What makes a successful horror game?

[Theory of Games]

Call of Cthulhu's great success is in the SAN trait. The concept that PCs slowly lose their minds when constantly exposed to horror is genius. And it's not about the players being frightened - like most ttrpgs, the focus is the PCs. A group can joke, laugh and have fun while their PCs are scared out of their minds.

SAN is like "mental Hit Points" that dwindle as the PCs experience more and more horror. But with classic HP, once you hit 0, the PC drops. Once SAN hits 0, there's no telling what the now-insane PC will do. I've listened to CoC/DG actual plays where a PC goes mad and causes a TPK or helps cultists summon a Great Old One, destroying the entire planet

That unpredictably of what happens if a PC runs out of SAN is one of the best ttrpg designs ever. IMO a horror game needs to replicate that kind of unpredictably because that's a strong aspect of the horror genre.

 

[Tonguez]

It’s not essential for the PCs to be vulnerable in order to do horror. You can use atmosphere and suggestion to disturb players even when there characters are badass heroes. For example, in a game I ran, when the players realised how the killer had disposed of the body of the clown who ran the apple bob at the carnival, when they realised the irritating “were-hare” NPC had disappeared, and the pie stall was offering rabbit pie, when they discovered iron spikes sticking out of a rocking horse in the haunted orphanage, etc.

Vulnerable doesnt mean weak though, Ripley in Aliens and Dutch in Predator are badass but theyre still vulnerable, even Laurie in Halloween is a bit of a badass. Vulnerable just means that you can lose something - life, friends, sanity, your soul. The disturbing revelations you describe is what builds tension; the horror comes with the loss of sanity or innocence.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Vulnerable doesnt mean weak though, Ripley in Aliens and Dutch in Predator are badass but theyre still vulnerable, even Laurie in Halloween is a bit of a badass. Vulnerable just means that you can lose something - life, friends, sanity, your soul. The disturbing revelations you describe is what builds tension; the horror comes with the loss of sanity or innocence.

And it quite possible to scare players without them losing anything at all. The person who reads a horror story is in no danger, yet they still feel fear.

 

[Mannahnin]

Call of Cthulhu's great success is in the SAN trait. The concept that PCs slowly lose their minds when constantly exposed to horror is genius. And it's not about the players being frightened - like most ttrpgs, the focus is the PCs. A group can joke, laugh and have fun while their PCs are scared out of their minds.

SAN is like "mental Hit Points" that dwindle as the PCs experience more and more horror. But with classic HP, once you hit 0, the PC drops. Once SAN hits 0, there's no telling what the now-insane PC will do. I've listened to CoC/DG actual plays where a PC goes mad and causes a TPK or helps cultists summon a Great Old One, destroying the entire planet

That unpredictably of what happens if a PC runs out of SAN is one of the best ttrpg designs ever. IMO a horror game needs to replicate that kind of unpredictably because that's a strong aspect of the horror genre.

Fearful Ends' mental stress cards are a cool improvement on this concept, IMO. I actually like that they give the player a bit more control in choosing how their character loses control and acts out, and fitting that to the character's personality, though the pacing of their descent is more in the control of the GM/events in the game.

 

[Ulfgeir]

I’m planning out a mash up of Pathfinder’s Strange Aeons and Rime of the Frostmaiden where PCs wake up in an asylum surrounded by darkness and an impenetrable blizzard. With precious few resources they make their way through ghouls and doppelgängers to find a place of sanctuary where some inmates have barricaded themselves in a shrine only to find out that they aren’t even safe there when one of those inmates is turned into a doppelgänger by whatever force is affecting the asylum. If they survive and stop that force without turning themselves, they find out that the whole world as far as they can see is blanketed in ice and snow and nowhere that they can reach is what it should be. Queue a dozen different horror scenarios that will lead the party closer to finding an escape… maybe.

