Horror in Games: Making the Mundane Magical

This has been a perennial topic on my and others blogs: How do you evoke horror in games?

The World of Darkness allows you to play vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural and horrific beings. To do this fairly and affectively they had to give all of these creatures clear rules on what their powers are, how they work, as well as detailing their weaknesses, where they come from (or think they come from), et cetera. This places the dark and sinister creatures that were once hidden in the shadows in the spot light. I've said this before - in many cases this makes WoD games not horror games, but dark fantasy. It turns the magical into the mundane. 

I believe that the opposite of this: making the mundane magical is one way of adding horror back into these (and other) games. How is this done? 

This is repeated from a few posts back, but is important: Don't simply tell the players that, "Four zombies stand in front of you." This makes the situation seem everyday - almost trivial. Just another hurdle to get over. Instead when they first encounter these beings describe the stench that grows stronger as they delve deeper into the room, cavern, et cetera, when their eyes first spot the zombies describe the rotting flesh, brown, dried blood across them. This is a right step in the direction, BUT in can be ruined as soon as a player shouts something like, "Oh, it's just zombies." 

Experienced players are probably familiar with common monster templates, know how much health these things are supposed to have, know their powers, and know their weaknesses. So change things up. Make them unpredictable. Instead of having zombies in front of them have them smell the rotting stench of a corpse, but when they come face to face they instead see a creature with a rotting body that has tendril fingers, six eyes that glow red, and an alien shriek that chills the air. In the moment they won't know what this creature is, won't be able to easily classify it, and this will make them feel uncertain - How deadly is this creature? What is it? What can it do to me? Related to this: don't have the players encounter the same types of creatures over and over - if your goal is horror or even to challenge them. Encountering this same strange being a second time might have other advantages: it allows them to apply knowledge they learned fighting it the first time making their progression feel meaningful - and if this is more valuable than creating horror by all means go that route, but if your primary goal is to create horror, than don't have redundant encounters.

Another way is to make the effects of an area erratic. One character who enters a haunted tomb goes blind as he enters. He comes out and reports this. The players might expect they'll all go blind on entry, and so prepare for this (maybe casting some kind of spell they think can prevent this, or taking a magical antidote). When they all enter only the first player goes blind. Another gets dizzy and has to roll to see if they can even walk on their own, another may not realize it right away but his gun (or whatever weapon) is covered in centuries of rust. This throws things off balance, and it's then not clear what will happen. 

Related to the above is the idea that player characters should not have the power to affect all levels of reality if your goal is horror. Having levels to reality allows there to be evil or horror that isn't defeatable or maybe even understandable. These outer levels though should be more hinted at and permeate scenes or areas. Directly fighting such evil is an exercise in futility. I like the way Spirit of the Century defines one of its primary antagonist NPCS: He's not so much a character as an event. A warning though: you must be careful how you use such levels of reality. If every time a character wants to cast a simple light spell in a dark place and you don't allow this to work because a deeper or stronger kind of magic is there it makes the player feel powerless and merely walking down whatever path you want them to instead of being able to make decisions themselves. 

With this then it should be noted that not every scene or even maybe the majority of them in a story should have the goal of creating horror. Horror is or is much like suspense. It needs to be built up gradually to work affectively, and if every scene has a horror beyond reason then once again this becomes the mundane. 

Why Changeling: The Lost is my favorite nWoD Game

The title and subject of this post makes me feel like I'm writing a corny grade school essay, but I really do love Changeling, and would like to share the many reasons why. I should say though that I don't dislike a single World of Darkness game. 

The True Fae are horrifying. 

    To paraphrase one of the Changeling books: In their realms, the True Faes' desires overrides the laws of nature. They're often hyper-intelligent, but sometimes in ways that humanity wouldn't recognize. They have no real compassion for mortals. They can alter a person's body in anyway that pleases them: distorting their very being into whatever their whims dictate. The fact that they are both alien, yet somehow understandable is scary. They can look like us, talk like us, but from there it's entirely chaotic. 

