How to Run a Horror Game - Running RPGs

Hello Internet. Seth Skorkowsky and today we're  going to look at running horror adventures for your tabletop role-playing game. My regular  viewers should have figured out by now that I am a huge fan of horror. I'm even a horror  author. And while there's certainly a lot of strong horror elements in a lot of the stories  that I write, Hounacier is the only one that I consider to be my only straight horror novel.  I've talked about various horror games, especially Call of Cthulhu, which is my  f

avorite tabletop role-playing game. And I've written scenarios for that. I've previously done  videos on Running Mysteries and Running Heists and have been repeatedly asked when it is I  plan to broach horror. Well today is that day. Horror can be done with just about any tabletop  role playing game. The game system itself doesn't really matter. So whether you're wanting to run a  horror game using Dungeons & Dragons or Star Trek, that is all perfectly fine. However some  systems are a little bi

t more conducive to horror than other games are. So while, yes,  you can certainly run a great horror game with a high-combat epic-hero sort of fantasy system  like that, it can be a bit trickier to pull off. Now before we begin, as I said with my other How  To Run videos, there are exceptions to all these tips and suggestions that I'm about to give. I can  personally name a few brilliant ones myself. So if you do have an idea for a horror game that  doesn't quite match everything that I'm talki

ng about here today, that is perfectly fine. Knock  yourself out. There are a lot of ways to do it. However these are all tips that are  definitely worth considering, and not just exclusively for horror but with other types of  tabletop role-playing game themes as well, but definitely ones you should consider for horror. OK, disclaimers out of the way, let's get this thing started. The first thing when you're  considering horror games is to first consider what horror is. Unlike when we covered h

eists and  mysteries, those are plots, what the characters are tasked to do. Horror is not the plot. It's  the mood that we're trying to achieve through the game. And not as much for the characters, as  we're trying to achieve this for the players. And despite what many people believe, horror is not  about scaring your audience. Your players don't have to be afraid to have a successful horror  game. Horror, just as a genre itself, is about eliciting discomfort in your audience. Repulsion,  disgu

st, unease, dread, and of course fear can be one of those. But the enjoyment that we get from  horror the rush that we get is from the discomfort that we feel, without crossing the line and to  where it no longer becomes fun for everybody. Now the idea of seeking out discomfort might seem  a bit odd for some people. And those are probably some pretty boring people if they find that odd.  So think of it like peppers. Capsaicin is an irritant. It's believed that plants developed this  in order to

keep certain animals from eating them. But in the right quantities it enhances food,  making it stimulating. We seek it out despite the fact that it's technically an irritant. Certain elements are just associated with horror. Monsters, haunted castles, full moons,  body horrors, that sort of thing. And while yes, those elements are certainly useful if you're  trying to get a good horror game going, horror elements themselves don't make something horror. Remember that the mood is what we're going

for. Many games out there have monsters. I mean look  at Dungeons & Dragons. Mind flayers and beholders. They're weird and alien with writhing tentacles.  And they are formidable opponents, yes, but having one inside a game doesn't  suddenly just make it a horror game. Vampires can be horror or they could be  comedy. So the elements themselves don't make something horror. It's what  they do and how they're presented. So describe the setting and the monsters. Give  the details. Not just of the d

rool and the blood dripping from the monster's fangs, but how it  moves. Does it move like a person or does it move in sort of a herky-jerky way? Or does it seem to  glide like it's going through water? Give me the sounds that it gives. The squelching as it moves.  The clicking of hooves or claws on the floor. The jingling of chains that are sewn through its  flesh. It's labored breathing. Give me the smells. And don't just say, "Oh, it smells foul," but  show me in ways that I can associate wit

h that, things that are familiar to me. Does it smell like  rotted meat or does it smell like soured milk. To increase the weirdness, you might want to add  a little bit more discomfort to it by having it smell like something they're not expecting,  like sweet like lilies or wine. A childlike giggle or something like that. Or maybe it smells  like the Player Character's father's cologne. To make something strange and menacing does not mean  that it by itself has to be scary. The discomfort can j

