| From: | shadowrn@*********.com (shadowrn@*********.com) |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Horror in SR |
| Date: | Fri Mar 15 23:30:01 2002 |
Horror in a game or story, whether SR or not, requires one basic thing: a
premise of normalcy. The things that go on around you are normal -- normal
people, going to normal jobs, coming home to normal wives and normal kids
playing normal games with normal pets. The horror comes in when the
character -- your PCs -- get too damn curious for their own good, and look
into all of this normalcy. One portion -- and JUST one portion -- is utterly
terrible. The preferable part here is that they're normal people, with
normal wives and kids and games and pets -- but that the job they do is, for
example, hacking up murder victims and putting them into McHugh's Soy Base,
i.e. something horrific. They sacrifice virgins for the Dark Lord on
Thursdays.
Part of the horror of all of this is that everyone close to the person a) has
to know, and b) think it's normal, not unusual. "Did I know Daddy what? Oh,
yeah, sure, he lets me help sometimes. You want, I can ask him if you can
watch next time." The malevolence committed has to be deliberate -- the
person(s) have to know that they are causing agony, madness, chaos, and
corruption. They have to ... not so much 'enjoy' it as, once again, look at
it simply as a normal and acceptable part of everyday life. The player/PC
have to look at the GM/NPC and boggle.
The other part of the horror is that if you -do- something about it --
because (ideally) you can't ever go and 'blow the thing wide open' -- you'll
be hunted by the cops for manslaughter or something. 'Family of Five
Brutally Murdered: Shadowrunner Hunted'. -They- are getting away with doing
something that -you- simply couldn't -- nobody sane could. Perhaps society
is even unconsciously looking the other way, because nobody else is really
willing to admit that this sort of thing -can- happen. "What a delicious
roast your Alice makes, Lem." 'Why, thank you, George. Brandy-fed is the
best.' "I agree. Tell me, where does she get these, so I can tell my Judy?"
'Under the I-15 overpass; nobody misses the odd bum.' *laughter*
There is, however, a line between 'horror' and 'terror'. Horror is, in my
mind, a highly specific and most importantly INDIVIDUAL thing; you can't
encounter a town full of horrors. (A town that knows about the ONE horror in
their midst, sure.) Terror, on the other hand, is what can build a good
conspiracy. Horror is a sharp, immediate revulsion; terror is an ongoing
fright and uncertainty of the stability of the facade around you.
You -can- build elements of horror into a terrorizing game; the aura is one
of terror, while individual bits of horror make themselves known. Terror (at
least in my mind) gets to come from the aforementioned 'anyone could be one
of them!!' sort of things, whether cat-people or insect spirits or the Human
Nation or whatever. One person doing something terrible is horrific; a dozen
people doing something terrible is terrorizing.
Using both of them in your games requires a delicate balance -- not, I
believe, of atmosphere and music, but of psychology. You, as a GM, have to
know a) your players' psychology (what makes them tick) and b) the PC's
psychology -- or what in your players makes them make their characters tick.
B is the more important and, I've found, the more difficult; it is even
moreso if your characters are ruthless bastards. However, remember A: no
matter what the character is, there's a player behind 'em. Hook the player,
even just a little, and you've got the character.
Very few people really -think- they're evil; they get pleasure out of doing
certain things, that's all. Most people play characters -- SR Characters --
to a) take out frustrations, and b) get back at The Man, whether The Man is
their boss, the cops, traffic, the system in general, or whatever. In
essence, every character is the hero in their story, or at least the
antihero. The hardest PC I ever had to deal with was in the middle of a
bloodbath of magnamous proportions (toxic shaman and spirit getting revenge
on a boatload of polluters) and pretty much didn't blink -- he just wanted to
survive. This is the same PC who drove through a pedestrian mall at full
speed (60-80 mph) in order to avoid getting caught. THEN I presented him
with an Innocent -- a little girl, 6-7 years old, who was trying to hide from
the bad, scary things.
He stepped in front of -so- many bad things to protect that little girl...
So the PCs, even if they're 'evil', have to somehow think of themselves as
heros. Hell, even Venom thought of itself as being a hero. Your PCs may be
money-grubbing grandmother-killing bastards, but there's gotta be something
they cherish, something that is sacred to them. Find it; use it.
Also, don't dump them into the middle of a bloodbath. Go watch Hitchcock a
few times; be subtle, be indirect. The lady comes out of the kitchen with
hands red to the forearms -- murder most foul? Yes, or rather 'murder most
fowl'. Is this a lady who could have mass-murdered the Brownie Troop, even
though she was 'off visiting her sick aunt' that weekend? She sure seems to
be enjoying cutting the Thanksgiving turkey, and she got first prize in the
county fair for 'best pie top design'. Give then hints, clues, missing
people, police reports. Don't give them a hot crime scene, a dead body, or a
bloody knife (or glove).
Also, you have to let them ease up. PCs, like real people, have to go home,
kick off their shoes, and veg to 'The Odd Coven' and 'M.O.S.H' just like
anyone else. Player protests to the contrary, nobody can be 'on' 24/7,
otherwise you snap and you start committing atrocities yourself. Let them
relax, get a beer, have a night out.
And after they're getting used to dipping into the cold end, then going back
to the warm side of the pool -- weirdness, and a safe home, then weirdness,
and a safe home -- hit them when they aren't looking for it. Bring the
weirdness TO their safe home. The next-door neighbor. The kid down the
block. Whatever.
To sum up, then:
1) Evil: Present, but thinking of its deeds as normal, commonplace.
2) Innocence. Present in some form, to be defended. PCs are Heros.
3) Subtlety: Tips, clues, suggestive scenes instead of actual carnage.
4) Cycles: Don't build up, and build up, and build up. Let 'em ease
down, too.
5) Pacing: Hit 'em when they aren't looking.
And always remember: you can stop an individual horror, but it lives with
you. You can't kill an entire campaign of terror, but you can get inured to
it. Be careful how you use your horrific things and your terror objects;
terror can be left with the character, but horror should stick with them when
they go home.
The Wyrm Ouroboros
'Half Russian mathemetician,
half Silicon Valley code freak.'
