Really scary ghosts

[Rucht Lilavivat]

I have a perfect book for you - The Book of Unremitting Horror.

http://www.dyingearth.com/bouh/index.html

It is an excellent book with creature of the kind that you are looking for. It occurs to me, Jack, that you aren't necessarily looking for ghosts per se, but entities kind of like Samara. The Book of Unremitting Horror is full of those kinds of frights. And the artwork is absolutely amazing. Very inspirational.

Thanks Rucht; I actually already have the BoUH, and though it does contain some inspiring stuff, overall I found it rather disappointing... But it's just my personal feeling. And at the moment I do prefer to focus on ghosts per se, not just on any horrid entity. It seems that there are disappointingly few RPG products dedicated to ghosts; just compare it with the endless stuff about vampires, werebeasts or demons... Pity!

Disappointing, eh? Well, too bad.

The reason I say that you may not be looking for ghosts for inspiration is that the Samara character really sort of "violates" many of the tropes of a classic ghost story.

Also, the reason that a lot of RPG products don't focus on ghosts is because of how the classic ghost works in folklore. Traditionally, you cannot really "fight" a ghost. It's just sort of there doing it's thing, whereas you can fight a vampire, demon, etc. Most of the classic ghost stories which feature an entity that can be fought either end up being witches, demonic presences, or faeries.

Here's a question - what particular elements of Samara do you find attractive or intriguing? What aspects of that story get you excited? You like the idea of how she spreads virally? You like how she's exceedingly deadly?

[Jack the Reaper]

Here's a question - what particular elements of Samara do you find attractive or intriguing? What aspects of that story get you excited? You like the idea of how she spreads virally? You like how she's exceedingly deadly?

What I liked in Samara, and in ghosts in general, is the unique sense of dread, helplessness and mystery they evoke. When one meets a vampire or a werewolf, he knows how to deal with them, even if it's difficult; at worse case, you can run away and put many locks and bars between you and them. Also, you can more-or-less understand their mind and motives, and you know what they can do to you. So their threat is a familiar one, which can be handled, and therefore is not so scary.

But ghosts are another story. As you mentioned, you can't fight them. They can be everywhere, can pass through every door and wall as if they weren't there. They might be all around you without you knowing it. You don't know what to expect from them - what are their powers, their intentions, their weaknesses, what can they do to you. Even their mind is often alien and incomprehensible, or even insane. So I think ghosts can be much scarier than many other monsters.

Back to Samara, there is that feeling of dread and mystery evoked by her video, and enstrenghed by the whispering "seven days" phone call. There is the tragedy of her death, and her stunning desire for revenge. There is the combination of the supposed innocence and helplessness of a child, with murderous intentions and deadly power beyond the grave. And her face-covered apparition is simply creepy. So she's a great example of everything dreadful in ghosts. After encountering a ghost of this kind, the PCs will embrace with both hands friendly creatures like Jason...

I actually wrote an article about the unique dread of ghosts in my blog not long ago, but it's in Hebrew, so I'm afraid no one here will be able to read it (inform me if you wish to)... There is another article in English though, comparing ghosts and vampires, which you can read here:
http://www.paranormalhaze.com/vampires-vs-ghosts/

[Lucien Doomdark]

I tentatively agree with Jack the Reaper's reasoning, as I very much enjoy using ghosts in RPGs (unfortunately I'm running Live-Action Vampire at the moment and well, let's just say I could rant...oh, how I could rant). However, I would argue that any antagonist that can strike at a player character's vulnerabilities can be terrifying. Essentially, most ghost antagonists do this by outmanoeuvring corporeal, living player characters with solid corporeal weapons, but this can only go so far. Ghosts, like vampires, witches and werewolves, were people once and work by being understandable, albeit with a darkly-twisted mirror of human rationales, motives and feelings. The ghost that appears to re-enact its death is shocking once, then tragic, but the ghost that makes the player characters re-enact the circumstances of its death is frightening because it plays on that nastier side of human nature: 'misery loves company'.

From an RPG mechanics perspective, both D&D4 and Pathfinder have tended to treat ghostly/paranormal phenomena in adventures as traps and hazards - Open Grave (D&D) deals with ghosts and other types of the undead in a great deal of detail for a GM, and the first part of the Carrion Crown Adventure Path for Pathfinder has plenty of examples of Haunts that you could use. Otherwise, to bang the World of Darkness drum again, their Ghost Stories book has plenty of advice for creating an effective ghost antagonist for the player on a purely thematic/storytelling basis. In addition, the core book features ghosts and systems for running them in great detail.

[MichaelTumey]

From an RPG mechanics perspective, both D&D4 and Pathfinder have tended to treat ghostly/paranormal phenomena in adventures as traps and hazards - Open Grave (D&D) deals with ghosts and other types of the undead in a great deal of detail for a GM, and the first part of the Carrion Crown Adventure Path for Pathfinder has plenty of examples of Haunts that you could use.

Emphasis, mine. While I agree that the Pathfinder Haunt mechanic is a great, great tool for creating scary ghostly situations - I wouldn't say this 'tendency to treat ghostly/paranormal phenonmena as only traps and hazards...

To me, a haunt without an actual ghost connected to it, is an empty encounter. I haven't played Carrion Crown (as I usually run home brews and not Golarian), as well as haven't run many of the AP's. Of course any time that I'm not spending on home brew for home games, I'm working on my Kaidan: a Japanese Ghost Story setting (development, cartography, illustration, page layout - it's always something.)

I can almost promise you that any haunt encounter in any Kaidan adventure will always include some kind of undead, if not a ghost specifically. But I do love the Haunt mechanic.

[Jack the Reaper]

If you want a demonstration of how scary Samara is, watch this hillarious prank I came upon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR4tnqffnLE
(Mistakenly titled "Grudge Girl", but she looks much more like Samara).

See how easily can a ghost scare the wits out of people, without even doing anything...