ust come from the fact that it's just so far  out of place. Paint the setting and the creatures with not just the details that describe it, but  with the details that'll sell the mood and the response that you're going for through it. So in order to be able to hit that mood of being able to have it be enjoyable but  also uncomfortable at the same time, that can be pretty tricky to pull off. And the  easiest and most effective way to start doing that is to get your players on board with you.  So

tell your players that this is a horror game. Yes it can be possible and a lot of fun to  surprise them with a horror game when they're not expecting it. And when that works, that  just works beautifully. But the majority of the time a horror game works better if your players  come in expecting it to be a horror game. First they're going to be more receptive to it. If  they come in knowing that they're going to be at this game having fun with uncomfortable things,  then they're going to be more

apt to lean into it and get into the mood for it. And second, and very  importantly, they're more likely to keep that mood going because they know that that's the goal for  this game. If they don't know that this is going to be a mood game then they might break that  mood by joking around and shattering the tone that you've worked so hard in order to achieve  it. And now you're getting frustrated with them and they're getting frustrated with you because  we're not all on the same page as what it

is we're trying to do. So just go ahead and tell  your players ahead of time what the goal is. Most players, if they know that this is the goal  of the game, not only are they less likely to resist going that direction, because they know  that's the direction that everybody is wanting to go, but they're more inclined to help you  and everybody else achieve that goal. Gaming is a group effort, as I've always said. So not only  tell the players that this is a horror game, but charge them with hel

ping you and everybody else at  the table get into the mood for maximum enjoyment. Since I mentioned players might break the  tension with a joke or something like that, and sometimes that happens even in the real  world. It's a normal response that we have. So if there's a moment that they start laughing,  let them laugh. In the movie The Thing, one of the best horror movies of all time, that has got a lot  of very funny moments that happen during some very tense situations. And those moments i

mprove the  movie more than they detract from it. So don't have a 'No Laughing, Otherwise You'll Ruin the  Game' policy. No, we are here to have fun and sometimes horror requires that we have a good  laugh every now and then in order to relieve the tension. So if your players laugh, let them.  But if your players know, and they're committed to everybody having a good time with a horror  game, and that's going to be the objective here, they can help with not just policing themselves  that way the

game just doesn't devolve down into complete silliness, but they can help you quickly  rebuild that mood that everybody is going for and recover from that joke a whole lot faster. Since we're going for a mood game, you might want to set the mood at the table. Turn down  the lights. Maybe add some candles. Play some good mood music. That's fine. I've used all of  those things before and they can work great. I've even done a video on using music and ambient  sounds. Just remember that all of thes

e things are to enhance the experience and not detract  from it. So still keep enough light in the room for everybody to see their character sheets or  be able to read the books, and keep the music low enough that way they can still hear each other  and hear you without having to raise their voices. While horror can be done as a single adventure  within a larger campaign, or as a larger campaign itself, one-shot adventures are spectacular  for horror. In regular long-running campaigns, character

s are assumed to have a reasonable  chance of surviving until that campaign's climax. And a sudden character death after a lot  of time and energy has been put into a character in the middle of a campaign that can  be disappointing for everybody at the table. One-shot adventures on the other hand, which  I've discussed previously in another video, they don't have that same feel. They feel more  like a horror movie where death might be around the corner for anyone or all the player characters  at

any time, which only increases that fear. That's why the Alien RPG calls one-shots Cinematic  Play just to emphasize that dramatic difference that one-shots could have in a horror game. Another thing, that while heroic fantasy RPGs might regularly see large groups with 5, 6, or 7  or more players operating with no problem at all, horror games tend to work better with smaller  3-4 person groups. And one-on-ones, where it's just the player and just the Game Master,  those can work spectacular for

horror games. Small groups not only help because it's easier  to maintain and tailor the mood when you've got fewer people around the table, but also helps  with that feeling of isolation of not having that large supporting cast that might be able to  help the PCs out and that other PCs can provide. Speaking of isolation, try to isolate the party.  Cut them off from the outside reinforcements or escape. That's why many horror stories  have the heroes being cut off. Such as in The Shining they'r

e snowed into this haunted  hotel, or in the Evil Dead they can't escape this remote cabin that's in the woods. So you can  start it off with everything being very broad, a large urban environment with lots of people, and  then as the game continues and you start taking away all of their allies and their assets, and  their world starts getting smaller and smaller, focusing in on them and making the  group feel more and more alone. And not just isolate the characters from the  outside world, but

