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Showing posts from February, 2016

Judging Horror

Horror is the most difficult type of RPG game to run. Visual effects don't play well at the table. Sounds rarely make the players jump. Gore describe rarely has the same effect as on the big screen. Setting the tone can be hard, especially online. Everything that makes a good horror film is hard to translate. There are solutions, but today's question is, how do we judge whether or not our horror game techniques are working? Horror is one of the few genres where bleed is expected. The things that our characters feel bleed over into our feelings. Likewise, sometimes our boredom with horror tropes and lack of tone can bleed over into our character. This bleed, in terms of judging our game, is actually helpful to us. It allows us to focus on the character without asking more difficult questions about the player. With the character now in  our sights, we need to ask the right questions and make the right observations to tell if our horror game is working. In this case we are goi