It may be just me, but I've never taken the tropes of Lovecraftian gaming (or fiction) as actual "horror" subsequent to the first time I read HPL at age 13. I enjoy it, but there's no sense of cosmic horror, weirdness, etc. It's just give me the clues and let's get to it. And I think that 4th wall attitude goes back right to some very early published CoC material such as doggerel verses inserted into early editions and so on. It was never really horror any more than DnD was ever "imagine actually going down into a dark hole looking for gold and meeting ferocious monsters".
It's always been gamey, and that's fine.
Has that been your experience?
For a CoC game to REALLY work and be kind of "Scary", both the Players and GM have to buy into it and immerse themselves into the RPG and situation.
I did play not that long ago in a CoC mini campaign and we all got right into it.
We refrained from the usual cracking of jokes you see in Dnd sessions and tried to stay in character and react as if it was real.
It was a lot of fun and whilst it was never truly "Scary" as in any of us as players "Scared", we were immersed in the game and felt the sense of urgency and RP of character fear.
It was a lot of fun.
I agree. There's definitely a distinct "feel" to Lovecraft's fiction and the mythos in general, and I like it and have been a fan since I discovered Lovecraft as a 12 year old. But I wouldn't describe that feel as "scary".
The "horror" of Lovecraft is hard to grasp, which is why CoC often becomes a game of "last Investigator standing/sane" rather than anything scary.
I don't find HPL's fiction scary at all. I did find Crouch End by Stephen King unnerving, and I once scared myself GMing The Haunted House, whereas my player/wife wasn't scared at all!
Quote from: RandyB;1106599The "horror" of Lovecraft is hard to grasp, which is why CoC often becomes a game of "last Investigator standing/sane" rather than anything scary.
This has been my experience as well.
So far, the scariest horror game I have run was using Colin Dunn's ideas for Pentapod technology in
2300AD, where human beings are viewed as just components for the Pentapods to use in their technological constructs - kind of like what we see in
OATS-Zygote (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKWB-MVJ4sQ) and the 3rd season of
Stranger Things.
While I enjoy HPL fiction I did start becoming less afraid of reading it, as too often the sense of doom and futility he projected about humanity vs the Cthulhu Mythos just began to annoy me. Yes humanity is fucked and screwed going up against them you know it would be nice to have the constant futility of doom and gloom for humanity. The only HPL fiction which had both a sense of doom and gloom vs humanity learning from and fighting back towards the Mythos. Is from Brian Lumley Mythos Omnibus which is panne by many HPL fans as how dare humanity fight back with knowledge and tools and the Eldar symbol they find and acquire over time.
Buy-in is everything as dansemacbre has said. That macho guy who swears horror is lame and doesn't scare him isn't invulnerable as he thinks he is but he is a disruption for the other players. Horror is one of those things you can't even begin to pull off with the X-Card crowd because going there is exactly how horror works. Yeah you can dim the lights and use candles and black curtains and that's fine for ambience but horror works on discomfort and teasing. Because if Cthulhu bursts out of the water and starts destroying New York while fighting the army he's reduced to a Kaiju. Similarly if you go the SAW route and just have the PCs tied up an tortured for the whole session you probably won't have any players next week but if you imply that it's a real possibility it'll make them sweat.
The problem with Lovecraft's work as modern horror is that it was very much aimed at an audience that went to church on Sunday and looked forward to the second coming of Jesus Christ with a bit of existential terror. The idea that god is coming and doesn't love us and doesn't know us and doesn't care about us is very important subtext to the story Call of Cthulhu. The vampires, and werewolves don't scare us much anymore. But the crazy guy with a knife, the stalker, the false friend, these guys still resonate. There's still room for the supernatural but it plays better if it can be shored up with some science. But one other issue with horror is that it takes time to build up the immersion in the setting and story that are needed to make it work. They have to care before you can scare them.
Fear is just one of the words associated with horror. Other words include repulsion, dismay and dread. The easiest for us to feel as either readers of the stories or players of the game are repulsion and dismay. We might, if we're really into the story, experience a sense of dawning dread as things progress. Breaking the fourth wall and experiencing fear is quite difficult for any author (or GM) to do. I don't think I've ever personally been afraid while consuming any form of media. Those other forms or horror are far more likely to hit home.
