#RPGaDAY 2019 19: SCARY

RPGaDAY 2019

19: SCARY

How scary can a tabletop game be?

I do a lot of horror games, but they’re really in the genre of horror rather than actually trying to evoke the feeling. Having the PCs lack power in relation to the setting can work, but can also be frustrating and stressful. The narrative reveal in a story is something you can manage and that can work very well, but horror in other media has a lot more tricks.

Dread creates real tension with its Jenga resolution mechanic, but that’s hard to sustain past a one-shot.

(And horror is good for one-shots generally, although it can lead to players expecting a Total Party Kill at the end of the adventure and leaning in to that.)

LARPs are much better for evoking real scares, where you can have actual jumps and noises and things looming out of the dark at the players. They have all the tricks of a haunted attraction, while a tabletop game has the GM’s voice, maybe some music and mood lighting, and that’s it.

But a scary story can still deliver. Tone goes a long way, and mysterious and ominous events in the adventure can provide a pleasant frisson of creeps.

That atmosphere is a fragile thing, though. Everybody has to be in the mood for it. Horror has a particularly high risk of premise rejection.

You can also drop a scary adventure into a not-normally-scary series, perhaps with a change in the power level of the threat. See my post on the rare horror episodes of Buffy. But again, everybody has to be on board - doubly so if they’re invested in the regular not-scary adventures and their characters.