When my group played Strange Aeons, we found that it was way too easy to fail the saves and get stuck with really bad consequences for the characters in the form of insanity, and way to hard to get rid of them. It was a death-spiral as the insanity-things kept piling up, and taking away agency and making sure that you would fail the next save as well. It also suffered from the fact that the campaign failed due to the fact that if characters got replaced in the campaign due to death or permanent insanity, their replacements would have less reason to continue, as they would not have that personal hooks as the starting characters had.

 

[MGibster]

When my group played Strange Aeons, we found that it was way too easy to fail the saves and get stuck with really bad consequences for the characters in the form of insanity, and way to hard to get rid of them. It was a death-spiral as the insanity-things kept piling up, and taking away agency and making sure that you would fail the next save as well.

This is a serious flaw with Free League's Alien and their Stress mechanic. There's a point where a character fails a Stress test, they gain Stress, and the result is every other PC must make a Stress roll, which they fail, gaining Stress, and requiring PCs to make another Stress check. I don't know if they've fixed it with the 2nd edition.

 

[overgeeked]

This is a serious flaw with Free League's Alien and their Stress mechanic. There's a point where a character fails a Stress test, they gain Stress, and the result is every other PC must make a Stress roll, which they fail, gaining Stress, and requiring PCs to make another Stress check. I don't know if they've fixed it with the 2nd edition.

To some it’s a bug, to others it’s a feature. In highly stressful situations, panic spreads like that.

 

[Ulfgeir]

I am also of the opinion that the system matters. Vampire: the Masquerade claims to be about personal horror. For me though it tends to be supercreatures with claws and fangs fighting each others. Take out the whole system with all cool powers etc, and make it a pure narrative game like Good Society: A Jane Austen rpg, and it would work much better. It is clear that the system was bolted on as an afterthought. The core of the system though, with how you buy your stats etc and fill out number of dots are very simple and intuitive and you don't have to hassle with levelling up. But it is hard to have horror when you are top of the food-chain...

Basing my opinion here on 1e and 5e of V:tM. The latter actually was better suited for personal horror, as every time you used your powers there was a risk that you would freak out and do really bad things. That version of the system though, was written such that the masquerade wouldn't last a month before someone broke it from a critical failure or critical success. The rules were unfortunately exceptionally badly written, with things spread out all over the place, and way too detailed in some cases. Like the effects of drinking blood form people with certain types of personality.

While I love Call of Cthulhu, it is too detailed, and the more the system gets showed in the background the better. Now, CoC is a child of it's time, and back then it was created systems were not tailored to what the game was about. BRP as such is simple, and the characters feel vulnerable, and if you go in guns blazing you will fail. Sanity while a good invention basically only matters when you loose a large amount of it in a short time.

And as someone else state earlier, to get horror you really do need the buy-in form the players. Yes, I have played CoC as slapstick at a convention. Was it horror? Nope. Did we have one hell of a good time while doing it at the convention? Oh Yes..

 

[MGibster]

To some it’s a bug, to others it’s a feature. In highly stressful situations, panic spreads like that.

It ends up freezing the game. i.e. It's not fun.

 

[overgeeked]

It ends up freezing the game. i.e. It's not fun.

The results of the panic roll are not “the game freezes.” The result of a wave of panic rippling through the PCs is not “the game freezes.” It ends up pushing the PCs into panicking. Which is the whole point. It’s a horror game. If you make a panic roll and get exactly a 10, then you freeze; on a 15+ you’re catatonic. Otherwise you’re forced to do something you almost certainly don’t want to do. So with two rare exceptions, panic rolls push the game in certain ways, i.e. they push the horror, they do not freeze the game. If you don’t like horror games, that’s cool. They’re not for everyone. But complaining that a horror game has mechanics that pushes horror is kinda wild.

If you like horror, it can be incredibly fun to watch a cascade of panic ripple through the PCs. I would almost go so far to say it’s some of the best moments in horror gaming. The players losing control and their characters being forced to do things the player doesn’t want to happen, like running away or dropping a gun or firing at their friends. Breaking through the wall of competence porn most players force on every game and getting to some actual horror moments. Almost like you’re playing in an Alien movie.