Quote from: SavageSchemer;1106614Fear is just one of the words associated with horror. Other words include repulsion, dismay and dread. The easiest for us to feel as either readers of the stories or players of the game are repulsion and dismay. We might, if we're really into the story, experience a sense of dawning dread as things progress. Breaking the fourth wall and experiencing fear is quite difficult for any author (or GM) to do. I don't think I've ever personally been afraid while consuming any form of media. Those other forms or horror are far more likely to hit home.
It's hard to make a rpg game downright scary, since many horror game roleplayers are into everything horror like books and movies. When you're young you might find a certain movie scary but it's very very hard to get that feeling as an old hardcore horror movie fan. But you could achieve
creepy with scenarios and roleplaying sessions. Lovecraft was just as much about body horror as cosmic horror. Deformities, incest, disease and things chained in basements is easier to make something creepy out of than some cult about to summon some cosmic horror. Maybe it's just me, but I find the end of the world and all humanity less frightening than the odd, diseased end of a loved one.
Also the loss of familarity is a very frightening concept in my book. It's easier to play out in Kult where the illusion might be thinner in some places, but it could work in CoC too. A scenario that's inspired by capgras delusion for instance could be quite disturbing.
I don't know think it was every scary because I never found it the least bit interesting. That's not a stab a people that like it, but it's not the flavor for me just as I have never enjoyed watching Dr. Who despite having a wife that loves it. Where I have encountered HPLs stuff and made gaming use of it was in Conan games where my HPL mixes with REH and there I don't find it particularly scary because the protagonists tend to be the ones that survive while every damn NPC dies horribly. Every once in a while a PC goes down, but that just isn't scary in any sense.
This thread is full of excellent ideas. Yes, horror RPGing can be "scary" if the players want to be scared. Much like a horror movie. People buy tickets to a horror movie because they want to make believe the movie is "real" and they want to be scared, that's enhanced by the darkened room, the lack of outside distractions and the ambient sounds and music.
Also, different people find different things "scary" or "creepy" and what affects one or more players might not affect all, but the key to horror gaming is significant player buy-in to the concept and immersion.
Real life can be scary because the stakes are real and things can happen you have no control over but desperately cling to prayers or any unlikely hope; scary in a way people can't enjoy.
Movies or books can be scary in a way people can enjoy (although not everyone does) because filmmakers and authors are good at manipulating the audience to care about the characters or situation, and the audience has no control over what happens beyond cheering on the characters they identify with and hoping things work out so their favorite character is OK. They can cover their eyes or put down the book and remind themselves that none of it is real, but that means the scariness worked.
It's a lot harder in an RPG because the mechanics of the game distract and by design give the players a lot of control over what happens and a lot of knowledge over how things work. The best case for scary in an RPG is for the players to care about their characters (usually by virtue of investing playing time in developing them and their place in the game world), and to be put in a situation where they are uncertain of what to do but believe that their character might e OK - the stakes are their precious character and they are scared that each choice they make might in hindsight be obviously, tragically wrong. Cthulhu is likely to fail at scary because it's hopeless - the characters and the world are doomed, so players don't value their characters or their place in the world; and there's no hope that anything good will result if they're just lucky enough or good enough.
I still get some zing out of reading original Lovecraft, but never did get much out of his direct imitators. Lovecraft draws on a LOT of different influences. His cheaper fans just draw on Lovecraft.
The Mythos is NOT the part that's scary, it's weird, can give you that sense of alien vistas... but not scary.
Yet so many hacks seem to cling to name dropping Cthulhu and its whole family tree.
Lovecraftian tales that work for me pretty much dispense with the Mythos references. Something like Alien or Uzumaki hits me in the right places without trying to summon Lovecraft's soggy ghost. Same with a lot of Thomas Ligotti and Robert Aickman (who I doubt even read much Lovecraft).
So I try to aim for the same in games... keeping things immediate and personal (and generally shunning the big pulpy CoC world-hopping campaigns). The Mythos is out there, somewhere, but needn't be conjured by name... it's just a foundation to build on. Certain themes like alienation, vast cycles of time, inexplicable events, corruption and madness.
