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Before we delve into exactly how to give your Players nightmares, we should stop briefly to consider the concept of the social contract. Basically, both Players and Games Masters should agree on what is and is not acceptable. This contract can be quite formal, with a list of what situations and concepts are OK, or it can just be a mutually unspoken agreement. When playing, both Players and the Games Master should know the answers to the following questions:

~ Is this really a horror game, or is it a dark fantasy/occult investigation game with some horrific trappings? A horror game implies that a nasty fate is in stall for some or all of the characters, but a game which just has the trappings of horror (say, vampires), does not have to end with the gruesome deaths of all the Player Characters.

~ Is the game about scaring the characters, or the Players? Much of the advice given below is about evoking an emotional reaction from the Players, not the characters. Scaring the characters is easy – they just fail a Fear save. Scaring the Players is a much bigger task – and it is not always worth attempting. If the Players want a casual ‘beer and pretzels’ game where they get to play demon hunters and quote their favourite horror movies, then the Games Master need not bother coming up with frightful images to scare the Players, and can instead concentrate on his demon voices and cool places to have firefights.

~ What, if any, elements or subjects are taboo? Some Players have phobias (and playing on a Player’s phobia is really just asking for trouble). Others have moral or personal objections to certain topics (say, child abuse). Are the taboo subjects utterly banned (they will never even be mentioned in the game) or should they merely be handled carefully (they will never come up directly, but may be a plot point).

There is no good way for the Games Master to stop the Players from breaking the mood. You could theoretically tie them to their seats and brainwash them until they are incapable of conceiving of anything except for the game, but that is possibly going a bit too far. A better alternative is just to accept that by the very nature of the medium, moods in roleplaying games are fragile, and the Games Master should concentrate on building and repairing the mood instead of trying to ensure he keeps total control over it. The Players can always dismiss the horror by an effort of will; the key is ensuring that they do not want to.

Solitude is the other tool that has to be discarded. Again, roleplaying games are a group activity. It is much scarier to be on your own, with no-one else to dismiss your fears, but every roleplaying game needs at least two people, Player and Games Master (more or less; there are exceptions, but we will concentrate on traditional table-top roleplaying games here). In a game with a single Player, the Games Master has to be careful – he has a much better chance of building and maintaining an intense atmosphere of horror, but go too far and it is emotional bullying. A single Player can be split off from a group for a brief time, but the Games Master cannot ‘split the party’ for too long, as Players get bored (and hence start exercising their control and breaking the mood) while the Games Master is off dealing with the single Player.

So, if the horror Games Master cannot prevent the mood from being broken easily, and if he has to deal with a group of active Players instead of a solitary protagonist,

what does he have left? The tools remaining are Atmosphere, Description, Implication, Violation, Hope and Reaction.

Note that these tools are (mostly) aimed at the Players, not the characters. Also, the precise type of horror – survival horror in a world beset by zombies, the hunt for a supernatural serial killer, ghost-fighting secret agents – is unimportant, as these tools can be used with almost all types of horror.

Atmosphere

A catch-all term for the basic ambience of the game, atmosphere can be divided into out-of-game and in-game atmosphere. To build out-of-game atmosphere, some Games Masters like to use background music, diffuse light sources like candles, props, decorations, or even simple things like playing in a darkened room. The effectiveness of such theatrics varies – some Players find it all a bit too amusing or even campy, which ruins the atmosphere. Also, it can get annoying if it is too dark to see the character sheets or if the candles drip wax on the dice.

Background music is generally a good idea, especially if the game is based on a movie and you have a copy of the soundtrack. Keep the music at a low level if you just want to use it to set the mood, or play it slightly louder if you are going to go to the trouble of playing specific tracks at specific scenes. Props are dealt with in their own section later in this chapter.

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Ideally, there should be room for the Games Master to walk around behind where the Players are sitting – just moving around the table can work wonders for unsettling the Players. There should also be a space where the Games Master can have private conferences with an individual Player, out of earshot of the others.

In-game atmosphere really depends on the style of the game. Do not shy away entirely from the clichés – misty moors, haunted houses, crumbling abandoned castles, full moons and clanking chains, blood running down the walls and so on – as these can be effective prompts to the Players on the style of game. Think carefully about how you want the game to feel, and remove elements that will disrupt that atmosphere. Even two very similar games can benefit from a fine-tuning of atmosphere. For example, consider a game where the characters are police officers investigating weird events. In a game that contrasts the ordinary, everyday lives of the officers with the bizarre and horrific cases they encounter, a scene where the characters buy donuts fits perfectly with the game. In a similar game that concentrates on clinical, forensic investigation of monsters,

that little mundane scene is basically a distraction from the game.

Description

Most roleplaying games exist in a middle ground where everything from the monsters to the most basic aspects of housing or society needs to be described. Every part of the world is equally unfamiliar to the Players. In a horror game, most of the setting is mundane – it takes place in the here-and-now of the modern world, or in a relatively well- known and familiar part of history and therefore does not need much descriptive clarification; conversely the monsters and bizarre events are utterly unfamiliar and have to be described in detail.

The Games Master should not skimp on the mundane elements of the game. The best horror is fundamentally plausible – everything is real or at least believable apart from the one horrific deviation from reality. If the mundane, non-horrific elements of the game are neglected, then the impact of the bizarre events is lost.

When describing nigh-indescribable horrific elements, it is best to use as many similes and ‘hard’ descriptive words as possible. Don’t call a monster ‘huge’

or ‘hideous’ – tell the Players it is as big as a car, or a house, or an aircraft carrier, and that it resembles slabs of rotten meat welded together with barbed wire or a gigantic rotting white grub or that it smells like bile and engine oil. Describe sections of the horror in detail; the characters may only get momentary glimpses of the werewolf’s flashing yellow eyes and bizarrely clean (even sculpted) white teeth before the monster grabs one of them and runs off into the forest, but those glimpses should be evocative enough to let the Players build up an image of the monster. The key when describing horrific scenes is to give the Players enough detail to make the horror seem ‘real’ and let them fill in the gaps with their own fears.

Writing a boxed text description of a scene in advance works if the scene is static – for example, the Players discover a ghastly, gory murder scene with a mutilated body, or the aftermath of a bizarre ritual. However, if the Games Master is reading out boxed text in a monotone when a monster is attacking, all sense of spontaneity and threat is gone. Think about what a monster looks

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