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Horror Games: The Evil Within

The horror genre in gaming is drastically different than the horror genre in movies and fictions. In a game where monsters are fought all the time and where the PCs are trained warriors of some ilk, monsters just aren't as terrifying. The lack of direct visual representation of the situation, combined with the lack of real-time pace, makes it more difficult to generate the wonderful jolt of being scared. To replace these elements, consider focusing on another great horror: the evil within.

The evil within is all about generating paranoia and fear within the party. By making the party a potential enemy, it makes combat more tense. Trust is broken. When your ally could at any moment become your enemy, it makes it hard to let them do the things they need to do, even like just standing behind you.

To bring out the evil within, we are going to use 3 different mechanics: sanity, disease, mental domination. Sanity mechanics allow us to use horrific circumstances to mentally break down the PCs, first generating annoying quirks in their behavior, but marching them steadily towards total insanity. Disease can be used to slowly eat away at the PC's body and brain, adding to insanity, and perhaps even turning them into a monster. Mental domination is the ability for external force to take over or heavily influence PCs into acting against their normal will, turning instantly into an enemy, one the party may be hesitant to deal with.

Pressured actions are the 4th element we add. We aren't really using any new mechanic or event. Instead, what we do is set the plot on a course in such a way that the PCs feel they have to move it forward. By depriving them of information, they feel pressured to go along with the path of events. These events, however, slowly change from seemingly normal to excessively cruel, violent, or corrupt. Like slowly heating a lobster so it doesn't feel the heat, we slowly immerse the party into a series of deeds that increase in evil and unlawful nature. In essence, we bring the party slowly to the dark side. The end result is one or more of the party members committing an act they would never normally consider.

At first this won't set in. The PCs will be oblivious to what happened. Later, however, the PCs, when put under stress, will remember what their party members are capable of. This will enhance the paranoia and distrust brought on by other factors.

Cultivating the evil within the party as a true threat takes time. However, as the stresses increase on the party in your horror game, these seeds that you plant early on will take grip. At maturity, you can truly generate some of the fear that we all really want in our horror games.

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