Still, 'scary' is a hard target to hit. I've had a good number of 'scary' experiences in gaming, but I think that has more to do with my being receptive to such things... WANTING to be scared... than it does with anything the GM did, except not getting in my way.
As a GM I won't even attempt 'scary' unless I've got the right group... no lame jokes, references to pop-culture, no min-maxing. Instead I'll just steer towards 'weird and disconcerting' and hope I miss the reefs of 'silly.'
Smaller groups of Players, shorter campaigns, Players who genuinely WANT to be scared... that's my base formula.
Quote from: The_Shadow;1106590Has Cthulhu role-playing EVER actually been scary?
The last Cthulhu game I was in was. But then I actively look for players to be in a game with now that are also looking for scary to happen. In high school, I didn't know HPL, so games played like Indy Jones (not scary).
Gaming sessions are also less creepy/scary for veteran CoC players, players who can guess what Mythos being it is just by a brief description, maybe a buzzing sound ("Aha, Mi-go"). The best thing is to be rather vague, break the usual mold or create some entirely different abomination (custom made for that scenario). There's also moments that can destroy something potentially creepy, like if the scenario ends up with shotguns/tommy guns vs the Mythos in the end. A different era, like the fur trapping era of the early 19th century with muskets and Arkansas Toothpicks could make the horror seem more intense, or if the setting is such that Investigators aren't packing enough weapons to star in Commando 2. An NPC, a grizzled old guide with a hunting rifle in an antarctic milieu who gets dragged down by some unnamable thing beneath the pack ice when out hunting seal one day - leaving behind only a bloody trail, his Remington .30-06 with just three shots left and the memory of his old dirty jokes...well, that would be a different story.
As a side note, I find Stephen King's "N" to be a fantastic story. He has said that his main inspiration was Machen, but the story is very Lovecraftian imo.
Does anybody here follow Sandy Petersen's rules?
https://youtu.be/_B5kd05_hqY
Quote from: Cave Bear;1106736Does anybody here follow Sandy Petersen's rules?
https://youtu.be/_B5kd05_hqY
Well, I have seen the video before and it's pretty solid advice. It's also good to check out Q&A:s with famous horror writers and directors. You can always pick something up.
It can be difficult to create a scary experience through GM skill alone. I do think that if the players care about their characters the limited SAN points and highly lethal combat help to make it scary.
One good ol boy with a shotgun is scarier than most things in D&D as a PC is unlikely to survive one hit.
For my group I don't think we ever really aimed for "scary" in our CoC games. Some combination of mystery/investigation and tentacles & tommyguns was more our speed.
Quote from: Conanist;1106758It can be difficult to create a scary experience through GM skill alone. I do think that if the players care about their characters the limited SAN points and highly lethal combat help to make it scary.
One good ol boy with a shotgun is scarier than most things in D&D as a PC is unlikely to survive one hit.
Yeah, the shotgun seems to be the ultimate weapon of mass destruction in CoC. That and dynamite. There's this forum post about shotguns in CoC, and how effective they are against Mythos creatures.
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=10197 (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=10197)
A lot of my CoC play experience has suffered from a sense of distancing because other players don't want to be there. But I like horror, and once I have a critical mass of fellows who buy-in we can have a great time! They tend to be either horror fans, and/or good at "unclenching" their needs for control, and/or enjoy immersion most.
You cannot make someone enjoy what they don't want to do. :) So I find the best thing to do is weed out the disinterested immediately, and make it comfortably permissable to back out of a game they would not enjoy. That's my first and perhaps most important advice on how to make CoC scary.