Robust Character Creation: 

 There are six basic Seemings (character race) and a million more specific Kiths (sub-races) that players can chose to be. In addition, players can combine seemings or kiths until they have a character concept they want to play. This matches the Chaotic nature of Faerie very well, and allows players to create nearly any Fae-being they can imagine. Before this, the main WoD books were very 5x5 (5 clans, 5 covenants for V:tR, same for Werewolf, Mage). Instead the Changeling writers made as many character types as made sense. I've run a few Changeling chronicles now, and a few players have duel-kithed or took duel-seemings, and the level of individuality felt by this was greatly appreciated. 

The World:

Changelings are able to go into all of these settings: The Mortal World, Arcadia (Faerie), The Hedge, and Dreams. This allows for many different kinds of chronicles to be run: from exploration games (Hedge, Arcadia), Protecting those you love (Dreams, Mortal World), Court Based Politics games (Mortal World, Hedge), epic games of vengeance and rescue (Arcadia, Hedge), and so on. 

Fetches: 

A straw man has taken over your old life - works your old job, plays with your children, and sleeps with your wife. Fetches can have great and terrible powers, or be weak. They are often antagonists, but can also be made into allies against the True Fae. They offer an interesting and personal being to act against or with you no matter what kind of chronicle you are in. 

Contracts & Pledges: 

I group these together because they're both the magic of Changelings. I like magic that has a cool story behind it. The fae make pacts with abstract concepts: stone, mirrors, hearth, et cetera. Everything only works for the Fae because they've made these pacts. Nothing makes sense unless a deal has been worked out, and often these are done in the way that allows the Fae to best exploit their contract (catches exists in all contracts to allow the free use of these). Pledges are similar to these. You pledge to another particular being to perform a task or do something, and in return you are rewarded. If you fail, you are punished - by the Wyrd (the mystical, chaotic Fate of the Fae). Player characters can be exploited by pledges and player characters can exploit others by pledges. This offers interest story devices and role play opportunities. 

The Seasonal Courts: 

It's usually a good sign of a game when I don't know what I want to play. Changeling overwhelms me with too many good options. Many seemings/kiths fascinate me, and all the seasonal courts' goals make sense to me. I like that (ideally) power changes every season, that each season has its own rituals and festivals, and that each Court has unique contracts associated with it. 

Goblin Markets: 

 This technically could have gone with the other settings, but I'm making its own heading. At the Goblin Markets you can trade away your youth, memories, eye color, for any number of odd benefits from the strange and shrewd goblins. Whole stories could also be told about the market - deals going bad, a rare object showing up. 

There are other interesting elements to Changeling (entitlements, hedge beasts, goblin contracts), but I feel I've covered enough of the game. I'm a huge fan of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and I like that Changeling uses the same kind of Fae magic and malicious though gentlemanly fae beings as JS&MN. The game offers any number of thematic ways to play it, but I love the subtitle's suggestion best: A Game of Beautiful Madness. 

Horror in Games (Stolen from Turtles All The Way Down)

This was my reply to Turtles All The Way Down.

Another Lovecraft quote I like: “Never state an horror when it can be suggested.”
—H.P. Lovecraft

Lately, similar to brining fear into a game, I’ve been thinking of how to create real horror in games. This largely comes down to creating fear.

I like Lovecraft’s advice - it’s somewhat similar to ’show don’t tell’. It’s scary to be give the raw sensory facts to players, as this is how their characters would perceive, and not simply say something like “Four zombies are standing in front of you.” This makes the threat of zombies sound mundane. Instead describing the stench of the corpses, the way their faces are rotting, their jaws hang loose might cause more fear.

Another way to take what he says is to just hint at the horrific undertow. Let the players know true horror exists just behind the curtain, but make it somewhat intangible. Something that can’t simply be beat by their fists. They might stop specific horrific threats, but something deeper, darker, and alien is still there despite their success.

