With each of my daughters, I made the yearly pilgrimage to the mall to get the oh-so-desired picture of them in their cute little Easter dresses with the Easter Bunny. Well, in advance, they were told of the wonders of the Easter Bunny, of how he would bring candies and gifts and hide eggs for them to find. None of this ever caused a stir. But, at the moment they were brought over in their tiny little shiny black shoes or handed over from mother or father's arms, there was a tremendous terror growing in them. Screaming, crying, pleading, and begging erupted, with their poor mother or me left trying to coax an acceptable picture out of them with whatever bribery I could muster.
The bottom line is that words and deeds alone cannot prepare children for the horror that is a five and a half foot tall Easter Bunny with white or cyan fur, large glassy eyes, and teeth that seem better fitted to chomping at arms and legs than at the carrots left by children. This creature is the epitome of nightmares for a child, somethings that is ultimately terrifying, but something that their parents will not protect them from.
This kind of fear is what I want to capture in my horror games; however, it is very difficult to catch an adult off-guard with a life size version of the monsters which we use in our games. Perhaps if I had my own warehouse somewhere and all the time and money I could desire, I could build full size prop monsters for my games. The gelatin for the gelatinous cube alone would be a fortune. It doesn't seem likely.
So instead of scaring my players with the reality of the sight of these monsters, I need to play the same old tricks capture by Chris Carter in The X Files, basically, not showing them the monster. Instead we have to hint at it, smell it, hear it, taste the caustic air around it, feel the squish of the slime, and hear the crack of the bones as it bites. Instead of sight, we substitute all of the other senses that let the fear bellow from within the imagination of the party. Then finally, at the last possible moment, we place the gruesome miniature on the table, with the words "Roll for initiative".
Building true horror is about pushing the right buttons so there is a tinge of bleed from the character's emotions into the player. Before a horror game, I find out from the players both what their characters are afraid of and what they are afraid of. I hone in on which sense they avoid with horror. Some players can't stand the smell of things; other players can't stand the feel of gore; others twinge at the breaking of bones. All these little buttons allow the GM to take on a new role as the orchestrator of fear and disgust.
Before delving into this, though, there is another important question that I as a GM must put out there. Where is the line? For each player it is different, but at some point for each, the game might go too far. Knowing where that line is, and staying away from it is very important. The game of horror might purposefully delve outside the room of the comfortable, but it cannot delve into the realm of no longer fun. Fright is that this corridor between the two.
In the end, I have never made a player cry out screaming with the pure terror of my children in the hands of that rabbit, but I do hope that I have been able to frighten them just enough to have a fun horror game.
The bottom line is that words and deeds alone cannot prepare children for the horror that is a five and a half foot tall Easter Bunny with white or cyan fur, large glassy eyes, and teeth that seem better fitted to chomping at arms and legs than at the carrots left by children. This creature is the epitome of nightmares for a child, somethings that is ultimately terrifying, but something that their parents will not protect them from.
This kind of fear is what I want to capture in my horror games; however, it is very difficult to catch an adult off-guard with a life size version of the monsters which we use in our games. Perhaps if I had my own warehouse somewhere and all the time and money I could desire, I could build full size prop monsters for my games. The gelatin for the gelatinous cube alone would be a fortune. It doesn't seem likely.
So instead of scaring my players with the reality of the sight of these monsters, I need to play the same old tricks capture by Chris Carter in The X Files, basically, not showing them the monster. Instead we have to hint at it, smell it, hear it, taste the caustic air around it, feel the squish of the slime, and hear the crack of the bones as it bites. Instead of sight, we substitute all of the other senses that let the fear bellow from within the imagination of the party. Then finally, at the last possible moment, we place the gruesome miniature on the table, with the words "Roll for initiative".
Building true horror is about pushing the right buttons so there is a tinge of bleed from the character's emotions into the player. Before a horror game, I find out from the players both what their characters are afraid of and what they are afraid of. I hone in on which sense they avoid with horror. Some players can't stand the smell of things; other players can't stand the feel of gore; others twinge at the breaking of bones. All these little buttons allow the GM to take on a new role as the orchestrator of fear and disgust.
Before delving into this, though, there is another important question that I as a GM must put out there. Where is the line? For each player it is different, but at some point for each, the game might go too far. Knowing where that line is, and staying away from it is very important. The game of horror might purposefully delve outside the room of the comfortable, but it cannot delve into the realm of no longer fun. Fright is that this corridor between the two.
In the end, I have never made a player cry out screaming with the pure terror of my children in the hands of that rabbit, but I do hope that I have been able to frighten them just enough to have a fun horror game.
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