isolate them from each other, giving them that vulnerable sense of  aloneness. Also, isolating the PCs can be very effective for dramatic moments where  you suddenly cut from one player to another. OK, Todd, you're alone in the locker room beneath  the abandoned stadium. What are you doing? I'm gonna look for any signs that  somebody's been squatting down here. As you're making your way between the rows  of lockers, you hear the sound of bare feet running towards where the showers are. Sweet! I'

m going to hurry after them. As you get closer, your shoes start splashing  in water and the floor is very slippery. Are you going to keep running? No, I'm going to slow down. But I'm going to creep towards that shower  entrance and try to peek inside. Turning the corner, your flashlight  beam reflects off the watery floor, sending ripples of light across the dingy tile  walls. An emaciated figure stands in the middle of the room, its bald head just about an inch  below the ceiling. And it seems

fuzzy, the details are very hard to make out on it, almost  like it's some sort of three-dimensional shadow. However, at the end of its very long arms, that  seem just a little bit too long, you see that it's clutching what looks like a severed leg.  And it's got pale, smooth skin. And its toenails are painted with a bright purple polish. I'm going to lift my gun up and I'm - OK, Dweebles, you finally reached the  office that's overlooking the stadium field. What are you doing? Is the door lock

ed? It is, but it looks like somebody's  pried that door open a long time ago. So now it's been sealed shut with a latch  and a gleaming new combination padlock. I'm gonna see if those numbers that  we found on that crumpled note work. OK, so you dial in the numbers 17, 45, and 11  from that scrap of paper, and the lock opens. Okay, then I open the door. Can you roll a Perception check for me? Six. I failed. The room inside is cinder block walls.  And they're covered with this scrawled writing a

nd symbols that's even  covering the floor and the ceiling. Someone's installed some bars across the single  window that looks out over the field, and it's like a jail cell in here. And in the middle of the  floor is just a bare and brown-stained mattress. Okay. Well then I'm just gonna close the  door and wait for the guys to arrive. A hand touches your shoulder, like somebody's  come up behind you without you noticing, and you feel another one slide up the front  of your shirt as a warm breath

y voice purrs into your ear, "Did you come here to play?" And on that, let's cut to Mike in the parking lot. A good cutaway to another character is a  spectacular way of leaving your players with a sense of dread or anticipation, which  only heightens the mood that you're going for. The hardest part of that is trying to give all  your players as much equal time as you can before hitting some dramatic moment than just suddenly  switching to the next player around the table. Isolating the PCs from

each other can be pretty  difficult to do. There's the player mantra of, "Never split the party," which makes them  reluctant to just do that on their own. Which is why I've had to hit them every once in a while  in the bathroom from time to time when they're alone and... you know, with their pants down. But isolating them can also be done with trap doors, and magic, and walls that come down  separating them from each other. Or if you give them some sort of in-game reason why they have to  spli

t up. Such as they know that they have to go to these two different locations in a certain  amount of time in order to achieve their goal. But they don't have enough time to go to both  of these locations, one, then the other one. So they have to split up, divide the party, and  go to these two locations at the same time in order to achieve whatever their goal is. I said earlier that actiony heroic-type RPGs are a little bit more difficult to  make horror. And the reason for that, with games lik

e Dungeons & Dragons, the heroes  are larger than life characters and capable of defeating their enemies. Just like these heroes  here that are leaping to face this giant. But horror doesn't come from being a heroic  badass that's got hundreds of hit points at their disposal. Horror comes from helplessness.  So make the Player Characters feel helpless. In most horror, our heroes aren't  well-trained well-armed badasses. They're normal everyday people who have now been  thrust into a horrifying s

ituation. In Alien, our heroes are a group of space truckers who  have to deal with a single monster that they know very little about, and all that they have  are some homemade flamethrowers and cattle prods. And then we get to Aliens, our heroes are now  a squad of capable space marines armed to the teeth with weapons, cool technology, and a basic  idea of what it is that they're about to face. The movie doesn't begin becoming horror until  they get beaten down. Now most of them are dead. They

