Scared to hell

[Jack the Reaper]

Some thoughts inspired by Hellraiser:

Demons, and some other creatures of darkness, desire nothing more than corrupting the pious and innocents, and then harvest their souls. Sometimes they use temptations, sometimes they use pain and torture. But strong willed persons can resist temptation, and even endure torture, withought surrendering their values.
There is, however, a much more powerful emotion, stronger than lust and pain, against which no-one is proof: it is horror.

Horror touches the deepest, most primeval parts of the human soul, and it is so consuming, that when it prevails, the subject can think of nothing else but his desire that the source of horror will disappear. He will do anything, promise anything, to keep the horror away.

Think of Winston in the novel 1984. He withstood terrible tortures and brainwashing and didn't break down, but a single moment in room 101 - the room of greatest horror, rats in his case - was enough to make him scream aloud pleads that they will take his love, Julia, instead of him. And that was without the rats even touching him yet. Horror can be more powerful than the pain itself which is its object.

So let imagine a demon, or a group of demons, who come to the chosen victim (usually an innocent, pious person), and terrorize the hell out of him with visions of his greatest nightmares, of hellish tortures they are about to inflict upon him. The only way to save himself, they tell him, is by doing certain things, which are against his deepest values and morality - such as killing his wife and children, torture other people, sacrilege his faith etc. The horrified victim is likely to agree. The point is, those demons are actually powerless to harm their victim, unless she actually commits those terrible acts. When she does, the demons appear and tell her that due to her crimes, she is consigned to the hell of her greatest horror, and then take her there screaming. Only by resisting the threats and horror, can one be actually saved from the demons.

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Speaking about horror, I would like to hear what was your greatest moment of horror during RPG, either as player or GM. Did you manage to scare the hell out of your players, or vice versa? As to me, my players nowadays are my little children (ages 8, 7 and 4), so my efforts are focused on how *not* to scare them too much (report abuse)...

[Jack of Tears]

I think, for Ravenloft fans, this seems fairly clear; the setting itself makes Horror Checks the most difficult to overcome and far rarer than simple Fear. I might note, though, that your example is a little inaccurate, in that the Demons causing the visions are clearly hurting their victim without his or her consent - not physically, but psychologically, which is far more effective and scarring. (in fact, by the time the demons come to carry the person off to physical torment, it would be a mercy by comparison ... of course, from what we know of the Hellraiser verse, those torments would continue to be psychological as well as physical, so no mercy forthcoming)

Actually, the thing I always liked about Hellraiser was the idea that the Xenobites aren't "evil" per se, but merely extremely alien in their concepts of pleasure. Pain and pleasure in the Xenobites' world are merely aspects of the same thing and they don't torture people in order to be "cruel" so much as to open their minds to something they are otherwise incapable of perceiving. (unfortunately, human minds being limited and trapped in a human frame of reference, experience their efforts as purely torturous) When pinhead kidnaps humans and transforms them into Xenobites, the things they experience actually free them from the tyranny of their own consciousness. (so far as he sees it)

As for moments of Horror in my games; the best I have ever achieved was in the game Little Fears. (I discuss the product in the "other games" forum, as well as give links, if you find yourself interested) Ironically enough, that game relies on players pretending to be children as a tool to frighten them, (as opposed to your situation) and uses memories of their childhood fears - as well as adult fears about children - to further this goal. Because of this, I was able to draw upon imagery from a relatively shared childhood, (most of my players grew up in or around my hometown) to generate an atmosphere everyone could relate to. (I think I describe my first session in the "other games" post, so won't recreate it here) Prior to that game, I got everyone in the mood by showing them "The Gate" and, on the night of the game, brought candy and cheapy toys reminiscent of those we had as children. I took the players away from the safety and detachment of the gaming table and had them sit on the floor, and bean bag chairs, in a circle while we gamed. I got the very singular pleasure of seeing players look over their shoulders and squirm their backs as I described the events they were dealing with ... really relying on very basic childhood fears, like the dark and the unknown, to drive the horror home. Afterword I had players insisting they had slept with the lights on that night, and spent the rest of the evening after the game thoroughly creeped out. To this day, if I want to generate a serious and abiding fear in my players - rather than the gothic themed horror of Ravenloft - I rely on Little Fears to do so.