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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“No, Wait…”
Order of the Stick #1, by Rich Burlew. Upgraded to 3.5e!
There’s an interesting thread at the Giant in the Playground forums that deals, in part, with retracting an in-character action. (As a side note, if you’re not reading the Order of the Stick comic at GitP, you really should. There’s a lot of terrific gaming humor there.)
Among the questions the original post poses is the following:
- Do you allow your players to revise an action, if, a second or so later, they remember themselves why they shouldn’t do that?
There is, naturally, quite an array of views on the matter. Some espouse the “you said it, it’s done” school of thought. Others allow retractions with few restrictions. There’s a lot of ground in between. General opinion seems to fall toward “it depends,” which I realize isn’t terribly dramatic. But the question of what, exactly, it depends on remains intriguing.
Categories: Comics, Manga, and Anime, Philosophy and Rants, Websites | Comments (2)
Mythic Japan: the Tengu
A tengu and a Buddhist monk. Print by Kyosai.
The tengu of Japanese legend is an odd creature. It seems to have started out as a type of evil spirit, specifically one opposed to Buddhism. Over the years, the priest-abducting, temple-burning bird-monster became both more humanlike and more benevolent. Tengu became mischievous, powerful creatures not unlike kitsune fox-spirits, and eventually became protectors of Buddhism, seekers of wisdom, and master swordsmen — though they retained their weakness of pride. It became common to ascribe to great swordsmen, such as Minamoto no Yoshitsune, tengu training.
Obviously they make a great addition to a game that features mythic Japanese elements.
The Kenku of D&D, which was introduced to fourth edition in the Monster Manual 2, is clearly based on the tengu, but its attributes have changed to reflect its place in D&D lore. The kenku could be used to reflect the mischievous version of the tengu, but it’s a poor match for the demons, and even for the wise blademasters.
So I used stats of my own. In 4e, they look like this:
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