have very little ammo, and many of their  toys no longer work against these monsters. They're trapped on this remote planet. They're  outnumbered. And their world starts becoming smaller and smaller as they start sealing off  different passages and boxing themselves in. So with heroic RPGs, where our characters are  extremely capable, create the horror by making them feel helpless. Maybe the wizard casts  their offensive spell against the bad guy, and instead of damaging the bad guy it somehow 

makes the bad guy stronger. And now the PCs realize that all their cool weapons and all their  cool abilities that they've used to overcome all odds previous to this, they're now completely  meaningless for the situation that they're now in. Or maybe their spells and their powers  they do work just as effectively as before, but they still aren't enough for whatever this  situation is. In Aliens, our marines' guns they did work. They did kill aliens just fine.  The problem was that there were mor

e aliens than they could possibly handle at that time. Night of the Living Dead, the zombies are weak. They're slow, they aren't intelligent, and our  heroes are armed. The helplessness comes from the fact that there were just so many of them, wave  after never-ending wave, and their fortifications are not going to hold up against that. So remember that helplessness doesn't necessarily mean that the monster has to be just  super-powerful and impossible to destroy. More that the direct approach i

f they try to face  this obstacle by just going straight at it and attacking it, that clearly is not going to work. Next, leave an unknown to the bad guy. Don't reveal everything at once. Lovecraft once famously  wrote that the oldest and strongest fear is fear of the unknown. The unknown factors: what the  enemy is, what it's capable of, its weaknesses, where it is, its numbers, or possibly what the  monster even looks, like those are all horror seeds. And revealing all of that too early, or  j

ust giving the players an opponent that they're already familiar with, that's a wasted opportunity  if you're going to be going for horror. So hold some of that information back, but also  make it clear to the players that they know that they don't know all of the information,  because that's the part that you need to have. Take giant fishermen, for example. They are  in a lot of games. Dungeons & Dragons, Conan, Call of Cthulhu. By themselves they're  not too scary. I mean, I wouldn't want to m

eet one of these things on the street, but  they're pretty straightforward RPG monsters. And once you see one you're all like, "Cool.  Well now let's kill it. Roll Initiative." But instead of just having the monsters step  out in front of them where everybody can see it, and they know exactly what it is, show this thing  to the player in pieces. A single claw reaches in through a porthole, maybe swipes at one of them  or grabs something. Then maybe the claw retracts and it's replaced by kind of

a large unblinking  eye. And then the smell of fish or something fills the air. Then they hear a splash as this  thing dives into the water and swims away. And that leaves a lot of unknown to the players right  there. They're going to be sitting there going, "What was that? How big was that? Where is it now  and how many of them are there?" Those unknowns, that creeping paranoia that happens  because you're missing all the information, that is where the horror itself comes from. That's  why so m

any effective monster movies we don't see the full monster for a while because once you've  shown the monster it then loses its impact. So when possible, build up to the reveal. Ramp  it up. Maybe at first we only see the gory aftermath and the carnage that this creature  can do as they stumble across its victims. Maybe they notice a particular smell in the air.  Maybe they hear something scuttling around in the walls, but they never see it or get any idea how  big this thing is. So now the Play

er Characters they know what the bad guy can do, but they  don't know what the bad guy necessarily is. Meanwhile, a completely different  tactic you could do instead, to show the monster but then have it evolve or  change, making the unknown nature be whatever the nature of that change is. For example,  going back to Alien, we see the alien in full light after a dramatic entrance. And  then, minutes later, we find this molted skin that tells us that it has now changed, it  has become something e

lse. And then we have a giant creature that's mostly hidden in shadows  until the very end. Or coming back to The Thing, we get the reveal of the monster's nature very  early on. It is horrifying and it is dramatic. But then the unknown factor becomes where, or more  precisely who, the monster is now, because the monster is constantly changing and not knowing  who it is, that's where the real terror is. To help keep things unknown, and not just to  the characters but to the players themselves, g

ive familiar things a twist, something that they  aren't expecting or they aren't familiar with. Like, let's say that you have an evil wizard  in a high fantasy game. Don't just give that wizard spells that the players are all familiar  with. Give them something that the players have never seen and therefore don't know how  to handle. Instead of casting a classic fireball that everybody and their dog knows,  you take the Range and the Damage and the Area of Effect of that spell and just change i

