narcissistic megalomania might make you more persuasive, but it also will make you believe yourself to be more right, to see traitors as the cause of failures rather than your own mistakes. Your fear of the dark will let you spot the ghost lurking there, watching you. But it will also make you see that ghost when it isn't there.

    At once, it makes you more able to notice real threats, or able to act better, more powerfully, more successfully.... but it also makes you vulnerable to delusions. So you can't be sure the GM isn't just messing with you when he tells you what you see. But you can't be sure he IS, either. Do you tell the others that there are brain spiders sitting on the guide's head, and that he keeps trying to plant them on the other PCs? Or do you keep quiet, fearing that they won't believe you, that you might be hallucinating? Because sometimes, it's true. But often, it won't be. You are mad, after all.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fable Wright View Post
    *headdesk* I can't believe I forgot them as an example! There are many words to be said about Moffet, but he does make one-off creepy episodes well. Definitely going for a rewatch there.
    Fully agree on Moffet; his best work is in single episodes.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fable Wright View Post
    Hm... only problem with this is that the PCs aren't likely to find out the oddities of the death, unless they speak with the mortician. But yeah. The horrible realization of "Wait. What... was I talking to?" that can ensue is amazing. This is a nifty idea. And a lot easier to get to work than something like Ur.
    This kind of thing works best if they're there when the death occurs. After the murderous entity leaves, you can have the perception filter fail. The party notices when they turn to look again that Bob is bleeding on the ground, or that Fred isn't with them, and when they head back to the alley where they met with the strangers, they find Fred dead.


    The biggest thing about horror is the inability to trust that the world works the way you think it does. Either what you know or see can't be trusted, or you know the rules but they feel untrustworthy and make your instincts scream at you to act differently.

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