Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="jdrakeh" data-source="post: 4453862" data-attributes="member: 13892">I would argue that no amount of fluff will make a game with few (or non-existant) consequences horrific, given that the players know they will never face any real, substantial, threat from a brush with danger or, at least, that they will always be able to recover from such a run in with minimal effort. Fear is, by definition, an emotional response to threats and danger. If you remove the threats and the danger in a given setting, you eliminate the fear stimuli. Rules are what give consequences form in actual play. In a setting that has rules for permanent, horrible, death. . . death is horrible and permanent. A setting that lacks such rules, will also lack permanent and horrible death. For example, compare a setting in which death is an easily mitigated, largely inconsequential, nuisance to one where death is a common, very final, end. One of these settings is inherently more horrific than the the other by virtue of its presentation of death as consequence.  I'm of the opinion that one can employ as many horror tropes as they want (e.g., vampires, skeletons, black magic, etc) but if these things have no discernable effect in actual play (i.e., they pose no credible threat or present real, consequential, danger), they're just window dressing and utterly lack the power to elicit the emotional response of fear from the players.</blockquote>