The Happy Medium Principle (When Ought A GM Call For A Dice Roll Part ii)

A friend of mine has never played a pen and paper rpg before. He has played games like Baldur's Gate though, so he has some familiarity with how a past DnD system works. Trying to explain what pnp gaming is like to someone who hasn't done it before can be difficult because other types of games have little in common, so finding an appropriate analogy is hard. 

One thing he asked me is do you roll for everything? 

And this is something I'd thought about before: What principled ways can a GM call for a dice roll? This is the philosopher in me being concerned that I'm merely using intuitive feelings to decide when it's appropriate to ask players for a dice roll and not a rational principle. If a GM asked players to roll for everything, this would be principled. It would also be tedious and turn role play into nothing more than a dice game. 

At the opposite end of absolutism one could never ask for a dice roll (in something that's intended to be a dice rolled rpg), but then it's not clear that there is a mutually agreed upon conflict resolution system between players and GM on how to decide outcomes - I'd worry a GM in such cases is being needlessly whimsical. 

In the games we play it seems we're trying to have a happy medium. We want dice rolling to decide conflict resolution, but we don't want any trivial thing that could be contested to be rolled out, and we don't want to do away with dice rolling completely as then it's unclear why some things are successful and some things are not. 

Attempts at a happy medium:

These are really just off the top of my head (which means I'll probably think about this more and post again on this later): 

All significant actions ought to be dice rolled. This calls out for a definition of significant otherwise it's just a restatement of: We need a principled happy medium. Let's say significant actions are those that the story turns upon, that will alter characters depending on the outcome. For some, this might be problematic because many things that we do call for dice rolls may not fall under this. For more dice heavy gamers, this then would be seen as a bad principle. However, others might respond that maybe those gamers aren't being principled (or following a different one), and this principle would work for gamers who want to be more permissive on the minor details. 

The principle might also depend on the kind of game being played: are the characters heroic/supernatural or mundane? 

If the characters are in the first group, then it could be good to take for granted that they are capable of succeeding at many mundane actions without rolling. If they're in the second group this might not be assumed. 

Those are my scattershot thoughts on returning to the issue of dice rolling. 

Some Games I'd Like To Play

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Story Within A Story Game

This is something I'd like to see or make for a game:

An inter-related set of story-worlds that are all stories that are being told within the other worlds. Or, at least, one story world that constantly refers to another story world. 

I'll elaborate: 

Players start with multiple character sheets. Each is designed for a different setting: one might take place in an ancient, mythical time, one during the Renaissance, another during the early 21st Century, and one in the distant future (I'm using different chronological periods of our own world, but this is not necessary). In fact, having this many different settings could end up being too chaotic. I'll focus on only two instead. For example, Renaissance and mythical time. 

Each of these settings is controlled by a different player. The players are all well aware in advance of the different worlds, who GMs which, and who the players play in each world.

So, say, the first story starts in the Renaissance. The Renaissance story continues for awhile - maybe a few hours, maybe a session or two, but at some point one of the characters says that a myth of the ancient world is relevant to their current situation, and so the player's jump to the ancient past and begin living out this myth. This might go on for awhile, and eventually either the GM of the mythic past turns back into the character in the Renaissance narrating - and then they once again start playing their game in the Renaissance. 

Obviously problems could happen: 

What if the ancient myth doesn't really tie into the current situation? - This would be a criticism against the literary merit of this particular chronicle, but still might be fun to play. 

What if the two GMs constantly try to force switching narrative roles when the other doesn't want to? This could be a more serious problem. Really, this kind of gaming would require two mature and diplomatic GMs to work properly. Related:

What if one GM doesn't want to relinquish control? Same answer as above.

This game would likely be far more situationalist than narrative or gamist based. If played at all, it would probably need to be played for the love of exploring different settings. This would both be a limitation and something to embrace. 

Another - not problem per se - but style the game would have to embrace is impromptu storytelling. Because each GM may not know much before a switch occurs they'd have to know how to continue their part of the game at anytime. 