The rest is an artfulness of having "safety and comfort" and then removing them, first through doubt, then physicality, and finally existentially. And it's a vacillating loss, sometimes that "safety and comfort" returns, goes, returns again changed, goes again permanently in some way, etc. It's a sweet, slow torture of melting the old coherency away into a new coherency, where you have to relearn to survive it. ;)
Biggest advice after that, scale down threats to what you desire to explore. i.e. Want more mind-explodey circumstantial evidence, yet need to tone down the gun-play security blanket? Introduce confined spaces, darkness, incorporality, pierce immunity, high numbers, resurrection, etc. But you still have to "re-arm" your Investigators, because without any sense of hope, any adaption to pursue safety, people tend to shut down & go limp until the pain is over. So play up the power of Archaology, Accounting, Credit Rating, etc. whatever you see feeds into your desired mind-explodey revelations. Answer what sort of conflicts and solutions you prefer then work back into how to phrase the setups and questions -- like working a maze from the goal back out to the entrance.
So: Know Your Audience. Scale you Setup to Reflect your Desired Playstyle. and From Safety Ebb into Madness, While Still Leaving Hope. :cool:
It's not just RPGs where Cthulhu isn't scary. All those Arkham games from FFG, while often well written, aren't the slightest bit scary. The entire Mythos is so over exposed that it's about a threatening as Skeletor.
For RPGs, the game is further removed from actual fear when you start creating RPG characters; how they found out about Chthulhu, why they are fighting them, what secrets or weapons they have. You end up playing where instead of the GM making the players scared, the players are deciding if their character is scared. You have a bunch of players pretending to be scared which destroys any possibility of actual fear.
Quote from: GIMME SOME SUGAR;1106777Yeah, the shotgun seems to be the ultimate weapon of mass destruction in CoC. That and dynamite. There's this forum post about shotguns in CoC, and how effective they are against Mythos creatures.
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=10197 (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=10197)
Solution: Mythos creatures armed with shotguns.
Quote from: hedgehobbit;1106782It's not just RPGs where Cthulhu isn't scary. All those Arkham games from FFG, while often well written, aren't the slightest bit scary. The entire Mythos is so over exposed that it's about a threatening as Skeletor.
I know Skeletor, I love Skeletor ... but I have to agree that he's rarely been threatening. And the Mythos is not only overexposed, but most of the people in the hobby think the described advent of the Great Old Ones something to be anticipated. :)
Quote from: danskmacabre;1106591For a CoC game to REALLY work and be kind of "Scary", both the Players and GM have to buy into it and immerse themselves into the RPG and situation.
I did play not that long ago in a CoC mini campaign and we all got right into it.
We refrained from the usual cracking of jokes you see in Dnd sessions and tried to stay in character and react as if it was real.
It was a lot of fun and whilst it was never truly "Scary" as in any of us as players "Scared", we were immersed in the game and felt the sense of urgency and RP of character fear.
It was a lot of fun.
I think this is a really good balance. I wouldn't want my horror games to actually be horrifying, because the players are no longer in full control of themselves, and thus no longer fully connected to the game.
I'm more on the Pulp side myself, with plenty of OOC nonsense allowed, but would definitely buy in fully to your kind of game, for a one-shot at least.
Quote from: Cave Bear;1106785Solution: Mythos creatures armed with shotguns.
:D
Quote from: Opaopajr;1106781A lot of my CoC play experience has suffered from a sense of distancing because other players don't want to be there. But I like horror, and once I have a critical mass of fellows who buy-in we can have a great time! They tend to be either horror fans, and/or good at "unclenching" their needs for control, and/or enjoy immersion most.
I have a player who refuses to play CoC and horror gaming in general, although we played some Kult 1st edition back in the early 90's, but that was mostly because he loved his veteran cop character who didn't play by the rules, sort of a cross between an old George C Scott and Dirty Harry.
He also refuses to watch horror movies. I think it's because he actually gets scared. So I'm thinking, ideally, he would be a great horror rpg player, someone who could actually find scenarios a bit scary for real with the right ambience. But I would never sucker him into a horror scenario or try to convince him to play one. After all, roleplaying is about having fun in the end. But there have been moments in our fantasy gaming sessions where there have been some horror crossover moments, which has worked out ok for him. Maybe upcoming Swedish Chill can become his gateway to horror if it's more in the Hammer horror vein like the Pacesetter version was in the 80's. I don't think he would have too much problem playing some kind of capable Van Helsing character.
