One question that pops up from time to time is how to actually instill fear into horror games. There’s plenty of techniques for setting the atmosphere – especially for games like Call of Cthulhu (CoC) – but I recently came across some really useful guidance in the newly released ALIEN RPG. And since it plays upon the idea of “fear of the unknown” it’s certainly suited to a Mythos game. I definitely plan to use this in my future games. And I also realized that I had unwittingly done so in a past game as well.

Cover of the ALIEN RPG from Free League Publishing

The ALIEN RPG repeatedly highlights that it is a horror game, and it briefly outlines three different kinds of fear (and how to use them). Combined with an understanding that the tension of fear has to periodically be released, I see a lot of potential here. The three stages of fear the game points out are Dread, Terror, and Horror. Here’s how they are described in the ALIEN RPG (Note that the game refers to the GM as the Game Mother):

“Creating horror in a roleplaying game is not always easy. Overdo it, and the players aren’t scared anymore—downplay it, and the game drags on. The key to Game Mothering horror is to manage pacing properly and keep the major threat hidden as long as possible. To do this effectively, you need to carefully manage the stages of fear in the game: dread, terror, and horror.

DREAD: The sense that something bad is about to happen, but no-one is really sure what or why. Dread is the first stage of fear in the ALIEN roleplaying game and should be employed as often as possible. The key to using dread is planting seeds and watching events unfold. The players know something terrible is about to take place, but without knowing what it is, they can’t do anything about it. This dread may evolve to the next stage, but sometimes it won’t—and that’s fine. Examples of dread:

• A control panel indicates that the airlock was just cycled manually whilst all of the crew are accounted for on the bridge.
• Someone finds blood on the walkway. The ship’s cat is missing.
• A strange and leathery egg is found in a crashed derelict ship. It’s like something is alive in there.

TERROR: You feel terror when you know something bad will happen any moment now. It is no longer a question of if but rather when it will take place. From a roleplaying perspective, the feeling of terror is the most effective feeling of fear as the PCs are at their most helpless state. Therefore, terror often involves the scariest moments in a gaming session. Use it selectively for maximum effect. Examples of terror:

• A squad of marines investigating an old mine steps into something slimy. One of the marines hears a hissing sound. She realizes that something is directly above her.
• A colonial marshal following a killer in the deep bowels of a space station realizes that she is the prey.
• A pilot on a stranded shuttle barricaded in the cockpit hears pounding on the access hatch. Something wants in.

HORROR: The ultimate form of fear is horror. Horror is the moment when the danger reveals itself. It is the moment of climax. The payoff that the earlier stages of fear have hinted at. But because of this, it is also less scary than terror. When horror hits, the game mechanics take over. You draw initiative and fight it or try to escape. Horror is vital to the game, but it should be used rarely and is often best utilized late in a game session rather than early. Examples of horror:

• A corporate agent turns around and stands face to face with an alien baring its teeth.
• The egg opens and a crab-like creature lunges at the closest crew member, attaching itself to her face amidst the screams of her friends.
• Black, lightning-quick creatures crawl through the walls and roof towards the marine squad.”

After reading this a couple weeks ago, I immediately began thinking of ways to incorporate this into how I GM. Then, this morning, I realized this also helped explain one of my more successful scenes from a previous game.

Last year, I ran the Peru Prologue for Masks of Nyarlathotep. (I used it as a test for my WIP alternative to CoC’s mechanics: Our Terrible Fate.) The players were my two children and my mother. This was still fairly early in the scenario, but they were already a little paranoid – not freaking out or overreacting, but generally distrustful of everyone. (Also note that I used two play aids during the game that came in towards the end of the scene. I had a printed card showing what the monster looked like – not always appropriate for CoC but worked in this case – and I had Syrinscape’s MoN audio program on my laptop.)

(Spoiler alert: This won’t reveal any big details from the scenario, but it may ruin this scene if you intend to play it.)

• The investigators were visiting a professor at the local university museum. The professor’s assistant was translating an old journal that may provide important clues. They are introduced to the professor and are having a conversation. As that wraps up, the professor mentions that his assistant should have arrived already. He suggests that the investigators could go down to the archive room and check on her. (Dread: What happened to the assistant, and what are we walking into?)
• The investigators head down and discover her dead body. (This initially provided a small bit of tension relief.)
• Then they looked over the body and discovered the nature of the strange wounds and emaciated state. (Dread: What could have done this?)
• Then they notice bloody footsteps leading away from the body to another exit from the room. “We are NOT following those footsteps!” (Dread: What left the footsteps, and where did it go?)
• The investigators then hear screaming from upstairs. (Dread)
• Rushing upstairs, they hear signs of a struggle from inside the professor’s office. (Dread leading into Terror)
• Heading inside, they see what appears to be a man clutching the professor. His back is to them. (Terror: It’s right there. What is it, and what’s it doing?)
• The strongest investigator, a boxer, decided to grab the figure from behind to pull him/it away from the professor and restrain him. I narrated that the figure easily broke free from the investigator’s grasp and flung him back a few feet. It then turned and snarled at the investigators, revealing at strange mouth on an otherwise human-looking face. (At this point, I played the snarling sound effect in Syrinscape and showed the players the card so they could see the monstrous form of the villain.) (Horror: Big reveal.)

At this point, my son actually got up from the table with an “Oh, hell no!” and started pacing around. Everyone was on edge up to that point, and I think it was the snarling sound effect that really pushed him over the edge. This was immediately a big tension relief in terms of fear, but some of that tension was immediately replaced by the tension of “Okay, now that we’re face to face with this thing, what do we do?”

This scene was easily one of the highlights of our session. (Though admittedly, that may have been because I screwed up some other scenes. But that’s another story.)

(If you’re interested in the ALIEN RPG, you can buy the PDF from Free League Publishing on DriveThruRPG.)