Also, related to this style of game, or another form of it, is having characters who are virtually immortal: Highlanders, Vampires, et cetera and having them flashback to past centuries. With this, I've been wanting to do this with Requiem for Rome and Vampire: The Requiem to jump from the Roman eras with kindred who've recently awoken from torpor in modern nights. 

Thoughts on this? Anyone try any of these styles of play? Anyone recommend any games that are especially open to this style of play? 

Books, movies, etc I'd like to see licensed into games.

I'm sure there's lot of other things that could be added to this, but here's some movies, books, and video games I'd like to be made into pen and paper rpgs:

Harry Potter: This seems like an obvious starting place. Come on, picture character creation: What house did the sorting hat place you in? Do you favor charms, curses, maybe broomsticks? prophecy? I'm not the biggest Potter geek, but I have to give the series credit: the world is lavish, and I want to run around Hogwarts, and Diagon Ally. 

Night Watch: This is a Russian book/movie series. Personally, I enjoyed the first novel, but preferred the movie series. It sounds like a basic mythology (but is very well executed): There are Others who are light or dark. Over time, they realized they'd destroy each other if they continued to fight. They have a treaty, of sorts. The light watches over night, and the dark watches over day. They make sure neither side gets to powerful. The world and magic of the world is flavorful enough that it could be its own game franchise. Really though, there's no reason why you couldn't just adapt the World of Darkness (Mage specifically) to play a Night Watch game. 

The Kingkiller Chronicle (The Name of the Wind): So far Rothfuss has only released the first book, but The Name of the Wind has wowed both the press and legends in the fantasy field (Ursula K. Le Guin, Orson Scott Card). The series has hardly begun to explore the rich mythology of the world but we already have humans, fey, as well as darker, stranger creatures (I love the Chandrian) . We have an academy (great base location for any game), cool magic: sympathy and whatever knowing the name of something is called (it's been awhile since I read the book). I'm anxious to see where the series goes, but also anxious to see if a game gets made based on this series. 

Kingdom Hearts: I like this series too much. Really though, the game offers up many fun, classic Disney worlds, as well as original worlds. You have standard Final Fantasy classes, as well as the Keyblade wielder. 

Who Framed Roger Rabbit? I'm not kidding. Film noir world + Cartoon world = two unique worlds that offer players the ability to be vastly different kinds of characters. The one problem: What the hell would you do in this game? 

The Matrix: Another obvious choice. Next. 

Sandman: Obvious as well. Damn.

Okay, I'll just say there's any number of other fantasy books or vertigo comic book series that I'd like to see made into games. I really don't need to catalog everyone of them. Anything you'd like to see made into a game? 

What Makes A Game Entertaining?

Yesterday in my 8 Qualities a Game Should Have, I listed the first quality as ‘entertaining’.
I don’t regret putting this on the list, but like some of the other qualities, this is such a general concept, it needs more exploration.

So, what makes a game entertaining?

This is a big question. One that’s going to have lots of answers, but here’s a preliminary exploration:

An rpg is entertaining when it engages players (GM included) in conflict.

• This can be dramatic conflict where story characters act against player characters or vice versa or
• Physical conflict in which players must make important tactical decisions to both survive and thrive or
• In an ethical dilemma where players’ characters are forced to engage the world in a way where no matter what their decision will matter.

An rpg is entertaining when “the plot” is not obviously linear.

• Good players will give the GM a break and go to a plot location, especially as the game begins, to help progress the story forward, but if the entire game the players are asked not to make real decisions but to simply jump from one plot point to the next and their input does not matter, then this is dull for the players. In such cases, the GM has something more like a novel outline, and not an rpg.

An rpg is entertaining when the characters have depth.

• A character who merely acts as the vessel for a player’s whims is uninteresting. Their past does not matter, their actions are not meaningful, and characters like this are all the more likely to break the mood or genre of the game. The player of this character in such cases might be entertained, but it is less likely the whole group will be (unless all their characters are this shallow).