I can do weird, twisted and creepy pretty good as a GM/Keeper, but downright scary has never been achieved during a gaming session of mine I believe. It's hard now when we're all in our late 40's. But having ambient SFX and dark ambient, low key horror music has helped me these days to create a more immersive feeling. Back when we were young such tools weren't available really.
Quote from: hedgehobbit;1106782The entire Mythos is so over exposed that it's about a threatening as Skeletor.
Agreed. That's another reason I like Sine Nomine's SILENT LEGIONS (https://www.bigbadcon.com/events/categories/rpg/). It includes interesting tools and ideas for creating your own unique "Mythos".
GIMME SOME SUGAR, that is very thoughtful to let your friend gracefully bow out without having to expose his discomfort. It is an important reminder that our insight and fluid social contract can tend for those we care about without "explicit confessionals," a la X Card or Consent Forms. Sometimes the explicit is helpful, but sometimes the implicit is helpful; there is no singular right answer when it comes to the form of shaping social dynamics. :)
Quote from: danskmacabre;1106591For a CoC game to REALLY work and be kind of "Scary", both the Players and GM have to buy into it and immerse themselves into the RPG and situation.
Yes.
Usually the DM works hard to build up dramatic tension. Then someone cracks a joke.
Well, there are ways to bleed reality into a CoC session... T.E.D. Klein's "Black Man witha Horn" is a good example of blurring the line between the reader and the narrator... and the confessional narrator that the narrator is further reading. Similarly you can do with any angel & demon material (e.g. IN SJG) with all the modern confessional anecdotes in media. It just takes a little bit of Weird News column in any newspaper and some Artist Suggestion. Let the players cook up their own conspiracy! :D
Quote from: Opaopajr;1106962GIMME SOME SUGAR, that is very thoughtful to let your friend gracefully bow out without having to expose his discomfort. It is an important reminder that our insight and fluid social contract can tend for those we care about without "explicit confessionals," a la X Card or Consent Forms. Sometimes the explicit is helpful, but sometimes the implicit is helpful; there is no singular right answer when it comes to the form of shaping social dynamics. :)
Yes, there's no need for X-cards or sensitivity questionnaires when you have known a person for a very long time. I also know he doesn't like ketchup and mustard on his burgers. I also know he is the murder/rape hobo of our gaming group so he isn't sensitive in that way. Murder, rape, the razing of villages and other horrendous stuff has always been present in our fantasy gaming mostly thanks to him. He's also prone to derailing stuff if he gets bored and feel there's no action, but I love him anyway although it can be a bit frustrating at times. But now that his most skilled warrior PC is dead, he has been forced to follow the rest of the gaming group. Hopefully, someday, he will feel what joy it is to really finish a campaign or a longer adventure. And in my dreams, what joy it can be to play a genuine good guy.:D
Quote from: Opaopajr;1106967Well, there are ways to bleed reality into a CoC session... T.E.D. Klein's "Black Man witha Horn" is a good example of blurring the line between the reader and the narrator... and the confessional narrator that the narrator is further reading. Similarly you can do with any angel & demon material (e.g. IN SJG) with all the modern confessional anecdotes in media. It just takes a little bit of Weird News column in any newspaper and some Artist Suggestion. Let the players cook up their own conspiracy! :D
I also imagine that blending the fictive gaming material with let's say GM-created webpages, forums and stuff could also be a way to bleed reality into a modern horror scenario. If I had the know-how I would probably test such a thing, for some KULT scenario. Imagine some harmonious, pretty website with some order akin to Odd Fellows where the order presents itself as a charity order. In reality they harbour an inner circle called
The Connoisseurs who practice ritual cannibalism. Expensive wines served at long tables together with the roasted rumps of missing children and other long pig delicacies.
Shotguns are no joke. I was talking to the Ops & Tactics designer about them on Discord a couple weeks back. You can load shotguns with a wide variety of different ammo types, and you can affix different kinds of chokes to shape the spread. Shotguns have power, but they also have versatility.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1106963Yes.
Usually the DM works hard to build up dramatic tension. Then someone cracks a joke.
Yeah, I've been guilty of that in my younger days, but I learned how disruptive and mood killing it can be in the more "Serious" RPGs.