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<blockquote data-quote="overgeeked" data-source="post: 8261875" data-attributes="member: 86653"><p>So do I and so do my players, on the creeped out, excited, thrilled, etc front. Scared <em>players</em> isn't something RPGs can or should do. How we colloquially use "scared" has drifted the meaning. Scared is fight, flight, or freeze territory. Being surprised by a jump scare isn't really "scared".</p><p></p><p>One simple definition is: 1) is it fictional; 2) does it feature the macabre; 3) are the characters scared. </p><p></p><p>If it's not fictional, you're in documentary land, like true crime. If it doesn't feature the macabre, it could be nearly anything, like Toy Story. It's fictional and the characters are scared, but there's nothing macabre about it. If it's fictional, macabre, but doesn't have scared characters, you have something like the Addams Family. </p><p></p><p>It's not a perfect definition, but it's a functional one.</p><p></p><p>Yes, they're called subgenres. Body horror, slasher, serial killer, camp, summer camp, Christmas, exploitation, gross out, cosmic, gorn, etc. But they're all recognizable as horror.</p><p></p><p>Then we agree. It takes a lot of changes to make horror work in D&D. Baseline D&D can't do horror.</p><p></p><p>If you mean their list of Ripley, Eleven, etc, you'd be wrong. The characters listed very much show fear and are disempowered for a good long while before they overcome the monster. That's what makes them horror.</p><p></p><p>At first I assumed we just used horror differently, now I suspect we're also using disempowering differently as well. Fighting for your life in a zombie apocalypse having to gather up resources or die...yeah, that's disempowering.</p><p></p><p>If the characters are not scared, there's no horror. If the characters are super powerful and can generally take whatever's thrown at them, it's not horror. So yeah, you could make D&D into a horror setting, but you'd have to change quite a bit, including some long-standing baseline assumptions.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="overgeeked, post: 8261875, member: 86653"] So do I and so do my players, on the creeped out, excited, thrilled, etc front. Scared [I]players[/I] isn't something RPGs can or should do. How we colloquially use "scared" has drifted the meaning. Scared is fight, flight, or freeze territory. Being surprised by a jump scare isn't really "scared". One simple definition is: 1) is it fictional; 2) does it feature the macabre; 3) are the characters scared. If it's not fictional, you're in documentary land, like true crime. If it doesn't feature the macabre, it could be nearly anything, like Toy Story. It's fictional and the characters are scared, but there's nothing macabre about it. If it's fictional, macabre, but doesn't have scared characters, you have something like the Addams Family. It's not a perfect definition, but it's a functional one. Yes, they're called subgenres. Body horror, slasher, serial killer, camp, summer camp, Christmas, exploitation, gross out, cosmic, gorn, etc. But they're all recognizable as horror. Then we agree. It takes a lot of changes to make horror work in D&D. Baseline D&D can't do horror. If you mean their list of Ripley, Eleven, etc, you'd be wrong. The characters listed very much show fear and are disempowered for a good long while before they overcome the monster. That's what makes them horror. At first I assumed we just used horror differently, now I suspect we're also using disempowering differently as well. Fighting for your life in a zombie apocalypse having to gather up resources or die...yeah, that's disempowering. If the characters are not scared, there's no horror. If the characters are super powerful and can generally take whatever's thrown at them, it's not horror. So yeah, you could make D&D into a horror setting, but you'd have to change quite a bit, including some long-standing baseline assumptions. [/QUOTE]
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