t from  fire into something else. Such as all the people in the Area of Effect they now start bleeding from  their eyes and their nose and their ears for that same amount of damage, but there is no explosion  or anything about it that says this is just really a reskinned fireball. Or maybe you could have some  sort of evil minion or a friendly NPC, that wasn't going to survive that spell's damage anyway, they  just suddenly swell up and explode and they shower everybody in that Area of Effect wi

th scalding  blood or shards of bone and that's where the damage comes from. So the damage is the same,  but the presentation as far as what caused it, that's where it gets weird and disturbing  for everybody. And that unknown factor of, "What was that? How did they do that? Can they do  that again?" that's where the fear starts coming in, because the players feel vulnerable because  they know that they don't know what's going on. Next, show the horror but also know when to pull  away. Remember

that we're going for uncomfortable, so describe the gore, the wounds the  gritty details as that knife blade slides up underneath the Player Character's ribs and  starts poking around in all their soft organs. Or the sound of their buddy's skull crunching in  the monster's jaws, then the pop, and then their brain comes squelching out their ears. Lean  into the horrific. Lean into the dark matter. But just as importantly as that, know when to  stop. And there's two reasons for that. First, if eve

ry encounter that they have is  at maximum gore and maximum discomfort, players can become quickly desensitized to that.  It loses its impact if it's always set at maximum. So learn to do it when it's going to be the most  effective. A dramatic entrance and then all of a sudden it drops back down and then it pops  back up again once we get to the big climax. Or it can be just kind of a gradual increase  as things get steadily and steadily worse, building up to a big climax. Because even after a 

while, even the most shocking and strange things they can start becoming banal if they're always  set at maximum. And you don't want those things to become banal. You want them to be effective  tools. So learn when to hold back. That way it's more effective when you want it to be effective. And the second reason is, while horror is to focus on dark subjects with the  intent of making us uncomfortable, don't cross the player's line. There are a lot of  subjects or levels that a player might draw

the line at. And some of them might be more obvious  than others are. So while yes, we are purposely pushing ourselves very close to these lines in  order to achieve maximum discomfort, there does come a point where it's no longer enjoyable or  fun for your players if you step beyond that line. And finding out where your players' lines  are, that does require communication, and that's communication from everyone back and  forth. And this is where we begin discussing areas or touching on areas s

uch as X-cards or Lines  and Veils. This is a subject that deserves its own video, because I do have a lot of opinions on  this one. But the short of it is, if you're not familiar with the term X-cards, these are a means,  either a card, or a safe word, or other method for your players to quickly communicate when a line  has been crossed and a game has lost its fun. And that's when the GM or the other players  need to stop whatever it is that's going on. Lines and Veils, on the other hand, this 

is something that's done before the game or between the various sessions in the game. This  is a list of subjects or areas that have hard Lines that are not to be crossed, and Veils where  we can have it but the camera needs to turn away from it and the players don't need to interact  with it. Both of those have their uses and both require communication from everybody that's at the  table, because the reason that we're all here in the first place is in order for us to have fun.  So while yes, h

orror should focus on the horrific and uncomfortable situations and uncomfortable  subject matters, a Game Master needs to learn when and where those limits are in order  for all the players to enjoy the game. I will say though that one game that really  communicates this concept extremely well, and the best that I've actually ever seen on  this in an RPG book, is Kult: Divinity Lost with what they call the Horror Contract. I was very  impressed with how they addressed this topic. Now this leads

us to a very common question that  Game Masters ask whenever they're wanting to try out horror for their group. And that is, "Should  I use the player's own phobias against them?" Now I personally hate this question. And the  reason that I dislike it is because I think I know what the person is trying to ask when they  ask that. But the phrasing of that question is so terrible that I always just have to say, "No.  Never do that," at least not without really talking to your players first about w

hatever  that is. Because the key word to that question, why that is a bad question, is the word 'Phobia'.  Fear comes in a lot of different forms, and not all forms of fear are created equal. Personally,  I'm afraid of spiders. I don't like them. They're creepy and they better stay the hell away  from me. But I'm not what you would call arachnophobic. There is no irrational, possibly  debilitating response. I just don't like spiders. There's also the source of fear that's involved,  such as tra

