Idea for a genuinely horrifying horror campaign...

[Bill Zebub]

I just got an idea in my head that it would be fun to convince my group to try an Old West themed RPG (which itself would be a challenge, in my group, but this is just a thought experiment).

Then a couple of sessions in, something a little creepy happens. Such as...they kill a bad guy, and 10 minutes later the corpse is gone, in a way that is hard to explain, but for which there's some plausible explanation. Like, they thought they were alone, and now they think there's somebody else.

Or, even better, they kinda suspect each other. Maybe it's a game where players have secret goal/motivations, and note passing between GM and players is part of the game. So when the corpse is missing, they all think that one of the other players is probably responsible. Because...that's the only possible explanation. Right?

Then things get weirder. And creepier.

Only some number of sessions in do they realize that this is really a horror game with supernatural forces, undead, etc.

The reason I chose Western is that I think it would work best in a genre in which the players expect nothing supernatural, and thus look for non-supernatural explanations of things.

I probably won't actually do this, but I just thought it would be fun to discuss.

Thoughts?

 

[Umbran]

Only some number of sessions in do they realize that this is really a horror game with supernatural forces, undead, etc.

The reason I chose Western is that I think it would work best in a genre in which the players expect nothing supernatural, and thus look for non-supernatural explanations of things.

I probably won't actually do this, but I just thought it would be fun to discuss.

Thoughts?

Deadlands is sitting right there, waiting for you, when you are ready..

 

[payn]

I dont mind the players having secrets and/or agendas that might conflict with one another, but prefer it be something short in the 1-3 session kind of thing. Also, I dont really like being told the game is in one genre and then have a bait switch dropped on me. If framed as a short campaign id go with it, but a long term campaign would likely have me bailing.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Deadlands is sitting right there, waiting for you, when you are ready..

That's what gave me the idea. The problem is, if I say, "We're playing Deadlands"....boom, the surprise is gone. So if I used Deadlands I would have to hide the name of the system, which would raise suspicions.

Again, I don't think I'm going to actually do this so it's just theory, but I think the only way to make it work is to hack an existing Old West game. It basically couldn't be an off-the-shelf "weird west" game.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I dont mind the players having secrets and/or agendas that might conflict with one another, but prefer it be something short in the 1-3 session kind of thing. Also, I dont really like being told the game is in one genre and then have a bait switch dropped on me. If framed as a short campaign id go with it, but a long term campaign would likely have me bailing.

And the other aspect to that is that eventually the surprise, which is the premise of this idea, wears off. So, yeah, ideally it would be designed as a short-term campaign, with the full denouement happening in the last session.

 

[Umbran]

That's what gave me the idea. The problem is, if I say, "We're playing Deadlands"....boom, the surprise is gone.

The problem is that folks are often not happy with bait and switch. They build a character and design for one thing, and then you stuff it into something else, they might not be too happy with you.

 

[J.Quondam]

Offer up a second twist: All those creepy supernatural occurrences? They turn out to be completely mundane, after all.
Sort of a bait-and-switch-and-switch-back.

 

[prabe]

The problem is that folks are often not happy with bait and switch.

This is ... something of an understatement, in my experience.

They build a character and design for one thing, and then you stuff it into something else, they might not be too happy with you.

Depending on what you're after, you could ask your players to build fish-out-of-water characters, or something. At least they'd know they weren't optimizing for something other than the game they're about to play.

 

[prabe]

Offer up a second twist: All those creepy supernatural occurrences? They turn out to be completely mundane, after all.
Sort of a bait-and-switch-and-switch-back.

Works really well if you have the PCs driving around in a flower-painted van ...

 

[Bill Zebub]

Offer up a second twist: All those creepy supernatural occurrences? They turn out to be completely mundane, after all.
Sort of a bait-and-switch-and-switch-back.

So...another way to do this is to pick a given system where they expect supernatural, and then repeatedly have mundane explanations until they come to expect it, and then BAM!