Thank you for the posts, particularly copying them out again for ease of reference.
I think you have identified great elements that would add to the horror of a game.
I would think that the following elements were system agnostic nay?
- Communicators
- Low power weapons and Armour
- Setting the scene
- PCs abilities to avoid surprise
I’ve yet to see a game that doesn’t have some form of alertness ability for instance. Again equipment is fairly system agnostic.
Physically weak PCs and the morale system I agree fully. Many systems including 5e are not good at portraying physically or emotionally weak characters. I think there is a reason for this. Probably that players as a general rule don’t really enjoy playing weak characters that die easily or run away. To be honest I don’t really see that as a problem as we very rarely see protagonists in fiction, even action horror fiction run away screaming for help. That is usually left for NPCs. I would distinguish between being weak and running for help as different to tactically trying to avoid a more powerful enemy or achieve a different objective to fighting.
My greatest surprise is that the fiction first element that you have praised so highly isn’t really mentioned at all.
Absolutely not.
How is a scene set in The Pool? By who? How about Shab al hiri Roach? How about Apocalypse World? In a Wicked Age? Sorceror?
Communicators assume the ability to communicate over distance? Can a player introduce new elements into the game at the point they use a communicator, or can they only talk to GM established things?
As for the 'Alertness' ability - cite me the rules for that in Trollbabe. The Mountain Witch. How is surprise handled in Apocalypse World?
To add to some of chaochou's points, plus a few of my own:
* I already posted in a bit of detail the significance of communicators. Talking about equipment as
system agnostic seems to be confusing
the fiction - where a communicator is an easily portable device enabling long-distance talking with people - with
the system, where a communicator on a PC sheet empowers that player to (depending how it works in system terms) expand the scope of the scene, or activate off-screen assets, etc. In terms of the play it means that the horror of (eg) a PC running screaming from an Alien isn't just something that the other players experience at the table, but is something they can respond to via their action declarations for their own PCs (who hear what is happening over the communicators). That's a difference from a typical splitting of the party in a FRPG.
* To respond to
@chaochou's questions, in our Traveller game the PCs can definitely talk to other PCs (including the various quasi-PCs/quasi-NPCs in the PCs' entourage). The can also talk to established NPCs (eg if I describe a starship or satellite, they might declare that they send a communication to it). They can establish new possible targets of communication via appropriate checks (eg Streetwise). And they can do that via consensus - eg in one of our sessions, the PCs were being bombarded from orbit while outside the main inhabited dome, and - one of them being a retired colonel - they called in the planetary airforce to defend them. My memory is that no check was required to establish that the PC knew who to call; I think it's likely that, as normal when the PCs interact with a "new" NPC, a reaction check was called for. In terms of "permissiveness" of the players using the communicators to activate off-screen resources I'd say (on balance) that it's less permissive than MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic, but probably moreso than a D&D-derived sci-fi game would be.
*
Low power weapons and armour seems like another case of confusing discussion of the fiction with discussion of the system. The real point here - which overlaps with the point about physically vulnerable PCs - is that some of the players don't have a strong ability to deal with the Alien via physical/hostile moves. That's a system phenomenon. And as I said it's one that D&D isn't generally known for. Part of what makes this feasible in Classic Traveller is that the system supports action resolution (other than GM decides) in a number of fields of endeavour besides fighting (eg dealing with officialdom, and other sorts of social interaction; buying and selling trade goods; piloting space vessels and driving vehicles; operating and repairing technology; etc). It wasn't until our 3rd session of Traveller that we had any combat, but that doesn't mean there was no action or action resolution.
* As for
we very rarely see protagonists in fiction, even action horror fiction run away screaming for help. That is usually left for NPCs. I would distinguish between being weak and running for help as different to tactically trying to avoid a more powerful enemy or achieve a different objective to fighting, there are some complexities. First, the Alien movies really have only one protagonist, Sigourney Weaver. But a RPG has more than one. Are they all Sigourney? Or are some of them the hangers-on? Second, I'm not really sure that this the claim is true. Sigourney Weaver sometimes runs in the Alien films, and I'm not sure that these are all best analysed as tactical withdrawals. In our Alien session, when the PC Vincenzo ran away from the Alien and escaped via the lift, knowing that his handgun was pretty useless against the creature, it didn't feel inapt or out of place. It felt like the PC was in a panic - which he was - and which seems appropriate for a gritty futuristic sci-fi horror scenario.
* Scene-framing and surprise rules are closely connected, because the latter constrain the GM's authority in respect of the former. As
@chaochou has posted, there are plenty of systems that don't use surprise rules. And there are systems that handle surprise very differently from how Traveller does - eg in MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic the GM has to spend a die from the Doom Pool which has to beat any surprise-blocking ability (eg Reflexes or Senses). Classic Traveller, at least as my group plays it which is based on my reading of the rulebooks, allows the referee to decide that an encounter is occurring, and then stipulates that a surprise check is to be made which is modified by Tactics and Leader skill. As I said, I think this worked well in our Alien scenario because it allows the GM to force the players into a confrontation with an Alien, but moderates the extent of unilateral hosing of the players by GM decision-making.
* Classic Traveller is not a fully fiction-first system: consider eg the surprise rules just described. There are similar rules for encounter distance. But the fiction is important to resolution. For instance, my Aliens cause a die of damage on contact with their acidic blood; this is adjudicated by reference to the fiction. The fleeing PC decided to grab a fire extinguisher to use it to neutralise the acid: we resolved him finding an extinguisher on the vessel via a simple check, and then used another check to answer the chemistry question
does the fire-retardant foam neutralise the Alien acid? (In Apocalypse World or similar these would be answers to a Read a Situation-type check.) I think fiction-first resolution supports gritty horror, because it increases the immediacy. I'm a big fan of 4e D&D, but I wouldn't use it for this sort of horror because once it hits combat - eg an attack by an Alien - it's not fully fiction-first. I don't think MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic would be ideal either, for similar reasons.
playingattheworld.blogspot.com