umas, personal traumas for the player or someone that's close to them that might  make them afraid or uncomfortable whenever they're approached with certain subjects related to that  trauma. But that doesn't mean that being able to exploit that trauma for our fun-time imagination  game is something that you should do, because they might not find that enjoyable. For example, let's  say that I wanted to run a game that involved a story that had a an alcoholic man who viciously  abuses his wife, an

d one of my players had a personal experience with that, either a parent,  or themselves, or a close friend of theirs, and this is now a very sensitive subject for  them. That might not be very fun for them to have to experience that in their game, which they're  using to escape real life in order to have fun, and it might be a dick move on your part to  intentionally put them through that just to make them uncomfortable for a game. So yeah, definitely  talk to your players and get an idea about

how they would feel about using their own personal  fears or something like that when it comes to a game. And yes, if you do approach it right, and  they trust you, and you approach it very well, maybe, just maybe, it'll be perfectly fine  to do. But you have to talk to them about it. However if you're just wanting to use just  a regular fear that doesn't have a phobia or a trauma or anything to it, a lot of fears  really don't translate that well into a game. For example, I'm also afraid of he

ights. Get me  up a 12-foot ladder and my knees start locking up on me. However, not once, not one single time  in a tabletop role-playing game, has heights ever bothered me. Same thing with spiders. They don't  bother me when they're presented to me in games. Sure, yeah, you could do something extreme with  spiders, like have them suddenly burst out of a person's eyes, and now they're clutching their  faces, blood and spiders are now pouring between their fingers. Okay yeah, that would definite

ly  get me. But not because it was spiders. Because that's a horrifying situation. You could have done  that with anything. It could have been worms, or maggots, or ancient roman coins or something. It  was the presentation. The fact that it was spiders had no change of how my response was. So many of  our real world fears don't translate that well when it comes to a tabletop role-playing game. However one big problem that I see whenever somebody's trying to focus too much on using  the player's

real fears in the game in order to tailor it for them, is that they're neglecting  their Fantasy Fears. And what I mean by that is these are fears that we don't actually have  but we like to pretend that we're scared by. For example, one of mine is children. Creepy  children in horror movies, man they get me. I even give baby or childlike qualities the different  monsters in my own games and stories because I find them so damn creepy. However children  in real life they don't actually scare me.

Much. Another one for me is the devil and possessions. Man I love a good religious horror. I eat those  things up. You add a creepy child like in The Exorcist, and holy crap that movie freaks me out.  But the devil and demons aren't things that I'm actually remotely afraid of. When I was a little  kid, my babysitter kept me up late one night to watch Michael Jackson's Thriller, which scared the  crap out of me. Later on, the TV trailer, not even the movie, just the TV trailer for Return of the 

Living Dead, especially the Tar Man, that thing gave me nightmares. Zombies terrified me. And  because of that, starting around the age of 13, I watched every zombie movie I could get my hands  on. I love zombie movies because they terrified me as a little kid. Again, I don't think zombies are  an actual threat that I'm going to have to face, but I still love being frightened by them. So Game  Masters, when you're talking to your players and you're trying to figure out what their limits  are in

order to personalize the game, what it is that they don't want, but what it is that they  want, and maximize everybody's enjoyment for it, don't just ask about what scares them in real  life, but ask them what it is they like pretending to be scared of. Because those can actually be the  most effective when we're doing this in a game. As you can see, there's a lot of different ways  to approach horror. It's very personal as far as which subjects and which methods might work for  individual play

ers or entire groups that might how it might work for them. But once you find that  moment where all the players around the table are really getting into it, and they're uncomfortable  or maybe even a little bit scared, but in the way that's got that energy or excitement,  everybody's got that energy of fear going on, but they're excited, but they're also tense,  there is nothing that's quite like that. Hey, thanks for watching. If you enjoyed  the video please give it a Thumbs Up. If you want t

o see some more of our stuff, such as  game reviews or how-to's, just hit that Subscribe Button. Till next time, amigos, stay awesome. Okay, can we finally get back to my character in the shower? Because I'm still  like freaking out about that.