Adding Fear to Your Game
…Okay, obviously, my last plan didn’t quite work out. So, rather than tempt fate again, I’ll just say I’ll post when and as I’m able, and leave it at that. Moving on…
Happy Halloween. In keeping with the spirit of the holiday, I thought I’d say a little about fear in your game. Maybe you’re playing a dedicated horror game like Call of Cthulhu. Maybe you just want to visit the theme for a plotline or two in a game like D&D or HERO. Either way, if you want to inspire some fear in your players, there are a couple of things to consider.
Description Matters
As with evoking any other emotion, your description of the characters’ surroundings and the NPCs will have a large impact on the amount of fear the players feel. Sensory detail is your friend. Perhaps most important are the non-visual details. Does the old windmill creak and groan as it turns? Does the wind howl? Is there no sound at all in the abandoned manor except for the characters’ own muffled footfalls across the carpeted floor? And while aural cues are very effective, the sense of smell or touch is often even more evocative. Is the tomb dry and dusty, or damp and musty? Are the characters having to brush cobwebs off their exposed skin? Is the air cold and clammy? Or is it uncomfortably, and unaccountably, warm?
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Rampant Sects
(This is a repost. This article was originally posted on November 24, 2008.)
In my last post, I talked a little bit about how religions are rarely monolithic in reality — how they splinter into a network of related sects, some of which can believe very different things. Today I offer a brief illustration: three sects I’ve developed for my game, all based on my interpretation of the Raven Queen, the fourth edition’s new and ever-intriguing goddess of death.
The Most Ancient and Honorable Order of Deathspeakers is a militarized splinter faction of the church, whose warrior monks seek to destroy the undead and oppose the machinations of Orcus and his minions. Many of these are fanatical in their beliefs, and enough are reckless in battle that the common folk often call them the “Deathseekers” (but not to their faces).
The M.A.H.O. is actually not very ancient, having been established within the past century — it claims the adjective through a dubious philosophical connection with an earlier sect of a similar name, which was eradicated centuries ago by a combination of Orcus cultists and their own infighting. It isn’t terribly honorable, either, for that matter, although its activities are largely confined to crusading against the undead and related enemies (necromancers, Orcus cultists, etc.).
The Deathspeakers have only one large monastery devoted to their order — in the wilderness north of the kingdoms of Tir Eselyn and south of Ravenspire. Few rulers are willing to support a large independent army of religious fanatics on their soil. Smaller chapterhouses of perhaps 20-50 members are scattered throughout the region, though, and itinerant crusader groups of 3-7 warrior monks and acolytes are a reasonably common sight throughout the north.
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Character Development: Flashbacks
(This is a repost. This article was originally posted on August 9, 2008.)
We’re all familiar with the use of the flashback in literature, film, and television: The “current” narration fades out, showing us a sequence that establishes some event or events that took place in the past of the story. This device is used to provide important backstory (and, sometimes, to retcon, changing “what really happened” in the past).
I’ve seen relatively few people use the device in roleplaying games, but it can be an excellent method of character development. It makes a good break between the wrap-up of one major quest or story arc and the initiation of the next. It also makes a great filler on a night when one or two members of your group can’t make the game, but the rest want to play something.
At the beginning of the typical campaign, the player characters either already know each other, or they’re being brought together for the first time by a plot thread or through sheer coincidence. Hopefully each player already has in mind at least a basic backstory for his character, and sharing parts of these backstories may be a major aspect of the first few sessions, especially if the characters are just getting to know each other. Meanwhile, the game master has at least a rough idea of the recent past history of the various locations from which the characters originally hail.
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Character Development: Quick and Dirty Backgrounds
Ever needed to sketch out a replacement player character or a major NPC when time is short? Want to add a little depth to that cult leader or the deputy mayor? Sometimes you just don’t have the time to dedicate to preparing a full, in-depth background — or you want to leave some room for a character’s background to grow and change as the game requires. Maybe you’re starting a new campaign, and you want something that will break the ice without tying the characters down with too many specifics before they all know each other.
By asking a handful of questions, you can generate a usable character, with a skeletal background, within 15 minutes.
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Musical Inspiration
I’ve written a little about my brainstorming methods before, but lately I’ve been using another method I hadn’t touched on there: plucking phrases out of existing works and building something around them. A good phrase can be inspiration for an NPC, an object, a location, or an adventure. They can come from novels, poetry, movies, television.
And song lyrics.
A couple of ideas generated by my playlist recently:
Continue reading »
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