The first statement could be seen as from a GM or game designer standpoint, the second from a GM standpoint, and the third from a player standpoint. There are obviously more answers to what makes a game entertaining, so feel free to share your thoughts.

8 Qualities A Game Should Have

What qualities does a game need to have for you to want to play it or purchase it? 

My list:

1. Entertaining - if it's not fun, why bother? 

2. Genre/setting/theme that interests me in some way. This could be something like: low fantasy, morally ambiguous game that asks the question: How far will you go to change the world? 

3. Simple rules. I hate stopping game play every ten minutes to look something up. ESPECIALLY when there is no index, or the index is awful. 

4. Potential for ongoing games/stories. I've played several indie games as one shots, and I enjoy them, but I prefer to have longer games that allow characters to develop over time and the potential for long stories. 

5. Fun or short character creation. I hate spending an hour (or longer) on character creation that feels like work. Simply put: character creation needs to be fun or short.

6. Does not require supplement books to play. I don't mind supplement books, and often enjoy them. However, I can't stand lugging around a shelf of books unless I have a damn good reason to do so. 

7. Conflict resolution that is either cinematic, simple or both. I don't mind making four dice rolls for a single turn if I get to narrate something cool, but I'd much prefer making a single (easy to figure out) roll and getting to make that same narration. 

8. The game should promote roleplay. I don't care if other players aren't using funny voices (I do), but if the game doesn't get them to think about their character as a character and not a pawn to move around, then it's not really a roleplay game. - I will say sometimes this is the player's fault, no matter how good the game is. 

How Morality is Portrayed in RPGs: part iii

World of Darkness: Virtues and Vices

One (possibly shallow) problem with virtue ethics is that it does not tell us what we ought to do as well as deontology or consequentialism. Deontology, in the form of the categorical imperative offers advice on how to proceed in certain situations as does utilitarianism, which offers up something like a cost benefit analysis of pleasure v. pain. These moral systems offer solutions in many cases - sometimes too easily [Bernard Williams makes this criticism of Utilitarianism], or not the answer we want to say is moral, but they offer solutions where virtue ethics might be unclear on answers. When a teenage girl is pregnant and she wants to decide if she ought to get an abortion she can weigh the pleasures v. pain this could cause now and throughout her life and her relationships to others, she can look at the interpretations of the categorical imperative and wonder if she'd be treating the fetus as a mere means, but what do the virtues tell her? 

Is it courageous to get an abortion or to have the baby? It can be in both cases. 

Is it just? - It's hard to say in the moment that a decision needs to be made (or even hypothetically with infinite time). 

Temperance, wise - none of these may help. 

But what if she asks: What would the virtuous person do? Would Socrates have an abortion? 

Neither of these questions seems helpful to anyone who isn't virtuous already. 

Yet despite this, we clearly recognize some situations where virtues are applicable: it's charitable to give money to non-profit organizations like Doctors Without Borders, it's courageous of firemen to selflessly run into the flames to save another's life. In turn, it's cowardly of the firefighter who has been properly trained who doesn't run into the building that's only partially on fire and not in danger of collapsing. It's wrathful to beat someone who's only committed the slightest of crimes against you - or merely been accused. 

I don't know if this is common, but when going over moral theory deontology and consequentialism were often paired off against each other, while virtue ethics seemed to handle morality from such a different standpoint it wasn't necessarily against the other two theories. In fact, I've heard that Buddhism can be interpreted (morally) as self-effacing consequentialism that utilizes virtue ethics to reach the best consequences. Virtue ethics is often more about our relationships with others while deontology and consequentialism are about finding a principled way of abstracting all moral problems. 

Related more directly to the WoD: I like that the virtues and vices stand apart from Morality the mechanic. It reminds me of this separation in how it was viewed in studying morality. I also like that being virtuous contributes to willpower. There is no happiness or eudiamonia (mechanically speaking) in WoD, but the fact that being a virtuous person replenishes your willpower suggests very much that it is good to be virtuous.