Lines, and When to Cross Them

Landon's post this last week is very much in the same vein as what I've been talking about, and he brings up an important point. While all tabletop RPGs have some manner of social contract going down between the players with what is or is not cool at the table, these are doubly important for horror, especially in Vathak.

And this isn't just because it helps you refine what to target among your players (it does), but because it also tells you what not to target. Certain limitations that individuals have are fears they might be okay with addressing in a fantasy game.

For instance, perhaps you are sending your players into a dusty old manor that once belonged to a noble of Ursatur, but has been sealed since the Plague of Shadows swept through the city. You want to set an uneasy hook and ensure your players know what's what and just how wrong this place is, but where do you begin?

With big-ass spiders, of course!

Well, if you had that Session Zero talk, you might know that one of your players is an arachnophobe. You should also know whether or not they're okay with addressing that in a game. Some people might jump at the opportunity to lash out against their primal fear in a completely safe space, while others are going to be paralyzed with terror.

The former player will probably enjoy that experience, having a touch of horror that not only affects her character (no PC wants to be eaten by a spider) but also has just enough unease that it gets her as a player invested in her character's fear. It goes beyond the conditional penalty slapped onto the statblock and actually pulls the player into the setting. She gets to fight back against that otherwise crippling phobia as the heroic character she might wish to be.

But the second player? That's a line you should never cross.

Effective horror is playful horror. Your character might have the frightened condition and you as a player might feel a little uneasy... but you as a player are never endangered. You should feel something--effective horror does this regardless of the medium it is presented it--but at no point do you personally feel under attack.

And don't get me wrong: Vathak is a terribly uneasy place. Your characters should experience moments of abject terror and there will absolutely be times where you as a player feel some discomfiture. But these never cross the line from endangering the character to endangering the player. Just as the audience of a horror movie might be scared, they are never endangered or elevated to the same level of terror as the subjects on screen. There is a sense of empathy and shared fear--but (barring lines being crossed) it is a safe space to experience these feelings. And, more often than not, there is a heroic conclusion where the dread-evil-horror-slasher-whatever is defeated and the unease dissipates to return the world to normalcy.

And if it was never formally addressed in Session Zero whether or not any particular line was okay to cross?

Air on the side of caution.

If you think you might be going too far, then there's a good chance you are. And, if you are still absolutely compelled to go for it (I mean, who doesn't love giant spiders, right?), then just talk to your players. Hit them up before or after the game and double-check what lines are or are not okay to cross. As any good GM knows, you are never truly the enemy of the players--no matter what the baddies you roll dice for might indicate.

Sinking a Horrific Hook

I talked last week about the idea of unease being the gateway into horror. For Shadows over Vathak, there is no shortage of uneasy elements upon which to play. Whispers of the Plague of Shadows in Ina'oth, or the terrible Spawn of the Old Ones surfacing in southern Vathak and swallowing entire villages can make great backdrops to the horror elements closer to home, but they serve only as window dressing.

The frozen backdrop of northern Grigoria can be a bleak setting suited for setting that hook.

Image courtesy of Rick's masterful art in my own Faces of Vathak: Survivors.

In order to get your players truly embroiled in the horror that their characters are experiencing, you need to find a good way to set that horrific hook. It's about finding that hole in the armor of your player characters and exploiting it in just the right way as to get them invested in something that might not otherwise care about.

Horror is a delicate art that can quickly sweep too far to either side of the balance. Lean too much in the favor of direct problems with hit-points and you get a "horror" romp that is solved with standard murder-hobo antics. Too far into a narrative "everything is spooky!" bent and your players feel powerless or uninterested. After all, what is the point of being fantasy heroes if they cannot use their fantastic powers to solve these problems?

To add an extra level of complication, effective horror requires that you not only know your player characters, but the players behind them. Knowing what things unsettle them without going too far and crossing boundaries they're uncomfortable with only amplifies the balancing act you need to perform as a GM.

 

More images from Rick's Patreon! Why aren't you supporting him yet? 

Setting that hook, then, is about appealing to the players you know in a way that their characters might care about. To return to the frozen wilderness of northern Grigoria, cold and darkness provide excellent tools for setting the scene. But what happens when those start acting unusually? When darkness comes too soon, or the winter winds cut through even early autumn? What about when an NPC the players have interacted with comes staggering back from the forest, aged a half-dozen years and without any of his companions--and, perhaps even more troublingly, without a clear memory of what happened?

Setting that hook is all about building upon the mundane aspects of horror and fear that we all know, then twisting them into that uncanny, uneasy territory where horror dwells. Finding that mundane detail upon which to drive your narrative knife and twist, however, is masterpiece that only you can create. No author knows what makes your players squirm better than you.