Horror and Helplessness

A little while ago Lowell Francis, a blogger who has posted extensively on horror roleplaying games, posted that in his view,  "horror thrives on player uncertainty and lack of control”.  I thought about it a little bit at the time, but when he recently repeated the assertion that “most horror operates from threat, entrapment, and some degree of helplessness “ it helped me crystalise my own thinking about the nature of horror in roleplaying, and helplessness.

Helplessness is tricky in roleplaying games because of the question of trust.  Most traditional RPG’s are a shared paradigm where one individual has more narrative powers, and can set the stakes for most conflicts (as GM).  In this relationship, trust is essential.  Implicit in this traditional paradigm is the fact that the GM is not subject to any meaningful checks and balances beyond their social relationship with the players – and, therefore, can structure the story to kill, maim or incapacitate one or all of the characters (or place them in situations where the survival of their characters is unlikely).   But even if the stakes aren’t this severe, the players are effectively being asked to trust that the GM has the best interests of their characters, and their enjoyment of the game as players, at heart.  In a traditional roleplaying games, therefore, the players are largely helpless against the authority of the GM.

Nowhere is this paradigm more evident than in horror roleplaying games.  Many of these systems conflate character helplessness with player helplessness.  They use a mechanical system to establish norms, then ensure that exposure to horror will irrevocable and perpetually erode the characters mental wellbeing within those norms (a la Sanity points in Call of Cthulhu).  In this context the system is continually reinforcing to the player, that their character is helpless against the horror (in the case of Sanity points, they will almost always lose sanity points faster than they can gain them, and each loss is accompanied by periods of system dictated distress helplessness – temporary, permanent and indefinite insanity, often at critical moments in the action).

Other systems use similar mechanics.  In the Gumshoe system the characters spend from a wide pool of perpetually diminishing resources to investigate, encounter and attempt to survive their brushes with the horror.  In Dread, each pull of the tower brings the characters closer to their doom.  In Geiger Counter the horror increases its dice pool every test.

But, in my view, most horror isn’t actually about helplessness. 

Horror is about the intersection between character and something terrible (the source of the horror).  The essence of horror is not helplessness, but rather the human struggle against the macabre and inhuman.  The place where a protagonist tries to find the strength to struggle against forces that would otherwise eviscerate their physical or mental wellbeing.  Lovecraft’s Robert Olmstead escaped Innsmouth, Armitage dispelled the Dunwich Horror and Dyer returned from the Mountains of Madness intent on warning others.  Ripley ultimately defeats the Alien, Ben survives the horde during the Night of the Living Dead, MacReady bests the Thing and the Freeling family flee beyond the reach of the Poltergeist.

So, if you accept that horror is about the struggle, rather than helplessness, what does this mean for horror roleplaying games?

To reflect the way these stories play out, the GM should be continually exploring the impact of the horror on the characters.  The horror should have no independent motive or agenda – rather it exists entirely through the prism of the characters experiences.  That’s not to say all the characters must survive, or that there isn’t a broader story – but the experience of the characters should be the focus of the game.

But that’s not how many games play out.  This blog is called Total Party Kill because of precisely this tension.  The idea that GM’s sometimes violate the relationship trust – exploit the helplessness of the characters in their games.  Indeed many systems and scenarios are explicitly designed to create this experience, or will inevitably result in this outcome without modification.

Some players may accept, or even enjoy the helpless downward spiral of their characters.  Some may even embrace it – but unless you’ve had a conversation with your players about exactly how they enjoy interacting with the horror, its safest to assume that some players are looking to try and triumph against the horror like so many protagonists in horror movies and literature.

For these reasons, when I designed a horror roleplaying game, I put that conversation front and centre.  I also ensured that there would almost always be survivors of the scenario, just as there would be victims, and that the decision about which character survived, and which did not was an artefact of highly structured collective decision making, rather than putting the load on one individual – thus, the players are not helpless in a story that is all about their characters.  I designed a game that I believe exemplifies the struggle that I believe is central to horror.

A Day of Games

On Saturday I attended my first Day of Games (DOG) organised by the local legend Sophie Melchior. DOG is a small to mid-size, mostly indie games ‘con, where people bring games which require little or no preparation, and offer to run them over three rounds, with the most popular games (as voted by the audience) being selected to be run. I brought along Piledrivers and Powerbombs, a simple wrestling game as my contribution. What follows are my reflections on both the games and the systems I played.

Round One – Piledrivers and Powerbombs: Chokeslam of Darkness Edition


The Game: This was enormous fun, I had a full load of 6 players, and they set about creating wrestlers with silly gimmicks, and their enemy wrestlers with glee. Sophie featured as the evil NPC General Manager of the league and everyone got into the spirit of things rapidly. I was hugely impressed with everyone’s contribution, and I think that despite the disparate levels of knowledge or love for professional wrestling, and different gaming experience levels, everyone really came to the party in this game. It was massive fun and we managed to run through two complete match-cards with pre and post match scenes in the time allotted. I was particularly pleased by the willingness of the players to jump into the guest commentary roles when their own characters were not involved in a scene to really keep the flow going. The game and characters could have easily managed another hour in my opinion. Wrestlers created included:

• Leeroy Harlem – Avenger of the disadvantaged street children, and his nemesis Max Power, a wealthy developer.


