Horror, Fear, and Games

[SmootRK]

You want to know what is stressing my sense of sanity right now?...

My kids borrowed a movie from the library that we cannot seem to locate, and now I will likely have to pay for a new one. The part that shakes one's sanity... It is Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2. I find it difficult that the Library People are not simply telling me "thank you" for losing the damn movie.

Cthulhu take me away! Hastur Hastur Hastur and all that!

[MedievalMan]

Smoot what did I tell you about viewing unspeakable horrors? You lucky your sanity didn't take a hit.

[SmootRK]

Stability seems like a good name. I prefer Sanity, but for another reason than just its name itself.

Stability would be abbreviated STA by most people. However, this would be confused by many (especially those with experience with a variety of games as "Stamina". Also, Stability by itself (without the Mental part) might be confused with a sense of dexterity or balance.

Sanity on the other hand, would be abbreviated as SAN, which is completely dissimilar to any ability or game term that I am aware of.

But, otherwise, Stability would work fine in the sense of Mental Stability. I just think Sanity provides the same sort of ideal easily (one word at that, compared to Mental Stability), and does not have any such qualities of dual meaning.

[MedievalMan]

You know what thinking about it, I totally agree Sanity would be better for those reasons. From this point forth I shall call the optional 7th ability score Sanity, SAN.

In other news that adventure I was talking about has practically written itself. I just need to find a mapping program to make a players version of the map. Anyone have any suggestions?

[MedievalMan]

Man talk about fear and horror, I am in the middle of reading an old Ravenloft adventure by the name of Dark of the Moon. Early on in the adventure the characters are attacked by this big pack of wolves+lycanthropes. The adventure makes it abundantly clear that the encounter can end in one of two ways. Either the players kill 8 of the pack or one of the party dies. And even if the party member dies it only offers an opportunity for the PC's to escape because the wolves will be to busy eating the fallen PC.

Damn son, that's some serious stuff. Talk about revulsion.

[Dimirag]

A setting/adventure/campaign should rely on killing one PC in order to impose fear. It can stablish the PC/NPC-eating-habit as part of the werewolf description instead of using it as a resource for party survival/death outcome.
Theres a game where each time an orc or ogre (don't remember which) see the death of a combatant it must roll % or start feeding on it.

[MedievalMan]

Yeah its entirely appropriate to the adventure it just took me off guard since I always viewed canon Ravenloft as a sort of "story driven" setting*, you know where the PC's normally have plot armor? Don't get me wrong the adventure itself relies a lot on heavy scripting and their is a storyline, but just the casual bit about "Oh yeah to escape you can either kill a number of the wolves or SACRIFICE A PARTY MEMBER" caught me off guard. And that's honestly the way it describes it, the slowest party member is attacked in preference to others if the PC's choose to run. So if the PC's don't stand their ground the slowest guy might as well be an offering on a silver platter.

*To be fair their a few adventures in the Ravenloft library that are pretty free form. My favorite is Howls in the Night. Its starts off heavily scripted but lets loose the reigns once it gets going.

[Steveman]

In a recent playtest for The shining Empires I established that trolls (called oni no ue) are man-eaters, and after felling the party's ashigaru (non-samurai fighter) he grabbed the body and fled. When they tracked him down he was eating the poor fellow.

It was an online game, so I couldn't see the looks of fear, but I could hear the gasps, and the one returning player from earlier campaigns was astonished I'd actually go that far. In further battles they began to be a bit more precautions about their characters' actions.

Preconceptions and feelings of safety are powerful tools for DMs to play with.

[MedievalMan]

Excellent points. I personally love messing with perceptions. Its been so bad at times that the PC's have believed with every fiber of their being that their closest ally was their true enemy in disguise. All while the real villain danced around the periphery completely ignored by the party. Yeah perceptions are loads of fun to twist and distort.

[Joe the Rat]

Here, call it Mind or Ego.

Then you got something you can key into if you have a hankering for mental powers - always good for mind-breaking.