• Man of Science – Educator and quoter of all things Darwin and Dawkins, opposed by his nemesis, bible-toting Father O’Mallet.


• The Rainbow Warrior – Environmental activist and her fearsome hulking nemesis, the HAZMAT suit clad, Industrial By-Product.


• El Hombre Lobo – The howling luchador known for abrupt ring entrances, and his nemesis the fearsome Shadow Man accompanied to the ring by his sexy zombies.


• El Diablo – Another luchador who stands for the underprivledged opposed by the evil Developer and his bulldozer of destruction!


• Last, but by no means least, Ronald Ray-Gun – Presidential wrestler with a tefelon smile and scantily clad Secret Service bodyguards opposed by the twisted head of the United Nations, the Secretary General.

The System: P&P is a neat system, it uses really simple techniques and a easily understood system to represent the different parts of the game. The real genius of the system is the use of pre and post match scenes to allow character developments and storytelling, while also delivering a mechanical advantage. It flowed smoothly and easily.

As a critique I would say that there needs to be better guidance for the players during the initial creation phase to help if they get stuck – the NPC gimmick and finisher tables are useful, but could be better tailored for this purpose. The pre and post match scenes are a little too similar and should have better demarcated points of uniqueness. There also needs to be a mechanic for linking subsequent match cards including rules to aid with the use of the GM to mess with the wrestlers and the commentary needs to be officially turned over to the players while different match types should have some optional special rules (e.g. in a cage match anyone who draws a face card takes a point of sellage in addition to the normal rules reflecting a collision with the metal) and finally, the actual wrestling itself needs another phase. The idea of drawing a hand then having an option to fold is nice. There should also be a chance to ‘raise’ drawing on the poker theme, to increase the tension and allow for the players to engage better, and more strategically, with the fight.

Round Two – Dread (D&D scenario)

I was actually ‘volunteered’ for this game by Alasdair, but I had been wanting to try Dread for ages, so was interested to see how it runs. Paul was offering a D&D version of Dread so I thought I might as well give it a shot.

The Game: I’m not a huge dungeon crawl fan so found motivation for this game a little tough, compounded by the need to fill in a questionnaire at the beginning of the game. However, my fellow players, and their characters were fairly motivational, so I created Old Ali a wizened demon worshipping wizard and together we ventured into the depths of the Dragon God’s dungeon and slew the beast with the loss of two of our number (including Old Ali). The game was solid and finished with an hour to spare, so Paul broke out Fiasco. I opted to wander off for a coffee and catch up with some folks instead, resulting in some interesting discussions about the nature of horror games at ‘cons.

The System: The Jenga Tower is a strong idea, and it does a remarkable job of increasing the tension. My main criticism is that the method of engagement with the tower encourages players to not engage with the scenario - if taking actions forces me to draw from the tower and imperils my character - then I’ll try and find ways to avoid taking action directly or even simply avoid engagement with the scenario. Now, obviously it is desirable that players do not play this way, but the reality is that some do, and any game that relies on ‘like minded players’ has an inherent weakness. My view is that any system should actively support the player’s engagement with the game, and be aligned with the aims of the scenario – Dread seems to fail this test to some extent. I also don’t like the character questionnaire used to help shape the character. I appreciate the technique and I like what it is trying to accomplish, but I personally think such a crude device to accomplish these aims alienates and excludes a segment of gamers who don’t like to be put on the spot, or don’t engage well with written material in a ‘con setting.

Round Three – Fiasco (London Underworld Setting)

Fiasco is another game I’ve wanted to try for ages. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Fiasco of late, so although I was a little disappointed I couldn’t get sufficient wrestlers for another run of P&P, I was happy to join Mike’s game of Fiasco.

The Game: I pushed for the London Underworld setting as I love Guy Ritchie’s irreverent movies of this genre. Fortunately I was persuasive and we began the setup phase of the game. It turned out that I was playing ‘Fancy’ Frank Farley an ex-con who had a frankfurter stand, was trying to scam a cat welfare lady and had a shared love interest with Alasdair’s character. So began our caper, which was enormous fun and had me in stitches through most of the game. Having involved any number of underworld factions I thought our game was pretty wild – until, that is, we had a visit from the crew of Jenni’s ‘clothes optional' Harry Potter Fiasco game. Nonetheless, it was a very enjoyable time, and although things didn’t work out too well for ‘Fancy’ Frank, I had a blast.

The System: The genius of Fiasco is clearly adding structure, in a fairly traditional way, to the beginning and ending of the game. The creators seem to have cleverly identified that these areas are often the most important, and by helping to shape them while also allowing a degree of player autonomy, it makes the prospect of the game falling flat, or lacking motivation, much reduced. I’m not really sure about how the dice are allocated during the game, we pretty much ran with a story (okay, I might have occasionally hijacked the story in places) and the formal structure of the set-up or resolve mechanic seemed unnecessary given we were all on the same page. I suppose, however, that if players are less together on what they’d like to have happen this might be a bigger factor. As a newbie to the game I found the complexity and sheer volume of dice a little overwhelming, and I think that a strongly systems-focussed player might have struggled to ‘trust’ the game sufficiently to allow it to progress smoothly. On subsequent play, however, this seems unlikely to remain an issue.

So, a fun day with some really enjoyable games. My thanks to Sophie for organising a great Day of Games.